FILE 38: EGGHEAD

Chapter One: Professor Elihas Starr

Much of the life of Professor Elihas Starr, the man who would become Egghead, is of little consequence to this profile; for many years, he remained an upstanding citizen and an accomplished scientist, specialising in the field of nuclear physics. We know that he had a niece, Patricia Starr - also known variously as Trish or Trixie - and that he was a kind and gentle uncle who used to bounce her on his knee when he visited. He had been born in the district of Queens in New York, and physically, he was unremarkable, being of average height and somewhat portly build; his head however was a distinctive egg-shape, and this fact coupled with his high intelligence, inevitably earned him the nickname Egghead. Spectacles further contributed to his academic appearance. He seems to have gone bald early on in life, and if so he may well have been bullied for it, a factor that might have contributed to his later fall from grace. He was certainly accomplished in his field, thus gaining the title Professor, and eventually went on to a career developing atomic weapons for the United States Military, which indicates that he must have been considered trustworthy.

But as he grew older, Egghead's personality changed. Intelligence bred arrogance and a lifetime of loneliness and constant ridicule of his appearance ultimately led to anger, which grew and festered within him like a cancer. He began to consider himself to be superior to others and eventually chose to use crime in order to gain financial advantage. He decided to start selling US atomic secrets to the highest foreign bidder. Egghead was sufficiently intelligent not to leave clues, but even so his employers became suspicious. They knew what he was doing and decided to confront him. By now, the arrogant scientist had little regard for anyone beside himself and scoffed at the accusations, knowing that the military could not prove anything. However, although this was true, they considered him a security risk and decided to play safe; Egghead was fired. For Professor Elihas Starr, this was the first step along a dark path to becoming one of his era's most dangerous (though underrated) criminal masterminds...

Chapter 2: Ant-Man

Egghead's dismal from the service of the military seems to have been made public, since the day after he was fired in Washington DC, news had reached a group of small-time hoods in the New York underworld. A new hero called Ant-Man, a man who would prove to be a recurring thorn in Egghead's side, was currently routing their gang's operations. Although America had seen Super-Heroes in the past, the recent formation of the legendary Fantastic Four had heralded a new age of Marvels like never before. As yet, only a few had appeared, but many more were about to follow, and Ant-Man was one of the first. Ant-Man was Doctor Henry "Hank" Pym, a biochemist of some renown who had recently discovered a new type of particle, which he had named after himself. These Pym particles were possessed of the ability to shrink matter. Pym had used these particles to shrink himself down to the size of an Ant, and decided to sue this unlikely power in order to fight crime. As well as having the ability to shrink, Pym had decided to further capitalise on his new alias and thus he created a cybernetic helmet that allowed him to communicate with ants. With hordes of ants to help him, this diminutive hero was causing chaos in the New York crime-scene.

Egghead was now approached to find a way to stop Pym. He was keen to do this for two reasons; firstly the thought of demonstrating his superior intellect appealed to his vanity, and secondly he was being paid $10,000 in advance, with more to follow when his plan was completed. It is interesting to speculate at this point just how well off Egghead was at this time. His job as a scientist for the Government seems to have been well paid, since as we shall see, he would use a variety of pieces of exotic scientific apparatus early on in his criminal career, and we can further speculate that he was able to increase his own financial supplies through illicit means; certainly, I suspect that he had been indulging in the sale of Government secrets for some time before his superiors had realised what he was doing. However he had accumulated it, Starr had money and he now used it to set up a laboratory and set about the task of finding a way to deal with Ant-Man. He began by sitting back, smoking a pipe, and watching television; a surprising amount of news footage showing Ant-Man in action had accumulated and Egghead studied it with interest. He soon observed that Ant-Man's victories were nearly always achieved with the aid of his ants; thus, Egghead decided to hoist him with his own petard, and next began to study ants. It is of note that although Egghead's field was in atomic science, he seems to have been able to process information and learn about new areas of science with impressive speed. From reading a book entitled simply "All About Ants" to building a device that allowed him to communicate with them took mere days for Elihas, and he was soon approaching an ant-hill on the outskirts of New York with his device, which to a casual viewer looked like nothing more than a simple metal detector. Egghead's device converted sound waves into electronic signals that the ants could pick up via their antennae. Inserting the probe of the machine into the ant-hill, he then gave the insects the following, complex message:

"I am your friend...I have come to free you from the Ant-Man's rule"! Help me to capture him and then you shall be the masters and he the slave! Listen carefully to my instructions...tell the Ant-man that thieves are planning to steal the Wentworth necklace from the museum Thursday night! There will be lookouts posted to warn them of the police! Only the Ant-Man can get past the lookouts and capture the thieves red-handed! When the Ant-Man falls fro the bait, lead him to he museum... Have him enter through an open window where I shall be waiting for him... waiting with flypaper!!"

His message thus delivered, Egghead departed to enlist the aid of the gang who had hired him in preparing his trap. Not only was it to be set exactly as he had informed the ant colony, but the criminals fully intended to actually steal the Wentworth necklace into the bargain; not only would Ant-Man be dealt with, but they would also make a very handsome profit.

The following Thursday, all was prepared. Egghead and his cronies were inside the museum and whilst the gang members set about the task of stealing the necklace without tripping the alarms, Egghead went to wait for Ant-Man. Right on cue, a horde of ants soon arrived, along with Ant-Man who was riding on the lead ant. As soon as this ant climbed the wall of the museum and entered through the window, Egghead struck by using a pair of bellows to blow Pym off of the window sill and onto the fly-paper-lined box which Elihas had prepared earlier. He then leaned forward to gloat. But to Egghead's disbelief, Ant-Man was standing upright, free of the adhesive of the paper. He then greeted Egghead for the first time and activated springs in the soles of his boots, propelling himself out of the box. Quickly, Egghead ordered his companions to deal with the tiny hero, whilst he thought of an alternative strategy. However, this was easier said than done; one property of the Pym particles was that although Pym reduced in size when he shrank, he retained the strength he possessed at his normal size. He now snared his first attacker's wrist with a virtually unbreakable nylon lasso and proceeded to pull him about so that he knocked his fellows aside. By the time they had regained their balance he had hidden, and before they could find him again, they discovered a nasty surprise; a large group of ants were holding a huge sheet of flypaper above their heads, and they now dropped this, ensnaring the gangsters. The remaining crooks panicked, and fled. But outside another surprise was awaiting them; although one of their number had remained on guard at all times, the tyres of their car had been deflated, and the ignition key had been taken. Before they could ponder this mystery, sirens were heard, the police arrived, and they were taken into custody.

From the bushes nearby, Egghead watched in amazement as Ant-Man explained to the police how he had defeated his enemies. Ant-Man had known of Egghead's entire plot from just after he had contacted the ants. What Elihas had failed to realise was the ants were not Ant-Man's unwilling slaves, they were his friends; he had attempted to appeal to the baser emotions which motivated him, such as greed and vanity, little realising that lacked these dubious qualities. Pym had therefore decided to prepare for Egghead in advance, by coating his costume in an oily chemical to prevent it from adhering to the flypaper, and by preparing the large sheet of flypaper for the gangsters beforehand. Then, on arriving at the museum, he directed his ants to sabotage the car. Egghead listened in stunned amazement to this, scarcely believing that he could have been outwitted. His plans had failed miserably, and he now found himself suddenly in a distinctly unenviable situation; not only did the police want him, but he was undoubtedly wanted by the remaining members of the gang that had hired him, seeking to punish him for his failure. With his self-esteem and confidence badly damaged by this defeat, the stunned Egghead found himself unable to go home and was forced to hide in a dingy bowery flophouse. He blamed this humiliating defeat on Ant-Man, and as we shall see, he would soon seek revenge...

Chapter 3: Enter: the Wasp

For several months, Egghead remained in the flophouse. Then, one evening, two small-time criminals named "Twister" and "Ape", rushed into the flophouse in a state of panic. The group of which they were a part had just been captured and turned over to the police by Ant-Man, and his new partner in crime, the Wasp. On hearing the name of the man who had outwitted him, Egghead's reaction was electric; he seized Twister's arm and demanded to know what had happened. Twister's immediate reaction was to pull free, but as Egghead explained that too had been defeated by Ant-Man, he decided to listen. Egghead's pent up frustration and hatred was suddenly focusing his mind, and thoughts of revenge came to the fore. He had picked up on something that Twister had said to Ape when the pair had entered, and a plan was starting to form in his mind. But first he needed to be sure that it would work, and so he asked Twister to tell him everything he new about the Wasp...

The Wasp's real name was Janet van Dyne, the daughter of renowned scientist Vernon van Dyne, who had recently been killed by a member of the other-dimensional alien race known as the Kosmosians. Janet had recently met Pym before this tragedy had occurred, and she had telephoned him, hoping that he would help her to track down the alien and avenge her father. Ant-Man agreed, and had been so impressed with her that he had revealed his duel identity to her and offered to give her super-powers. She had accepted his offer, and he implanted cells beneath her shoulder blades and temples, which allowed her to grow insect-like wings and antennae. When at normal size, these wings were hidden beneath ridges of callous on her back and her antennae retracted, so that she physically appeared normal; however, when she used Ant-Man's Pym particles, she shrank to the size of a wasp and the wings and antennae emerged, allowing her to fly and to communicate with insects. She had Pym had succeeded in defeating the Kosmosian, and had entered a crime-fighting partnership. They were also falling in love. And as far as Egghead was concerned, this made her the equivalent of an Achilles' heel for Ant-Man. He intended to capture her and to use her as bait in a trap for Ant-Man. But first, he needed a trap with which to ensnare the Wasp herself.

Egghead's plan was elaborate but would prove to be effective. Firstly, he needed a disguise. Allowing his facial hair to grow, as well as the tufts of hair above his ears that he habitually shaved off, easily achieved this. Although most of his distinctive shaped head was still bald, the addition of a beard, moustache and side-fringe made quite a difference to his appearance, sufficient to provide the disguise he required. He then adopted the alias Professor Carl Striker, zoologist. He also began to set about creating a device to scramble the messages, which the local ants sent to Ant-Man, in the laboratory that Twister and Ape had set up for him (with presumably illegal funds) in the cellar of an abandoned New York building. Soon, he was ready to begin and arranged to give lectures on insects at various local Universities. He knew that Ant-Man would probably come along to listen, and that he would undoubtedly bring the Wasp along with him. After a number of such lectures, "Striker" was asked to give a lecture at the City Zoo, and to provide a display to accompany it. This was just the sort of chance Egghead had been waiting for; he would lure the Wasp to the display by giving it the theme of wasps and thus appealing to her vanity.

As the time to strike neared, Twister suddenly questioned what he and Ape would stand to gain from helping Egghead, a question that Elihas had been expecting. He promised the pair that once Ant-Man was disposed of, he would personally mastermind a series of crimes that would make the trio "as rich as Croesus and completely safe from the police". And as a taste of what to come, he would show them how to obtain their first prize, which was the bait with which to trap the Wasp. This bait was the Middleton Diamond, which had been transferred to New York so that famous diamond cutter Anton Myers could place it into a pendant for the equally priceless Lady Elizabeth necklace. By stealing the entire necklace and placing it subtly in the wasp display at the zoo, Egghead was sure that the Wasp would spot it, and investigate. In order to give Twister and Ape the means to steal the necklace, "striker" now visited Anton Myers, fully equipped with scientific apparatus that was able to analyse and record the security system around the jewellery. On returning to his hidden laboratory, he presented Twister with his "electronic dewelding gun", a device that would allow the pair of felons to burn through the wires of the alarm system surrounding the necklace; the blueprint of this system he had obtained during his earlier visit to Myers' studio would allow them to carry out this task with ease. That night, Twister and Ape broke into Myers' studio and stole the Lady Elizabeth necklace, now containing the diamond. As soon as they returned to Egghead's laboratory, the malevolent scientist activated the device that he had constructed to scramble the signals, which he knew the local ants would be sending to Ant-Man; it worked perfectly. In his own laboratory, Dr Pym struggled to make out the message his ants were sending, but it was incomprehensible. He suddenly knew he was facing a clever and therefore dangerous foe. This was further confirmed when he and the Wasp learnt of the theft as it was announced on the radio, and hurried to the scene of the crime, only to discover that not a single clue remained.

Elsewhere, Egghead was delighted by Twister and Ape's success and now prepared to move on to the next phase of his plan, despite initial resistance from the pair, who objected to risking the necklace by using it as bait. Fortunately, Egghead convinced them that Ant-Man would track them down and reclaim it, unless they dealt with him first. Reluctantly, Twister agreed. The group then returned under cover of darkness to the exhibit at the Zoo, in order to prepare the trap for the Wasp. The plan was this; Egghead placed the Lady Elizabeth necklace inside a model of a wasp's nest, hoping that the Wasp would look inside and recognise it. To a casual observer, it would merely seem to be some random reflection, but the Wasp should be alert to the theft and realise what it was. Egghead had predicted that she would come the wasp exhibit alone, and that on seeing the necklace she would also act alone, shrinking down and flying into the nest to retrieve the jewels. The nest contained a sealed maze, in which she would then become trapped, and would be forced to signal Ant-Man. Sure enough, Janet van Dyne arrived at the exhibit the next day, intrigued by the display dedicated to the insects which she had named herself after. She soon spotted the necklace, and pondered what to do. At first, she toyed with telephoning the police and then Ant-Man, but as Egghead had predicted, she soon decided to seize her moment of glory and retrieve the necklace herself. Thus, she returned to the exhibit in costume that night, shrank down to wasp size, and entered the nest. Immediately, Egghead stepped from hiding, and sealed the tiny entrance, trapping her inside. He then ordered Twister and Ape to fetch the shoes that he had specially wired to prevent ants from crawling up the legs of the trio, and also ordered them to place an iguana in the glass aquarium tank over which he had constructed the model nest. All he had to do then, was wait for the Wasp to summon Ant-Man.

Egghead did not have long to wait. Soon realising that she was trapped, the Wasp used her antennae to summon Pym, who came rushing to her aid within minutes of receiving her signal, accompanied as usual by a horde of ants. When he arrived, Egghead, Twister and Ape were hidden, and so all Ant-Man saw was the wasp nest exhibit. Rather than merely reverting to full size and dismantling it, he decided instead to enter it himself, through an obvious opening in its top. Presumably, Pym took this option in order to ensure that he did not crush the nest's tiny prisoner. However, the opening he now used was not the same entrance through which Janet van Dyne had passed; as Ant-Man stepped inside, Egghead stepped from hiding, now wearing magnifying goggles with which to view his diminutive foe, and operated a lever which opened a shaft beneath Ant-Man, sending him cascading into the aquarium tank below. Triumphantly, Egghead now addressed his enemy, reintroducing himself. Immediately, everything fell into place for Pym, who had been wondering who had mastermind the theft of the necklace and had scrambled the signals that the ants had tried to send to him. Egghead now informed him that he must fight the iguana, using as a helpfully provided ant as his steed, and a hatpin as a lance. However, to Egghead's annoyance, Ant-Man defeated the reptile more swiftly than he had anticipated by stabbing it in a vulnerable spot. Despite his chagrin, Starr had provided for this eventuality and ordered Ape to open the door of a crate that he had brought along. Just then, Ant-Man used the springs in his boots to catapult himself upwards, shattering the glass tank with his helmet, and freeing himself. Just then, the Wasp suddenly reappeared, having managed to find a way out of the nest. But before either of them could act, the crate as opened and Egghead's secret weapon emerged; it was a giant anteater. The ants instantly panicked, but Egghead pulled a lever that caused a current to pass through a system of wires, which blocked every crack around the edge of the room, thus preventing the insects from escaping.

