ooc: App for capeandcowl
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Yami
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: yacchan
IM: kaizokuyacchan, but it’s really better to hit up my plurk at undeadyami.
E-MAIL: kefkaknight@gmail.com
RETURNING: 4, oncemercurial, hoaryhosts, leftymitt, undeadsidekick.
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Victor von Doom
FANDOM: Marvel 616
CHRONOLOGY: Following Doomwar 3.
CLASS: Villain, although he wouldn’t see it as such.
SUPERHERO NAME: Doctor Doom
ALTER EGO: Victor von Doom, scientist, sorcerer and monarch.
BACKGROUND:
Victor was born into a small band of gypsies that general traveled Latveria. They were despised and oppressed by the Latverian government, their King, Vladimir (who has like five other names, but we’re gonna leave it at that), and the Latverian populace at large. Victor’s father was the de facto leader of their clan and a trained doctor, his mother, Cynthia, practiced magic. One night when Victor was no more than four years old, Cynthia used her magic to invoke Mephisto’s powers and kill a large contingent of Latverian soldiers that had been harassing their group. Her spells worked and the soldiers were dead instantly, but in exchange, Mephisto killed Cynthia and ever child in a nearby village. Cynthia’s dying wish to her husband was that he would keep Victor away from her magic and Mephisto.
Knowing that they would be blamed, even if there was no way the government could prove it, the gypsies fled. Before doing so, they threatened to exile both Werner (Victor’s father) and Victor himself. Even as a child, however, Victor was imposing enough to threaten the adults in their group, telling them that if they exiled him and his father, he would return and use his mother’s magic to punish them.
Victor grew up to be a serious and solitary child. The adults distrusted him and the other children in their group didn’t quite know what to make of his demeanor. Only one girl, Valeria, would really associate with him. The two became very good friends and as a child, Victor’s strongest wish was that he would grow up and marry her.
One day, King Vladimir summoned Werner to the palace. Vladimir’s wife had cancer and Werner was known for being very, very skilled. However, her cancer was beyond treatment and when Werner could do nothing for her, Vladimir blamed him for his wife’s death. Werner stole away in the night and returned to the gypsy camp. Taking Victor, he fled into the mountains. Unfortunately, winter was just around the corner and after several days hiding out in the Latverian mountains, Werner died, protecting Victor from exposure to the cold. Victor found his way back to their camp and was placed into the care of Werner’s best friend Boris. Victor was around age 12 at the time.
In the days that followed, it became apparent that although Boris and another small group of adults where supposedly leading the camp, Victor could threaten or reason his way whenever he wanted. Over time, they stopped even pretending and he became the true leader. Victor had always excelled in mechanics and through his skill and innovation, the gypsies were able to create weapons and fight back against their oppressors. While they weren’t about to start any revolutions, they were left more or less alone by the government, especially after Victor began mixing his mechanical know-how with his mother’s magicks.
Soon the US government became aware of the strange little gypsy band and their advanced technology. They sent people to investigate and upon finding that a teenager was responsible for the majority of it, they offered him a scholarship to Empire State University. While Victor had undoubtedly fallen in love with Valeria, and was pleased with his progress against the Latverian government, he left both behind in his pursuit knowledge and revenge.
Upon arriving at ESU, Victor was introduced to Reed Richards, another student who would be participating in the government sponsored program with him. Richards suggested they dorm together, but Victor rejected his offer of friendship. As Richards was another highly intelligent student, Victor’s competitive nature kicked in and he pursued a very bitter rivalry with him, almost from day one. Victor’s greatest invention in college was a device capable of traveling to the netherworld and retrieving his mother’s soul. Richards tried to warn Victor that his calculations were off and that it was dangerous to mix science and magic, but Victor was too proud to listen. The machine essentially blew up, taking out Victor’s lab and minimally disfiguring and disgracing him publicly. Shortly after his recovery, Victor fled back to Latveria but didn’t return to his gypsy clan.
For months, Victor lived quietly in the capital city of Haasenstadt, plagued by nightmares of what his invention had allowed him to see. He enjoyed the anonymity his still bandaged face brought among his neighbors. Fearing his nightmares, Victor worked long hours during the day, building various mechanical wonders in his small apartment. In Haasenstadt, he attracted the attention of the KGB. But despite threatening Doom, he refused their offers stating he was “done working for smaller minds”.
