Parody
A parody. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon puts it, "parody... is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text." Another critic, Simon Dentith, defines parody as "any cultural practice which provides a polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice". Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, animation and film; the writer and critic John Gross observes in his Oxford Book of Parodies, that parody seems to flourish on territory somewhere between pastiche and burlesque. Meanwhile, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot distinguishes between the parody and the burlesque, "A good parody is a fine amusement, capable of amusing and instructing the most sensible and polished minds; when a formula grows tired, as in the case of the moralistic melodramas in the 1910s, it retains value only as a parody, as demonstrated by the Buster Keaton shorts that mocked that genre. According to Aristotle, Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody.
In ancient Greek literature, a parodia was a narrative poem imitating the style and prosody of epics "but treating light, satirical or mock-heroic subjects". Indeed, the components of the Greek word are παρά para "beside, against" and ᾠδή oide "song". Thus, the original Greek word παρῳδία parodia has sometimes been taken to mean "counter-song", an imitation, set against the original; the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines parody as imitation "turned as to produce a ridiculous effect". Because par- has the non-antagonistic meaning of beside, "there is nothing in parodia to necessitate the inclusion of a concept of ridicule." Old Comedy contained parody the gods could be made fun of. The Frogs portrays the hero-turned-god Heracles as a glutton and the God of Drama Dionysus as cowardly and unintelligent; the traditional trip to the Underworld story is parodied as Dionysus dresses as Heracles to go to the Underworld, in an attempt to bring back a Poet to save Athens. In the 2nd century AD, Lucian of Samosata, a Greek-language writer in Syria, created a parody of travel/geography texts like Indica and The Odyssey.
He described the authors of such accounts as liars who had never traveled, nor talked to any credible person who had. In his named book True History Lucian delivers a story which exaggerates the hyperbole and improbable claims of those stories. Sometimes described as the first Science Fiction, along the lines of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the characters travel to the moon, engage in interplanetary war with the help of aliens they meet there, return to the earth to experience civilization inside a 200 mile long creature interpreted as being a whale; this is a parody of Ctesias' claims that India has a one-legged race of humans with a single foot so huge it can be used as an umbrella, Homer's stories of one-eyed giants, so on. Roman writers explained parody as an imitation of one poet by another for humorous effect. In French Neoclassical literature, parody was a type of poem where one work imitates the style of another to produce a humorous effect; the Ancient Greeks created satyr plays which parodied tragic plays with performers dressed like satyrs.
In classical music, as a technical term, parody refers to a reworking of one kind of composition into another. More a parody mass or an oratorio used extensive quotation from other vocal works such as motets or cantatas; the term is sometimes applied to procedures common in the Baroque period, such as when Bach reworks music from cantatas in his Christmas Oratorio. The musicological definition of the term parody has now been supplanted by a more general meaning of the word. In its more contemporary usage, musical parody has humorous satirical intent, in which familiar musical ideas or lyrics are lifted into a different incongruous, context. Musical parodies may imitate or refer to the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or a general style of music. For example, The Ritz Roll and Rock, a song and dance number performed by Fred Astaire in the movie Silk Stockings, parodies the Rock and Roll genre. Conversely, while the best-known work of Weird Al Yankovic is based on particular popular songs, it often utilises wildly incongruous elements of pop culture for comedic effect.
The first usage of the word parody in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is in Ben Jonson, in Every Man in His Humour in 1598: "A Parodie, a parodie! to make it absurder than it was." The next citation comes from John Dryden in 1693, who appended an explanation, suggesting that the word was in common use, meaning to make fun of or re-create what you are doing. In the 20th century, parody has been heightened as the central and most representative artistic device, the catalysing agent of artistic creation and innovation; this most prom
Brainiac (character)
Brainiac is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics as an adversary of Superman, his second deadliest archenemy after Lex Luthor, a frequent enemy of the Justice League. Brainiac is depicted as an extraterrestrial cyborg or android, he is one of Superman's primary enemies, is responsible for shrinking and stealing Kandor, the capital city of Superman's home planet Krypton. In some continuities, he is responsible for Krypton's destruction. Due to multiple revisions of DC's continuity, several variations of Brainiac have appeared. Most incarnations of Brainiac depict him as a green-skinned being in humanoid form, he is bald, with a set of linked electrode-like objects protruding from his skull. His name is a portmanteau of the words maniac. In 2009, Brainiac was ranked as IGN's 17th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time. Brainiac first appeared in Action Comics #242, was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. First appearing in Action Comics #242, Brainiac is a bald, green-skinned humanoid who arrived on Earth and shrank various cities, including Metropolis, storing them in bottles with the intent of using them to restore the then-unnamed planet he ruled.
