The Kat&#39;s Journal

The guy who wrote the first one doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground on one major point. Doctor Doom took over Latveria toward the end of Stan and Jack's run on Fantastic Four.

In all of his early Lee/Kirby appearances, Doom was a guy with high tech airships and other gadgets who operated out of a castle in upstate New York. So on that point, the movie is actually staying closer to the comic.

The name change just seems stupid. Von Doom is German. It sounds scary. Nazi-ish. Van Damme is Belgian. Nobody's scared of Belgians, and besides, he's named after a half rate actor.

The problem is, I still honestly believe that FF should have been cancelled after issue 109. Part of what made the Lee/Kirby one so great was that it was perfectly suited to its era. Everything since then has been derivative or, at best, nostalgic. So making a movie, you're faced with two options. 1) Make it a period piece set in the 60's...which is what I personally would've gone for. Or 2) Try to update the source material to the 21st Century, which sounds like what they're doing.

Oh, and Von Doom has never...EVER...been anywhere near my class. For the record.

From:

Pshhhht.

Were you created by The King and The Man, Lex?

No!

And Doom was president long before you were. Admittedly it was a hundred years in the future. But still.

From:

lithera.livejournal.com

Luthor vs Doom! Fight!

From:

Luthor wins. Here's a list of reasons why:

1) Doom has honor. Luthor wins by any means.
2) Doom cares for the people of Latveria, giving Luthor about a million bargaining chips. Lex only has Lena...and see #1...Doom wouldn't slaughter an infant.
3) Lex's battlesuit is designed to, and has, let him whup the asses of Superman (who can lift like 2 megatons) and Batman. Doom's battlesuit has gotten him whupped by the Thing (who can lift like...80 tons).
4) Doom has greater scientific genius but Lex has greater strategic evil brilliance. Doom would win the science fair. Lex would win the battle.
5) Returning again to #1, Lex will stop at nothing to destroy an opponent. Doom won't violate certain core principles.
6) Doom despises fisticuffs, Lex likes to mix it up when he gets the chance.
7) Lex is willing to destroy his own health for a tactical damage. Doom isn't, he's too vain.

I could probably come up with more, if I took some time. Lex v. Doom wouldn't even be close. Doom's only chance would be the fact that facing Lex, he'd look heroic, and heroes tend to win in the end. But that's his only shot.

From:

1) You say that Doom has honor. You assume this is a heroic sense of honor. Doom won't lie and he won't kill wantonly. That's pretty much it. Other than that, all bets are off.

2) If Luthor ever tried to use those "bargaining chips", Doom would gladly use Lena as his. See "Unthinkable", when he banished Franklin to HELL.

3) Tony Stark has in the past commented that if Doom really wanted to he could build a power-armor that would crumple his best Iron Man designs like tin-foil. Your reasoning here is faulty. :)

4) On the contrary, Doom is a masterful tactician. Plots within plots, wheels within wheels. As long as he's alive the scheme goes on. Lex would come up with a grand master plan only to find out that it played into some larger plan of Doom's. Nyaha.

5) Doom won't violate core principles if he RESPECTS his opponent. Against a scumbag like the Red Skull, all bets are off. Lex would fall into that category too.

6) Doom has been known to mix it up if he has to. However he's usually got enough tricks up his sleeve where he doesn't have to. Lex would try to draw him into a physical confrontation, only to be faced with the Doombot trick... and then possibly an attack from behind.

7) Doom has sacrificed his health before. Harkening back to "Secret Wars", he let the Beyonder systematically pull him apart. Again, your reasoning here is faulty; Lex will injure himself foolishly, and Doom will not. The difference is that he'll take calculated risks over foolish ones. >:D

Finally, compared to Lex, Doom IS heroic. At least if I were dealing with Doctor Doom I know he'd keep his word. Can't say that about Lex, can I?

