SPOILER WARNING: This interview contains spoilers for "Secret Wars" #3, available now.
While they are each masters of both science and magic, Doctor Doom and Doctor Strange usually fight on opposite sides of the Marvel Universe's moral spectrum. The Monarch of Latveria and the physician-turned-Sorcerer Supreme have much in common, something that resulted in an altogether new and unique dynamic as they joined forces in the last days of the Marvel Universe to prevent the end of everything.
Readers of Marvel's current "Secret Wars" event series by writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Esad Ribic already know the duo were only partly successful. Yet while the multiverse was destroyed, life still exists on Battleworld, a patchwork planet cobbled together from the remnants of the Multiverse in which Doom is god and Strange serves as his "Sheriff."
Hickman Talks "Secret Wars" #2, Shines Light on Battleworld's Secrets
In the pages of "Secret Wars" #3, readers found out just how large a role the duo played in the creation of Battleworld. They also discovered that several survivors from both the Marvel and Ultimate Universes arrived on Battleworld via high-tech "life rafts"
CBR News spoke with Hickman about those revelations, his affection for Doom and Strange, the makeup of Doom's extended Battleworld family and the key roles characters like the new Thor will play in upcoming issues.
CBR News: "Secret Wars" #3 featured many striking images by artist Esad Ribic, but I wanted to talk about what was, for me, one of the most haunting ones -- the reveal of Doctor Doom's scarred visage. How much direction did you give Esad for that scene?
Jonathan Hickman: How much direction did I give Esad? I told him that it should be pretty bad! [Laughs] And for him not to hold back. So he did a version and Tom [Brevoort, "Secret Wars" editor] said it needed to be worse. So he made it worse.
Usually when Doom unmasks in comics the audience doesn't get to see his face. Why did you want to reveal it here?

There were a lot of reasons that went into it. Some I don't want to talk about because 'spoilers,' but one of the big things we needed to get across was that while Doom is omnipotent, he also has shortcomings. He's not perfect.
One of those things is that he's not omniscient. He doesn't know everything. Then the other thing is that there's still something fundamentally flawed within him that manifests itself externally. So he can't heal his face and, of course, that matters.
We've talked often about your portrayal of Doom, but one of the things we haven't touched upon -- and I understand if I'm getting ahead of things here and you can't say much, -- is your take on Doom's sense of family. We know it's important to him, but it's interesting that on Battleworld he's surrounded himself with an extended family.
I don't want to talk too much, but I do think it is worth noting that in the absence of Reed Richards Doom has placed himself in the role of Reed in terms of family. I think that is a key to understanding who Doom really is.
Doom was often a very solitary figure, but do you think he was ever lonely?
I think if you spend your entire life alone you tend to come up with a lot of reasons for why you like being alone. Now, it's true that the wind blows really hard at the top of the mountain, and there's no disputing the fact that Doom is a king. You can't really have friends when you rule, and that's a problematic thing for anybody in power. That's real.

And does Doom suffer from that? Yes. But does he suffer from something more than that? Absolutely.
Then, as you said and we saw, he's placed himself in the role of Reed Richards and Sue Richard's official title on Battleworld is royal consort. So does that mean exactly what we think it means?
She is his wife. I don't want there to be any confusion, and we'll get into it a little bit more, but the Susan and Johnny that we talk about in this issue are not the Marvel Universe Susan and Johnny that died in issue #1. Those people are dead and gone. This is a different Sue from a different Earth, and I'll leave it at that for now.
Let's move on to another big revelation that Doom and Doctor Strange created Battleworld together. That sort of begs the questions that are usually asked about all gods and the suffering of their worshippers. I'm specifically curious, though, about why they included the monstrous realms south of the Shield Wall in Battleworld. Can you comment on that at all?
Let me not answer that at this time. Because you're going to get all of that in issue #5. So let's shelve that because I want people to get to read that clean without any commentary.
No problem. Moving from Doom to another Doctor, I wanted to talk about Strange considering he plays a significant role in this issue. It's clear that you love Doctor Strange. What is it about the character that intrigues you?
I think if you're talking about the Doctor Strange who hasn't been through all of the awfulness I've put him through over the past couple years [Laughs] -- the sort of perfect intellectual property Doctor Strange, or even movie Doctor Strange since we're going to see that pretty soon -- I think he's just a fantastic character. I don't think there's any question about it.
He's been one of those characters that everybody knows is awesome, but maybe we at Marvel over the past however many years have failed to crack it in a way that it needed to be cracked. The good news is that a lot of really cool stuff is coming. I'm super excited for it personally as a fan and a reader.
In terms of what I'm doing, people who have read my Avengers stuff know that all of the guys in the Illuminati have had a pretty bad run of it. [Laughs] Not that everybody didn't have a bad run considering the ending, but the Illuminati guys really got put through it. Strange got broken in a very, very specific way, and he has been on a certain path since we jumped forward in time to try and figure out what was wrong with the multiverse, and more importantly than that, as a guy who used to be a physician how do you fundamentally heal it?

