When I first learned on New Year’s Eve that MF DOOM had died at age 49 (and had in fact died on Oct. 31), my first response was disbelief. Not in a figurative, “I can’t believe he’s really gone” way, but in the literal sense that I couldn’t completely believe he was really gone. MF DOOM was hip-hop’s greatest supervillain, a virtuoso of mystery and subterfuge: What would be more diabolically DOOM than faking his own death? Even now, days later, part of me holds on to hope that somewhere there’s an empty casket, a missing mask, another improbable comeback on the way.