The villainous Doctor Doom is one of the most dangerous men not only on Earth, but in the entire Marvel Universe. His lust for power and total control is without contest and he wishes to rule everything before him. Doom has, in rare cases, succeeded in his quest for domination. In 1987’s Avengers: Emperor Doom (by David Michelinie, Bob Hall, and Keith Williams) Doom gains control over the entirety of Earth. Oddly enough, as the Avenger’s rally to confront him they are haunted by the question of rather or not they really should.
The story begins with the villain known as The Purple Man lounging in a disgusting opulence deep within the South Pacific. Having the ability to mind control anyone within proximity to him, Purple Man has a scant number of people on the planet that are capable of resisting him. Unfortunately for him, one of those few people apprehends him rather violently and without warning.
Doctor Doom has a plan, and the Purple Man is the crux of it: by harnessing his ability to control people, Doom believes that by constructing a large enough device that can amplify Purple Man’s power, he can then emit that power across the entire world. Doom also makes a deal with Namor the Sub-Mariner, king of Atlantis: if Namor can place control discs on the Vision, Machine Man, and Ultron and thus make them susceptible to his power amplifier, he will then be granted full reign over the entire ocean, free of surface-dweller interference. Namor accepts the offer and accomplishes his goals quickly.
Soon, with a gigantic psycho-prism in full operation, Doom achieves his greatest desire. Earth, and everything on it, is his to rule without contention. All, that is, except for Simon Williams, a.k.a., Wonder Man. Having emerged from a stasis tank that was designed to study the energy comprising his body, Wonder Man is oblivious to what has happened to the planet. Within minutes Wonder Man is brought up to speed as everyone on Earth is instructed to kill him on sight by order of Emperor Doom.
As Wonder Man comes to understand what is powering Doom’s control over Earth, he manages to free the Avengers of the psycho-prism's effects. A plan is put into motion to defeat Doom and to free the Earth. But as they embark on their mission, the Avengers begin to wonder if stopping Doom is the right thing to do. Crime and war no longer exist. Impoverished nations have begun to experience great prosperity. Ecological and economical boons are commonplace. Ironically, the world has become a paradise because of Doom.
The Avengers’ assault on Doom’s secret island is a success. Namor, freed from the psycho-prism’s control, destroys it in a fit of rage. As Doctor Doom flees the island, the Avengers return to their ship and start the flight back home. News reports begin to flood their feeds as the world devolves back into its classic state of hostility and violence. The Avengers know the world could never exist enslaved as it was, stripped of its free will, but the possibility that perhaps the world may have been better under the will of Doom looms over them.
Avengers: Emperor Doom is a similar story to "The Korvac Saga", another event in which the Avengers are left unsure of their actions. Both Michael Korvac and Doctor Doom gained power enough to control and shape the world as they saw fit; such power is frightening in its sheer power, but neither man used it to destroy. There is a truth Doom rejects: absolute power does not suit him. The lack of challenge, the mundane tedium of politics, and the dullness of his existence erode his conviction. While Doctor Doom always seems to fall back into the pursuit of power, it's heartening to know what the world would actually be like under his rule.
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