Spider-Man vs. Dr. Doom...6 times throughout 26 episodes?

Even though Dr. Doom is generally considered to be the best of the Marvel super-villains, he has never been one of Spider-Man's major adversaries compared to such notables as the Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus or the Sandman.

Why then, did Dr. Doom suddenly become Spider-Man's chief nemesis in the 1981 series? Undoubtedly, a large part of the explanation can be summed up in two words: Darth Vader. Star Wars was still phenomenally popular back in the early 80s, so the creators of Marvel Productions first animated show used the Spider-Man cartoon as an opportunity to show a post-Star Wars version of the good Doctor. While more or less visually unchanged from his comic and previous animated counterparts, this Doom was given a deep, robotic voice very similar to the famous Sith lord.

After the first appearance of the 1981 Dr. Doom in "Dr. Doom, Master of the World", the makers of the show set upon the idea of making a multi-part "Doom-Saga" to be spread throughout the series.

The writer of these episodes was Larry Parr, and here's a few words he had to say about his interest in the character of Doom:

"Dr. Doom was always (and still is) my favorite Marvel character. He's my favorite because in his mind he is NOT the bad guy -- he SINCERELY believes that what he is trying to do will create a better world, a world free of hunger, disease, and poverty."

As to why a 1981 animated show had five interlinked episodes (which was virtually unheard of at the time), well, this is what Larry had to say:

"Five of those episodes were intended as a five-part mini-series that originally was going to be cut into a movie and shown in Europe.

At least that's what I was told. As far as I know that never happened, and I'm not sure the five Dr. Doom episodes were ever cut together and shown in sequence on American TV as I was also told they would be."

The episodes were certainly not produced one right after the other, so in most markets, the Doom-Saga was a rather staggered affair. The closest thing to a compilation of the Dr. Doom episodes was a video tape released by Prism Video entitled Dr. Doom Conquers The World, which actually skipped "The A-B-Cs of D-O-O-M".

Watching all the episodes together makes for an interesting experience. The story holds together fairly well, and along the way we meet some interesting characters like the Latverian resistance fighter Johann, and Doom's (mostly) faithful servant Boris, as well as actually seeing Doom's origin.

Ultimately however, having Doom continually face off against Spider-Man is slightly unsatisfying, as the character of Doom is so strong as to demand at least a few more heroes to challenge - something that was rectified in Doom's single appearance in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, where he also faced Iceman and Firestar. That still doesn't stop these five episodes from being a whole load of early 80s fun - and by simple virtue of the fact that this is a five-part story from 1981 makes it worth seeing at least once in order to see how it compares to modern continuity-laden 'toons.