Egghead's triumph was short-lived; Ant-Man now pulled out his nylon lasso and snared the anteater's snout with it, stopping it from feeding and then using his normal-sized strength to hurl the luckless animal into Twister and Ape. As he did so, he ordered the Wasp to switch off the electric current. Yet Egghead had one further weapon, which he now deployed; he had armed himself and his two allies with liquid gas-filled guns and he now intended to freeze the pair of heroes to death. Now however, the Wasp struck again, picking up the pin that Ant-Man had used to fight the iguana, and using it like a sting, jabbing it viciously into the hands of Egghead and his men. Ape flinched backwards in shock, and fell through a glass window into a tank of snakes, of which he had a phobia; he froze in terror. Twister meanwhile, also fell and was knocked unconscious. With the two crooks apprehended and the necklace recovered, Ant-Man and the Wasp were delighted - until they realised that Egghead had escaped. Although they searched for him, he had sneaked away after being stabbed in the hand, and was gone. Back in his laboratory, the enraged Professor swore that he would strike again; this time, he would not slump into a depression and brood in some flophouse, he would learn from his mistakes and strike again. Very soon, he did so, but he needed to modify his approach. The problem of Henry Pym had suddenly got much bigger...

Chapter 4: Spider-Man

Following his second defeat by Ant-Man, Egghead would learn that Pym had undergone a significant change; he had discovered how to use his Pym particles to increase his size, and he was soon starting a new phase of his super-hero career in the new guise of Giant-Man. In a third attempt to defeat his enemy, Egghead would manipulate the wall-crawling super-hero known as Spider-Man into battling Giant-Man and the Wasp, but would again meet with defeat. At present, this chronicler does not have access to the document that records this event, and so for the present, we shall move on to Egghead's forth encounter with his arch-nemesis...

  Chapter 5: The Android

With his last defeat, Egghead had suffered more than a humiliating setback, he had for the first time undergone the indignity of imprisonment. After several weeks in jail, he was utterly consumed with a need for revenge greater than any had experienced thus far. He knew that he had to escape and destroy Giant-Man once and for all. It was easy for a man of Egghead's cunning to escape from prison, although we do not know the exact details of how this was accomplished. He knew that the police would soon seek him, and he considered it likely that he would be recaptured in a fairly short space of time; he may have been arrogant, but he was also pragmatic and knew not to underestimate the forces of law and order. With this in mind, he had devised a plan for dealing with Giant-Man before his release, and now merely needed to put it into action. Following his last encounter with Ant-Man and the Wasp at the city zoo, Egghead had established an emergency laboratory headquarters beneath the streets of New York, which he now accessed from the sewers. This laboratory housed the apparatus he required to create his latest invention, the Living-Cell Ray. This device, which he now swiftly assembled, was able to animate an artificial lifeless doll, allowing it to move and react to Egghead's mental commands. Satisfied that it worked on this toy, Starr now set out to obtain a larger subject on which to use his latest weapon. That night, Egghead broke into a deserted clothing store using his "Vibration Ray", which he had set to disrupt the mechanisms of locks; on entering, he readjusted the device to "weight reduction" and used it to steal a manikin, without having to exert himself. Soon, it was back at his laboratory and ready to be transformed into a weapon. Before subjecting it to the "Living Cell Ray", Egghead decided to modify both its appearance and its structure, by using a special clay-like compound of his own invention. He applied this compound to the manikin, giving it a more intimidating aspect, and then he bathed the figure in the beam of his ultra-beta beam, causing the compound to grow and thus make the homunculus a physical match for Giant-Man. Finally, he stepped into the beam alongside it, in order to ensure that it would obey his commands. This process was intensely painful, but so great was Egghead's hatred of Pym by now that he was willing to endure it. Soon, he was ready to begin his scheme in earnest.

Egghead acquired an abandoned warehouse on the docks and refitted it (with the aid of his android's prodigious strength), making sure that he could seal it and prevent Giant-Man from escaping once he was inside. He then put plans into motion with which to trap Pym, and he once again achieved this by appealing to the Wasp's vanity. Egghead wrote a letter to the pair of Super-Heroes, claiming to be a television producer who wanted to make a new series based on the pair's exploits and staring the heroes as themselves. As Egghead had expected, Hank Pym was reluctant, but Janet vanDyne was only too eager to achieve greater fame. Egghead's letter had stipulated that the duo should arrive at his studio as soon as possible, and thus Giant-Man's "converti-car" soon arrived at the foreboding warehouse. Pym was instantly suspicious, but such was the Wasp's excitement that she brushed his doubts aside and dragged him into the building. Even as the looked around the stark interior and realised that they had been duped, a heavy steel shutter slammed down over the entrance. They were trapped. In Egghead's laboratory, a light began to flash, indicating that his trap had been sprung. Hastily, he donned his Beta-Ray Mental Energy Transmitter helmet and connected with the android; so advanced was this process that he would now see, hear, and feel everything that robot felt, and be able to direct it as though it were his own body.

In the warehouse, Pym and van Dyne looked on in alarm as the huge android emerged from a doorway and approached. A distorted voice rang out, informing the pair that not only was the android equal to Giant-Man's maximum size, but also had far more abilities besides this. Noticing that his captives did not recognise his distorted voice, the gloating mastermind announced his identity, and ordered his android to attack. He also informed the pair that they had one hour in which to defeat his android; after that time, the air within the building would be exhausted. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence Pym grew to full size and swung a punch at the android. However, the android was incredibly light and as the blow connected, it literally left the floor and drifted away, causing Giant-Man to over-balance. But in doing so he had learned that the android weighed very little and concluded that it could hardly be a threat. Thus, he seized hold of it so that it could not float into the air again, and punched it a second time. To Egghead's delight, the sound his fist made when it hit the android was audible and sounded painful; Egghead smugly announced that he could control his android's weight (and presumably mass) and had now made it as hard as rock. The Wasp, concerned for hank's safety, suggested that they could escape if he were to shrink down to ant-size, but Pym refused to be beaten by Egghead, to Elihas' glee; although seeing Giant-Man flee from his creation would be gratifying, what he really wanted was for his foe to stay and receive a beating. Besides, the warehouse was airtight anyway. He then directed his golem to crush Giant-Man. However, he had forgotten the Wasp, who now unleashed her bioelectric sting into the android's crude face, causing an unpleasant twinge of pain to travel back to Egghead. Enraged, he caused the android to try and crush her between its large hands. By now, Giant-Man had stopped nursing his hand and was prepared to attack once more. Egghead made his android ultra-light again, then sent it diving into Pym's body, increasing its weight as he did so. Giant-Man was expecting this and had tensed his muscles in readiness, but even so Egghead knew that it must have hurt. Furthermore, by now lack of air was starting to take its toll on his increasingly out-of-breath enemies. When Giant-Man staggered to his feet and lunged at the android with his fists swinging, Elihas did not even consider the possibility that his opponent was trying to outsmart him, and made his android feather-light again. Unfortunately for Egghead, this was exactly what Pym had wanted.

Giant-Man suddenly seized the floating android's feet and began to whirl it around as fast as he could. Earlier, Egghead had let slip that he was seeing and hearing all that the android saw, and Giant-Man realised that if so, he could probably feel what the creature was feeling also. As we know, he was quite correct, and Egghead was suddenly learning the disadvantages of this; he was getting very, very dizzy. Giant-Man pointed out that Egghead could just hold on until the air ran out, but it would probably be a good five minutes before Giant-Man was out of breath enough to have to stop spinning the android. Alternatively, he would stop if Egghead would open the door. On the verge of blacking out, the Professor agreed. As the door opened, the two heroes rushed outside to drink in the air. As they did so, the android, now out of control, lurched out of the warehouse and staggered towards the edge of the docks, where it fell and was gone. Egghead had lost for a fourth time. He waited in his laboratory, miserable and resigned to being to found by the police for an undisclosed period of time, but at after a while, he began to relax. Although Giant-Man had defeated him yet again, he and the Wasp had not apparently come looking for him, and he was starting to realise that he probably was smart enough to remain at liberty by evading the police, after all. Soon, he set about making new plans.

Three attempts at revenge against Pym had met with failure, and had resulted in a stint in prison; Egghead finally decided not to tempt fate any further, at least for the time being. He decided for the first time that since he was now a criminal, he could capitalise on that fact by indulging in some truly illegal activities. As with many megalomaniacs, Egghead began to come to the realisation that he was uniquely qualified to hold a position of considerable power in the world and that he could use his intellect to achieve this goal. With his mind thus set upon world domination, Egghead set off northwards, along the way contacting super-powered lackeys who could aid him in obtaining the tools he would need. Soon, his plans began to approach completion, and when next we see Egghead, we shall see him gain for the first time a reputation as a major league criminal mastermind...

Chapter 6: Canada

Egghead's new plan was fiendishly simple and demonstrates a degree of ruthlessness which we have hitherto not seen; he would construct a nuclear bomb, aim it at the heart of New York city, and threaten to launch it unless the United States President agreed to surrender his position as Commander in Chief of the American military to Egghead. It is interesting that with his desire for revenge against Giant-Man temporarily on hold, Egghead should choose to immediately pursue such a path. We can assume that he would have turned his attention to such a grandiose concept as world domination sooner, had he not been distracted by his personal vendetta, and it clearly shows that his arrogance had become megalomania with considerable rapidity; it must have required an enormous level of conceit on his part to believe that he could succeed. This I feel really explains the depths of hatred we have seen Egghead display for Hank Pym; to have sufficient arrogance to believe that he was suited to rule a world and yet to be out-witted so easily by Ant-Man on their first encounter must have been a painful blow indeed. Regardless of such musings, all that matters is that Egghead was now ready to put this plan into action. Given the devices that we have seen Elihas invent, it comes as no surprise that he was capable of assembling a nuclear bomb. Whether he already had the parts necessary to build the weapon is unclear, but as Egghead set out for the Canadian border, he arranged procurement of the services of a group of American Super-Villains to provide security whilst he set up the missile. These costumed criminals were to meet him in Canada, were he would construct the missile.

Egghead had two major reasons for building his missile in Canada; firstly, he was still wanted by the American authorities, since as we have seen, he was an escaped prisoner. Secondly, Canada had an advantage over America in that Super-Heroes did not so heavily populate it. Save for the now-retired World War Two Super-Hero Major Mapleleaf, Canada had no famous Super-Heroes to speak of. The main American Super-Hero groups that worried Egghead were the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. The Fantastic Four were a quartet of friends and family who had been exposed to cosmic rays and had developed impressive powers. They had been the first of the new wave of so-called Marvels that had also included Ant-Man, and they would have been a formidable threat to Egghead's plans had he been based in the USA. The Avengers were a team composed of various heroes who had banded together to face threats to large for any one of them to combat, and they numbered Ant-Man and the Wasp amongst their founder members. Since neither of these groups had jurisdiction in Canada, Egghead knew that they would not be in any position to threaten him until he posed a larger menace, and by that time he would already hold New York hostage with the threat of nuclear holocaust. We should note at this stage that Egghead did not believe for one minute that the US President would agree to his outrageous demands, and he was expecting to destroy New York; thus, the next time he threatened a city he reasoned, would be when he would be taken seriously. Of course, there was the risk of interference by the Canadian military, should they discover his intentions before he was ready to launch his missile, but the super-powered flunkies he had hired should be more than capable of dealing with that.

Let us turn our attention then to these six lackeys; Egghead had seemingly contacted them whilst in America, and had asked them to rendezvous with him in Canada. The first of the six was the Porcupine, real name Alexander Gentry. He was an ex-weapons manufacturer who had designed his quill firing, armoured Porcupine battle-suit for the American Military, but had began to suspect that they would not pay him the suit's true value. He had kept it for himself and had used it to launch a career as a costumed criminal. He, like Egghead, had suffered several defeats at the hands of Ant-Man and the Wasp. The second of Egghead's contacts was the Eel. Leopold Stryke was an ex-aquarium curator who had grown bored with his life and had turned to crime. He had devised an insulated costume that could generate electric charges strong enough o stun or kill a human, and he had coated this costume with a greasy substance, which made him extremely difficult to hold onto. He had named himself the Eel and had embarked on his criminal career. Weak-willed and easily lead, Stryke was nevertheless reliable and thus made a perfect underling. These two had worked together recently for the European crime lord Count Luchino Nefaria [See file 13: Count Nefaria], and were the closest thing to friends that could be found in the Super-Villain community. They agreed to Egghead's offer of work, and set out for Canada. The next two super-villains Elihas contacted had also worked together recently for another criminal mastermind, in their case the notorious Red Skull [see file 7: The Red Skull]. They were Power Man and the Swordsman and they were particularly keen to take up Egghead's offer, simply because the thought of operating in a country lacking in Super-Heroes appealed to them enormously. Power Man's real name was Erik Josten, and he had been a professional mercenary who had loyally served Nazi war criminal Baron Heinrich Zemo [see file 4: Baron Zemo] until the Baron's death. Shortly after this, the Asgardian Goddess known as the Enchantress had subjected the willing Josten to ionic devices created by the scientific genius of the Baron, and had thus imbued him with super-human strength. The Swordsman was Frenchman Jacques Ducquesne; a career criminal who as his pseudonym suggested was an expert swordsman. The notorious Chinese potentate known only as the Mandarin [see file: The Mandarin] had given the Swordsman a sword with built-in technological devices in order to heighten his abilities, after he had hired him to infiltrate and betray the Avengers. Both the Swordsman and Power Man had met defeat at the hands of the Avengers. The fifth super-villain Egghead contacted was the Rhino (real name unknown), who had been recruited by an enigmatic group of criminal scientists for them to use as a guinea pig in their experiments, which were designed to create a super-powered agent to work for them. The man who had become the Rhino was already strong and was also of limited intelligence; his strength was further increased by a series of injections and modifications, and the final touch was a molecular adhesive, which was bonded to his skin. This adhesive was virtually indestructible, and once applied resembled the skin of a rhinoceros, especially after the addition of large and small horns to the Rhino's forehead. Following this transformation, the Rhino had rebelled against his creators and had gone on a rampage, before being stopped by Spider-Man. Following this defeat, his rhino skin had been removed, but he had now had it replaced and was back to his previous strength levels. He agreed to work for Egghead, and made his way North also. Egghead's final lackey was Solarr, real name Silas King. King was an ex-narcotics smuggler who had become stranded in the Mojave Desert during a drugs run. he had managed to reach civilisation, but the exposure to the relentless heat of the sun had triggered latent mutant powers within him. This had granted King the ability to absorb, store and manipulate energy from sunlight. Taking on the guise of Solarr, he had set out to forge a career as a super-villain, but had met with initial defeat at the hands of Captain America. He now hoped to find success as a hireling of Egghead's.

