Trade Paperback, $17.95 from Marvel Comics
I'm not sure where comic book villains would be without Doctor Doom. Looking at golden age comics, everyone who came before was either a non-descript gangster type or a gimmicky, one-note villain, with the glaring exception of the Joker. Doom seems to have sprung full-grown from the forehead of Stan Lee, a brutal, commanding, regal megalomaniac who somehow sounds natural soliloquizing from within a great, iron mask. (And keep in mind I *say* "sound" and I know you're agreeing, you're nodding, going "yeah, Doc Ock would *never* pull it off behind and iron mask," and need I remind you that these are *comics*, and we *can't really hear him?*) There were villains with covered faces before, villains with attitude before, but there was something perfect about Doom from the moment he first appeared. The whole package just worked, from the imposing gray body armor set off by the simple green togs, to the mask, to the fact the unlike most villains, Doom has his own country. He doesn't just attack from a hideout below the East River; Doom is the ruler of Latveria and has to fit taking over the world into a busy schedule.
Doctor Doom is the subject of the new trade paperback, *The Villainy of Doctor Doom*, which collects Doom Tales from the sixties and eighties, allowing a peek at the Fantastic Four's best villain during that team's best creative eras, the seminal Stan Lee/Jack Kirby years and the more mature John Byrne period of the eighties. (I've come to think lately that Marvel in the 1960's was indeed the House of Ideas, and everything since is polish.)
The Stan Lee/ Jack Kirby section, making up the greater part of the collection, starts right off with the Origin of Doctor Doom, told with all the gee-whiz enthusiasm and exclamation points we've come to expect from Lee. Lee and Kirby grant the number one villain a hero's origin-- he's the orphaned son of a gypsy sorceress and the king's doctor, who flees after the murder of his father becomes a sort of dashing, eastern-european Robin Hood. A genius-level intellect, Victor von Doom steals from the king's men utilizing high-tech devices and nuclear horses and carts before shipping off to America to get his Ph.D., where a chemical explosion renders him hideous (to the arrogant Doom's own eyes, at least) and perhaps a little nuts. The scarred face he hides behind an iron mask, although some have suggested he's not really scarred at all, not physically. We'll never know.
After donning the Doom armor, Doom himself became ruler of Latveria, and Lee and Kirby adopt a fairly complicated and sophisticated attitude about Doom and his country (for what was a children's magazine). Lee bends over backwards to hammer home that Doom provides for the Latverians, that he educates them and rewards them, and that his is a wealthy and idyllic nation. And then the clincher: "All that I demand is TOTAL, BLIND OBEDIENCE." Bear in mind that in terms of villainy, this benevolent, do-we-depose-him-or-not dictator bit is infinitely more compelling than whatever motivates, say, Captain Boomerang.
It verges on comedy, of course, gloriously spinning into both the absurd and the sad, as when Doom intercepts a fleeing Latverian refugee: "Have I not told you how I dearly love my subjects? Did you think I would allow a single one to leave this realm? The welfare of my people is ever closest to my heart! What a pity that I am so often forced to SAVE you from YOURSELVES! THAT is why my invincible ROBOT ARMY stands guard both night and day! For no one knows what is BEST for you-- except the mighty SOVEREIGN DOCTOR DOOM!"
Hell, I'll applaud that. Forget SDI and the UN, I think the President should threaten irritating countries with his "Invincible Robot Army."
In fact, one senses that Lee and Kirby's Doom has brought most of his troubles on himself, since most likely he would be left alone if he didn't have such a great need to subjugate the whole world and, of course, "Finally Crush the Fantastic Four!"
Doom likes to talk; I love that because he's so iron-tongued and florid in his speech. So fact, just for grins, here are but a few of the utterances of Doom in support of his goal:
"Only DEATH can avenge this insult... the death of the FANTASTIC FOUR!"
"Know this now-- now and forever! Doctor Doom has no rivals!! None!! None!"
"To destroy you thus would be a petty victory indeed-- and Doom is never petty. But mark you well my words-- the ultimate destruction of the FANTASTIC FOUR is ever my most cherished goal."
Darth Vader was never this cool, and mark *you,* without Doom, there'd be no Darth.
John Byrne, of course, perfects the crude tales of Lee and Kirby, giving us a more mature rendition in an interesting tale that explores what might lead the FF to restore Doom to his throne. It's just another side to the ruler. By the 80's, Byrne was taking a moment to actually think of Doom as an eastern European king who has for decades avoided what every other nation had suffered: fall to the Soviet Union.
I can't put my finger on why a villain like Doom holds so much appeal for us. Sometimes I think it's the peasant-servant facet of our personality reaching out for the best master we could imagine-- the Alpha Male, the powerful tribal chief who will inform us of when and where we will live and work, a chief so charismatic that we sense our service would not be wasted. The rebel in us yearns for something similar-- the all-powerful foil, against whom victory demands both cunning and incredible odds. We're attracted to Doom because he's so impossible to beat and so easy to worship. As a result the Fantastic Four, who beat Doom every time and worship him not at all, are all the more the heroes.
But Doom, he has an INVINCIBLE ROBOT ARMY.
P.S. Know what I'd love? Doctor Doom never had a great swingin' sixties theme song like Cap and Namor did. Write one and sent it to us. Make it silly and over-the-top like the Marvel Age themes of old. Extra points if you can work in the phrase, "INVINCIBLE ROBOT ARMY."