An in-depth discussion on Dr Doom in cinema: When should an adaptation adhere to source material?

 

Let's not mince words here; I am probably the biggest mark for Dr Doom. He is my favorite Marvel character next to Spider-Man, is my favorite fictional villain, and is probably in my top 3 comic book characters ever. Whenever my neurodivergence goes brrr and I need something to hyperfixate on, it's usually either Doom or Zelda I blab on about.

So, naturally, when THIS was revealed, I'm gonna have some words about it. Some positive, some negative, some just plain anecdotal; but certainly words.

You see, Dr Doom is probably the one character who has been the most squandered throughout the entirety of Marvel's cinematic history, likely even comic book movies in general. To this day, the best live action depiction of the character is still the unreleased Fantastic Four movie from the 90s.

Which is really disappointing, because Dr Doom is any writer's blessing: He is as simple or as complex as the narrative needs him to be. So why, then, does it seem so difficult to get the character right? Do they believe their artistic liberties should supercede the source material? If so, how far can one remove an adaptation from the source material until it's only using an existing intellectual property for familiarity's sake?

There is an argument going around lately whether an adaptation should not be comic-accurate when it serves the narrative, which at a certain point I can agree with. But when a character is butchered to such an extent that they are the character in name only, it is no longer an adaptation, at that point you are telling your own story with the familiar name as a vehicle.

This is what I will call the Deadpool Threshold.

GodzillaMendoza covered this concept in extensive detail, but before the Deadpool movie in 2016, Deadpool was a very misunderstood and misrepresented character. In the comics, Deadpool is sarcastic and snarky, using quips and dark humor to mask his own psychological and physical pain, breaking the fourth wall occasionally and rarely drawing too much attention to it. He had an online reputation, however, for practically being a hyper-violent Looney Tunes character with swords and guns. The video games catered to this this public perception of him, Marvel vs Capcom 3 especially, as he was constantly moving, constantly shouting, and hitting his opponents with health bars, and referencing internet memes that were dated even at the time.

This seemed to be an over-correction for his depiction in Xmen Origins: Wolverine, where he was misrepresented in the opposite way. In the beginning, as Wade Wilson, his characterization was somewhat accurate, up until the end where they made him into Weapon 11, who was injected with a bunch of different mutant powers (which is apparently something you can do) and adamantium, and in Ryan Reynold's own words “He's the Merc With the Mouth but they sowed his mouth shut.”

Ryan, displeased with this depiction of the Deadpool character, funded his own project which would feature a standalone, more comic-faithful version of the character. In this movie, the tragedy behind the comedy is explored, and he only breaks the Fourth Wall in the beginning and a few times after that.

Deadpool was well-liked enough to get a sequel. In Deadpool 2, he makes a lot more meta-jokes, and in the end there is a sequence where he goes back in time and kills the Weapon 11 version of himself, and even the “real life” version of Ryan Reynolds signing on to the Green Lantern movie. Then, the third movie is a meta-commentary on the Fox Xmen universe and Disney's ownership of these IPs and their business practices involving them. Which, while your enjoyment of these movies may vary, is dangerously skirting that line of flanderization yet again.

Now back to Doom. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the comics, you may be wondering where all this talk of accuracy and faithfulness is even coming from, after all Avengers:Doomsday was just announced and we barely know anything other than Robert Downey Jr will be playing Dr Doom in it.

But that's just it. Victor von Doom was a Romani child raised in an oppressed developing nation, his past trauma is what molded him into what he is today. RDJ is not Romani, so that crucial element of his character is missing. Could any well-known actor play a Romani character? Sure, but I don't think something like that can be done without coming across as disrespectful. No, what I think they are trying to do with RDJ as Doom is that they are using the infinite possibilities of the Multiverse to establish this version of Doctor Doom as a Tony Stark variant, and is the ultimate logical conclusion of his “suit of armor around the world” goal. That is what I gathered from his “new mask, same task” comment.

Now, this CAN work, and I have faith in RDJs performance. But it's not the Doom that I wanted. 

