title: Simp

text: Twitch announced in December 2020 that administrative action would be taken against the accounts of streamers and commentators who used the word, along with "incel" and "virgin", saying that those words were offensive; Twitch COO Sara Clemens said during a "town hall" live-stream that, while use of the words would be permitted under approved circumstances, Twitch would be "proactively denying" custom emotes that included the words. This ban was part of a broader expansion of Twitch's list of forbidden content; the policy, viewable on Twitch's website, also prohibited posting that "expresses inferiority" based on "moral deficiencies". At the time of the announcement, the policy was planned to take effect on January 22, 2021.


title: Simp

text: Reception to the announcement and proposed policy changes was largely negative; Bryan Rolli at "The Daily Dot" wrote that Twitch would "probably have a hell of a time enforcing the 'simp' ban", and "Gizmodo" said sarcastically that "actual simps and virgins [were] still welcome" on the streaming site. "Screen Rant" said that a blanket ban on "simp", "incel" and "virgin" contrasted unfavorably with a "context is needed" policy on the much more offensive racial slur "nigger". According to "Ars Technica", Twitch had an "inconsistent history in responding to reports of problematic behavior". In interviews with "Kotaku", people affected by the ban described their channels' use of the term as mostly benign—one streamer said it was "mostly banter and, in some cases, a compliment". Another streamer, while acknowledging that the word was sometimes used to describe "quite creepy" behavior, said her use of a "simp" emote was "mainly just a joke within my community".


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Absolute monarchy (or Absolutism as a doctrine) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch rules in their own right or power. In an absolute monarchy, the king or queen is by no means limited and has absolute power, though a limited constitution may exist in some countries. These are often hereditary monarchies. On the other hand, in constitutional monarchies, in which the authority of the head of state is also bound or restricted by the constitution, a legislature, or unwritten customs, the king or queen is not the only one to decide, and their entourage also exercises power, mainly the prime minister.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Absolute monarchy in Europe declined substantially following the French Revolution and World War I, both of which led to the popularization of theories of government based on the notion of popular sovereignty.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Absolute monarchies include Brunei, Eswatini, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Vatican City, and the individual emirates composing the United Arab Emirates, which itself is a federation of such monarchies – a federal monarchy.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: In the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan wielded absolute power over the state and was considered a Padishah meaning "Great King" by his people. Many sultans wielded absolute power through heavenly mandates reflected in their title, such as "Shadow of God on Earth". In ancient Mesopotamia, many rulers of Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer were absolute monarchs as well.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Throughout Imperial China, many emperors and one empress (Wu Zetian) wielded absolute power through the Mandate of Heaven. In pre-Columbian America, the Inca Empire was ruled by a Sapa Inca, who was considered the son of Inti, the sun god and absolute ruler over the people and nation. Korea under the Joseon dynasty and short-lived empire was also an absolute monarchy. Whether or not the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy or a "de facto" monarchy is internationally disputed.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Throughout much of European history, the divine right of kings was the theological justification for absolute monarchy. Many European monarchs claimed supreme autocratic power by divine right, and that their subjects had no rights to limit their power.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Throughout the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of the divine right to power and democratic ideals were given serious merit.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the "Springtime of the Peoples" or the "Springtime of Nations", were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. By the 19th century, divine right was regarded as an obsolete theory in most countries in the Western world, except in Russia where it was still given credence as the official justification for the Tsar's power until February Revolution in 1917 and in the Vatican City where it remains today.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: James VI and I and his son Charles I tried to import the principle of divine right into Scotland and England. Charles I's attempt to enforce episcopal polity on the Church of Scotland led to rebellion by the Covenanters and the Bishops' Wars, then fears that Charles I was attempting to establish absolutist government along European lines was a major cause of the English Civil War, despite the fact that he did rule this way for 11 years starting in 1629, after dissolving the Parliament of England for a time.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Absolutism was underpinned by a written constitution for the first time in Europe in 1665 of Denmark–Norway, which ordered that the Monarch: This law consequently authorized the king to abolish all other centers of power. Most important was the abolition of the Council of the Realm in Denmark. Absolute monarchy lasted until 1814 in Norway, and 1848 in Denmark.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) is often said to have proclaimed . Although often criticized for his extravagances, such as the Palace of Versailles, he reigned over France for a long period, some historians consider him an absolute monarch, while some other historians have questioned whether Louis' reign should be considered 'absolute', given the reality of the balance of power between the monarch and the nobility, as well as parliaments.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: The king of France concentrated legislative, executive, and judicial powers in his person. He was the supreme judicial authority. He could condemn people to death without the right of appeal. It was both his duty to punish offenses and stop them from being committed. From his judicial authority followed his power both to make laws and to annul them.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: In Brandenburg-Prussia, the concept of absolute monarch took a notable turn from the above with its emphasis on the monarch as the "first servant of the state", but it also echoed many of the important characteristics of absolutism. Frederick William (r. 1640–1688), known as the Great Elector, used the uncertainties of the final stages of the Thirty Years' War to consolidate his territories into the dominant kingdom in northern Germany, whilst increasing his power over his subjects. His actions largely originated the militaristic streak of the Hohenzollerns.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Frederick William enjoyed support from the nobles, who enabled the Great Elector to undermine the Diet of Brandenburg and other representative assemblies. The leading families saw their future in cooperation with the central government and worked to establish absolutist power.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: The most significant indicator of the nobles' success was the establishment of two tax rates – one for the cities and the other for the countryside – to the great advantage of the latter, which the nobles ruled. The nobles served in the upper levels of the elector's army and bureaucracy, but they also won new prosperity for themselves. The support of the Elector enabled the imposition of serfdom and the consolidation of land holdings into vast estates which provided for their wealth.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: They became known as Junkers (from the German for young lord, "junger Herr"). Frederick William faced resistance from representative assemblies and long-independent cities in his realm. City leaders often revolted at the imposition of Electorate authority. The last notable effort was the uprising of the city of Königsberg which allied with the Estates General of Prussia to refuse to pay taxes. Frederick William crushed this revolt in 1662, by marching into the city with thousands of troops. A similar approach was used with the towns of Cleves.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Until 1905, the Tsars and Emperors of Russia governed as absolute monarchs. Ivan the Terrible was known for his reign of terror through oprichnina. Peter I the Great reduced the power of the Russian nobility and strengthened the central power of the monarch, establishing a bureaucracy and a police state. This tradition of absolutism, known as Tsarist autocracy, was expanded by Catherine II the Great and her descendants. Although Alexander II made some reforms and established an independent judicial system, Russia did not have a representative assembly or a constitution until the 1905 Revolution. However, the concept of absolutism was so ingrained in Russia that the Russian Constitution of 1906 still described the monarch as an autocrat. Russia became the last European country (excluding Vatican City) to abolish absolutism, and it was the only one to do so as late as the 20th century (the Ottoman Empire drafted its first constitution in 1876).


title: Absolute monarchy

text: The form of government instituted in Sweden under King Charles XI and passed on to his son, Charles XII is commonly referred to as absolute monarchy; however, the Swedish monarch was never absolute in the sense that he wielded arbitrary power. The monarch still ruled under the law and could only legislate in agreement with the Riksdag of the Estates; rather, the absolutism introduced was the monarch's ability to run the government unfettered by the privy council, contrary to earlier practice. The absolute rule of Charles XI was instituted by the crown and the Riksdag in order to carry out the Great Reduction which would have been made impossible by the privy council which comprised the high nobility.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: After the death of Charles XII in 1718, the system of absolute rule was largely blamed for the ruination of the realm in the Great Northern War, and the reaction tipped the balance of power to the other extreme end of the spectrum, ushering in the Age of Liberty. After half a century of largely unrestricted parliamentary rule proved just as ruinous, King Gustav III seized back royal power in the coup d'état of 1772, and later once again abolished the privy council under the Union and Security Act in 1789, which, in turn, was rendered void in 1809 when Gustav IV Adolf was deposed in a coup and the constitution of 1809 was put in its place. The years between 1789 and 1809, then, are also referred to as a period of absolute monarchy.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Many nations formerly with absolute monarchies, such as Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco, have moved towards constitutional monarchy. However, in these cases the monarch still retains tremendous power, even to the extent that by some measures, parliament's influence on political life is viewed as negligible.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: In Bhutan, the government moved from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy following planned parliamentary elections to the Tshogdu in 2003, and the election of a National Assembly in 2008.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Nepal had several swings between constitutional rule and direct rule related to the Nepalese Civil War, the Maoist insurgency, and the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre, with the Nepalese monarchy being abolished on 28 May 2008.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Liechtenstein has moved towards expanding the power of the monarch: the Prince of Liechtenstein was given expanded powers after a referendum amending the Constitution of Liechtenstein in 2003, which led the BBC to describe the prince as an "absolute monarch again".


