At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios made the surprise announcement that the Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom would be played by Robert Downey, Jr. This was an unexpected choice, to say the least, given that Downey is, uh, already pretty well known for playing a different MCU character. It was also controversial, not least because he’s got some pretty big boots (and a cloak and an iron mask) to fill.
Because Doctor Doom is, quite simply, the greatest comic book supervillain of all time.
That’s a bold claim, so before I back it up, let’s give some background: Victor Von Doom was introduced in Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962) by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, making him older than Spider-Man (just barely), the X-Men, and certainly — ahem — Iron Man. In the story, Doom encases the entire Baxter Building in an impenetrable net; takes the Invisible Girl hostage; and forces the rest of the team to travel back in time (using a time machine Doom invented himself, because of course he did) to steal Blackbeard’s treasure, so that Doom could use the enchantment laid on the gems by Merlin (yes, that Merlin) to take over the world.
Let’s just take a moment to appreciate everything about that plan, shall we?
Because Doctor Doom has never for one second gotten less over the top than he was in 1962. He’s the human embodiment of “yes, and.” He is a monarch of the fictional European country Latveria and also Mr. Fantastic’s college rival and also one of the foremost scientific geniuses in the Marvel Universe and also a dark wizard and also one of the most formidable supervillains in the multiverse and also unofficial godfather to Reed and Sue’s daughter.
If you look up the word “baroque” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Doctor Doom. He wears an iron mask and a hooded cloak at all times. He rules the inexplicably devoted subjects of his dainty little cuckoo clock country with a fist as iron as the aforementioned mask. He built an army of identical Doombots that look just like him. He’s a dark wizard. I mean, come on. He constantly refers to himself in the third person, and his name is Victor Von Doom. By all rights, he should be a joke.
And yet he is genuinely one of the heavy hitters in the Marvel Universe, capable of shocking acts of destruction and cruelty (and sometimes heroism, just to keep things interesting). He’s killed countless innocent people. He sacrificed his first love, Valeria, to demons in exchange for magic armor made out of her skin and then named Reed and Sue’s daughter after her. (He got to name the baby because he delivered her. Obviously.) Mephisto, Marvel’s version of the devil, has called Doom his greatest enemy.
I can’t think of a single other supervillain who combines “genuine threat” with “completely ridiculous” to the same degree. When the Joker shows up, you know it’s about to get real, but he’s not actually funny. Meanwhile, no one thinks, say, Kite Man is the slightest bit scary. But Doctor Doom should always be taken completely seriously…but also not seriously at all. It’s a delicious contradiction that only works in the completely goofy, painfully self-serious world of superhero comic books.
Which brings us to the movies and that casting. The Fantastic Four have infamously never had a good movie. We won’t know until next year’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps if they will finally manage to break that curse, but will RDJ as Doom help or hinder the rebooted franchise?
To be clear, the main villain of the movie is Galactus. RDJ is only expected, not confirmed, to appear in a post-credits scene. His earliest confirmed appearance as the character is in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday. And let’s be honest: “People keep saying the words ‘MCU fatigue,’ so we’re putting RDJ in an Avengers movie” feels like a real lazy solution to Marvel’s problem. Also, the notion of severing Doom from his very personal relationship with the FF to make him a generic successor to Thanos doesn’t bode well for Marvel treating their First Family with the respect they deserve.
Part of the issue is that RDJ’s quippy portrayal of Tony Stark was so popular it changed Tony’s personality in the comics, making actor and character inextricable. But Downey is, of course, an actor. If he can let go of the droll irony that characterizes his Tony in order to embrace the sublime ridiculousness of Doom, then…yeah, sure, he’ll probably do okay. It helps that we shouldn’t actually see his face, not if they do the character right.
It’s worth noting that Doom is Romani, and Downey is not. Doom has never been portrayed by a Romani actor, nor has the MCU ever cast an actor to play characters who are Romani in the comics (notably Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who also had their Jewish heritage erased for film). I can’t imagine the 37th Avengers movie, featuring 93 different superheroes shouting their catchphrases and recycling jokes from older movies, would have had a lot of time to dig into Doom’s cultural background anyway, but it would have been nice to think that Marvel was making even a little bit of an effort to listen to fans from marginalized backgrounds. MCU fatigue has multiple causes, but I’d argue that “repeated whitewashing” is a more important one than “not enough Robert Downey, Jr.”
As a big Fantastic Four fan, I’ve made my peace with the notion that they may never have a good movie. It’s easier on my heart than getting my hopes up. (I feel this way about Superman, too. Next year’s gonna be intense for me.) I feel the same way about whatever is about to happen with Doctor Doom. It could be great! It could be awful! It could be another MCU movie I don’t get around to seeing until it’s been on Disney+ for three years!
In the end, it doesn’t matter. We have 64 years of Doom comics to enjoy — 66 by the time Avengers: Doomsday comes out — in all of his grandiose, operatic, brutal, goofy-ass glory. Who needs more than that?