Days past and Doom remained vigilant in his watch for KGB agents, but he was caught entirely be surprise when Valeria found him in the public square one morning. Valeria informed him that King Vladimir’s men had been raiding their caravan since Victor’s departure from the US, hoping to find him and gain favor with the US government. After an old man had a prophetic vision, Valeria left in search for Victor. For several weeks, Victor and Valeria lived happily together. He fell in love with her again and it seemed likely that he would return happily to the gypsies, slightly worse for wear, but functional and sane.
But tragedy struck again. As it turned out, the prophetic vision that had sent Valeria to Victor was a fraud created by the KGB to convert him to their cause. They attacked Victor and kidnapped Valeria, bargaining for her safety, he agreed to go with them under the condition that they let her go. In a moment, with a gun held to Valeria’s head, a protective shield was somehow created around her. Victor assumed that he had merely lost control of his powers in a rage, but as it turned out when the smoke and gunfire stopped, Otto, an old man who had been squatting on Victor’s stoop since his arrival at Haasenstadt used his magical abilities to rescue them. Otto told Victor of the Temple of the Aged Genghis in Tibet, saying that it was prophesized that a man who lost everything and hides his true face would train at the temple and become their leader. Intrigued, Victor planned to travel to Tibet, telling Valeria to return home.
In Tibet, Victor sought out the Temple of the Aged Genghis, but like so many others, was doomed to wandering aimlessly in the snowy mountains. His food ran out and he was hunted by a Yeti, but survived the attack. That night after being forced to cannibalize the last of his mechanical devices to create a fire, Doom passed out and was rescued by the Ancient One’s followers. They brought him back to their Temple, finally. He studied, and after five years among them became their leader.
Under his instruction, Victor had them construct a device capable of viewing several news channels simultaneously. Victor used it to catch up on what he’d missed in the world since his self-imposed Tibetan exile. He found that Vladimir was still in power and that Reed Richards had become a respected scientist. Forming his plans for revenge, Dooms nightmares returned plaguing him with memories of Valeria, and his parents. It was then that he decided to construct his armor, a body which couldn’t be poisoned by the frailty and sorrow experienced by mortal “lesser” men. Doom enchanted it to keep his dreams free from the nightmares he blamed on Mephisto. Eager to begin his new life, Doom donned the mask before it had properly cool, thus insuring that if his face wasn’t hideous from his youthful tangle with Mephisto, it was now.
He then returned to Latveria, setting about his plot for revenge by freeing workers held prisoner by Vladimir. He established a base of operations at an abandoned castle which overlooked an old village, itself abandoned after the deaths of all the children who lived in it. From there, Victor sought out his family, the gypsies he’d abandoned years ago. Doom commanded them to help him raise an army and killed any dissenters. Once again, Victor was reunited with Valeria. They quarreled and she quite succinctly describe what he’d done to himself, but he ignored her and had one of his followers send her away. Soon after, Doom’s forces went to war with Vladimir’s, aided by robots of Doom’s creation. With each small victory, they drove back the King’s men and Doom’s army grew.
Doom called for the King’s surrender, but he refused. In no more than a week’s time, Doom’s army was set to storm Vladimir’s castle. The King gave the order to have his sons sent away so that his line might continue. The armies stared each other down and Vladimir finally gave the order to attack, but his army remained motionless, as if trapped in time. Doom moved forward toward the castle and even Vladimir’s forces parted and bowed before him. Doom chased Vladimir through the city, to the chapel from which he planned to make his escape and cornered him. Within minutes, Doom had strangled Vladimir and killed him, securing his position as the new monarch of Latveria.
Doom summoned Mephisto and asked him to free Cynthia’s soul. Mephisto laughed in his face, but offered him a bargain. One night a year Victor could fight for Cynthia’s soul, but for ever year that he lost, the people of Latveria would grow to despise him more and more. If Doom won, Cynthia’s soul would leave Mephisto’s realm of torment for another in which she would be safe, but Victor would never be able to see her. Despite the seeming no-win situation, Victor agreed.
