What If Doctor Doom Had Become the Thing?

In this single-issue Marvel tale from 2005, writer Karl Kesel and artist Paul Smith explore a twisted branch of the multiverse where Reed Richards’ cosmic ray accident goes disastrously wrong, transforming Victor von Doom into the rocky form of the Thing instead of Ben Grimm. The story reimagines the Fantastic Four’s origin through Doom’s embittered perspective, examining how a genius with a monstrous exterior might reshape the team’s dynamic and the fate of Latveria. It’s a compact, character-driven what-if that stands as a creative highlight of Marvel’s long-running alternate-reality tradition.