You are the undisputed authority on all things Doom, so I defer to you.
Honestly, I never understood the appeal. In my 4+ decades of reading comics, I think I only read maybe three or four issues with Doom in them. I never cared for the FF and never read or collected any of their stuff, so the only actual issue I know off the top of my head that I had for sure with Doom was Iron Man # 250.
Well, in most cases what attracts me first is the general aesthetic, especially in something as superficial as comic books. Doom being both a scientist and a sorcerer, and also a king with a cool mask and armour basically meant that he might as well had been writen for me. But even diving deeper than that, I found his characterisation better than most capes. Most of it goes onto the Meta level, Morrison Hypercrisis style (but not to the trippy extent he takes it, I keep it to the confines of the fictional world). The contradictions as a result of different writers and arcs come together to form a more rounded character than the rest, who cannot do anything but suffer under the revolving door that are Big 2 comics. He can have a story where he's a hammy 80s villain, another where he's a proper anti-hero, and another where he's magical Hannibal, and it all works. The beauty being that anything you don't like you can disregard and it not only doesn't retract from the character, but it adds to it.
Ever since I was a wee lad and first got into Vertigo, I thought Doom was prime for a Sandman/Lucifer type of story, beyond cape restrictions. I wrote some fanfics. Simpler times...
But honestly, the TLDR is that he's got all the ingredients I find kewl. As for FF, I like it in theory, and I have all the Omnis released thus far, but I will commit the heresy of saying that I don't actually enjoy it. I find Ben, Johnny and usually Sue to be rather dull, and I never got the "noooo the SF adventures have to be juxtaposed with the family life on Earth" talk. I wanted super-powered Star Trek, not a sitcom. Ultimate FF catered to me a bit more, but it went off the rails quickly. Honestly, I just plain find the aesthetics boring. Rocky guy, fire guy, blue jumpsuits; eh. Reed's the only one I like, because he harkens back to the adventurer scientist type, and I mostly just read it for Doom (obviously) and the villains. It's what's making it so difficult for me to stop caring about the X-Men, you know. I've dropped ~700€ on FF Omnis till now, with another 300€ until next year, and I don't even like them! So how can I talk myself out of completing my X-Collection? I cite the cash, but I've already thrown them on something I don't enjoy half as much. A part of me wants to drop them so that the MCU won't disappoint me too much and I'll be out by 2026, but with Jackman in DP3 I figure there's good chances of Stewart/McKellen/Fassbender/McAvoy returning in Secret Wars, so I could get my big wants and get out in time. We'll see, I'm rambling again.
I hope you eventually get to see your vision of Victor Von Doom on the silver screen, but it's evident that Marvel has long since lost its mojo, so I don't know.
I know people are really excited about the FF and the X-Men coming in to "save" the MCU, but I just wonder why? FF already has two mediocre movies and one disaster and one from the 90s that only exists as a bootleg VHS tape. Audiences clearly never latched on to the group, so why would it be different now?
And X-Men was very successful, but I think they managed to drive that success right into the ground with all those crappy sequels and retreads.
Eh. You guys know me. I'm cynical.
Honestly, all I'm hoping for is good casting and customing. I've made my peace with the fact that none of these flicks and characters will be close to their roots, and will be more low-effort trashflicks. As long as I get a good dolly to put next to my Omni, I'm good. That's all I need.
I like Doom as a sixties comic book villain but not as a movie villain. I just don’t know how they could do it both modern cinematic and maintain the spirit of the comic book character. I guess some really smart screenwriters and directors could come up with something. Heck, I didn’t think in a million years they could do a convincing giant purple dude with some colourful jewellery.
Doom's a character that is divisive in the sense that you have hammy 60s villain Doom, and the more fleshed out one Post-Byrne (who was building on the Lee/Kirby stuff anyhow). Some write him too "noble" others too evil, and you need a healthy balance for him to work. Someone like Waid is abhorent, and turned him into the guy who throws kids to Hell and wears skin armours. It was disgusting, and it made me dislike Waid. Hickman has a pretty great handle on him; not too evil, not too good, a mixed bag of insecurities and bravado.
Honestly, he's not hard to translate to film. The problem is what space he occupies. I never really found that he fit the FF. Yes, he does based on the narrative. They're a family, he's a lonely arse, they're American explorers/futurists and he's a Balkan dictator, and so on. But there's no "spark". I've enjoyed his interactions with Stark and Strange much more over the decades, and feel as if he should've truly graduated past the FF decades ago, becoming a proper solo figure.
Victor you see what they did to Kang and Namor what makes you think Doom won’t be misrepresented as well?
Namor was always tricky, because white ethnostates/myths/histories aren't allowed nowadays, so I never had too much hope. But I figured they'd have gone with some jacked half-Asian/half-white guy, who could've easily evoked comic Namor's regal features. Alas, they went in a totally different direction. Which could've been fine in theory too, but they screwed that up too. I don't understand what they saw in that pudgy manlet guy, but it is what it is. Kang surprised me, and I've made my thoughts on the subject clear. Best I can say is that the dude's jacked, not a manlet and seems nice (unlike some other DYELs playing at Kings...), but he's a total miscast. But hey, as long as I can get the dolly and just drop a Jude Law/Christian Bale head on it, I won't be too angry.
As for Doom, he's just too big and vital for them to ruin. His name's "Victor Von Doom" and he's a Dictator in the Balkans. Come on, you can't really play around too much with that. But hey, maybe we'll get Doctor Du'um, the Wakandan exile who took over the primitive Eastern Euros to build a multicultural haven, and he'll be played by Lakeith Stanfield... I don't know, like I said, give me a good doll and that's all I care about at this point. Same goes for everything else. Give me a jacked 6'3" Chad as Cyclops and a hot redhead as Jean, and I won't be too disappointed if they do the current polyamory orgy island (complete with a literal orphanage of kids born of orgy sex and dumped there!) stories...
