Victor Von Doom is one of Marvel's most intellectual scientists, practiced sorcerers, accomplished rulers, and villainous threats. He also has a doctorate in "doomalogy", apparently. One of Doom's most brilliant inventions is actually a brilliant conception by his writers, these creations are Doombots.
Because Dr. Doom is a major league villain and the ruler of the nation Latvaria, he can't really be everywhere at once. Taking this into account, Doom created robotic duplicates of himself, robots programmed with artificial intelligence and sometimes the belief that they are the real Doom. Luckily these Doombots never overthrow Doom because they were programmed with kill switch. The Doombots are used in two ways: as fighters and as diplomats. If Doom is summoned for some type of conversation or he wants to send a warning, he will use a Doombot as a type of messenger. At the Latvarian School of Science, Doom has actually dressed up some of his diplomat Doombots as teachers. Doombot are stationed all around Latvaria to enforce it's people that Doom is always watching over them. To the rest of the world they may seem like the antics of a dictator, but for Latvarians it is simply their way of life. In one story, a Doombot had allowed a lower-class villain named Arcade to use him as a lackey, when that Doombot returned to Latvaria, Dr. Doom berated it. The Doombot's defense was claiming they needed Arcade's help. This lead to one of my favorite Dr. Doom moments: Dr. Doom says, "Need?" the Doombot's head starts to flare up and then explode, "Doom needs no one". The fighter Doombots are self explanatory, expendable robot soldiers to throw at a problem. Of course their power pails in comparison to Dr. Doom himself, some Doombots are modeled after Iron Man's armors or mutant-hunting Sentinels. One Doombot was reprogrammed by Hank Pym-the first Ant-Man-to join his own Avengers team called Avengers AI. This Doombot-in a possible future-ruled the Earth and summoned heroes from different time periods to fight Ultron. All Doombots are equip with jetpacks, self-repair mechanisms, lighting-shooting gauntlets, self destruct programs, and immunities to mental, emotional and illusionary attacks.
What makes these Doombots so clever is that their existence protects the creditability of Dr. Doom as a villain. I mean, this is a guy who's gone toe-to-toe with The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and The X-Men, he's travelled to Hell and back, he's been infused with godlike powers many times, with so much to his name it's hard to imagine anyone defeating him. And that's when Doombots come into play. Obviously the good guys always beat the bad guys, but having a hero defeat Dr. Doom only to find out it was a robot body double allows the writer to have their cake and eat it too. Not only can Spider-Man be victorious, but Dr. Doom doesn't have to look like a weakling because it was a Doombot the whole time. Its the perfect back-step story thread to keep Dr. Doom seemingly invincible.
The creation of Doombots was a smart play be the writers and continues to remind readers why Dr. Doom is such a dangerous villain both physically and mentally. All his insane achievements are only possible thanks to his genius planning and foresight to when he'll need these robotic doubles. Wait, I'm sorry! I didn't mean that! Doom needs no one! Doom needs no one! Doom needs-BZZZ-ouch. Thanks for reading!
All hail Lord Doom.
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