My Response to Millar's use of Doctor Doom.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Greetings True Believers! I have a problem with the "Masters of Doom" storyline. The problem is that Victor Von Doom does not have a master(s), Doom IS the master. Pride has always defined Doctor Doom (and led to his defeat at times) so the thought of Doom willingly and eagerly bending knee to any being flies in the face of the character Marvel has been building since 1962.
I realize that Millar might be planning for Doom to betray his "master" and may have always been planning that. That is the ONLY way to salvage this storyline.
Below the cut is one page from the 1987 Marvel graphic novel, "Emperor Doom" and this one page explains why Doom would never kneel to any being and it's a powerful display of the awesome.
Enjoy!




The story is that Doctor Doom has used the powers of the Purple Man (enhanced by Doom's technology) to take over the world. Mr. Kilgrave obivously has an issue with this situation. He claims that Doom has no true power and doesn't deserve to rule. Doom's response is this....







That's why "Masters of Doom" is fatally flawed.

Comments

[arrlaari.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I like how in the previews, Doom's "master" bitches him out for being insufficiently one dimensional as a villain.

This from Mark Millar, who makes Doom more one dimensional than any other I know.

I think Millar just prefers his villains simple and sadistic.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

I think Millar just prefers his villains all of his characters simple and sadistic.

Fixed.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

To be serious for a moment, though, I think one of Millar's biggest problems as a writer is that, for all his would-be liberal political trappings, he really does favor a Frank Miller-flavored might-makes-right fascism in his "heroes" - setting aside his work on Superman and the Flash for a moment, every single fight in his stories is won by one guy being meaner and nastier and more brutal than the other, or else, as in the case of Spider-Man versus Green Goblin at the end of his Marvel Knights run, a deus ex machina steps in (lighting struck Norman TWICE, FOR NO REASON), and even with Superman and the Flash, he was often able to reduce the conflicts to I HAVE MORE POWER THEREFORE I WIN.

The problem is, if you really do prefer your "heroes" to be unrestrained fascist bullies, then their opponents need to be absolutely, inhumanly evil, or else the audience is going to start asking silly little questions like, gee, is this excessive and unforgiving amount of force justified? And in MillarWorld, it MUST be justified, because he doesn't WANT morally restrained heroes - he wants a Captain America who would call Jack Bauer a pussy for how much he "holds back."

Thus, Doom MUST be one-dimensional, or else all of MillarWorld falls apart.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

This from Mark Millar, who makes Doom more one dimensional than any other I know.

*cough*Mark Waid*cough*

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

DOOM is fucking awesome. That is all.

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

Motto.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I actually often like Mark Millar. I liked THE ULTIMATES--even if I still consider its politics pandering and fucked--I liked his AUTHORITY, and I loved his SWAMP THING.

But I find his FF kind of has no effect on me at all. And his Doom? I don't really recognize him as Doom, actually. I don't think Millar has any real insight into the character. And for the most part, he seems to be reflecting a disinterest in him, as he's mostly been finding ways to use him without actually having to use him.

No, this is the guy you want to write Doom: Seanbaby! (http://www.seanbaby.com/hostess/analysts.htm)
"Dr. Doom isn't really a doctor. In fact, I don't even think he has a degree since he got kicked out of college for blowing himself and his dorm room up. Now he rules a country called Latveria where his turn ons are oppressing the peasants and vaporizing their livestock.

His hobbies include speaking in the third person, building robot versions of himself, and announcing how great he is. For example, if he or one of his robo-clones were to use the bathroom, he(it) would walk out and say, "The inevitable ruler of the world has finished his domination of the toilet." The only way to tell if it was him or the robot is to take a sample of his unstoppable stool. But while you're collecting it, look out. Doom rarely leaves a restroom without planting deadly traps. "
((c)Seanbaby)

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Interesting point: I believe Doom is not, honestly, a doctor. Admittedly, he has honorary degrees up the wazoo... but he never finished his courses, and he never defended his paper.

He is a monarch. But he does not call himself Lord Doom or King Doom.

He calls himself Doctor Doom... which is the other thing he failed at. (his mother being the first)

And why did he fail? CURSE YOU RICHARDS!

[filkertom.insanejournal.com]

Actually, now that you point that out... when, lately, has anyone called him anything except simply "Doom" (or "Victor")? It's not like he has any regard for the, let's see, how would this go, "incompetent, insufferable institutions of a barbaric and unworthy land who wrongly rejected him in the first place."

Degree(s) or not, I bet Doom has moved beyond mere petty alliteration.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

He's a doctor in the same way Idi Amin was "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor".

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

No I'd say he'd HAVE to be a Doctor, why would he lie about an academic achievement particularly one where the Thing would be the first to point out to him if he weren't?

I see him much more along the lines of Fthe 1932 movie where Boris Karloff's Fu Manchu introduces himself to the other characters.

"I am a doctor of philosophy from Edinburgh, I am a doctor of law from Christ College, I am a doctor of medicine from Harvard. My friends, out of courtesy, call me doctor. "

He's just proven he's got more qualifications than the rest of the cast put together, so it's the self deprecating, "out of courtesy" that gets me every time. :)

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I'd agree that if Doom wanted a degree, I'd hate to be the university that said no. That said, I would suggest that's still made up and self-styled on his part, a way of compensating for what he believes he should have, and no one's brought it up.

[(Anonymous)]

I am pretty sure that this was addressed in Ultimate FF. But I can't remember the exact details.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Well, that wouldn't count, as Doom has a very different role in all that, doesn't he?

From the little I haven't tried to block out of that comic...

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

I sense NO energy in this book, none...

[(Anonymous)]

Does it make me a bad person to admit that the only book written by Mark Millar that I've enjoyed reading so far is "Trouble"? It made me almost like Aunt May.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

Oh FUCK!

Don't let the Guardians of Oa find Doom! Stick him in a closet or something!

[midnightvoyager.insanejournal.com]

Doom with a GL ring. OH GOD. THE WORLD WOULD BOW.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

This is why Doom rules.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/34665731@N00/3574268016/)

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

And what does he do?