VALERIA

Real Name: Valeria (last name unknown)

Identity/Class: Human; Latverian citizen

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: The Zefiro (a gypsy caste of Latveria)

Affiliations: Former lover of Victor von Doom;
    Otto, Sylvana Rosetti

Enemies: Diablo, Dr. Doom, Haazareth Three;
    Cristos Malachi, King Vladimir

Known Relatives: Boris (grandfather), unidentified uncle

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Currently the Haazareth's realm of Hell;
    formerly Cassamonte, Georgia;
    formerly Latveria

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes II#20 (May, 1969)

Powers/Abilities: None known. Valeria is a compassionate woman and despised thoughts of vengeance, power, and world-conquering.

Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 135 lbs.

History:
(Marvel Super-Heroes II#20 (fb) / Fantastic Four I#278 (fb) / Fantastic Four III#67 (fb) / Books of Doom#1 (fb)) - Valeria was a childhood friend of Victor von Doom, living amongst the Zefiro in Latveria.
    As the two aged, their friendship bloomed into love.
    Valeria was present when Werner von Doom revealed that he was sought by a baron for vengeance for failing to save his wife. Werner took his son Victor and fled, though Werner died of exposure, and Victor was left an orphan.
    As Victor kept his emotions to himself, Valeria sought solace from another of the Zefiro, Sylvana Rosetti.
    Valeria was by Victor's side when he searched his father's belongings, uncovering his dead mother's magical paraphernalia. Valeria tried to convince him that the materials were dangerous, but Victor accepted them as his heritage.

(Marvel Super-Heroes II#20(fb)/Fantastic Four I#278(fb)/Fantastic Four III#67(fb)) - After years of training, Victor decided that he had learned all that he could, and decided to train in a university in America. Valeria asked him what about their dreams of a life together, and he responded by telling her that that dream had died in his childhood. He no longer had any love, compassion, or tenderness to share with anyone. Valeria put forth an ultimatum: this new road, or the life they knew. Victor departed the gypsy camp, leaving Valeria behind.

(Books of Doom#3 (fb)) - After Doom's accident, he had destroyed his work for the U.S. government and fled to village in eastern Europe. Seeking to gain the U.S.' favor, Baron Vladimir sought to locate Doom and turn him over to them. KGB agents paid the Zefiro Cristos Malachi to send Valeria to Doom's side. Malachi pretended to be clairvoyant and told Valeria he was sending her there to comfort Victor in his time of need. In reality, the KGB wished Valeria to be a weakness they could exploit to force Doom into serving them.

(Books of Doom#3 (fb)) - Valeria located Doom, and provided him with comfort and love; she was unaffected by his scars, and the two became intimate. After a few weeks, the KGB returned and took Valeria hostage and demanded Doom's service. However, Otto, a member of the Tibetan sect of monks known as the Wise Ones, slew the KGB at the cost of his own life, after which he urged Doom to seek out the monks. Doom ended his relationship with Valeria, sent her back to Latveria, and prepared to set out for Tibet.

(Books of Doom#5 (fb)) - Over five years later, Victor, now the armored Dr. Doom, returned to Latveria and led a revolution against King Vladimir. Valeria came to see Doom, who sent her away and refused to even look at her. She told him that the armor was just another wall between himself and the world. She was dragged, crying, from  Doom's sight by his soldiers.

(Books of Doom#5 (fb) - BTS) - Days later, Doom made certain that her uncle got her out of the country before the true fighting began.

(Marvel Super-Heroes II#20) - Somehow learning of Doom's youthful love, Diablo took Valeria captive and used her as a hostage to force Doom to become his ally. However, Doom duped Diablo into unwittingly sending himself into the distant future by booby-trapping his time machine. Doom then approached Valeria, telling her that they had a lifetime to recapture together. However, Valeria turned away from Doom, condemning the callous, cruel Dr. Doom, and lamenting the loss of the Victor she once knew. Once she saw Doom gloating over the fate of Diablo, she knew that her Victor was lost forever. She then offered him a chance to prove her wrong: "Renounce your towering ambition...for the girl you once loved!
...Your silence is my answer! I must leave you now...we shall NEVER meet again!"

(Incredible Hulk II#144 (fb)) - While Doom professed his love to Valeria, desiring marriage and promising peace, Valeria suspected that he secretly planned to attack a neighboring nation. She convinced one of Doom's guards to bring her to Bruce Banner, whom Doom had hooked up to a device which was programming him to take a bomb into that nation. Valeria adjusted the device allowing Banner to regain his mind and to program himself to the contrary.