From:

See, you argue from what Doom could in theory do, not what Doom has actually done. You claim Doom has plots within plots and wheels within wheels, but name one that he's ever brought to fruition? I don't consider kidnapping Sue Richards and making the FF steal Blackbeard's treasure for him particularly Byzantine. Doom embarks on small, short term campaigns, and he always gets caught at the end. He's made a lot of scientific acheivements, but he has very few victories in his column.

His small sorties against the F.F. always end in disaster for him, as he ends up in a fistfight with Reed Richards, which he loses (see F.F. #200 and #350-352). Doom is all image and all talk. He hasn't ever done a damn thing other than take over a tiny Eastern European banana republic, which he later lost control of, and needed the F.F.'s help to retake. Lex, on the other hand, has been on the cutting edge of the United States' technological revolution for decades now, and is so manipulative he managed to be /elected/ President, rather than propping himself up as a petty dictator of a bunch of peasants or executing a coup d'etat at some future date.

Lex has a laundry list of real evil accomplishments and plots that have worked, and he's only been caught once, recently, and that because he was drug-addled. And even that momentary reversal is only going to make him even /more/ dangerous. Doom has the simplest plots (not to mention inventions) blow up in his face.

Lex v. Doom would go like this: Lex would use a nuclear weapon to destroy Latveria. Doom would survive, of course, but he will have lost everything, including most of his advanced equipment due to the E.M.P. When he invariably, in true Marvel villain fashion that causes him to /always/ lose, came to Lex to physically exact revenge, Lex would battlesuit up and then use the nanites he secured from the D.E.O. designed to kill Steel to turn Doom's armor against him and destroy him.

Sure, Doom would come back as some kind of half-assed clone like he used to back in the day, but he'd have no power base, and he'd have to go back to trying to steal pirate treasure just to buy the Radio Shack parts he'd need to make a new face to hide his f*ed up face.

Lex in two round, bitches!

From:

Wrong, you bald-headed biznatch!

DOOM has taken on a being that was essentially GOD (and a really twinky version of God, too) in the Beyonder - And WON.

He's also become President, though admittedly that didn't turn out well.

Doom's vendetta against Reed Richards is personal, and highly irrational, yes. But no one's denying the man has issues. HOWEVER... let me propose an alternative to your little scenario.

Lex fires a nuclear weapon at Latveria. Doom's SDI defense satelite that he put into via the Latverian space program shoots it down. KAPOW, BITCHES!

Lex: ...Shit.

Doom is PISSED OFF. LEX MUST GO.

So Doom teams up with Batman and both of them manipulate Superman into attacking on one front, so they can sneak-attack on the other.

Lex deals with the attack on Superman, only to find that he's lost control of Lexcorp to Bruce Wayne, and that his funds have all been frozen, and Doom's masterful political maneuverings have set up a nice appointment for Baldy at a U.N. Tribunal - Which is itself laughable, admittedly - Until Lex finds himself extradited to Latveria.

As for the Nanites? Hah! You think Doom wouldn't have anticipated that in advance? Killer nanites. Haha. Nice try. Lex would do that only to find that the brief moment where he had to connect to Doom's armor to inject the nanites would have allowed Doom to piggyback a virus into Lex's armor that would turn its internal systems against themselves and electrocute him in his UGLY GREEN SHELL at Doom's command!

DOOM in round two! Lex is almost as big a bitch as Richards!

From:

Alright, here's where I get to point out a couple of things.

Luthor is foes with Superman. Doom is foes with the FF.

Now, Superman has problems with people like the Toyman, who build killer toys. He struggles against characters like Gorilla Grodd and Professor Light and the Weather Wizard (alright, so a Flash villain, but hear me out). The DC heroes regularly face off against villains far less impressive and less cool than they are (Batman's the exception, but I'm talking in general), and they struggle. Still, they manage to win. Luthor is up there on the cool list, but the fact that his associates include people like "Black Manta" is a strike against him.

