WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Avengers of the Wastelands #1 by writer Ed Brisson and artist Jonas Scharf, available now.
Doctor Doom has always had a reputation as one of the baddest bad guys in comics, and Marvel just keeps further cementing his reputation. While the monarch has always had an air of royalty and dignity to accompany his arrogant persona, it looks like he's not above using dirty tactics in a fight.
Case in point, he just curb stomped the heck out of Marvel's other notoriously difficult to defeat killing machine, Ultron. Well... kinda.
Avengers in the Wastelands takes place in the Old Man Logan reality, a dystopic future that is know for making its heroes and villains grimmer and grittier than ever. This is thanks mostly to the fact that, in this reality, the villains put aside their differences and systematically slaughtered the heroes, before taking over the world. The same reality brought readers a cult-like family of inbred Hulk children, an aforementioned American wasteland ruled by supervillains, and now a Doctor Doom perfectly willing to sneak up on Ultron and smash his face in with a well-placed metal boot.
It's worth mentioning that this was far from the monologuing world-conquering Ultron most fans may be familiar with. This is Ultron Eight, a mechanic who works in his wife Tonya's garage. Not much else is known about this version of Ultron, other than he's a pretty chill dude, and also a fairly good father. He also makes a darn good footrest, apparently.
While the snapshot of Ultron's life appears serene and humble, those aren't words that the lavish Doom typically finds appealing. He calls Ultron pathetic and mocks him, and Ultron in turn makes it pretty clear that he's a whole other brand of robot than the original from the 616. Ultron has seen many iterations throughout the years, but this is probably one of the gentlest and sweetest. He proves to be absolutely zero match for Doom, who quickly establishes himself in the issue as the new series' overarching villain. Killing the innocent Ultron -- among others -- is such a perfect way to do it.
The move is well in keeping with a trend in Marvel lately to establish Doom as a formidable villain, not just thanks to his mastery of magic and technology, but also as a hand-to-hand fighter. In his own solo comic recently the Latverian king put a beat down on none other than Taskmaster, renowned for his martial arts expertise and "photographic reflexes" that make him one of Marvel's greatest hand-to-hand combatants, and the Black Widow's adversary in her upcoming MCU film.
Whether it's in the realms of science, magic or just sheer physical force, there just doesn't seem to be anyone who can compete with Dr. Doom lately. Marvel is certainly spending a lot of energy building up his (already considerable) reputation, and by making him such a deadly villain in so many titles spanning so many universes, it seems like a surefire bet that the company is building to something big.
It could be Marvel is testing the waters to make Doctor Doom the next big threat in the MCU, and what better way to do so than to show him curb stomping one of the MCU's biggest former foes so easily?