In Doom’s time as monarch of Latveria, he set up a puppet government. All were made to praise Doom or face the consequences. In his free time, he continued to pursue science and magic, creating new and innovative robotics (DoomBots) capable of even ruling the country in his absence. He set several goals for himself, including freeing his mother and establishing his superiority over Reed Richards. And of course, every year, Victor traveled to Mephisto’s realm to battle for Cynthia’s soul.
Doom continued to tangle with the Fantastic Four (and Richards) on several other occasions. One such example would be kidnapping the Invisible Girl and forcing the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, and the Human Torch to journey back in time and steal Merlin’s gems for him. He also teamed up with the Sub-Mariner on numerous occasion to generally make a nuisance of himself for the FF. Years later, Doom and Namor forged and uneasy alliance (mostly uneasy on Namor’s part).
In another attempt to destroy the Fantastic Four, Doom unleashed an entity known as Terrax. In that instant, it seemed that Doom had been disintegrated by Terrax, he was able to transfer his consciousness to a bystander. The Beyonder restored Doom’s original body and sent him back in time to participate in the Secret Wars. During this stint in the Beyonder’s reality, Doom was briefly able to gain the power of Galactus and the Beyonder himself, but lost all of his supplementary abilities shortly there after. Back on Earth, Doom used the Purple Man’s mind control abilities to conquer the world. He proved a competent leader, solving most of the world’s problems using Latveria as a model, but mindless obedience bored him and he allowed the Avengers and Namor to take the Purple Man’s powers from him.
As Doom had seemingly been killed by Terrax, his followers set into motion a contingency plan created by Doom where in Kristoff Vernard, a young orphan favored by Doom would inherit Doom’s monarchy. The plan involved implanting Kristoff with Doom’s memories and experiences, but it proved too much for the boy. He went mad, believing himself to be the true Doom trapped in the body of a child. Around that same time, a DoomBot believing itself to be the true von Doom made its way to Laveria and attempted to usurp Kristoff’s power, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, Doom returned to Latveria and took his throne back from Kristoff.
Time continued on with Doom making various attempts to destroy the Fantastic Four or take over Earth. He was sent to an alternate reality by Franklin Richards where he existed without his armor for a time, was involved with Storm of the X-Men, and eventually became ruler of the so-called Counter-Earth, but reality, of course, eventually righted itself.
An unusual situation arose on one adventure with the Fantastic Four and Doom ended up delivering Reed and Sue’s second child, a daughter, Valeria (so named after Doom’s ex-lover). His act of kindness was only part of a greater scheme to gain superiority over Reed, however. Doom had realize that it was his magical ability which truly made him Reed’s superior and sought to increase his aptitude. Finding Valeria’s (the gypsy, not Valeria Richards) soul, he sacrificed it to a demon because out of everything on the Earth, she was what he most cherished, and in turn the demon amplified his magical aptitude to the point where he was even a threat to Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. Doom then constructed a new armor using Valeria’s body and bound Valeria Richards to him, making her his familiar. Doom sent Franklin Richards to hell and tortured the rest of the Fantastic Four. Reed eventually put a stop to his shenanigans through mastering some magic, and the Demon returned Franklin and sent Doom to hell. The FF were left with a traumatized Franklin and Reed with a new scar, however.
More recently, Doom went to war with T’Challa and Ororo of Wakanda. Using Ororo against T’Challa, Doom entered the realm of the panther God Bast. Shedding his armor, Doom offers himself up for her judgment. Through Doom’s sorcery, he has seen countless futures which all end in various levels of dystopia or apoccoplyse. The only hope he found was one in which he ruled with an iron fist. Bast, impressed by his the purity and unapologetic dogma of his world view grants him the Vibranium he sought from Wakanda, despite her desire to protect her people and their interests.
PERSONALITY:
Victor von Doom truly believes himself to be more than a man. He has a greater understanding of the world, a greater awareness. He doesn’t know how or why he was granted this awareness, but it is what it is and he cannot be put down by any mortal, or made to believe that he is less than what he is. Doom is intelligent, observant, calculating and above all ruthless. He views his actions as a means to an end. He is doing for humanity what it is too stupid or too weak to do for itself. Without his tyranny, the world would destroy itself. He’s seen it happen, he’s lived through it happening.