He is notable only for his having shrunk the bottle city of Kandor, for having a shrinking ray, for using a force field. In subsequent appearances in this early period, Brainiac is used as a plot device rather than as a featured villain of the month. Brainiac's next appearance is behind the scenes, when he tries to kill Lois Lane and Lana Lang, prompting Superman to give Lois and Lana superpowers, but the villain remains unseen except as a plot twist at the end of the story. Brainiac's next appearance in "Superman's Return to Krypton" in Superman #141 displays how the villain stole the bottle city of Kandor, tragically the only city on Krypton that believes Jor-El's warning of doom for the planet, had built a space ark within the city to save the population. Brainiac's next present-day appearance is in Action Comics #275, which shows the villain planning to defeat Superman by exposing him to both red and green kryptonite, giving Superman a third eye on the back of his head, forcing him to wear various hats to hide it.
Superman soon sends him off into the distant past. This is the first in-story appearance of Brainiac's iconic red diode/electrode-like objects atop his head, which had appeared on the cover of his first appearance in Action Comics #242, but were not shown in the actual story. In "Superboy" #106, Superman as a baby meets Brainiac and it is explained that Brainiac looks the same as he has a 200-year life span, it is revealed that he came from a planet called Bryak and after a voyage in space, he returns to find everybody dead from a plague. He intends to get people from other planets to repopulate Bryak. Brainiac's legacy was revealed in a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up story; this story introduced a green-skinned, blond-haired teenager named Querl Dox, or Brainiac 5, who claimed to be Brainiac's 30th century descendant. Unlike his ancestor, Brainiac 5 used his "twelfth-level intellect" for the forces of good and joined the Legion alongside Supergirl, with whom he fell in love, his home planet was given variously as Yod or Colu.
In Superman #167, it was retconned that Brainiac was a machine created by the Computer Tyrants of Colu as a spy for them to invade other worlds, for which he was given a non-computer appearance. Brainiac's distinctive gridwork of red diodes across his head are explained, he was created with visible "electric terminals of his sensory'nerves'" that he cannot function without. Luthor discovers that the Computers could have given him a twelfth-level intellect, but gave him a tenth-level, the same as them, so he would not try to dominate them. Luthor increases his intelligence. However, Brainiac tricks Luthor by making a device that hypnotizes Luthor, who removes the timer and forgets Brainiac is a computer. Explaining the 1961 introduction of Brainiac's descendant Brainiac 5, his biological disguise included an adopted "son", a young Coluan boy, given the name "Brainiac 2". In the same issue, the letter column contained a "special announcement" explaining that the change in the characterization of Brainiac was being made "in deference" to the "Brainiac Computer Kit", a toy computer created by Edmund Berkeley and based on the Geniac that predated the creation of the comic book character.
The boy, whose name was Vril Dox, went on to lead a revolt against the Computer Tyrants destroying them. Brainiac sees a monument to this. At some indeterminate point in time, Brainiac fled into the 30th century. Developing the ability to absorb and manipulate massive amounts of stellar energy, he remade himself as "Pulsar Stargrave", he became a powerful enemy of the Legion of Super-Heroes, once masqueraded as Brainiac 5's biological father. In current continuity, Brainiac's connection to Pulsar Stargrave remains an open question, one Brainiac 5 has yet to resolve. In the 1980s, DC Comics attempted to re-define several aspects of its Superman series in order to boost sagging sales. At the same time as Lex Luthor acquired his green-and-purple Lexorian battlesuit, Brainiac was re-envisioned (under the ausp
Lex Luthor
Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor is a fictional supervillain appearing in publications by the publisher DC Comics. The character was created by Joe Shuster. Lex Luthor first has since endured as the archenemy of Superman. Introduced as a mad scientist whose schemes Superman would foil, Lex's portrayal has evolved over the years and his characterisation has deepened. In contemporary stories, Lex is portrayed as a wealthy, power-mad American business magnate, ingenious engineer, philanthropist to the city of Metropolis, one of the most intelligent people in the world. A well-known public figure, he is the owner of a conglomerate called LexCorp, he is intent on ridding the world of the alien Superman, whom Lex Luthor views as an obstacle to his plans and as a threat to the existence of humanity. Given his high status as a supervillain, however, he has come into conflict with Batman and other superheroes in the DC Universe; the character has traditionally lacked superpowers or a dual identity and appears with a bald head.
