Darth Vader vs Victor Von Doom--for all the marbles

[Der_Trihs]

@CandidGamera

No, Reed’s smarter than Doom. Unquestionably. Otherwise, it fouls up Doom’s entire character and motivation. If Doom were actually more intelligent than Reed, Doom would have won, because Doom DOES have superior power. But Doom merely believes himself the superior intellect, then consistently loses. He’s the Salieri to Reed’s Mozart.

IIRC, at one point some cosmic being or other ( the Watcher maybe ? ) summoned the smartest mortal in the universe and got Reed Richards, who didn’t seem surprised that he qualified.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@CandidGamera

No, Reed’s smarter than Doom. Unquestionably. Otherwise, it fouls up Doom’s entire character and motivation. If Doom were actually more intelligent than Reed, Doom would have won, because Doom DOES have superior power. But Doom merely believes himself the superior intellect, then consistently loses. He’s the Salieri to Reed’s Mozart.

Is Doom’s disfigurement via college-era failed experiment still canon? If so, end of story. Reed saw the errors that Doom did not, and that was even before the cosmic-ray bombardment that Reed himself has speculated to have boosted his intellect.

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Slight hijack, but Stark has made it his life’s work to put the best armor plate he can on a powered exoskeleton bristling with futuristic weaponry; Pym, by comparison, spent maybe three days in his basement slapping together a robot that beat the crap out of Iron Man with one hand figuratively behind its back – by which I mean its literal other hand was in fact beating the crap out of Thor right about then. So, what happens if Pym’s best engineering project goes up against Stark’s best engineering project? We’ve seen the results, and it wasn’t pretty.

Pym is a scientist; Stark is an engineer. Give him a little time, and Stark would build a better Ultron more cheaply. Or if he’s on a government cotract, he’d add extra features on a cost-plus basis.

@The_Peyote_Coyote

Any stinking mortal who does not believe that Doom would destroy Darth Vader like the LA Lakers would demolish a high school team should be immediately converted into a suppository for a chthonic being.

I don’t think you all are really thinking this through. How does Doom defeat Vader? Any projectile or energy weapons would be deflected by the light saber. If Doom destroys the ground underneath him, Vader flips through the air to safety. Magic? Against a Lord of the Sith? Not happening.

Doom, of course, is similarly impregnable, so they would fight to a standoff. The scene writes itself:

A toe-to-toe clash of monumental power leaves the ground shattered, and both combatants lying dazed. As the dust clears, we see Doom’s mask in the dirt, having been blasted from his face. Vader’s helmet is similarly rolling free. Dazed, the two slowly pull themselves up, and each turns to gaze at the other’s tortured visage. A silent moment passes. Then the two rush together in an urgent kiss.

Fade.

Excelsior!