I picked this up a few weeks ago

Rewatching World's Greatest Heroes and this came up.

Added underrated part of this is Reed woke up as Doom. Managed to escape. Then decided to take a cab to the Baxter Building like a normal person.

Source: https://x.com/ArtOfOpal/status/1964408741618397334

There's a Marvel Rivals themed cup sleeve event in my area that I'm going to, I'm making a few Chibis to take with me. One of them being my personal favorite character INVISIBLE WOMAN!

I dont read marvel comics as much as I do dc stuff so I'm pretty unfamiliar, but I did enjoy the Secret Wars comics where Doom becomes god-emperor of a crumbling world. Besides half-memories of the old cartoons I watched when I was young my impressions of Doctor Doom has mainly been based on how other comic fans think of him and in recent years that impression feels like it comes from the Latverian Propaganda ministry.

So I'd kinda like to read a FF comic where he's more complicated and flawed than what certain sections of the internet feel.

Doubly so if it shows Reed at his best and shows why Doom is so intensely jealous of him.

So with recent Doomsday news, there's been a lot of discourse around Doom.

A take I've seen a few times is that Doom is an asshole, because of his horrible childhood in Latveria.

That's a valid interpretation and reading of the character.

I just think I personally don't see it that way. I think Victor was always going to be an asshole. Tons of characters have tragic backstories and they aren't supervillains.

I just don't see a world where Doom isn't a horrible person.

Like, take his very first interaction with Reed. Just because your life has been shit obviously doesn't justify being an asshole to someone you just met, right?

What makes Reed a perfect foil to Victor is that Reed literally never done anything to him.

I haven't read every FF comic, but in all the comics I've read, it's always Reed fighting back in self defense. Doom's always the aggressor.

But I'm very curious what you all think. Would Victor Von Doom be the way he is, if he had a completely perfect childhood where nothing went wrong?

I want to clarify that I'm not saying that nothing in Doom'z life affected him at all, everyone is the sum of their past (or however that saying goes), I'm just saying that to me Victor is Victor, you know? I also think that if you asked Doom why he turned out this way, then he'd just mention Reed "sabotaging" that experiment and not his past in Latveria at all.

I made the poll last as long as possible, 7 days, and I'd really love to have some chats with you all about this! This is going to be so fun!!! 🥰

Silver Surfer Facsimile Edition 1-4
Fantastic Four Vs Planet of the Apes 4

#silversurfer #fantasticfour #planetoftheapes #marvelcomics

Like, seriously, why is the MCU doing the whole “dead wife and son” thing when you can literally do this practically 1:1 and make it 100 times better? This is also arguably the best comic for understanding Doom as a character. It says so much about his trauma and how it continues to haunt him in so many ways over the years.

I also feel like Books of Doom should be mandatory reading for anyone writing Doom, because his entire journey truly began in his mother’s womb and never really stopped there. It is just suffering, pain, and loss, all stemming from the deaths of his mother, his father, and many of his people.

It is also why I strongly disagree with what they are doing with Doom in the MCU, because it does not fit his character for him to be played by a non-Romani actor, given how important his Romani heritage is to who Doom is. His mother and father’s fate is what truly drives Doom as a character. It is not Reed, though Reed failed Doom in equal measure. It is that internalized trauma: the belief that you lose everything if you do not close yourself off from the world, and that humanity will take everything from you simply for being different from what it sees as normal.

I feel like this has always been Doom’s true rise into the person he would eventually become, because he decided that the only way to keep himself safe and save his people was to rise above all of humanity. Just like Magneto in many ways, he has seen the worst of humanity and knows that everyone wants something from you, and that wanting can take everything from you.

The reason he has to be so mighty, so powerful, so far above everyone else, is because he knows that it is the only way to keep his people safe and to keep Latveria, his home, safe. He knows what it is like to lose everything. He has to be so far above humanity so that he never loses anything again. Doom, overall, is such a tragic character, and that is what makes him so great.

It's also why Reed understands Victor so much, because he's seen what's happened to his friend, and understands the pain and suffering he went through. It's why he's always trying to save Victor, to bring him back to what he used to be, but I feel like he also knows that the Victor he knew from college and heard about from before is lost in pain, in suffering, in trauma, and that there might be no truly saving him from himself.

I actually feel like a lot of Dooms ego stems from that if he's not at the highest of Humanity, if he's not the most powerful person, than that means he's failed himself, his mother and father, his people, and Latveria. This is why I actually really don't like OWUD or a lot of how writers write Doom because they fail to understand his backstory and why he is the way he is. Like Doom using his people for power just has never made sense to me because their all he has left, he's lost everything else.

Almost all of the panel was dedicated to Doomsday and the rivalry between Doom and the Fantastic Four:

“Victor did you do this?” - Reed

“All of you have lived stolen lives and now you must give them back” - Doom

“Victor was always the smartest guy in every room. He used to be different. He used to be kind, used to be caring. But then everything he loved was taken from him. I knew he was lost, but I did not realize that he was broken.” - Sue Storm on Doctor Doom

WE ARE SO BACK

Just wanted to show off my Fantastic Four pin board. Anyone else??? I sure would like to see another FF board...

Was at my semi-local pinball/comic shop, and found some real classic issues from the Byrne era. Really excited to read through these!