Warning: SPOILERS for All-Out Avengers #2A new, bizarre version of Doctor Doom just stole Dragon Ball's Piccolo origin story. Just like the original Piccolo was created after the Nameless Namekian split his soul into two parts, one good and one evil, so this new version of Doom came to life after Victor Von Doom used the artifact called Soulsplitter Stone, creating two opposite versions of himself.
Piccolo is one of Dragon Ball's most popular characters, who went through a lot of transformations during the series. He made his debut as King Piccolo, an evil and powerful creature who threatened to take over Earth and was barely stopped by Son Goku and his allies. A few years after that battle, the "son" of King Piccolo emerged, called simply Piccolo, inheriting all the genes and the malicious intent of his creator. However, Piccolo slowly redeemed himself thanks to the influence of Goku and his son, Gohan, and became a warrior of justice. To gain the power needed to stop the dangerous androids, Piccolo merged with another Namekian, Kami, and in the process he learned the truth about his past.
In All-Out Avengers #2, by Derek Landy, Greg Land, and Frank D'Armata, readers are introduced to two new versions of the iconic Doctor Doom. One Doom is a hero who can even wield Mjolnir, has joined the Avengers and is trying to stop another Doom, dubbed Dark-Doom by Iron Man, from taking over the world. During the course of the story, it is revealed that the two Dooms were created after the original one experimented with the Soulsplitter Stone, a mysterious artifact with the power of separating an individual into two versions of himself, one light and one dark. This is incredibly similar to Piccolo's origin story, the way that it was told to him by Kami before their fusion.
The New Doctor Doom Has Piccolo's Same Origin Story
Both Kami and King Piccolo were, in fact, two halves of the same individual, the Nameless Namekian, who arrived on Earth as the lone survivor of a catastrophe on his home planet. After decades of training, that individual decided to purge himself of his impure instincts, casting them away, but in the process he unexpectedly created a being of pure evil, King Piccolo. Just like in All-Out Avengers Dark-Doom is much more powerful than the "good" Doom, in Dragon Ball King Piccolo is way stronger than Kami. However, when many years later Piccolo and Kami merge, the result is an incredibly powerful pure Namekian warrior. In the Avengers story, instead, Dark-Doom says that the original Victor Von Doom is conflicted, divided between good and evil, and thus weaker than his split versions.
It's not that unusual for manga to take inspiration from superhero comics, as the successful My Hero Academia series proves. In this case, instead, the opposite happened, and these new, very interesting versions of Doctor Doom have the exact same origin story as Dragon Ball's Piccolo.