Doctor Doom Is Smarter Than Iron Man, Marvel Confirms

Warning: contains a preview for Iron Man #17!

Fans have long debated whether Iron Man is smarter than perennial villain Doctor Doom. Even Latveria’s despotic ruler is seemingly curious, admitting to admiring Tony Stark during his own short tenure as the Infamous Iron Man, back when Tony was unable to fulfill his own superhero duties. Now, Iron Man #17 (by Christopher Cantwell, Ibraim Roberson, Angel Uzueta, and Frank D’Armata) seemingly settles the debate.

There are a lot of “geniuses” in the Marvel Universe. Most of the time, having a superior intellect acts as a superpower for characters who do not possess any special physical abilities. This is the case for two men who usually stand on opposite sides of the battlefield: Tony Stark and Victor von Doom. While Iron Man uses the power of his brain to fight villains, help others, and be a core member of the Avengers, Doom puts his gifted intellect at the service of himself, acting as the undisputed ruler of the nation of Latveria and trying to take over the world (and, in more than one instance, the whole Multiverse.) The battles between these two usually turn out to be clashes of intellects, and as Iron Man’s new godlike powers threaten to turn him into an oppressive god, there’s only one man his allies believe can defeat him.

In recent issues of Iron Man, Tony has been dealing with the threat of Korvac, one of the Avengers’ oldest foes, who was going after the Power Cosmic – an almost limitless source of power usually wielded by the Eater of Worlds, Galactus, and his heralds. After successfully infiltrating Galactus’ spaceship, Korvac obtained what he craved, so Tony was forced to follow him into the source of the Power Cosmic and absorb the dangerous energies. After a cosmic-scale battle between two gods, the winner was Iron Man, now the Iron God, who was then faced with the question of what to do with his unlimited power. He decided that the best use for it was to give all the people of New York his same intellect, turning the whole city into Stark-level geniuses. While Mr. Fantastic thinks that he actually became less intelligent as a result, Tony’s closest friends are planning to stop him before his newfound omnipotence gets out of control. To do that, however, they have to rely on an unlikely ally: Doctor Doom. Enjoy the preview, below:

Patsy Walker, Hellcat, is the one who enlisted the help of the Latverian tyrant. She is developing a romantic relationship with Iron Man, so she is the one most interested in turning him back into a man. She realizes that, while all the assembled heroes apparently have genius-level intellects, and should then be able to put together a plan to strip Tony of his powers, the truth is that they simply possess a copy of Tony’s abilities. They think the same way, so anything they could come up with, Iron God would see it coming and have countermeasures ready. The only solution is to call someone who was unaffected by Tony’s “gift,” but is still able to outsmart him. Should Doom succeed at stopping Tony, he’ll have proved the superiority of his own “unique and unmatched genius.“

It’s not too surprising that Doctor Doom is Tony’s intellectual better. With the reveal that Tony’s gift actually made Reed Richards dumber, it makes sense that Mister Fantastic nemesis would be in a similar league and have an edge on even the Iron God when it comes to genius. However, while Doctor Doom may be confident in his ability to out-think Iron Man, Tony is currently a god, and whether he’ll actually allow this plan to go ahead will only be revealed when Iron Man #17 hits stores February 23.

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