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, and according to the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia adopted by Royal Decree in 1992, the King must comply with Shari'a (Islamic law) and the Qur'an. The Qur'an and the body of the Sunnah (traditions of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad) are declared to be the Kingdom's Constitution, but no written modern constitution has ever been promulgated for Saudi Arabia, which remains the only Arab nation where no national elections have ever taken place since its founding. No political parties or national elections are permitted and according to "The Economist's" 2010 Democracy Index, the Saudi government is the eighth most authoritarian regime from among the 167 countries rated.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: There is a considerable variety of opinion by historians on the extent of absolutism among European monarchs. Some, such as Perry Anderson, argue that quite a few monarchs achieved levels of absolutist control over their states, while historians such as Roger Mettam dispute the very concept of absolutism. In general, historians who disagree with the appellation of "absolutism" argue that most monarchs labeled as "absolutist" exerted no greater power over their subjects than any other "non-absolutist" rulers, and these historians tend to emphasize the differences between the absolutist rhetoric of monarchs and the realities of the effective use of power by these absolute monarchs. Renaissance historian William Bouwsma summed up this contradiction:


title: Absolute monarchy

text: Anthropology, sociology, and ethology as well as various other disciplines such as political science attempt to explain the rise of absolute monarchy ranging from extrapolation generally, to certain Marxist explanations in terms of the class struggle as the underlying dynamic of human historical development generally and absolute monarchy in particular.


title: Absolute monarchy

text: In the 17th century, French legal theorist Jean Domat defended the concept of absolute monarchy in works such as ""On Social Order and Absolute Monarchy"", citing absolute monarchy as preserving natural order as God intended. Other intellectual figures who supported absolute monarchy include Thomas Hobbes and Charles Maurras.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territories beginning on February 22, 2012. It is a successor to the PlayStation Portable, and a part of the PlayStation brand of gaming devices; as part of the eighth generation of video game consoles, it primarily competed with the Nintendo 3DS.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The original model of the handheld includes a OLED multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, two analog joysticks, and front and shoulder push-button input, and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and optional 3G. The Vita features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU and a quad-core SGX543MP GPU. The PS Vita 2000 series, a revised version of the system, was released across 2013 and 2014. It has all of the same features with a slightly smaller size, extended battery life, and an LCD screen instead of OLED. Sony released the PlayStation TV, a short-lived, re-purposed version of the Vita that uses a television screen like a home video game console, discontinued at the end of 2015. As of 2022, it is Sony's last handheld console.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The Vita's design was intended to meld the experience of big-budget, dedicated video game platforms with the then up-and-coming trend of mobile gaming as seen on smart phones and tablets. However, in the year after the device's successful launch, sales of the hardware and its bigger budget games stalled, threatening to end its lifespan. A concentrated effort to attract smaller independent developers in the West, combined with strong support from mid-level Japanese companies, helped keep the platform afloat. Though this led to less diversity in its game library, it strengthened support in JRPGs, visual novels, and Western-developed indie games. This built moderate sales in Japan and a smaller yet passionate userbase in the West. Though Sony has not released exact sales figures, late-lifespan sales estimates are around 15 to 16 million units. In the platform's later years, Sony promoted the PlayStation Vita's ability to work in conjunction with its other gaming products, such as Remote Play of PlayStation 4 games, similar to the Wii U's function of Off-TV Play.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: While the Vita hosted several acclaimed titles and built a small but loyal and passionate fanbase, the system is regarded as a commercial failure, with a lack of support from Sony and major third-party developers along with competition from the significantly more successful Nintendo 3DS and smart devices noted as major factors. Production of the system and physical game cards in the West ended in March 2019, with Sony having no plans for a successor.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: After the success of Nintendo's Game Boy family of handheld game consoles throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with little market competition, and Sony's massive success with its PlayStation and PlayStation 2 home video game consoles around the same time, Sony entered the handheld market as well. In 2004, it released the PlayStation Portable (PSP) to compete with the Nintendo DS as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. After a slow start in the worldwide market, it was invigorated in Japan with multiple releases in the "Monster Hunter" series. With the series being less popular in western regions, it failed to revive the platform in the same way. The PSP ended up being a mixed result for the company. It was seen as a success in that it was the only handheld video game platform that had ever significantly competed with Nintendo for market share, with almost 80 million units sold in its lifespan, roughly the same amount as Nintendo's Game Boy Advance had during the sixth generation of video game consoles. This is only a little more than half of the sales of its actual market competitor, the DS, which was more than 150 million units by the end of 2011.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Rumors of a successor to the PSP came as early as July 7, 2009 when "Eurogamer" reported that Sony was working on such a device, which would utilize the PowerVR SGX543MP processor and perform at a level similar to the original Xbox. Through mid-2010, websites continued to run stories about accounts of the existence of a "PSP 2". Reports arose during the Tokyo Game Show that the device was unveiled internally during a private meeting during mid-September held at Sony Computer Entertainment's headquarters in Aoyama, Tokyo. Shortly after, reports of development kits for the handheld had reportedly already been shipped to numerous video game developers including both first-party and third-party developers to start making games for the device, a report later confirmed by "Mortal Kombat" Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick. By November, Senior Vice President of Electronic Arts, Patrick Soderlund, confirmed that he had seen that the PlayStation Portable successor existed, but could not confirm details. In the same month, VG247 released pictures of an early prototype version showing a PSP Go-like slide-screen design along with two analog sticks, two cameras and a microphone, though the report mentioned that overheating issues had since caused them to move away from the design in favor of a model more similar to the original PlayStation Portable device.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Throughout 2010, Sony would not confirm these reports of a PSP successor, but would make comments regarding making future hardware. Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios revealed that his studio, despite usually being more involved with software, had a continued role in future hardware development at the time. In December, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kazuo Hirai stated that Sony aimed to appeal to a wide demographic of people by using multiple input methods on future hardware; buttons and joysticks for traditional handheld game system users, and touchscreens for smart phone users. The device was officially announced by Sony on January 27, 2011, at their "PlayStation Meeting" press conference held by the company in Japan. The system, only known by its code name "Next Generation Portable", was announced to be a handheld gaming device that aimed for PlayStation 3 quality visuals, which was later clarified to not be taken at a literal level because, according to David Coombes, platform research manager at Sony Computer Entertainment America, "Well, it's not going to run at 2 GHz [like the PS3] because the battery would last five minutes and it would probably set fire to your pants". Its power was later described by Sony engineers as about halfway between the PSP and PS3. As rumors had suggested, the device was designed to present "the best of both worlds" between mobile and handheld gaming, including a 5-inch OLED touchscreen, a rear touchpad coupled with physical buttons and dual analog sticks. Sony also revealed that the device would be using a mix of retail and digital distribution of games. Further details were announced at Game Developers Conference 2011, including that Sony would be dropping the PSP's UMD disc format in favor of small game cartridges of 2 GB or 4 GB size variants. along with two cameras, facial detection, head detection and tracking capabilities.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: On June 6, 2011, at E3 2011, Sony announced that the device's official name would be the PlayStation Vita, with the word "vita" being Latin for "life". Despite reports of the 2011 earthquakes in Japan delaying the release of the device, Sony reconfirmed that it was on track for a late 2011 release in Japan and a February 2012 release date for other major regions of the world. The release date was later narrowed down to a December 17, 2011, release in Japan, and a February 22, 2012 release date for America and Europe, although a limited edition was released a week earlier in North America on February 15, 2012, which included the 3G/WiFi model of the device, the game "Little Deviants", a limited-edition carry case, and a 4 GB memory card. The Vita launched with 26 titles in Japan, with Sony announcing that there were over 100 titles in development prior to the system's release overall. The Vita launched in the west with 25 titles, including original titles such as "" and "Wipeout 2048", and ports of games such as "FIFA 12" and "Rayman Origins".


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The sales of the Vita started strong at launch but then stalled and greatly underperformed. The Vita had a strong launch in Japan, selling over 300,000 units in its first week of availability, though figures shortly afterwards shrunk down 78% to under 73,000 sold in its second week, and then settled into about 12,000 sold per week in the following weeks. Similarly, in the United States, the system debuted with 200,000 units sold in the first month, before slinking down into an amount of about 50,000 a month. 1.2 million units were reported as sold as of February 26, 2012 – after it had launched in most regions. The system continued to get high-profile games over the course of 2012, including "Gravity Rush", "LittleBigPlanet PS Vita", "Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed", "Persona 4 Golden", "", and "". Despite this, the system still only managed to sell 4 million units worldwide in its first 10 months on the market, and estimated by analysts to only be at 6 million units sold after two years of availability. After 2012, Sony ceased releasing direct sales figures of the Vita, instead opting to release combined sales figures with it and the PSP. Still, the system under-performed; while Sony projected selling 16 million units of combined Vita and PSP systems, it had to slash its forecast twice in the same year—down to 12 and then 10 million units sold.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: With higher-profile games not pushing the system sales enough in 2012, big third party companies like Ubisoft and Activision started reducing or eliminating support for the system, especially in the West. Additionally, while the "Monster Hunter" series had significantly boosted the sales of the PSP, its absence instead hurt the Vita. Its developer, Capcom, had decided to release "Monster Hunter Tri" and future "Monster Hunter" games exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS, where it would sell millions of copies for Sony's main competitor. With support diminishing, Shahid Ahmad, Sony's Director of Strategic Content, instead began a new approach to software, through directly reaching out to, and making accommodations for, smaller, independent developers who were previously release games for mobile and PC platforms. While not completely reversing the sales trends of the Vita, the lower costs of making or porting smaller-budget games made it easier for developers to make a profit on the systems's smaller userbase, and in turn, increased consumer attention on the console, keeping the device afloat. "Fez", "Spelunky", "Hotline Miami", and "OlliOlli" all found success with releases on Vita. Ahmad also maintained interest in the device by directly interacting with consumers on social media; the game "Tales of Hearts R" was localized into English only because it was number one in a survey of games desired on the platform. Sony continued to support the system with games through 2013 as well, albeit lesser so, with titles such as "" and "Tearaway", along with a handful of other Western-developed ports such as "FIFA 13" and "Rayman Legends".


