Let’s take the Roger Corman one out of the equation altogether (I saw a bootlegged copy in the late ‘90s that baffled the hell out of me). The Tim Story films were just bad. They tried to be light and fun, but they were just bad narratives. The 2015 version was a schizophrenic hodgepodge that didn’t know if it wanted to be a science fiction movie or a Young Adult copy of the X-MEN by way of MAN OF STEEL (not the best superhero film you want to emulate). They’re the equivalent of ordering biscuits & gravy with a side of Kung Pow chicken and baked lasagna — all of which ends with a very confused bowel movement. The Fantastic Four’s greatest enemy, it would seem, is a lack of committed tone, narrative, and direction.

And poor Doctor Doom. This guy is arguably the greatest supervillain ever created. He’s the gold standard in comic book bad guys: aristocratic, intelligent, resourceful, ruthless and master of all of he surveys (he rules his own nation for god’s sake). Doom doesn’t speak, he exclaims. He refers to himself constantly in the third person. He’s condescending, superior and fascist. His entire existence is succinctly boiled down to three motives: (1) kill Reed Richards, (2) save his mother from Hades and (3) rule the world. What’s more, Doom’s only master is his own sense of perfection. He wears an iron mask due to a mangled face (which is dubious; his co-creator Jack Kirby has said the scar is tiny and insignificant, a claim that only adds to the character’s outlook that any flaw is unbearable).

If ever there was a fully formed mega-villain for the big screen, it’s Doctor Doom. And what did we get? A CEO who wants to get busy with Jessica Alba and a snobbish teen who comes back from another dimension wanting to destroy the world because… reasons. Sigh. How do you fuck up toast indeed?

Doom: “The clapping shall go on for another hour. Have the first one who stops clapping brought out and shot.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FcKAe4M1w