Powers
None
Equipment
Body Armor: Typical protection vs. Physical and Energy, Demonicus is suffering from a form of skin cancer brought on by the radiation he exposed himself to. The suit prevents the cancer from growing
Talents
Bio-Chemistry, Genetics, Bio-Engineering, Repair/Tinkering
Contacts
None
History
Douglas Birely was a geneticist studying the mutagenic properties of radiation at a private research company in California. Reading of the growing number of human beings who had gained superhuman abilities through exposure to radiation, Birely asked his employer for permission to subject himself to the radiation they were using in their tests on animals, and was refused. Undaunted, he staged a laboratory accident during which he was exposed to the experimental radiation. To his chagrin, he did not acquire any superhuman powers, but instead contracted skin cancer. An official investigation of the incident revealed Birely’s sabotage and he was fired from the company.
Jobless, Birely learned of a highly radioactive meteor which had recently fallen near the Aleutian Islands and used his savings to charter a boat to the site. Unearthing the huge meteorite, which he named the Lifestone, Birely acquired funds from some as yet unrevealed source in Japan and set up a laboratory in the Aleutian Islands. He then perfected a process by which to artificially mutate animals into huge, monstrous organisms. His first successful creation was Batragon, mutated from a bat.
Birely soon fashioned himself a bodysuit that inhibited the effects of the skin cancer eating away at his body, and adopted the identity of Doctor Demonicus. He then recruited a small army of criminals, mercenaries, and derelicts to assist him, and used them to enslave the Eskimos native to his island base. Demonicus put the Eskimos to work constructing a transport craft made from the meteoric ore of the Lifestone. Because his monsters required periodic contact with the Lifestone to retain their vitality, it was necessary to mobilize the meteor in order to expand the range in which his monsters could operate. Demonicus planned to roam the globe with his creations, using them to plunder and pillage.
Unfortunately for Demonicus, the world security agency SHIELD learned of his operation while tracking down the mutated dinosaur known as Godzilla. As Godzilla battled Demonicus’s creations, Ghilaron, Lepirax, and Centipor, SHIELD liberated the enslaved Eskimos and captured Demonicus’s troops. Demonicus himself was subdued by SHIELD agent Gabriel Jones, but managed to escape before he could be tried for his crimes, with the help of Maur-Kon, a member of the alien race called the Myndai. Maur-Kon, a “scientist sorcerer” dedicated to fomenting chaos, provided Demonicus with a huge satellite headquarters orbiting the moon, and the technology necessary to accomplish Demonicus’s next scheme, bombarding the Earth with huge meteors.
Aboard his space station, Dr. Demonicus mutated new genetic monsters and constructed robotic ones from Maur-Kon’s designs. These he unleashed upon the Earth in preparation for his meteor attack. These monsters, Starchild, Gerberus, and the Hand of Five, were met in combat by the Shogun Warriors, three huge robots constructed by the ancestral enemies of the Myndai and piloted by human beings. The Shogun Warriors managed to defeat their monstrous foes, thwart the meteor attack, destroy Demonicus’s space station and take him back to Earth. There Demonicus was taken into custody by SHIELD. Turned over to local authorities in California, Demonicus escaped with the help of some of his men. He has since been trying to rebuild his base of operations and create an army of monsters with which to plunder the world. The West Coast Avengers learned of his recent activities and battled one of his latest genetic monsters. Dr. Demonicus is currently in police custody.
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