There's no reason that any studio should cater to my needs specifically, and comic book movies shouldn't just be carbon copies of the source material. Certain things can be tweaked to fit the feature length of a movie and the story they need to tell.

A little while ago, I was having a discussion with fellow blogger and former g1 Imperator100 about the Arkhamverse Batman series. His most known traits such as his investigation skills, combat prowess and ingenuity were all incorporated into the gameplay. In Arkham Origins, Batman was depicted as a mythic, supernatural figure. The Arkham games (at least up to Arkham Knight) are among the most faithful adaptations of Batman, and yet the series takes bold risks such as killing off the Joker permanently, which would never be possible in the source material due to the almighty comic book status quo. We reached the conclusion that liberties should be taken, but never at the expense of the spirit of a character, which I believe should be the takeaway here.

My favorite story featuring Doctor Doom is the Mighty Avengers graphic novel Emperor Doom, in which Doctor Doom takes over the world via harnessing Purple Man's mind control abilities. In doing so, he ends the world's international conflicts, successfully creating a world without war.

In doing so he forces the Avengers to face a very narratively compelling ethical dilemma: Is freedom worth sacrificing for peace?

It's a great story, but it can't really be told without all the prior context. You kind of need to establish him as a more grounded rival to the Fantastic Four before upping the scale to that.

That was one of the few things that the first Fantastic Four movie got right: his rivalry and pettiness towards Reed Richards and his extended family. He is the antithesis to the Fantastic Four because they are a family, and he in contrast believes he can do everything alone. 

In the comics, it's because of his upbringing which instilled in him trust issues. Whenever Reed tried to help him out of kindness, he couldn't see it as anything other than him having an ulterior motive, which was only ever confirmed in his mind whenever a plan backfired due to his own ego or short-sightedness. Deep down, he covets the Fantastic Four for the family they have and wants that too, but is too prideful to ever admit it.

In the movie, no reason is ever given much deeper than something something cosmic rays.

In the second movie, because of the events of the previous one, he is permanently scarred, and seeks revenge against the Fantastic Four for his defeat, and steals the Silver Surfer's board and cosmic power, which is a lot closer to his comic counterpart. A step in the right direction, but still no Latveria, still no grandstanding theatrics, still no mystic arts, and still not much of his own technology beyond the suit he made over his already metal body. Since then, I've waited for a more faithful representation of Doom to appear on the big screen. (I honestly skipped Fant4stic because the trailers and early reviews told me all I needed to know.)

In 2009 we got Iron Man, which springboarded into an expansive multimedia project featuring a cast that (mostly) kept true to the spirit of those characters during the Infinity Saga. After adapting so many great characters, I kept waiting for some mention of Latveria or the Ancient One mentioning someone else as gifted as Strange in sorcery. They mentioned Wakanda as far back as Age of Ultron, I would have at least expected a Latverian embassy member in Wakanda Forever or something. It's just absurd to me in retrospect that we got characters like Eros and Pip, Howard the Duck, and Ego the Living Planet before we ever got such an iconic Marvel staple as Doctor Doom. Heck, I would have been excited for Squirrel Girl at one point.

I just sort of moved on since then, deciding to stop holding my breath. But then there was that little tease in Moon Knight, that comic of the 2015 Secret Wars in Deadpool and Wolverine, and finally the Doomsday announcement. It all feels too little too late now. And at the same time, too early?

See, I would much rather Kang's story play out and eventually progress into Doom as the new antagonist. Imagine if this was never revealed and we got an Avengers movie before Doomsday where who they think is Tony Stark helps them defeat Kang, THEN at the end he reveals he's been Dr Doom the whole time which would lead into the next movie. I still would have had my reservations about it, but man what a missed opportunity.

Instead, the Russo Brothers want to adapt Secret Wars. The 1984 and 2015 Secret Wars are both good, and they seem to be bringing elements from both, but like my example with Emperor Doom it doesn't really work without all the progression of Doom's story up to that point. You can't really do Beyonder Doom, much less God Emperor Doom without building up to it first.

