Robert Downey Jr. is set to headline the biggest cinematic event of the year: Avengers: Doomsday, where he will play Doctor Doom. All the news, reveals, and trailers have pointed to a story about incursions, planetary collisions, multiversal mayhem, and a villain who thinks he is the only one who can save reality. However, the story was not invented for the screen.
The story of incursions and Doctor Doom’s involvement is straight from the comics, where the character was quickly established as one of the most formidable foes in the Marvel universe. Before Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December, these five comics explain who Doom is, why he thinks he’s the hero, and how a multiversal war ends with him on a throne.
1. Fantastic Four #5
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four #5 introduced the definitive version of Doctor Doom. The leader of Latveria, a genius with a scarred mind and body, is given a true-blue origin story. He views Reed Richards as his one true intellectual rival, and they both view their intellect differently. They are two sides of the same coin.
Doom tricks the FF into time-traveling to steal Blackbeard’s treasure, previewing the manipulative, chess-master style he’s used ever since. For Doomsday, it’s the foundational text and the reason Doom and Reed’s rivalry carries so much weight in a movie built around the Fantastic Four’s arrival in the MCU.
2. Books of Doom
Ed Brubaker and Pablo Raimondi’s six-issue miniseries is the definitive modern origin, tracing Victor from his childhood in Latveria and his mother’s death, through his mystical training with the Romani, to the lab accident that scarred his face and his rise as Latveria’s monarch.
Crucially, it frames Doom as a man who genuinely believes his authoritarian rule is the only thing standing between his people and chaos. With RDJ’s Doom reportedly getting a sympathetic, morally gray introduction in the film, this is the book that makes his god-complex feel deeper.
3. Avengers: Time Runs Out
Jonathan Hickman has probably used Doctor Doom in the most creative ways. His dual story run in Time Runs Out is reportedly the direct inspiration for Avengers: Doomsday. Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, and a secret Illuminati discover that parallel Earths are colliding in ‘incursions,’ destroying both universes unless one is sacrificed.
As the incursions lead to total annihilation, Marvel’s greatest minds have to team up with morally grey characters and make more dicey decisions. The rumored opening scene of Doomsday in a rain-soaked New York is almost an entire recreation of the comic.
4. Secret Wars
Hickman’s Secret Wars storyline is the major structural template for Doomsday and its upcoming sequel. When the incursions can’t be stopped, Doctor Doom steals the power of the reality-warping Beyonders and stitches the last surviving fragments of the dying multiverse into a single patchwork planet, Battleworld, crowning himself God-Emperor.
Reed Richards and a small band of heroes who remember the old universe work to dethrone him and restore reality. The story shows Doom not just as a power-hungry conqueror, but as a self-appointed architect of a new world, making him an antagonist with one of the biggest God-complexes.
5. Fantastic Four #200
Marv Wolfman and Keith Pollard’s anniversary issue delivers one of the most iconic Doom stories in Marvel history: Doom tries to hypnotize the United Nations, leading to a brutal hand-to-hand showdown with Reed Richards that ends when Doom is driven catatonic by his own scarred reflection.
While earlier than the reality-altering arcs Secret Wars would later build on a universal scale, it crystallizes the theme every adaptation keeps returning to: Doom’s downfall is never a lack of power, but his own immense vanity and inability to accept his own flaws.
| Doctor Doom Comic Book | Writer |
| Fantastic Four #5 | Stan Lee |
| Books of Doom | Ed Brubaker |
| Avengers: Time Runs Out | Jonathan Hickman |
| Secret Wars | Jonathan Hickman |
| Fantastic Four #200 | Marv Wolfman |
Which is the essential Doctor Doom reading that is required for Avengers: Doomsday, according to you? Comment below.
Avengers: Doomsday will be released in cinemas on December 18, 2026.
