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Survey Results - Doctor Doom's World continued
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Locations: Please enter any places that you associate with Doctor Doom stories.
| Location | Mentions |
| Latveria | 210 |
| New York | 88 |
| Baxter building | 57 |
| Castle Doom | 43 |
| Castle | 37 |
| Hell | 26 |
| Doomstadt | 20 |
| Latverian embassy | 19 |
| Space | 18 |
| Battleworld | 10 |
| Laboratory | 10 |
| college (ESU) where he met Reed Richards | 9 |
| Four Freedoms Plaza | 7 |
| other dimensions/realms | 6 |
| Throne room | 6 |
| Atlantis | 5 |
| Tibet | 4 |
| United Nations Building | 4 |
| Doom Island | 4 |
| USA | 3 |
| Upstate New York Castle | 3 |
| Earth | 3 |
| the Moon | 3 |
| 2099 universe/timeline | 3 |
| Camelot | 2 |
| Wakanda | 2 |
| wherever the FF are | 2 |
| Avengers Mansion | 2 |
| Eastern Europe | 2 |
| Other | 33 |
This was another category that was straightforward to code, with a very clear top answer. The only real issue was with the different Castles that Doom inhabits. Occasionally respondents would state that they were referring to Doom's original castle in New York, which appeared in his debut appearance, but others simply said "Castle Doom" (i.e. the one in Latveria) or just "Castle", so for clarity I coded each separately.
There was another difference here between my own perceptions of Doom and that of the respondents. My reading (and viewing) has shown that the United Nations building occurs again and again in Doom's stories across different media - while analysing the survey I was watching the Spider-Man cartoon series from 1981, which features the UN building in almost every episode where Doom appears - yet only four people mentioned it. Unlike the viewing screens in the previous category, this is less easy to explain away with advances in technology, and may point to differences in the way that comics fans and creators view the core components of character. It may also suggest that the creators do some revision in advance of creating a new story, and pick up aspects of previous stories that readers tend to miss, like the re-use of certain locations.
Previous events: Please enter any important events from the past that are referred to in Doctor Doom's stories.
| Event | Mentions |
| Scarring of face (in explosion) | 150 |
| University | 83 |
| Early meetings with Reed Richards | 81 |
| Death of his mother | 78 |
| Overthrowing ruler of Latveria | 51 |
| Mother's damnation | 49 |
| Mask place on face | 33 |
| Time in Tibet/Himalayas | 32 |
| Attempts to save mother from hell/Mephisto | 30 |
| Gypsy life/Childhood in Latveria | 30 |
| Armour being built | 28 |
| Finds mother's spells/learns magic | 23 |
| Ongoing rivalry with Reed Richards | 22 |
| Father's death | 20 |
| Steals Silver Surfer's power/board | 16 |
| Steals Beyonder's Power | 16 |
| Various confrontations with FF | 13 |
| Mother was a witch | 8 |
| Remade the universe/Became a God | 8 |
| Time Machine/Blackbeard's treasure adventure | 8 |
| FF Origin | 7 |
| Loses his true love/wife | 6 |
| Birth of Valeria | 6 |
| Secret Wars | 6 |
| shooting Baxter Building into space | 6 |
| Tries to take over the world | 5 |
| Doom as part of FF Origin | 5 |
| Beaten by Squirrel Girl | 4 |
| Father was a doctor | 3 |
| Camelot | 3 |
| expulsion from school | 3 |
| Adopted Kristoff | 3 |
| Marrying Scarlet Witch (almost) | 2 |
| Murdered Valeria for more magic | 2 |
| Confrontations with Iron Man | 2 |
| Stiffing Luke Cage for payment | 2 |
| Hands crushed by Thing | 2 |
| Became Iron Man | 2 |
| Tried to date Sue | 2 |
| On the run with father | 2 |
| Other | 72 |
There seemed to be some confusion amongst respondents here. The question asked for "important events from the past that are referred to in Doctor Doom's stories", but what most people entered seems to have been the events that they themselves remembered. This is especially noticeable in the "Other" category, which largely consists of specific stories recalled by respondents, or indeed internet memes. Perhaps the question did not make this sufficiently clear, erring on the side of brevity rather than clarity.
Other than that the responses here did tally with my own experience of reading Doom's stories, with aspects of his origin story rating most highly, along with the events regarding his mother's death and damnation. These are clearly core to Doom's character, and the fact that very few subsequent events are referred to points to the way Doom is often used as a "modular" or "portable" character who can be dropped into any storyline without need of much introduction or knowledge of anything except his origin.
That concludes our look at Doom's world - next time we'll be covering the creators associated with the character before wrapping the whole thing up with an overall analysis of What We Have Learned!
posted 20/8/2020 by Mark Hibbett
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