The story of one of the worlds of dangerous individuals starts in the old Kingdom of Latveria, a small country in south-eastern Europe. It was ruled by the House of Von Dohm, distantly related to the Prussian royal family. In the early 20th Century, the House of Fortunov overthrew King Rudolf V and purged the Von Dohms from positions of power. Young Crown Prince Werner and Princess Cynthia were barely able to escape and fled to the United States. Because of an administrative error, their names were misspelled as "Von Doom"
Victor Von Doom was raised by his parents in America. His father Werner told him of his royal lineage and demanded a level of academic and personal perfection few people could attain. His mother filled his mind with folk tales of the homeland and revealed to him the ancient mysticism her family had possessed. In everything, Victor not only met expectations but exceeded him.
Despite the royal lineage, the Von Dooms were not wealthy and Victor was forced to attend Empire State University in New York City. There he met a young Reed Richards who was studying science. At first, they became friends as Victor and Reed shared a keen intellect. However, Doom became jealous of Reed's scientific acumen and they eventually became rivals.
Unable to defeat Reed in academia, Victor sought to best him in the business world, founding Von Doom Industries. Even then, he found no victory. Richards had no interest in becoming rich - he helped found S.T.A.R. Labs to further scientific study and the financial benefits of his patents were only to allow him to continue his research.
When the spaceplane accident created the Fantastic Four, Doom became keenly interested. Creating a suit of armor he attacked the Baxter Building, hoping to capture Richards and his friends for more study. He was soundly defeated, his face horribly scarred as a result of a miscalculation.
Now a wanted man, Doom fled America and headed to Transia. For years he had been embezzling money from his company in order to construct a robot army to retake his homeland. With advanced technology decades about anything, the Transian military possessed, his cyber-army carved out a new nation...or rather an old nation. The recreated Kingdom of Latveria, with Doom alone as monarch.
Painted as a despot ruler of a rogue nation, Victor became furious a the world. Despite helping protect the peoples of Latveria and Markov, and ending the horrors of General Russov, the press now treated him like the real threat to peace. When super-heroes started attempting to depose him, he knew what must be done.
If the world thought of him a super-villain, then a super-villain he would be. Modifying his exo-suit to resemble an ancient suit of armor and donning a fearsome metal mask to hide his disfigurement, he became the villainous Doctor Doom.
Latveria became a true rogue nation. His borders were fortified with advanced weaponry. He sheltered wanted fugitives in exchange for their knowledge or service. He sold illegal technology to various organizations, forging mutual defense pacts. He became everything the media claimed he was, but in doing so he secured his throne from all but the most world-class threats.
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