With Robert Downey Jr returning to Marvel movies as Doctor Doom, we take a look at some Doom and Iron Man stories it might draw inspiration from.
They both wear iron masks. One is a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. The other is a genius, ruler, sorceror megalomaniac. On paper, Iron Man and Doctor Doom could not be more different from one another. But are they really?
The two Marvel characters recently came back into the limelight thanks to the seismic announcement that actor Robert Downey Jr is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) not as Iron Man but as Doctor Doom.
While this is indeed an enticing prospect, it has also raised a whole lot of questions about how they would explain how Victor Von Doom looks so much like Tony Stark. Imagine how confused Tom Holland’s Peter Parker would be, for one.
Well, believe it or not, Stark and Doom actually have a lot in common in the comics, and it’s not just because both of them are men in iron masks.
Here are a few stories that directors Joe and Anthony Russo might be looking at when coming up with the story for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.
Robert Downey Jr. at the Marvel Studios Panel during 2024 Comic-Con International. — Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images, via AFP
Before we get into the stories, let’s do a quick recap of the two characters first.
Co-created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, Jack Kirby, Tony Stark made his debut as Iron Man in 1962’s Tales Of Suspense #39 in 1962, and proved popular enough to become one of the founding members of the Avengers in 1963, and got his first solo title in 1968.
While he was not the first Marvel hero to get a live action movie, it was 2008’s Iron Man that kickstarted the box-office behemoth that we now know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After Stark sacrificed himself to stop Thanos in Avengers Endgame, fans thought we had seen the last of Downey Jr in the MCU.
But Marvel Studios had other ideas, apparently, and he will now be returning as one of Marvel’s most deadly and powerful villains instead.
Doom made his debut in 1962, on the pages of The Fantastic Four #5.
Co-created by Lee and Kirby as well, Victor Von Doom also made his debut in 1962, on the pages of The Fantastic Four #5, in which he traps the superhero team in the Baxter Building with a, er, electrified net.
The ruler of the fictional nation of Latveria, Doom is a megalomaniac whose ultimate goal is simple – world domination by any means necessary. He’s also a super genius scientist who is highly skilled in magic. He may have started as the Fantastic Four’s arch-enemy, but he is powerful and ambitious enough to not only battle superheroes, but play major roles in Marvel’s biggest crossover events.
The AXIS event in 2015 was arguably one of the most convoluted crossovers in Marvel’s history (and there have been some questionable ones in the past), but it also gave us a version of Tony Stark that was decidedly more evil than he had ever been before.
Here’s a “too long didn’t read” version of AXIS: Red skull stole Professor X’s brain after he was killed by Cyclops in the Avengers Vs X-Men event, and grafted it to his brain, but when Magneto killed him, it merged with Red Skull’s evil consciousness to create Red Onslaught, a giant being with tentacles and a red skull for a head, and considerable mind-control powers.
Superior Iron Man shows us the evil side of Tony Stark.
In order to stop Red Onslaught, Scarlet Witch worked with Doctor Doom to cast an inversion spell to “invert the axis of Red Skull’s brain”. While the spell successfully takes down Red Onslaught, it also accidentally reverses the morality of Earth’s heroes and villains, including Sam Wilson (who was Captain America at the time) and Tony Stark!
While the spell was eventually undone, Stark found a way to shield himself and maintained his “evil” personality. In the Superior Iron Man series, he releases the formerly deadly Extremis virus to the public, giving them a taste of a perfect physical condition, but also makes it a “free trial” version requiring a subscription if they wanted to continue taking it.
While this storyline does include a Doctor Doom element in the form of the inversion spell, it is Stark’s “evil” persona that could be a template for the upcoming Doomsday’s storyline, provided they decide to go with the “Stark is Doom” angle.
In Infamous Iron Man, Doctor Doom takes on the mantle of Iron Man after Tony Stark’s physical body is incapacitated.
What happens when one of the deadliest super villains around decides to atone for his sins and become a hero instead? This is what happens in the Infamous Iron Man series in 2016, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Alex Maleev.
When Tony Stark is physically incapacitated and put in a coma by Captain Marvel during a fight at the end of the Civil War II event, Doctor Doom decides that the world still needs an Iron Man, and opts to take up the mantle of Iron Man himself.
This leads to a fascinating character study of Doom, as he seeks to make up for his past transgressions, and also grapples with “doing good” after being a bad guy for so long.
Secret Wars sees Doom take on the title God Emperor, ruler of Battleworld! — Photos: Marvel Comics
This is the big one. The Multiverse Saga was supposed to be Kang’s show, but with Jonathan Majors out of the picture, who better to step in and lead the charge into Avengers: Secret Wars than Doctor Doom?
In Jonathan Hickman’s epic Secret Wars event in 2015 (not the classic one from 1984, by the way), the entire Marvel multiverse is destroyed thanks to events called “incursions”, killing almost all the superheroes in Earth-616 and the “Ultimate” universe of Earth-1610.
However, in the wake of that destruction, a new world called Battleworld was born, comprising fragments of both Earths as well as other realities meshed together, and is ruled by none other than Victor Von Doom, who is now calling himself God Emperor Doom.
If the MCU really is heading towards an, er, Endgame that will see the destruction of the Multiverse, then Secret Wars would likely be the blueprint for the plot, especially since Doom plays such a pivotal role in it. Now the question is, will the MCU Doom actually be an evil Tony Stark? I guess we’ll find out in 2026!