Perhaps they will introduce a more grounded version of Doom in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie before then, but I don't think everyone will see it before they would a new Avengers movie (general audiences don't care enough to do homework, especially when plot lines outright contradict or clash with each other, looking at you WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness), plus it's still quite a leap from a family-oriented story to Doom becoming a cosmic threat.

In the meantime, I'll always have these other amazing interpretations of the character to look back on, and at the end of the day this is just another interpretation. It's just a shame that Hollywood never gave Doctor Doom as much respect and love for the source material as Iron Man or Captain America, I would have loved to see that. Maybe RDJ's Doom will pleasantly surprise me. I honestly hope it does.

If you're looking for faithful adaptations of Doom that aren't just limited to live action, I would recommend the Fantastic Four animated series, his brief appearances in Earth's Mightiest Heroes (he only shows up twice for a few minutes at a time, but both episodes are worth watching in full to understand his role in their story) his episode in Iron Man: Armored Adventures, and there was even a Spider-Man TAS episode that featured Doctor Doom in a heavily abridged version of the 1985 Secret Wars (though I would strongly recommend reading the comic instead).

If you can tolerate Doom being the only serious character with everyone else being annoying, then his appearances in Avengers Assembled and Ultimate Spider-Man are worth checking out. Obnoxious depictions of the main cast aside, it has some standout moments from him, such as summoning Jormungandr the Norse World Serpent, and some of my favorite speaking lines of his in all of his media.

If you want pure, unfiltered Doom straight from the source, I would encourage you to read the source material, with my personal essentials guide, preferably in this order:

Fantastic 4 (1960s): #5,6, and 16

Books of Doom #1 (2005)

Dr Strange and Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment

Mighty Avengers featuring Doctor Doom: Emperor Doom 

Secret Wars 1985

Secret Wars 2015

Infamous Iron Man 

And, if you are so bold, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #21

The current run of comics are also great. When the sun and moon disappeared from the sky and vampires overran the Earth (You know, standard comic book stuff), Doom received the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme from Dr Strange in order to complete a ritual that would remove the veil of darkness. Strange surrendered the title to him with the understanding that it would be temporary, on the condition he would give it back once the world was saved. Thanks to the vagueness of their oath, he is Sorcerer Supreme until he considers the world saved.

He is now the one people go to for help during times of crisis or for supernatural assistance, such as when he teamed up with the Guardians of the Galaxy stop Dormammu from breaching. It is unclear what he intends to do in the meantime, which is great, since this narrative device builds tension and allows him to still be a direct antagonist without undoing all of his character development from Infamous Iron Man. This is honestly the best way to handle the character in the current state of Marvel right now, and I hope Marvel's Hollywood division is taking notes.

I just hope they don't have him do something irredeemably evil to reestablish Dr Doom as a stagnant villain, like they seem to do every time he has a redemptive arc.

So with all that being said, Doctor Doom will remain my favorite Marvel character regardless of how the MCU handles him. I hope you can agree with at least some of my points. I have been Hero's Shade and I'll see you all next time.

King: The Strongest Man!

Vs battlers, online powerscalers, and debaters often enjoy showcasing feats of power; reality-shattering accomplishments that reflect a character's scale in terms of strength, durability, endurance or otherwise supernatural abilities.

But what if there were a character that breaks that system, an entity that doesn't have any of that yet still has a bevy of incredible accomplishments?

Now, you could bring up someone like, say, Batman. He is an ordinary human who fights alongside and against DC's arguably most powerful beings. However, he does so using technology, resources, and forethought that allow him to reach into the scale of the supernatural. Many even argue that despite having "no powers", he often reacts to bullets, lightning, and even in some cases lightspeed projectiles, and has moments in which he showcases superhuman strength and durability.

There are many cases like this that push the boundaries of what exactly an "ordinary human" can do. Characters like Hawkeye are supposed to have no superhuman abilities beyond extraordinary accuracy, yet have similar feats that put them around the scale of other street-levelers or much higher.

Guts is an ordinary person, he's just handled weapons larger than him since childhood, and has become naturally adept at using weapons others would consider unwieldy to an impractical degree. So he swings around what is considered just a huge hunk of metal as if it were an ordinary sword.