So we eventually saw him aligned with Doom and then you'll see in issue #4 that Doctor Strange has a very key and pivotal role to play and he's positioned appropriately.
Hickman & Brevoort Unravel "Secret Wars" #1, Tease Event's Future
I wanted to talk about one of the sacrifices that Doctor Strange made in your Avengers run to try and save the universe, his soul which he traded for power. It's clear that Strange does retain his humanity though. So can you talk at all about how the sacrifice of his soul is impacting him?
I think we as people make decisions that affect us for our entire lives. And even though we go on and have normal everyday occurrences there's always this thing that's kind of hanging over our head, and most people are not even aware of. It's kind of like that.

Doctor Strange made a kind of Faustian pact to gain power to try and do something, but the real tragedy of it though is he didn't get what he wanted. So it was for nothing, which led him to try and figure out another way to solve what was causing the incursions and all that, leading him to a bunch of mystical triage surgeons who were trying to limit the damage. And again [Laughs] everybody failed.
You mentioned how the members of the Illuminati were put through the wringer, and in "Secret Wars" #3 Strange reunites with two of his Illuminati comrades in Reed Richards and the Black Panther. Are you excited about getting a chance to write these character in a different situation now that the apocalypse they were trying to avert has happened?
Yeah, at this point nobody's going to be surprised to hear me say that I enjoy writing Reed. This has been a darker and sadder last days kind of thing, but I love writing Reed every chance I can get, and of course the Black Panther is awesome. He's another character like Doctor Strange that has super high halcyon days ahead, and I think people are going to dig his role in "Secret Wars."
Also coming face to face with Doctor Strange in those scenes are some characters you've touched on briefly like Phoenix-powered Cyclops and Captain Marvel, and some characters I don't believe you've ever written before like Star-Lord and the new Thor.
Yeah, those guys are a lot of fun. Event rosters are a super secret recipe that's a certain part "who do I want to write" and another part "what are the strategic marketing advantages to using certain characters?" [Laughs] All of that gets cooked into these things. Our new Thor, who was recently revealed to be Jane Foster, has got a huge part to play. She obviously fits right in because as a Thor she's not alone on Battleworld.

And Star-Lord, of course, is a lot of fun. That's no surprise there. He's got a couple of cool scenes coming up. I'm pretty happy with how his stuff is going.
Right, you've said in the past you tend to give the characters you like major sequences so it seems like all the characters in this scene that involves the opening of the other life raft are ones you have some affection for?
Yeah, we made a big list of who would be good to make it through. It obviously had a lot of input from me, but I also wanted to see what other people in the room were thinking. Obviously, some of this synchs up with other "Secret Wars" books that we're doing, especially Thor and Star-Lord. There's other stuff going on that you'll see as we progress through the summer, but in the end I got everybody I wanted. No surprise in this situation.
At the end of "Secret Wars" #3 we got a bit with the Cabal, and I'm especially interested in Namor's sort of emotional status now that Earth has been destroyed. It felt like he sided with the Cabal because he thought their approach was what was best for Earth, but where is head at now that Earth is no more?
Namor screwed himself and made some really, really bad decisions that, in the short term, seemed to 'benefit' Earth, but he immediately realized that he had chained himself to a bunch of wild animals and he didn't have a key for the lock. So Namor has been regretting his position for awhile, which we saw play out in the "Avengers" books. What he didn't plan for [Laughs] was revenge.
So he's in a bad spot. He's been in a bad spot for quite awhile. So what happens to him now? Do we put the Black Panther-Namor feud to bed? Or does it get even worse? You'll have to read the book to find out.
Finally, I'm hearing rumors that there will be a bit of a delay for "Secret Wars" #4 and it's related titles. Is that true? Can you comment on that at all?
Sure, happy to. Esad is cruising through this stuff, but the problem of course is that the first issues needed to be a certain size. So we got a little bit behind at the beginning. The big thing that happened though is that we kind of changed the sequencing of the story. Issue #5 was originally going to be issue #4. So the story changed and we had the flexibility in the schedule to move some books around, and to specifically move issues of "Secret Wars" around.
I think the original plan was two issues the first month. Two issues the next month and two issues the month after that. Then one issue in both the following months. What we did was we stretched it out in the middle because of some stuff that happens in the story, and then we ship the end of it in a more compressed manner.
I believe the other thing that has happened is this is selling so well we may go longer. All of the books are doing so well that, I think, the entire event is spreading out into an additional month. This is not going to come as a shock to anyone, but Marvel is okay with making a little bit more money, and stores are okay with selling a little bit more comics, and creators are okay with a little more royalties. Some people, of course, will not be happy with this so I guess I owe them an ice cream sandwich or something.
Any teases for "Secret Wars" #4 that you want to leave our readers with?
Issue #4 is more like issues #1 and #2. A lot of stuff happens. It gets very big because of things crashing together and battles shockingly happening on Battleworld. Then issue #5 is a very, very important issue where we kind of pull the curtain back on everything that's going on before we rocket into the craziness that is the last three issues.
I'm very excited and it seems like plenty of other people are too. So I'm pretty happy and grateful for that.
"Secret Wars" #3 is on sale now. "Secret Wars" #4 is scheduled for release on July 1.