While Doctor Doom is known for being one of Marvel Comics’ most ruthless villains, he actually proved to be the world’s only chance at survival in one storyline that portrayed him as a legitimate hero–though his redesign in that same comic was his most terrifying look to date, as it was a direct reference to one of horror-fiction’s most iconic serial killers.
Victor von Doom aka Doctor Doom is the supreme leader of Latveria who earned his title through his intelligence and sheer force of will. Doom is arguably the smartest character in Marvel Comics with the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards being his only real rival. However, Doom has always had an advantage over Richards when comparing the two individuals side-by-side due to the fact that Richards only utilizes science whereas Doom deals in both science and magic. Doctor Doom’s mother was a sorcerer who made an unholy bargain with Mephisto and was eventually dragged to hell by the vile devil. In fact, in certain storylines depicting Doom’s origin (primarily The Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker and Pablo Raimondi), Doom got his mysterious facial scars after using a machine designed by both himself and Richards to enter hell and retrieve his mother–a mission that obviously failed. However, that failure didn’t stop him from seeking to exterminate evil when he saw it despite being a renowned villain in his own right–and this particular storyline depicts just how heroic Doom can really be when he utilizes his proven skills for good.
In the Avengers Halloween Special story “Whatever Happened to the Richards Family?” by Gerry Duggan and Laura Braga, readers are given a twisted retelling of the Fantastic Four’s origin story–one that totally flips their heroic nature into something much more sinister. When the Fantastic Four return to Earth after their fateful space mission during which they were blasted with mutating cosmic rays, Doctor Doom watched their reception on television and came to a grim conclusion. Those ‘people’ who claimed to be the Fantastic Four were imposters, and Doctor Doom wasn’t going to wait around to discover their intentions. So, Doom infiltrates the Baxter Building and kills every member of the Fantastic Four one-by-one until he is finally stopped by the Avengers and sent off to prison. Unfortunately, Doom wasn’t successful in killing them all, as ‘Sue Storm’ survived the barbaric attack.
Doctor Doom's Scariest Redesign Revealed
When Doctor Doom is locked up in his cell, he is given a redesign that is the perfect fit for the spooky nature of this Halloween Special. Doom is propped up and bound with an elaborate straight jacket while wearing a mask over his iconic helmet–a mask that is the spitting image of the one worn by Hannibal Lecter in the film Silence of the Lambs. This redesign is absolutely terrifying as it merges perhaps the greatest villain in Marvel Comics with one of the deadliest killers in horror-fiction–which makes the irony of Doom’s situation so comical as he is given one of his scariest looks the one time he tries to be a hero.
While slaughtering the Fantastic Four because of a potentially deluded hunch doesn’t sound very heroic on the surface, Sue Storm pays Doom a visit in prison to confirm every one of his suspicions in a manner filled with boastful cruelty. Apparently, the original Fantastic Four space explorers never got their powers in this twisted new origin and instead were replaced by a group of world-conquering alien shape-shifters with the same powers usually attributed to the Fantastic Four. So, when Doom went to stop them, he was trying to save the world from a potential takeover–a truly heroic act that he paid for with his freedom as well as his normal aesthetic, as that act of heroism actually gave Doctor Doom his scariest redesign to date.