We in the real world know this isn't how human adaptations or swords work, yet there are plenty of fictions that ask us to suspend our disbelief in order to blur the lines between possible and impossible. Perhaps it is the reason we enjoy fiction, because we want to explore these worlds of infinite possibility. We know these things can't be done, but there is always a part of us that wants to believe we can.

The subgenre of isekai addresses this concept. "What if an ordinary person were placed into a fantasy world?" But these ordinary people are often given special weapons, abilities, or special training that allows them to perform on the same level as these fantasy characters. 

But what about a more realistic take on that concept? What if one of us, a physically ordinary nerd, were actually compared with these characters we idolize?

Now hold on, before you click off because you find that boring or demeaning, I promise this is interesting.

I give you, hailing from the One Punch Man universe, KING!

Our tale begins in a seemingly ordinary world, until it is inexplicably invaded by monstrous creatures. One of the first is Crablante, who threatens the life of a school child. The child is then rescued by a random stranger who promptly defeated Crablante. 

The child turned out to be the son of a wealthy CEO, who then founded the Hero Association inspired by this selfless act. The Hero Association became a task force for dealing with monsters and other threats, recruiting around 546 heroes who would be classified into C, B, A, and S-Class rank.

Roughly a year after the incident, another monster attacked, permanently scarring an innocent bystander before he was rescued by the same stranger from before.

Since being attacked, it seemed that monsters would naturally gravitate towards this man in what he considered having the worst luck.  Considering he would survive every encounter, depending on your perspective, it could also be considered tremendously good luck, especially considering what would happen next.

Three years after the founding of the Hero Association, the same survivor of the monster attack had his home destroyed by the emergence of a being named Vaccine Man, the very first monster we see Saitama defeat in the series. The survivor was searching for his belongings in the wreckage until Vaccine Man got one-punched and he slipped in the monster's viscera.

After Saitama was long gone, heroes and news reporters would arrive, finding an already-defeated Vaccine Man and a blood-stained, scarred man standing stoic among the gore and rubble. Too stunned and in shock to explain himself, everyone present assumed he was the hero who took out the monster in one attack. He was also remembered as being sighted at the aftermath of other monster attacks, and was quickly promoted by the Hero Association and placed into Rank 7 of Class S, labeled the Strongest Man.

Needless to say, he was able to purchase a new home as S-Class heroes are well-paid. One might say he was well-off and living a comfortable life, but this situation would only be even more anxiety-inducing for the newly-crowned King. You see, the Hero Association assigns Disaster Level classifications in accordance to monsters, supervillains, or natural events that occur in accordance to their threat to society. It goes Wolf, Tiger, Demon, Dragon, and God, in that order. S-Class heroes are deployed for situations of Threat Level Dragon or higher, meaning King would continue to be placed into even more dangerous situations. 

King's situation is only indicative of the bureaucracy and incompetence of the Hero Association. For example, compare this to Saitama, who had to go through fitness tests and written exams putting him into the lowest in C class, whereas his disciple Genos was put into S class, and King got special treatment and skipped the whole preliminary process. These exams are essentially a formality, and the heroes and their placements into the classes is completely determined by who the Association considers would be the most popular poster child for the company.

One Punch Man is meta-commentary on anime and manga tropes, as well as the anime/manga industry as a whole. As such, the Hero Association is a company first and foremost, and things such as actually protecting people or having heroes be good role models for the children they're marketed towards are secondary to having a good public image and profitable assets.

In fact, King isn't exactly the most virtuous person the first time we see him, as he is actively running from a robot who threatened to kill civilians if King wouldn't fight him.

To be fair to him however, it's not like there was much he could realistically do, and Genos did cover for him. And when Saitama confronts him on this shorty after, King almost immediately comes clean to him. Although somewhat disappointed, Saitama is indifferent about King's power being a lie, saying he still has to be a hero and a figure for people to believe in and that he can still become strong like him.

Since then, Saitama and King have become best friends, lending credence to the idea that opposites attract. 

