Tremendous Hero Worship is a daily opinion column by IGN’s Senior Employees Author Jesse Schedeen. Try the earlier Tremendous Hero Worship entry, Robert Pattinson’s Batman Has No Enterprise Being in James Gunn’s DCU.
Physician Doom has properly and actually cemented his standing as Marvel’s biggest villain by now. What’s to not love? He’s acquired boundless ambition and a good greater ego. He’s efficiently taken over the world greater than as soon as. He had a quick stint because the self-proclaimed God Emperor of all actuality. And none of that may totally disguise the truth that he’s a deeply flawed and self-loathing man who can’t recover from his decades-old feud along with his mental rival and former roommate.
Surprisingly sufficient, Doom has additionally emerged as Marvel’s most compelling hero over the previous two years. Not the normal Doom, who’s at present reigning over the Marvel Universe but once more in Marvel’s One World Underneath Doom crossover. Moderately, the Doom of the brand new Final Universe. He represents a really completely different but nonetheless completely fascinating tackle this iconic Marvel character.
The Final Universe’s Rebirth
To know why this model of Doom is so compelling, you first must wrap your head across the idea of Marvel’s Final Universe imprint. The unique Final line, which ran from 2000-2015, was devoted to giving readers up to date and streamlined variations of characters like Spider-Man, the Avengers (rebranded as The Ultimates), and the X-Males, all reimagined to swimsuit the twenty first Century and the age of the Struggle on Terror. It was nice stuff… up till Marvel misplaced the plot after a couple of years.
The brand new Final line, which kicked off in 2023, is extra purposeful and directed in the way it modifications the normal Marvel method. This world, Earth-6160, was meant to be a detailed copy of the common Marvel Universe, Earth-616. However because of the time-traveling machinations of The Maker (the twisted model of Reed Richards from the unique Final Universe), Earth-6160 has gone badly astray. The Maker labored to systematically suppress the emergence of Earth’s superheroes. Most of these superhumans that do exist serve on The Maker’s Council, a shadowy, autocratic cabal that secretly guidelines this dystopian world.
But, there’s a resistance motion. Collectively, the Earth-6160 variations of Tony Stark and Reed Richards have been in search of out those that have been robbed of their alternative to be heroes and giving them a second likelihood. That’s the entire premise behind Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s chart-topping Final Spider-Man, which encompasses a married, older Peter Parker turning into Spidey for the primary time. It’s additionally the thought fueling Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s The Ultimates, as Tony and Reed lead a ragtag band of heroes to liberate the world whereas the clock steadily counts right down to The Maker’s return.
I’m of the opinion that the Final line is the most effective factor Marvel is publishing in the meanwhile (particularly with the X-Males’s Krakoan period now over), and there’s a cause why The Ultimates was IGN’s greatest comedian e-book of 2024. Greater than every other e-book at Marvel or DC, The Ultimates seems like the comedian for this unusual and horrifying age during which we discover ourselves. It’s so refreshing to learn a superhero comedian the place the heroes aren’t merely defending and upholding the established order, however actively preventing to tear it down and construct one thing higher.
Who Is Final Doom?
If the brand new Final line represents the most effective of Marvel’s present comedian e-book crop, then Final Doom is its biggest and most compelling character. That’s as a result of, on this universe, Doom is Reed Richards. Within the Final Universe, one Reed is a horrible, seemingly unstoppable villain, whereas one other is its potential savior. What can I say? He’s a malleable character, and never simply because he can stretch and twist himself into literal knots.
Books like Final Invasion and The Ultimates have established an in depth backstory for Final Doom. When he got here to Earth-6160 and began constructing his secret empire, The Maker made a particular undertaking out of tormenting his multiversal doppelganger. The Maker quietly sabotaged Reed’s scientific work, in order that the cosmic accident meant to offer the Incredible 4 their powers as a substitute killed Johnny and Susan Storm and prompted Reed to be thrown in jail.