title: PlayStation Vita

text: While the focus on indie games kept the device afloat in the West, in Japan, no such measures were necessary, as the Vita maintained moderate hardware sales. While it was routinely outsold by its main competitor, the Nintendo 3DS, the Vita still managed to be one of the top consoles sold overall, partially due to Japan's preference towards handheld gaming. Strong support by Japanese developers also helped, with companies such as Bandai Namco, Falcom, Koei Tecmo, 5pb, Compile Heart, Spike Chunsoft, and Atlus releasing many games in the JRPG and visual novels genre to help keep a steady flow of mid-level releases coming to the system. Additionally, big games such as "Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster" sold well and roughly in-line with their home console counterparts. The heavier support from Japan, in turn, also helped support the system in the West as well, with many games in the "Atelier", "Ys", "Danganronpa", "Persona", and "Trails" series localized into English on the Vita, or made playable through the system's backward compatibility with digital PSP games.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: While the system managed to stay afloat as a minor success, other issues continued to persist, including the high price of the system in comparison to its main competitor, the Nintendo 3DS, and its sibling device, the PS3, the high price of its memory cards used for game and data storage, and the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets. In August 2013, Sony addressed the first two, dropping the price to $199 in North America and €199 in Europe, and cutting the suggested retail price of the memory cards as well. The price cut also coincided with the release of a slight redesign of the system, the "PS Vita 2000" model. The redesign included making the system 20% thinner and 15% lighter, while adding 1 GB of internal storage, and an extra hour of battery life. However, the redesign did remove the OLED screen in favor of a cheaper LCD screen.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Towards the end of 2013, around the launch of Sony's next video game device, the home video game console the PlayStation 4, Sony began making comments in regards to the change in focus with the Vita. Yoshida stated that Sony would be releasing fewer first party games for the platform. Sony Computer Entertainment's Product Planning & Platform Software Innovation Director Don Mesa stated that the "economics simply don’t work with the traditional process". Sony addressed the "economics of Vita game development" issue with beginning on focusing on the fact that almost all PlayStation 4 games could be streamed and played through a Vita through Remote Play. Sony attempted to attach the device to the PS4 due to its extreme popularity; it took only a few weeks for the sales to surpass the sales of the Vita over the course of almost two years. In July 2014, Yoshida stated that the company would focus on it less as a dedicated handheld video game console, and more on its combination of uses, stating "it's not about individual Vita games any more. It's more about how Vita can have multiple uses – with PS4 Remote Play, PS3 games with PS Now, and the dedicated games. The whole ecosystem with PS4 at the center, the Vita's a part of that." Sony later announced that the Vita will have PlayStation VR integration in the form of a second screen as well. Open beta trials for PlayStation Now functionality on the PS Vita began on October 14, 2014 in North America. The PlayStation TV, released across late 2013 and 2014, also aimed to expand the system's userbase by allowing for Vita games to be played on a television like a home console, though the device was discontinued in the West by the end of 2015, and did not fare well in Japan's handheld-focused region either. In November 2014, SCEA president Shawn Layden suggested that the new approach was working on hardware level, stating that Vita sales had increased since the implementation of PS4 Remote Play, though he and another Sony representative did not give specific figures. Sony continued to make games for the device, though in smaller number than in past. The last major Sony-developed title, "Freedom Wars", still found success, selling over 188,000 copies in its first week of release in Japan. The debut was the highest Sony game debut for the system, and the second highest, only to Namco Bandai's late 2013 release of "God Eater 2" on the platform.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: In September 2015, Yoshida stated that Sony had no current plans for a Vita successor, stating that "climate is not healthy for now because of the huge dominance of mobile gaming." At E3 2015, he had stated that Sony would not be making any more AAA, big budget games to the system, but by October, the comment had been revised that Sony would not be making any more games for it at all. Reasons cited included the company focusing on supporting the PS4, and the fact that it felt that third party Japanese developers and Western indie developers were sufficiently supporting the device. In March 2016, Sony announced that instead, it would be forming a new company, "Forward Works", and be instead concentrating on bringing PlayStation-based games to mobile platforms like iOS and Android.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Despite Sony's focus on the PS4 and mobile for the future, the Vita still continued to receive substantial third party company game support in the way of Japanese-style role-playing games and visual novels and Western-style indie video games through 2017. "Minecraft" in particular was successful for the platform, with it selling over 1.2 million physical copies in Japan alone as of September 2017. The device is considered to have sold fairly well in Japan, and still a crucial part of Sony's overall strategy in the region, while Sony has acknowledged that the device still has a very vocal and passionate user-base in the West as well, with the company still encouraging third party companies to create games for the device. At the 2016 Game Developers Conference, research analyst firm EEDAR estimated the sales of the Vita to be about at 10 million unit sold through the end of 2015. Multi-platform releases with the PS4 have also incidentally helped sustain the Vita's stream of software, even in the west, through 2016 and 2017; games receive a Vita version more to appeal to Japan's larger Vita user-base, and receive a PS4 version more to appeal to North America's larger user-base. The March 2017 launch of the Nintendo Switch, which operates on a similar concept of providing high budget video games on a portable unit, further overshadowed the Vita, though niche support through indie games and JRPGs continued into the year. In mid-2017, "Glixel" estimated the Vita userbase to be around 15 million.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: On September 20, 2018, Sony announced at Tokyo Game Show 2018 that the Vita would be discontinued in 2019, ending its hardware production. Production of new physical Vita games in Europe and America ceased by the end of Sony's 2018 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2019. At the time of the announcement, "USgamer" estimated that the Vita userbase had grown to approximately 16 million units. Production of Vita hardware officially ended on March 1, 2019. In March 2021, Sony announced that the Vita's online storefront would be closing on August 27, 2021, making it impossible to purchase digital games for the platform, though still allowing for the download of previously purchased games; this decision was later reversed following consumer feedback.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: In line with Sony's ambition to combine aspects of traditional video game consoles with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the Vita contains a multitude of input methods. The device features a "super oval" shape similar to the design of the original PlayStation Portable, with a qHD OLED capacitive touchscreen in the centre of the device. The device features two analog sticks, a D-pad, a set of standard PlayStation face buttons (, , and ), two shoulder buttons (L and R), a PlayStation button and Start and Select buttons. Motion control is also possible through Sony's Sixaxis motion sensing system, consisting of a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer. In addition to these input methods, specific to just the Vita, is a secondary touchpad that is on the back of the device.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Other hardware includes stereo speakers, a microphone, built-in Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR connectivity, and two cameras. The cameras are both 0.3 megapixel and run at 640×480 (VGA) at 60 frames/s, or at 320×240 at 120 frames/s. They can be used to take photos or videos using built-in applications on the system. The two cameras feature the abilities of face detection, head detection, and head tracking. The platform also launched with a model with 3G mobile data support, which required a separate data plan through a data provider. The 3G service has been partnered with NTT DoCoMo in Japan, AT&T in the US, Rogers in Canada and Vodafone in Europe and Australia. The 3G model was discontinued in 2013 and not made available in the system's future revised models.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Internally, the device features a custom system on chip with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor and a quad-core GPU SGX543MP4+. Sony has stated that the Vita generally runs well under its full clock speed due to overheating and battery consumption issues that would ensue, instead placing its processing power "around halfway between the current PSP and the PS3". The Vita's internal battery has between 3–5 hours of power for game playing, depending on the processing power required for the game, screen brightness, sound level and network connections, as well as other factors. Additionally, the battery can supply about five hours for video watching, and up to nine hours of music listening with the screen off. The system does allow for additional external battery solutions as well. The PlayStation Vita has 512 MB of system RAM and 128 MB of VRAM. The amount of RAM allows cross-game chat to be used on the system.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Software for the PlayStation Vita is distributed on a proprietary flash memory card called "PlayStation Vita game card" rather than on Universal Media Discs (UMDs) as used by the PlayStation Portable. The shape and size of the card itself is very similar to an SD card. 5–10% of the game card's space is reserved for game save data and patches. The PS Vita is incompatible with standard memory cards, such as SD cards, and instead stores data on proprietary PS Vita memory cards, which are available in sizes of 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. A maximum of 100 applications and games can be stored on the device at a time, regardless of data storage available. When the limit is reached, applications or games must be moved or deleted in order to access those beyond the limit.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: All games developed for the PlayStation 4, with the exception of games requiring the use of special peripherals such as PlayStation Camera, are playable on the Vita through Remote Play. With the use of a Vita, PS4, and PS4 game, this allows a PS4 game to be run on the PS4, but its output transmitted to the Vita, with the Vita being used for the controller input, and the image and sound being transmitted to the Vita's screen and speakers instead of a television. The end result is similar to what a Wii U console does with its GamePad controller through Off-TV Play. The Vita technically has Remote Play functionality with the PlayStation 3 as well, though very few PS3 games supported the feature due to limitations with the less-powerful PS3 hardware. More PS3 games are available for streaming on the Vita through Sony's cloud gaming service PlayStation Now, though they are streamed over the internet in the form of cloud computing rather than directly from a physical PS3 console. First implemented in 2014, the service was announced to be discontinued on the Vita on August 15, 2017.