Last week, I looked at the Fantastic Four and their history, a good part of which is interconnected with Dr. Doom. Victor Von Doom’s rivalry with and jealousy of Reed Richards has shaped quite a bit of Doom’s personality, but he’s too complex a character to simply dismiss as an insane evil dictator whose goal is world conquest.
It’s true that Doom certainly has a thing for power and strives constantly to increase his, but unlike the sheer power-mad Thanos, Doom is much more cold and logical about his situation. He knows his limits and is calculating and calm, often creating backup plans for his backup plans. In many ways, Doom is a Chaotic Evil version of Bruce Wayne; his goals are different, but his strategic mind and dark methods are quite similar.
Nobody truly knows what’s on Doom’s mind but Doom, and nobody truly understands the reasons he does things but Doom himself. The same dictator who shows flashes of fascism and evil can turn around and act seemingly selfless. Doom’s help was the main factor in curing Kitty Pryde when she was stuck in phase. Doom fought alongside Spider-Man in the pages of “Marvel Team-Up.” In fact, Doom will often fight alongside heroic teams, though he’ll almost always have selfish reasons for doing so (such as seeing that a particular threat jeopardizes his own wellbeing as well as the rest of the world). Doom is not so arrogant that he thinks of himself as invincible or immortal.
And this is the very reason that Dr. Doom has a “team.” Now, the word team may be a bit odd for a man such as Doom, but try to think of it as less of a team and more of a chess board filled with pawns and soldiers who Doom uses and manipulates into helping him to achieve his own ends. Sometimes Doom will offer them something in return, and sometimes his “allies” will work for him for the promise of something Doom will never have to deliver.
Whatever their reasons, Doom’s business partners have been a fierce and powerful bunch of superhumans. Following is a brief rundown of some who have helped Doom and why they chose to do so.
Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
If there is one person in the world who Doom would call friend, it would be Boris, and he said as much in the short-lived “Doom 2099” series. Boris was Victor’s father Werner’s best friend and the man whom Werner charged to take care of young Victor. Werner wanted Boris to prevent Victor’s grief and desire for revenge from taking him over. Boris raised Victor and tried to temper the negativity in Victor’s life, but to little avail. Still, nobody knows Doom like Boris does, and nobody can get through to him as Boris can.
Boris is to Doom as Alfred is to Bruce Wayne—one part manservant, one part father figure. He takes care of business for Doom as a personal secretary or royal chamberlain would, and Doom’s castle in Doomstadt is under Boris’s charge as well as Doom’s. Boris’s ability on each version reflects the manservant side of him—fetching what Dr. Doom needs and bringing it to him. His Personal Servant version has the perfect effect for a butler; he’s summoned, sent to do his master’s bidding, brings back what was requested, and then shuffles off into the depths of the castle until he’s called again. Doom’s Caretaker is more of the chamberlain, drawing a card when he comes into play in the same way that he would wake Doom up, get him ready, and send him on his way prepared.
The Story of Darkoth, Death Demon
Major Desmond Pitt was an Air Force test pilot and a colleague and close friend of fellow pilot Ben Grimm (The Thing). After a brief respite to start a family, he was reassigned to the Kennedy Space Center in Houston. As his wife was struggling through a major illness, Pitt’s luck further soured when he discovered that the project he was working on (a solar shuttle designed to provide solar energy to Earth) had been infiltrated by agents of Dr. Doom. Without revealing this to his superiors or gaining authorization, Pitt took it upon himself to become a double agent—he would root out the spies and then dismantle the operation and report what had happened.
Pitt discovered that Doom planned to redirect the energy emitted by the solar shuttle to Latveria. Before he had a chance to reveal what he had learned, though, his wife died from her illness. In his grief he became sloppy, and Doom discovered his ruse. Doom’s agents, being respectable Air Force project researchers, beat Pitt to the punch and denounced him as a traitor. At the same time, Pitt was kidnapped by other agents, making his branding as a traitor that much more plausible. To the Air Force, he simply disappeared, and they assumed that he was killed by his Latverian employer for failing whatever espionage mission he was taking part in.