Doom, on the other hand, is part of a group of villains who, while being more powerful than the heores, regularly are defeated due to intelligent and creative heroes. The FF goes up against Galactus. They win. Doom gets the powers of the Beyonder and fights Captain America one on one, and who wins? (Well, the Beyonder won, but Cap survived... or at least, he was never dead more than a couple seconds at a time.)

Yet somehow, Doom hasn't been totally defeated, despite the fact that he's taken on Mephisto directly, and defeated the Beyonder, and regularly faced off with heroes who can take down gods in personal combat. The fact that Doom hasn't been defeated by such intelligently-creative powerful heroes is really impressive, where the fact that Superman, who has troubles with dealing with a stupid clone of himself, hasn't once been taken out by Luthor, even with a regular supply of Krytonite, really is unfortunate for Luthor.

Doom wins. Luthor, cool as he is, is only arguably the second-coolest villain in all DC... and DC's villains suck. Doom, on the other hand, can be argued to hold the #1 slot, and there's only an arguement if you count Magento as a villain. And Marvel's villains, overall (and not counting Spidey's foes), are much cooler than DC's.

From:

Your whole argument is on a false basis. You argue that Doom has never been beaten. Here's a list of times he was beaten.

1) In his second appearance, FF #17, he was thrown out of his own blimp/airship, and was only saved by the timely arrival of the alien Ovoids. That's right...deus ex machina aliens had to save him from death because he fell out of his own blimp.

2) Two appearances later, the Thing beat the living crap out of him, causing him to vow eternal revenge on Ben Grimm.

3) In the mid-70's, he was killed. He came back as a clone of himself.

4) Reed Richards beat Doom in a fistfight in FF #200, causing Doom to lose Latveria and end up in a mental hospital. That's right...Doom can't even win a fistfight with Reed Richards. Doom didn't take back Latveria on his own, either. He had to go beg the FF to help him.

5) Doom was outwitted by the Puppet Master in FF #236. The Puppet Master. 'Nuff Said.

6) Doom got killed when his plan backfired in FF #260 and was blown up by the Silver Surfer. He only survived by transferring his mind to a suburban schmoe, and then proceeded to manhandle Aunt May. Ooooh...big man.

7) Doom defeated Mephisto...no, wait. Franklin Richards beat Mephisto for Doom to save his mommy.

8) FF #319, Doom gets his ass whupped by the Molecule Man.

9) FF #350-352, Doom loses another fistfight to Reed Richards after finally managing to take Latveria back after losing it again.

10) Three years later, Doom gets in /another/ stupid fistfight with Reed Richards that throws both of them into another dimension for months.

11) Reed and Doom return just in time to die again. Once all the heroes leave, Doom takes over a world created by Rob Liefeld. Rob Liefeld.

12) Doom then got OVERTHROWN BY THE LIEFELD CHARACTERS! And had to fight, and fail to get his planet back.

13) When Doom did get back to Earth, Reed whupped his ass, again, and got stuck in his armor.

This is just off the top of my head. Doom is much more powerful than Reed, and just as smart but Reed, and others far more feeble, defeat Doom /CONSTANTLY/. His plans have /NEVER/ worked. Ever. Not once. He just wanders around giving speeches and looking imposing.

Now, on the other hand, we have Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor is a bald guy with no super-powers. He regular takes on Superman, a guy who can lob planets at each other. And Lex has /never/ truly been beaten. Not once. He assassinated the mayor of Metropolis. Got away scot free. He destroyed all of Metropolis and beat Superman half to death, and got off at trial. He brutally tortured Lana Lang, and Superman couldn't do a thing about it. He ruined countless lives, then got elected President of the United States...and there's nothing Superman could do about it.

