Victor von Doom, otherwise known by his villainous alter-ego Dr. Doom, is one of the most notorious enemies of any hero across the Marvel Universe. While he typically faces off against the likes of the Fantastic Four, his range of villainy stretches much further. Much of his motivation comes from a desire to protect and serve his home country of Latveria, but overall he mainly seeks complete control and dominance over the universe.
Although he's known for his immoral acts against Marvel's first family, Doom has actually served the greater good of the universe on more occasions than one. Let's take a look at some of the limited times that Dr. Doom has actually helped protect and save the Marvel Universe.
10 Human Sacrifice
The Silver Surfer has been one of the longtime servers of the intergalactic powers, Galactus. However, at one point he was liberated from the cosmic conquerer by who else, but Doctor Doom.
With Terrax filling in as the new herald to Galactus, the Earth is once again in grave danger. In an uncharacteristic selfless act, Doom sacrifices his body to try and take down Terrax. As a result, he had to jump his consciousness to another body, losing his Dr. Doom form for the purpose of protecting the greater good. Admittedly, Doom was the one who gave Terrax (or Tyros) his cosmic power at the time, so this was more a case of the former cleaning up his own mess.
9 Doom 2099
Thanks to his tremendous intellect and wealth, Dr. Doom has always found ways to achieve incredible and unbelievable feats. One of those, to no surprise, has been time travel. In the storyline Doom 2099, Doom travels to the year 2099 only to see that Latveria is under the control of a mad cyborg version of himself.
Doom eventually takes down this robotic form and the fractured government, while pretty much taking over the rest of the world. Regardless of taking ultimate control for himself, Doom actually saved the world from a much harsher and uglier existence. It's actually one of the few times that Doom realizes the terrible nature of his creations and helps deconstruct the damage.
8 Taking Down Galactus
In one of the earliest editions of the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom actually appears to take down the cosmic conquerer Galactus. Doom, along with the help of Marvel's first family, successfully paralyzes Galactus. Although his goal was originally to take Galactus' power for himself, making him a truly unstoppable being, he actually finds a new purpose for the celestial being.
In typical Doom fashion, he ends up using Galactus' defeat to benefit his home country. Instead of harvesting his power for himself, Von Doom uses the power to act as an essential generator for Latveria. Although this really only benefits Doom, he certainly helps the rest of the Marvel universe by helping take down one of the most powerful beings we've ever seen.
7 Becoming Iron Man
In more recent iterations of Victor von Doom, he's been fairly transformed from his typical villainous way of life. After the events of Civil War II and the death of the heroic Tony Stark, there is a massive void for a new hero and leader in the universe. Even though it's pretty hard to believe, Dr. Doom is one of the few that tries to step up in Iron Man's absence, as seen in Infamous Iron Man.
So even though this isn't a direct salvaging moment for the Marvel Universe, it does change things substantially for other heroes. This is one of the few times we see Doctor Doom directly take on the moniker of a hero, and there's actually no disastrous result from Doom becoming the "new" Iron Man.
6 Red Onslaught
After a long series of events that encompass Avengers vs. X-Men as well as the coincidental events of that story, the Avengers and X-Men are met with an extremely powerful new enemy.
The villain is essentially a combination of the Red Skull and Onslaught, created through the mind of Professor X. Magneto tasks a series of groups to help take down Red Onslaught, including a collection of villains including Dr. Doom. Thanks to a collaborative spell by Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom, Red Onslaught is defeated and the universe is saved. However, the spell somehow inverts the personalities of everyone, actually making Doom somewhat of a hero...for once.
5 Stopping The Beyonders
To the surprise of the Marvel Universe, the Beyonders, a powerful group of cosmic entities, were threatening the destruction of multiple universes across the Multiverse. In an attempt to avoid complete and total defeat, Doom teams up with Doctor Strange as well as Molecule Man to destroy the Beyonders.
As a result of taking down the Beyonders, pretty much everything in existence was destroyed as well. Doom is the one who eventually accepts the task of recreating everything on a new planet called Battleworld, which inadvertently makes him the supreme ruler. In any circumstance though, Doom was a major component of the entire universe being salvaged and saved.
4 Emperor Doom
In this new world created by Doom, he becomes the Emperor of everyone. As ridiculous as that sounds, it was the harsh result of needing someone to recreate all of existence. Surprisingly in Battleworld, things actually prosper under Doom. Even other heroes such as Doctor Strange are quick to admit that Doom has done a commendable job in control.
Doom's reign was eventually cut short. However, his time as Emperor was only made possible by him helping recreate existence and saving every life in the universe. Emperor Doom was only a result of Doom's heroism when the universe was at an armageddon-like junction.
3 Defeating Onslaught
The infamous Magneto has his life threatened in the epic 'Fatal Attractions' event, with his longtime nemesis Charles Xavier leading the way. Professor X plans to use his abilities to take down the mind of Magneto, not realizing the possible consequences of doing so. After the negative parts of both their minds collide, a more powerful and dangerous being is created.
Onslaught is after world domination, threatening all mutants along with the rest of humanity. Doctor Doom is eventually sought out by the X-Men to help take down Onslaught. He's originally only interested in helping, preferring to salvage Onlsaught's power for himself. Although that plan fell through, Doom still helped the other heroes defeat Onslaught and thus save the universe once again.
2 Secret Wars & Mister Fantastic
Throughout most of the 2015 Secret Wars story, Doom is strictly seen as a universe-saving hero. For Victor von Doom, Secret Wars encompasses both his actions to take down the Beyonders as well as recreating all of existence. It's one of the rare events, as well, in which Doom's actions are actually, without any exaggeration, universe-saving.
Doom is given a complete personality alteration in this story, although his motivation always stays the same. Doom also shows hints of genuine introspection, as he believes himself to be the one blemish of the otherwise perfect Battleworld. In order to restore the Multiverse, Doom agrees to transfer his powers to Mister Fantastic, his archnemesis. Doom put the universe before himself.
1 Killing Thanos
Even though villain battles have become more and more common across comic books, some of the more epic versions aren't really fought at all. One of the best is the clash between the mad titan Thanos and Victor von Doom. Once again in Hickman's Secret Wars, the power of Doom is on full display.
With literally just one punch, Doom puts a gruesome end to Thanos. Despite it just being a petty battle of "who's the better god," it's still unreal to see Dr. Doom put such a quick end to one of the universe's most powerful beings. It may have not saved the universe from a world-ending threat, but it did take care of one of the most powerful threats that the universe faced. Thanks to Doom, the titan Thanos was taken down.
NEXT: 10 Doctor Doom Stories That The Rumored Movie Could Adapt
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