As punishment for his actions and to make an example of anyone who would dare to oppose Doom’s schemes, Doom experimented on Pitt. He used chemicals and cybernetics to mutate him into a demonic form that resembled a legendary demon reputed to haunt the backwoods of Latveria. Thus, Darkoth was born. As a final touch, Doom wiped Darkoth’s memories and implanted false ones of Darkoth being Doom’s loyal and trusted servant after having been rescued from the fiery depths. Doom would use the Death Demon to capture the Fantastic Four, and it was only through Doom’s arrogance in revealing Darkoth’s past to him to crush the last vestiges of his willpower that Doom’s wrath backfired and Darkoth broke free from his servitude.
Darkoth had enhanced strength and endurance that is reflected in his Death Demon version, as is his ability to go toe-to-toe and blow-for-blow with a superhuman as strong as the Thing and not take much damage in return. His tail could be used as a weapon, and he poisoned the tips of his claws so that an opponent whose bloodstream was poisoned would fall unconscious. All of these added up to a fighting machine that became more dangerous the further into battle he was engaged.
His Desmond Pitt version has an ability that reflects his limited psionic capabilities. He had twin antennae, or firehorns, which fed on the mental energy of his opponents to create blasts of intense heat or force that were strong enough to melt through a thick steel wall or knock a tank on its side. With this ability, he could literally bring the house down on his opponents and take them out.
The Story of Terrax
A fellow dictator, Tyros ruled his kingdom of Lanlak with an iron fist. He was a mutant, the only one on his planet (Birj) who could control earth and stone.
When Galactus was looking for a new herald, Tyros fit the bill as someone without the moral quibbles of the Silver Surfer who would be willing to find worlds for Galactus to devour without argument or question. Galactus gave him cosmic power, and he became Terrax the Tamer, Galactus’s new herald.
But Terrax rebelled, repeatedly leaving Galactus’s side to try to conquer worlds. His eventual goal was to bring Galactus and the entire universe to its knees before him. Galactus stripped him of his power and left him for dead on Earth.
And that is how Doom found him, comatose and broken. Terrax was kidnapped by Doom’s robots and brought back to Latveria, where Doom worked to heal him. When he recovered, he had no memories of his time as a herald or as a cosmic being, and Terrax was Tyros once again. Doom offered him a taste of cosmic power in return for his help defeating the Fantastic Four. Tyros readily agreed, lusting for power and unaware that Doom’s device, which would bestow "the power cosmic," would also take his life. After defeating the Fantastic Four, Tyros turned on Doom, unwilling to serve any man. Just as he was about to take down the Latverian monarch, the Silver Surfer arrived in aid of his Fantastic Friends. Tyros put his powers to the test against the Surfer, but that only hastened Tyros’s demise, as he was literally destroyed by the same power he was wielding to destroy others.
Terrax’s power level reflects the fact that even though his cosmic power was artificial while on Doom’s team, it was still on the level of other cosmic beings. It was a temporary power, but that didn’t diminish its magnitude.
His ability reflects his command over the very earth itself. He could level entire cities with his inherent control over rock and stone, just as he could levitate, burst, move, disrupt, or shatter anything made from stone or an earth-based substance.
Prince Namor has had a love/hate relationship with all Earth-dwellers since birth. A mutant born of an Atlantean and a human, his blood cells likely bicker and fight amongst themselves on a daily basis. Namor is the ruler of Atlantis, and though he is not a dictator like Doom, the same pride and arrogance dominate his personality. Perhaps that is why he’s drawn to like-minded individuals. He generally doesn’t concern himself with the surface unless he perceives a threat from those who live aboveground, which is why he fought with the invaders and the allies during World War II, with the Avengers, and with the Defenders; and why, at the same time, he fought alongside Doom and other villains.
Namor’s original brush with the Fantastic Four came while he was homeless and without memory in New York as a result of being mind controlled by the original Destiny (Paul Destine, not Irene Adler). Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) found him and dumped him in the ocean, restoring most but not all of his memories. When he discovered the ruins of Atlantis (courtesy of Destiny) but had no memories of his time as an Invader or of Destiny, he immediately blamed the surface world and attacked New York. He was stopped by the Fantastic Four, as he was during every subsequent attempt he made. As his attacks progressed, he began to develop an infatuation with Sue Storm and wished to take her back to Atlantis with him to rule by his side.
