Doctor Doom by Mike DeCarlo Terrificon 2017 Uncasville, CT

Doctor Doom by Mike DeCarlo 2017. Pre-done pencil sketch picked up at Terrificon 2017 Mohegan Sun Uncasville, CT.

Like many of Marvel's Silver Age characters, Doctor Doom was conceived by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. With the Fantastic Four title performing well, Lee and Kirby were trying to dream up a "soul-stirring…super sensational new villain." Looking for a name, Lee latched onto "Doctor Doom" as "eloquent in its simplicity — magnificent in its implied menace.

Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962), Doctor Doom's debut.

Due to the rush to publish, the character was not given a full origin story until Fantastic Four Annual #2, two years after his debut.

Jack Kirby modeled Doctor Doom after Death, with the armor standing in for that character's skeleton; "It was the reason for the armor and the hood. Death is connected with armor and the inhuman-like steel. Death is something without mercy, and human flesh contains that mercy." Kirby further described Doctor Doom as being "paranoid", wrecked by his twisted face and wanting the whole world to be like him. Kirby went on to say that "Doctor Doom is an evil person, but he's not always been evil. He was [respected]…but through a flaw in his own character, he was a perfectionist." At one point in the 1970s, Kirby drew his interpretation of what Doctor Doom would look like under the mask, giving Doctor Doom only "a tiny scar on his cheek." Due to this slight imperfection, Doctor Doom hides his face not from the world, but from himself. To Kirby, this is the motivation for Doctor Doom's vengeance against the world; because others are superior due to this slight scar, Doom wants to elevate himself above them.

Typical of Lee's writing characterization of Doctor Doom is his arrogance; his pride leads to Doctor Doom's disfigurement at the hands of his own machine, and to the failures of many of his schemes. There is also an idea that Doctor Doom placed his mask on his face before it fully cooled, burning his face. In some early stories glimpses of his face are shown, in which he appears to be bald.