Doctor Doom (Victor von Doom)

Before the MCU, the villain went through three Fantastic Four movies made by Fox. In Fantastic Four (2005), Julian McMahon plays Victor von Doom as a wealthy businessman who funds Reed Richards's space mission. Hit by the same cosmic storm that gives the heroes their powers, he starts turning to metal and controlling electricity, blames Reed for his losses, and goes after revenge. He ends up frozen and shipped off to Latveria.

In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), McMahon returns. Doom offers to help the military capture the Surfer, steals his board and the power it carries, and is defeated by Johnny Storm in Shanghai.

In the Fantastic Four reboot (2015), Toby Kebbell plays a very different Victor: a young Baxter Foundation scientist who is left behind on Planet Zero, comes back fused to his own suit, kills scientists and soldiers, and tries to destroy Earth. He ends up disintegrated in a portal's beam. All three films are outside MCU continuity.

The rights to the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom came back under Marvel's control when Disney bought Fox, a deal closed in 2019. It took a while for the character to be used. In July 2024, at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel announced that the Russo brothers would return to direct the next Avengers movies and that Robert Downey Jr., the Tony Stark who died in Avengers: Endgame, would be Doctor Doom. According to Kevin Feige, Downey summed up the decision himself: if he had played the best hero, he could play the best villain.

The announcement came with another change: the movie that had been called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty became Avengers: Doomsday, after Marvel stopped working with Jonathan Majors, who played Kang.

Doom's first MCU appearance is short and calculated. In the mid-credits scene of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the action jumps four years ahead on Earth-828. Sue Storm is reading to her son, Franklin, and steps out for a moment to grab another book. When she comes back, a cloaked man is sitting in front of the boy, holding a metal mask.

His face isn't shown. The scene was shot by the Russo brothers, the directors of the next Avengers films. The interest in Franklin makes sense within the film itself, which spends a good deal of time showing that Reed and Sue's baby has cosmic power big enough to attract Galactus.

The next step is Avengers: Doomsday, set to open December 18, 2026. What's confirmed: Downey as Doctor Doom, the Russo brothers directing, and a big cast that brings together Avengers, the Fantastic Four from First Steps, and actors from the old X-Men movies. Marvel has released teasers and trailers, but the plot hasn't been revealed and the movie hasn't come out yet.

Doom debuted in The Fantastic Four #5 in 1962, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He was born in Latveria, a small Eastern European country, the son of Cynthia, a sorceress, and Werner, a healer. He lost them both early and grew up combining science and the occult, obsessed with rescuing his mother's soul.

At Empire State University he met Reed Richards, who became his lifelong rival. There he built a machine to reach his mother in hell, ignored a miscalculation Reed pointed out, and the device exploded, scarring his face. He ended up in Tibet, where monks helped him forge the armor and iron mask. He returned home, seized power, and rules Latveria as an absolute monarch.

Among his best-known stories is Secret Wars, from 2015, in which Doom steals the Beyonders' power and rules as a god over a world stitched together from pieces of destroyed universes. Soon after, in the Infamous Iron Man run, he even put on armor and used the name Iron Man.