The Fantastic Four's rival Doctor Doom is undoubtedly one of, if not the most famous villains the Marvel Universe - but his enduring popularity is not necessarily because he has changed over time, but because he has not. Victor Von Doom is a theatrical villain in the extreme, prone to long-winded speeches about his long-term plans for world domination and his inevitable victory over his sworn enemy Reed Richards. At the time, he was simply another card-carrying villain, but as the decades have passed Doctor Doom has only become more popular thanks to his (and his writers) resistance to change.

Doctor Doom appeared relatively early in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original Fantastic Four run. In Fantastic Four #5, Marvel's first family are captured by Doctor Doom, who sends them back in time to retrieve a treasure. Doom has no intentions of being fooled or betrayed by the team - so when they return and attack Doom, it is only a robot duplicate that is defeated - one of many robotic Doombots created by Doom just in case his life was ever threatened.

But during the Silver Age of Comics, most other villains acted and sounded like Doctor Doom: they were all theatrical, boastful, and often referred to themselves in the third person. This is most evident in other Stan Lee-written villains like the Mandarin, Loki, Doctor Octopus and others. The DC Universe wasn't exempt from B-Movie-esque villains as well: Lex Luthor was a prime offender. But as the Silver Age gave way to the Bronze Age in the '80s, villains became, for lack of a better word, more "realistic." Lex Luthor became a billionaire businessman, the Mandarin operated from the shadows, and other villains experienced similar changes...but not Doctor Doom. If anything, Doom has planted his feet and became even more of a monologue-spewing villain than before.

Even leading up to and including the Modern Age of Comics (the 2000s to the present day), Doctor Doom is still a magnanimous villain reminiscent of the villains in a Saturday morning cartoon. His position as leader of Latveria may have something to do with this characterization: Doom rules a country and makes repeated speeches to his subjects (while threatening anyone who dares oppose him, be they citizen or private superhero). Perhaps this is why Doctor Doom has been received so poorly in the various live action Fantastic Four films: his characterization is so innately intertwined with the campy 60s version that any attempt to "update" his personality inevitably fails.

Even as far forward as his appearances in 2022, Doctor Doom is still a theatrical character. In July's Captain America: Symbol of Truth #3, for example, Captain America and ally Deadpool are brought to Doom's throne room in Latveria: a lavishly decorated enclosed space that is reminiscent of a castle. Modern-day villains, while still prone to the occasional speech, do not use theatrical elements with the same appeal as Doom - and it is precisely this theatricality combined with a steadfast refusal to update his characterization that makes Doctor Doom so compelling of a villain to watch (especially now).

While the Avengers are Marvel Comics’ flagship superhero team as it encompasses the greatest number of diverse heroes spanning across the entire fictional universe, the Fantastic Four is still Marvel’s First Family, and Doctor Doom proved once and for all that they will always be more important than the Avengers–at least, in his eyes.

The Fantastic Four made their Marvel Comics debut in 1961’s Fantastic Four #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby with an amazing cast of superheroes that consisted of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing. Two years later, the Avengers came onto the scene in Avengers #1 with Iron Man, Thor, Ant-Man, the Wasp, and the Hulk making up that impressive squad. While the two teams were similar and came out roughly at the same time, the Fantastic Four stood apart because, unlike the Avengers who deliberately stayed out of each other’s personal lives, the Fantastic Four were an actual family who faced problems that weren’t withholden to superhero antics. Another key difference is that, after only sixteen issues, the Avengers roster changed completely and has been a revolving door of heroes from that point forward whereas the Fantastic Four has basically stayed the same since the team’s first appearance, making it a squad of irreplaceable characters that can’t be filtered out every few issues.

In Avengers #25 by Stan Lee and Don Heck, the Avengers–a team which, at that time consisted of Captain America, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver–had just finished a battle through the timestream against Kang the Conqueror when they find themselves in the crosshairs of Doctor Doom. At this point, readers were probably wondering why an established Fantastic Four villain would be troubling himself with spying on the Avengers, and not even the original team at that. Well, Doctor Doom sums up his motives perfectly in the opening pages of this issue, saying, “Before I battle the Fantastic Four again, I must fill their hearts with fear! And, what better way to do so than by defeating another super-powered team, such as the Avengers, with the greatest of ease?!!”.

Basically, Doctor Doom only wanted to destroy the Avengers to show the Fantastic Four how powerful he is. This means that Doctor Doom only sees the Avengers as pawns to a much larger game that he is playing with Marvel’s premier superhero team, the Fantastic Four, which would make sense given the lack of structure exhibited by the Avengers thus far. In the second Avengers issue, one of the founding members, the Hulk, left the team because he wasn’t getting the respect he earned after Hulk was instrumental in defeating Loki in the first issue. Then, a few issues later, the entire original lineup left the team because they wanted to retire and pass the torch to an entirely different group of heroes. This instability made the Avengers seem weak and uncoordinated, making them the perfect victims for Doctor Doom’s schemes.

Little did Doctor Doom know, however, that the Avengers was not a team to underestimate, especially Scarlet Witch who used her Hex power to destroy all of Doctor Doom’s machinations within his villainous lab, earning the Avengers their victory. However, even after being beaten by the Avengers, Doctor Doom rarely bothered himself with fighting them again as he only did so the first time as a physiological tactic against the Fantastic Four–proving that Doctor Doom views the Fantastic Four as a more important team than the Avengers.