Picspam of Doom!

[nomadicwriter]

Since dhampyresa and I got chatting about favourite depictions of Doom in the comments of the last post, and I have folders full of collected scans of Doctor Doom pages, I thought I'd dig through them and compile a picspam of some of my favourite images.

It seems appropriate to open this post with the most glorious intro page ever, from the Doom and the Masters of Evil miniseries:



Of course, Doom's actual first appearance way back in 1962 in Fantastic Four #5 was also pretty badass, when he turned up in a helicopter painted like a shark. As you do.



My favourite version of his origin story was always Books of Doom, which has a great take on young Victor:







And some imagery that has stuck with me since the first time I read it years ago:





And apparently stuck with Jim Cheung too, since there's a great callback to that image of Victor in the burning pentagram in his spectacular double page spread of Doom's origin story from Children's Crusade:



Children's Crusade also gave us the glory that is Doom/Wanda:





Or alternatively, there's Doom's relationship with Morgan Le Fay, as depicted in various Iron Man stories such as Legacy of Doom:



And Mighty Avengers, with art by the amazing Marko Djurdjevic, who draws my favourite version of the Doom mask ever:



...And then there was that time in Dwayne McDuffie's Fantastic Four Special #1 where Doom invited Reed to have a candlelit dinner and they finished off a college chess game and then Reed gave him jewellery.







Of course, Reed's been trying to build bridges with Doom for a long time, like when Doom did the heroes a good turn at the end of the Heroes Reborn arc:



But mostly, sadly for Reed, Doom definitely has a type - and possibly just a few mommy issues. As seen all the way back as far as Astonishing Tales in the early 70s:



And in my favourite panel from the Doom: The Emperor returns mini:



But we do get to see Doom get to grips with his issues in awesome graphic novel Triumph and Torment, where he saves his mother's soul from hell:



And as a bonus, we get lots of fabulous Mike Mignola art of him and Doctor Strange hanging out and getting to know each other:





Doom's always been more complicated than just a one-note villain, but John Byrne's Fantastic Four run set the gold standard; Byrne's Doom was a force to be reckoned with:



And not necessarily the worst option for the people of Latveria.



Plus we get to see his human side...



And that Doom can be a surprisingly good father to his newly adopted son...





Except when he's not so much:



Though my favourite take on Doom as Dad comes from "What If - Secret Wars", an AU where the heroes and villains get stranded on Battleworld and Doom has a son with the Enchantress. I still live in hope of seeing Vincent Von Doom brought into the main Marvel universe:







And while we're on the subject of missed opportunities, I'm also still bummed that this miniseries was cancelled before it ever existed, though we are left with some fantastic covers:



On the other hand, even if Doom has no biological children in the 616 verse, we do at least get to see him deliver, name, and appoint himself honorary godfather to Valeria Richards in the Fantastic Four comics:



Which Jonathan Hickman picked up and ran with in his turn on the title, where we discovered that Valeria is just as fond of her Uncle Doom as he is of her.





Of course, Hickman's Doom is pretty awesome all round:



But then, Doom is that way. Like that time he fought a lion naked in the original Doom miniseries:



Or resisted the Purple Man's amped up mind control in Emperor Doom:



Or when he faced the goddess Bast in Doomwar and passed her purity test, because his motivations are sincere:



Or that time in Captain Britain and MI:13 when he dissed Dracula. On the moon.



For he is Doom.

Comments

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I feel like this post is kind of a giant AS YOU DO, so that first appearance pretty much set the tone for all the rest.

That said, I haven't read Doom and the Masters of Evil, but clearly I should.

I hadn't noticed before, but I relly love the way Victor and Doom are mirroring each other pose-wise in Cheung's pic.

I ship Doom/Wanda so hard, you have no idea.

Wow, Reed's being very honest and kind here, it's a change. (Also a comic I should read, clearly.)

It's interesting that Doom rejects Reed's offer of friendship yet uses his first name.

So many great comics I haven't read yet! This page is very evocative.

Strange and Doom hanging out will never not be funny to me.

The Doom and Vincent scene makes me think that Doom is disappointed more by the fact that Vincent failed than by the fact that Vincent tried to kill him.

Do you know if any interior art for the Doom miniseries was ever released?

Delivering and becoming Valeria's godfather is one of my favourite Doom moments.

How old is Valeria supposed to be in that scene? I'd say six/seven from the art, but wasn't she more like three?

"he fought a lion naked" AS YOU DO.

Emperor Doom was a great look inside Doom's mind.

I should also read Doomwar, I think.

I will never get tired of Doom laying the smack down on Dracula ON THE MOON.

[nomadicwriter]

Doom and the Masters of Evil is great fun. It's an all-ages comic that has him scheming to use the power of the infinity gems to grant himself one wish, and what he chooses is a great character moment.

I ship Doom/Wanda so hard, you have no idea.

Me too. It's a crime that there's no fic. (I'd like to write my own, but all my ideas turn into sprawling epics that require rereading a bunch of comics I don't own.)

Wow, Reed's being very honest and kind here, it's a change. (Also a comic I should read, clearly.)