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: A revised model of the Vita was released in Japan on October 10, 2013, in Europe on February 7, 2014 and in North America on May 6, 2014. The revised model, officially called the PCH-2000 series and commonly referred to as the PS Vita Slim, is 20% thinner and 15% lighter compared to the original model. While it largely maintains the original's overall structure and layout, the original's OLED screen has been replaced with a lower-cost LCD display. The model also roughly added about an extra hour of battery life. The newer model also comes with 1 GB of internal storage memory, although it is not possible to use both the internal memory and memory card concurrently. Upon inserting a PS Vita memory card, the system will offer to copy the existing data from the internal memory to the new card. This model has a micro USB Type B port, which can be used to charge the device along with any standard micro USB cable. The model was released in six colors in Japan (white, black, light blue, lime green, pink, and khaki), although it was only released in black and light blue in North America and Europe.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The PlayStation TV is a non-portable variant of the Vita; instead of featuring its own display screen like a handheld video game console, it connects to a television via HDMI like a traditional home video game console, and is controlled though the use of a DualShock 3 or DualShock 4 controller. Due to the difference in controller input between the Vita and a DualShock controller, Vita games that are dependent on the system's touch-screen, rear touchpad, microphone, or camera are not compatible. It also shares the Remote Play and PS Now functionality of a regular Vita. The system was released in Japan in November 2013, in North America in October 2014, and in Europe on November 14, 2014. The device did not fare well and had a short retail shelf life in North America and Europe, where it was discontinued at the end of 2015.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Physical software for the Vita is distributed on a proprietary flash memory card called "PlayStation Vita game card". All Vita games are also made available to be downloaded digitally on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation Store, although not all games are released physically. Since its launch, digital-only releases have slowly become more prominent, partially in an effort to reduce production costs for release on the platforms comparatively smaller user-base, and partially due to the influx smaller-scale indie mobile phone games that have always been digital-only releases. Like the PS3 and PS4, the Vita contains Trophy support for games. Hackers later found out that the card format was based on the MultiMediaCard standard, but with a different pinout and support for custom initialization commands as well as copy protection.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The system was designed so that it would be easy for developers to extract PS3 game assets and in turn use them to make Vita versions of games. Prior to the Vita's release, several third-party studios showcased tech demos of the device by exporting existing assets from their PlayStation 3 counterpart and then rendering them on the device, high budget examples including "", "Yakuza 4", and "Lost Planet". While none of these particular high budget tech demos materialized into actual game releases, and few big-budget Western games would be made for both outside of "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale", many Japanese development teams would go on to develop mid-level games that would release for both platforms, including the first two games from Falcom's "Trails of Cold Steel" series, Compile Hearts' original "Hyperdimension Neptunia" trilogy, and many entries from Tecmo Koei's "Atelier" and "Dynasty Warriors" series. The trend continued on the PS4 as well, with Vita/PS4 releases becoming common due to the spread of their userbases – Vita versions for Japan, where the Vita was larger in its initial years, and PS4 versions of games for North America and Europe, where the PS4 userbase was substantially larger. Few PlayStation 2 titles were ported to the Vita due to the PS2's complicated infrastructure – games that did, such as "Final Fantasy X/X2 Remaster" and "Persona 4 Golden" required extensive reworking, or were based on their PS3 counterparts, such as "Jak and Daxter Collection", "Ratchet and Clank Collection", and "Sly Cooper Collection". Towards the end of its lifespan, Vita versions of games began to be cancelled, in favor of PS4 or Nintendo Switch releases.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: The device is backward compatible with most PSP games; however, its lack of a UMD disc drive limits this capability to those titles which have been digitally released on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation Store, but not physical PSP games or films. The Vita is also backward compatible with the majority of the PS one Classics – the group of PlayStation 1 games Sony has made available digitally for download, and PlayStation Minis – small-budget downloadable titles originally created for the PSP and PS3. Games from Sony's PlayStation Mobile initiative had initially been compatible, but were removed when the service was shutdown in September 2015. In Japan, select downloadable PC Engine and PocketStation titles became backward compatible as well.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: A number of applications are available to run on the Vita, some initially pre-loaded on the device, while others are available via Sony's PlayStation Store. Pre-loaded apps include an internet browser, a "Content Manager" app for monitoring data saved to the device, an email app, a music playing app, a photo app, and a video playing app. The system's web browser supports HTML5, cookies, and JavaScript, but not Adobe Flash. Also included was "Near", a social media/GPS like app that allowed the user to see other Vita players in the area, and what games or applications they had been using, with the opportunity for some limited interactivity and communication, although most of its functionality was disabled in 2015.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: A number of other third party apps commonly found on mobile devices have also been made available on the Vita: Crunchyroll, Facebook (removed in 2015), Flickr (broken), Google Maps (removed in 2015), Hulu, LiveTweet (Sony's third-party client for Twitter), MLB.tv (broken), Netflix, Redbox Instant (discontinued), Skype (removed in 2016), TuneIn (broken), Twitch, WeatherNation and YouTube (removed in 2015). Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps and YouTube no longer function as Vita apps, but continue to be available by using the Vita's web browser.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Unlike the PSP and PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita does not use the XrossMediaBar interface. Instead, it uses a touchscreen-based UI dubbed LiveArea, which includes various social networking features via the PlayStation Network. Each game or application is represented by its own circle icon, and selecting it leads the user to a panel with multiple options present, including running software itself, going to its respective website through the internet, seeing if there are downloadable updates available for the software, and seeing a newsfeed-like list of activities related to it, such as installing it or obtaining trophies, for both the user and others the user has interacted with recently.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: According to review aggregator Metacritic, the Vita's original hardware release was generally well-received with critics, although a few concerns persisted as well. Metacritic editor Jason Dietz noted that reviewers tended to praise the Vita's actual hardware design and operating system, but expressed some concern on its practicality, namely competing in 2012 onward, with a large size and price, where mobile phones with large screens and cheap games were prevalent as an alternative. As of its initial Western launch in February 2012, out of 44 professional critic reviews, 9 fell in the "Great" rating, 29 in the "Good" rating, 6 in the "Mixed" rating, and 0 in the "Bad" or "Awful" rating.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Its initial launch sales were generally seen as positive, selling over 300,000 units in Japan, and 200,000 units in North America. However, a large dropoff occurred in both regions. In Japan, second-week sales dropped 78%, and leveled off at selling about 12,000 units per week. Similarly, sales dropped off to about 30,000 to 50,000 units sold per month for the year after launch in North America. Overall, Sony fell far short of the worldwide sales targets of 10 million Vitas sold by the end of March 2013. The device sold 1.2 million units as of the end of February 2012, 4 million by the end of 2012, and were only estimated by analysts to have reached 6 million by the end of 2013, figures that have not been confirmed due to Sony's ceasing to release Vita sales figures after hitting the 4 million mark at the end of 2012.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: Views on the hardware dropped to more moderate levels in 2013, after the platform's initial sales lulls. Surveys in Japan showed that consumers were not purchasing the device due to its high retail price and perceived lack of software variety, and that current Vita owners only showed a 46% rate of approval for the device and its software library. Similarly, many Western critics felt that the low sales through 2013 would lead to an early death for the product.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: From 2013 onward, Sony was able to reverse the trajectory of the system by changing focus, aiming to be more of a niche product than one with mass market appeal – focusing more on small Western mobile phone games and mid-level Japanese developed games, and attaching it to the rise of popularity of its PlayStation 4 platform with its remote play connectivity functions. Sony also released the Vita model revision, the PCH-2000, which was generally well received by critics as well for addressing a number of prior complaints about the system, which included a price and size reduction. However, reviewers felt more mixed on the decision to change from OLED to LCD screen in the revised model, with some feeling it led to a minor downgrade in image quality.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: While not giving specific figures, Sony stated that Vita sales beat projections in North America in 2014, which it was happy and surprised with, sometimes even falling out of stock. Similar response was found in the UK as well. The platform has been considered to have sold well in Japan, where it outsold the PS4 in 2015, and reached 5 million units sold in 2016 according to sales tracker Media Create. It also obtained million-selling software in the same year, with the Japanese Vita release of "Minecraft". By the end of 2015, research firm EEDAR estimated the sales of the Vita worldwide to be around 10 million. Despite the smaller userbase, the platform continued to be viable for game releases into 2017 due to the high attach rate of software sold per hardware user. Limited Run Games and various indie game developers praised the platform for its wide selection of more original and niche video games, and the strong respective sales of them. In mid-2017, "Glixel" estimated that approximately 15 million units of the system had been sold, while by September 2018, USGamer estimated it had grown to about 16 million units.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: In a 2021 retrospective by "The Verge", Sony employees attributed several factors to the Vita's poor sales in contrast to the PSP, which had an estimated 80 million sales in its lifetime; a similar drop had been seen by Nintendo with its transition from the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo 3DS. Christian Phillips, a former senior director in Sony, said they had underestimated the impact of mobile gaming at the time of the Vita's release. They had considered gaming on smartphones to be "just good enough for gameplay" and instead felt tablet computers to be more their competitors to the Vita, according to Phillips. While some technologists in Sony had cautioned that mobile device computational power could outpace current consoles around 2010–2011, the design of the Vita did not incorporate this caution. Thus, the Vita was released at the same time that mobile gaming was greatly expanding, losing potential consumers to that market.


