Doctor Doom Gets His Own Series
The scripted podcast Marvel's Wastelanders: Doom will focus on the bad guy Doctor Doom.
It may not be the live-action version fans have been asking for, but a new Doctor Doom story is here, thanks to a Marvel podcast series. Marvel’s Wastelanders is an ongoing podcast that tells a series of dramatic stories from within the Marvel Universe, and their latest offering, Marvel’s Wastelanders: Doom, is now available from SiriusXM and Apple Podcasts, as well as Pandora, Stitcher, and other podast platforms. The new podcast tells the story of the Fantastic Four villain freeing himself from imprisonment and seeking revenge on those who wronged him, with the help of an unlikely ally: Valeria Richards, the daughter of “Mr. Fantastic” Reed Richards.
The series stars the vocal talents of Dylan Baker (The Americans) as Doctor Doom, Danny Burstein (Blackhat) as the Hulk, Keith David (The Thing) as the Kingpin, John Hawkes as Klaw, Kristen Johnston as She-Hulk, Elijah Jones as Johnny Claymore, Rebecca Naomi Jones as Valeria, Hamish Linklater as Sandman, Nadine Malouf as Cora, and Luke Kirby as Maximus. The series is directed by Jade King Carroll.
The Doctor Doom story, written by comic book writers Mark Waid and James Kim, is only the latest entry in a popular line of audio dramas in the Wastelanders series, which includes Wolverine, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Star-Lord. The stories are set in the same timeline, and often interconnect.
The new podcast comes as fans eagerly await any news of the upcoming Fantastic Four film, although Marvel has not been forthcoming. At the D23 Expo this past weekend, no major announcements were made about the film, even while fans predicted a cast announcement was coming. We do know that Matt Shankman (WandaVision) would be directing, but we still do not know if John Krasinski will reprise the Reed Richards role from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It is almost a given that Doctor Doom will be the villain in the film, but we have no indication who will play him or the other members of the F4 team.
Playing Doctor Doom isn’t Dylan Baker’s first foray into the Marvel Universe. The 62-year-old actor played Dr. Curt Connors, Peter Parker’s professor, in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and 3, which starred Tobey Maguire as the web-slinger. Connors was due to become the villain The Lizard in Spider-Man 4, but the movie was scrapped and Spider-Man was rebooted in 2012 with Andrew Garfield in the lead and Rhys Ifans playing the villain. He also voiced a character in the Star-Lord podcast.
Marvel is quite active with its dramatic podcasts, with no less than 15 different series available now. They recently scored a hit with Marvel’s Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Drama, with Milana Vayntrub (the AT&T girl) voicing the lead.
It is a nice change of pace to see Marvel finally embracing the Fantastic Four roster of characters, as that hasn’t always been the history. Fox has owned the rights to the Fantastic Four, including Doctor Doom, until Disney purchased Fox in 2019. Until that point, Marvel had been reluctant to even feature the characters prominently among their comics, allowing Fox to make three Fantastic Four movies over the years.
