Fans of Marvel's Doctor Doom

Newsarama has another interview with writer Christopher Cantwell about the new Doctor Doom series. A few small spoilers in there for what's coming up, including some characters who are going to be making appearances. (Thanks again to ladyvictorious for the link!)

Specifically, that - surprise, surprise - they've changed Doom's origin story into something even less recognisable than the previous F4 films. Collider.com has an interview with Toby Kebbell:

KEBBELL: He's Victor Domashev, not Victor Von Doom in our story. And I'm sure I'll be sent to jail for telling you that. The Doom in ours—I'm a programmer. Very anti-social programmer. And on blogging sites I'm "Doom".

...And this right here is why I will continue to cry over the fact that Marvel can't get the F4 rights back.

It seems that the Ultimate Universe version of Doctor Doom is coming back in the new Ultimate FF title. He's on the cover to Ultimate FF #3 and according to an interview with the writer:

The mystery fifth character will be someone with a lot of bad blood with the rest of the team, but a key figure in saving the universe -- Fialkov said it represents the team moving past their differences, and learning to work together.

[...]

Fialkov reveals that fifth member: The goat-legged Ultimate Doctor Doom.

[...]

"And Doom is the greatest man who ever lived, as far as he's concerned," Fialkov added. "Many of the things he's being blamed for, he has no idea what they're talking about. We get to see where he's been, and a new origin that's changed him from who he was when we last saw him and the man he is today." It's a redemption story for both Doom and Sue Storm, Fialkov said.

I haven't been keeping up with the Ultimate Universe for a while now, outside of some of the Ultimate Spidey TPBs, but I followed the original Ultimate Fantastic Four run and I always wanted to see a retcon to the terrible way Ultimate Doom was killed off in Ultimatum, so consider me intrigued. If that is retconned to be a Doombot/impostor, then he really didn't have much opportunity to do anything particularly evil in the UU, so this could be a chance to see a version of Doom as a good guy. Don't know either of the creators involved, but I'm definitely tempted to check this series out.

Newsarama has more on Fraction's plans for the Doom storyline in FF. I am... trying to stay optimistic? It could be good, but I'm nervous that Fraction's going to just revert back to old school Doom and sweep aside much of what Hickman's been doing with him.

Sad news: it's been confirmed that Jonathan Hickman's awesome run on Fantastic Four and FF will end in October with Fantastic Four #611 and FF #23. No news yet on who might be taking over; I just hope it's not somebody who's going to immediately overturn all the great stuff that he's done with Doom.

In slightly better news, there is a hint that we might not have seen the last of Hickman's take on Doom just yet:

[Hickman] re-energized elements of the mythos from Galactus to Atlantis to the Inhumans and more, as well as finding new roles for classic characters like Doctor Doom and the Celestials. All this and more will factor into his final stories as he brings his larger arc to a grand conclusion.

"Generally speaking, all the FF 'world' elements I've been playing with will get revisited," he teases.

CBR has an interview with Jonathan Hickman on Fantastic Four #600 (Note: very major spoilers)

But there's also a promising non-spoilery quote about the future of the FF spin-off:

Once "Forever" and "All Hope Lies in Doom" wrap up Hickman will use the "FF" title to explore the characters and concepts of the larger Fantastic Four universe. "Often it will be about the kids. Sometimes it will be about everybody in the family; the legion of Fantastic Four characters. Some months it will be about Doctor Doom. Some months it might be about the Inhumans," Hickman explained. "And then, some months, it will be about other things that readers don't know about yet. So it's definitely a very interesting vehicle for a lot of the cool concepts surrounding the FF."

Marvel's official site has an interview with Allan Heinberg on the story so far in Children's Crusade. Apparently there's going to be more posted over the rest of the week leading up to issue #7.

Not so much about Doom so far, but there is one nice quote: "I thought it would be interesting to tell a story where there were no clear-cut good guys and bad guys, a story where even Doctor Doom is a protagonist worthy of our sympathy." Which definitely matches my impression of how he's been writing Doom's role in things, and makes me even more eager to see what happens when Doom returns in issue #7.

CBR has an interview with Jonathan Hickman on the War of the Four Cities arc in FF. Some intriguing statements:

( Vague spoilers for upcoming FF issues )