Ever since King figured out Saitama was the same good samaritan that rescued him a couple years back, King has aspired to be like him. Conversely, Saitama envies and admires King for his ability to feel tension in battle as he has forgotten what it's like, which only goes to show that jealousy is misleading because you truly don't know what a person is struggling with beneath the surface.

Nevertheless, the two have formed a strong symbiotic relationship as the two are the only ones in the world who understand one another, and King can always count on Saitama to have his back if he gets into any real trouble. Saitama doesn't seem to mind, especially since he is mutually piggybacking off King, which both agree is only fair since Saitama's feats were mistaken for King's anyway. 

On his quest to become a true hero worthy of his status, King comes a long way from running from a fight in his debut, shown when he lures Centi-Choro away from the city to confront him, putting his life on the line for others in front of a giant monster while having no way of knowing that Saitama was going to rescue him at the last minute. I believe this is the moment where King became a true hero, because rather than being a figurehead for a shady organization, or having any real power, he embodies all of the qualities of a hero that matter.

Despite never engaging in violence, he completely diffuses threats simply by showing up, never lifting a finger yet being met with swift surrender. Perhaps, in that way, he truly is The Strongest Man. 

Abilities

King Engine

The King Engine is technically King's only real superhuman ability. The King Engine is said to be the noise of King preparing for battle; it is a loud pounding coupled with a deep rumbling, and anyone who hears it becomes deathly afraid. 

In reality, it is the sound of his own heartbeat and blood vessels due to, in King's own words, having the "anxiety of twelve men". The highest recorded blood pressure was 370/380 mm/Hg, and a particularly loud heartbeat is possible to be heard by someone else nearby in a quiet room, but to be heard on a bustling street King must have incredibly tensile or elastic blood vessels and heart muscles in order to withstand such amounts of record-breaking pressure. 

Moreover, animals and humans in the real world seem to have the biological ability to pick up on stress and other emotions. It is possible that King is projecting his own terror onto others, a sort of empathic manipulation that he is unaware he is even doing. 

This is similar to when Carnage Kabuto's "danger instincts" went off when he approached Saitama. (0:59)

King is also 6'1 and has a large facial scar, which contributes to his ability to intimidate.

Ultimate Hellfire Burst Wave Motion Cannon

An unnecessarily long and superfluous signature move that is obviously a joke on attacks from Dragonball and other popular Shonen techniques. 

When King gets into this stance and then crosses and uncrosses his arms, it releases a burst of energy that incinerates everything in its path.

At least, that's what it says in the official in-universe databook released by the Hero Association.

It doesn't actually do anything, but is the ultimate bluff just in case the King Engine isn't effective enough.

"Luck" Manipulation 

Luck can be a power in fiction, it is referred to as Probability Manipulation, which can be used to select a favorable outcome out of a set of possibilities. Things just always seem to work out for King, whether he intends it to or not.

Now, to be clear, the manga and anime make it explicitly obvious that King has no real superhuman abilities, or at least can do nothing too far removed from what an average person can do. One Punch Man may have legitimate narrative tension, drama and heart, but it is still ultimately a gag manga. As such, King is a gag character. His luck is meant to be metatextual.

A bad guy causes trouble, King shows up, and the bad guy immediately surrenders and bystanders hype him up to hyperbolic lengths even though we know he can't actually do anything. We, as the audience, are "in" on the joke. However, as with many gag feats, you can't ignore consistency.

Feats

Strength

Holds Atomic Samurai's sword up for two and a half minutes. Atomic Samurai slashes through Dragon Level monsters and machines on par with S-class, so his sword must be specialized to compensate for his immense strength. Although, King is unable to unsheathe the blade, and the substance of the sword is never stated.

Durability 

As mentioned before, King must have an unusually durable circulatory system in order for the King Engine to be audible. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of information about heartbeats being loud enough to hear, or at least not related to any sort of measurements we can use to quantify this. Or at least, not in humans.

Whale heartbeats are extremely audible, and can be picked up through distances of up to 3 km depending on the species of whale. A blue whale pumps 220 liters, or over 500 pounds of blood per beat. 

We could divide this down to a much smaller scale, but the math doesn't really translate well since we're comparing biology of two different species and vibrations through different mediums, and we can't really relate that to measurements of volume or weight.

