The biggest casting announcement of the year was decided this July, when Robert Downey Jr. was confirmed to be making his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the one and only Doctor Doom, having previously pocketed over $400 million for his timeless portrayal of Tony Stark.
The audience at Comic-Con sang their approval quite loudly, whereas the wider circles of MCU enthusiasts have offered some hefty skepticism at the choice. Indeed, when read purely in the context of the state of the MCU, Downey Jr.’s casting quite resolutely reads as a desperate attempt to keep the franchise’s audience tied down with nostalgia and fan service.
Nevertheless, final judgement is reserved for when we actually see Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, and while there’s no telling where screenwriter Stephen McFeely might take this particular story, there does exist a Stark-Doom precedent to extrapolate from.
Has Tony Stark ever been Doctor Doom before in the comics?
The two characters have had their fair share of clashes in the comics, and Doom even joins Iron Man as an ally in the aftermath of the 2015 Secret Wars event, going as far as donning Tony’s armor himself when the Stark Industries gaffer falls comatose. But it’s 2004’s Marvel Team-Up #3 and What If? Iron Man: Demon in an Armor #1 that create the most interesting nuances, as they’re both cases where it’s Tony Stark who slaps on the Doom armor (and is therefore the most akin to the real-life MCU implications).
In Marvel Team-Up, Tony Stark hails from Earth-5012 and becomes violent and cynical on account of the universe’s dystopian, superhero-scarce state. Seeing Reed Richards as partly responsible for how awful things are, he dons a Doom-esque armor and becomes an enemy of the Fantastic Four. Demon in an Armor, meanwhile, follows a storyline where Tony Stark and Victor von Doom are college roommates, and swap bodies during an experimental mishap. resulting in Victor living his life as the privileged Tony, and Tony living his life as the disgraced Victor.
But again, we can’t reasonably predict much in the way of anything until Doomsday rolls up on us. That is, unless claims about an upcoming comic are to be believed.