It's a fabulous one-shot where Doom invites Reed to the embassy for a Latverian holiday called Rapprochement Day, where people are supposed to reach out to someone that they've wronged. (He's plotting other things in the meantime, of course, but he also follows through on the civil evening with Reed.) I adore the intro pages, which have Reed reflecting on his teenage mistakes:




It's the only comic I've seen have Reed show that kind of introspection about his side of things. (It's a real shame Dwayne McDuffie never got to write more Doctor Doom stories, since he was obviously a fan. He also used his Damage Control series to retcon that daft Silver Age story where Doom stiffs Luke Cage out of $200, having Doom be outraged when he learns his minions embezzled the money.)

Strange and Doom hanging out will never not be funny to me.

I love it when heroes who have priorities bigger than "fight villains" are shown to have neutral relationship with Doom. He and Strange get along pretty well in this book, and there have been some good moments where he and Namor and T'challa interact quite civilly as fellow kings.

The Doom and Vincent scene makes me think that Doom is disappointed more by the fact that Vincent failed than by the fact that Vincent tried to kill him.

Yes - if you're going to be a backstabber, then you'd better at least be successful enough at it to be worthy of the name of Doom! I really love the look of Vincent's character design; it would be great to have some sort of version of him in 616, interacting with the Richards kids.

Do you know if any interior art for the Doom miniseries was ever released?

Sadly, so far as I know, it wasn't. Nobody seems to be too sure what happened there, or if any of the interior work was actually completed. Such a missed opportunity.

Delivering and becoming Valeria's godfather is one of my favourite Doom moments.

It's a great moment for him because he gets to beat Reed by by doing a genuinely good deed when Reed was unable do it himself. I think more writers should play with the idea of Doom trying to beat Reed at his own game by doing good or heroic things better/first - you can get plenty of mileage out of the heroes driving themselves nuts trying to uncover the evil scheme, and it gives Doom a way to get the upper hand from time to time without having him win a devastating victory.

And yeah, Valeria is only supposed to be three and a half in those pages. This is why I'm so impressed with kid Victor in Books of Doom - most comic artists just can't seem to draw kids younger than about the 6-8 stage when they start getting more adult-like proportions.

I will never get tired of Doom laying the smack down on Dracula ON THE MOON.

I know. That page is everything that is glorious about superhero comics right there.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

I keep wanting to write Doom/Wanda fic, but I just can't come up with a plot. I've a couple of ideas, but they consist mostly of free-floating lines of dialogue and vague things like "also Wanda made friends in Latveria and they keep texting her, unaware(?) that she is now a superhero".

Whoa, seeing Reed in green and Victor in blue is kind of confusing, but I do like that Victor only seems to start wearing green after his accident. (Wait, there was a story where Doom stiffed Luke Cage of 200 bucks? What the hell.)

I love it when Doom interacts with people as equals and not as adversaries, rare though that is. (...This reminds me I need to PM you about something.)

In many ways, Doom is already more successful than Richards, isn't he? Like, does Richards have an army of robots? No, he does not. But I would so love to see not evil/doing good deeds Doom be used more in canon. Maybe in Ultimates? (Not something I'd ever thought I'd say in all seriousness. People not being jerks in Ultimates? Say it isn't so.)

It's not just the art that makes her feel older, although that contributes a lot, it's also the writing. I get that she's very smart, but she doesn't act the way a child of three (even a very smart one) would. Her behaviour makes more sense as a mature six year old.

That page is everything that is glorious about superhero comics right there.
Pretty much, yeah.

[nomadicwriter]

I keep wanting to write Doom/Wanda fic, but I just can't come up with a plot.

I think Children's Crusade sells the whole thing so well that it doesn't really feel like there are a lot of gaps to fill in, which is why the only ideas I can come up with are sprawling epics that pull in a lot of other Doom stories that were happening around the same time.

Whoa, seeing Reed in green and Victor in blue is kind of confusing, but I do like that Victor only seems to start wearing green after his accident.

Ooh, nice catch - I'd never noticed that before, but it seems to be a match the colouring from the original Jack Kirby annual. It must be intentional - that version of the origin has young Victor in a bunch of different outfits that are all yellow, red and blue, but no green at all until he becomes Doctor Doom. (I'd guess putting Reed in green is mostly just down to having a limited number of colours that would work for a suit, but it definitely adds an interesting twist to things.)

(Wait, there was a story where Doom stiffed Luke Cage of 200 bucks? What the hell.)

There was indeed. Oh, comics.

It's not just the art that makes her feel older, although that contributes a lot, it's also the writing. I get that she's very smart, but she doesn't act the way a child of three (even a very smart one) would. Her behaviour makes more sense as a mature six year old.

Yeah. I tend to go with the headcanon that she has some sort of subconscious leftover memories from her "past life" as the teenage Valeria Von Doom and/or when Doom mind-controlled her as a baby. That would help explain both her instinctive fondness towards Doom and the fact she can manage that even a genius three-year-old brain shouldn't be capable of. (Physical things, as well - she has way too much manual dexterity for a child that young.)

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it either has to be post-CC or AU and both of those are kind of complicated. (I'm really not liking Uncanny Avengers for example.)

It's like Victor decided that he would show Reed how much better he is and he would do it while looking bette in green than Reed ever dreamed off. Another thing that's interesting is how easily Reed and Victor could swap hero/villain places. hell, you could argue that Victor is colour-coded as the hero (primary colours) while reed is coded as the villain (secondary colours). (This issue is apparently unfindable. :( )

Oh, I like your headcanon!