History
Victor von Doom was born in a Romani camp outside Haasenstadt, Latveria. His mother, Cynthia, was killed in a bargain with Mephisto that went wrong. Despite his father's attempts to care for her, a noblewoman died and Werner von Doom fled with a young Victor on a cold winter's night. Victor survived the cold, but unfortunately, his father did not. Doom sought to increase his knowledge of both science and magic in order to rescue his mother, whose death he blamed on Mephisto. In his youth, Victor fell in love with a woman named Valeria, but she resisted his advances.
The State University in Hegeman, New York offered Victor a scholarship. While attending classes there, he met Reed Richards and Ben Grimm for the first time. They developed a dislike for each other, leading to Reed Richards committing the first prank he had ever pulled, changing Victor's last name on a trophy to "Doof." Doom became obsessed with developing a machine that could project the astral form of a being into other dimensions, seeing it as a way to free his mother's soul from Mephisto's clutches. Reed pointed out a flaw in Doom's calculations, but Doom arrogantly ignored his warnings, feeling Reed was trying to upstage him, likely due to their dislike for each other. The machine exploded, scarring Doom's face. He was soon expelled for conducting unethical experiments. From then on, he blamed Reed Richards for the destruction of his face as well as his expulsion.
Disgraced and bitter, Doom traveled the world. Eventually, he came upon a small Tibetan village of monks who assisted him in creating a suit of armor. He returned to his homeland of Latveria to overthrow the leader and declare himself king. He then began to use his country's resources in order to further his plans of world domination. These schemes led Doom into conflict with the Fantastic Four on many occasions, as well as many other superheroes.
The Fantastic Four
Doom first confronted the Fantastic Four by holding Sue Storm hostage. Doom forced the other members of the team to travel back in time using his time platform to retrieve the mystical Stones of Merlin. Later, he duped Namor into teaming up with him to destroy the team. During the team-up, he was shrunk to sub-atomic size and ended up in the world of Sub-Atomica, where he quickly took control using his scientific knowledge and began plaguing the Fantastic Four with shrink rays. He was again defeated by the Fantastic Four with the aid of Ant-Man. His next attempt at defeating the Fantastic Four involved using the Terrible Trio, a group of thugs who had been given powers by Doom. This venture ended with him being transported into outer space by a solar wave. He was later found floating in space by Rama-Tut, who revealed to Doom that he was one of his ancestors. Believing that they might in fact be the same person, they decided that Rama-Tut would return to the future after sending Doom back to Earth. Back on Earth, Doom again clashed with the Fantastic Four. This time, they defeated him by hypnotizing him into believing he had destroyed the group.
The hypnotic spell was eventually broken by a Latverian stage magician who had come to Doom's castle to entertain him. Doom, realizing he had been tricked, was furious and traveled to America to take his revenge on the Fantastic Four, who incidentally had lost their powers. Despite the Four having no powers, Doom was again defeated, this time with the aid of Daredevil. His next attack came when he manipulated an army of the world's supervillains to attack the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm.
When Doom battled and defeated the Silver Surfer, he stole the Surfer's powers and surfboard, becoming one of the most powerful beings on Earth. With these newfound powers, he was able to finally defeat the Fantastic Four. He then began running amok causing havoc all over the world. After another confrontation with the Fantastic Four, Doom was tricked into flying into the barrier Galactus set up around the Earth, and the Surfer's powers and surfboard returned to their rightful owner.
Camelot
Doctor Doom and Iron Man traveled to Camelot where Stark thwarted Doctor Doom's attempt to solicit the aid of Morgan le Fay and Doctor Doom swore deadly vengeance for that interference, which had to be indefinitely delayed in the interest of returning to the present day.
An Heir to the Throne
After reclaiming the Latverian throne from a mad Prince Zorba with the help of the Fantastic Four, Doom took a young Latverian boy named Kristoff Vernard who was orphaned by Zorba's forces under his wing and made him his heir.
Battleworld (Beyonder)
Another coup came on Battleworld during the first of the so-called Secret Wars, an event during which the powerful and mysterious Beyonder kidnapped several heroes and villains from the Earth to have them fight with the promise of giving the winners their heart's desire. Doom became the leader of the villains, and after their defeat, escaped his holding cell and constructed a device out of the body of Klaw, to drain the power of Galactus. Using his stolen power he was able to attack his true target, the Beyonder. Doom lost the battle, but as the Beyonder came closer to dissect and study Doom, he managed to activate a device in his chest plate which hovered barely within his reach. Doom drained the Beyonder and became even more powerful. Too powerful, in fact--Doom was unable to rest, lest he destroy the universe with a dream. The Beyonder had however survived. He took possession of Klaw's body and used Klaw's guile to trick Doom into losing control of his stolen power, reclaiming it, and defeating him. The Beyonder then vanished, with Doom and Klaw.
Emperor Doom
As part of a plan to conquer the world, Doom kidnapped Zebediah Killgrave, the mind-controlling super-villain known as Purple Man, and imprisoned him within a gigantic Psycho-Prism which not only bestowed Purple Man's powers on Doom but also augmented them to a global scale.