There's simply no comparison between Luthor and Doom. Doom loses. Every time. To far more feeble individuals. Luthor always wins, or at least pulls out a draw, against an individual UNBELIEVABLY more powerful. Marvel has no good villains, though I'll give you that Doom's their best. All of their villains are either anti-heroes, ominous individuals (like Sinister or Apocalypse) who have never done a dang thing, or jabronis who get beaten up by heroes once a week.

Black Manta is a better villain than Doom. He actually killed Aquaman's son. Again, despite being in every way seemingly less powerful. When Doom manages to...ever have one of his plans work...let alone off Franklin, then come talk to me.

From:

apestyle.livejournal.com

Doom Vs. Luthor:

Doom: Green and Iron
Luthor: Green and Purple. Green and Purple? Does he take fashion tips from The Hulk?

On fashion alone, Doom whups Luthor's ass.

Oh, and you can never trust those comic writers. I'm sure Doom has had plenty of successes, none chronicled.

From:

Again, I'm talking comics, not cartoons.

Doom: Tin suit with a green skirt and cape.
Lex: Expensive Italian suit.

Doom looks like he's about to appear in the Joel Schumacher production of Man in the Iron Mask.

Lex has it all over Doom on style.

From:

apestyle.livejournal.com

I dispute your findings:

vs,

I rest my case.

Plus, according to my research, Dr. Doom beats Lex, albeit narrowly. Check out this link.

From:

Yes, Superman can lob planets. Yet somehow, he has trouble defeating such villains as "the Weather Wizard." The fact that Luthor struggles against Superman speaks volumes about the quality of villain Luthor is.

Reed, on the other hand, is on speaking terms and is respected by the Eater of Planets. Yes, Reed has defeated Galactus. The fact that Doom hasn't been crushed utterly, even though Reed regularly goes up against foes 10x more powerful than Doom... well, that says something about Doom, too.

Sure, Doom has suffered setbacks. But that's all they are. Setbacks. Killed? No problem. I'll just clone myself. Mom's soul trapped by the Lord of Evil? No big deal... I'll just manipulate the world's most powerful sorcerer to do my dirty work for me. Killed again? Phhsst... I'll just swap my mind into an innocent bystander, and try to recreate my body for me... by summoning the BEYONDER and making him do it! And the Beyonder, who was pissed off beyond belief at Existence at that point and was ready to destroy the universe... STILL remade Doom's body for him, and put his mind back in it.

No matter what happens to Doom, it's just a temporary setback, at worst... and if he's really played his cards right, even the worst setback will further his plans somewhere down the line.

From:

Okay, I think part of the problem here is that you don't read a lot of DC Comics. Weather Wizard is a Flash villain, man. The only place he's a Superman villain was the cartoon. I'm not debating cartoons, I'm debating comics. In cartoons, all villains act like stupid jackholes.

Superman villains are like Brainiac, the machine god, and Darkseid, Lord of Evil. So, I think you need to hit the comics before you talk smack on this point.

And your whole 'Reed outsmarted Galactus' so him beating Doom is somehow better is ridiculous. You can't have it both ways. Either someone (like Lex) defeating someone 1,000 times more powerful than him all the time score points, or it doesn't. Either being beaten by someone far weaker than you (Reed) loses you points or it doesn't.

Lex Luthor has /never/ been defeated by the most powerful being on Earth, and he faces him solely with his bald head and his titanic balls.

From:

Marvel has no good villains, though I'll give you that Doom's their best. All of their villains are either anti-heroes, ominous individuals (like Sinister or Apocalypse) who have never done a dang thing, or jabronis who get beaten up by heroes once a week.

Oh, and on this point? Where are you getting that crack, and will you share?

Marvel: Doom. Magneto. Dormammu. The Sentinels. Lady Deathstrike. Mephisto. Ultron. Even Spidey's villains, who have such craptactular villains as Stiltman and the Jackal, have great villains, too: the Kingpin, Green Goblin, Doc Oc, Kraven, Mysterio.

