Who is Victor von Doom?

Doctor Doom, the enigmatic villain of the Marvel Universe, is suddenly making a comeback to mainstream media. From Fortnite to the big screen to dramatic comic con reveals, it seems that the green king is popping up everywhere.

But who is Victor Von Doom? Let’s jump in.

Victor Von Doom was born into poverty in the European nation of Latveria. His early life was one of tragedy with both of his parents being murdered. He was young and alone when he found his mother’s hidden mystical artifacts that revealed she had sold her soul to a demon. He set on a path to save his mother, but it was one of darkness, not a hero’s tale.

Victor ‘s genius and scientific studies won him a scholarship at America’s State University in New York. He went to the new country looking for a way to rescue his mother’s soul and salvage his own.

During his time in New York, Doom met Reed Richards and thus began the rivalry of Doctor Doom and Mister Fantastic. The two immediately clashed, with Victor feeling like Reeds did not compare to his genius and didn’t deserve the praise he received. To surpass his nemesis and gain otherworldly powers, Victor began conducting secret experiments at school, hoping to bridge the gaps between dimensions. The experiment blew up in face – literally. It ended in a failed explosion that left him kicked out of school and with scars on his face.

Upset that he was no longer the fairest of them all, Doom went to Tibet, where he essentially picked on a group of monks until they forged him a suit of armor and an iron mask to hide his face from the world forever.

The dramatics with this one.

Doctor Doom returned to Latveria in his new fit and overthrew the country’s monarch and renamed the capital Doomstadt. He used the resources around him to further develop his command of science through armor, weaponry and even time travel. His expertise in robotics lead him to create his own army of “Doombots”. But he knew he wouldn’t be the most powerful without finding abilities outside of his dimension which led to him mastering time travel and dimension hopping.

Secure in his power, Victor decided it was time to take over the entire world and prove himself superior to Reed Richards, the only man who came close to equaling his own genius.

Doom denied the scientific genius of Tony Stark, despite competing against him for years in both combat and technological advancement.

The timeline of Doom is messy at best. From kidnapping an orphaned child and brain washing him into thinking he was the real Doom (which almost lost him control of his country) to returning to Earth acting as Iron Man after Tony Stark’s death, trying to reinvent himself as a hero, with all his ego on full display.

With Robert Downey Jr taking the role of Victor Von Doom, it’s easy to wonder how Marvel will navigate this situation. Could Doom have used multiverse mechanics to pull Tony Stark from a parallel universe and brainwash him into believing he’s the real Doom, effectively turning him into a living Doom Bot that Victor can control like a puppet?

The ripple effects of this could influence the unfinished story of Peter Park, giving him the opportunity to mend his own fractured reality. One thing’s for sure – the Marvel Universe is about to get interesting.

Buzzy Beats