1. Doctor Doom
A lot of FF fans chafe and cringe at the fact that film makers seem to be hesitant at adapting Doom as the majestic monarch and genius he is with all the flamboyance and over the topness we all know from the comics.
I can understand the reticence to a certain degree, but in the end...
larger than life and over the top villains is not anything new to films of all stripes and if anything it fits even more into the world of super hero films.
Even Christopher Nolan's supposed "real world" films contain secret societies and a mastermind villain that has a purple suit, war paint and a punk rock aesthetic. I get keeping Doom a bit grounded but that is a relative thing in
a world where radiation turns men into living rubber bands. So if I had to handle Doom on film today I would start with the idea that he is a well known but also paradoxically secretive figure. Up until the point his full villain goes on display fighting against the Four, I would say the rest of the world finds him an ambiguous figure though he has his fair share of adherents.
In my estimation this is because Victor Von Doom would have been a person on the world stage that has the history and standing of Che, Mandela or Mao.
"Injured" in an accident that seemed to involve equally famous scientist Reed Richards, Von Doom apparently discharged himself from the hospital shortly after being admitted. Subsequently the records from his admission have gone missing with the nurses and doctors that were there to treat him all mysteriously dying in the years after. It's widely assumed Doom suffered some kind of severe facial disfigurement. About a year later Von Doom becomes a public figure fighting against the despotic regime in control of his home nation of Latveria. Without his comic armor and wearing a simple mask with only a small slits for eye holes, Doom became the "face" of the opposition,
at first peaceful but also eventually it's military commander. Doom spoke out against the oppression of the Roma of his country and the lack of government supported education and services for all Latverians. In this he had much of the sympathy and ear of the world. Thus his standing as a pop culture figure of righteous aggression against the powerful to some. An avatar of what he liked to promote as the prideful character of the Latverians Doom refused all outside aide form other countries both when he was simply the peaceful coordinator of the various dissident movements of Latveria, but also once the fighting began.
Instead, Von Doom took his forces to the mountains, the ancestral home of his Romani family, and created from scratch an underground industrial complex which outfitted his troops with weapons and equipment. Eventually Doom's forces win and he of course is proclaimed Supreme President or some such aggrandized title. Claiming the need to lick the nations wounds and bind her together Doom institutes a closed border policy. Shortly after Doom fakes an attempt on his life, video of which makes it's way to the outside world.
Dated about three years before Tony Stark's famous escape from the Ten Rings it seems after this "attempt" on his life Doom began to wear his own powered armor. He tries to cultivate his own aura as a "super hero" of his land to mixed results. Soon after other nations tread carefully against Latveria. Slowly it's been coming out that Doom's rule is despotic in it's own way, even if he has seemingly wiped out poverty in his country. Fear of Doom's loyal troops and stories of hyper advanced technology trickle in and make most leaders uncertain of how to proceed when dealing with Doom. Doom buys off too much prying into his country and the rumored human rights abuse by producing highly lucrative exotic materials in small quantities for export.
2. The Origin of the FF
It's these exotic materials that will eventually connect Doom to the FF.
Reed Richards is a smart man. He's supposed to be a genius of incredible intellect. So... Why was there no radiation shielding in his space craft in the original comics? This has been a point covered again and again with differing rationales in the books. For a film I would first of all assume Reed would have such shielding in place. In fact I would have it that Reed, a highly public figure of science and engineering would be attempting to create low cost space travel. Either directly referencing the X-Prize Foundation or making due with a fictional equivalent. I would make it more than just a simple launch and return but a race. Reed to show his faith in his engineering, creation and pilot, publicizes that he is bringing his fiancee and her brother along for the ride. After all, this is about creating practical space travel for all, right? Thus we now have somewhat of a reason to have two non-aeronautical individuals on board the craft. Reed built the ship with his team but did the lions share of construction with Ben, valuing Ben's test pilot input. As an added degree of difficulty the contest's date happens to coincide with an oncoming burst of naturally occurring radiation along the route of the race as it heads towards the finish. On the day of the race Reed's ship under Ben's control aces it's time and smokes the competition. As it approaches it's final flight path home though the radiation wave hits and instead of reacting as Reed designed it to the ship begins to fall apart, and the occupants are all exposed to the radiation. Luckily Reed has ultra redundant safety features not even in the original plans for the craft and they are saved arriving on land... Of course we know what happens next. They each received powers yadda yadda. What I would have would be that initially unknown to Reed the ship's materials were tampered with. From the source, as Reed's design called for certain cutting edge meta-materials only produced in Latveria. Doom of course was trying to kill Richards, and we learn eventually the reasons: Reed's calculations on the experiment (which also seemed to Reed to have some kind of irrational occult influences) Doom was running at the laboratory complex where they were studying (think someplace like the complex built by CERN, the Large Hadron Collider) were correct. The experiment blew up in Doom's face, though safety measures Reed installed actually saved their lives and resulted in Doom getting only the most minor of scars on one side of his face. And thus the reasons Doom hid his face during the Latverian revolution and why the doctors and nurses that looked him over after the accident had to die. Doom is brilliant, driven, a master of both science and the occult... And a bat guano crazy sociopath. In this version though this need for petty revenge brings about the one force that can counter him. In terms of performer that could handle this and make it all work, the brilliance, the presence, the fragile yet bombastic ego... I honestly don't know.
