Maybe you have no interest in the MCU. I wouldn't blame you. As a fan of Marvel in the Silver Age I counted myself lucky to have had a second bite of the cherry with movies from Iron Man through to Avengers: Endgame. That's an eleven-year run with very few flops (I wouldn't bother with Iron Man 3 again and I deliberately avoided Taika Waititi's sniggering take on Ragnarok) or even thirteen years if we include Spider-Man: No Way Home.
After that, for me, Marvel fatigue set in. Too many TV shows, too much multiverse, and the great characters were all gone. It felt a lot like the way the Silver Age deflated into the Bronze Age. I lived through that once and didn't want to witness it all over again. Also, the MCU seemed to be depending too much on sending itself up, and once you start on that route you're going all the way to the bottom.
But then, just the other week, the news that Robert Downey Jr will be returning as... wait, what? Doctor Doom? Surely a ghastly and cynical ploy to try and lure back the diehard fans like me who'd fallen out of love with all the multiverse shenanigans.
Well, maybe. Except that the creative team for Marvel Studios' Phase Six are Anthony and Joseph Russo, who helmed some of the best movies in the MCU's own little Silver Age. Their track record forces me to think again. Set aside the cynicism. Consider: if Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom is going to work, and work well, what might that involve?
And so I wrote this little speculative snippet. And if superheroes aren't your thing, forget it and come back tomorrow. But if you have any love for the MCU, take a look and let me know if you agree, or disagree -- or (best of all) if you have an idea of your own.
Doom needs a competent but relatively unknown actor, not a big name who refuses to hide his face. Better yet, get a solid choice for a physical actor and dub the voice, Darth Vader style. If his mask comes off even once past whatever origin flashback there is the character is ruined - Stallone in Judge Dredd all over again.
ReplyDeleteIt would be pretty difficult to make the Victor Von Doom of the comics work in a modern movie. The name, the costume, and the origin story all feel a bit cheesy these days. Still, they seem to be planning to bring Galactus back as a big old humanoid (and for some reason in an identity-concealing mask, if they stick to the comics) rather than as Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud, so maybe cheesy is back in fashion.
DeleteBut the Russos did specifically use the name Victor Von Doom in their intro, so probably I'm wrong about their intentions -- in which case, as you say, why use Downey? Almost the only character point that distinguishes the comics Doom is that he is vengeful because of his facial disfigurement, Phantom of the Opera style, so we can never see him without the mask.