Doctor Doom

Real Name: Victor Von Doom
He's a Doctor of What, Exactly? Although Von Doom is the monarch of the country of Latveria, he lacks an advanced university degree. He apparently liked the alliteration of "Doctor Doom" and just started calling himself that. Such is the awesome power of an absolute ruler!
First Appearance: Ah, word of advice; don't mention "appearances" around Doom. He's a little sensitive. Doom first ... came to our attention ... in Fantastic Four 5.

What's His Problem? Well, he has a couple. His mother was trapped in a demonic dimension for many years, a fact that caused Victor great mental anguish. A machine he built for the purpose of trying to communicate with her blew up in his face, filling him with an intense dislike of Reed Richards, who warned Doom of mistakes in his calculations before the explosion. Doom wears his iron mask to hide the scars from that explosion, although whether he was hideously deformed or just received some small marks that his pride forces him to conceal is unclear. (In fact, fans of the original it-was-the-explosion storyline and fans of the it-was-the-hot-mask retconn stillperiodicly duke it out in the newsgroup rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe).
Abilities: Although Doom has some native sorcerous ability, his real power lies in his genius level I.Q. and his brilliant mechanical designs. He has constructed a time machine, something beyond the capabilities of his arch-rival Reed Richards. His "Doom-bots" are so like him few people can tell if they are speaking to the Master of Latveria or just an incredible facsimile. His nuclear-powered armor is capable of generating a force field only psis can penetrate, as well as strong blasts of energy he shoots from his armored hands.
Heroes He Keeps Running Into: Even though the Fantastic Four consider Doom to be their villain, Doom actually pops up all over the Marvel Universe, casually stomping on anyone who gets in his way. He has faced the Avengers numerous times. Individual heroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Dazzler get caught up in his schemes. It's hard to avoid Doom if you have super-powers; he's always trying to find a way to use those powers for himself.

People Who Think He's Not So Bad: Come rain, snow or Infinity Wars, Silver Sable keeps her yearly dinner date with Von Doom, one of the few State chores she actually enjoys. His foster son Kristoff loves him so much the little guy sometimes thinks he is Doom. And Storm of the X-Men once found herself attracted to one of Doom's robot counterparts, so who knows what would happen if the two ever actually met?
Most Despicable Act: Oh, geez; let me think ... there was the time he siphoned the power cosmic from the Silver Surfer; that wasn't nice. Wait! There was the time he offered Reed Richards' son Franklin to Mephisto in exchange for his mother, and the time he mind-wiped his ward, Kristoff, two very not nice acts (as Jim Perreault points out, "child abuse is a whole new level of evil."). He locked the X-Men up in various torture chambers designed to push them beyond their physical limits; not nice again -- hold on, that was one of his Doom-bots. Never mind. (I told you those things were a lot like Doom!) It was Doom himself, however, who engineered the explosion in which it appeared he and Richards' perished. Apart from being hard on Reed's wife Sue, AKA the Invisible Woman, it didn't do much good for the stability of Latveria. Let's face it; where Doctor Doom's concerned, there are too many despicable acts to keep track of! Kind of like Doom-bots, in fact...

Three Decades of Doom!

Fantastic Four 23 1963	Amazing Spider-Man 5 1963	Fantastic Four 58 1967

Doom is alsothe monarch of dramatic, last-minute appearances!
Iron Man 150 1981	Uncanny Xmen 145 1981	Alpha Flight 91 1990