These six then were the lackeys hired by Professor Elihas Starr to protect him whilst he accomplished his blackmail attempt. They were to meet Egghead at his Canadian house. We do not know how Egghead came to possess this house; it may be that he had already owned it, and indeed as we have seen, there is evidence that he had access to accumulated wealth at this time. However, given that he takes on new staff when he arrives, it might also be the case that he used his money to buy this residence in order to provide a base for his operations; since the advantages of basing himself in Canada have already been discussed and are convincing, I suggest that this latter scenario is correct. Either way, Egghead soon arrived at his house, where he set to work building his bomb. Exactly how he obtained fissionable material is unclear; it is possible that his six underlings obtained the materials required on their way to meet him, but the bomb seems to be ready when they arrive. And although Egghead was now entering the world of terrorism, he had never attempted such activities beforehand, so it seems unlikely that he had the underworld connections available to some criminal masterminds. I hypothesise that he used contacts from his days working for the United States Army to obtain the apparatus he needed. But again, this is an almost trivial detail, since all that matters is that soon his bomb was ready, and the Rhino, the Porcupine, the Eel, Power Man, the Swordsman and Solarr had arrived. He was ready to begin. The following day, Egghead entered the big leagues, as he broadcast his demands to the world. He had set up his nuclear missile in full view of the camera he was using to address his audience, and had ensured that some of his super-villainous hirelings were visible also. As he had intended, he demanded that the President of the USA surrendered his role as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces to him, and promised that if this did not happen within an hour of the broadcast, he would fire his missile into New York city. He also made plain that a similar fate would befall the city if the Avengers or the Fantastic Four attempted to interfere. Knowing that he would be denied, he would then destroy the city and target another, repeating his demands. His plan was audacious, but might have been effective was it not for one totally unexpected factor entering the equation; he had failed to allow for Alpha Flight.

Alpha Flight was Canada's first and only super-hero team, which was currently in the early stages of development. One Dr. James MacDonald Hudson had recently set it up, with the backing of the Canadian Government's shady Department H, which he had likewise been instrumental in establishing. At present, Alpha Flight was nothing but a loose collection of candidates who would be trained and forged into a team proper. However, when Egghead broadcast his demands to the world, they knew that they had no choice but to intervene and so set out to stop Egghead. These then, were the group that were soon confronting Egghead and his minions; Wolverine was acting as field leader, and had been training the team. Wolverine, whose only known real name was Logan, was a mutant gifted with a healing factor that could cure virtually any injury, and also with three retractable bone claws in each forearm. Logan had been discovered, naked and feral, in the Canadian woods by MacDonald Hudson, whom along with his wife Heather had taken him in and gradually coaxed him back to humanity. At some point, he had been subjected to Canada's Weapon X programme, which had been designed to turn people into killing machines. During this time, the indestructible metal adamantium had been bonded to his skeleton, which had rendered it unbreakable and had also boosted his healing factor to even greater levels. The second member present was Snowbird. Her real name was Narya, although she used the aliases Anne McKenzie, and she was the daughter of the Inuit goddess Nelvanna and a mortal man named Richard Easton. She was a mystical being and could adopt the form of various animals of the cold north, taking on not only their appearances, but also their attributes and hungers and needs. Next was Saint Elmo, the Keeper of the Northern Lights, an other-dimensional Demi-God who had spent millenia on Earth, worshipped by the peoples of the Arctic Circle. He possessed the powers of transillumination, and therefore could temporarily transform solid objects into light. Another member was Smart Alec, real name Alec Thorne, allegedly the cleverest man in Canada. An arrogant and vain individual, he was of the opinion that he was in fact the cleverest man in the world. Next was Stitch (real name Jodi), a young mentally disturbed mutant who had the mutant ability to mentally control small pieces of metal with amazing precision. Her code-name derived from the fact that she had a disturbing tendency to mutilate herself by threading a needle and thread through her own skin. The final member sent to stop Egghead and his allies was Groundhog. Groundhog was Detective Sean Benard, a police officer that had been drafted into Alpha Flight against his will after his superiors had covered up the deaths of several rogue police officers that Benard had executed. He had been given an armoured exoskeleton which possessed large claws for digging, and which of course enhanced his physical strength. This then, was the team that now hurried to stop Egghead from launching his missile.

As soon as they arrived, Wolverine barked orders to the group. He sent Groundhog and Smart Alec to deal with the missile whilst he and the others fought Egghead's super-powered underlings. He tackled the Rhino, who quickly discovered that adamantium claws could slash through even his thick hide. Fortunately for the Rhino, Power Man stepped in and began to pile blow after blow onto Logan. Nearby, the Porcupine had released a cloud of nerve gas from his armour, which was incapacitating Saint Elmo. Whilst the Avatar of the Northern Lights coughed and spluttered, Gentry quickly ordered the shaken Rhino to go and protect the missile. Soon, he was battling Groundhog, whilst Smart Alec climbed the gantry and began to examine the bomb. Meanwhile, Wolverine was feeling uneasy. The takedown was taking far too long, and Egghead was nowhere in sight; they were fighting the brawn, but not the brain. Having freed himself from Power Man, he quickly slashed a swath of destruction across the Porcupine's armour, allowing the over-confident Saint Elmo to back off and fight Solarr, who had been attacking him whilst he was immobilised by the nerve gas. Over at the missile, Groundhog's exoskeleton had been taking a pounding from the Rhino. Fortunately, he was soon rescued by Stitch, who had used her power over pieces of metal to seize control of the Swordsman's blade and had forced him to knockout the Rhino with it. Groundhog then easily felled the Swordsman, and the battle was over. Soon, Alpha Flight had restrained the Swordsman, the Rhino and the Porcupine, and was confronting the newly captured Egghead. It seems that Solarr, the Eel and Power Man had escaped, although they could have been tied up nearby. However, they are not seen or referred to again, so I hypothesise that they fled.

As Wolverine approached Professor Elihas Starr, Smart Alec alerted them to a problem; he had disabled the missile's guidance systems, but someone had activated the nuclear bomb's detonation sequence; New York City was safe, but Alpha Flight and the surrounding area were not. Wolverine realised immediately that Egghead had activated the bomb, and Elihas smugly confirmed it, announcing that he was just as willing to accept the price of defeat as he was of victory. It is interesting I think that here we see Egghead willing to sacrifice his life to go out in a blaze of glory and I suggest that it is because he could not face the thought of a second term in prison. I suspect also that, having only recently graduated to international terrorism, Egghead was high on adrenaline and was caught up in the moment. Whatever the reason, not before or since do we see such suicidal behaviour from Egghead. Wolverine was running out of options; Smart Alec had the technical knowledge to diffuse the bomb, but was cracking under the pressure of the situation and could not think straight. With his uncontrollable animalistic rage building to berserker levels, Wolverine extended his claws, grabbed Egghead and threatened to start cutting if he did not deactivate the bomb. Elihas was unconcerned by this threat; he knew enough of heroes to know that they did not torture their prisoners, however serious the situation was. But Wolverine was not a hero yet:

"Being a good guy is a hobby, an experiment! I'm a killer, pure and simple! It's what I do best! An if I think I'm out of options, I'll gut you were you stand!"

Facing nuclear annihilation was one thing, but being sliced up by Wolverine's claws was quite another; Egghead baulked in terror. Yet although I suspect that Logan's threat would have worked, he was prevented from carrying it out by Snowbird, who knew only too well the dangers of surrendering the animal side. She risked this every time she assumed an animals shape, and it always threatened to engulf her. Despite their lack of options, Wolverine agreed and let go of Egghead.

By now, Alpha Flight was in serious trouble; with Wolverine's threat diffused by Narya, Egghead was once more refusing to stop the explosion. The group's last hope was that Groundhog could excavate a bunker deep enough to protect them from a ground-zero nuclear blast, which meant that they had no chance. Then, at the last moment, they were saved by an unexpected sacrifice. Saint Elmo was standing next to the missile with his hands around it, and was transforming its energy and substance into light, which he safely released. There was just one problem; so great was the amount of energy that he was transforming that his body would not be able to cope with it. Saint Elmo was saving his friends and teammates, but at the cost of his own long life. As they watched, light poured from Saint Elmo, and a single tear escaped down his cheek as he bid goodbye to his comrades. Then his shape was obscured by the blinding release of light and he was no more. In front of Egghead and Alpha Flight, the missile suddenly dissipated in a coruscating flash that lit up the sky for miles around and the Northern Lights shone brighter than ever before. Alpha Flight had successfully completed its first mission, but at a terrible cost.

Over the next few months, Alpha Flight would change and develop, before the final roster was decided on and the team made itself known to the world. Our association with the group is now at an end however, as we take our leave of Canada. With his plan foiled, Egghead was tried and returned to jail, presumably in America. There he would remain for some time, occupying himself by studying Shakespeare. Soon however, his thoughts turned once more to escape, and further plans for world domination. Despite his defeat by Alpha Flight, Egghead was still bent on this, and was about to threaten the world anew with an even more ambitious project. In order to carry this out, he would require not lackeys, but allies. This would lead to an association with two of the most notorious villains of the late twentieth century...

Chapter 7: The Thinker and the Puppet Master

We do not know how Egghead escaped from prison, but what we do know is that he not only escaped, but he was soon in a position to prepare a second attempt at world conquest through extortion and terrorism. The scope of this second scheme was much more impressive than the first and was better thought-out; whereas he would have needed at least two nuclear bombs to successfully carry out the plan that Alpha Flight had derailed, this plan involved a weapon that Egghead could use again and again. His plan was use his technology to blanket America with rays that would inhibit all electrical devices within their field, until such time as the rays were switched off. He would use this effect to announce his capabilities, thus demonstrating his power before making his demands. In order to carry out this audacious plan, Egghead would require the simultaneous activation of the energy field from three separate locations, in order to blanket a significant area of America. This would require not only three highly advanced technological bases, but also a pair of allies. The allies he chose were two of the most notorious criminal masterminds in America at that time, and both pitted themselves against the legendary Fantastic Four on several occasions. They were the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master.

The Mad Thinker (who preferred to be called the Thinker, but had been given the prefix by the press), whose real name is not in any available records, was gifted with a computer-like brain that allowed him both the duplicate the scientific achievements of others and also to predict events with one hundred percent accuracy. He had chosen to use his talents for criminal gain, but had repeatedly been defeated thanks to the incalculable "X" factor, an element of uncertainty introduced by irrational and unpredictable human behaviour. His first such defeat had come at the hands of the Fantastic Four, following many years of criminal enterprise, which had gone undetected. He had thus managed to stockpile copious amounts of money, which he channelled back into providing resources to further his ends. He was also a genius in the field of robotics. With this intellect, and his skills and resources, he would make a valuable ally. The second ally Egghead sought was the Puppet Master, who had often team-up with the Thinker in the past. His real name was Philip Masters and he had clashed repeatedly with the Fantastic Four as a result of his stepdaughter Alicia's ongoing relationship with Benjamin J. Grimm, alias Fantastic Four member the Thing. Masters hailed from the tiny Balkan nation of Transia, where he had discovered unusual irradiated clay, which enabled him to control the mind of whoever's likeness he shaped it into. The clay's unique properties were a result of the location from which it came, which was Wundagore Mountain, resting place of the ancient God Cthon. It was Cthonic chaos energy that had empowered the clay, although the Puppet Master attributed its properties to its radioactivity. Egghead thus approached these two criminal masterminds.

The details of what happened next are unclear. We do not know exactly how Egghead contacted the Thinker and the Puppet Master, but clearly he did, and he convinced them to aid him in his scheme; they too felt that they were suited to rule. With the partnership cemented, the next stage was for the group to construct the apparatus that they would need. It appears to me that it was decided that each member of the trio would establish one of three bases needed to carry out the plan; this would explain the differences in design the bases used, and in any case it seems unlikely that the villains trusted each other. I suspect that by each contributing one such headquarters, they would each be contributing to the plan as a whole, whilst nevertheless retaining individual power bases. This makes even more sense when we consider the fact that the group also set-up a low-key headquarters on Coney Island, which they apparently used as a rendezvous point. The Thinker's base was inside a volcanic island in the Pacific and the Puppet Master's was in the Caribbean. We can assume, given the lack of human labour seen, that the Thinker's base was probably constructed using android labour. The Puppet Master's must also have been thus constructed, given his inability to control more than one person at a time. Egghead's base was perhaps the most advanced and was certainly the most ambitious; it was space station in geo-stationary orbit above America. We do not know how he financed its construction, or how he got the necessary parts into space, but we can speculate based on what we already know. We have seen evidence that Egghead had access to considerable financial resources, and whatever their source we know, as we shall see later, that he would exhaust them with this current venture. I hypothesise that Elihas used this money to fund the building of a space shuttle and used this to transport the materials he needed into orbit. We have seen also, and see again here, that Egghead, like the Thinker, had considerable knowledge of robotics and I further hypothesise that he used these to build and operate his space station. Again, it does not really matter how he achieved his ends; he built a space station and from there controlled the entire operation. His allies' bases were located such that the trio could co-ordinately activate the energy-draining rays with which they intended to hold America hostage, achieving a large triangular area of cover. Soon, they were ready to begin.

On the eve of their great take-over scheme, the first problem arose. Their plans had attracted the attention of SHIELD. SHIELD (originally Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement Division), was a top-secret organisation set-up to combat terrorism. They were a far-reaching and efficient organisation headed by one Colonel Nicholas "Nick" Fury, a grizzled veteran of World War II from Brooklyn who had achieved fame during the war as leader of the crack squad known as the Howling Commandos, and had been kept young beyond his years by a serum known as the Infinity Formula. I suspect that SHIELD noticed the activities of Egghead and his partners whilst they were obtaining the equipment and supplies necessary for the construction of their headquarters, since this must have required a considerable movement of rare and expensive components. Fury decided to assign the Black Widow to the case. The Widow was Natasha Romanov, an ex-KGB agent who had defected to the west and had joined not only SHIELD, but also the Avengers. She was an expert hand-to-hand combatant and was trained to handle weapons just as efficiently. She was also equipped with a pair of wristbands containing retractable cords and another weapon known as the "Widow's sting". Soon, she was on the trail of the three masterminds.

The Black Widow had been sent out to the Caribbean, disguised as a "lady techno", where she had infiltrated the Puppet Master's base. Unfortunately, Masters had then captured her. Soon, Egghead, the Thinker and the Puppet Master, in their concealed rendezvous point in the Coney Island amusement park, held her prisoner. Their next concern was what to do about her. Inevitably, the Avengers would soon come looking for her and might well find her; the Puppet Master therefore suggested that they divert the attention of the Avengers by misdirection. Egghead decided to employ this ruse and set about creating an image of Nick Fury with which to contact the Avengers. Whilst in prison he had not only studied Shakespeare, but also how to intercept radio waves; hence, he intercepted a transmission from Fury to Avengers Mansion in Manhattan, blocked it, and then used his skills to edit the message to suit his needs. Soon, the Avengers received the doctored call. We have already briefly mentioned the origin of the Avengers, who had gone through several roster changes during their existence. Currently, they consisted of Hawkeye the Marksman, the Black Panther, Yellowjacket, the Vision and the Wasp. The Wasp we already know. Yellowjacket also we have seen previously, but in a different guise; Yellowjacket was the new alias of Doctor Henry Pym, although Egghead did not know this. As Yellowjacket, Pym had a new costume in yellow and black, a set of disrupter beams built into this costume, and the ability to fly without an ant to carry him. Once more, he had also taken to reducing his size, as he had done at the start of his Super-Hero career as Ant-Man. The Black Panther was T'Challa, the King of the African nation of Wakanda, and an unarmed combatant to rival Captain America. Additionally, he had enhanced senses and his speed, strength and reflexes were at the peak of human fitness thanks to a strange herb that grew only on Wakanda's sacred vibranium mound, a fallen asteroid composed entirely of that alien metal. The Vision was a synthezoid, an artificial humanoid created by the homicidal robot Ultron, which had itself been created by Pym. Originally, the Vision had been created to fight the Avengers, but had soon turned on its demented creator and had joined them. His ability to change his mass, across a spectrum from intangible to as dense as diamond, made him a useful and powerful member of the Avengers. Finally, Hawkeye was an ex-criminal named Clint Barton, although his comrades did not yet know his real name. As his nom-de-plume suggests he was an exert marksman with a bow and arrow, and had a variety of special arrows containing a range of weapons from flares, to explosives. During his short-lived criminal career, he had been the partner, and later lover, of the Black Widow and they were still close.

