Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.
—ART SPIEGELMAN
Far from flights of fantasy or pure fiction, myths are the stories we tell ourselves that lend meaning and legitimacy to our lives in our quest for ultimate truth. Establishing a context for the present, they also connect us to a rich past and, often, at their core, provide the seeds of our belief systems. Folklore, too, fulfilled a similar role among cultures and communities favoring an oral tradition—including Indigenous populations like the Native Americans or captive Africans brought to the New World. Of course, the unique challenges presented by slavery necessitated alternative forms of expression, information dissemination, and commentary that ultimately contributed to the survival of those suffering under its yoke. In the process of dealing with desperate circumstances, new myths were also born.
Take the African archetype of the trickster, which became embedded in the imagination of the African American for generations to come. Known by various names—including Esu-Elegbara, Exu, Echu Elegua, or Papa Legba—this character from West African Yoruba mythology, personified in Anansi the Spider, found expression in such distinctly African American folk heroes as Br’er Rabbit and the Signifying Monkey. In tales passed on via word of mouth, these unlikely saviors were revered for their ability to outsmart more powerful opponents (i.e., “Massa”) using creativity, guile, and wit, thereby transmuting vice into virtue. A “slippery tongue,” for example, facilitated one’s removal from a sticky situation. That same “gift of gab” offered the ability to cajole, manipulate, lie, and generally talk circles around those trying to assert their dominance or authority. Such a rhetorical strategy, known as “signifying”—or more colloquially, “jivin’ ” or “talking shit”—became a legitimate superpower for coping with an unjust world.
Though slavery eventually ended, life did not appreciably change for the newly emancipated, who still had to contend with restrictive Jim Crow laws that laid the foundation for the institutional racism that plagues us to this day. In this post-slavery landscape, the archetype of the trickster became more fluid, morphing into the authority-flouting “Badman” to create a uniquely African American anti-hero. While traditional heroes, possessed of the best intentions, were always striving for a just outcome or goal, the Badman, who often exhibited pathological tendencies, proved to be a little more complicated.
Due to severe limitations placed on all aspects of Black life—from housing to education to employment—the Badman operated on the fringes of established society and, therefore, outside the status quo. Malcolm X once remarked, “Only a fool fights by the ground rules that his enemy has laid down for him,” but the Badman had already internalized such logic. In fact, becoming a key figure in the underground or counterculture might explain how he earned his reputation in the first place. The Badman’s involvement in everything from gambling and prostitution to illegal drugs and alcohol, which had no place in polite society, provided the only available means to make a decent living. In treading this path, he also placed himself in opposition to the police, who replaced the former enforcer, the slave master. But to his community, the Badman struck a righteous figure like Robin Hood, flouting what was permissible under inequitable laws.
One of the earliest and best examples of the Badman as anti-hero was “Stagolee” or Stagger Lee, whose name, in its various renderings, has been lionized in myriad songs, ballads, toasts, and stories. Ironically, he wasn’t a defender of the race, railing against a corrupt system, but rather took the life of another black man who dared touch his Stetson hat. Their deadly dispute boiled down to an issue of respect and preserving one’s honor, which was always worth defending. Lee, according to author Cecil Brown, “came to personify the collective feeling of blacks at the bottom of society, and it was in this sense that Stagolee became a symbol of the Black community.”1
Had he merely been a myth or contrived, his story might not have resonated among so many musicians and performers, from Cab Calloway to Bob Dylan. But not simply a figment of the folkloric imagination, Stagger Lee Shelton was a known St. Louis pimp in the 1890s, whose reputation for toughness could only be matched by his way with words. In this regard, he could be seen as a worthy predecessor of today’s rappers, who have subsumed the persona of the Badman while perfecting the practice of signifying, taking it to the pinnacle of pop culture.
A century after Stagger Lee saw the emergence of characters like Nas Escobar and The Notorious B.I.G., originally Biggie Smalls. Nas, of course, was comparing himself to the infamous Colombian drug lord, who revolutionized the cocaine trade, while copyright issues forced Biggie to change his name from that of the gang leader of the 1975 film Let’s Do It Again. While adding the adjective that introduced his all-caps persona, he alternatively called himself the Black Frank White, after the drug kingpin played by Christopher Walken in King of New York (1990). As products of the crack era, these counterculture bards of the nineties wholly embraced the archetype of the Badman as part of their cultural inheritance. But for DOOM, assuming the persona of one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time involved more than simply adopting a pseudonym.