He periodically wears his Warsuit, a high-tech battle suit giving him enhanced strength, advanced weaponry, other capabilities. The character was introduced as a diabolical recluse, but during the Modern Age, he was reimagined by writers as a devious, high-profile industrialist, who has crafted his public persona in order to avoid suspicion and arrest, he is well known for his philanthropy, donating vast sums of money to Metropolis over the years, funding parks and charities. The character was ranked 4th on IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time and as the 8th Greatest Villain by Wizard on its 100 Greatest Villains of All Time list. Luthor is one of a few genre-crossing villains whose adventures take place "in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are suspended". Scott James Wells, Sherman Howard, John Shea, Michael Rosenbaum, Jon Cryer have portrayed the character in Superman-themed television series, while Lyle Talbot, Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, Jesse Eisenberg have portrayed the character in major motion pictures.
Clancy Brown, Powers Boothe, James Marsters, Chris Noth, Anthony LaPaglia, Steven Blum, Fred Tatasciore, Jason Isaacs, Kevin Michael Richardson, Mark Rolston, John DiMaggio, James Woods and Rainn Wilson, others have provided the character's voice in animation adaptations. In his first appearance, Action Comics #23, Luthor is depicted as a diabolical genius and is referred to only by his surname, he resides in a flying city suspended by a dirigible and plots to provoke a war between two European nations. Lois Lane and Clark Kent investigate. Luthor battles Superman with a green ray but Luthor is defeated by Superman, Lois is rescued. Superman destroys Luthor's dirigible with him still on it, implying Luthor may have died, although stories ending with Luthor's apparent death are common in his earliest appearances. Luthor returns in Superman #4 and steals a weapon from the U. S. Army, capable of causing earthquakes. Superman battles and defeats Luthor, the earthquake device is destroyed by Superman.
The scientist who made the device commits suicide to prevent its reinvention. In a story in the same issue, Luthor is shown to have created a city on the sunken Lost Continent of Pacifo and to have recreated prehistoric monsters, which he plans to unleash upon the world. Superman thwarts his plans, Luthor appears to have been killed by the dinosaurs he created. Luthor returns in Superman #5 with a plan to place hypnotic gas in the offices of influential people, he intends to throw the nation into a depression with the help of corrupt financier Moseley, but the story ends with Superman defeating him. In these early stories, Luthor's schemes are centered around financial gain or megalomaniacal ambitions. Luthor's obsessive hatred of Superman came in the character's development. In Luthor's earliest appearances, he is shown as a middle-aged man with a full head of red hair. Less than a year however, an artistic mistake resulted in Luthor being depicted as bald in a newspaper strip; the original error is attributed to Leo Nowak, a studio artist who illustrated for the Superman dailies during this period.
One hypothesis is that Nowak mistook Luthor for the Ultra-Humanite, a frequent foe of Superman who, in his Golden Age incarnation, resembled a balding, elderly man. Other evidence suggests Luthor's design was confused with that of a stockier, bald henchman in Superman #4; the character's abrupt hair loss has been made reference to several times over the course of his history. When the concept of the DC Multiverse began to take hold, Luthor's red-haired incarnation was rewritten as Alexei Luthor, Lex's counterpart from the Earth-Two parallel universe. In 1960, writer Jerry Siegel altered Luthor's backstory to incorporate his hair loss into his origin. In 1944 Lex Luthor was the first character in a comic book to use an atomic bomb; the United States Department of War asked this story line be delayed from publication, which it was until 1946, to protect the secrecy of the Manhattan Project. The War Department asked for dailies of the Superman comic strip to be pulled in April 1945 which depicted Lex Luthor bombarding Superman with the radiation from a cyclotron.
