# Doom (Ultimate Universe character)

Doom is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is the revamped version of the Ultimate Marvel character of Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Doom, who first appeared in the second issue of Ultimate Invasion, written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by the co-creator of the 2002 series The Ultimates, Bryan Hitch.
In the Ultimate Universe, Reed Richards was originally destined to gain superpowers and found the Fantastic Four team just like his main universe iteration, but his self-loathing alternate self the Maker altered his destiny, caused the deaths of his friends and made him into the image of Earth-616 Reed's archnemesis Doctor Doom.

## Fictional character biography
### Early life

Reed Richards of Earth-6160 lived a life somewhat similar to that of his Earth-616 counterpart, such as becoming roommates with Ben Grimm during his teens. When Reed became an adult, he became a scientist employed by the North American Union military in a classified research project investigating a cosmic radiation storm directed by Franklin Storm, meeting Storm's children Johnny and Susan, and starting a relationship with the latter. When The Union decided to shut down the project, as Reed went over budget and failed safety inspections, after spending years on it, Reed refused to give up on years of work and convinced Sue, Ben, and Johnny to secretly board the rocket designed to observe the cosmic storm.

### Space-Travel Accident and becoming Doom

After arriving in space, Reed was surprised to find that they had missed the cosmic storm and that his calculations had been incorrect. But before they could assess their situation, the rocket's console equipment suddenly exploded, burning Johnny to death. Soon after returning to Earth, the three surviving members were arrested by the Union and sentenced to life imprisonment for destroying the rocket, breaking a hundred laws and the death of a minor (Johnny). In the following months, Ben seemingly killed himself out of shame, and Sue was dying of cancer from trace exposure to the radiation, with her last wish being to say goodbye to Reed, as Franklin cursed the day he met him. In this reality, the exposure to the cosmic ray storm would have caused Reed and his friends to develop super-powers, becoming the super hero team known as the Fantastic Four. However, Reed's reality had secretly been invaded by the Maker, a villainous alternate version of Reed himself, who had set out to reshape a world to his image. Using a time-travel device called the Immortus Engine, the Maker altered history to his whims, veering the world off its intended course. As part of his plan, the Maker delayed Reed's fateful space flight by hours by altering Reed's calculations, which delayed the flight by several hours and caused the crew to miss the cosmic storm. Following Reed's life collapsing, the Maker further toyed with Reed by abducting and imprisoning him within The City, his base of operations in Latveria. Using the temporally accelerated environment of the City, The Maker repeatedly tortured Reed, surgically disfiguring him and goading him into accepting that his name was Doom, claiming that he doomed his loved ones and that he should just accept him. Reed resisted at first but cracked after the Maker welded a metal mask to his face, imitating a similar faceplate once worn by the Maker's nemesis, Doctor Doom.

### A New Hope

Seeking to replace the Immortus Engine after a battle with the future warrior Kang, the Maker introduced genius inventor Howard Stark to Reed, so that they could work together. Opting together to betray the Maker, Reed snuck into the City's mainframe and deactivated its temporal shield while Howard delivered the second Immortus Engine to the Maker, giving Kang and his army an opening to strike. Howard defeated both the Maker and Kang before the City closed itself off. Reed fled with a copy of the Maker's files that he used to quell the Age of Heroes, and the original damaged Immortus Engine to bequeath it to Howard's son Tony for repairs. Under Reed's guideance, Tony created his own armored persona, Iron Lad, and together they set out to reverse the Maker's influence in the world on Howard's behalf. Escaping with resources from the Maker's trophy vault, Doom and Iron Lad battled Captain Britain of Maker's Council and absconded with what they needed to restart the origins of other heroes. However, Maker's Council used a Stark weapons satellite in cruel irony in an effort to kill the heroes, forcing them forward in time to escape.

### Founding the Ultimates and Project 4

Returning six months later in June 2024, Doom helped Tony postulate their initial moves, sending back in time the origin packs to a list of heroes, only for one of them to have proven successful. With direction from Captain Rogers, Doom began Project 4 while the Ultimates recruited Giant-Man and The Wasp.

## Powers and abilities

Reed Richards lacks any superhuman abilities, but he possesses Super-Genius Intelligence that he was considered by his evil alternate counterpart, The Maker, as the smartest man in the universe. Reed has also demonstrated proficiency with his pair of laser guns, consistently achieving hits on multiple targets with remarkable accuracy. After the suffering from the Maker and learning the truth of the life he should have led, Reed suffers bouts of depression. He has dubbed his mind entering this "negative" state as his "Negative Zone." In these periods, he is closed off and withdrawn while obsessively conducting a particular experiment or fighting to break the timeline and save himself or the others.

## Reception

The Ultimate Universe version of Reed Richards was praised by many critics and fans, viewing him as one of the best alternate versions of Mr. Fantastic and a reimagining of the character that combines key elemnts of his archnemesis, Doctor Doom.