“Back in the day, the first thing that hit me and gave me ideas in terms of characters and creative writing were comic books,”2 he said. Having already established a connection to Doctor Doom through his own nickname, he took the time to delve further into the character’s backstory, adding, “In the case of Doctor Doom, he was supposed to be a bad guy, trying to take over the Earth and whatnot, but where he’s from [Latveria] he’s revered as a king, he’s loved. So, it’s a matter of perception, it depends on whatever angle you’re looking from.”3
DOOM went on to observe that “the way comics are written shows you the duality of things—how the bad guy ain’t really a bad guy if you look at it from his perspective. Through that style of writing, I was kinda like, if I flip that into hip-hop, that’s something niggas ain’t done yet. I was looking for an angle that would be brand new. That’s when I came up with the character and worked out the kinks—that’s the Villain.”4 Clearly on a mission to murder stereotypes and one-up all the other MCs out there, he staked his claim to be the baddest of them all, declaring, “From the point of view [of America] we’re the villains. But I’m the SuperVillain.”5
Joseph Campbell, known for his comparative study of worldwide folklore and mythology, concluded that “the artist is the one who communicates myth for today.”6 His statement applies as much to DOOM as to the genre that heavily influenced him—superhero comic books—which only came into being comparatively recently, with the introduction of Superman in 1939. According to author Bradford Wright, “Comic books had the power to indulge fantasies and create myths for a young audience hungry for empathy and easy explanations. Here was an entertainment industry catering exclusively to the tastes of the young and impressionable, controlled by urban young men with worldviews far removed from Victorian middle-class ideals and guided, above all, by the pursuit of quick profits. It was a combination that heralded a cultural and market revolution.”7
The urban men to whom he was referring were largely lower-middle-class, second-generation Jewish immigrants like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created Superman for DC Comics while still in high school. Another collaborative team, who had a huge impact on the comic book industry—especially after hitting their stride in the sixties—was Stanley Lieber (aka Stan Lee) and Jacob Kurtzberg (aka Jack Kirby), who formed the creative core of DC’s main competitor, Marvel Comics. At a time when the industry was struggling, they single-handedly revived interest in superheroes with the introduction of the Fantastic Four, an unlikely pairing of idiosyncratic individuals, who acquired remarkable powers following their exposure to cosmic rays during a spaceflight. The Fantastic Four quickly rose in popularity to become the flagship book for Marvel, who followed their success with equally compelling but conflicted characters such as Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Thor. The Fantastic Four were also among the first comic book characters to get their own animated TV series, beginning in the late sixties. While diverse in their skill set, all shared a similar profile—awesome abilities coupled with human frailties that brought them down to Earth and made them relatable. Such traits became the defining characteristics of Marvel heroes.
As Wright noted, “Marvel presented its cautionary tales not through moral platitudes but in the form of alienated antiheroes. On the surface these characters were not sympathetic, they were hopelessly selfish individuals who planted the seeds of their own destruction. Yet in these pathetic characters, readers recognized familiar human feelings and glimpsed their own anxieties.”8 In this regard, DOOM’s flawed supervillain persona perfectly conformed to the template.
In addition to the angst-ridden hero archetype, which, for a time, was copied by the entire industry, Marvel’s innovations extended to an entire intricate universe, in which such characters interacted, often crossing over into each other’s story lines. As unbelievable as some of the plots and concepts may have appeared, they always offered commentary on real issues of the day that placed them a cut above mindless entertainment. Look no further than Hollywood’s enduring fixation with big-budget superhero movies to understand how influential and impactful these humble comic books would eventually turn out to be.
What is considered the Marvel Age of comics officially kicked off with the introduction of the Fantastic Four, who debuted in November 1961. Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, who could contort his body in impossible ways, helmed a motley crew of superheroes, including his girlfriend Susan Storm, who had the power of invisibility; her brother Johnny, known as the Human Torch for his ability to spontaneously combust; and Richard’s best friend, Ben Grimm, a former football player whose acquisition of superhuman strength was accompanied by the breakout of his stony complexion that gave him the name The Thing. In need of a worthy nemesis, their creators obliged, giving them Doctor Doom, whose hubris and awesome abilities made him as compelling a character as the heroes themselves. A “mad scientist” in the greatest sense of the term, Doom had the ability to shoot electricity from his hands, time travel, and even play God, wresting his mother’s soul from the hands of the devil himself. Following the character’s first appearance in Fantastic Four #5 in July 1962, Doctor Doom eventually took on a life of his own.
