Doctor Doom is the hardest character to play in the MCU, says Marvel’s own Doom Guy
Fantastic four writer (en Squirrel girl writer, and Dinosaur comics writer) Ryan North knows why Doctor Doom is the Cadillac of supervillains.
“He has all the powers of science, he has all the powers of magic. And he dresses like a robot in a cape,” he told Polygon via video chat. “Everything is ‘peak’.” (laughs) And most impressive of all, he can speak in the third person and make it read as cool and not ridiculous.
Polygon had the chance to speak with North ahead of his first stint as head writer on a major Marvel crossover event, One world under doom – a nine-issue story in which Doctor Doom has already taken over the world on the first page, and it’s up to the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to find out how he did it and how to undo it.
North has written Marvel’s Fantastic four since 2022, so he had already spent a lot of time thinking about Doctor Doom. Of One world under doom #1 that will hit the shelves next month, that percentage has only increased. So naturally we asked if he had any advice for the people behind Doctor Doom’s upcoming entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe – writers, directors and actor Robert Downey, Jr. – on how to tackle the quintessential Marvel Comics enemy.
“I’m not an actor,” North replied, “but it seems to me that Doom is probably the most difficult character to play in the entire Marvel Universe. Because he has this depth, but also this breadth. He can send you back in time for Blackbeard’s gold” – the very bizarre scheme in which Doom trapped the Fantastic Four in his first appearance – “and he can also trade someone’s soul in Hell and do terrible, terrible things .”
“That’s one enormous range for a character,” North continued, “especially for an actor in an hour or two hour movie to hit (…) I mean I’ve been thinking about Doom for the last few years and writing speeches for Doom, capturing that voice. And I had the advantage of producing twenty pages a month, and that gives me time to take long walks and try to capture in a few words what Doom says on this one page. I can’t imagine the challenge of doing that full-time for a year, or whatever it takes, to make a movie.
But if he had to summarize it all? “The bottom line, I guess, is don’t forget his depth,” North concluded. “He can do everything.”
One world under doom #1 hits shelves on February 12, kicking off the crossover event. The main series, written by North and drawn by RB Silva (Powers of X), will flow into both existing series and Storm And Fantastic fourand tie-in books such as Thunderbolts: Doomstrike And Red Hulk. Read on for Marvel’s four-page preview of issue #1: