Marvel Cinematic Universe

And remember that his appearance is because of his actions.

The biggest thing that convinced people to sympathize with Doom is that, for some reason, some writers like to portray Latveria like it's become some sort of utopic paradise under Doom's crippling, brutal authoritarianism. This made Doom complex in the worst possible way, and it gave rise to the "Would the world be better off if Doom conquered it?" debate.

Other writers tend have tried to rectify this by presenting "Doom's utopic paradise" as Latverian propaganda. Under their pen, Latveria is basically North Korea. It's suffering under the yoke of tyranny, but Doom masks that suffering beneath a public veneer of Totes A Great Place To Live, Really. Which makes more sense and has a much less ugly theme than, ugh, "Is authoritarianism secretly a good thing?" has.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 8:08:26 AM

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There was also one storyline where Reed and Ben tried to go back in time to stop Doom from becoming Doom by stopping the accident...only to be foiled by other time traveling Doctor Dooms, who convince past Doom to embrace what he'll become because of how powerful he'll be in the future.

Latveria is basically a dictatorship where the Secret Police have been replaced with killer robots.

Edited by M84 on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:10:38 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

That’s a good point

Edited by Bocaj on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:10:27 AM

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See, you can do that with any dime a dozen dictator. “Everything was secretly horrible!” The concept of good coming from horrible people to me, is more interesting, but the answer is always “Doom’s accomplishments don’t justify his ego and his demands.” Because at the end of the day, is it worth it if all it takes is one slight bruise to Doom’s ego to unravel everything? He wants to be God on Earth and the trade off of placating him is not worth it.

I think this is why people liked Doom 2099 so much.

Edited by Beatman1 on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:13:41 AM

@Tobias So nothing really.

Secret War God Doom had him make Reed’s wife & children as his own.

Now that’s petty.

Hey, hey, actually linking to a medical site.

Edited by slimcoder on Sep 10th 2019 at 7:15:19 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

You're going to have to cite something here, because otherwise you are claiming things without actual proof. Nothing I've read has shown that "sociopath" is an outdated medical diagnosis — in fact, the DSM-V has an entire definition of sociopath (or someone with "Antisocial Personality Disorder") and describes them as such: "People with ASPD can’t understand others’ feelings. They’ll often break rules or make impulsive decisions without feeling guilty for the harm they cause. People with ASPD may also use “mind games” to control friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers. They may also be perceived as charismatic or charming."

Which sounds startingly like Doom.

(I think you are conflating sociopaths with "psychopaths," which is the "pure evil" thing that doesn't actually exist.)

Edited by alliterator on Sep 10th 2019 at 7:16:12 AM

It's similar to Lex Luthor, really. Lex's genius could make the world a paradise, but it's not worth pandering to his petty ego. Like Superman has said in various continuities, if Lex really cared about saving the world, he could have done it long ago.

That storyline ended with Doom making a psychological breakthrough of sorts when he finally admitted that Reed was the smarter man — before immediately trying to kill him.

Edited by M84 on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:15:46 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

...yes, you can do that with any dime-a-dozen dictator. Because dictators and dictatorships are bad.

There's a line between saying "Sometimes bad guys do good things" and saying "Maybe the bad guy is actually the good guy and we're all just wrong." Presenting a crippling authoritarian regime as a magical land of rainbows and happiness crosses the line into that second thing. That's precisely why "Latveria is a paradise!" received the backlash that it did, both from fans and later writers.

Superhero comics should not endorse fascism.

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I blame John Byrne because.

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I'm not sure where "Latveria is a paradise" started, but it certainly wasn't with Waid and Weiringo's FF run, where Doom was shown to have horribly oppressed his people, even having torture chambers and kill rooms for dissidents and people who spoke out against him.

x3 - The problem is that people get offended at the question when the answer is something they would agree with. Yes, Doom is wrong. He is messed up. But that’s why asking the question is worth it, so you can show that his demands, his ego, create an unreasonable trade off. That for all the improvements he makes to the lives of Latverian citizens, taking away their freedom is an unacceptable trade off.

I remember Doom 2099 citing Latveria as a pretty nice place while Doom was in charge, and the standard of living went to hell when a Megacorp took over.

Edited by Beatman1 on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:19:01 AM

this actually Spider-man's fault

New theme music also a box

Was Spider-Man John Byrne all along?

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Latveria really had it rough in the comics. It sucked even before Doom came to power, since the royal family exemplified why absolute monarchy is bad.

Disgusted, but not surprised

People get offended at the question because the premise of the question is wrong. If you say "Doom's brutal authoritarian regime would be a good thing if DOOM HIMSELF were not such a petty person," then you create the implication that a brutal authoritarian regime can, itself, be a good thing under the right dictator.

"The problem isn't tyranny. The problem is the tyrant's personal flaws."

No, the problem is tyranny, thank you very much. It wouldn't matter that Doom's an egotist if he wasn't in a state that grants him unilateral power.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 8:21:21 AM

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The problem is that to make these improvements he has to make the government a tyranny, when if he was truly selfless, he could probably do the same thing with a political coalition and free elections, so the country eventually wouldn’t need him. And that’s what Doom fears more than anything. A world that doesn’t need Doom. So yes, he has good ideas, but the way he goes about them is fundamentally wrong, and that’s something that is worth examining. He doesn’t need absolute power to make his citizens have better lives, he just wants absolute power because of his narcissistic personality.

Edited by Beatman1 on Sep 10th 2019 at 10:24:06 AM

There’s a reason why in recent years, Wakanda has figureheaded it’s monarchy

And in fairness, T’Challa was only intermittently interested in actually ruling, running off for large swathes of time to punch bank robbers and teach school in America

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Which just brings us back around to "authoritarianism can be a good thing if you find the right dictator". Which is a bad message.

The Doom debate may not have invented the "benevolent dictator" argument, but it certainly codified it.

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We have real life Dr Dooms running countries and said countries are not prosperous utopias.

Depicting Doom's tyranny as being beneficial to Latveria after several films (Ragnarok, Black Panther and Endgame) went out of their way to show tyranny as a bad thing would be weird and nonsensical.

Just show it as a Dystopia.

Sure Doom has made Latveria an advanced place to live in...... but its still not an easy place to live in.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

A North Korea-style public facade, I think, would be the best approach for Doom's Latveria. I'm imagining a film where the protagonists enter Latveria and it's a bright and prosperous society.

But over the course of the movie, they start to realize that the storefronts are cardboard cutouts made to look like real stores. The happy citizens are actors under threat of reprisal if discovered. The treasury is fraudulently inflated, the lower-class are hidden from outsiders' view, Doom's building an expansionist military he's not reporting through forced conscription of his impoverished, etc. The whole country is a veneer of Fake Utopia papier-mache over a brutal tyrant's regime.

That sort of political thriller is what I'd like to see for Doom's first film.

Also, I like the idea that's been kicked around by several people about having Latveria where Sokovia used to exist. It was noted in another film that Sokovia's not a state anymore. Latveria could easily be what subsumed and/or replaced it.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 10th 2019 at 8:57:39 AM

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So basically the final chapter of Mother 3 then? I’m down.

It's been 3000 years…

x5 - And that is probably what any film with Doom leading Latveria will conclude. Just because he dressed up his words and put a nice coat of paint on it, it’s still a dictatorship and he’s still wrong because of the things you need to make a dictatorship work. He’s not benevolent no matter how much he tries to convince people otherwise. For every shining spire there’s a secret prison. For every child given a full education and a free school lunch, there’s a political prisoner who was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a Doombot because they may have said democratic elections were a good idea.

A film can’t help its Misaimed Fandom, whether it’s people founding Fight Clubs, saying Thanos was right, etc. It just needs to present its characters and then say why they’re right or wrong. And in Doom’s case, he’s wrong because it’s all a giant ego trip for him.

Edited by Beatman1 on Sep 10th 2019 at 11:04:03 AM

Yeah that's more or less how I pictured Latveria being portrayed.

Edited by LordVatek on Sep 10th 2019 at 11:00:38 AM

This song needs more love.