Mad science.....................the Nazis .........the Empire of Japan........Wolverine............samurai skills........................................ninjas.................and Nazis......common themes in Marvel Comics...........the aftermath of WW2..............the USA and the USSR..............were the two countries with most access..............to what was left of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan.........the USSR.........took Japan's northern most island...........declaring war on Japan for one day.....so they could steal the island.........maybe for records............of mad science experiments........

The US government gained............Nazi scientists...........in Operation Paper clip......... the Us government has been doing mad science ever since............and maybe before......

Victor von Doom (Earth-616)

Early Years

Victor von Doom was born in a Romani camp outside Haasenstadt, Latveria.^[23] His mother, Cynthia, was killed in a bargain with Mephisto that went wrong. Despite his father's attempts to care for her, a noblewoman died and Werner von Doom fled with a young Victor on a cold winter's night. Victor survived the cold, but unfortunately his father did not.^[24] Doom sought to increase his knowledge of both science and magic in order to rescue his mother,^[25] whose death he blamed on Mephisto. In his youth, Victor fell in love with a woman named Valeria, but she resisted his advances.^[26]

Becoming Doctor Doom

Becoming Doom

The State University in Hegeman, New York offered Victor a scholarship. While attending classes there, he first met Reed Richards and Ben Grimm.^[27][25] They developed a dislike for each other, leading to Reed Richards commiting the first prank he had ever pulled, changing Victor's last name on a trophy to "Doof."^[14] Doom became obsessed with developing a machine that could project the astral form of a being into other dimensions, seeing it as a way to free his mother's soul from Mephisto's clutches. Reed pointed out a flaw in Doom's calculations, but Doom arrogantly ignored his warnings, feeling Reed was trying to upstage him, likely due to their dislike for each other. The machine exploded, scarring Doom's face. He was soon expelled for conducting unethical experiments. From then on, he blamed Reed Richards for the destruction of his face as well as his expulsion.^[27][25]
Disgraced and bitter, Doom traveled the world. Eventually he came upon a small Tibetan village of monks who assisted him in creating a suit of armor. He returned to his homeland of Latveria to overthrow the leader and declare himself king. He then began to use his country's resources in order to further his plans of world domination. These schemes led Doom into conflict with the Fantastic Four on many occasions, as well as many other superheroes.^[25]

Doctor Doom's primary armor.

The Fantastic Four

Doom first confronted the Fantastic Four by holding Sue Storm hostage.^[27] Doom forced the other members of the team to travel back in time using his time platform to retrieve the mystical Stones of Merlin.^[27] Later, he duped Namor into teaming up with him to destroy the team.^[28] During the team-up, he was shrunk to sub-atomic size, and ended up in the world of Sub-Atomica, where he quickly took control using his scientific knowledge and began plaguing the Fantastic Four with shrink rays. He was again defeated by the Fantastic Four with the aid of Ant-Man.^[29] His next attempt at defeating the Fantastic Four involved using the Terrible Trio, a group of thugs who had been given powers by Doom. This venture ended with him being transported into outer space by a solar wave.^[30] He was later found floating in space by Rama-Tut, who revealed to Doom that he was one of his ancestors. Believing that they might in fact be the same person, they decided that Rama-Tut would return to the future after sending Doom back to Earth. Back on Earth, Doom again clashed with the Fantastic Four. This time, they defeated him by hypnotizing him into believing he had destroyed the group.^[25]
The hypnotic spell was eventually broken by a Latverian stage magician who had come to Doom's castle to entertain him. Doom, realizing he had been tricked, was furious and traveled to America to take his revenge on the Fantastic Four, who incidentally had lost their powers.^[31] Despite the Four having no powers, Doom was again defeated, this time with the aid of Daredevil.^[32] His next attack came when he manipulated an army of the world's super-villains to attack the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm.^[33]
When Doom battled and defeated the Silver Surfer, he stole the Surfer's powers and surfboard, becoming one of the most powerful beings on Earth. With these new-found powers, he was able to finally defeat the Fantastic Four. He then began running amok causing havoc all over the world. After another confrontation with the Fantastic Four, Doom was tricked into flying into the barrier Galactus set up around the Earth, and the Surfer's powers and surfboard returned to their rightful owner.^[34]