Doom’s pride is his biggest weakness. The fact that he truly believes himself to be superior means that he has great difficulty seeing that he isn’t. Or that even if he is more intelligent than a good number of people on the planet, there are those who are just as, or possibly more intelligent than him. Sometimes Doom’s ruthlessness causes him to win out over them, and sometimes it isn’t enough to make up for his ego.
In the end, Victor’s actions are generally the product of some combination of righteous indignation over the state of humanity and more personal slights. He took over Latveria due to outrage at the treatment of his family, but the heartlessness of the Latverian soldiers and King Vladimir made him unhesitant in his cruelty toward them. Doom views most humans as inherently bad or stupid and won’t be easily dissuaded in that opinion. Conversely, he hates Reed Richards on a certain level because Richards’ intelligence threatens his own, but on another level because Richards judged him and his actions without ever stopping to consider Victor’s side of it.
POWER:
Doom’s powers in canon are vast and rather deus ex machina-like. As such, I would have everything but his magic taken from him upon arriving in the City. Because magic works differently in CnC, he would be unable to perform any high-level spells. It would basically be limited to short-distance flight, energy projection, and very short illusion spells.
He would also keep his armor, but its impervious-ness would be limited. Basically, it would be another suit of armor, but not mystical in any way.
In addition to his muted canon abilities, I’d like him to have an external monologue. Think like… Rorschach’s Journal, but projected out loud via some weird pseudo telepathy.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[voice]
[There’s an almost eerie silence as the comm. signal comes on. Then the sound of heavy robes rustling against something metallic, and then two metallic items striking against each other softly followed by a heavy sigh. When the man speaks, his voice is deep, commanding, and slightly accented.]
This is not the first time I have been made the pawn of an indifferent world, though it invariably ends in my triumph. I have seen many realities, many futures, and although I know not which sorcery has seen fit to handle Doom in such a way, rest assured he is not defeated.
[There’s a rustling sound again, as though the speaker is rising from his seat. Were this video, it would probably be for dramatic effect. As it isn’t, he’s probably just so impassioned by his own words.]<’small>
Consider this a warning to all of my enemies present on this network. Von Doom has arrived and whatever game you have been so content to play is now over. The machine, Lachesis, her days are numbered. After all, I built better and more advanced when I was but a boy in the forests of my homeland.
[There’s the slight rustle and sound of metallic fingertips again and the feed cuts.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It was with no small degree of befuddlement that Doom awoke to something other than Wakanda’s Vibranium Vault. The metallic walls and monitors which surrounded him were sleek and labeled as Stark’s designs though they looked pathetic even for him. Doom reached with a gauntlet covered hand, running the tips of his metal covered gloves across the screen as it fed information to him. Was this another test of Bast’s? Impossible and furthermore, it wouldn’t make sense. Why would a god who valued purity and truthfulness sequester him in this shell of a reality?
Doom rose from the table, examining the lab around him. The machines prompted him to take dog tags and a small communications device, the simplicity of which he scoffed at before tucking it into a pocket of his robe. Everything in the room was so typically futuristic he had to wonder what purpose it served. To frighten lesser men as they arrived from the portal which stood, imposing in the center of the lab. Frighten them into complying with the machines’ demands? Surely it had not accounted for the likes of Doom.
Satisfied with his observations, Doom made his way through the building. The layout was generic, unmemorable, but he made a point of studying it carefully. Surely if that portal were the way in, it would also be a way out. A way to return and complete his task. After all, this jaunt was just that, an annoying detour on his latest path to greatness which up till now, had been progressing quite nicely. Eventually, Doom made it out into the lobby of the building and then out into the ugly mid-fall afternoon.
Sleet rained down in sheets on what could only be a Manhattan thorofare. Doom felt himself grimace under his mask. New York, what a terrible place to be brought to. All the more reason to leave quickly. Gathering his cloak around him, he stole himself against the cold weather and snow. After all, Latveria’s winters were colder and less forgiving and all the gods and demons knew Victor von Doom had been through worse. Soon he would find himself a base of operations and create a plan, a path out of this dreadful place, and all involved in his abduction would suffer for it.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
None that I can think of.