When the "Fury" contacted them, the Avengers had just returned form a mission and were in an effervescent mood, although this soon evaporated when they realised that he would only have contacted them in an emergency. Hawkeye was reluctant to listen to Nick, since he was angry with the real Fury for sending Natasha on her latest mission. His mood soured further when "Fury" explained that the Widow had vanished in the Caribbean; quickly, they boarded one of their quinjets, and set out for the Caribbean. This was exactly what Egghead had planned, since it would divert them away from the trio's current location, and the Puppet Master was confident that his base was now too well hidden for them to find. Everything had gone accordingly to plan, save for one thing of which Egghead was as yet unaware; Hawkeye had remained behind. Knowing how involved with Natasha Hawkeye still was, the Black Panther, who was acting chairman that month, had ordered him to remain. He had reluctantly agreed, and was thus at the mansion when he received another message. This one was from the Black Widow, who had escaped her bonds when Egghead, the Thinker and the Puppet Master had gone off to engineer their plan to divert the Avengers. She had then sought a communications console and had contacted the mansion, informing Hawkeye that she was in New York somewhere. Despite being partially deaf, Hawkeye could hear the sounds of the Coney Island amusement park in the background when he spoke to her and soon realised where she was; he prepared to go and rescue her. By the time that Egghead returned to her, she had returned to where he had left her and had managed to create the appearance that she was still tied.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye had just changed his alias from Hawkeye to Goliath. Recently, Pym had given up growing in size, as it was causing him to develop schizophrenia; it was for this reason that he had created the Yellowjacket identity. Hawkeye had decided to try Pym's serum, and had designed a new costume accordingly. Ingesting the potion, he grew to giant-size and set out for Coney Island. As soon as he set foot in the amusement park, he was detected by the masterminds' warning system. Egghead quickly examined the image, mistaking Goliath for his old foe Pym. Having been bested by Pym four times now, he was all too aware of how quickly the man could foil his plans, and the trio had thus prepared for this eventuality. The Mad Thinker had constructed a green humanoid android, which Egghead now subjected to a device of his own invention; this caused it to grow to a size that matched Golaith's, and it was soon confronting the Avenger above the theme park. With Goliath thus occupied, Egghead announced that their meeting was adjourned and the trio made a speedy exit, each setting out to return to their own headquarters, even the Puppet Master, who was presumably expecting the Avengers to have left by the time he returned there. They left the Black Widow, hoping that this would discourage their foe from trying to follow them. Because Egghead designed the android specifically to fight Giant-Man, he had programmed it to attack large moving objects; it was quickly locked in battle with Goliath, but ultimately the Avenger defeated it. The Black Widow was free and the Coney Island base lost, but it was of no consequence; finally, after months of preparation, they were ready to begin.

Since the group knew that the Black Widow had learned of their plans, it was fortunate that it was time to strike. The plan was to activate the energy-dampening blanket briefly and then announce to America that it would be repeated unless their demands (total capitulation to their rule) were met. Egghead would make the announcement from his orbiting base, by tapping into the nations TV and radio channels, and he would remain anonymous, in order to minimise the repercussions if anything went wrong. Soon enough, the energy-absorbing arc was projected across America, and for one minute no electrical or mechanical device within its range functioned. Egghead then announced to the USA that he would leave the entire country helpless unless they surrendered. He informed the nation that he would deliver his demands within an hour. But as fortune would have it, within that hour Egghead's plans would completely unravel. Ironically, it was first the Mad Thinker, and then the Puppet Master, who would meet with defeat and thus lose their essential headquarters.

The Mad Thinker had elected to use a slave in order to protect him; this slave was Toro. Toro was Thomas Raymond, the one-time partner of the World War II era hero known as the Human Torch. The Torch was an android created by one Professor Phineas T. Horton, and he had been built with the ability to generate intense flame, which could cover his body. He had used his power to fight crime and also the Nazis during the War. Toro was a mutant with similar powers, and the two had formed a close friendship. In 1955 the Torch had vanished, and Toro had retired and started a family. After many years, he had heard news of the Torch's return and death in battle with the Fantastic Four, who also had a member called the Human Torch (real name Johnny Storm). Unbeknownst to Toro, the Mad Thinker had been behind this, having discovered, reactivated and reprogrammed the Torch. On hearing the news of his old friend's death, Toro had travelled to his grave to say his final farewells. Whilst there Toro had been spotted by the Thinker, who had recognised him from a description given to him by the Torch. He had drugged Raymond and brought him to his base, where he had brainwashed him into believing that he was both the Human Torch and the Thinker's willing slave. Just around the time that Egghead's plan had started, Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, ruler of Atlantis, had noticed the volcanic activity from the Thinker's base and had investigated. Namor was a hybrid. His father was Leonard McKenzie, the Captain of a ship, and his mother was Princess Fen, a member of Homo mermanus, a marine offshoot of humanity who dwelt in the legendary city of Atlantis. Namor's hybrid nature gave him unique attributes. Although the Atlanteans were blue-skinned, he inherited his father's skin colour, but he had the strength borne of a race whose bodies could withstand the pressures of the ocean floor, and he shared their longevity. Also, he was an amphibian, equally able to survive on land or in the sea, although he needed frequent contact with water in order to maintain his super-human strength. Finally, unlike both of his parent races, he could fly thanks to tiny wings located on his ankles. Toro had attacked Namor on sight, to the surprise of the Sub-Mariner, who had been an ally of the Torch during the War. After fighting for a while, Namor had eventually discovered Toro's true identity, helped him to shake off the Thinker's control, and joined forces with him to stop the Thinker. In the process Toro was killed, but the Thinker's base was totally destroyed. One of Egghead's crucial contact points was cut off.

The Puppet Master's base also soon fell, in his case to Iron Man and Captain Marvel. Marvel's name was Mar-Vell and he was a member of the alien race known as the Kree. Mar-Vell had been a member of a recent expedition to earth, but once here Mar-Vell had shunned the warlike ways of his people and had become the super-hero Captain Marvel. Iron Man was another Avenger, secretly billionaire industrialist Anthony Stark. Stark had originally adopted the guise of Iron Man after a heart injury had forced him to wear the metal breastplate in order to keep him alive. He had then come up with idea of pretending that Iron Man was in actual fact his bodyguard, a ploy that had fooled most of the world. These two had teamed up and had defeated the Puppet Master. Bereft of allies, Egghead's plan was now in tatters. Consequently, America was not to yet hear his demands, nor to experience the energy-dampening field a second time. But Elihas still had his satellite and more than this he had a back-up plan; not fully trusting his comrades, Egghead had built more into his satellite than just the equipment needed to generate the arc, and he now put this into motion. More vicious and more devastating than his previous ploy, it was instead more along the lines of his gambit with the nuclear device that Alpha Flight had defeated. Once more, he had the power to destroy entire cities, and this time, he would demonstrate his capabilities before he made his demands.

Egghead's first move following his allies' defeat was to attempt to obtain flunkies to assist him in his plans. To this end, he now set out once more for Earth and was soon back in New York City. He then contacted a suitable candidate to aid him, in the unscrupulous form of one Barney Barton. Barton was a career criminal and had links to organised crime; he soon arrived at the warehouse where Egghead had asked to meet with him, accompanied by two of his men. Since Egghead was in haste, he quickly outlined his plans to Barton and explained that he had a space station in orbit above America. He offered to let Barton join him and accompany him to the station in exchange for a small fee. Barton refused, since he did not believe in the existence of Egghead's putative satellite and thought him to be deranged; he and his men took their leave. Starr however had other ideas; in his hurry to conclude his business he had revealed the coordinates of the station to Barton, and was not about to let him depart. As Barton and his two underlings approached their car, they heard an ominous noise behind them and turned to see what had caused it. They found themselves face to face with a vicious-looking humanoid robot, and as they started in surprise, it addressed them with Egghead's voice and informed them that they were going nowhere. The robot had been brought from Egghead's space station, where he had constructed several such automata, as alluded to earlier. They were built not only for construction, but also for defence, and after the first of Barton's men was smashed to death on the ground, the second fell before a hail of bullets fired from the robot's hands. When the smoke cleared however, Barton himself had vanished, having hidden himself underneath his car. Egghead was unconcerned, since he did not believe that the man would dare recount his tale after witnessing the fate of his two companions, and decided to abandon his search for assistants, instead returning to his orbital platform. It was time to begin. Unfortunately, Professor Elihas Starr had made one small miscalculation, for Barney Barton was the brother of Hawkeye.

Egghead was now ready to begin. He contacted the authorities of a small mid-western American city (history does not record its name) and informed them that it would shortly be destroyed. Whether they believed him or not is uncertain, but they could not take the risk and evacuated the city. A short time later, Egghead made good on his promise. When he had designed his space station, he had included a powerful laser beam into it that could target any location down on the planet. He now unleashed this laser and cut a swathe of destruction through the small city, razing it to the ground. Having made this ostentatious display of power, he contacted the American Government and promised further blasts in four hours time, unless the entire country capitulated to his demands. On this occasion, he introduced himself as Egghead, since the Black Widow must surely have reported in by now and thus there was no longer any point in attempting to remain anonymous. He then settled back to wait.

Back on Earth, the Avengers were desperately seeking a way to stop Egghead. They had soon discovered that his space station was cloaked from radar, telescope and all other means of detection at their disposal, and were running out of options. Just then, Hawkeye, still using the name Goliath, returned with the Black Widow and the group compared notes. They had all been filled on recent events when they received a visitor; it was Hawkeye's brother. Although it was clear to the Avengers that the new Goliath knew Barney Barton, they did not know how and Barney did not intend to tell them, presumably hoping that he could use this as a hold over the former Hawkeye. Certainly the Avengers knew of Barney, who seems to have been a fairly well known New York gangster, if not one to whom any charges would stick; Yellowjacket at one point refers to him as the head of "half the rackets in town". Despite the group's mistrust of Barney however, Goliath reluctantly acknowledged that they could not afford to pass up any information that might enable them to stop Egghead. Barton quickly recounted the details of his meeting with Egghead, and explained that even he could not sit back whilst someone held the entire USA hostage. The Avengers still did not trust him and Goliath believed that he was only helping them because of the threat to himself if Egghead threatened New York, but nevertheless they decided to agree to his terms if he did indeed know correct coordinates of Egghead's satellite. These terms were simple; Barney Barton wanted the credit if they captured Egghead.

The group who now set off into space to stop Egghead consisted of Goliath, Yellowjacket, the wasp, the Black Panther and the Vision. The Black Widow remained behind to report to Nick Fury, but Barney, who insisted in accompanying them, also joined them. By the time their vessel entered orbit and Egghead's base came in sight, they had one hour left before Elihas's deadline was reached. On arrival, the Avengers boarded the space station thanks to the Vision, who made himself intangible and passed into the structure, opening the space lock door and allowing his teammates to dock. As soon as they entered the station proper they were attacked by seven more of Egghead's robots and were quickly engaged in battle. Meanwhile Egghead himself had noticed their arrival on his monitors and decided to intervene. Never one to underestimate Pym, he had allowed for the fact that the Avengers might arrive, and he had earlier requested that the Puppet Master prepare puppets of the team for his own use. Masters had agreed and since puppets of both Goliath and Yellowjacket were provided, he must have sculpted them after the trio's earlier encounter with Hawkeye's new guise. Whilst the Puppet Master could only control one mind at a time with his puppets, Egghead had devised a means of simultaneously rendering all of the Avengers harmless by exposing the puppets to a paralysis ray that he had developed. Just as the last of his androids was overcome, he activated this ray and immobilised his enemies. And then, once again, Egghead met defeat on the very cusp of victory. He had allowed for the presence of the Avengers, but not Barney Barton. Since no puppet of Barton existed, the paralysis ray did not affect him. Rushing forward before Egghead could stop him, he disrupted the ray projector and freed the Avengers. As the ray exploded, Egghead saw his plans unravel yet again and with no other option available to him he fled. He was soon on board his escape shuttle, travelling back down to Earth. Back on the space station, the Avengers arrived at Egghead's control room and found the remains of the ray projector and, to Goliath's horror, the fatally injured Barney. As the grieving Avenger held his brother, Barney explained that he had wanted to play the hero just once. Clint assured him that he had, as Barney Barton found his final redemption.

With his plans once more in tatters and his funds virtually exhausted, all that was left for Egghead was revenge; that, and self-preservation. At some point he had discovered that the now late Barney Barton was the brother of the Avenger known as Hawkeye and he knew that Hawkeye would now come looking for him with rather more fervour than his fellow Avengers. Egghead realised that the only way to guarantee his safety was to have Hawkeye killed. To this end he once more contacted an old underling of his, in the form of the Swordsman. Egghead chose the Swordsman to carry out his task for two reasons. Firstly, he was an old acquaintance of Hawkeye's back from when the young Clint Barton (and his brother Barney) had joined the circus. The Swordsman had been Clint's mentor, but when he had tried to tempt him into a life of crime, Clint had refused and the Swordsman had never forgiven him. He hated him with a passion, and Egghead knew that he would be eager to take the job. Secondly, some months ago, the Swordsman had himself been an Avenger, having joined the group in order to betray them whilst in the employ of the Mandarin. Thus, he knew the layout of Avengers Mansion and how to get inside it. Intrigued by the anonymous offer that he received, Ducquesne soon arrived at the warehouse in which Egghead was now hiding, and listened to his former employer's proposal. The Swordsman had suspected for a while now that Hawkeye was Clint Barton and was delighted to have this confirmed. Exactly how Egghead had learned of the Barton brothers' past is unclear, but know he did, and he knew more than enough to hook the Swordsman; Ducquesne accepted the commission. Not only was he to kill Hawkeye however, he was to do Egghead a far greater service as well by capturing Giant-Man. He soon set out for Avengers' Mansion.

It did not take long for the Swordsman to penetrate the Avengers' stronghold. Whilst he had been a member, he had secretly obtained a device that could deactivate the mansion's alarms, and he used this to enter undetected. It was surprisingly easy for the Swordsman to tackle the assembled Avengers; as he stepped forward to greet them, he announced that he was there to face the new Goliath and also Hawkeye. At the sight of his old foe, Clint informed the Frenchman that he was both Hawkeye and Goliath, and was only too ready to fight the Swordsman. To the villain's surprise, Clint was so keen to fight him alone that when his team-mates moved towards the Swordsman, Goliath attacked them, determined to stop them interfering. Taking advantage of this, the Swordsman pitched in, and soon he was left fighting Goliath alone. Suddenly, the strain of being at an increased size for too long caught up with Barton, who began to stagger and shrink slightly. Pressing home his advantage, the Swordsman released a blast of energy from his technology-laden sword and felled his old foe. Swinging him over his shoulder, he departed to return to Egghead.

