Victor von DoomDoctor Doom

With scientific genius, an unquenchable lust for power, and a towering ego, Victor Von Doom has forged himself into one of the world’s greatest villains.

Heart of Darkness

Born to poor gypsies in the small European nation of Latveria, Victor Von Doom lost his mother to a soldier’s anger, and not long after lost his father to a king’s revenge. Alone, the young Victor discovered his mother’s trove of mystical artifacts and set himself on a path of darkness when he realized her spirit was subject to a demon she’d bargained with. His incredible scientific acumen won him a scholarship at America’s State University in New York, and he left his native country seeking knowledge with which to salve his wounded soul.

During his time in New York, Von Doom met another scientific prodigy, Reed Richards, and the two formed an immediate rivalry. When the Latverian student secretly experimented with a device of his own creation to bridge the gap between dimensions, only for it to literally blow up in his face, he found himself expelled, with only small scars on his face in return. Loathing his marred good looks and furious at fate’s fickle finger, Von Doom made his way to Tibet to allow his anger an outlet. There, he dominated a circle of monks and after learning their secrets directed them to forge him a suit of armor and an iron mask to hide his face from the world forever.

As Doctor Doom, he returned to Latveria, overthrew its monarch, and renamed its capital Doomstadt while further developing his command of science through robotics, weaponry, and even time travel. Secure in his rulership and with formidable forces at his command, Von Doom set out to conquer the globe, as well as rescue his mother’s soul, and prove himself superior to Reed Richards, the only man he’d ever met who might equal his own scientific genius.

Armor and Armament

Since his first suit of armor fashioned by Tibetan monks, Doctor Doom has continued to augment and accessorize his infamous accoutrements over the years. The titanium armor provides basic protection from attack and the elements, many times bolstered by a personal force field generator as well as other forms of shielding. On various occasions, the suit could also produce blasts of concussive force through its gauntlets, and allow the doctor the power of flight through a miniaturized propulsion system.

Doom’s unparalleled sophistication in robotics has allowed him to surround himself and the kingdom of Latveria with a multitude of cybernetic servants, including everything from near-mindless guards to autonomous robot duplicates of himself known as “Doombots.” These duplicates have become a mainstay of the doctor’s schemes, many times fooling his enemies into believing they dealt directly with Doom himself for long periods of time.

The doctor’s genius also extends to weaponry of all kinds and sizes, making Latveria one of the most heavily shielded nations on Earth. He has also conquered the problem of time travel through a “time-platform,” as well as the ability to cross into other planes of existence through the use of devices. Beyond his scientific operations, Doom also claims one of the most thorough libraries of magic spells and artifacts on the planet and the skill to use them to maximum effect. In fact, he has brought sorcery to a level that rivals or even exceeds his scientific knowledge.

Circle of Doom

Victor Von Doom’s ponderous ego spares little room for others in his heart, yet a chosen few have somehow been graced with his favor in his life, if not exactly what one would call true friendship.

A Latverian gypsy named Boris promised his best friend, Doom’s father, to take care of young Victor as the elder Von Doom lay dying. Since that time, Boris has served the doctor loyally over the years, perhaps providing his master with a touchstone to his late parents. In return, Doom has always kept him close at hand, watching over him just as the old man watches over the doctor.

A young orphan called Kristoff was brought into Doom’s graces when his mother died in Doom’s presence. The doctor secured him in his castle and began to groom him as an heir, and at one point even imprinted the boy’s brain with his own memories. Kristoff then believed he was Doctor Doom and for a time treated his master as an imposter and usurper until his mind reverted to its natural state. Later, after being revived from a death-like stasis, Doom graciously allowed the young man to leave Latveria to attempt to live his own life.

When Sue Richards, the Fantastic Four’s Invisible Woman, entered into a dangerous labor to her pregnancy, Doom was approached to lend his advanced technology to aid in the unborn child’s delivery. As a reward for his services, he demanded he be allowed to name the child, and when the request was honored by Sue, Doom called the girl Valeria after a long-lost love from his younger days. A child genius, Valeria Richards so impressed the doctor he placed a spell on her to make her his familiar, and when he later constructed a new reality from shards of multiple universes, he refashioned Valeria as his own daughter.

Doom’s Bane

The enemies of Doctor Doom could be said to include nearly everyone on the planet he dreams of ruling, but a special small number of them hold a cold spot in his icy heart as direct adversaries.