Author and comic book enthusiast Douglas Wolk, who has read the entire Marvel oeuvre of some twenty-seven thousand issues, writes, “Doom is genuinely monstrous. He never removes the armor with which he has covered his flesh, or the metal mask he built so that nobody could ever see his scarred face. He’s prideful, supercilious, and allistic, devoid of compassion, prone to bursts of contemptuous rage. He maintains his power through violence, and it’s of paramount importance to him to appear to be in absolute control at all times.”9 At the same time, however, he concedes, “In the stories Kirby drew, we most often see Doom in the business of consolidating his power, or plotting his revenge on Reed Richards, as he does here, rather than something more broadly nefarious. We are to understand he is a villain because he fights the Fantastic Four, and that the Fantastic Four are heroes because they fight him; his understanding is just the reverse.”10
Embedded in the background, Doctor Doom did not even receive an origin story until a couple of years later in Fantastic Four Annual #2. By 1965, he was not only fighting his usual foes, but also making appearances battling Spider-Man, the Avengers, and Daredevil. For someone who didn’t even get his own book(s) until much later in 2006, when Ed Brubaker compiled and expanded his whole backstory into the six-volume Books of Doom, he seems to have exerted an oversized influence on the Marvel Universe. He even figured prominently in the Fantastic Four’s animated TV series, produced by Hanna-Barbera, that first aired in 1967.
“Doom is a compelling villain because he is unabashedly the hero of his own story,” says Wolk. “Like as far as he is concerned, he is out to make the world a better place and the world would be a better place if he were running it. And he might be right about that. He has, in fact, been the person who has saved everything more than once.” Rationalizing the character’s more pathological behavior, he adds, “He has a weirdly tormented past. He has not necessarily good, but kind of defensible reasons for hating the people he hates and being obsessed with what he’s obsessed with.” Like the flawed heroes for whom comic book audiences rooted, Doom cut the figure of a villain, who, perhaps, wasn’t all that bad (“a killer who loves children,” as his namesake admitted in rhyme). After taking over the world in the late eighties, for example, he abolished apartheid in South Africa, which begs the question: How evil could he be?
Even bad guys were children once, and young Victor Von Doom’s story begins in the fictional Balkan nation of Latveria, where he is born into a nomadic tribe of Gypsies known as the Zefiro, a persecuted minority. His father, Werner, is a man of science and medicine, while his mother, Cynthia, who practices magic, is considered a witch. Science and mysticism, then, represent the twin pillars of influence in Victor’s life that are crucial to his character’s self-realization and development. Premised on logic and reason, science utilizes reproducible methods of experimentation to derive consistent and observable results. Magic represents exactly the opposite, existing in the abstract, intuitive realm where faith, belief, and miracles comingle. The eventual loss of both parents in a violent and unexpected manner provides the impetus that sets Victor on his path to becoming the infamous Doctor Doom, as he devotes himself to the study of these two divergent approaches to explaining the unknown.
He lives like a hermit, shunning most people, only sharing his true self with his girlfriend, Valeria. But when the Baron of Latveria’s forces come after him, he must leave her, escaping by inventing a lifelike mechanical double—the prototype Doombot. (DOOM would brilliantly exploit this important detail in the story later on in real life.) Victor’s invention attracts the attention of the US government, who offer him a full scholarship to college in exchange for access to his research.
In college, the budding scientist meets Reed Richards, the future Mr. Fantastic, who asks him to be his roommate. After Victor spurns this overture, however, Richards ends up rooming with Ben Grimm. It turns out that the scholarship is simply a means to an end for Doom, who is provided a lab to help the US government develop an army of robotic soldiers. He uses the facilities to further his practice of the dark arts, working on a time machine that would allow him to enter the demon Mephisto’s realm and free his mother’s soul.
Victor successfully propels himself to the other side, but only briefly, as the unstable energy he generates unleashes a fiery explosion. After regaining consciousness in the hospital, he finds his face has been scarred. The degree of his disfigurement has always been debatable, however, as different writers contributed to the character’s story after Kirby left Marvel. Following the accident, Victor decides to terminate his agreement with the US government, allowing his robotic soldiers to destroy his research and self-destruct before he himself flees the country.
Returning to Eastern Europe, he lives in relative anonymity thanks to the bandages that cover his face. After reconnecting with his childhood love, Valeria, he seems to have finally found the peace and stability he needs. But living “happily ever after” is not in the cards for Victor. When KGB agents discover his true identity, they attempt to persuade him to work for them, using Valeria as a bargaining chip, but almost end up killing her. Victor’s neighbor, Otto, comes to the rescue. Masquerading as a harmless drunk, he turns out to be a member of a secret order of monks from Tibet. In Victor he sees the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, which says that a man who hides his face would lead them, and urges him to go and study with the order.