NAME: Yami
AGE: 21
JOURNAL: yacchan
IM: kaizokuyacchan, but it’s really better to hit up my plurk at undeadyami.
E-MAIL: kefkaknight@gmail.com
RETURNING: 4, oncemercurial, hoaryhosts, leftymitt, undeadsidekick.
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Dr. Victor von Doom
FANDOM: Marvel 616
CHRONOLOGY: Following Doomwar 3.
CLASS: Villain, although he wouldn’t see it as such.
SUPERHERO NAME: Doctor Doom
ALTER EGO: Victor von Doom, scientist, sorcerer and monarch.
BACKGROUND:
Victor was born into a small band of gypsies that general traveled Latveria. They were despised and oppressed by the Latverian government, their King, Vladimir (who has like five other names, but we’re gonna leave it at that), and the Latverian populace at large. Victor’s father was the de facto leader of their clan and a trained doctor, his mother, Cynthia, practiced magic. One night when Victor was no more than four years old, Cynthia used her magic to invoke Mephisto’s powers and kill a large contingent of Latverian soldiers that had been harassing their group. Her spells worked and the soldiers were dead instantly, but in exchange, Mephisto killed Cynthia and ever child in a nearby village. Cynthia’s dying wish to her husband was that he would keep Victor away from her magic and Mephisto.
Knowing that they would be blamed, even if there was no way the government could prove it, the gypsies fled. Before doing so, they threatened to exile both Werner (Victor’s father) and Victor himself. Even as a child, however, Victor was imposing enough to threaten the adults in their group, telling them that if they exiled him and his father, he would return and use his mother’s magic to punish them.
Victor grew up to be a serious and solitary child. The adults distrusted him and the other children in their group didn’t quite know what to make of his demeanor. Only one girl, Valeria, would really associate with him. The two became very good friends and as a child, Victor’s strongest wish was that he would grow up and marry her.
One day, King Vladimir summoned Werner to the palace. Vladimir’s wife had cancer and Werner was known for being very, very skilled. However, her cancer was beyond treatment and when Werner could do nothing for her, Vladimir blamed him for his wife’s death. Werner stole away in the night and returned to the gypsy camp. Taking Victor, he fled into the mountains. Unfortunately, winter was just around the corner and after several days hiding out in the Latverian mountains, Werner died, protecting Victor from exposure to the cold. Victor found his way back to their camp and was placed into the care of Werner’s best friend Boris. Victor was around age 12 at the time.
In the days that followed, it became apparent that although Boris and another small group of adults where supposedly leading the camp, Victor could threaten or reason his way whenever he wanted. Over time, they stopped even pretending and he became the true leader. Victor had always excelled in mechanics and through his skill and innovation, the gypsies were able to create weapons and fight back against their oppressors. While they weren’t about to start any revolutions, they were left more or less alone by the government, especially after Victor began mixing his mechanical know-how with his mother’s magicks.
Soon the US government became aware of the strange little gypsy band and their advanced technology. They sent people to investigate and upon finding that a teenager was responsible for the majority of it, they offered him a scholarship to Empire State University. While Victor had undoubtedly fallen in love with Valeria, and was pleased with his progress against the Latverian government, he left both behind in his pursuit knowledge and revenge.
Upon arriving at ESU, Victor was introduced to Reed Richards, another student who would be participating in the government sponsored program with him. Richards suggested they dorm together, but Victor rejected his offer of friendship. As Richards was another highly intelligent student, Victor’s competitive nature kicked in and he pursued a very bitter rivalry with him, almost from day one. Victor’s greatest invention in college was a device capable of traveling to the netherworld and retrieving his mother’s soul. Richards tried to warn Victor that his calculations were off and that it was dangerous to mix science and magic, but Victor was too proud to listen. The machine essentially blew up, taking out Victor’s lab and minimally disfiguring and disgracing him publicly. Shortly after his recovery, Victor fled back to Latveria but didn’t return to his gypsy clan.
For months, Victor lived quietly in the capital city of Haasenstadt, plagued by nightmares of what his invention had allowed him to see. He enjoyed the anonymity his still bandaged face brought among his neighbors. Fearing his nightmares, Victor worked long hours during the day, building various mechanical wonders in his small apartment. In Haasenstadt, he attracted the attention of the KGB. But despite threatening Doom, he refused their offers stating he was “done working for smaller minds”.
