My favorite DR DOOM moment

[dr_hermes]

Dr Doom is one of the classic comics villains, up there with the Red Skull, the Joker, Ming the Merciless. He's a Mad Science super-genius with a sideline in Black Magic, he wears powered armor packed with weapons, and he has a huge grudge against the leader of the Fantastic Four because he unfairly blames RICHARDS!! for the college experiment that

Comments

[kickaha23]

I really love the Kirby flaming hand lamp.

[dr_hermes]

You can't beat Kirby for throwaway details like that. Reed Richards would be standing in a lab full of advanced equipment, and against one wall would be a little stand with a lamp and phone on it.

[syon23]

A great observation, Doc. FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL # 2 really was the moment that Doom began his shift from a fairly run-of-the mill bad guy (note how, in FF # 17,Sue goes looking for Doom amongst common gangsters, and, in FF # 23 he actually associates with low lifes like Bull Brogin, "Handsome Harry" Phillips, and Dakor) to the grandiose tyrant that we know and love.

[dr_hermes]

Re-reading the very early Doom appearances, it's interesting that he seems rather well, ordinary, just another megalomanic villain. Making him a literal tyrant was an inspired touch. I'd like to know whose idea it was, but that has probably been lost to history unless we find a note from Lee to Kirby in 1964 saying, "Love your idea of Doom as dictator, let's play up the castles" or "Jack, I want to try using Doc Doom as a secret ruler of little European country like in PRISONER OF ZENDA, see what you can do."

[dferguson]

If Doom's face wasn't severely damaged in the accident, it certainly was later on. He fled to some remote monastery and it was the monks there who forged his first set of armor. Doom deliberately put on the faceplate before it had time to cool.

[dr_hermes]

Here is where this was discussed earlier:

http://dr-hermes.livejournal.com/101266.html#cutid1

I obviously have spent too much time thinking about this and other arcane matters. But I don't see Doom's faceplate as being redhot or anything. The monk is holding it with his bare hands (you can see the lines indicating fingernails), and as Doom puts it on, he continues a single unbroken speech in a calm voice with any gasps or ARRRGGHHs. True, vapor is coming off the mask but then they are in a cave in the Himalayas, so something giving off visible vapor need not be scalding or anything like it.

Of course, I tend to go with the original origins, being hopelessly Retro. For all I know, there has been a six part mini-series from Marvel recently showing Doom with nothing but a tiny nick on his chin and then showing the mask as glowing white hot as the terrified monk holds it with blacksmith tongs.

[syon23]

RE: Doom's facial scarring,

As was his wont,John Byrne revised Doom's origin in FF # 278. He depicted Doom with only a small facial scar after the explosion. Doom's massive facial scarring was caused by his impatience regarding the "hot" facial mask (Byrne being Byrne, he had the monk wearing thick gloves while holding the mask).

Of course, we purists can exploit the fact that the scenes were depicted as part of a memory download into the young Kristoff, and not a straight forward retelling. Perhaps the Doombots who were downloading the memories were somehow defective.

[dr_hermes]

I think it was Jack Kirby himself who came up with the tiny chin scar business, late in his career, and other artists including Byrne used it. I dislike the revised concept. It cheapens and trivializes the character, in my opinion, and goes against the reactions of the characters who saw Doom unmasked or the glimpses we got ourselves.