In the years that Victor is away, immersed in training and honing his abilities in both science and the mystic arts, he learns that the Baron, who persecuted his tribe and family, has ascended to the throne of Latveria. Meanwhile, his former rival Reed Richards has become a renowned scientist. The news is enough to spark a fit of jealousy and rage, making Victor realize that he has unfinished business to attend to (the same feelings DOOM probably experienced when he saw all these corny MCs coming up). Enlisting the aid of the other monks, Victor devises a high-tech suit of armor that he dons like a medieval knight, along with a green cape and hood. The final piece of the outfit is a forged metallic mask that he hastily puts on before it’s had a chance to fully cool. The unfortunate result is that he sears the flesh off his entire face, becoming permanently disfigured and making the final transformation into Doctor Doom.
The accident only serves to toughen his resolve while deadening his empathy and emotions. Despite Valeria’s best efforts to dissuade him, Doom is more determined than ever to return to Latveria and start exacting his revenge. His first move is to marshal his tribe of Zefiros to help rebuild his robot army and reclaim the country. By this point he is so formidable an opponent that no one dares challenge him. He carries out a mostly bloodless coup, killing only the king. Having “liberated” his own country, Doom now sets his sights on the world. It’s not your ordinary megalomaniac power grab either because, as far as he is concerned, people have demonstrated such an inordinate capacity for violence, hate, and destruction that he feels like he’s rescuing humanity from itself. Doom, eventually, fulfills this ambition as well, though his greatest personal achievement is battling Mephisto to finally free his mother’s soul from eternal damnation.
Even in abbreviated form, this backstory provides plenty of parallels between the comic book character and the MC. The most obvious similarity they share are lives irrevocably altered by tragic loss. In the fictional Doom’s case, the death of both parents determines the path he pursues in life. For DOOM, the unexpected loss of his brother coupled with the termination of his record deal delivers the one-two punch that took the floor out from under him, setting the stage for serious transformation. In both cases, revenge provides the impetus for change, whether a score to settle with humanity or with the music industry.
While plenty of rappers have assumed comic book alter egos—from David Banner to Jean Grae (based on Jean Grey from the X-Men) to Tony Starks (Ironman, aka Ghostface Killah)—only DOOM fully inhabited his character. His most obvious homage to his namesake was the trademark metal face mask that made his transformation complete. Employed primarily for theatrical effect, the mask helped him subvert the whole paradigm of fame, allowing him a modicum of privacy in his personal life. He also used it to deflect attention from himself so that people would focus more on the content of his words. But one might also argue that the mask eventually morphed into his entire image, especially when he created his own DOOMbots, letting them loose to perform in his stead. Such villainous behavior earned him a significant backlash from his dedicated fans, who, expecting to see the real DOOM, were hardly fooled.
Other parallels were not so obvious. Like his namesake, DOOM was a recluse who valued his privacy and enjoyed spending time alone. Completely dedicated to his art, he exhibited the same relentless work ethic as the good doctor. In fact, if not for his prolific output, we might not be talking about him today. But once back on his feet, he imposed himself on the rap scene as the alternative to the status quo. Like his character’s quest for world domination, he was on a self-declared mission to destroy commercial rap. In a way, DOOM also possessed a time machine like his comic-book alias, taking rap back to the fundamentals of dope beats and clever wordplay.
Hip-hop, like comics, boasted no shortage of larger-than-life personalities with egos and mouths to match, but DOOM managed to dominate them all. When it came to puns, punchlines, metaphors, and straight bragging, he beat rappers at their own game. When asked about his inspiration for the character of Doctor Doom, creator Jack Kirby referenced the Grim Reaper, the personification of death. One also saw echoes of Doom in one of the big screen’s ultimate badmen, Darth Vader. In modeling such villainous behavior, DOOM had big shoes to fill, but he approached it with tongue planted firmly in cheek. As one reviewer commented, “If there is anything truly villainous about DOOM, it’s that he subverts hip-hop’s foundation of taking oneself way too seriously by acknowledging that it’s all just tall tales.”11
The strongest point of intersection between the man and the myth—missed by most casual observers—was their dedication to both science and mysticism, two opposite approaches to explaining the world. Like his namesake, DOOM’s father was a scientist and mathematician, while his mother, though a nurse, leaned toward alternative therapies and spirituality. Both contributed to their son’s erudite approach to everything from mastering the technology of various electronic beat machines to his love for hidden knowledge and the occult. DOOM remained a student of the universe for life, always thirsty for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The fruits of his research resurface in rhymes, rich with obscure references that people will be decoding for years to come like some latter-day Shakespeare. In his later years a diminished musical output coincided with a deeper devotion to the esoteric—everything from harnessing the power of crystals to constructing geodesic domes and orgone pyramids. Certainly, if the roles were reversed, and in some parallel universe the fictional Doctor Doom had to choose a real-life analog, he could have done no better than the person of Daniel Dumile.