Camelot

Doctor Doom and Iron Man traveled to Camelot where Stark thwarted Doctor Doom's attempt to solicit the aide of Morgan le Fay and Doctor Doom swore deadly vengeance for that interference, which had to be indefinitely delayed in the interest of returning to the present day.^[35]

An Heir to the Throne

After reclaiming the Latverian throne from a mad Prince Zorba with the help of the Fantastic Four, Doom took a young Latverian boy named Kristoff Vernard who was orphaned by Zorba's forces under his wing and made him his heir.^[36]

Battleworld

Doom removes his mask after obtaining the Beyonder's powers.

Another coup came on Battleworld during the first of the so-called Secret Wars, an event during which the powerful and mysterious Beyonder kidnapped several heroes and villains from the Earth to have them fight with the promise of giving the winners their heart's desire. Doom became the leader of the villains, and after their defeat, escaped his holding cell and constructed a device out of the body of Klaw, to drain the power of Galactus. Using his stolen power he was able to attack his true target, the Beyonder. Doom lost the battle, but as the Beyonder came closer to dissect and study Doom, he managed to activate a device in his chest plate which hovered barely within his reach. Doom drained the Beyonder and became even more powerful. Too powerful, in fact--Doom was unable to rest, lest he destroy the universe with a dream. The Beyonder had however survived. He took possession of Klaw's body and used Klaw's guile to trick Doom into losing control of his stolen power, reclaiming it and defeating him. The Beyonder then vanished, with Doom and Klaw.^[37]

Emperor Doom

As part of a plan to conquer the world, Doom kidnapped Zebediah Killgrave, the mind-controlling supervillain known as Purple Man, and imprisoned him within a gigantic Psycho-Prism which not only bestowed Purple Man's powers on Doom, but also augmented them to a global scale.

Doom demonstrates his willpower by resisting the Purple Man's mind control.

Using this device, Doom manipulated the United Nations and every government to legally name him emperor of the Earth. Under Doom's command, the planet saw prosperity, equality, and the end of war and hunger, but at the cost of every citizen's free will. Additionally, Doom began to feel that his victory was almost meaningless, due to any lack of challenge to achieve or maintain his goal.
One challenger to Doom's rule surfaced in the form of the Avenger Wonder Man, whose unusual physiology rendered him unaffected by Doom's mind-control. After freeing several of his fellow teammates from Doom's control, Wonder Man attacked Doom Island, the location of the Psycho-Prism. Doom's dissatisfaction caused him to give up on a chance to prevent the heroes from destroying the Psycho-Prism. Thus, the citizens of the Earth broke free from Doom's control, and the Earth soon returned to its status quo.^[38]

Freeing his Mother

Doom eventually freed his mother's soul with the assistance of Doctor Strange. Strange had won the Aged Genghis' contest and was obligated to answer the request of the runner-up. The scheme to free his mother required Doom to incur her undying hatred; by volunteering Strange to take her place, Cynthia von Doom was so disgusted at her son that she became too pure to remain in Hell and departed for Heaven. Strange wondered if Doom had been aware of this outcome when he made the deal, but Doom simply mused that his mother's hatred was a price he was willing to pay to ensure her freedom.^[39]