title: PlayStation Vita

text: John Koller, the former vice president of marketing at Sony, also believed that the Vita had been released too late into the main PlayStation console cycle and too close to the PlayStation 4's release in November 2013. As one of Sony's flagship products, many of their first-party developers had put more focus on games for that system rather than the Vita as a result. The lack of interest from Sony's first-party teams reverberated to third-party developers, who felt the Vita was not worth the effort to develop for over the upcoming PlayStation 4, leaving the Vita without a strong software library. Koller believed that if the Vita had launched earlier into the PlayStation 3's lifecycle, they would have been able to capture more interest from developers during that time and build out a more compelling library for the Vita.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doctor Victor Von Doom is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and first appeared in "The Fantastic Four" #5 in July 1962. The monarch of the fictional nation of Latveria, Doom primarily serves as the archenemy of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four. He has also come into conflict with other superheroes in the Marvel Universe, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, the X-Men, and the Avengers. He has also been portrayed as an antihero at times, working with the heroes if their goals align and only if it benefits him.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doctor Doom was ranked #4 by "Wizard" on its list of the 101 Greatest Villains of All Time and #3 on IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time. In a later article, IGN would declare Doom as Marvel's greatest villain.


title: Doctor Doom

text: The character has been substantially adapted from the comics into several forms of media, including television series, video games, and merchandise such as action figures and trading cards. Most notably, Doctor Doom has been portrayed in licensed Fantastic Four live-action feature films by Joseph Culp in Roger Corman's unreleased 1994 film; Julian McMahon in the 2005 film and its ; and Toby Kebbell in the 2015 film.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Like many of Marvel's Silver Age characters, Doom was conceived by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. With the "Fantastic Four" title performing well, Lee and Kirby were trying to dream up a "soul-stirring…super sensational new villain" for the series. Looking for a name, Lee latched onto "Doctor Doom" as "eloquent in its simplicity — magnificent in its implied menace."


title: Doctor Doom

text: Due to the rush to publish, the character was not given a full origin story until "Fantastic Four Annual" #2, two years after his debut.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In a 1987 interview, Kirby commented on Doctor Doom's design. "Dr. Doom was the classic conception of Death, of approaching Death. I saw Dr. Doom as The Man in the Iron Mask, who symbolized approaching Death. It was the reason for the armor and the hood. Death is connected with armor and inhuman-like steel. Death is something without mercy and human flesh contains that element of mercy. Therefore I had to erase it, and I did it with a mask"..


title: Doctor Doom

text: Kirby further described Doom as being "paranoid", wrecked by his twisted face and wanting the whole world to be like him. Kirby went on to say that although "Doom is an evil person, but he's not always been evil. He was [respected]…but through a flaw in his own character, he was a perfectionist." At one point in the 1970s, Kirby drew his interpretation of what Doom would look like under the mask, giving Doom only "a tiny scar on his cheek." Due to this slight imperfection, Doom hides his face not from the world, but from himself. To Kirby, this is the motivation for Doom's vengeance against the world; because others are superior due to this slight scar, Doom wants to elevate himself above them. Stan Lee's writing typically showed Doom's arrogance as his constant downfall, and how his pride leads to Von Doom's disfigurement at the hands of his own machine, and to the failures of many of his schemes.


title: Doctor Doom

text: While the Fantastic Four had fought various villains such as the Mole Man, Skrulls, the Miracle Man, and Namor the Sub-Mariner, Doom managed to overshadow them all and became the Fantastic Four's archnemesis. During the 1970s, Doom branched out to more Marvel titles such as "Astonishing Tales", "The Incredible Hulk", and "Super-Villain Team-Up" (1975). Beginning with issue #42, he also had appearances in "Marvel Team-Up" (February 1976). Doom's origin was also a feature in "Astonishing Tales" when his ties to the villain Mephisto were revealed.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In 1976, Marvel and DC Comics collaborated on "Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man", and seeking to replicate that success the two companies again teamed the characters in "Superman and Spider-Man" in 1981. Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter co-wrote the story with Marv Wolfman, and recalled choosing Victor Von Doom based on his iconic status: "I figured I needed the heaviest-duty bad guy we had to offer — Doctor Doom. Their greatest hero against our greatest villain."


title: Doctor Doom

text: 1981 also saw John Byrne begin his six-year run writing and illustrating "Fantastic Four", sparking a "second golden age" for the title but also attempting to "turn the clock back [...] get back and see fresh what it was that made the book great at its inception." Doctor Doom made his first appearance under Byrne's tenure with issue #236. Whereas Kirby had intimated that Doom's disfigurement was more a figment of Victor's vain personality, Byrne decided that Doom's face was truly ravaged: only Doom's own robot slaves are allowed to see the monarch without his helmet. Byrne emphasized other aspects of Doom's personality; despite his ruthless nature, Victor Von Doom is a man of honor. Returning to Latveria after being temporarily deposed, Doctor Doom abandons a scheme to wrest mystical secrets from Doctor Strange in order to oversee his land's reconstruction. Despite a tempestuous temper, Doom occasionally shows warmth and empathy to others; he tries to free his mother from Mephisto and treats Kristoff Vernard like his own son. Byrne gave further detail regarding Doom's scarring: Byrne introduced the idea that the accident at Empire State University only left Victor with a small scar that was exaggerated into a more disfiguring accident by Doom's own arrogance—by donning his newly forged face mask before it had fully cooled, he caused massive irreparable damage.


title: Doctor Doom

text: After Byrne's departure Doom continued to be a major villain in "Fantastic Four", and as the 1980s continued Doom appeared in other comics such as "Punisher", "The Spectacular Spider-Man", and "Excalibur". Under Fantastic Four writer Steven Englehart, Doom became exiled from Latveria by his heir Kristoff, who was brainwashed into thinking he was Victor Von Doom. Doom would spend most of his time in exile planning his return, but Englehart left the title before he could resolve the storyline. This storyline ultimately ended with the controversial "Fantastic Four" #350, where writer Walt Simonson had the Victor Von Doom who had been seen in the book during the Englehart run being revealed to be a robotic imposter and the real Von Doom, in a newly redesigned armor, returning to claim his country from his usurper. According to Simonson's retcon, the last appearance of the real Victor Von Doom was in the "Battle of the Baxter Building" story arc, but Simonson's interpretation of the character was unaware of certain major changes at the time to the Fantastic Four. Later writers ignored Simonson's choices, retconning these story elements as an attempt by Doom to blame his own past failures on unruly robots.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Writer Mark Waid sought to redefine Doctor Doom in the 2003 "Unthinkable" storyline (vol. 3 #66-70 & vol. 1 #500), by having him forsake technology and invest entirely in mysticism. The story took its title from the "unthinkable" act Doom had to perform to acquire this new magical might from a trio of demons: killing his first love, Valeria. With Valeria's flesh turned into new mystic leather armor, the story follows Doom as he imprisons Franklin Richards in Hell, captures Valeria's namesake, and succeeds in de-powering and imprisoning the Fantastic Four. He subsequently attempts to prove his superiority to Reed Richards by giving him the chance to find his way out of a prison that could only be escaped through magic, in the belief that Richards would fail to do so. With the aid of Doctor Strange, however, Richards learns to utilize magic on a basic level by accepting that he could not understand it and escapes. Richards proceeds to trick Doom into rejecting the demons, resulting in them dragging Doom to Hell. Doom remained trapped there until the events of the 2004 "Ragnarok" storyline in the pages of "Thor", which resulted in Thor's hammer Mjolnir falling through dimensions and giving Doom a way out of Hell.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In 2005 and 2006, Doom was featured in his own limited series entitled "Books of Doom", a retelling of the origin story by Ed Brubaker. In an interview, Brubaker said the series was a way to elaborate on the earlier portions of Doom's life which had not been seen often in the comics. The series also set out to determine if Doctor Doom's path from troubled child to dictator was fated or if Doom's own faults led to his corruption — in essence, a nature versus nurture question; whether Doom could ever become a hero. Brubaker's version of Doom was heavily influenced by the original Lee/Kirby version; responding to a question if he would ever show Doom's face, Brubaker stated "[F]ollowing Kirby's example, I think it's better not to show it."


title: Doctor Doom

text: The Mighty Avengers invaded Latveria, Von Doom's nation, due to his involvement in creating a chemical bomb that would infect people with the symbiote (though it was recently revealed that this attack was actually set up by Kristoff Vernard to put Doom out of the picture prior to Kristoff's future attempt at a coup). Due to Ultron's interference, the bomb was dropped on Manhattan, but the Mighty Avengers are able to stop the effects on the people. The Mighty Avengers proceed to invade Latveria. During the invasion, the Sentry, Iron Man, and Von Doom are sent to the past, thanks to the Latverian ruler's time platform. Eventually, the trio breaks into the Baxter Building and make use of a confiscated time machine to return to the present era, the Sentry taking advantage of the fact he will soon be forgotten by the world to easily defeat the Thing. Doctor Doom transports himself to Morgana's castle to summon up a magical army and captures the Avengers, but they free themselves and he is arrested for terrorist crimes against humanity after a brief struggle that culminated with the Sentry tearing off Doctor Doom's mask.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During Dark Reign when Norman Osborn is in charge, Doom is released and sent back to Latveria. However, Morgana le Fay engages him in a magical battle, which he is losing until the Dark Avengers rescue him. He then magically rebuilds his kingdom.


title: Doctor Doom

text: The character is also featured in the "Siege" storyline, where he initially approves of Osborn's attack on Asgard before withdrawing from the arrangement. He also appears in the five issue mini-series "Doomwar" written by Jonathan Maberry. "Doomwar" sees the culmination of Doom's alliance with the isolationist group known as the Desturi, to take control of Wakanda. He attacked and wounded T'Challa, the current Black Panther, maiming him enough to prevent him from holding the mantle again. Doctor Doom's main objective was to secure Wakanda's store of vibranium, which he could mystically enhance to make himself unstoppable. However, this plan was thwarted when T'Challa triggered a device that destroyed Wakanda's entire vibranium stockpile, choosing to believe that his people could survive without the element.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In the Mark Millar penned "Fantastic Four" 566–569, Doom received a significant power upgrade. He was thrown back in time (perhaps about 50 million years) by the Marquis of Death. Doom then fought through time and space to get back to the present to seek revenge on the Marquis of Death. Doom stated, as he killed the Marquis, he had rebuilt every molecule of his being and increased his power all to destroy the Marquis. In later issues, this seems to have been ignored, however, with writers treating Doctor Doom the way they have always before in terms of power, the arc later retroactively being said to have been a dream had by Valeria Von Doom.