Elihas was dragging anxiously on a cigarette when the Swordsman returned, and was immediately puzzled when his agent explained that Giant-Man used to be Hawkeye, and was now called Goliath. Egghead had still not realised that Pym was now Yellowjacket and that the giant he had seen earlier at Coney Island had been not his old foe but Clint Barton. He moved forward to unmask Goliath, promising repercussions for the Swordsman if he had erred. But Ducquesne did not take kindly to threats, even veiled ones, and angrily struck his employer. Egghead's temper snapped, and what happened next comes as something of a surprise:

"You force me to take arms against a sea of troubles... and, by opposing......end them!"

Surprisingly, Egghead lashed out with devastating accuracy and felled the Swordsman with a single kick. As the enraged Swordsman prepared to slay Egghead with a blast from his sword, Egghead calmly produced a stun blaster from his garments and fired blast after blast at Ducquesne, forcing him back until he fell smashed through a window and fell towards the pavement below. It seems surprising that Egghead shows such proficiency at violence here and is even able to deal with the Swordsman, who had in the past fought four of the Avengers to a standstill. Clearly, he learned more than Shakespeare and how to intercept radio waves in prison; he also learned the skills needed for self-preservation and the confidence to use them. As we shall see later, he would not retain these assets for long.

Despite Egghead's triumph over the Swordsman however, he was about to meet with defeat. As the Swordsman fell, Goliath suddenly reared up behind him. Whilst Egghead had been occupied with Ducquesne, Clint Barton had been recovering and could now grow to Goliath-size once more. Against his giant foe, Egghead's stun blaster proved useless and a single flick of Barton's index finger stunned him into submission. Goliath then rescued the Swordsman and turned both men over to the authorities. He had not only defeated his oldest enemy, he had also brought to justice the man who had killed his brother. With this final defeat, Egghead had run out of back-up plans and was once more returned to prison. His grandest scheme to date had been foiled and with it gone, so was his reservoir of hidden resources. He was penniless and defeated. Soon tiring of prison, he escaped for a third time, and now set out to find ways of acquiring new sources of funding. Having suffered such a major setback, he became a shadow of the avuncular, Shakespeare-spouting mastermind we have seen in this chapter, and resorted to new depths in his quest for money. It was time for Professor Elihas Starr to make contact with his family...

Chapter 8: Trixie

Patricia Starr, also known as Trixie, was the niece of Professor Elihas Starr. Once long ago, he had bounced her on his knee and played with her as a child, but now he had a far more sinister intention for her. Trixie was a wealthy, highly intelligent girl who had been considered something of a child prodigy. Egghead intended to take both her money and her intelligence. On escaping from prison, Egghead made his way to his mobile laboratory, which was a camper van converted to suit his needs. We have never seen this before, but given that he seems to have been left destitute following his second failed attempt at world domination, I suggest that he had designed this some time ago, quite probably for the purpose of destroying Ant-Man. In this mobile laboratory he set out to find his niece, along with an assistant named Randall, of whom we know nothing. Trixie had left home some time ago, having grown tired of her parents and teachers trying to pressure her into using her intellect to secure a career of their choice. She had started travelling, and it was whilst on the road that her uncle located her. His laboratory contained sophisticated tracking devices and it did not take him long to find her; once he had done so, he lured her to his laboratory, which was parked in a junkyard, and ordered her to submit to his wishes. Egghead had designed apparatus that could drain Trixie's intelligence and add it to his own, thus (he believed) making him unstoppable. However, despite childhood memories of a kind and compassionate uncle, Trixie was all too aware of her Uncle's fall from grace, since his two attempts at takeover had involved broadcasts to America. She was reluctant to aid her uncle in whatever scheme he was fermenting this time, and refused to enter his laboratory when she arrived at the junkyard with him. And it was at that point that fate interceded in Trixie's favour as Egghead's arch-nemesis happened across the scene...

Despite still using the alias Yellowjacket for the most part, Hank Pym had recently been forced back into the guise of Ant-Man, and following a recent incident had been trapped at ant-size. Desperate to find help and return to his normal size, Pym was trying to return to New York, but was having difficulty since his diminutive stature increased the length of the already lengthy journey by a considerable factor. Now by chance, he arrived at the junkyard just as Egghead was trying to subdue his struggling niece, and immediately recognised the voice of his old foe. Despite his size, he knew from experience that he could defeat Elihas. Scurrying from his cover, Ant-Man yelled a couple of choice insults at his old foe, quickly drawing Egghead's attention. The Professor was surprised by Pym's presence, but not displeased; he ahd many old scores to settle. First however, he had a more immediate concern and despite Ant-Man's attempt to distract him, he was determined to deal first with Trixie. Nevertheless, Pym was just as determined to stop him, and ran in front of Egghead as he pursued his niece, drawing a handy piano wire across his path. The portly villain's rotund torso blocked his view of this and he did notice the makeshift tripwire until it was too late. Furious at this latest humiliation by Ant-Man, Egghead pulled a revolver from his jacket and fired repeatedly at Pym. After several shots, the exhausted Ant-Man had nowhere left to run and could only watch helplessly as Egghead placed the barrel of his gun mere inches from the fallen Avenger. Before the gloating Elihas could fire the killing shot however, everything went black for him as Trixie stepped up behind him and cracked a length of wood across the back of her murderous uncle's head. By the time he awoke, both Trixie and Pym had departed. He knew however that although they had fled, they were probably still in earshot; his head ached too much for him to pursue them at that time, but he was determined to kill Pym and capture Trixie. Angrily he yelled out at them and swore that his machines would find them.

For the next several hours, Egghead toiled away in his laboratory, carefully tuning his scanners to locate his niece and his old foe. During this time, the pair began to form a fast friendship and Trixie made a new Ant-Man costume for Pym. Soon enough however, their respite was at an end, as Egghead's devices located the pair. Whilst he continued to spy on them, a hatch in the outside wall of his laboratory opened and two squat and menacing robots glided forth. Very soon, they had reached Trixie and Pym. I hypothesised earlier that Egghead's mobile laboratory had been constructed some time ago in order to tackle Ant-Man, and the design of the robots supports this theory; whilst one of them extruded articulated metal tentacles and seized Trixie in its coils, the other extended a powerful suction tube, seemingly custom-made to deal with Ant-Man. This tube began to suck in air at a ferocious rate and Ant-Man found himself hurtling towards its maw. Fortunately, as he tumbled through the air, he was able to grab hold of a spoon that had also been caught up in the vortex and was able to wedge this across the mouth of the machine. Hanging onto it, he managed to pull himself around to the side of the robot, only to be knocked off of its metal carapace by a twig. Tumbling into the undergrowth, he was safe for the moment. Unwisely, Egghead chose this time to call off the robot since he now had Trixie and was eager to begin his brain-drain experiment. The robots retreated into the laboratory, which now drove out of the junkyard and away. As it passed him however, Ant-Man leapt up and seized hold of the bumper. He was then able to climb in through a convenient vent.

The vent through which Ant-Man had gained access to Egghead's mobile base was far too convenient; as soon as Pym was inside, the vent snapped shut and a hatch opened high in the opposite wall. As Pym looked on, Egghead's bespectacled eyes looked through. It is significant that the trap in which Pym now found himself seems to have been specifically designed to ensnare Ant-Man and it is this final piece of evidence that makes me believe that Egghead constructed the laboratory some time ago. In fact, given that the laboratory does not, insofar as we know, contain any weapons that would be of obvious benefit against Giant-Man, I speculate that Elihas constructed this vehicle after his second encounter with Pym, which was of course also his first encounter with the Wasp. With Pym trapped, Egghead now ordered Randall to operate a valve that would release a very special gas into Ant-Man's prison. He then closed the panel and went to deal with Trixie. The gas to which Pym was now exposed was an exact replica of the gas that Pym had used to make himself shrink and grow back when he had first clashed with Egghead. Since Pym was at ant-size, Egghead clearly expected him to grow, not realising that he was currently stuck at his tiny size. Pym realised that there must be method to Egghead's madness and used the metal nail that he had been using as a sword against one wall of the chamber. He then used his length of piano wire to connect his cybernetic helmet to the nail, and threw the helmet against the wall; he had deduced correctly, for as the circuit was completed, a devastating flash of electricity lit up the chamber. If Ant-Man had grown as Egghead intended, he would have been electrocuted.

As soon as the electric discharge registered on his control panel, Egghead returned to the trap and opened the chamber. All he saw was Ant-Man's helmet, which he decided to keep as a souvenir. Pym he deduced must have been reduced to ashes. This was exactly what Hank had hoped, when he had carefully hidden himself in a tiny nook behind the opening panel. He now slipped out through the still open door and made his way into Egghead's domain. As Egghead barked instructions at Randall, his intentions towards his niece soon became apparent, and since she was now unable to move, trapped beneath the ray that would soon empty her mind, he realised that he had to act fast if he was to save her. Thinking quickly, Ant-Man followed the cables from Egghead's device to the generator that powered the laboratory and hurriedly reconnected them. In the laboratory, Egghead had activated his "hypno-kon" and was beginning to painfully probe his niece's intellect. As soon as her sub-psyche was open he pressed the button that would activate the "ultimate brain-drain" - and his machines exploded in a shower of sparks. As Egghead's equipment began to burn in the ensuing chain-reaction, the horrified mastermind failed about in mindless anguish at this latest failure. Thus distracted, and with Randall concerned with his own escape, Egghead failed to notice Ant-Man releasing Trixie. Just in time the pair fled from the laboratory, as a powerful explosion ripped it apart. They were safe, and Egghead they assumed was dead.

They were wrong. Egghead gathered his wits about him in time to make his own escape. Penniless, and with his last headquarters destroyed and Randall either dead or gone, he was now at the lowest point of his life. Wanted by the police and defeated once more by the hated Henry Pym, he drifted aimlessly until he returned to New York and found himself once more in the Bowery Flophouse where he had stayed following his first defeat by Pym. Over the next few months his bitterness and resentment grew, until he was consumed by the desire for revenge. But not against Pym, since bitter experience had taught him that an encounter with Pym would almost certainly meet with defeat. Instead his embittered mind focused on Trixie and on what he saw as her betrayal by refusing to help him. Out of desperation, he telephoned her using his last dime, and begged her to send him some money that he might get himself established once more. By refusing him, Trixie compounded her "treachery" and sealed her fate in Egghead's eyes. He would now strike at his niece in an attack that is staggering in its coldness and viciousness, and this would once again lead to a further encounter with Henry Pym.

Chapter 9: Revenge

During the last year, Patricia Starr's wanderings had come to an end, and she had settled in New York to begin a career as a super-model. Now more commonly known as Trish, she had also started dating the millionaire playboy and super-hero known as Nighthawk. Nighthawk's real name was Kyle Richmond, and he was a member of the unofficial team known as the Defenders. The Defenders consisted of various super-powered individuals and individuals with other, more esoteric abilities, who had banded together to combat super-normal threats. Unlike the Avengers, they were neither Government sanctioned or publicly known, and several of them were beings whom the public at large were either oblivious to or did not trust. We shall discuss the Defenders in more detail later on, but for now it is sufficient to discuss the career of Nighthawk. After a spoiled childhood, the irresponsible Richmond inadvertently caused the near-fatal wounding of girlfriend Mindy Williams, Kyle had sought to join the army, hoping to find redemption by dying in action. However, he was soon discharged when it was discovered that he had a heart murmur. Following this, Richmond ingested an alchemical elixir in an attempt to cure his heart murmur, and found that as a result he had gained enhanced strength during periods in which he was sheltered from sunlight, for example during the night. He had used his newfound strength to launch a short-lived criminal career, but his essential morality had won out and he had turned to life as a super-hero. Currently, he could fly thanks to a jetpack that had been developed with funding from his personal fortune, and was also providing his teammates in the Defenders with the funding they required to operate.

Nighthawk had been dating Trish for a while now and the relationship had been well-publicised thanks to his status as a millionaire and her status as a super-model. It was widely suspected that the two would soon be married. The thought of his niece enjoying such good fortune and happiness whilst he sheltered in a Bowery flophouse amongst rabble made Egghead seethe with hatred. With her help, he could have been enjoying the finer things in life by now, but her refusal to help him had denied him this. But although Egghead was envious of Trish to the point of near-obsession, he did not want to kill her; instead he wanted her to live so that she could suffer just as he was. So it was that one night, Egghead ventured forth from the Bowery wrapped in his tattered garments, siphoned the petrol from the tank of Richmond's car and planted a bomb in the engine. He then retreated to a safe distance and settled down to watch. He had booby-trapped the vehicle whilst Kyle and Trish were on a date inside the Lincoln Centre for Performing Arts, and when they emerged they were surrounded by a horde of journalists. Thus, the world was watching as Kyle Richmond entered his car and turned the key in the ignition, and the car with him and Trish inside exploded. Both occupants were badly injured, but Kyle's enhanced physique allowed him to make a full recovery. Trish on the other hand was less fortunate - she survived, but the damage to her left arm was too great for it to be saved.

Maiming Trish had been Egghead's plan all along, and it was for this reason that he had drained the car of petrol, since he had calculated that the car's occupants should survive the explosion of the bomb, as long as the fuel did not explode. He was quite correct, but he would not have the chance to enjoy his victory for long. Returning to the flophouse in which he was staying, he soon found himself without a bed. Elihas had made a point of ensuring that the homeless scum in the flophouse knew that he was a genius, in order to prevent anyone from mistaking him for one of them; after all, when he was inevitably in command of the entire world, this human underclass would be abolished first. Egghead's arrogant sentiments did not unduly bother his fellow occupants, since whatever he thought of himself, it was a simple fact that he was staying in a slum and was thus no better than they were. They were used to his claims that he would one day rule the world and were amused by them, often mocking the egotistical Professor. The night of Trish's maiming however, he was feeling particularly bitter and when their ribbing became intolerable, Egghead snapped and struck one of his fellows with the back of his hand. This was a mistake, since his friends rallied round and gave him a beating just hard enough to make him realise his mistake. They then seized Egghead and ejected him from the flophouse, no longer willing to tolerate him. Humiliated and battered, the enraged Elihas yelled out in defiance:

"Swine!! You'll rue this night, I promise you! I am the greatest scientific intellect on the face of this planet! I swear I am! I...am...Egghead." But his pronouncement fell on deaf ears. Now, Egghead did not even have a bed for the night. And things were about to get even worse.

Henry Pym was back in New York, back to his usual size and back in the guise of Yellowjacket. He was relaxing at home with Janet van Dyne when he saw the news report of the explosion that had injured Nighthawk and Trish. Recognising Trixie, he knew exactly who had planted the bomb. A visit to Trish confirmed his suspicions. Trish told him of her uncle's telephone call from the Bowery and of her refusal to send him any money. Anguished at the horrible injury inflicted on the girl who had saved his life not long ago, he swore to find his old enemy and bring him to justice. For several hours, Yellowjacket searched the flophouses in the Bowery, but if anyone knew where Egghead was they would not tell the ex-Avenger, who was the equivalent of a police officer to the distrustful Bowery occupants. Then, as Pym rested on a rooftop, he spotted a figure on the street below, with a distinctive-shaped head. Fate had once more brought him to Egghead. He swooped down to the street to confront him. The sudden appearance of his nemesis was more than Elihas could bear; too cold, tired and scared to fight he desperately tried to justify his actions:

"I wanted her to lose her career - - her fortune - - her prestige - - as I have! But I never meant to kill her - - only maim her!"

