Doctor Doom has been many things: the ruler of Latveria, a scientist, a sorcerer, a time-traveller, a hero, a villain… just about anything in fact, except a practicing Doctor.
But now he’s about to add another job title to his resumé: blogging.
Toby Kebbell, the actor playing Doctor Doom in Josh Trank’s upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, has gone on record with the supervillain’s new origin, and it is not one that we have seen before.
“He’s Victor Domashev, not Victor Von Doom in our story,” says Kebbell in an interview with Collider. “And I’m sure I’ll be sent to jail for telling you that. The Doom in ours—I’m a programmer. Very anti-social programmer. And on blogging sites I’m ‘Doom.'”
Toby Kebbell also describes this new origin as “a mild change.“ Uh-huh…
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It is enormously easy to approach Toby Kebbell’s description with skepticism, so let’s get it out of the way right now. Doctor Doom is a larger than life villain, arguably the premiere villain in the Marvel Comics universe, whose enormous ego and intellect have made him a nearly unstoppable opponent. The Fantastic Four haven’t ever really “beaten” Doom, they’ve only blown up his robots or given him a temporary setback. His grandeur isn’t an affectation, it’s been earned by actually ruling a country and being one of the smartest men on the planet, as well as one of Earth’s most powerful sorcerers.
So why, exactly, do all of the live-action movies (with the odd exception of Roger Corman’s never-officially-released Fantastic Four), sell him short? He was merely a scheming corporate tycoon, a generic villain du jour in Tim Story’s films (although Rise of the Silver Surfer at least attempted to give him some ambition), and now he’s a computer programmer and blogger who simply uses “Doom” as his online handle?
Yeesh.
BUT… it’s important to keep an open mind. Sure, massive changes to the comic book characters we know and love sometimes yield a Catwoman or a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but Christopher Nolan dramatically reworked some of the classic Batman characters in his Dark Knight trilogy, bringing them successfully (for the most part) in the 21st Century with updated origins and motives.
This can conceivably be done, and even done right, provided the new Doom has a rampant ego that leads him to acts of (villainous) greatness. And who else has a more rampant ego than a blogger? (We’re joking, we’re joking, relax, relax.)
In any case, unless this “Victor Domashev” uses his sweet blogging skills to take over Latveria, it looks like comic book fans will have to wait until the NEXT reboot of The Fantastic Four to see a faithful rendition of Doctor Doom on the big screen. If then…
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
