Posted in: Avengers, Avengers, Comics, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Movies, X-Men | Tagged: Avengers Doioimsday, Deniz camp, doctor doom, Jonhathan Hickman, Reed Richards, the maker
Deniz Camp revisits The Ultimates #4 and Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday… worth a reread perhaps?
Two years ago, it was revealed at San Diego Comic-Con that Robert Downey Jr would return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to play Doctor Doom in the Fantastic Four and Avengers movies. Writer of The Ultimates series at the time, Deniz Camp stated, “If you want to understand Robert Downey Jr. as Doom, you MUST read The Ultimates #4 on Sept 4th. (or whenever it comes out)”. Then the previously hidden variant cover to the comic in question by Francesco Mobili was posted, with Doctor Doom removing the identity of Ul;tiamte Reed Richards, The Maker.
Ultimates #4
Ultimates #4
Revealing, as did the issue, that The Maker, the Reed Richards from the previous Ultimate Universe, very much an evil version of Mister Fantastic, had messed about with time, denied it of superheroes and had taken this Ultimate Universe’s version of Reed Richards, imprisoned him, turned him into Doctor Doom, and killed off his Fantastic Four, even the mouse versions, before they even got powers. And then the whole Ultimate Universe ended with the Ultimate Universe’s version of Victor Von Doom, a young man in Latveria, capturing the remains of The Maker. With a foreshadowing cover from the final issue showing a future…
Ultimate Endgame #5 foreshadow cover by Phil Noto
Ultimate Universe Finale #1 final page
What this means for Robert Downey Jr. Tony Stark, Doctor Doom and the Fantastic Four? Well, Deniz Camp is doubling down, posting “All I’m saying is keep hold of those The Ultimates 4s! I told you!!! I told you all!”
Okay, well, here is a theory. Just that, nothing else. While the beginning of the MCU drew heavily on the work of Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch, and Alex Maleev in The Ultimates and Iron Man, more recent movies seem to have drawn on Jonathan Hickman’s work. Whether that would be the idea that SHIELD was Hydra’s puppet and Nick Fury’s Secret War in Secret Warriors, The Black Order and Incursions from New Avengers and Time Runs Out ahead of Secret Wars – a comic he also revamped and wrote. Will Avengers Doomsday bring us a fight over Franklin Richards as a mutant from House Of X and a new Krakoa? Who knows. But Secret Wars focused on Doctor Doom and Reed Richards, Hickman also wrote for the original Ultimate Universe, which included turning that Reed Richards into The Maker, and showrunning the recent Ultimate Universe, with The Maker making his own version of the Marvel Universe.
So the question might be, why does the movie version of Doctor Dopom look like Tony Stark? Might someone have made the Fantastic Four movie universe version of Tony Stark into its Doctor Doom? Does the MCU have its own Maker? Possibly the unseen Reed Richards from the MCU? Or the Victor Von Doom from the MCU? What is Doom’s Day? Could the new films have drawn from Jonathan Hickman’s work once more, in both Secret Wars and The Ultimate Universe 2.0? Is that how the Ultimate Universe will return???
Avengers: Doomsday Artwork courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2026 MARVEL.
Time to read those Ultimates #4 issues again. Below cover price on eBay right now… and the variant with the unmasking cover selling for just $3…
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