Pym knew Egghead of old, but even he could not believe what he had just heard. Barely able to restrain himself, he delivered a single hard punch to his portly adversary's jaw. Not trusting himself to control his rage any further, he went to summon the police. Soon, Egghead was once more in custody. Nevertheless, he had succeeded in his revenge scheme. Trish had lost an arm, and also Nighthawk. Unable to marry him whilst thinking that he would pity her because of her lost arm, she broke off her relationship with him.

For a year, Egghead remained in jail. It had not taken long for him to be properly imprisoned, since he was still an escaped convict. As the months passed, he realised that he had been foolish to waste his time on a petty act of revenge, which had now robbed him of his freedom. Slowly, his resolve hardened and his confidence returned. Whatever his current circumstances, he was still a genius and was still destined to rule. Shaking off his bitterness, he now escaped once more, and began once more to formulate plans to seize control of the world. These plans would involve two old lackeys, a new and extremely dangerous agent, and would bring him into conflict with the Defenders.

Chapter 10: Egghead's Emissaries of Evil

On his escape from prison, Egghead's first requirement was a base. The orbital platform from which he had overseen the plan that he had formed with the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master had suited him well, and he decided to once more operate from a base in orbit above the earth. However, with his funds drained, he could not construct another satellite and instead decided to steal one off NASA. This proved to be a surprisingly simple operation, since NASA currently had a fully automated Space-Lab ready to be launched at their Florida launching base. Since this was to be launched unmanned, all Egghead needed to do was sneak onboard and remain there as it was positioned in orbit. Because the laboratory was designed to allow astronauts to board it, it had full life-support systems, even though as yet it was not supposed to be manned. Soon, Egghead was alone in space, with a fully equipped high-tech laboratory at his disposal. By transmitting false computer reports to NASA, Elihas had them convinced that the laboratory was behaving as it was designed to, and they were utterly oblivious to his presence on board. He now began to plan his next move. Egghead's long-term goal of world domination remained the same, and he also still had a burning desire to avenge his past defeats at the hands of Pym. Rather irrationally, he also sought revenge against the Defenders, whom he believed to have somehow aided Yellowjacket in finding him after he had maimed his niece. However, to achieve these goals, he would need resources; the laboratory was sufficient to meet his needs for now, but he would soon need money. He decided to obtain the Star of Capistan.

The Star of Capistan was the largest ruby in existence and had long been guarded by a secretive Pakistani religious cult led by one Omar Karindu. During the Bangladeshi war, the jewel had been removed from its traditional home to a small village outside London, England, where it had remained ever since. If Egghead could steal it, it would provide him with untold wealth when he sold it to the highest bidder. But Professor Starr could not steal it alone; he once more needed super-powered lackeys. Whilst on board the Space-Lab, Egghead had built a teleportation device. We do not know whether he had recently invented this technology, or whether he had used it previously; it is tempting to speculate that he had previously used transmat technology to travel to and from his previous orbital base rather than a shuttle. Using this technology, he now set about obtaining the help he needed. Approximately one month before Egghead put his plans to steal the gem into action, fortune had smiled upon the Professor, as he had discovered a most useful agent occupying the same orbit as his new base. This agent was Ralph Roberts, a.k.a. the Cobalt Man. Roberts had been an admirer of the Avenger Iron Man and had sought to emulate him, but when he had designed his own cobalt-powered suit of armour, he had been irradiated and driven insane. Most recently, he had fought the Defender known as the Hulk, and had been caught in a sub-orbital nuclear blast, which the Hulk believed to have killed him. Instead, he had been smashed into suspended animation and left orbiting the planet. Egghead had found and recovered the Cobalt Man and decided to use him as a secret weapon. For the actual theft however, he decided to employ two agents whom he had used once before - Solarr and the Rhino. Using the resources of the Space-Lab, he soon located these two and then using his teleportation technology, he snatched the pair of felons from their locations on earth. They agreed to work for him once more and Egghead was now ready to begin. To increase the efficiency of his chosen hirelings, Starr fitted Solarr with a device that enabled his powers to function during the night when the sun's rays no longer empowered him. He also gave his little group a name: the Emissaries of Evil. Two days before Egghead sent Solarr and the Rhino to steal the Star of Capistan, Omar Karindu moved the jewel from London to Greenwich Village in New York. Karindu was an old friend of Dr. Steven Strange, the founder of the Defenders, and Egghead deduced that Strange now possessed the gem. The scene was thus set for a confrontation between the Emissaries of Evil and the Defenders.

It is appropriate at this time to introduce the group of heroes who comprised the Defenders. Nighthawk we have met before. The aforementioned Doctor Strange was Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, and was thus the most powerful mystic on the planet. He had spent many years defending Earth from supernatural threats both from Earth and from other dimensions, for example the Dread Dormammu, Master of the Dark Dimension [see file 126: Dormammu]. Given the nature of his field of expertise, the sceptical public were kept largely unaware of his existence and those that did know of him considered him to be nothing more than a particularly gifted stage magician. The Hulk on the other hand was all too well known to the public. The Hulk was Dr. Bruce Banner, a scientific genius who had designed and built the Gamma bomb, a nuclear weapon of considerable destructive power. During the testing of the bomb, a young man named Rick Jones had driven onto the testing range as part of a bet, not realising the full danger. Horrified, Dr. Banner had driven out onto the range and had pushed the youth into a ditch. Banner himself however, had caught the periphery of the blast and had been bombarded with gamma rays. This had caused him to periodically transform into the Hulk, a green skinned behemoth who was possibly the strongest living being on earth. The exact nature of Banner's transformation would change over the years, but at this point in time it was triggered by rage, and it transformed him into a Hulk whose intellectual capacity was severely limited. The next Defender was Power Man, not to be confused by Egghead's one-time lackey Erik Josten, who had used the name first. Power Man's legal name was Luke Cage, although this was not his original name, and he had undergone a mutagenic enhancement of his body whilst serving a prison sentence for possession of heroin. In fact, an old friend who had betrayed him had framed Cage. The experiment to which he had been subjected had given him super-human strength, dense muscle and bone tissue, and steel-hard skin. He had been paroled after the experiment and had been carving a life for himself as a "street-level" super-hero and private investigator in New York. Finally, the Defenders also included the Valkeyrie amongst their number. She was Brunnhilda, an Asgardian goddess whose role in Asgard had been to select the fallen dead who were suitable for entry into Valhalla. Her fellow Asgardian (and old enemy of the of the Avengers) the Enchantress had trapped her mind and spirit in the body of mortal woman Barbara Noriss, and she was thus trapped on Earth with no knowledge of her past. She rode the mutated winged horse Aragorn and had the powers common to the Asgardians, such as great longevity and super-human strength. She was also a superb unarmed combatant and swordswoman. These then were the Defenders who Solarr and the Rhino now faced.

Egghead had located Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village, where he believed the Star of Capistan to now be located. Elihas then teleported his two agents to the street outside. When the arrived, the Defenders were inside; realising that it would be easier to fight them outside, Solarr now used his powers to engulf Nighthawk in flames, thereby attracting the group's attention. When the Defenders moved out of the house, save for Nighthawk who had been hurt by Solarr's attack, they found themselves face to face with a fiery giant. This was a new trick that Solarr had learnt since the last time we saw him, and it was basically an illusion that made him seem more threatening that he was. The giant form that encased him did not grant him any further powers, but had a psychological impact upon his foes. Whilst Strange and the Valkeyrie battled Solarr, the Hulk and Power Man fought the Rhino, whom the Hulk had already fought in the recent past before Egghead had recruited him. As the battle proceeded however, it soon became clear to Solarr that his demands for Strange to hand over the jewel were merely serving to confuse the magician - clearly, he did not have the Star of Capistan. With Solarr's fire giant illusion destroyed by Strange and their objective unattainable, he and the Rhino quickly realised that the battle, which was in any case starting to go against them, was futile. The pair activated the "Mento-transmitters" that Egghead had equipped them with and were transformed into balls of light, which streaked away to Egghead's orbiting base.

Arriving in the "molecular receiver" on board Egghead's procured Space-Lab, the Rhino and Solarr were greeted by a torrent of criticism from the Professor. Angry that they had been sent on a wild goose chase, the pair retorted that their failure had been the fault of their employer, since the jewel was not in Strange's possession as they had been told. This was a mistake:

"Contemplation of my own inadequacy is abhorrent to me! Therefore you must accept the full blame!"

Realising that they had made an error, Solarr and the Rhino desperately tried to retract their statement, but to no avail; suddenly, a beam of light stabbed down from above and they found themselves immobilised and in agony in Egghead's "Time Stasis Tube". They would remain there for the next ten hours, whilst Elihas planned his next move. Egghead refused to believe that he was wrong and deduced that the Star of Capistan was indeed in the possession of Dr. Strange and that since Solarr and the Rhino had failed, it was time to deploy his last Emissary of Evil. It was time to unleash the Cobalt Man.

Meanwhile, down on Earth events were occurring which might have pleased Egghead had he known of them; his predictions were coming true. Omar Karindu had finally contacted Doctor Strange and had summoned him to the luxurious sixth avenue hotel in which he was staying. Once there, he showed Stephen the Star of Capistan, and asked him for help in controlling it, for unbeknownst to Egghead, the Star was much more than a mere jewel - it was alive. Before Strange could raise a defence against the gem's powers, it reached out into his mind and the intelligence within it seized control. Dr. Strange now became the Red Rajah, the protector of the Star of Capistan. Meanwhile elsewhere, the Hulk was waiting for his fellow Defenders in the park outside the NYU Medical Centre in which Nighthawk's burns were being treated. Suddenly, the ground beneath him buckled and ruptured and a pair of armoured hands emerged; the Cobalt Man, beamed down to Earth by Egghead, had arrived. Although Ralph Roberts was not really evil, he had been extensively brainwashed by Egghead so that his one thought was to destroy the Defenders. As he attacked the Hulk, the other Defenders, including Nighthawk, emerged from the hospital and joined the battle. Despite his strength, the Cobalt Man was soon defeated by the group's combined attack and was sprawled unconscious on top of a nearby car. Egghead however had expected this and had a far more destructive purpose in mind for the Cobalt Man. Depressing a button on a control panel in his orbiting base, Egghead now triggered a delayed nuclear breakdown in the Cobalt Man's body. As the Defenders watched, the Cobalt Man began to glow, as he turned into a nuclear bomb...

From his orbiting base, Egghead watched in glee as he set in motion the nuclear annihilation of a large part of New York. It was particularly fortunate that Solarr's attack had made it necessary for Nighthawk to receive treatment, as this meant that the Cobalt Man had attacked them sufficiently far enough away from Greenwich Village for the Star of Capistan to survive the explosion. Solarr and the Rhino, their punishment at an end, also watched. Whether they were impressed or appalled by their leader's ruthlessness is unclear, but whatever their opinions, they undoubtedly feared further reprisals if they said the wrong thing again, and so they watched in silence. But Egghead's gloating was short-lived, as Nighthawk thought of a way to stop the impending atomic blast. He remembered that atomic piles were constructed underwater, since water slowed the neutrons passing between the atoms and thus keeping the reaction below critical mass unless required. Thinking quickly, he instructed the Hulk to pick up Roberts' comatose form and drop him into the Hudson. The plan worked, and the threat of nuclear annihilation was averted. Egghead was enraged, but had still had other plans. He ordered Solarr and the Rhino to travel to the hotel to which he had tracked Strange. His two Emissaries however were not so willing to obey him as they had been before. Ten hours in the time-stasis tube had caused rebellious thoughts to ferment in the minds of the pair, and it is also unlikely that they were impressed by Egghead's treatment of the Cobalt Man. However, Solarr's suggestion that they could kill Egghead and then escape did not unduly worry Elihas; he casually pointed out that the devices with which he had filled his base could destroy them both at a moment's notice, and before they could utter another word, he had teleported them both down to the hotel.

As soon as the two Emissaries of Evil arrived in the hotel, Egghead's plans went even further askew. The Red Rajah, who had sensed their intention to steal the Star of Capistan, attacked the pair. Solarr was soon taken out of the fight when the Rajah destroyed the amplifier that allowed his powers to function out of direct sunlight. As the explosion of the amplifier felled Silas King, the Rajah then turned his attention to the Rhino. Using the power of the Star to increase his mass, he easily met the Rhino's head-on charge and he too fell before the Red Rajah. Egghead however was unaware of this development and was now assuming that his agents must by that time have obtained the Star. From this he concluded that his only remaining problem was the continued existence of the Defenders. He suspected that his emissaries would have to kill Strange in order to obtain the gem, and knew that this would cause his fellow Defenders to seek revenge. It was therefore necessary to kill them. Since the Cobalt Man had failed, it was now down to him. Moving over to a special container, he opened the lid and removed the metal eggs nestled within. He was now ready to teleport down to Earth.

When Egghead materialised in the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Defenders, aided by Russian Tania Belinsky a.k.a. the Red Guardian, were tending to the Cobalt Man, who was still unconscious but remained atomically stable. Tania was a neurosurgeon in addition to being the current wearer of the Red Guardian mantle, which was the Soviet Union's equivalent to the legendary Captain America. She was currently in America because the Russian government wanted her. With the group thus distracted, the crafty Egghead was able to hunt them down one by one. His first victim was the Hulk, easily the most dangerous of the group. Because he knew that he could never hope to overcome the Hulk's strength, he instead decided to turn it against him. Approaching the lone Hulk in a corridor, he threw one of his eggs at the green-skinned behemoth, causing it to release a massive cloth bag on impact. So large was the bag and so soft was it, that the Hulk immediately became entangled and was unable to free himself. Egghead moved on to his next victim. This turned out to be the Valkeyrie, and as she challenged him, he threw the egg that he had prepared for her. As she batted it away with her sword, it sprang open and an electric charge passed up the blade of the sword, stunning her. More than that, she was now imprisoned in a field of her own Asgardian energy. Egghead it seemed had done his research well.

The next Defenders that Egghead found were Power Man and Nighthawk, who were talking when he entered the room. Sneaking up behind them, he tossed an egg at Nighthawk, entangling him in the steel cables that it released. Cage had not noticed this until he turned to see why Kyle had not responded to what he had just said. As he watched in surprise, Egghead approached, with an egg in his hand. Introducing himself he threw the egg at Luke - which broke and fell uselessly to the ground on contact with his skin. Egghead had made a dreadful mistake in underestimating Power Man. Suddenly overcome with panic he began to back away. To make matters worse, Kyle suddenly yelled to Cage that Egghead was the man who had maimed Trish Starr. Power Man had heard of this and was disgusted at the thought of someone blowing up his own niece just to teach her a lesson. As the grim-faced Defender approached him, Egghead desperately pulled out a laser gun, but his foe ducked the first blast and then snatched the weapon from his grasp. Now defenceless, Egghead was at Cage's mercy. Soon, he was bruised, bleeding, and terrified. The remorseless Power Man's sound beating soon knocked Egghead into the room containing the Cobalt Man and the Red Guardian. Thanks to powers of Doctor Strange's disciple Clea, Tania had been in telepathic communion with Roberts and had helped him to regain his sanity. He was now awake, and on his feet. Overcome with relief at the site of his lackey, Egghead begged him for help. To his horror, the Cobalt Man instead seized him and began to glow. He knew what Egghead had done to him and made him do and he wanted revenge. He would make certain that Egghead would never hurt anyone again. He would also ensure that the Cobalt Man could never again be used to threaten lives. Before the eyes of Power Man, the Red Guardian and Clea, the glow surrounding Egghead and the Cobalt Man grew increasingly brighter. When it faded, all that remained was ash. The Cobalt Man had destroyed himself in a contained nuclear explosion, and both he and Egghead were now dead. Or so it would seem...