title: Doctor Doom

text: At the start of the story arc "Fantastic Four: Three," Doom feels that he needs to be "reborn" and makes plans to abdicate his throne and give it to Kristoff when Valeria teleports to his room unexpectedly asking for his assistance. Valeria quickly notices that Doom has suffered brain damage and makes a deal with him to restore his mental capacities if he helps Reed and the Fantastic Four. Doom agrees to her proposition. Later, a humble Doom appears among those in attendance at Johnny Storm's funeral.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Due to the agreement, Doom is recommended by Nathaniel and Valeria Von Doom to be a member of the Future Foundation. Objecting, Thing attacks Doom out of anger, but the fight is stopped by Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, who welcomes Doom to their group. Leading to the Secret Wars, Doom usurps the power of the Beyonders with the aid of Doctor Strange and the Molecule Man, collecting what he can of the destroyed multiverse and forming a new Battleworld consisting of different alternate realities. He also assumes the role of God and claims complete dominion of this new world and its inhabitants, controlling them into thinking he was always the almighty force of creation; following Reed's apparent demise, he takes Sue as his wife, and Franklin, and Valeria as his children. He convinces Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm to be the sun and the Shield wall respectively in Battleworld. However, Richards and a ragtag collection of heroes and villains that survived the destruction of all universes are able to challenge him and, with the help of Molecule Man, are able to take his power and restore the multiverse, something Doom had thought to be impossible. Opting to heal rather than harm, Reed finally uses the Beyonder's power to heal Doom's face, and to purify his soul.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doom returns to Latveria where he saves Tony Stark / Iron Man by incapacitating a group of Latverian rebels with a sonic attack, and vows that he is a new man. He reveals to Tony that he has relinquished his dictatorship over Latveria to give the land back to its people. As a sign of trust, he entrusts Tony with one of the Wands of Watoomb to help him defeat Madame Masque. When more rebels arrive, Doom teleports Stark to the Bronx Zoo. The two later travel to Chicago in order to confront Madam Masque. Discovering Madame Masque to be possessed, Doom has Tony trap her in his Iron Man armor and exorcises the demon from her. Doom disappears before the unconscious Tony regains consciousness. Doom appears once again and interrupts Tony's breakfast date with Amara, continuously trying to prove to Tony that he has changed and is trying to correct the mistakes he has made, explaining that he has arrived to check up on Tony and see if he is suffering from any side-effects from being in the presence of an exorcism. Tony still refuses to trust him after what he has done and Doom leaves once again. Following Stark's comatose state at the hands of Captain Marvel, Doom takes up the mantle of Iron Man, coming into conflict with Mephisto disguised as The Maker, the evil Ultimate Universe version of Reed Richards, joining the Avengers, and later conceiving a child with Dr. Amara Perera.


title: Doctor Doom

text: When Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm set out to find their teammates after it is revealed that prolonged separation is weakening the FF's powers, Doom follows them as they begin to travel through parallel universes, offering his help to an alternate Reed Richards in devising a plan to stop this world's Doctor Doom (who has transferred himself into the body of Galactus and consumed every other world in existence save for Earth).


title: Doctor Doom

text: In an attempt to save her series and possibly join the Avengers, Gwenpool (unaware that Doom has "reformed") attempted to attack him using an AI Doombot who goes by the name Vincent Doonan to lead her to him. Seeing this coming Doom easily captured her, though not until after she angered him by saying he looked like "War Machine in a hoodie". He then told Vincent, who resented him though still saw Doom as his father, that he was proud of him. Gwen escaped, not surprising Doom because according to him "They always escape". Unwilling to risk what she sees as possibly her last chance to save herself because Doom has obviously only temporarily reformed, she attacks him anyway and releases an earlier version of Doom who has no problem fighting her and even seeing how she steps out of reality. It soon becomes obvious that Gwen is not established enough to kill Doom and new Doom steps in to defeat his doppelganger and save her. They talk and she accepts that she made a mistake and hopes he's right that people can be reformed. Later she gets Doom, Vincent, Dr. Strange, and Terrible Eye (Her friend Sarah) to help her sidekick Cecil regain human form.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doctor Doom has recently been featured in his first solo-series, in which Doom is framed for blowing up a space station on the moon, its instability he had warned the international community about previously. He is also shown to be tethered to Kang the Conqueror, the time traveler appearing at random moments in front of him throughout the series due to a theorized quantum entanglement between the two supervillains.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Victor Von Doom was born decades ago to a tribe of Latverian Romani people under the rule of an unnamed nobleman called the Baron. Victor's mother was witch Cynthia Von Doom who died by Mephisto's hand while Von Doom was young. His father, Werner von Doom, was the leader of the tribe and a renowned medicine man who kept his wife's sorceress life quiet in order to protect Victor from a similar fate. Soon after Cynthia's death, the Baron's wife grew incurably ill from cancer and Werner was called to the capital to heal her. When she succumbed to illness, the Baron labeled Werner a murderer and called for his death. Werner escaped with young Victor, having realized the night before the woman would die. He goes on to die of exposure on the mountainside, cradling the boy in a final embrace and giving him his garments to keep him warm. Victor survived and, on return to the Romani camp, discovered his mother's occult instruments and swore revenge on the Baron. Victor grew into a headstrong and brilliant man, combining sorcery and technology to create fantastic devices which would keep the Baron's men at bay and protect the Roma people. His exploits attracted the attention of the dean of Empire State University, who sent someone to the camp. Offered the chance to study in the United States, Von Doom chose to leave his homeland and his love, Valeria, behind.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Once in the United States, Victor met fellow student and future rival Reed Richards, who was intended to be his roommate, but Von Doom disliked him and asked for another roommate. After a time, Victor constructed a machine intended to communicate with the dead, specifically his mother. Though Richards tried to warn him about a flaw in the machine, seeing his calculations were a few decimals off, Victor continued on with disastrous results, the machine violently failing with the resulting explosion seemingly severely damaging his face. It is later revealed that Ben Grimm, a friend of Richards who despised Victor for his superior attitude, tampered with the machine. He would later blame himself for Doom's initial fall to villainy and rise to power but never revealed this information to anyone. Expelled after the accident, Victor traveled the world until he collapsed on a Tibetan mountainside. Rescued by a clan of monks, Victor quickly mastered the monks' disciplines as well as the monks themselves. Victor then forged himself a suit of armor, complete with an iron mask, but before the mask had finished cooling, Victor put it on, permanently bonding it to his skin, and then took the mantle Doctor Doom. As Doctor Doom, he would go on to menace those he felt responsible for his accident—primarily, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He succeeded in leading a revolution to take over Latveria from the Baron, taking an interest in the welfare of the Roma.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In his first appearance, Doctor Doom captures the Invisible Girl, using her as a hostage so the Fantastic Four will travel back in time to steal the enchanted treasure of Blackbeard which will help him to conquer the world and rule it peacefully, but he is fooled by Reed Richards, who swaps the treasure with worthless chains. Doom then forms an alliance with the Sub-Mariner, who places a magnetic device in the Baxter Building. However, Doom uses this to pull him and the Fantastic Four into space, thinking this will rid him of those capable of preventing him from assuming control of the world's governments; the Sub-Mariner gets to Doom's ship and returns the Baxter Building to New York, stranding Doom on an asteroid. Returning to Earth after learning the secrets of an advanced alien race, the Ovids, Doom accidentally exchanges consciousnesses with Mister Fantastic; Richards, inhabiting Doom's body, switches the two back, and Doom ends up trapped in a micro-world when he is hit with a shrinking ray he had intended to use on the rest of the Fantastic Four. Doom takes over this micro-world, but leaves after the Fantastic Four end his rule. He is then thrown into space when he attempts to prevent the Fantastic Four from leaving the micro-world. Doom is saved by Rama-Tut, and he returns to Earth to destroy the Fantastic Four by turning each member against the other using a special berry juice. Richards outwits Doom by using the hallucinogenic juice against him. Doom, believing he has killed Richards in a test of willpower, departs certain of his victory and superior intelligence, although saddened.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During the 1960s, Doom attempted to recruit Spider-Man into joining forces with him, and he came into conflict with the Avengers when Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch illegally entered Latveria to find a long-lost relative of theirs. He stole the Silver Surfer's powers in 1967, but lost them after breaching a barrier Galactus had set for the Surfer on Earth.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During the 1970s, Doom branched out to more Marvel titles, with a battle between Victor Von Doom and Prince Rudolfo over control of the Latverian throne being featured in "Astonishing Tales". Doctor Doom also attempts to use the Hulk as his slave during two issues of "The Incredible Hulk". The character also made several appearances in the story arcs of "Super-Villain Team-Up", starting in 1975, as well as appearances in "Marvel Team-Up", beginning with issue #42 (February 1976). In August 1981, Doom also made an appearance in "Iron Man" when the two traveled to Camelot, where Stark thwarted Doom's attempt to solicit the aid of Morgan le Fay into defeating King Arthur's forces with an army of revived warriors who were slain by the sword Excalibur; Doom swore deadly vengeance for that interference, which stranded him in the past - this vengeance had to be indefinitely delayed in the interest of returning to the present day.


title: Doctor Doom

text: A particularly detailed plan saw Doom ally with the Puppet Master to trap the Fantastic Four within the miniature artificial city of "Liddleville", their minds trapped inside tiny cybernetic, part-organic copies of their original bodies. However, Doom prevents what had been intended by the Puppet Master as a chance to give Alicia and Ben a normal life into a trap, deliberately disrupting Reed's connection to his copy to make it hard for him to concentrate while "Vincent Vaughn"- Doom's alias as he monitors the project- belittles him, and the Puppet Master eventually helps the FF learn the truth and escape Liddleville while trapping Doom in the android body he had used to monitor the FF.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During John Byrne's run in the 1980s, Doom attempted to steal the cosmic powers of Terrax, but Doom's body was destroyed in the resulting fight between Terrax and the Silver Surfer. Doom survived by transferring his consciousness to another human, and is returned to his original body by the Beyonder (who had reached into the relative future to 'recruit' Doom for the conflict on Battleworld that the FF had participated in a few months ago from their perspective). While on Battleworld, Doom attempted and briefly succeeded in stealing the Beyonder's power, but it proves too vast for him to control and the disembodied Beyonder is able to take his power back.