DC: You've got Luthor, and you've got Vandal Savage, and other than that, you've got Batman villains. That's it for cool villains. (Now, admittedly, Professor Zoom is a good villain with an atrocious name.) Sure, there are some okay villains here and there, and even some pretty good ones, but for hands-down, kick-ass, scary villains... that's about it.

From:

Okay. I have to disagree with you about the DC villains. A LOT of them are FUCKING SCARY AS HELL. See Geoff Johns' version of Gorilla Grodd. That thing is EVIL.

And as for you, Green Luthor!

The Puppet Master: Thought he'd beaten Doom. WRONG! A Doombot ripped the roof of his little dollhouse-castle thing and crushed him like the tiny bitch he is and then retrieved the mini-doom so he could put him back into his real body.

And BEGGING the FF to come help him Liberate Latveria? NO. Doom MADE them do it. He didn't ask. He kidnapped and overpowered them and then messed with their heads so they couldn't attack him. Then rubbed their face in the fact that their 'liberation' of Latveria had put a maniac on the throne, who'd turned the entire place into a toilet.

And who did Johnny have to beg to save Susan and her baby? That's right. D to the O to the O to the M. Where Reed failed once before, Doom succeeded.

See, you're mistaking a Luthorian weakness for a Doom one. Luthor doesn't know when to walk away. He goes so rabidly mindfucking crazy trying to destroy Superman or conquer the world or whatever that he overextends himself and gets punished for it.

Doom does that when dealing with Reed Richards. Who is a LOT tougher than you give him credit for being. The man's basically made of super-rubber. It's almost impossible to make any lasting harm stick to him.

But when, say, Spider-Man crosses his path? Doom doesn't care. He admires the wallcrawler's Chutzpah. So he lets him walk away. It's all a big game anyway. Doom could, and has, conquered the world (the Earth-Earth) more than once. At least once he gave it up because the way he went about it made it TOO EASY! He's a gameplayer. Luthor's merely an obnoxious capitalist pig with no ethics and no sense of style. You heard me.

From:

Well, sure, there are some nice DC villains.

There are also some awfully stinky Marvel villains.

But over all... Marvel has more Dooms and Magnetos than DC has Jokers and Luthors.

And DC has more Weather Wizards and Toymans than Marvel has Stiltmans and Jackals.

From:

What makes Magneto a crap villain is twofold:

1) He's not a villain half the time.
2) As samguthrie is wont to point out, he's stupidly self-defeating. "I'm going to destroy one of your nuclear subs because you hate and fear mutants, just because a mutant destroyed one of your nuclear subs."

This is my point about Marvel villains. Magneto isn't a villain half the time. Doom has never carried out a successful plan. Kingpin gets his ass kicked/killed/kicked out of power constantly. By Daredevil. While Lex snears in Superman's face every day and gets away with it.

Spider-Man's villains all lose by being outsmarted and beat up by Spider-Man. About the 15th time Doc Ock got his ass kicked, he stopped being a credible threat to me.

Actually, Marvel's best villain is probably Norman Osborn. Because he won. Plain and simple. Several times actually.

But he's an exception. DC has any number of incredibly good villains. Lex Luthor. Brainiac. Joker. Riddler. Scarecrow. Poison Ivy. Bane. Deathstroke the Terminator. Lady Shiva. Black Manta. Black Adam. Eclipso. Dr. Sivana. Johnny Sorrow. Icicle. Captain Cold. Mirror Master. Circe. Cheetah. Solomon Grundy. Sinestro. Darkseid. Count Vertigo. Deadshot. Cheshire. Spirit King. Ultra-Humanite. Grodd.

What makes DC villains better is that DC villains actually succeed. They don't get their asses kicked weekly. They win half the time. And even when they lose, they make it so costly to the heroes that they still partially win. Marvel villains all get beat up constantly, and never win.