Egghead had not died. At the last moment, he had managed to activate an experimental teleportation device in the harness he was wearing and escape. This appears to have been a different device to his Mento-transmitter, and rather than returning him to his Space-Lab, it transported him, seemingly at random, to New Jersey. So well had Egghead timed the devices use that it seemed to the watching Defenders that he had perished along with the Cobalt Man. But despite his humiliating and near-fatal defeat, Egghead had attained an unexpected bonus. Inevitably, the Defenders soon passed on the news of his apparent death to the authorities, and Professor Elihas Starr was declared officially dead. This meant that for the first time in several years, America's law enforcement agencies and organisations such as SHIELD would not be hunting for him. Thus granted the ultimate freedom, Egghead now decided to take advantage of this and gain his final revenge upon his greatest foe. What followed was a Machiavellian scheme of stunning orchestration, which would be the final battle between Egghead and Henry Pym...

Chapter 11: Pym

For several months, Egghead worked hard to re-establish himself and acquire new sources of funding with which to finance his experiments. Soon, he had obtained a luxurious Manhattan penthouse apartment and a hidden laboratory in New York. He was now ready to begin. Egghead had a duel purpose in mind; he intended to both gain revenge on Pym for his past defeats, and also to make steps towards ruling the world. He quickly formulated a plan that would help him to achieve both of these goals, and as fate would have it, it transpired that manipulating Pym would prove far easier than Elihas could ever have hoped. Henry Pym had fallen on hard times. Since Egghead had last seen him, he had been forced to leave the Avengers due to Government-enforced downsizing of the group. Returning to his career as a biochemist, Pym soon found that none of his experiments were working; he concluded that all he was capable of doing successfully now was being a super-hero. Worse still, the Wasp was still a member of the Avengers and Henry saw her less and less. Feeling lonely, he slowly started to become increasingly unbalanced. Shortly after this, Pym rejoined the Avengers but by now he was in the early stages of a breakdown. After brutally attacking a foe that had surrendered, he was ordered to face a court-martial. Desperate to both redeem himself and prove his worth to his teammates, Pym constructed a robot built out of the indestructible metal adamantium and had it attack the court-martial. He had built a cut-off switch in the robot so that he could deactivate it in secret and thus save the day, but when the robot attacked his plan went horribly wrong - the Avengers realised that Pym had built it, and ultimately it was the Wasp who saved Hank from the robot when it escaped from his control. Expelled from the group, Yellowjacket's career as a super-hero was ended and the depressed Pym was now wandering New York in a daze.

On discovering this, Egghead was delighted. With Pym's defences eroded by his recent misfortunes, he would be easy to manipulate. Egghead finalised his plans and then went in search of his old enemy. He eventually found Pym and followed him the Terminal Bar on Eighth Avenue, where the former Avenger was trying unsuccessfully to buy a drink on credit. Taking the opportunity, Elihas approached him and offered to buy him a drink. Pym's reaction to the sight of Egghead was immediate disgust, but when Elihas begged him to listen to him, he realised that he had little left to lose and agreed. However, he informed Starr that he intended to take him to the nearest police station as soon as they had finished talking. Soon, the pair was sat in a secluded booth and Egghead began to talk. He had decided to appeal to Pym's better nature, and immediately brought up his niece. He explained that he was currently reassessing his life and wished to make up for his past crimes, especially towards Trish; after all, he was now 52 years old, and if he did not seek redemption now, it may be too late. In remarkable display of acting, the apparently sincere Egghead, managing to shed a convincing tear, opened the briefcase he had brought with him and showed Pym the contents. It was a complex artificial arm with cybernetic circuitry that could respond to thought commands and a bio-feedback relays to provide the wearer with a sense of touch. Egghead explained that he had constructed the arm for Trish, but did not believe that she would trust him enough to accept it. Pym on the other hand she would trust, and furthermore he possessed the skills in bio-physics required to attach the arm. He offered Pym five hundred thousand dollars to accept his offer. He also said something either deliberately or unwittingly that struck a painful chord with Hank:

"Surely, you understand what it is - - how it feels to know you've been cruel to someone you love!"

He did indeed. At the lowest point of his recent failures, he had made a dreadful mistake: in a moment of rage, he had lashed out and struck his wife. Janet had divorced him, and this had hurt him more than anything else that had happened. Egghead had been more than convincing enough; Pym agreed, and even accepted the money after Egghead suggested that he could use it to get back on his feet and then donate the same amount to charity later on. He set out to find Trixie.

Soon enough, Pym arrived at Trish Starr's home in Flagstaff, Arizona, in his Yellowjacket costume. He had thoroughly examined the false arm, and could find nothing amiss with the device. He explained this to Trish and also that he believed Egghead to have been genuinely sorry for his past misdeeds, and convinced her to let him attach the arm. Forty-seven minutes later, the arm was securely attached, and Hank Pym's life began to spiral even further into disaster. For a minute or two, Trish flexed her new arm in delight, happy to have two again. Then suddenly, it lashed out, beyond her control, and struck Pym across the face. Before she could say much more, her eyes went blank, and suddenly, Egghead was speaking through her voice. As Yellowjacket listened in disbelief, Elihas smugly informed him that he had expertly played Pym for a fool. The circuitry in the arm had been designed so that once Pym had examined it and confirmed that it was safe, Egghead could alter it by remote control, thus reconfiguring it so that it could both control Trish and also, if need be, be made to self-destruct, killing Egghead's niece. Egghead would carry out this threat unless Yellowjacket swore absolute obedience to him. With little choice left to him, Pym agreed. Soon, he and Trish - with Egghead still using her to communicate with Hank - were on board an aeroplane bound for Omaha, Nebraska. With a coat covering Trish's arm (which was designed not to register on airport security devices) the pair arrived without delay, hired a truck and then made their way to the Strategic Air Command Headquarters, which Yellowjacket was now ordered to enter. At insect size he could easily penetrate the base undetected, make his way to an isolated guard post on the periphery of the complex, overcome the guards and let Trish inside. Egghead disposed of the guards on the gate by using Trish's artificial arm to club them down, and soon his puppet had gained entry.

Inside the complex, Trish and Yellowjacket next made their way to a heavily protected vault. The diminutive ex-Avenger flew inside the lock and neutralized the alarm circuit, then Egghead used Trish's arm to rip it off the door. They then entered the room beyond and were greeted by the sight of the United States Government's entire stockpile of adamantium. This had been Egghead's goal fro the start, since he intended to use it to build a small army of invincible robots that could obtain anything he needed. The cylinders containing the two resins that when mixed together would form the adamantium were then loaded aboard the trailer that the pair had brought with them, and they were on their way. And at that point the Avengers arrived. Unbeknownst to Egghead, the Complex had contained a direct line alarm to Avengers Mansion, which Yellowjacket had secretly tripped. But Elihas realised instantly that Pym must have summoned them, and ordered him to fight them unless he wanted to see Trish killed. Reluctantly, he did so. The four Avengers that Egghead now faced was perhaps the team he would least have enjoyed fighting. Three of them (the Wasp, Thor and Iron Man) had founded the team alongside him, and the fourth (Captain America) had joined soon after. Until recently, Jan had been his wife, and the other three were amongst his closest friends. Ironically, this gave him the best chance of defeating them that he could have had, since they deliberately pulled their punches whilst fighting him. We have met the Wasp before. Thor was the Norse God of Thunder of legend. The Norse Gods were a Pantheon of other-dimensional beings who had been worshipped in Norway as Gods, and who derived power from this worship. They were effectively magical beings and Thor was gifted with prodigious strength, and also the enchanted hammer Mjolnir, which gave him control over storms and which enabled him to fly. Furthermore, he was skilled in the use of Mjolnir as a weapon and was a mighty warrior. Iron Man was in reality billionaire industrialist Anthony Stark, who had been kidnapped by Vietnamese Crime-Lord Wong-Chu several years earlier. During this kidnapping, he had sustained a heart injury and with the aid of one Professor Yinsen, he had constructed a chest plate, which kept his heart beating. He and Yinsen had then built a suit of robotic armour into which the chest plate fitted, and he had become Iron Man for the first time. Having escaped Wong-Chu, he had returned to America, but had decided to pretend that Iron Man and Tony Stark were two separate people and had perpetrated the myth that Iron Man was Stark's bodyguard. Stark had then began a career as a Super-Hero as Iron Man, and was also the source of financial backing for the Avengers, and the owner of their New York Mansion base. Finally, Captain America was Steve Rodgers, a sickly young man who had been unable to sign-up to fight for his country during World War II due to ill health. Seeking to serve America in other ways, he volunteered to be a guinea pig in a super-soldier program, and was injected with a super-soldier serum developed by a Prof. Reinstein. The serum increased his physical prowess to the peak of human fitness. Donning a costume based on the colours of the American flag, he was given the name Captain America and became the first successful American super-soldier. He was also the last: Immediately after he received the serum, a Nazi spy assassinated Reinstein. Captain America, often assisted by his sidekick Bucky, real name James Buchanan Barnes, fought the Axis powers throughout WWII, often clashing with the evil Red Skull, Hitler's lieutenant and the menace whom Captain America had been created in response to. But although he achieved many victories, neither Captain America nor Bucky would see the end of the war. As it drew to a close, they fought a final battle against old foe and Nazi scientist Baron Heinrich Zemo. Whilst trying to defuse a missile launched by the Baron, Bucky was killed. Captain America survived, but plunged into the icy waters of the artic ocean. The intense cold, coupled with an unexpected side effect of the Super-soldier serum, cast him into a state of suspended animation, in which he remained until he was found and revived by the Avengers. Between them, these four were a nigh-unbeatable combination, and although Yellowjacket put on an impressive show, the quartet soon tired of being gentle.

As soon as Hank had been captured, he begged the Avengers to help Trish, quickly explaining what Egghead had done. Unfortunately for Pym, Elihas had already seized advantage of these developments... Iron Man could detect no transmissions either from or to the artificial arm, and easily removed it. Egghead had reorganised its circuitry back to how it had been when Pym had examined it, so as to leave no trace of what he had done. Furthermore, whilst Trish had been wearing the arm, Egghead had used its cybernetic circuitry to program false memories into her brain; she had no memory of her uncle being mentioned, and tearfully informed the Avengers that Hank had made her wear it and then forced her to obey him. Unable to prove his claims, Hank Pym had little choice but to go along quietly with the Avengers. Soon, he had been arrested and imprisoned in the Super-Villain wing of Ryker's Island Penitentiary awaiting trial. Egghead's plan to steal the adamantium had failed, but he had scored an impressive victory over his nemesis. And since he was officially dead, nobody would believe Pym's claims that Egghead had framed him. Nevertheless, Egghead was not entirely satisfied. He still wanted to rule the world, but was having trouble coming up with a plan to replace the once that hinged on an army of invincible adamantium robots. It was some days later, that inspiration struck him.

Egghead was relaxing in his hidden laboratory in a Long Island Sound house when Anna gave him the idea. Although she was dressed as a cleaning lady, albeit one with an unusually short skirt and fish-net stockings, she was of course nothing of the sort; eager to break Elihas's contemplative mood and lure him to bed, the German mistress suggested that he make some money and rule the world by buying a position of power. Egghead baulked at the thought of work, which was after all beneath him, but once Anna suggested that he use his genius to invent, patent and sell something, he suddenly saw the possibilities. Unfortunately for Anna, so excited was Egghead that he could not bear to wait until the morning to act on this idea, that thoughts of sex had totally left his mind. Dismissing her, he turned to his equipment banks and began to make plans. Egghead was undoubtedly capable of designing something that he could patent under a false name, sell and make a fortune from. However, his primary field was electronics, and he realised that he could make far more money by creating a method of cell rejuvenation, which would grant people effectively eternal life. Such a method would be in such demand, that if he retained the secret, he could extort whatever he wanted - even absolute power - from the public. In order to develop such a technique, he would need a genius in biochemistry. And what better way to further break Henry Pym's spirit than by forcing him to work for Egghead? In short order, he had devised a plan, which would allow him to force Pym to work for him. In order to carry out this plan, he would need lackeys. He decided to form a new Masters of Evil.

The Masters of Evil were originally a small group of super-villains recruited by Nazi War Criminal Baron Heinrich Zemo to combat the original team of Avengers [see file 4: Baron Zemo]. Following Zemo's death, the group had disbanded, but a second Masters of Evil had been formed by the homicidal robot Ultron, an experiment of Pym's that had gone horribly wrong and had returned to haunt the Avengers several times since. Now, Egghead planned to assemble a new Masters of Evil. He started with Tiger Shark. Tiger Shark was Todd Arliss, a once Olympic swimmer who had sustained a career-ending back injury whilst trying to save a drowning girl. The embittered athlete had been approached by criminal genius Doctor Lemuel Dorcas, who had offered to enhance his strength and stamina in return for which Arliss would be required to fight Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner, ruler of Atlantis. Arliss had agreed, and had been transformed into Tiger Shark, gaining not only enough strength to survive the pressures of the ocean depths, but also gills that enabled him to breathe underwater. Tiger Shark was currently imprisoned in a special cell in Atlantis, where Egghead had located him; Elihas now sent a signal to a robot spy capsule that he had deployed in the Atlantic, which responded by deploying a guided missile that streaked down to Tiger Shark's prison and shattered it, releasing him. Exactly why Egghead had a robot spy capsule in the Atlantic is unclear; he used it to release Tiger Shark only minutes after Anna had given him his big idea, so he must have already prepared it some time before. Presumably, he had been planning to use super-powered lackeys in one scheme or another for some weeks, and had selected Tiger Shark as a candidate at an earlier time.

Later that same day, Pym was renewing his acquaintance with another old enemy in Ryker's Island Prison. The Whirlwind was David Cannon, a mutant with the ability to spin his body at tremendous speeds, enabling him to move at super-human speed over distances and to defy gravity (within limits). And of course, it made him a deadly foe, since his costume was equipped with blades... He had originally plagued Pym and the Wasp under the guise of the Human Top, before reinventing himself as Whirlwind, and had fought the Avengers many times over the years. He had started his career as the Human Top shortly after Ant-Man had his second encounter with Egghead, and he was about as popular with Pym as Elihas was. A long time obsession with the Wasp had even prompted him to secretly take a job as the couple's chauffeur. Enraged by Cannon's remarks about Jan, Hank had lost his temper and attacked him, resulting in him being placed in solitary confinement. Just after he had been dragged out, the wall to the prison collapsed, as Tiger Shark smashed his way inside. Egghead had ordered him to rescue both Whirlwind and the Scorpion in order to have them join his new Masters of Evil, and the two criminals were glad of the chance to escape. The Scorpion - real name MacDonald "Mac" Gargan - had the proportionate strength of a scorpion, and had been created by scientist Farley Stillwell at the behest of Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, in a misguided attempt to create someone capable of defeating the wall-crawling Super-Hero Spider-Man, whom Jameson viewed as a threat. The process had left Gargan utterly psychotic, and he had pursued a career as a Super-Villain ever since. In addition to his strength, he wore a costume that included a flexible club-like tail, which he could control mentally and use to devastating effect.

