Movie fans were shocked when it was announced thatRobert Downey Jr., fresh off his Oscar win forOppenheimer, would be returning to the MCU to playDoctor 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 that movie sees Strauss go up against J. Robert Oppenheimer and losing, Doctor Doom has actually managed to achieve something 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 taking place at different times. The other plots – Oppenheimer losing his security clearance and Strauss’ confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Commerce – are set in motion byStrauss’ personal grudge against the physicist. He disagrees with Oppenheimer’s stance on the development of hydrogen bombs after the war.
More importantly, he’s enraged when Oppenheimer mocks him in public, and is haunted 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 someone who manages to learn all of the secrets Oppenheimer holds in his mind: Doctor Doom.
Doom Created a Device to Learn All of Oppenheimer’s Secrets
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Doom’s encounter with Oppenheimer is revealed in 2010’sFantastic Four#581 by Jonathan Hickman, Neil Edwards, Paul Neary, Paul Mounts and Rus Wooton.The story is one that would be perfectly suited for either 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 bringsevery version of Nathaniel from the multiverseto the far future of Earth-616.
This incurs the wrath of the Time Variance Authority and its enforcer, Immortus (a version of Nathaniel Richards from another Earthand also the future self of Kang 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 determine who that will be.This sets off the Great Hunt, where the Nathaniel Richardses of different worlds begin murdering each other to be the last one standing. Eventually, the only ones who remain are the Nathaniel of Earth-616 and the Nathaniel of Earth-12498.
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Deciding he must face his other self, the Nathaniel of Earth-616 travels through time to visit his son, Reed, a college student at State University along with Ben Grimm and Victor von Doom. Reed 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 he obtained this using a device that can read minds, which he used on none other than J. Robert Oppenheimer. “Last fall, I lunched with Oppenheimer and peeled his mind like a prawn,” Victor says. “By the time we had dessert, he had revealed every little secret hidden in his small, simple mind.”
Lewis Strauss Would Kill to Get His Hands on Doom’s Invention
One RDJ Character Holds the Exact Thing Another One Wants
While this is obviously just a throwaway reference meant to explain how Doom acquired nuclear capabilities, it does create a connection between these two figures portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. There’s no doubt that Lewis Strauss would love to get his hands on this mind-reading device of Doom’s so that he too could learn Oppenheimer’s secrets. He would likely use it to finally learnwhat was said between Oppenheimer and Einsteinthat day in Princeton. Perhaps the knowledge that their conversation had nothing to do with him would assuage some of his anger and keep him from retaliating against 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 isn’t 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 both the movies and the comics,Tony’s father, Howard Stark, was an accomplished scientistand 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 inthe firstIron Manmovie. “My father helped defeat the Nazis,” he tells a reporter. “A lot of 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 Vengeance#8 by Fred Van Lente, Rich Elson, Sotocolor and Clayton Cowles, Stark mentions that he wants to re-name the project “The Brooklyn Project” to “let that stuck-up jerk Oppenheimer and his crew at Los Alamos know they’ve got 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 1990’sIron Man#257 by Randall Frenz and Rich Yanizeski, 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 Steel.When Tony Stark is touring Asano’s factory, he reveals his father worked on the Manhattan Project. This enrages 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 MCU’s Multiverse Saga has seena 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’ll end up returning to some of his other previous roles like Tony Stark or Lewis Strauss. This is probably pretty unlikely, but it would be pretty funny to seeRobert Downey Jr.as Strauss learning that the secrets he coveted so badly inOppenheimerwere so easily discovered byDoctor Doom.
Robert Downey Jr.
Discover the latest news and filmography for Robert Downey Jr., known for Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes.