Days past and Doom remained vigilant in his watch for KGB agents, but he was caught entirely be surprise when Valeria found him in the public square one morning. Valeria informed him that King Vladimir’s men had been raiding their caravan since Victor’s departure from the US, hoping to find him and gain favor with the US government. After an old man had a prophetic vision, Valeria left in search for Victor. For several weeks, Victor and Valeria lived happily together. He fell in love with her again and it seemed likely that he would return happily to the gypsies, slightly worse for wear, but functional and sane.
But tragedy struck again. As it turned out, the prophetic vision that had sent Valeria to Victor was a fraud created by the KGB to convert him to their cause. They attacked Victor and kidnapped Valeria, bargaining for her safety, he agreed to go with them under the condition that they let her go. In a moment, with a gun held to Valeria’s head, a protective shield was somehow created around her. Victor assumed that he had merely lost control of his powers in a rage, but as it turned out when the smoke and gunfire stopped, Otto, an old man who had been squatting on Victor’s stoop since his arrival at Haasenstadt used his magical abilities to rescue them. Otto told Victor of the Temple of the Aged Genghis in Tibet, saying that it was prophesized that a man who lost everything and hides his true face would train at the temple and become their leader. Intrigued, Victor planned to travel to Tibet, telling Valeria to return home.
In Tibet, Victor sought out the Temple of the Aged Genghis, but like so many others, was doomed to wandering aimlessly in the snowy mountains. His food ran out and he was hunted by a Yeti, but survived the attack. That night after being forced to cannibalize the last of his mechanical devices to create a fire, Doom passed out and was rescued by the Ancient One’s followers. They brought him back to their Temple, finally. He studied, and after five years among them became their leader.
Under his instruction, Victor had them construct a device capable of viewing several news channels simultaneously. Victor used it to catch up on what he’d missed in the world since his self-imposed Tibetan exile. He found that Vladimir was still in power and that Reed Richards had become a respected scientist. Forming his plans for revenge, Dooms nightmares returned plaguing him with memories of Valeria, and his parents. It was then that he decided to construct his armor, a body which couldn’t be poisoned by the frailty and sorrow experienced by mortal “lesser” men. Doom enchanted it to keep his dreams free from the nightmares he blamed on Mephisto. Eager to begin his new life, Doom donned the mask before it had properly cool, thus insuring that if his face wasn’t hideous from his youthful tangle with Mephisto, it was now.
He then returned to Latveria, setting about his plot for revenge by freeing workers held prisoner by Vladimir. He established a base of operations at an abandoned castle which overlooked an old village, itself abandoned after the deaths of all the children who lived in it. From there, Victor sought out his family, the gypsies he’d abandoned years ago. Doom commanded them to help him raise an army and killed any dissenters. Once again, Victor was reunited with Valeria. They quarreled and she quite succinctly describe what he’d done to himself, but he ignored her and had one of his followers send her away. Soon after, Doom’s forces went to war with Vladimir’s, aided by robots of Doom’s creation. With each small victory, they drove back the King’s men and Doom’s army grew.
Doom called for the King’s surrender, but he refused. In no more than a week’s time, Doom’s army was set to storm Vladimir’s castle. The King gave the order to have his sons sent away so that his line might continue. The armies stared each other down and Vladimir finally gave the order to attack, but his army remained motionless, as if trapped in time. Doom moved forward toward the castle and even Vladimir’s forces parted and bowed before him. Doom chased Vladimir through the city, to the chapel from which he planned to make his escape and cornered him. Within minutes, Doom had strangled Vladimir and killed him, securing his position as the new monarch of Latveria.
Doom summoned Mephisto and asked him to free Cynthia’s soul. Mephisto laughed in his face, but offered him a bargain. One night a year Victor could fight for Cynthia’s soul, but for ever year that he lost, the people of Latveria would grow to despise him more and more. If Doom won, Cynthia’s soul would leave Mephisto’s realm of torment for another in which she would be safe, but Victor would never be able to see her. Despite the seeming no-win situation, Victor agreed.
