4 DOOM pays tribute to the career of legendary rapper MF DOOM, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Marvel Comics villain Doctor Doom.

Born in 1971 in London, Daniel Dumile moved to the United States as a child, where he and his brother began their music career with the group K.M.D. However, in 1993, the unexpected death of his brother and the label's refusal to address racial injustice as a theme for their next album led to the group's demise.

The artist went five years without releasing music in order to recover from the "wounds" caused by the music industry's rejection. His inner rebellion inspired him to create a persona - MF DOOM - inspired by the Marvel Comics character Doctor Doom. Both use a mask to disguise their identity and their personal traumas. The parallelism between their artistic identity and that of the villain results from the social exclusion of both, from which they seek revenge. In this sense, MF DOOM's art manifests itself as a weapon that exposes the dark side of society.

MF DOOM's connection to Marvel Comics is intrinsic by the way the rapper uses samples from specific episodes of the Spider Man and Fantastic Four series. These songs are prevalent on the albums Operation Doomsday, The Prof Meets the Supervillain, Vaudeville Villain, MM...FOOD,
Key to the Cuffs and Born like this. In addition  the influence of Marvel Comics stories, the very aesthetics and graphics of the cartooning had a great impact on the creation of the artist's identity.

"The way comics are written shows you the duality of things, how the bad guy ain't really a bad guy if you look at it from his perspective. Through that style of writing, I was kinda like, if I flip that into hip-hop, that's something n***as ain't done yet," (...) "I was looking for an angle that would be brand new. That's when I came up with the character and worked out the kinks - that's the villain."
(MF DOOM interview with The Wire, 2003)

In short, this special issue celebrates the union between past and present, between the Marvel Comics universe created in 1939 and the songs of MF DOOM, where the connection of hip-hop to comics has revolutionized the way the rapper tells his story, becoming an extension of the Doctor Doom character.