Luthor vanished for a long time, coming back in Superboy #59 (Sept. 19
Ra's al Ghul
Ra's al Ghul is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics as an adversary of the crime-fighting vigilante, Batman. Created by editor Julius Schwartz, writer Dennis O'Neil, artist Neal Adams, the character first appeared in Batman #232's "Daughter of the Demon"; the character is one of Batman's most enduring enemies and belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up Batman's rogues gallery, though given his high status as a supervillain, he has come into conflict with Superman and other heroes in the DC Universe. Most notable as the leader of the League of Assassins, Ra's al Ghul's name in Arabic translates to "Head of the Ghoul", he is the son of Sensei, the father of Talia al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko, Dusan al Ghul, the maternal grandfather of Damian Wayne. Stories featuring Ra's al Ghul involve the Lazarus Pits, which restore life to the dying; the Lazarus Pits have prolonged Ra's life, making him dangerous as he has honed his combat skills for centuries.
Ra's al Ghul has been featured in various media adaptations. The character was voiced/portrayed by David Warner in Batman: The Animated Series, Liam Neeson in The Dark Knight Trilogy, Jason Isaacs in Batman: Under the Red Hood, Dee Bradley Baker in the Batman: Arkham video game series, Oded Fehr in Young Justice, Matt Nable in the Arrowverse television series, Alexander Siddig in Gotham. IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time List ranked Ra's as #7. Created by editor Julius Schwartz, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams, he was introduced in Batman #232's "Daughter of the Demon"; the character's creation and depiction was inspired by other works of fiction, such as the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the Fu Manchu fiction. The Bond film has international crime lord Draco wanting the agent to marry his daughter Contessa Teresa. Another visual antecedent for Ra's al Ghul and his daughter Talia are found in Saloud and Princess Dala in the 1963 film The Pink Panther.
Ra's al Ghul is an international criminal and terrorist mastermind whose ultimate goal is a world in perfect environmental balance. He believes. Ra's tries to assault the world's human populace with a biological weapon, such as a genetically-engineered virus, he is aided in this quest by the Lazarus Pits, reservoirs of rejuvenating chemicals that restore the dead and dying to life. He regards Batman as his worthiest opponent, addressing him as "Detective" out of respect for his intellectual brilliance, has sought to make the Dark Knight as his successor, he is one of the few criminals in Batman's rogues gallery to have deduced his secret identity as Bruce Wayne, but keeps silent on the matter due to the same sense of respect for Batman. For his own part, Batman's opposition to Ra's is complicated by both his own respect for al Ghul's genius and his attraction to his daughter, which she reciprocates. Ra's al-Ghul's real name, early life, exact age have been described differently by various writers.
His Post-Crisis origin story is told in the graphic novel Batman: Birth of the Demon by Dennis O'Neil and Norm Breyfogle. As told in Birth of the Demon, Ra's al Ghul was born over 600 years before his first appearance in Batman comics, to a Bedouin tribe of nomads in a desert somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, near a city whose inhabitants' ancestors had journeyed there from Morocco. Developing an interest in the sciences at an early age, Ra's abandoned his tribe to live in the city, where he pursued life as a researcher, he subsequently married a woman named Sora. Ra's discovered the secret of the Lazarus Pit, he saves a dying prince by lowering him into it; the prince, sadistic to begin with, is driven insane by the Lazarus Pit. He proceeds to strangle Sora, on whom he has had his eye for some time; the sultan, unwilling to admit to himself his son's culpability, declares Ra's guilty of the crime and sentences him to a slow, tortured death in a cage with Sora's corpse. Ra's is set free by the son of a dying elderly woman.
The son feels. Ra's and the son head into the desert to seek the tribe of Ra's' birth. Ra's convinces the head of his tribe, his uncle, to follow Ra's in his quest for revenge by promising the downfall of the sultan. By understanding the germ theory of disease hundreds of years before anyone else, Ra's is able to infect the prince with a deadly virus by sending him contaminated fabrics; when the sultan comes to ask Ra's to cure the prince again, Ra's kills both his son. Ra's leads his tribe to raze the city to the ground and kill all of its inhabitants. Subsequently, Ra's declares himself "Ra's al Ghul", the "Demon's Head". Batman: Birth of the Demon provides a rough figure of 500 years for Ra's al Ghul's age. Due to living so long, he is assumed to have lost track of. Azrael #6 places Ra's age closer to 450 years; as he tells Jean Paul Valley, "I appear to be a vigorous fifty. I am a vigorous four hundred and forty-eight...or is it four hundred and fifty-three? I lost count during the Black Plague.
