Why was Doctor Doom a personal enemy of Reed Richards?

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Heath Ledger as the Joker sits at an interrogation table with Christian Bale as Batman standing behind him in a scene from the film The Dark Knight. — Supervillain Heath Ledger (seated) as the Joker and Christian Bale as Batman in *The Dark Knight* (2008).

Doctor Doom, also known as Victor von Doom, is the primary antagonist of the Fantastic Four and a long-standing rival of Reed Richards.

Their enmity is rooted in their shared history as brilliant students at the same university. During their time as classmates, Victor von Doom developed a deep-seated resentment toward Reed Richards, viewing him as his intellectual superior. This rivalry intensified following a laboratory accident that left Doom’s face scarred; he blamed Richards for the disaster, fueling a lifelong obsession with proving his own superiority and seeking vengeance against him through constant intellectual and physical conflict.1