Ryan North ushers in a new age of Victor von Doom at Marvel Comics

2025 is the year of Doom at Marvel Comics. With the masked dictator slated to make his MCU debut in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday film, the character is getting a huge comics push with One World Under Doom, a nine-issue crossover event that delivers exactly what the title promises: Dr. Doom taking over the planet. Written by current Fantastic Four scribe Ryan North with art by R.B. Silva and colorist David Curiel, One World Under Doom is a sprawling superhero blockbuster that showcases why Victor von Doom is such a compelling villain, playing a political game that helps him win over the public while the heroes try to take him down.   

“As both a writer and a reader, I think what makes a good superhero crossover is a story that demands it, a story you couldn’t tell otherwise,” North tells The A.V. Club. “A story that, like One World Under Doom, changes the status quo. So this is something that is touching everything while it’s running and it’ll touch things after it runs by changing things.”

It’s a major vibe shift compared to North’s current Fantastic Four series, one of the shining stars in Marvel’s lineup thanks to its self-contained stories and tight focus on character relationships. “I was surprised that Fantastic Four was received as well as it was because I felt like what we were doing there is very different,” says North. “It’s not a big epic. It is basically an anthology of sci-fi short stories with these four to nine weirdos who have these fantastic powers and do things to help people.” 

Over the last two years, North has revitalized Marvel’s First Family by exploring the depth of the relationships that already exist between these characters, who have decades of experiences together. “I ended up drawing a chart of every member of the Fantastic Four and drawing lines between them and wanting to hit every relationship,” North says. “We don’t often see what Reed and Johnny are like when they’re alone, or what Reed and Alicia are like when they’re alone. To explore those relationships has been really rewarding and makes them feel to me like real people. You have a different relationship with everyone in your group of friends, even though you’re all friends. You each have a relationship with each of those people.”

Doom has his own complicated relationships with the members of the Fantastic Four, and they will play a big part in his ascension. “One World Under Doom #2 begins with Doom approaching basically the only person whose opinion he cares about, which is his goddaughter, Valeria Richards, and him trying to explain to her what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, and trying to get her on board,” North tells us. 

“That relationship between Doom and Valeria is maybe one of the best in comics. It’s so unusual and almost impossible. The idea that your hated villain would be the goddaughter to your child seems ridiculous, but it works because, Doom, for all of his many faults, he does have this weird, twisted sense of honor. I love that he will be Emperor Doom, but also still wants to be Uncle Doom to this young woman. They’re both pulling each other in different directions, kind of towards each other. It’s so operatic and big, but it makes sense emotionally.”

Justifying Doom’s takeover is a top priority for North, who understands that Doom is an expert politician well-versed in the art of manipulation. “You want to understand where Doom is coming from, what he’s trying to accomplish,” says North. “He wants to show that he’s the best of us, and he wants to show that if he’s in charge of everything in the world things will be better, which is at once quixotic, but also very Doom-like. If anyone on Earth believes they can control everything and make it better, it’s Victor von Doom.”

“[Doom] is so deliberate and considered in everything he says. As a writer, it’s this great excuse to pull out your best material, because normal people talk like normal people. They’re not always composing their words with much thought. Doom is always composing his words with a lot of thought, and so he always gets to sound great in everything he says. As a writer that’s fun, you get to write for Doom and make him be the best possible version of himself at all times, 100%.”

One World Under Doom features the usual Doom opponents like the Fantastic Four and Avengers, but it also includes a surprising group of heroes with their own Doom history: the cast of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Ryan North, Erica Henderson, and Rico Renzi’s Eisner Award-winning series turned Doreen Green into an all-ages comic superstar, and that series has cast a long shadow on North’s Marvel work. “Squirrel Girl helped a lot in figuring out how to write Fantastic Four, because she had actual computer science and then comic-book science,” North notes. “And with FF, a lot of it has been actual science heightened by comic-book stuff on top of that.”

“In the Doom story, I wanted her there because there’s some really cool stuff she could do in relation to Doom. It grounds the story in an interesting way. Doreen’s a very smart young woman, and she doesn’t fall for the normal baloney of let’s punch first and ask questions later. I feel like when she’s around, things seem more real, even though she is this heightened young woman with squirrel powers. It helped for me to sell that this was a big event touching everything in the Marvel Universe because it’s even impacting what Squirrel Girl is doing. Things have gotten real when Doreen Green is involved.”

North has an exceptional collaborator in artist R.B. Silva, whose work on Powers Of X and Rise Of The Powers Of X shows that he can capture the massive scope of a superhero epic starring tons of characters. “It was very early on when we had [R.B.] come on for this and for me it always helps when you know who your artist is going to be, because then you can talk to them and find out what they like, what they don’t like, and all that stuff,” says North. “I’m always imagining the page in my head when I’m writing, and for me the greatest joy of comics is when you get those pages back from an artist, and they’re better than what you imagined. R.B. has such insane talent that every time I get a page from him it’s just wow! That looks so great. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to cover some of this art with my words, and I apologize for that.”

One World Under Doom debuts on February 12, and it brings a slew of tie-ins along with it, including a new Thunderbolts team book and solo titles for Red Hulk and Doctor Strange, who relocates to Asgard as Doom fills the role of Sorcerer Supreme on Earth. While the Fantastic Four are dealing with Emperor Doom in their main series, North also gets the opportunity to pit them against an equally devastating threat in Godzilla Vs. Fantastic, which teams him with legendary superhero artist John Romita Jr. for the first in a series of Godzilla Vs. one-shots. 2025 looks to be a great year for Fantastic Four fans, and One World Under Doom pushes the heroes to the forefront of Marvel Comics just in time for their MCU debut over the summer. Check a four-page preview from the comic below.