No matter". In Batman Annual #25, Ra's al Ghul is described as a "700-Year Old Internation
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, comedian and novelist. His work includes acting in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock. Together with Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Jeremy Dyson, he is a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, he played Tycho Nestoris in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Gatiss was born in England, to Winifred Rose and Maurice Gatiss, he grew up opposite the Edwardian psychiatric hospital. His family background is working class, his childhood passions included watching Doctor Who and Hammer Horror films on television, reading Sherlock Holmes and H. G. Wells, collecting fossils. One of his early forays into theatre was in the role of Dad in The Waiting Room by Tony Stowers in Darlington in March 1983, a macabre and surreal Pinteresque comedy exploring a disintegrating family unit, he would have been in the Stowers follow-up A Sense of Insecurity in Darlington in July of the same year but he was unable to take the role because his Dad wouldn't allow him to and insisted he take his exams instead All of these interests have fuelled his creative work as an adult.
He attended Heighington Church of England Primary School and Woodham Comprehensive School in Newton Aycliffe. He studied Theatre Arts at Bretton Hall College, an arts college affiliated to Leeds University. Gatiss was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Huddersfield in 2003. Gatiss is a member of the sketch comedy team The League of Gentlemen, he first met his co-writers and performers in his late teens at Bretton Hall, Yorkshire, a drama school which he attended after finishing school and having spent a gap year travelling around Europe. The League of Gentlemen began as a stage act in 1995, which won the Perrier Award at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997. In the same year the show transferred to BBC Radio 4 as On the Town with the League of Gentlemen, arrived on television on BBC Two in 1999; the television programme has earned Gatiss and his colleagues a British Academy Television Award, a Royal Television Society Award and the prestigious Golden Rose of Montreux. In 2005, the film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse was released, to positive reviews.
Shearsmith and Pemberton reunited in 2009 to create a dark BBC sitcom, which featured an episode guest-starring Gatiss. The three reunited again in 2012 to film a series of sketches for the fourth series of CBBC show Horrible Histories. Outside the League, Gatiss' television work has included writing for the 2001 revival of Randall & Hopkirk and script editing the popular sketch show Little Britain in 2003, making guest appearances in both. In 2001 he guested in Spaced as a villainous government employee modelled on the character of Agent Smith from The Matrix film series. In the same year he appeared in several editions of the documentary series SF:UK. Other acting appearances include the comedy-drama In the Red, the macabre sitcom Nighty Night, Agatha Christie's Marple as Ronald Hawes in The Murder at the Vicarage, a guest appearance in the Vic & Bob series Catterick in 2004 and the live 2005 remake of the classic science fiction serial The Quatermass Experiment. A second series of Nighty Night and the new comedy-drama Funland, the latter co-written by his League cohort Jeremy Dyson, both featured Gatiss and aired on BBC Three in the autumn of 2005.
He appeared as Johnnie Cradock, alongside Nighty Night star Julia Davis as Fanny Cradock, in Fear of Fanny on BBC Four in October 2006, featured as Ratty in a new production of The Wind in the Willows shown on BBC One on 1 January 2007. He wrote and starred in the BBC Four docudrama The Worst Journey in the World, based on the memoir by polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard. Gatiss has made three credited appearances in Doctor Who. In 2007, he played Professor Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment". In 2011, he returned in the Series 6 episode "The Wedding of River Song" as a character known as Gantok, in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon A Time" as "The Captain". In 2007, he appeared as Robert Louis Stevenson in Jekyll, a BBC One serial by his fellow Doctor Who scriptwriter Steven Moffat. In 2008, he appeared in Clone as Colonel Black. In 2010, he portrayed Malcolm McLaren in the BBC drama Worried About the Boy which focused on the life and career of Boy George, appeared as Mycroft Holmes in the BBC drama Sherlock, which he co-created with Steven Moffat.
He adapted H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon into a television film of the same name for the BBC playing Professor Cavor, he made a three-part BBC documentary series entitled A History of Horror, a personal exploration of the history of horror cinema. This was followed on 30 October 2012 with a look at European horror with the documentary Horror Europa. On 25 December 2013, a version of the ghost story "The Tractate Middoth" by M. R. James and adapted by Gatiss was broadcast on BBC2 as part of the long-running A Ghost Story for Christmas series, it starred Sacha Dhawan, John Castle, Louise Jameson, Una Stubbs, David Ryall, Eleanor Bron, Nick Burns and Roy Barraclough. It was followed on 25 December 2013 by a screening on BBC2 of a new documentary by Gatiss titled M. R. James: Ghost Writer; the programme saw Gatiss explore the work of James and look at how his work still inspires contemporary horror today. He appeared in season four of Game of Thrones in 2014 playing Tycho Nestoris and reprised this role in season five and season seven.