The trio of Super-Villains made their way to the women's wing, where Egghead's next, and perhaps most important, candidate was incarcerated. This was Moonstone. Dr. Karla Sofen was a professional psychiatrist who had used her skills to manipulate people for criminal gain. This had brought her into contact with one Lloyd Bloch, the original Moonstone, who had found the stone that he had taken his name from and had joined with it, thus enhancing his strength and enabling him to fly. When Sofen encountered him in prison after Captain America had defeated him, she had manipulated him into rejecting the Moonstone, with which she had then bonded. The stone itself was one of several such artefacts scattered throughout the galaxy and indeed across Earth, and was a geological remnant of the Big Bang. Because it was thus a survivor of the universe that existed prior to our own, it had unusual properties and it was these properties, which now empowered Karla Sofen, granting her strength, flight and intangibility. She had a history of working with other Super-Villains and had proved herself as field-leader; knowing this and knowing that she could follow orders as well, Egghead intended to appoint her as his lieutenant. Several hours later, she, the Whirlwind, the Scorpion and Tiger Shark, were all in Egghead's Long Island house, ready to listen to his offer of employment. The three felons that Tiger Shark had rescued were now also reunited with their costumes. Greeting his new employees, Egghead explained that he wanted them to start working that night, when they would loot a Manhattan Medical Research Centre and obtain both data and supplies necessary to carry out his goals. Unfortunately, his plans were soon derailed by Whirlwind.

Since the job given to the group by Egghead would not take place until that night, Whirlwind decided to sneak off to Avengers Mansion and harass the Wasp. He overcame Jan's chauffeur Carrothers and hid his unconscious form in the bushes, then donned his costume and waited. Soon enough the Wasp climbed into the limousine and Cannon made his move. Inevitably, she attacked him with her bio-electric sting. This attracted the attention of Hawkeye who was now back in his traditional costume and with the Goliath identity left behind him long ago. As he rushed to his team-mate's aid, a blast of energy from Moonstone's hands knocked him painfully to the ground; realising what Whirlwind was up to, she and her fellow Masters of Evil had followed him in order to avert such a premature encounter with the Avengers. Hawkeye quickly realised that he and the Wasp could not old out for long against the combined might of the Scorpion, Tiger Shark, Whirlwind and Moonstone, and fired a flare-arrow to summon aid. Very soon, help arrived and a full-scale battle was underway. This aid took the form of Thor and She-Hulk, the former in particular joining the battle with gusto. She-Hulk was lawyer Jennifer Walters, the cousin of Bruce Banner a.k.a. the infamous Hulk. Some time ago she had received a life-saving blood transfusion from her gamma-irradiated cousin, and as a result she could now transform into the She-Hulk. Unlike the Hulk, she retained her own personality when she transformed, and spent most of her time as She-Hulk by choice. Despite being green, she was extremely attractive, and enjoyed the attention that this brought. She was also very, very strong. Within a very small period of time, all of Egghead's Masters of Evil had been subdued.

Egghead was displeased with this turn of events, especially since he would have sent the Masters up against the Avengers anyway once the time was right, but his recent victory over Pym was still lightening his mood and he adopted a philosophical view. The incarceration of his employees was a minor setback, but little more; they would not betray him, and they might well have learned the value of listening to Egghead's orders next time. And there would indeed be a next time for at least two of them; Elihas still had need of them and fully intended to have them released. Whirlwind however, would not be amongst them; he had proven to be something of a loose cannon and it was his fault that the group had been captured. Egghead decided to leave him in prison. For the next few weeks in fact, all of them would remain locked up, as Egghead bided his time and relaxed in his penthouse apartment. He was waiting for a special event to occur, which was crucial to his plans... During this time, Hank Pym was never far from his thoughts, especially when the newspapers reported that the Wasp was dating Tony Stark. At that time she did not know that Stark was her teammate Iron Man, and as soon as he told he she broke off the affair, since she did not feel comfortable dating a friend of Hank's so soon after their divorce. Egghead too was oblivious to Stark's duel identity but he knew that Stark financed the Avengers and that this development would do little to make him less miserable. Naturally, he considered this with no small measure of satisfaction.

Several days later, Egghead's plans began to reach their final stage. The key event that he had been waiting for was fast approaching. This development was the trial of Yellowjacket. Egghead had been monitoring the telephone conversations between Stark, who was paying Henry's legal fees, and Paul Edmonds, the lawyer whom he had appointed to defend Pym. Starr was particularly amused to hear Edmonds state that Pym's assertion that Egghead had framed him might indicate some deep-seated delusion, since Stark assured him that Egghead had died some months earlier. Of further entertainment was Edmonds' announcement that Henry had total faith in the legal system and was confident that he could clear his name. This was untrue, since Egghead had a plan to ruin Pym's day in court. The time had come to reassemble his Masters of Evil. We do not know exactly how he went about breaking Moonstone and Tiger Shark out of prison, but somehow he did. He now also recruited two new Masters, in the shape of the Beetle and the Shocker, who seem to have been released at the same time. The Beetle was Abner Jenkins, a former engineer who had designed and built his armoured costume in order to facilitate a life of crime. In addition to granting him enhanced strength and protection, it had a barrage of weapons built into it and enabled him to fly. The Shocker (real name Herman Schultz), like Jenkins, was a professional thief and mercenary and his insulated costume, which gave him a distinctive "quilted" look, was designed to protect him from the vibra-shock units hidden in his gauntlets. These sonic blasters could unleash a shockwave capable of shattering concrete. With these two added to his Masters, their number now totalled four. As we have discussed, he had abandoned Whirlwind, and for reasons unknown the Scorpion had also remained in prison. Egghead was working on a means of using radiation to catalyse cellular regeneration when his final new recruit arrived. He had received Egghead's offer of work from his native China, and had agreed to join Elihas. He was Dr. Chen Lu, the Radioactive Man. Lu was an expert in the field of radiation research and Egghead had followed his legitimate career with genuine interest for many years. Lu had deliberately irradiated himself several years ago, thus becoming the green skinned, super-humanly strong Radioactive Man, and had divided his time between his identities ever since. He had been a member of the original Masters of Evil lead by Baron Zemo and had fought the Avengers many times over the years. Despite his intellect, he was usually content to follow orders if the price was right and would be a valuable asset to Egghead's plans.

Just as Egghead was greeting Lu, Tiger Shark and the Shocker came down through the ceiling in a shower of rubble. They, along with the Beetle, had been sent to steal a canister of isotopes for use in Egghead's research, and had succeeded in their task but had fallen out on the way back. Moonstone was able to break them up, but another fight nearly started when Tiger Shark referred to Lu as a "kook". He soon realised his mistake when Lu transformed into the Radioactive Man, and after an apology from Tiger Shark, the group was finally assembled and ready to receive Egghead's instructions. Finally, on the fourth day of Pym's trial, as he took the stand to testify in his own defence, Egghead made his move. The Masters of Evil smashed their way into the courtroom and seized Pym. The ensuing battle between the Masters of Evil and the attendant Avengers was fierce, but the Masters had been well selected by Egghead and they also had the element of surprise. The Radioactive Man took out the stronger She-Hulk with a controlled burst of gamma rays, which forcibly turned her back into Jennifer Walters. Thor instantly stepped up to attack him, but Lu used his energy fields to deflect his hammer Mjolnir, ricocheting it off Captain America's indestructible shield and winding the Star-Spangled Avenger. Meanwhile, Tiger Shark stunned the Wasp and the Beetle ran circles around Hawkeye, whilst Moonstone dragged Pym into the Masters' waiting getaway craft, hidden inside a truck. Jenkins, Lu, and Arliss soon joined them, and the ship took off, rocketing away before the Avengers could react. Egghead had managed to obtain Pym, and thus the biochemical expertise he needed to continue with his plan of developing a means of cell-rejuvenation with which he could extort the world. But he had achieved far, far more...

When Moonstone had abducted Pym from the witness box, she had purposefully yelled at him to hurry, announcing that they did not have much time. Although this comment had baffled Hank, it had given the judge and jury exactly the impression that Egghead had desired - clearly they believed, Pym had been certain that he would be found guilty and had arranged to be rescued. Furthermore, when the Masters had fled, they had left the Shocker behind. During his brief stay in Egghead's base, Egghead had secretly rewired the equipment in his costume so that he could brainwash the Shocker into thinking that Pym, not Egghead was his employer. This of course was the same technique that he had previously used to condition his niece into announcing Pym's guilt to the Avengers, and it was just as effective this time. It was also sufficiently advanced to ensure that the Shocker could pass a lie-detector test when cross-examined. Very soon, Pym was sat in Egghead's base watching news reports, which recounted how the Shocker had admitted that Hank Pym had employed the Masters of Evil to rescue him. The world believed him guilty. Egghead then gloatingly explained what he had done and explained his purpose to Pym; with nowhere else to turn, he and his Masters of Evil would allow Pym to stay with them and work for them. The broken ex-Avenger agreed. Egghead had scored the ultimate victory over Pym.

For the next three days, Pym worked ceaselessly in Egghead's laboratory, working to devise a means of cellular rejuvenation. With the parts obtained for the work by the Masters of Evil, he had no shortage of supplies, and very soon he had constructed an impressive bank of machinery dedicated to his project. All this time, Egghead continued to enjoy the situation, gleefully providing his old enemy with coffee and refreshments, as he required. He extended every courtesy to Henry, frequently calling him partner and generally forcing him to accept his new status quo. Nevertheless, he was considerably surprised when, within a week of his capture, Pym presented him with a fully functioning longevity machine. Egghead was astounded; he had expected months of preliminary research from Hank before the designs were prepared, not a complete machine within days. Moonstone was suspicious and suggested that they test the machine on Pym, and Egghead concurred. Despite Pym's assertion that he had had a lucky break, Elihas could not dismiss the possibility that this was a trick and that the machine might well incapacitate him if he tried to use it. Flustered by this dilemma, he decided to use Pym as a guinea pig. Despite his recent misfortunes at Egghead's hands, Elihas had never truly broken Pym's spirit and he did not believe that his old foe was suicidal. Thus, if he allowed them to test the machine on him, it must be safe. As he directed the Radioactive Man and Tiger Shark to strap Pym into the mechanism, he idly toyed with the idea of seeing just how far he would in fact need to demoralise Pym before his mind snapped. If the machine worked, he would have no further need for Hank and he might just try it... Shortly, Pym was fastened into the machine's cybernetic harness and Egghead turned it on. In doing so he lost everything.

As soon as the longevity machine was activated, Pym began to glow. This was most unexpected, and as Egghead looked on in surprise, the Beetle suddenly realised what was happening. As an engineer, Jenkins was quick to recognise a force field when he saw one. Before he could utter another word, he suddenly started careening uncontrollably through the air as Pym overrode the guidance systems in his armour. It was suddenly painfully clear to all present that Hank had outwitted his captors and had wanted to be placed into the machine all along. He had not built a longevity machine; he had built a weapon. The field now surrounding Pym quickly proved itself, as Tiger Shark lunged forward only to be painfully repelled. Moonstone's high-intensity laser blasts were equally ineffective, and began to ricochet dangerously around the room as the terrified Egghead cowered under a table. The Radioactive Man might have used his nuclear heat to disrupt the field, but Pym had prepared defences against them all; as Lu charged at him, cadmium plated grippers emerged from the machine and seized him, dampening his radiation. Soon, he joined the unconscious Tiger Shark on the floor. Now, only Moonstone remained and she was not one to take unnecessary risks and she flew for the exit. As she did so however, Pym fired a disruptor blast from the manacles holding him and she too joined Arliss and Lu. The Beetle's mad flight had by now caused him to smash his way upstairs and outside, where he found the Avengers waiting. He was almost glad to see them, as Thor stopped his mad flight with a single casual punch that stopped his armour's systems dead.

The Avengers had arrived thanks to the Shocker. Shultz had been hurt by his abandonment by the Masters, and had agreed to let the Avengers subject him to psychoanalysis when the She-Hulk had pointed out to his lawyer that this might work in his favour in court. The means of analysis in question was Tony Stark's miniaturised cerebral scanner helmet, which had been designed to detect evidence of mind control. The Shocker was more than willing to cooperate if it would reduce his sentence and was subjected to a mental probe from the device. This soon revealed that Pym had been telling the truth; Egghead was alive, and had been behind the Masters of Evil. Furthermore, with his memories now intact Herman knew, and freely admitted, that Egghead had been framing Pym all along. He also knew where the Masters' base was. The group had then contacted the Long Island police, who had cordoned off the area around Egghead's house. Finally, as the out-of-control Beetle erupted from the ground in front of the building leaving a gaping hole in his wake, Hawkeye began to descend cautiously into the tunnel. He looked on at the unconscious Masters of Evil and watched as Hank released himself from the machine he was manacled to and approached Egghead.

As the shocked Egghead looked around his ruined laboratory in disbelief, Pym explained that Egghead's attempts to turn him into a criminal had failed because whilst he spent a month in prison, he had finally learned to accept his past failures and be content with who he was. He then finished with a cutting insight into Egghead's personality:

"You, Egghead...You turned to crime because you thought your scientific knowledge made you better than everyone else...put you above the law! But you were wrong. You aren't above the law, and you weren't better! I'm the better scientist...I just proved that! I assembled the pieces of your downfall - - right under your nose!"

Consumed with hatred, the snarling Egghead rushed at his greatest foe in blind fury, which was exactly what Pym had been hoping for; a swift punch to Egghead's jaw sent him crashing to the floor, his spectacles flying. Then Pym turned his back in contempt and walked away. With murderous intent, Egghead propped himself up on one elbow and pulled a small laser pistol from his lab coat and took aim at Pym's back. He had lost yet again to Pym and this time it been at the height of his victory. He would still have his ultimate revenge. Egghead's finger tightened on the trigger, and as a cry of "Hank! Hit the deck!" rang out, an arrow from Hawkeye's bow thudded into the firing barrel with perfect accuracy. A massive discharge of energy erupted through the gun and through the body of Professor Elihas Starr and in that final moment of defeat, Egghead died.

Following Egghead's death, Henry Pym was cleared of all charges against him. Hawkeye faced a formal Avengers hearing for having killed Egghead, but was cleared of all blame since it had been necessary to save Pym' life. Whilst Egghead was in the morgue, Nazi geneticist Arnim Zola or one of his agents obtained a sample of DNA from the corpse, which he would later use to create a type of clone of Egghead by injecting it into a so-called "proto-husk". Homicidal mercenary Deadpool would kill this clone. But for the bona fide Egghead, this is the end. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered from a boat in New York harbour by his niece and Pym. Neither was sorry that he was dead. We have followed Egghead's career from his first encounter with Ant-Man to his final battle with Pym and along the way we have seen him at the very lowest depths that humanity can sink to. But we have also seen him threaten to seize power over the entire world on two occasions, and on both of those occasions the whole of America held its breath. For this alone Egghead deserves this biography and a mention here amongst the greatest criminal masterminds of the late twentieth century.