LogFAQs > #879969561

#205 - Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom) Nominated by: trdl
First Appearance: Fantastic Four #5 (Jul. 1961)
Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Fundamentals: 6/10
Track Record: 4/10
Scarlet Factor: 1/10

The reason that comic fans of Doctor Doom always lament the terrible portrayals of their favorite villain on the silver screen is simple: Doctor Doom is in fact not a good villain. His dialogue, meant to convey nobility with a streak of Shakespeare, is written by people who have no experience speaking like that. And if you ever read it out loud, it doesn't pass the laugh test. It's absurd and stupid, making little to no sense in actual operation. Doom's costume, which functions so well in the comic, is fundamentally flawed in so many ways when inserted into the real world. Doom's goals are elementary school depictions of super-villains. Let's just accept that Doom's actual motivations change all the time, each writer furthering the corruption of the original arrogant message of the character. He doesn't make sense as a dictator since he spends half his time in other countries, therefore failing to be in control of his country. That is failure #1 of a dictator. You gotta dance with the one that brung ya, as Leo McGarry would say.

Doctor Doom has some great stories. But when you string them together, they all feel like they feature different characters. And Doctor Doom isn't a character that can exist on a sliding scale. He isn't an incarnation of anything. He isn't a Vertigo character. He exists in the Marvel Universe, but he changes constantly. And these aren't simple evolutions: these are wild departures from writer to writer.

And the worst aspect of Doom is the junkie-like need to insert him into every story possible. There are some simple, fantastic Doom stories, but they are generally fantastic because of his opponent. Doom himself is a two-dimensional cartoon in the vast majority of stories that feature him. You can easily poke holes in his philosophies as they contradict themselves from story to story.

Unlike Lex Luthor who is steadfast in his core motivations, Doom varies wildly, flip-flopping and changing his mind. Furthermore, Doom is a character that copycats the stories of other companies. Case in point: when Lex Luthor switches sides in Justice League, Marvel immediately went to work, trying to make their marquee villain into a hero as well. But it's virtually impossible to buy the motivations when you know that it was done first and better by someone else. Doom got magical powers after other characters in the MU were beefed up in strength. Doom was given a personal backstory with his mother after DC decided to start personalizing a lot of Batman villains under the runs of guys like Alan Grant.

Doom is unoriginal and bastion of bad dialogue. It's not funny. It's stupid. And people who emulate Doctor Doom have no conception of how presenting a unique voice works.
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"Reading would be your friend." ~Dave Meltzer