In the BBC'
Doctor Doom
Doctor Victor Von Doom is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, the character made his debut in The Fantastic Four #5; the Monarch of the fictional nation Latveria, Doom is depicted as the archenemy of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four, though he has come into conflict with other superheroes as well, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, the X-Men, the Avengers. Doctor Doom was ranked #4 by Wizard on its list of the 101 Greatest Villains of All Time and #3 on IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time. In a article, IGN would declare Doom as Marvel's greatest villain; the character has been adapted from the comics into several forms of media, including television series, video games, merchandise such as action figures and trading cards. Most notably, Doctor Doom has been portrayed in licensed Fantastic Four live-action feature films by Joseph Culp in Roger Corman's unreleased 1994 movie.
Like many of Marvel's Silver Age characters, Doom was conceived by Jack Kirby. With the Fantastic Four title performing well 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." 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 modelled Doom with the armor standing in for that character's skeleton. Death is connected with the inhuman-like steel. Death is something without mercy, human flesh contains that mercy." Kirby further described Doom as being "paranoid", wrecked by his twisted face and wanting the whole world to be like him. Kirby went on to say that although "Doom is an evil person, he was …but through a flaw in his own character, he was a perfectionist." At one point in the 1970s, Kirby drew his interpretation of what Doom would look like under the mask, giving Doom only "a tiny scar on his cheek."
Due to this slight imperfection, Doom hides his face not from himself. To Kirby, this is the motivation for Doom's vengeance against the world. Typical of Lee's writing characterization of Doom is his arrogance. While the Fantastic Four had fought various villains such as the Mole Man, the Miracle Man, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doom managed to overshadow them all and became the Fantastic Four's archnemesis. During the 1970s, Doom branched out to more Marvel titles such as Astonishing Tales, The Incredible Hulk, Super-Villain Team-Up, starting in 1975, as well as appearances in Marvel Team-Up, beginning with issue #42. Doom's origin was a feature in Astonishing Tales when his ties to the villain Mephisto were revealed. In 1976, Marvel and DC Comics collaborated on Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, seeking to replicate that success the two companies again teamed the characters in Superman and Spider-Man in 1981. Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter co-wrote the story with Marv Wolfman, recalled choosing Victor Von Doom based on his iconic status: "I figured I needed the heaviest-duty bad guy we had to offer — Doctor Doom.
Their greatest hero against our greatest villain."The same year, John Byrne began his six-year run writing and illustrating Fantastic Four, sparking a "second golden age" for the title but attempting to "turn the clock back get back and see fresh what it was that made the book great at its inception." Doctor Doom made his first appearance under Byrne's tenure with issue #236. Whereas Kirby had intimated that Doom's disfigurement was more a figment of Victor's vain personality, Byrne decided that Doom's face was ravaged: only Doom's own robot slaves are allowed to see the monarch without his helmet. Byrne emphasized other aspects of Doom's personality. Returning to Latveria after being temporarily deposed, Doctor Doom abandons a scheme to wrest mystical secrets from Doctor Strange in order to oversee his land's reconstruction. Despite a tempestuous temper, Doom shows warmth and empathy to others. Byrne gave further detail regarding Doom's scarring: Byrne introduced the idea that the accident at Empire State University only left Victor with a small scar, exaggerated into a more disfiguring accident by Doom's own arrogance—by donning his newly forged face mask before it had cooled, he caused massive irreparable damage.
After Byrne's departure Doom continued to be a major villain in Fantastic Four, as the 1980s continued Doom appeared in other comics such as Punisher, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Excalibur. Under Fantastic Four writer Steven Englehart, Doom became exiled from Latveria by his heir Kristoff, brainwashed into thinking he was Victor Von Doom. Doom would spend most of his time in exile planning his return, but Englehart left the title before he could resolve the storyline; this storyline ended with the controversial Fantastic Four #350, where writer Walt Simonson had the Victor Von Doom, seen in the book during the Englehart run being revealed to be a robotic imposter and the real Von Doom, in a newly rede
The dictionary definition of supervillain at Wiktionary
Media related to Supervillains at Wikimedia Commons