Counter-Earth

When Franklin Richards was kidnapped by Onslaught, Doom (who saw this as an opportunity to steal the being's powers) joined the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the X-Men to battle Onslaught in Central Park. An enraged Hulk was able to crack open Onslaught's shell. However, Onslaught remained as pure psionic energy, and separated Hulk and Banner, planning to spread across the planet. Thor plunged into Onslaught, trying to contain him. The Fantastic Four, the majority of Avengers, the Hulk-less Banner, and even Doom (who was grabbed by Iron Man) followed. Thanks to this sacrifice, the X-Men finally managed to destroyed Onslaught.^[40]
Doom, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers and Banner were believed dead, but were instead saved by Franklin, who created a pocket dimension called Counter-Earth to keep them safe. After several months away, the missing heroes returned from Counter-Earth in a massive ship breaching the dimensional barriers. Doom attempted to take over the ship in mid-flight, leading to a battle with Thor which left both men adrift in dimensional space for a time.^[41]
Doom's travels took him back to Counter-Earth.^[42] He took over the world and moved it from the pocket universe to his original universe with magic and technology, putting it in the same orbit as Earth, only on the opposite side, creating a Counter Earth.^[43] Eventually he was overthrown and returned to his rightful planet.^[44]

Valeria

Demonic Armor

When Susan Richards experiences problems with her second pregnancy while Reed is away, Johnny contacts Doom for help, correctly guessing that Doom will be unable to pass up a chance to succeed where Reed failed (Due to the complex events involving the recent resurrection of Galactus, this pregnancy is a 'repeat' of an earlier one where Sue miscarried). Doom not only saves Sue's daughter, but also cures Johnny of a recent problem with his powers where Johnny was unable to 'flame off' without technological support after becoming overcharged with energy from the Negative Zone, by channeling Johnny's excess energy into Sue to keep her alive. After the birth, Doom's only apparent condition for his aid is that he be allowed to name Sue and Reed's daughter, calling her 'Valeria' after his long-lost love. However, this inspires a new plan where Doom makes Valeria his familiar while seeking out her namesake as part of a deal with a trio of demons known as the Hazareth Three; by sacrificing his old lover, Doom is granted magical powers on the level he would possess if he had spent the past years studying sorcery rather than science, beginning with Valeria's skin becoming his new armor.^[45] With this new power, Doom traps Franklin in Hell, immobilises Doctor Strange, and then neutralizes the FF's powers, torturing the other three while taunting Reed by leaving him in his magical library, comparing it to giving a dog a road-map as he concludes that it will be impossible for Reed to master sufficient magical skill to be a threat to him.^[46] However, Reed is able to release Doctor Strange's astral self from Doom's traps, allowing Strange to give Reed a sufficient crash-course in magic for Reed to free the rest of the team and trick Doom into angering his demonic benefactors, prompting them to take him to Hell.^[47]

Hell & Back

Determined to ensure that Doom cannot be a further threat, Reed takes control of Latveria to dismantle all of Doom's equipment,^[48] simultaneously subtly driving his family away so that he can trap Doom and himself in a pocket dimension so that he can make sure Doom never threatens anyone again. However, this plan backfires when the rest of the team attempt to rescue Reed, resulting in Doom transferring his spirit into Sue, Johnny and Ben respectively, forcing Reed to kill his best friend to stop his greatest enemy.^[49] Doom is returned to Hell, but Reed is later able to use the same machine Doom once tried to create to travel to Heaven and restore Ben to life.^[50]

The return from Hell itself.

When Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, fell to Earth, it passed through time and space, momentarily breaching the gateway to Hell and providing Doom with an escape route. Upon his return to Earth, Doom regained control of Latveria, used its military to locate Mjolnir, and attempted to seize its power for himself, believing the hammer had chosen him to be its wielder by freeing him from Hell, but he soon discovered that he was not worthy.^[51]

Civil War

During the superhero Civil War, Reed Richards and several other heroes defeated a Doombot in New York City. Doom himself may or may not have been responsible. In another ploy to gain leverage during this time of disunity, Doom proposed an alliance between Latveria and the Black Panther's country of Wakanda. Black Panther and his new wife, Storm, however, saw through Doom's intrigue.