After being long out of print, Marvel’s Doctor Doom: Books of Doom returns to stores this week in a new collection, and it’s essential reading for fans looking to learn about the character before his introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The 2005 series is by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Pablo Raimondi, with inks by Mark Farmer, Andrew Hennessy, and Robin Riggs, colors by Brian Reber, and letters by Rus Wooton.
In a nutshell, Books of Doom is Victor Von Doom’s origin story, told in a series of flashbacks and intercut with interviews, documentary style. It covers his childhood growing up in a band of Latverian nomads, up through his eventual takeover of his home nation, with a whole lot of trauma in between.
This 2025 edition comes with a new forward by Brubaker, in which he discusses his background with Doctor Doom, going back to a specific comic he read during his own childhood. This forward shows how personal writing this story was for Brubaker, and in reading the story itself, you can feel it. There’s a palpable passion in the storytelling and the development of Victor as a character. Brubaker is a master of writing sympathetic bad guys (hello, Criminal), and it’s clear that interest started with Doom.
Despite featuring one of Marvel’s biggest villains, Books of Doom is not a superhero comic. There is some action throughout, but this wouldn’t be described as an action comic at all. It’s a character study, and—as the back cover describes it— an “epic Russian tragedy.” You’re watching Doom take hit after hit during his youth, seeing him slowly turn into the villain we know he becomes, and understanding how he ends up where he does. The man is a dictator and a murderer, but somehow you begin to feel for him, hoping (in true tragedy fashion) that the story somehow won’t end the way you know it has to.
And the reason you feel for Victor is because Brubaker breaks down the armor the character wears (the metaphorical armor, not the physical armor he wears, which is really just a representation of the metaphorical armor). Books of Doom covers a lot of familiar ground: Victor’s mother being trapped in Hell, his time at school and the explosion that scars his face, and his eventual takeover of Latveria. These concepts had been covered in comics prior to this series, and they’ve been revisited since 2005, but there’s a sense of humanity to Doom here that isn’t always present in other stories. Even through his bravado, there are moments where you can feel Victor’s fear and insecurity, even if he would never admit it. In humanizing Doom, Brubaker makes it easier to sympathize with him.
Raimondi and the whole art team do a brilliant job cementing the documentary vibe of the book. From the linework, to the coloring, to the lettering, Books of Doom leans away from the cartoony and into realism. The lines are detailed and the colors are naturally muted, making this story from the Marvel universe look and feel like it could be happening in our own world (minus a couple of the more fantastic scenes). This style, coupled with the character acting done by Raimondi and his inkers, helps foster the aforementioned sympathy in readers by allowing them to sink deeper into the story. And extra props to Wooton, because this is something of a dense read, and his lettering helps carry readers through the pages with ease.
Books of Doom is not the only Doctor Doom book you should read to prime yourself before Robert Downey Jr. puts on the mask, but it is on the list of essentials (along with the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby work on Fantastic Four and Jonathan Hickman’s work from Fantastic Four to Secret Wars, among others). It’s a look at the man behind the mask, so don’t go into it looking for big superpowered battles. Instead, settle in and enjoy a study on what could drive a man to become on of the most infamous villains in comics history.