Chief among these persons stands Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic. He and Doom took an instant dislike to each other from the moment they met as university students, and from there their rivalry and enmity increased exponentially. Richards opposes everything Doom may conceive of, and the doctor refuses to accept the Fantastic Four’s leader as a fellow genius, let alone an equal. Over the years they’ve clashed repeatedly in violent struggles as well as games of one-upmanship, though of course Richards sees it as stopping the growth of evil, and Doom views it as natural superiority rising to the top.

Though once allies for a short moment in time, Doctor Doom and Namor the Sub-Mariner represent monarchs of their respective corners of the world, and also two egos who find said world too small for both of them to exist side-by-side.

Doom also denies the scientific genius of Tony Stark, better known to the world as the Invincible Iron Man, a man who he has watched and competed against for years in combat, but also on the world stage of advanced technology in the realm of weaponry and armor.

The Doctor is In

Once Victor Von Doom revealed himself to the world at large as an armor-plated despot and tyrant, he set off on a course to either reshape the planet in his image, or failing that, destroy it.

His first incursions to the United States as Doctor Doom involved the Fantastic Four in grand schemes of time travel, revenge, and all-out war. He attempted to secure the services of Namor of Atlantis as his partner, but the alliance devolved quickly into chaos and Doom returned to a solo campaign against his enemies, culminating in an audacious mind-swap with Reed Richards, a clash with the Avengers, and a rendezvous with the villainous Rama-Tut in outer space.

The Thing crushed Doom’s hands in one debacle and the doctor also attempted to disrupt Reed Richards’ wedding to his teammate Sue Storm, but the happy day occurred regardless. Not long after, the Latverian monarch stole the so-called Power Cosmic from the Silver Surfer, the first of many times he would set his eye on energies larger than anything on Earth. In fact, he also manipulated the Cosmic Cube to drain the world-eating Galactus’ power, but as with the Surfer’s abilities, that too did not last.

Following a time when he named a clone of his as his “son,” spent months in a disturbed mental state, and trapped the Fantastic Four in a “Liddleville” of his devising, Doom met and adopted a young Latverian orphan named Kristoff who he proclaimed was his heir and who he began to raise as his own son. After the doctor subsequently saw his body destroyed and remade in a scheme involving a herald of Galactus, Doom joined with other villains on a planet dubbed Battleworld to compete against Earth’s heroes in combat. It was there he became aware of the near-omnipotent being known as the Beyonder, and hatched a gambit to seize his power, too.

When Doom lost his throne to Kristoff, who was operating under the imprinting of the doctor’s own brain patterns, he fought to regain his country over a long period of hardship. After dallying with another group of criminals in the infamous Acts of Vengeance, Doom finally rescued his mother’s soul from the Netherworld, but nearly lost his own when he and Reed Richards battled to the death and seemingly disintegrated in a burst of their combined attacks. A being called Hyperstorm spirited them both away, until a later time when they returned to the land of the living.

Doctor Doom traveled to another reality much like his own in the aftermath of Onslaught’s war on super humans, and after spending a year living out a twisted version of his real life, was brought back to Earth and his beloved Latveria to annex the neighboring nation of Slokovia. In the wake of his part in the birth of Valeria Richards to his hated foes Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, Doom increased his magical acumen to the power levels of his technological pursuits and fended off a plan of Reed Richards’ to place the doctor in a special prison made just for him.

Former Green Goblin Norman Osborn invited Doom to become a member of a sinister cabal of individuals following Osborn’s ascension to power in the aftermath of the Skrull invasion. The doctor rushed in to sweep up the Scarlet Witch when she was brainwashed to destroy the Avengers, and for a brief time became god-like when he possessed her reality-warping abilities. Suffering from memory loss, he answered a plea for help from Valeria Richards to save her father and discovered an entire Council of Reeds, a group of alternate versions of his foe from various realities. Dispensing with a botched clone of the Hulk, Doom called forth a Parliament of Doom, a dark answer to the Council of Reeds.

Following a strange moment of attempted atonement for his actions through the years, the doctor finally succeeded in grabbing ultimate power when he took on the energies of an incredible alien race to piece together a new world of his own when the Multiverse destroyed itself. This new “Battleworld” represented many of Doom’s longtime fantasies, including having Sue Richards as his queen and Valeria Richards as his daughter. The real Reed Richards organized a like-minded team of champions and together they vanquished the god-like Doom and Richards began the long process of remaking his universe by healing his old enemy’s face and placing him back on a reconstituted yet refreshed Earth.

Since that time, Victor Von Doom has taken up Tony Stark’s mantle of Iron Man and operated as a hero, even going so far as to round up Super Villains and try to convince other crusaders of his new outlook on life, albeit with the same infamous Doctor Doom ego.