Cynthia von Doom

Few characters haunt Marvel's mythology quite like Cynthia von Doom — a figure whose presence resonates far beyond her modest appearance count. Debuting in Astonishing Tales #8 in 1971, she emerged in the Bronze Age from the creative hands of Len Wein, Mike Friedrich, and George Tuska, and her shadow has stretched across more than five decades of Marvel storytelling. She keeps extraordinarily rarefied company — Doctor Doom, Iron Man, the Human Torch, and Werner von Doom among those sharing her pages — and her most significant spotlight comes in the landmark Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom: Triumph and Torment, one of Marvel's most celebrated graphic novels. With only 17 catalog appearances, she is rare in every sense of the word, the kind of character whose weight in the Marvel universe is utterly disproportionate to the number of times she's actually appeared on the page — and that, for a true collector, makes her absolutely worth seeking out.