title: Doctor Doom

text: When Franklin Richards was kidnapped by Onslaught, Doom joined the Fantastic Four, Avengers and the X-Men to battle Onslaught in Central Park. An enraged Hulk was able to crack open Onslaught's shell. However, Onslaught remained as pure psionic energy, separated Hulk and Banner, planning to spread across the planet. Thor Odinson plunged into Onslaught, trying to contain him. The Fantastic Four, the majority of the Avengers, and the Hulk-less Banner followed in short order, with Doom being forced to join the sacrifice when Iron Man tackled the villain into the energy mass. Thanks to this sacrifice, the X-Men finally managed to destroy Onslaught. Doom, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers and Banner were believed dead but were instead saved by Franklin, who created a pocket dimension called Counter-Earth to keep them safe. After several months away, the missing heroes returned from Counter-Earth, except for Doom, who remained there for a time. Doom uncovers the secret power at the heart of the planet, an avatar of his arch-foe Reed Richards' son, Franklin, the super-powered youth who conjured this globe and left a bit of himself behind to guide it from within. Doom managed to convince the little boy to relinquish control of this world with little more than a few errant promises of a better life.


title: Doctor Doom

text: When Susan Richards experienced problems with her second pregnancy while Reed was away, Johnny contacted Doom for help, correctly guessing that Doom will be unable to pass up a chance to succeed where Reed failed (due to the complex events involving the then-recent resurrection of Galactus, this pregnancy is a 'repeat' of an earlier one where Sue miscarried). Doom not only saves Sue's daughter but also cured Johnny of a recent problem with his powers where Johnny was unable to 'flame off' without technological support after becoming overcharged with energy from the Negative Zone by channeling Johnny's excess energy into Sue to keep her alive. After the birth, Doom's only apparent condition for his aid is that he be allowed to name Sue and Reed's daughter, calling her 'Valeria' after his long-lost love. However, this inspires a new plan where Doom makes Valeria his familiar while seeking out her namesake as part of a deal with a trio of demons; by sacrificing his old lover, Doom is granted magical powers on the level he would possess if he had spent the past years studying sorcery rather than science. With this new power, Doom trapped Franklin in Hell, immobilized Doctor Strange, and then neutralizes the FF's powers, torturing the other three while taunting Reed by leaving him in his magical library, comparing it to giving a dog a road-map as he concluded that it would be impossible for Reed to master sufficient magical skill to be a threat to him. However, Reed was able to release Doctor Strange's astral self from Doom's traps, allowing Strange to give Reed a sufficient crash-course in magic for Reed to free the rest of the team and trick Doom into angering his demonic benefactors, prompting them to take him to Hell. Determined to ensure that Doom cannot be a further threat, Reed takes control of Latveria to dismantle all of Doom's equipment, simultaneously subtly driving his family away so that he can trap Doom and himself in a pocket dimension so that he can make sure Doom never threatens anyone again. However, this plan backfires when the rest of the team attempt to rescue Reed, resulting in Doom transferring his spirit into Sue, Johnny, and Ben respectively, forcing Reed to kill his best friend to stop his greatest enemy. Doom was returned to Hell, but Reed is later able to use the same machine Doom once tried to create to travel to Heaven and restore Ben to life. Doom remained in Hell until Mjolnir falls to Earth after the events of Ragnarok as it creates a dimensional tear during its fall that allows Doom to escape, although he decides to focus on rebuilding his power base when he proves unable to even lift the hammer. The events of this were deleted from Marvel Comics continuity in the 2015 series "Secret Wars".


title: Doctor Doom

text: Later, a Doombot was taken down by Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Iron Man, She-Hulk and others in New York City. Whether or not it was sent by Doom himself remains to be seen, as does his role in the overall conflict. Doom was not invited to the wedding of Storm and the Black Panther. However, he did send a present: an invitation to form an alliance with Latveria, using the Civil War currently going on among the hero community as a reason to quite possibly forge an alliance between their two countries. When Black Panther, on a diplomatic mission to other countries with Storm, did show up in Latveria, he presented them with a real present and extended another invitation to form an alliance with Black Panther. He demonstrated behavior very uncharacteristic of him, however, which may or may not become a plot point later. Panther spurned the invitation, detonating an EMP that blacked out a local portion of Latveria before Doctor Doom's robots could destroy his ship. Later on, Doom is then shown collaborating with the Red Skull on a weapon that will only "be the beginning" of Captain America's suffering. Von Doom gave the Red Skull the weapon because the Red Skull gave Victor pieces of technology from an old German castle. The castle was owned by a "Baron of Iron" centuries prior, who had used his technological genius to protect himself and his people. The map the Red Skull used to find the castle bore a picture of Von Doom. Doom states that the technology the Red Skull gave him is more advanced than what he currently has and that he will become the Baron of Iron in his future; although he does not agree with the Red Skull's principles, the time paradox the situation causes forces him to comply. The Red Skull is currently in the process of reverse-engineering Doom's weapon for multiple uses, rather than the single-use Doctor Doom agreed to.


title: Doctor Doom

text: At the end of the first chapter of the X-Men event "", Doom is among the various geniuses that Beast contacts to help him reverse the effects of Decimation. He spurns Beast, surprisingly admitting that genetics does not number among his talents. In "", Doom was among those that Spider-Man contacts to help save Aunt May. Doom also makes Latveria into a refugee camp for the Atlanteans following the destruction of their underwater kingdom as well as becoming allies with Loki in his plot to manipulate his brother into unwittingly release his Asgardian allies.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doctor Doom later defends Latveria from the Mighty Avengers, following a revelation that it was one of Doom's satellites that carried the 'Venom Virus' released in New York City (which was actually hacked by an enemy of Doom). In a battle with Iron Man and the Sentry, the time travel mechanism within his armor overloads, trapping Doctor and his opponents at some point in the past - Doom continues his relationship with Morgan le Fay using his time machine. He and Iron Man managed to get back to the present, but Doom has left Iron Man in his exploding castle. Despite his helping, Doom ended up falsely incarcerated at The Raft.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During the "Secret Invasion" storyline, Doom was among those who escaped the Raft when a virus was uploaded into its systems by the Skrulls. In the aftermath of the Secret Invasion and the start of the "Dark Reign" storyline, Doctor Doom became a member of the Cabal alongside Norman Osborn, Emma Frost, Namor, Loki's female form, and the Hood, intending to seek revenge on the world for falsely ruining his reputation. At the end of this meeting, Namor and Doom are seen having a discussion of their own plans that have already been set in motion.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doom soon allies himself with the isolationist group known as the Desturi to take control of Wakanda, attacking and wounding T'Challa, then the current Black Panther, maiming him enough to prevent him from holding the mantle again. Doom's main objective was to secure Wakanda's store of vibranium, which he could mystically enhance to make himself invulnerable. Doom was also a part of the group known as the Intelligencia after being captured to complete their plan. With the help of Bruce Banner, he escaped and returned to Latveria, damaged by this experience.


title: Doctor Doom

text: At the start of the "Siege" storyline, Doom was with the Cabal discussing the current problems with the X-Men and both Avengers teams. Doom demands that Osborn at once reverse his course of action against his ally Namor, to which Osborn refuses, saying that he and Emma Frost had "crossed the line" with him. Doom, loathing Thor and the Asgardians all the more due to his recent defeat at their hands claims that he will support Osborn's "madness" should Namor be returned to him, but Osborn refuses. Osborn's mysterious ally, the Void, violently attacks Doom, and an apparently amused Loki tells the Hood that he should go, as there is nothing here for either of them, which the Hood, now loyal to Loki due to his hand in the restoration of his mystical abilities, agrees. However, it is revealed that "Doctor Doom" who had been involved with the Cabal was actually an upgraded Doombot, which releases swarms of Doombot nanites against the Cabal, tearing down Avengers Tower and forcing its denizens, such as the Dark Avengers, to evacuate. Osborn is rescued by the Sentry, who destroys the body. When Osborn contacts the real Von Doom, Victor informs him not to ever strike him again or he would be willing to go further.


title: Doctor Doom

text: It has been revealed that the Scarlet Witch seen in Wundagore Mountain is actually a Doctor Doombot which apparently means that the real one has been captured by Doom sometime after the House of M event. It is revealed that Wanda's enhanced powers were a result of her and Doom's combined attempt to channel the Life Force in order to resurrect her children. This proves to be too much for Wanda to contain and it overtook her. With Wiccan and Doom's help, they seek to use the entity that is possessing Wanda to restore the powers of mutant kinds. This is stopped by the Young Avengers (who are concerned at the fall-out that would ensue if the powerless mutants are suddenly re-powered) only to find out that Doom intended to transfer the entity into his own body and gain Wanda's god-like powers of re-writing reality for himself. Doom becomes omnipotent with powers surpassing those of beings as the Beyonder or the Cosmic Cube. The Young Avengers confront him, but Doom accidentally kills Cassie just before Wanda and Wiccan stole his new-found powers.


title: Doctor Doom

text: At the start of the story arc "Fantastic Four: Three", a guilt-ridden Doom felt that he needed to be "reborn" and was making plans to abdicate his throne and give it to Kristoff when Valeria teleported to his room unexpectedly asking for his assistance to help her father. Valeria quickly notices that Doom had suffered brain damage from his previous battle and is slowly losing his memories; she makes a deal with him to restore his mental capacities if he helps Reed and the Fantastic Four. Doom agrees to her proposition. Later, Doom appears among those in attendance at Johnny Storm's funeral.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Due to the agreement, Doom was recommended by Nathaniel and Valeria Von Doom to be a member of the Future Foundation. Objecting, Thing attacks Doom out of anger, but the fight was stopped by Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, who welcomes Victor to their group. When Valeria asks Victor if he has a backup for restoring his memories, he reveals that Kristoff Vernard is his backup. Afterward, Mister Fantastic, Spider-Man, Nathaniel, Valeria, and Victor head to Latveria to meet with Kristoff and request his help. Mister Fantastic sets up a brain transfer machine in order to help restore Victor's memories and knowledge, which is successful. When Kristoff wants to return the throne to him, Doom states that it is not time yet because of a promise he made to Valeria. When Mister Fantastic asks what promise Doom made to Valeria, Victor states that he made a promise to help her defeat Mister Fantastic when she calls for it. Doom decides to hold a symposium on how to finally defeat Reed Richards. The Thing and the evolved Moloids give an invitation to the High Evolutionary. Dragon Man and Alex Power give an invitation to Diablo. Upon receiving an invitation from Spider-Man, Mad Thinker is convinced to take part in the event. Bentley 23 even gives an invitation to his creator, the Wizard, along with two A.I.M. lieutenants. However, it is subsequently revealed that the 'Richards' they have been invited to defeat are actually members of the "Council of Reeds" (alternate versions of Reed who were trapped in this universe by Valeria a while back, possessing Reed's intellect while lacking his conscience). While Spider-Man and Invisible Woman make sandwiches for the kids, Mister Fantastic, Victor, Valeria, and Nathaniel Richards meet with the supervillain geniuses and Uatu the Watcher about what to do with the Council of Reeds.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Around this time, Von Doom performed brain surgery on the Hulk to separate him from Bruce Banner, extracting the uniquely Banner elements from Hulk's brain and cloning a new body for Banner, in return for a favor from the Hulk. This clone is killed soon afterward. Later, Doom is apparently killed by the Mad Celestials. With no knowledge as to how he survived, Doom awakens in the ruins of the Interdimensional Council of Reeds, where Valeria had left him a present: the full army of lobotomized Doctor Dooms from alternate realities who were previously captured by the council, along with two Infinity Gauntlets from alternate universes. With these resources, Doom created the Parliament of Doom, an interdimensional council charged with maintaining peace across the multiverse. He later returned to again rule Latveria, upon ruling the council for a millennium. An ill-fated excursion into the alternate universe of the one of Infinity Gauntlets resulted in Reed and Nathaniel Richards rescuing Doom from his own council.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During the confrontation between the Avengers and the X-Men, Doom allies with Magneto and others against Red Skull's Red Onslaught form. In an attempt to atone for past misdeeds, Doom absorbs the Scarlet Witch reality-altering powers and resurrects the dead Cassie Lang, whom he had accidentally killed. He subsequently makes a Faustian deal with an unspecified demon to resurrect Brother Voodoo. After returning to normal, Doom is taken into captivity for his initial killing of Lang.


title: Doctor Doom

text: With the final Incursion imminent during the "Secret Wars" storyline, Doom usurps the power of the Beyonders with the aid of Doctor Strange and the Molecule Man, collecting what he can of the destroyed multiverse and forming a new Battleworld consisting of different alternate realities. He also assumes the role of God and claims complete dominion of this new world and its inhabitants, controlling them into thinking he was always the almighty force of creation; he takes Sue as his wife, Franklin, and Valeria as his children, condemns the Human Torch to be the sun and Ben Grimm to be the Shield wall and rewrites his own history to resurrect the majority of those whose deaths he caused. Richards and a ragtag collection of heroes and villains that survived the destruction of all universes challenge Doom and, with the help of Molecule Man, are able to take his power and restore the multiverse. Opting to heal rather than harm, Reed finally uses the Beyonder's power to heal Doom's face.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In the "All-New, All-Different Marvel", Doom returns to Latveria where he saves Tony Stark by incapacitating a group of Latverian rebels with a sonic attack. Doom reveals to Tony that he is a new man and wishes to help, giving the latter one of the Wands of Watoomb to keep safe from Madame Masque. When more rebels arrive, Doom teleports Iron Man to the Bronx Zoo.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doom finds Iron Man again and teleports the two to the Jackpot Club in Chicago to confront Madam Masque. Discovering that Madame Masque is displaying symptoms of demonic possession, Doom has Tony trap her in the Iron Man Armor then proceeds to exorcise the demon from her. Doom disappears before Tony regains consciousness. Doom appears once again and interrupts Tony's breakfast date with Amara. Doom is trying to prove to Tony that he has changed and is trying to correct the mistakes he has made, explaining that he has arrived to check up on Tony and see if he is suffering from any side-effects from being in the presence of an exorcism. Tony still refuses to trust him after what he has done and Doom leaves once again.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Following the defeat of Tony Stark at the hands of Captain Marvel at the conclusion of "Civil War II", Doom discovers his calling. Remembering his dissatisfaction as a God, Doom decides that it was his role to help heal the world. Inspired by Stark, and informing his A.I. duplicate that he intends to establish Stark's legacy, Doom fights for his unique brand of justice as the third Iron Man, and later comes into conflict with Mephisto disguised as Maker. Doom goes on to join the Avengers, and later conceives a child with Dr. Amara Perera. Doom's sudden change sparked grievances that resulted in a group of villains, led by the Hood, to join forces to take him down. After the villains besieged Doom several times, the final battle occurred when the Hood attempted to take over Stark Industries, which happened not long after Stark had secretly recovered from his injuries. Tony confronted the Hood and stumbled into Victor. Doom took on the Hood and the unidentified demon possessing him one-on-one, and his face was severely burned by the demon in the process. Following the villains' defeat, Victor retreated to the ruins of Castle Doom.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Later, a young woman named Zora Vokuvic breaks into Castle Doom demanding to see Doctor Doom. She makes it past the many Doombots that guard the palace before finally confronting Doom himself. She tells him that Latveria has been overrun with dictators and opportunists since he left and that the nation needs its leader back. Initially rejecting Zora's pleas for help, showing her his grotesquely scarred face in the process, Victor finally agrees when she refuses to give up and hands him his iconic mask, telling him that Latveria needs its true champion. Taking the mask, Doom ventures out into Latveria, quashing the civil war that is apparently raging and vowing to fix the country with his own strength – summoning magical energy as he does.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doctor Doom is later framed for blowing up the Antlion space station and creating a black hole in its wake by Symkarian rebels who attempted to usurp his throne. He is killed while on the run and sent to Hell at the hands of Mephisto, but is sent back to Earth by Death as he is to be her "greatest servant of all". After fighting off multiple assassins including Taskmaster and M.O.D.O.K., Doctor Doom sends Reed Richards his solution to the black hole threatening Earth and leaves to deal with his enemies by regaining his power.


title: Doctor Doom

text: During the "King in Black" storyline, Doctor Doom confronts Iron Man during Knull's invasion at the time when Iron Man was bonded with an Extremis-powered Symbiote. They are attacked by what appears to be a Symbiote-possessed Santa Claus. When the attacks from Iron Man and Santa Claus collide, it purges the Symbiote and Iron Man discovers that Santa Claus is actually a man named Mike Dunworthy who owns a Christmas decoration store. Doctor Doom revealed that he came to Iron Man because he heard about the new armor he is wearing and wants to extrapolate it to improve his own armor only for Iron Man to turn him down. As Iron Man takes off advising him to not let go of the magic in the world, Doctor Doom is left to wonder if Santa Claus could be a Sorcerer Supreme.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Possessing vast amounts of wealth, knowledge, technology and power, Dr. Victor Von Doom is often considered to be one of the most dangerous villains on Earth and throughout the Marvel Universe.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Doom is a polymath, scientist, and inventor who possesses genius-level intellect. Doom has invented several doomsday machines and robots during his career as a supervillain, among them being his Doombots. Doctor Doom can exert technopathic control over certain machines, most notably his Doombots. Throughout most of his publication history he has been depicted as one of the most intelligent humans in the Marvel Universe, famously restoring the Thing's human form (a feat Reed Richards also accomplished but had difficulty in maintaining). On the other hand, Richards managed to process all the computer calculations necessary to save the life of a disintegrating Kitty Pryde by himself, a feat that Doom professed to be unable to do. Doom has used his scientific talents to steal or replicate the power of other beings such as the Silver Surfer, the Beyonder and in one case the entity Galactus's world-ship.


title: Doctor Doom

text: Along with being a genius scientist and inventor, Doom is also a very powerful sorcerer. Primarily taught by Tibetan monks, later increased to a considerable extent due to tutoring from his lover at the time, Morgan le Fay. He is capable of energy absorption and projection, manipulating electricity, creating protective shields, dimensional travel, healing, creating blizzards and summoning hordes of demonic creatures. Doom managed to come in second in a magic tournament held by the ancient sorcerer the Aged Genghis. After Strange relinquished the title of Sorcerer Supreme he admitted that Doom wielded enough magical power and abilities to become the new Sorcerer Supreme. Doom's skill and knowledge of magic also provides him a unique advantage over his intellectual rival Reed Richards who despite also being a scientific genius has little to no knowledge about the nature of sorcery and magic. Doom says that unlike Richards, he is familiar with both magic and science because of his parents.


title: Doctor Doom

text: The alien Ovoids inadvertently taught Doctor Doom the process of psionically transferring his consciousness into another nearby being through simple eye contact, as well as showing him other forms of technology which Doom uses to escape from incarcerations and to avoid being killed. However, if his concentration is broken, his mind can transfer back, and he rarely uses this power unless absolutely necessary due to his ego about his own appearance.


title: Doctor Doom

text: In addition, Doom has a remarkably strong and indomitable will, as demonstrated in the graphic novel "Emperor Doom " when he dared his prisoner, the mind-controlling Purple Man, to attempt to control him and he successfully resisted.