This is probably unquantifiable, just let it be known that an effort was made. 

If nothing else, the sound of the King Engine has a street-level range.

King was attacked by Octopus Claw Man, who gave him his facial scar. Octopus Claw Man was a Tiger Level threat, meaning he endangered the lives of "many humans". This classification system is unfortunately vague, but we do have comparisons.

This same monster was also able to scratch Saitama during his hero training before he lost his hair, who could have been anywhere between Olympic Athlete and building level. The fact that the claws peirced King's skin but didn't damage his eye gives further evidence to King having high organ durability.

Speed

(3:00)

King is an E-sports competitor and plays video games professionally, even winning in a couple fighting game tournaments.

The average human can react to something within 250 ms, and pro fighting game players, assuming the game runs at 60 fps and has smooth enough animations to have distinct frames, the fastest a player can react without predicting is within a 20-25 frame window, or within 200 ms. 

Now, it is to note that this doesn't necessarily translate to reaction speed in an actual fight, though, King does demonstrate he can still react fast when giving himself handicaps such as fighting with only two fingers (see background), meaning he can still move his wrists and hands fast enough to win consistently. 

(It is to note that he does this against Saitama who is ftl, but the game is still going to function at the same speed no matter how hard or fast he taps the buttons)

King also stops an assassin's quickdraw. This suggests that his higher than average reaction speed can actually be applied in combat, especially since he wasn't anticipating being attacked and just thought he was being asked for an autograph.

Luck

So this is a bit unorthodox from my usual format of writing these, but these feats are far too plentiful to not include in its own section. Here we go.

Prevents assassins from killing him by spooking them, because he happened to be reading dialogue from a fangame he was developing 

(Starts at 3:11, with King on the left)

Managed to come out completely unscathed when Boros invaded Earth, which is especially impressive considering Melzegard was nearby who was giving the rest of S-Class trouble, and the clash between Boros and Saitama split Earth's atmosphere.

When the hero-hunter Garou attacked King, Saitama happened to be there and intercept him. It put Garou out of commission for several hours, and he interprets this as being unable to perceive King's attack, which makes Garou hesitant to approach him after this. 

Child Emperor creates a device that reads the power levels of heroes. Despite getting the same reading for both King and Saitama, he assumes it must be too high to read and that Saitama is too weak to be read. (Funnily enough the exact inverse of how most people irl perceive Saitama against anyone else)

Atomic Samurai once challenged King to demonstrate his fighting skills by cutting an apple with his sword. King couldn't unsheathe the blade, and put the sword down and walked away. Instead of surmising the obvious, he instead makes the massive leap in logic that King cut through the space between the apple's atoms and that he did it so fast he couldn't perceive it.

Takes a page from Luigi's book and defeats Homeless Emperor and Platinum Sperm by doing absolutely nothing

Happened to perform his Ultimate Hellfire Wave Motion Burst Cannon the exact moment that Garou blitzed the Monster Cadres, accidentally making it look like he destroyed them

When a shapeshifting monster approached him disguised as a hostage, King scared it so bad it not only dropped its disguise, but accidentally unalived itself 

Was once launched in a giant slingshot across the city, but landed miraculously in a net relatively unharmed 

Got knocked out when Saitama and S-class heroes were fighting over helpings in a hot pot. When King arrived late after a massive-scale monster attacked, King got saved from being reprimanded since he was in City Z, were a majority of the monsters lived, as it was assumed he took them out (City Z is where Saitama lives and King was in his apartment, I'm sure you can put 2 and 2 together)

When King finds the real hostage, he excuses himself from a major fight to escort him out. He comes across an elevator the same moment Saitama punches a monster, causing rubble to fall on the counterweight, allowing them to leave.

While in the Monster Hideout (the same location of the last four feats, meaning this is consecutive and he survives a literal monster hive out of sheer luck), a spying eyeball follows King. King slips down a hole in the floor, and shortly after Saitama squishes the eye and promptly defeats the Monster King Orochi. From the perspective of the monster spying on him, he just teleported and immediately one-shot both his eye and Orochi, and fellow S-class hero Tatsumaki happens to be there while he exclaims that.