Dr. Doom teamed up with Namor from the earliest days of the Fantastic Four, each using the other to further their own agenda. And that agenda was often the same—the destruction of the Fantastic Four. Theirs was the first time that villains had ever teamed up in comic history, and they were often featured together in the short-lived (but awesome!) “Super-Villain Team-Up” in the 70s. Their relationship was love/hate and they were on-again/off-again allies. When you’re dealing with the level of arrogance and temper that each of them had, it’s no surprise that they repeatedly turned on each other.*
Namor’s Atlantean Monarch version reflects the sheer majesty and power, not to mention stubbornness, of the young Atlantean ruler by exhausting a character when comes into play if you have the initiative. When Namor has the advantage, it’s hard to bear up against him.
The Ally of Doom version is a stronger Sub-Mariner that's less needy of help. The fact that you have to control Dr. Doom to play him shows not loyalty to Doom, but the fact that Namor was not a team player at that point. He would work solely with Doom, not with a lackey or another villain. His ability reflects his resilience, particularly against those who aren’t hand-to-hand fighters; he can ready when attacking a support row character, because Namor is a combatant who wants you to face him head-on and not from the sidelines.
Rama-Tut was a descendant of Reed Richards’s father, Nathaniel, who had used a time machine to travel to an alternate future Earth. There he rebuilt civilization, married, and fathered various children. (Think Michael Jackson, only it really was an alternate future Earth and not just a delusional hallucination . . . )
Rama-Tut grew up seeking adventure but finding peace and tranquility. Unsatisfied with a life of unending boredom, he discovered his ancestor’s time machine and used it to travel back to ancient Egypt in 2950 BC. Unfortunately, the machine crashed and broke down, causing Rama-Tut to be stuck in time. Turning it to his advantage, he usurped the rulers and became Pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled for ten years, during which the Fantastic Four made their way back in time looking for a cure for Alicia Masters’s blindness. He captured them, intending to marry Sue Storm and work the others as slaves, but they were saved by Dr. Strange. Rama-Tut, who repaired his time machine, then destroyed all evidence of his existence in ancient Egypt and fled.
He ended up in the twentieth century, where he discovered Dr. Doom disoriented and adrift in space—which seemed to happen quite a lot, didn’t it? He convinced Doom that he was Doom’s descendant. Doom began to believe that he and Rama-Tut actually were the same person in different temporal eras. Although this was impossible (and it has been established that Doom and Rama-Tut/Kang are of no relation to each other whatsoever), Rama-Tut was in awe of Doom’s majesty and encouraged this way of thinking. He eventually sent Doom back to Earth while he continued on in time. In one reality, he became Kang (and it is said by some that he modeled his armor and personality on Doom’s, though this hasn’t been officially established), and in an alternate reality, he became the Scarlet Centurion.
Rama-Tut’s ability reflects his affinity and knowledge of all things temporal. He can fetch plot twists from the “past” (the KO’d pile) and use them again. Although his stats represent a time in his youth before he truly tasted power, his ability is formidable, showing a glimpse of what was to come.
Shoot any questions (and comments or corrections) you may have to Kergillian (at) hotmail (dot) com.
And I’ll do my best to answer them, ere too long, in this column.
* In fact, it was one of Namor’s trademark fits of rage that totaled one of Doom’s ships, in which he was later found drifting through space by the Ovoids. It was an Ovoid Mentor who taught Dr. Doom how to switch his mind with another person’s, sending it into that person’s body. This is why the Ovoid Mentor gains an ATK bonus when you exhaust another character.
Also known by his screen name Kergillian, Ben Kalman has been involved in the Vs. community since day one. He started the first major player in the online community, the Vs. Listserv, through Yahoo! Groups, and it now boasts well over 1,700 members! For more on the Yahoo! group, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Marvel_DC_TCG.