In Doom’s time as monarch of Latveria, he set up a puppet government. All were made to praise Doom or face the consequences. In his free time, he continued to pursue science and magic, creating new and innovative robotics (DoomBots) capable of even ruling the country in his absence. He set several goals for himself, including freeing his mother and establishing his superiority over Reed Richards. And of course, every year, Victor traveled to Mephisto’s realm to battle for Cynthia’s soul.
Doom continued to tangle with the Fantastic Four (and Richards) on several other occasions. One such example would be kidnapping the Invisible Girl and forcing the Thing, Mr. Fantastic, and the Human Torch to journey back in time and steal Merlin’s gems for him. He also teamed up with the Sub-Mariner on numerous occasion to generally make a nuisance of himself for the FF. Years later, Doom and Namor forged and uneasy alliance (mostly uneasy on Namor’s part).
In another attempt to destroy the Fantastic Four, Doom unleashed an entity known as Terrax. In that instant, it seemed that Doom had been disintegrated by Terrax, he was able to transfer his consciousness to a bystander. The Beyonder restored Doom’s original body and sent him back in time to participate in the Secret Wars. During this stint in the Beyonder’s reality, Doom was briefly able to gain the power of Galactus and the Beyonder himself, but lost all of his supplementary abilities shortly there after. Back on Earth, Doom used the Purple Man’s mind control abilities to conquer the world. He proved a competent leader, solving most of the world’s problems using Latveria as a model, but mindless obedience bored him and he allowed the Avengers and Namor to take the Purple Man’s powers from him.
As Doom had seemingly been killed by Terrax, his followers set into motion a contingency plan created by Doom where in Kristoff Vernard, a young orphan favored by Doom would inherit Doom’s monarchy. The plan involved implanting Kristoff with Doom’s memories and experiences, but it proved too much for the boy. He went mad, believing himself to be the true Doom trapped in the body of a child. Around that same time, a DoomBot believing itself to be the true von Doom made its way to Laveria and attempted to usurp Kristoff’s power, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, Doom returned to Latveria and took his throne back from Kristoff.
Time continued on with Doom making various attempts to destroy the Fantastic Four or take over Earth. He was sent to an alternate reality by Franklin Richards where he existed without his armor for a time, was involved with Storm of the X-Men, and eventually became ruler of the so-called Counter-Earth, but reality, of course, eventually righted itself.
An unusual situation arose on one adventure with the Fantastic Four and Doom ended up delivering Reed and Sue’s second child, a daughter, Valeria (so named after Doom’s ex-lover). His act of kindness was only part of a greater scheme to gain superiority over Reed, however. Doom had realize that it was his magical ability which truly made him Reed’s superior and sought to increase his aptitude. Finding Valeria’s (the gypsy, not Valeria Richards) soul, he sacrificed it to a demon because out of everything on the Earth, she was what he most cherished, and in turn the demon amplified his magical aptitude to the point where he was even a threat to Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme. Doom then constructed a new armor using Valeria’s body and bound Valeria Richards to him, making her his familiar. Doom sent Franklin Richards to hell and tortured the rest of the Fantastic Four. Reed eventually put a stop to his shenanigans through mastering some magic, and the Demon returned Franklin and sent Doom to hell. The FF were left with a traumatized Franklin and Reed with a new scar, however.
More recently, Doom went to war with T’Challa and Ororo of Wakanda. Using Ororo against T’Challa, Doom entered the realm of the panther God Bast. Shedding his armor, Doom offers himself up for her judgment. Through Doom’s sorcery, he has seen countless futures which all end in various levels of dystopia or apoccoplyse. The only hope he found was one in which he ruled with an iron fist. Bast, impressed by his the purity and unapologetic dogma of his world view grants him the Vibranium he sought from Wakanda, despite her desire to protect her people and their interests.
PERSONALITY:
Victor von Doom truly believes himself to be more than a man. He has a greater understanding of the world, a greater awareness. He doesn’t know how or why he was granted this awareness, but it is what it is and he cannot be put down by any mortal, or made to believe that he is less than what he is. Doom is intelligent, observant, calculating and above all ruthless. He views his actions as a means to an end. He is doing for humanity what it is too stupid or too weak to do for itself. Without his tyranny, the world would destroy itself. He’s seen it happen, he’s lived through it happening.