Weaknesses 

(He just like me fr)

If you've made it this far without skimming, you can probably already guess what King's weakness is. 

King's chances in a VS match are dependent on the win condition. He's at his best when he's able to prevent or stalemate a fight,  or convince his opponent to surrender. In an actual fight to the death, he's going to have a lot more trouble. Moreover, someone who's emotionally detached like Saitama or is otherwise able to read his mind would be able to see through his facade. King is also unable to intimidate or convince robots such as G4 of his perceived power.

If forced into a fight on equal footing, he lacks combat experience and might hold his own against the average person, but would struggle against someone with above average fighting skill.

King's luck also seems entirely circumstantial, he has no control over it in the same way that characters like Jinx and Domino do.

He was also killed by Cosmic Garou, along with most of Earth, before Saitama reversed time with his Zero Punch.

Summary 

(King is spitting straight facts tho)

Advantages

+Above average human reflexes

+Considering he sustained less internal damage from Octopus Claw Man than pre-training Saitama, his organ durability could be pushed to small building level as a high end

+King Engine allows him to intimidate most of his enemies into surrendering

+His large frame and scar adds to his intimidation factor 

+Has experience in surviving multiple high-stress, dangerous situations 

+Absurd circumstantial luck

+Technically the only being to defeat Saitama canonically

+An ALPHA GAMER

Disadvantages 

-Can still be knocked out in spite of his organ durability 

-Can still lose against an experienced fighter 

-More likely to run away or surrender against a stronger opponent 

-His stalling and intimidation tactics are useless against someone who can easily see through his facade 

-If he has Probability Manipulation, it is outside of his consciuos control 

-Unironically plays NSFW anime dating sims

Suggested Opponents 

Otacon

Hal Emmerich is an otaku nerd the same way King is, though Otacon might have an even stronger obsession with anime as Metal Gear Ray was made specifically to recreate mecha anime in real life.

I don't think Metal Gear would be considered standard equipment for him, though Metal Gear MKII from MGS4 might be.

Otacon is far less capable in combat than King, though Otacon's tech might give him an edge. He would easily be intimidated by the King Engine, though may be able to figure him out if they draw things out.

Oliver

Oliver from Worm has the ability to gradually change his appearance over time based on what he views as attractive.

Like King, he has created an image of himself that is separate from his natural self.

He also us a "gamer", part of a proffessional MMORPG team.

He is also charismatic to a superhuman extent, which he can use to charm and manipulate others. However, if escalated to a physical confrontation King would win outright due to his superior size, durability, and reflexes.

Hercule

So this one probably came to mind for you as you were reading this, as King is effectively the Mr Satan of One Punch Man. He has survived similar events such as the Cell Games and being present for the fight with Buu, and befriends Buu the same way King befriends Saitama. 

Hercule's running gag of being perceived as the strongest man on Earth is more of a result of his celebrity status rather than any sort of ability, though he does have superhuman physicality as he drug and punched through busses and took hits from Trunks, Goten, and 18, who still hit harder than most competitors of the Tenkaichi Budokai even when pulling their punches, judging by their casual hits against the Punching Machine. 

However, this is one of the cases where the win condition matters, as the King Engine would likely work on Hercule.

Poco Loco

Poco Loco is a Stand User from the Steel Ball Run universe of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Stand users have a connection to the spiritual and can manifest psychic energy, though his Stand, Hey Ya, only has the power of positive reinforcement. It let him overcome in unlikely situations, and is metatextually lucky similar to King. 

Hey Ya allowed him to win the Steel Ball Run, an intercontinental horse race, simply by encouraging Poco and giving him confidence. 

Doug

So this is a bit of a weird one, but Doug is a sort of nerd archetypal character with a superhero persona.                  

In a hilarious coincidence, Doug won a fight against a school bully in one hit, which earned him the nickname "One-Punch".

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Well thank you for reading, that's all I have for you today. My name is Hero's Shade and it was my absolute pleasure to show you what I hope was a unique analysis. See you next time!