(Incredible Hulk II#144) - After the Hulk carried the bomb to a deserted area, Valeria revealed her actions to Doom, who had her imprisoned. Doom then attacked the Hulk, and their battle shattered Valeria's prison. Doom saved her, but eventually fell victim to the Hulk's devastating strength. As Valeria pleaded with the Hulk to spare Doom, the Hulk left the defeated foe. Doom sought to renew the conflict, ignoring Valeria's pleas to the contrary, but the Hulk left them both behind.

(Fantastic Four III#67 (fb) - BTS) - Seeking to escape from the detection of Doom, Valeria left Latveria behind. She relocated to the USA and made a quiet life for herself in Cassamonte, Georgia.

(Fantastic Four III#67) - Doom sought out Valeria, eventually tracing her to Cassamonte. Eventually he found and confronted her, bereft of his armor and wearing a business suit and a plain facemask. Victor gave her the locket of the two of them with a child, and told her that he would trade everything he was for her love. After some gentle conversation, he again told her that he was prepared to renounce science in all of its forms if she would take his hand. "I give you my most solemn word of honor, Valeria: Your love will make me a changed man." Finally agreeing that there was a chance, Valeria suddenly screamed in agony as mystic flames spread across her body, consuming her form and leaving behind only a skeleton and the locket about her neck.
    Her love had indeed made Victor a changed man. The sacrifice of one who loved him granted him great magical powers at the hands of a trio of demonic hell-lords known as the Haazareth. Valeria's spirit was presumably either consumed in the magical transfer, or more likely sent down to the Haazareth, to be their tortured plaything for all of eternity.

Comments: Created by Larry Lieber, Roy Thomas, Frank Giacoia, and Vince Colletta.

    Ironically enough, following his subsequent battle with the Fantastic Four, Doom himself became the possession of the Haazareth, and he suffered their torture as well, though he has since escaped them.
    Fantastic Four#67 really caught me by surprise. I'd figured that Doom was actually considering giving everything up for Valeria, and when she would have spurned him (or she might have accepted him, but an enemy of Doom would have killed her), inspiring Doom to a new level of hatred for the world. I did NOT expect Doom to sacrifice Valeria. Waid & Wieringo kick some major @$$ in the pages of the Fantastic Four. Make sure to pick it up!

    The origin in MSH#20 expanded on the origin of Doom from Fantastic Four Annual#2, adding Valeria to the mix. This origin has been retold many times, including Fantastic Four I#278 (as Kristoff Vernard's mind was overwritten by Doom's), Marvel Double Shots#2, and Fantastic Four III#67.
     It is expanded even further to focus extensively on Cynthia von Doom in Marvel Graphic Novel: Dr. Strange & Dr. Doom: Triumph and Tragedy, in which it is revealed that Boris is Valeria's grandfather.

Valeria has an extremely dubious appearance in Beauty and the Beast#1 (featuring Alexander Flynn, the alleged "Son of Doom"), as summarized by Elf with a Gun:

• Panel #1 has a caption of Doom's grumbling about the 'lie fostered by his wretched mother those many years ago.'  Flashback scene is of Doom in his cloak (his back is facing us so it's impossible to see if he has his mask on or not) confronting a dark-haired woman and her son (who appears to be around 6-10 years old, near as I can figure based on his height) dressed in 'traditional' clothes standing in front of a horse-drawn carriage.  It's raining. 
• Woman's dialogue:  "But, Milord, only since your recent return to Latveria have I been able to inform you of our son's existence.  You've been away so many years. . . . ." 
• Doom:  "No more of your foul lies, woman!  Only the boundless mercy of Doom permits you and that crying whelp to leave here with your lives.  NEVER RETURN!" 
• Panel two is of Doom standing in front of what I _think_ is the main gate to his castle (the art is less than clear about what Doom is standing in front of; all it really shows is a
  stone arch with some brickwork above it and nothing else above that) watching the carriage go down the road.  Doom's thoughts:  'Doom must ever lead his people, confront his enemies, pursue his destiny. . . . . ALONE!  Doom must have no son.'  End flashback. 
• Since this is supposed to be Flynn as a child, and since in the B& B series he's in his mid-twenties to early thirties, it seem reasonable to me to assume this flashback took place sometime after Doom returned home after his time in college and with the monks.
• By the way, in #4 Flynn refers to his mother's 'sly, magnetic Gypsy blood' passing to him his mutant ability to hypnotize people.  Make of that what you will.  It's the only other reference I found to his mother in the series.
• Cover date for #1 is Dec. 1984.  Cover date for #4 is June 1985.
• If I remember correctly, Flynn was later revealed to be a robot imposter, and not the son of Doom at all. I don't remember the details of the plot, but the Shadow King was later revealed as the head of the Gladiators--Snood.
• If you are talking about the appearance in mid-twenties New Mutants vol. 1, then it is possible that that Flynn was an imposter.  As I recall it, the only real proof that we had that Flynn never did exist was Kitty's say-so.  We were never shown just what evidence she saw that convinced her that he never existed, only that he (apparently) wasn't there at that time running the Gladiators.  Also, I find it hard to believe that Doom wouldn't have noticed that either a robot double or the Shadow King was actually running things from the start and respond accordingly.  Unless this was followed up somewhere else that I haven't read as of yet and it was officially revealed that they weren't related. . . .
•  I guess this COULD be Valeria, but if it was her then it would take place before the main story in MSH#20, and it is not really consistent with any other appearances of Valeria, nor has it ever been referenced again. You'd certainly think it would have been brought up as an issue by Valeria in Fantastic Four III#67. I'm going with not--Snood.