Doom’s pride is his biggest weakness. The fact that he truly believes himself to be superior means that he has great difficulty seeing that he isn’t. Or that even if he is more intelligent than a good number of people on the planet, there are those who are just as, or possibly more intelligent than him. Sometimes Doom’s ruthlessness causes him to win out over them, and sometimes it isn’t enough to make up for his ego.
In the end, Victor’s actions are generally the product of some combination of righteous indignation over the state of humanity and more personal slights. He took over Latveria due to outrage at the treatment of his family, but the heartlessness of the Latverian soldiers and King Vladimir made him unhesitant in his cruelty toward them. Doom views most humans as inherently bad or stupid and won’t be easily dissuaded in that opinion. Conversely, he hates Reed Richards on a certain level because Richards’ intelligence threatens his own, but on another level because Richards judged him and his actions without ever stopping to consider Victor’s side of it.
POWER:
Doom’s powers in canon are vast and rather deus ex machina-like. As such, I would have everything but his magic taken from him upon arriving in the City. Because magic works differently in CnC, he would be unable to perform any high-level spells. It would basically be limited to short-distance flight, energy projection, and very short illusion spells.
He would also keep his armor, but its impervious-ness would be limited. Basically, it would be another suit of armor, but not mystical in any way.
In addition to his muted canon abilities, I’d like him to have an external monologue. Think like… Rorschach’s Journal, but projected out loud via some weird pseudo telepathy.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[voice]
[There’s an almost eerie silence as the comm. signal comes on. Then the sound of heavy robes rustling against something metallic, and then two metallic items striking against each other softly followed by a heavy sigh. When the man speaks, his voice is deep, commanding, and slightly accented.]
This is not the first time I have been made the pawn of an indifferent world, though it invariably ends in my triumph. I have seen many realities, many futures, and although I know not which sorcery has seen fit to handle Doom in such a way, rest assured he is not defeated.
[There’s a rustling sound again, as though the speaker is rising from his seat. Were this video, it would probably be for dramatic effect. As it isn’t, he’s probably just so impassioned by his own words.]<’small>
Consider this a warning to all of my enemies present on this network. Von Doom has arrived and whatever game you have been so content to play is now over. The machine, Lachesis, her days are numbered. After all, I built better and more advanced when I was but a boy in the forests of my homeland.
[There’s the slight rustle and sound of metallic fingertips again and the feed cuts.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It was with no small degree of befuddlement that Doom awoke to something other than Wakanda’s Vibranium Vault. The metallic walls and monitors which surrounded him were sleek and labeled as Stark’s designs though they looked pathetic even for him. Doom reached with a gauntlet covered hand, running the tips of his metal covered gloves across the screen as it fed information to him. Was this another test of Bast’s? Impossible and furthermore, it wouldn’t make sense. Why would a god who valued purity and truthfulness sequester him in this shell of a reality?
Doom rose from the table, examining the lab around him. The machines prompted him to take dog tags and a small communications device, the simplicity of which he scoffed at before tucking it into a pocket of his robe. Everything in the room was so typically futuristic he had to wonder what purpose it served. To frighten lesser men as they arrived from the portal which stood, imposing in the center of the lab. Frighten them into complying with the machines’ demands? Surely it had not accounted for the likes of Doom.
Satisfied with his observations, Doom made his way through the building. The layout was generic, unmemorable, but he made a point of studying it carefully. Surely if that portal were the way in, it would also be a way out. A way to return and complete his task. After all, this jaunt was just that, an annoying detour on his latest path to greatness which up till now, had been progressing quite nicely. Eventually, Doom made it out into the lobby of the building and then out into the ugly mid-fall afternoon.
Sleet rained down in sheets on what could only be a Manhattan thorofare. Doom felt himself grimace under his mask. New York, what a terrible place to be brought to. All the more reason to leave quickly. Gathering his cloak around him, he stole himself against the cold weather and snow. After all, Latveria’s winters were colder and less forgiving and all the gods and demons knew Victor von Doom had been through worse. Soon he would find himself a base of operations and create a plan, a path out of this dreadful place, and all involved in his abduction would suffer for it.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
None that I can think of.