Some examples from above. Grodd has slaughtered countless people, and destroyed half of the Flash's hometown recently. Ultra-Humanite transplanted his brain into the body of one of the JSA's members, killing him, and used his powers to take over the world. Spirit King murdered Mr. Terrific. Cheshire nuked a whole country. Eclipso killed Dr. Midnight, Wildcat II, Manhunter, Creeper, and Peacemaker. Black Manta killed Aquaman's son. The Joker killed Robin, paralyzed Batgirl, and murdered Jim Gordon's wife. The Scarecrow destroyed Bruce Wayne's relationship with Vicky Vale by torturing her just for being close to him.

Doom and the Marvel bunch never succeed, and never really make the heroes pay. Lex and the DC bunch win half the time, making their ongoing battles with the heroes far more interesting, and them far more effective villains.

And, for the record, both Weather Wizard and Toyman are great villains. Read the Flash #175 to see how cool the Weather Wizard is when written properly. And the Toyman murdered the child of one of Superman's best friends. He's a psycho kid killer. Not a guy with stilts. Read more comics, watch fewer old cartoons.;)

From:

I would just like to say, that I am NOT knocking Lex as a villain. His very nature is the embodiment of Chutzpah.

And honestly? If I were to compare Doom to a DC character anyway, it wouldn't be Lex; it'd be Batman.

Doom is basically Batman if Batman crossed those last few lines (being interested in out-and-out conquest, being willing to kill).

There are different personality traits, Doom is a great deal less physically inclined, more 'Old World' in terms of his personality, and a lot more focused on physical vanity (his ego and his vanity are his two greatest character flaws), but in terms of brilliance, and sheer will to win? Doom and the Bat are a lot alike.

If he behaved more like his 2099 self? I could easily see Doom as a member of the JLA.

From:

leiden.livejournal.com

Whoa now. You can knock Doom but don't front on Spidey.

Just because Doom has been beaten by Spider-Man doesn't make him a lesser villain.

1, Peter Parker is a certifiable genius, he has been since high school. Every time he's beaten Doom it's been because he was prepared for it. I recall (failing to remember the issue number) Doom getting the drop on Spidey, whooping his ass and making him run like hell. Even that didn't work as Doom just jet-packed in as soon as Spider-Man stopped. Spider-Man is arguably the best human-sized, non-teleporting evasionist in Marvel's lineup so that's no small feat.

2, Just because Spidey can't lift 100 tons doesn't mean he can't lift 20. He's survived multi-storied buildings being dropped on his head, being shot, drugged, beaten and electrocuted. When Spidey punches, even Doom feels it.

Also: Asserting that Marvel's villains get their asses kicked on a weekly basis is pure fallacy. Just like in DC, the hero's always overcome in the end but there is almost always a cost. For the first long while, a new villain would show up, get their ass kicked and we'd move on to the next issue but that doesn't happen much anymore. Norman and Harry Osbourne are arguably the two most sadistic villains in Marvel. Not only did they try to slowly dissasemble and kill Spider-Man's entire network of friends and family, they included themselves onto that list just to fuck with his head. And then they left him postumous notes to keep fucking with him.

Galactus eats world. Entire freakin' worlds. The better the bodycount the happier he is.

Thanos caused the Silver Surfer to inadvertantly bring a plague to an entire juvinile race. He did this just to prove a point.

Sabertooth routinely kills Wolverine's loved ones. He makes a habit of giving various X-Men (see: Gambit) psychological trauma that will last them their whole lives.

DC villains blow things up, terrorize the populace and make regular bids for world domination but in the end the hero's slap them around and put them back at Arkham (excluding the Joker from this generalization, I admit to him being one of the nastiest villains ever). Marvel villains go for the hero's throat. They find the weak spot and exploit it so that even after the hero's beat them, they leave so much trauma behind that "winning" is a very subjective term.

DC breaks buildings.
Marvel breaks souls.

You can rebuild buildings.

From:

leiden.livejournal.com

Sorry. I get defensive about the web-head.

From: