Movie fans were shocked when it was announced that Robert Downey Jr.Fresh off his Oscar win for OppenheimerWould return to the MCU to play Doctor Doom. RDJ won a much-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s film. And while the movie sees Strauss go up against J. Robert Oppenheimer and lose, Doctor Doom has actually managed to achieve something that Strauss never could.
The main plot of the movie centers around Oppenheimer’s work with the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb before the Nazis can. However, in classic Christopher Nolan fashion, the non-linear narrative weaves together other stories that take place at different times. The other plots – Oppenheimer losing his security clearance and Strauss’ confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Commerce – are driven by Strauss’ personal remorse against the physicist. He disagreed with Oppenheimer’s position on the development of hydrogen bombs after the war.
More importantly, he is angry when Oppenheimer mocks him in public, and is caught by witnessing (but not hearing) a conversation between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, which Strauss believes turned the scientific community against him. He wants to know what Oppenheimer could have said about him. But there is one who manages to learn all the secrets that Oppenheimer keeps in his mind: Doctor Doom.
Dum created a means to learn all of Oppenheimer’s secrets
Doctor Doom takes on Kong the Conqueror in a multiverse adventure
Doom’s meeting with Oppenheimer was revealed in the 2010s Fantastic practice #581 by Jonathan Hickman, Neil Edwards, Paul Neary, Paul Mounts and Rus Wooton. The story is one that would be perfectly suited to Christopher Nolan or the MCU’s current Multiverse Saga. It concerns Reed Richards’ father, Nathaniel Richards, who is capable of hopping through time. He gains this ability after the explosion of a quantum device. This incident also brings every version of Nathaniel from the multiverse to the distant future of Earth-616.
This incurs the wrath of the Time Variance Authority and its enforcer, Immortus (a version of Nathaniel Richards from another Earth and also the future self of Kong the Conqueror). Immortus decrees that only one version of Nathaniel Richards will be allowed to live, and that it is up to the multiple Nathaniels to decide who that will be. This sets off the big dog, where the Nathaniel Richardses of different worlds start killing each other to be the last one standing.. Eventually, the only ones left are the Nathaniel of Earth-616 and the Nathaniel of Earth-12498.
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The Nathaniel of Earth-616 has decided that he must confront his other self, and travels through time to visit his son, Reid, a college student at State University along with Ben Grimm and Viktor von Doom. Reid is determined to help his father, and is forced to turn to his rival, Victor, for help. The future Doctor Doom is developing weapons technology, and has a nuclear power source. He reveals that he obtained this with a device that can read minds, which he used on none other than Y. Robert Oppenheimer. “Last fall I made out with Oppenheimer and peeled his brain like a pudding“, says Victor.”When we had dessert, he revealed every little secret hidden in his little simple mind.”
Lewis Strauss would kill to get his hands on Doom’s invention
One RDJ character holds the exact thing another wants
Although this is obviously just a reference for warning to explain how Doom acquired nuclear capabilities, iIt makes a connection between the two figures portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. There’s no doubt that Lewis Strauss would love to get his hands on Doom’s mind-reading device so that he, too, could learn Oppenheimer’s secrets. He would probably use it to finally learn what was said between Oppenheimer and Einstein that day at Princeton. Perhaps the knowledge that their conversation has nothing to do with him will divert some of his anger and keep him from confronting Oppenheimer.
Tony Stark’s father worked with Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project
Howard Stark isn’t the only Marvel character with an Oppenheimer connection
Of course, this is not the only connection between the Manhattan Project and a character played by RDJ. Before being cast as Doctor Doom, Downey actually had a small role as another MCU character named Tony Stark aka Iron Man. In the movies and the comics, Tony’s father, Howard Stark, was an accomplished scientist and inventor who also worked on the Manhattan Project.. Professor Charles Xavier’s father, Brian Xavier, also worked on the Manhattan Project, while Bruce Banner’s father, Brian, would work on nuclear projects years later at the same Los Alamos, New Mexico location.
Tony Stark mentions his father working on the Manhattan Project in the first Iron Man Movie. “My father helped defeat the Nazis.“He told a reporter.”Many people… would call that being a hero.” Howard Stark also worked on Project Rebirth, which turned Steve Rogers into Captain America. In the MCU tie-in comic, Captain America: First Revenge #8 by Fred Van Lente, Rich Elson, Sotocolor and Clayton Cowles, Stark mentions that he wants to rename the project “The Brooklyn Project” in order to “Let that stock-up fool Oppenheimer and his crew at Los Alamos know they have competition.”
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In Marvel’s main comics continuity, Howard Stark’s work on the Manhattan Project would end up putting his son’s life in danger. A man named Yoshida Asano, introduced in the 1990s Iron Man #257 by Randall Frenz and Rich Janizeski, was born in Hiroshima shortly after the detonation of the first atomic bomb. He was disfigured as a result of the radiation, and grows up to be an industrialist, creating his own suit of armor and dubbing himself samurai style. When Tony Stark is touring Asano’s factory, he reveals that his father worked on the Manhattan Project. This infuriates Asano, who attacks. After a fight with Iron Man damages a nuclear reactor, Asano flies it up into space so that it won’t kill people when it explodes. It detonates, killing Asano.
The multiverse saga of the MCU has seen a number of actors reprising old roles, from Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man to Sir Patrick Stewart’s Professor X to Wesley Snipes’ Blade. Since Downey is already returning to the MCU to play Doom, maybe he will end up returning to some of his other previous roles like Tony Stark or Lewis Strauss. This is probably quite unlikely, but it would be pretty funny to see Robert Downey Jr. As Strauss know that the secrets he coveted so badly Oppenheimer are so easily discovered by Doctor Doom.