DOCTOR DOOM IS A THIEF! TOP 10 DR. DOOM STEALS

If Professor X is a jerk, then Doom is a thief.

For a guy who is a brilliant sorcerer and scientist, he spends an awful lot of time trying to take other people’s stuff instead of innovating his own…

THE TOP TEN TIMES DOCTOR DOOM STOLE STUFF

10. Doom Does Some Breaking and Entering (The Mighty Avengers #7-9 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagely)

The Mighty Avengers was part of the mid-2000s explosion of Avengers books, all headed up by Bendis, and it is one of the less-remembered, more-underrated ones. In this story, the Avengers go to Latveria to capture Doom after he helped drop a symbiote bomb in lower Manhattan. What’s the theft? Doom gets shunted back in time and breaks into the Baxter Building to steal his own time machine and use it to return to the present. So, yeah, it’s stealing—but it’s his own stuff and he had a good reason.

9. Dr. Doom Steals All the Countries (Spidey Super Stories #9 by Jean Thomas and Winslow Mortimer)

No look at Doom stories is complete without a look at SSS#9. Super Stories was a spin-off of the PBS TV show The Electric Company, and the books were “easy read” books designed to get kids to read. It’s not canon, but it’s terrific.

8. Doom Steals the Power Cosmic (Fantastic Four #258 by John Byrne)

This is actually the second time Doom hijacks the powers of a Galactus herald. The first was Silver Surfer. This time, it’s Terrax. Actually, he fails to steal them in this adventure and is blown apart into atoms. Jim Shooter really wanted to use Doom for the first Secret Wars, so he literally did a deus ex machina and had Beyonder recreate Doom’s body, put his mind back in it, and bring him to Battleworld. This story is notable because it’s John Byrne F4 (one of the best runs of all time), and because it was part of Byrne’s effort to bring the foursome back to its core values. He explicitly and overtly was attempting to tell stories like those of Lee and Kirby, and this was literally a “steal” of such a story. The first Doom-steals-herald-powers story appears below.

7. Doom Steals Beyonder’s Powers (for the second time) (Secret Wars #1-9 by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic)

Doom actually did the steal at the end of Hickman’s long, plodding, but sometimes brilliant Avengers run, but it is in this miniseries that we see what Doom would do if he were God. He would create the universe not in his image, but in his homage. The series is pretty good—but it’s not one of the best Doom stories ever. However, how can you deny that this is his greatest “steal?” You can’t. I mean, he literally becomes the creator of everything. But it’s not the best written one, so it doesn’t get the #1 slot.

6. Cosmic Surfing Doom! (Fantastic Four #57-60 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)

Surfer had barely been introduced before Doom found out about him, sent him an invite to a dinner party, and didn’t tell Surfer that he was the main course! What follows is Doom on a flying surfboard shooting blasts from his hand. Really, how can it better than this? Well, it can. We get a one-on-one fight between Thing and Victor Von. Of course, Doom loses because Reed Richards makes a machine that drains the power from Doom. Because science always beats magic.

5. If You Want My Body, And You Think I’m Sexy, And You Want Your Own Miniature Zoo (Fantastic Four #10 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)

In his second appearance, Doom meets a group of aliens called Ovoids who teach him how to switch bodies, so he steals Reed’s. The Ovoids have never returned, to my knowledge, but that seems like something Bendis or Hickman should be bringing back. Anyway, the story also Doom using a shrink ray to steal a zoo. So it’s two thefts for the price of one! This is also the first time Johnny Storm uses his powers to create a “fake person” made of flames—another blast from the past that hasn’t been repeated in the modern era. This is one of the wackiest Lee/Kirby stories ever, and one of the most fun.

4. Doom’s Grossest Heist (Fantastic Four #66-70, 500 by Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo)

Better known as the “Unthinkable” story arc, this is one of the best and darkest Marvel tales of all time. What’s the theft? Doom steals the skin of a woman he loved as a child so that he can turn it into a more powerful, magical suit of armor for himself. Really. And if that wasn’t enough, he also tortures children in this story. It’s some evil, evil shit, but in the end Reed sends Doom to Hell—where he stayed for a little while.

3. Dr. Doom is Keyser Soze (Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #1-4 by Paul Tobin and Patrick Sherberger)

In terms of joy to read, this is one of the best miniseries Marvel has ever put out. Dr. Doom gets the Sinister Six together and helps them up their power-set before sending them each on missions to steal stuff from super hero bases like the Baxter Building and Stark Industries. It’s an all-ages book, but it’s not stupid or puerile—it’s fantastic. Truly.

2. Doom Wants Gold! (Fantastic Four #5 by Lee/Kirby)

One of the best comics of all time is Doom’s first appearance, in which he uses a time machine to send the titular heroes back in time to steal Blackbeard’s treasure. Yes, Doom has the brains and resources to build a working time machine but only wants to use it for petty theft. An ongoing story of Doom is his battle to reclaim his mother’s soul from Hell, something he does every year, and yet he doesn’t want to use the machine to go back before she died and spend a little time with mommy.

1. The First Time Ever He Stole Beyonder’s Powers (Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars #1-12 by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck)

Ah, the Secret Wars. Marvel’s first major “event” series culminated in him stealing the powers of the most powerful entity in the universe, mostly just using his trash talking skills, and using the powers to make himself a giant.