From there, The Maker spent years bodily and psychologically torturing Reed. He didn’t cease till Reed lastly accepted that he’s actually Doom – a black gap of a human being who sucks the life out of everybody and the whole lot he loves. Although Reed has since been liberated and joined the resistance towards The Maker, he nonetheless carries the profound scars from these years of torture. He nonetheless wears the visage of Physician Doom, like a modern-day Man within the Iron Masks. However the place Physician Doom’s masks initiatives energy and regal authority, Final Doom’s masks represents nothing however caged ache and anguish.
The query of why The Maker devoted a lot effort to ripping down a model of himself is an enchanting one. His hatred of Earth-6160’s Reed is because of each private and completely sensible causes.
A refugee of the unique Final Universe, this Reed as soon as served on his personal model of the Incredible 4, in the beginning collapsed and he misplaced his discovered household. This Reed has gone greater than a bit of insane after sealing himself away for a thousand years and turning into an immortal tyrant with an outsized mind. He clearly hates the person he was as a lot as he secretly yearns for what was misplaced, so punishing Earth-6160’s Reed is a approach of exorcising his personal demons. It’s been an actual wild trip for this character over the previous 15 years, and I’m nonetheless amazed at how The Maker (and fellow Final Universe refugee Miles Morales) continues to thrive as a personality lengthy after his universe has been consigned to the dustbin of the comedian e-book business.
There’s additionally the truth that, of their final encounter, The Maker requested the Reed Richards of the primary Marvel Universe a pointed query – “In the event you had the possibility, would you erase me from existence?”. That Reed admitted he would. So The Maker is aware of with certainty that the best risk to his new empire is Reed Richards. Just one Reed can cease one other. The answer? Destroy him completely and fully, in order that Reed’s unparalleled thoughts turns into impotent and nugatory.
Final Doom’s Battle with Melancholy
Did The Maker achieve his purpose of destroying Reed Richards? That query is on the coronary heart of what makes Final Doom such a compelling character. He’s a profoundly broken particular person. Who wouldn’t be, after what he’s suffered? He’s a superb scientist who failed in his life’s ambition but nonetheless strives towards overwhelming odds to construct a greater world. He’s an admirable man in a number of methods.
But, there’s one thing inherently sinister about anybody who wears the masks of Physician Doom. Reed isn’t any exception. The Ultimates regularly leaves us to marvel if The Maker has carried out too good a job of stamping out Reed’s heroic flame. He’s proven to carry his fellow heroes in contempt for what he sees as half-measures. Given the chance, he’d use time journey to rewrite and reshape the material of their universe simply as The Maker did earlier than him. And he can’t appear to flee his obsession with correcting his botched work. Doom consistently toils away in his lab, experimenting on mice and making an attempt to recreate the Incredible 4.
Lots of the characters in The Ultimates are depicted as being neurodivergent ultimately. Tony/Iron Lad is autistic. Big-Man is wracked by anxiousness and an entire mess of phobias. And Final Doom suffers from a despair so debilitating it makes day-after-day a wrestle. Doom vocalizes this within the actually unimaginable The Ultimates #4, a difficulty that explores 4 parallel threads of time concurrently. Right here, Doom refers to his despair as his “Damaging Zone,” a intelligent spin on the lethal dimension from the core Marvel Universe.
“I… undergo from durations of… excessive despair,” Doom tells Tony. “Throughout these durations it’s as if I’m… oppositely charged. Misplaced in an all-consuming universe the place nothing is feasible. I name it my ‘damaging zone’.”
This, greater than every other scene in The Ultimates, serves to humanize Final Doom and make him extra relatable than the larger-than-life Physician Doom of Earth-616 may ever be. What number of amongst us can perceive the plight of situational despair and the considered being floor down by the world and the limitless deluge of dangerous information? Who doesn’t have days the place they really feel trapped in their very own private Damaging Zone? I can actually relate.
All of this helps to mildew this model of Reed Richards into essentially the most advanced and layered character within the new Final Universe. He’s a person as soon as destined for greatness who had that life stolen away. He’s somebody who fights an uphill battle day-after-day merely to get away from bed and maintain transferring ahead. He bravely resists, but it stays to be seen how a lot of his battered soul he’s keen to sacrifice within the course of. He’s an uncommon and really broken hero in a universe that has far too few heroes. And he’s the one greatest cause why anybody even remotely taken with superhero comics needs to be following Marvel’s Final Universe line.
