The MCU Has Already Damaged Its Own Perfect Doctor Doom Setup

Doctor Doom is arguably Marvel’s greatest villain, and after two consecutive failures to bring him to life on the big screen, the MCU is already in danger of messing it up for the third time. One thing that makes Doctor Doom so engaging is his dual nature as both a scientist and a sorcerer. However, past cinematic iterations have completely disregarded this aspect of his character. Thanks to Doctor Strange, the potential is certainly there to deliver the complete package of Doom’s science and magic. The problem is that the MCU’s wishy-washy handling of magic could wind up biting them with Doom in a big way.

Doctor Doom debuted in Fantastic Four #5 (1962) and only grew in popularity over the decades as a true crossover villain, capable of interacting with essentially any hero Marvel had to offer. Despite his first appearance and his rivalry with Mister Fantastic, Doom was just as likely to show up in an issue of Spider-Man or The Avengers. This popularity naturally made Doom the obvious choice for previous attempts to adapt the Fantastic Four to the big screen. Unfortunately, both Fantastic Four efforts were unsuccessful. In fact, Stan Lee himself lamented the failure of the movies having a lot to do with the failure to properly adapt Doom. Doctor Doom is a villain driven by his ego. An ego that’s arguably justified in some ways when one considers his accomplishments. He’s a master of science and magic, landing him in contention for the smartest man on Earth – if not beyond – and making him a candidate for Sorcerer Supreme. The previous attempts to adapt the character to film completely disregard this detail. The 2005 Fantastic Four film reimagines Doom (Julian McMahon) as a generic evil businessman while the 2015 Fantastic Four depicts Doom (Toby Kebbell) as an angry brilliant computer scientist. Both are obviously a far cry from the egocentric, megalomaniacal dictator comics fans know and love… or love to hate.

Making Doom a master of science is hardly the issue, as both previous iterations connect Victor to science in some way. The absence of magic is where things start to fall apart in both iterations. Luckily, the MCU has the magic angled covered as the presence of Doctor Strange makes magic an integral part of the MCU. The problem is that the MCU has been extremely cagey about the nature of magic in its stories, largely due to the Thor franchise, suggesting as far back as the first film that magic in the MCU is essentially just alien science that humans aren’t able to understand. At that point, Doctor Strange was some time away, but that assertion has yet to be retconned, which threatens to once again strip Doom of his core duality by blurring the lines between the two forces.

Not only would it negatively impact his duality, but that would have a knock-on effect. Doctor Strange and, subsequently, WandaVision seem to contradict Thor’s implications, but the definitive answer has still never truly been given. If Marvel comes down more on the side of things that Thor suggests, then that could make it less special that Doom mastered both. If the two things are treated as the same, then Doom’s accomplishments could almost solely be attributed to his intellect, which lessens the scope of how impressive he really is and weakens his justification of that massive ego. It could unintentionally translate him into being just a smarter, megalomaniacal, version of Iron Man.

Doctor Doom needs magic in order for his character to be fully realized. Without it, his character has considerably less bite as it makes him less versatile and not able to fit as easily into virtually any type of story, the way his comic book counterpart does. It also informs and helps to reinforce the very trait that makes the character endure for so long – the overwhelming force that is his ego. Hopefully, the MCU will solve the magic problem enough that Doom can appear. Otherwise, his seemingly inevitable induction into the MCU is already, well… doomed.

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