Valeria shows up in at least one What If? story, too, as pointed out by Luis:

• What If? I #22, August 1980 - "What if Dr. Doom had become a hero?" has an appearance of Valeria, obviously out of continuity.  This story diverges from Earth-616's at the time when Reed and Victor were faculty students and Reed found Victor's notes about his intent to contact other dimensions.  In the main continuity Victor rudely sent Reed away and went on with his experiments, becoming fatefully scarred as a result. 
• On this Earth, however, Victor allows himself to listen to Reed's warnings about the dangers of that line of research and avoids that fate.  Instead of attempting right away to contact Mephisto's realm and save his mother's soul, he apparently concludes his education (something the mainstream Dr. Doom had to give up on after his accident) and goes on to find and learn from the same monks that gave him his original armor in the main timeline.
  Interestingly, that divergence is about the same point of the Doom of the High Evolutionary's Counter Earth. Though he is injured in that explosion, Reed Richards stays by his side and maintains their friendship, so that Doom continues to work for the good of mankind, rather than becoming the megalomaniac that he is on Earth-616.
• After that, he pretty much succeeds in all his goals in life, including regaining Latveria's throne from Rudolfo in a fairly civil way, freeing his mother from Mephisto's realm and marrying Valeria.
• Unfortunately, Mephisto does not take that loss well at all, and taunts and chastises Victor with a cruel choice: he _will_ take a soul to make up for that of Victor's mother - whether that will be Victor's own or Valeria's; he is allowed to decide.  This version of Victor Von Doom may be benevolent, but he is not particularly humble - he angsts a lot but ends up rationalizing that he is too important to be taken from the world.  Mephisto releases him but takes Valeria.  From then on, every year Victor fights Mephisto in an attempt to regain Valeria from him - much as Earth-616's own Victor did the same for a long time on behalf of his mother's soul (until succeeding - for a price - on the "Triumph and Torment" Graphic Novel).

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

• VALERIA of Hyborian Era – pirate, ally of Conan--Red Nails; Savage Tales I#2
• VALERIA of the 5^th Dimension - daughter of Phineas--Strange Tales I#103
• VALERIA of Earth-Marvel Girl - see Valeria Richards--Fantastic Four III#15
  --though Doom did help deliver the child and chose her name
• VALERIAN of the Hyborian era - Aquilonian?, allegedly fought in the Pict Wars, but actually allied with the Picts, lover of the Witch of Scandaga
  --Wolves Beyond the Border; Savage Sword of Conan#59/3
• VALERIE  ?? - Province 13--X-Men: Liberators#1
• VALERIUS of the Hyborian era - rightful heir to throne of Aquilonia, allied with Amalric + Orastes + Tarascus to overthrow Conan, briefly ruled until killed by uprising of abused former nobles
      --Hour of the Dragon; Giant-Size Conan#1
• SUTTER, KAREN - reporter, sent to get story on Dr. Doom, had surgery to appear similar to Valeria, committed suicide after getting to know him--Marvel: Double Shots#2
• RAMONA ?? - Latverian Underground, made to appear as a duplicate of Valeria--Astonishing Tales#1/2

images:
Fantastic Four I#278, p6, pan3;
Marvel Super-Heroes II#20, p23, pan2;
Fantastic Four III#67, p15 (story pages only), pan2

Last updated: 09/13/06

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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