<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">The Lethal Luthors: A deceptive brilliance
by Dennis Power
EVIL TIMES: THE CAREER OF SCOTT EVIL
ALSO KNOWN AS PER DEGATON
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(Conceived in 1969, born in 1974, began his criminal career in 1947, died ?)
The film Goldmember
ended showing Scott Evil, now completely bald, sitting in Dr. Evil's
In the film Scott Evil went bald very quickly. He seemed to have aged from a twenty-five year old with a sullen attitude to an older balding man in a matter of months. Was his sudden aging one of Dr. Evil's punishments? Or was something else going on?
We believe that Scott Evil aged naturally in the short period of time shown but not in that time period.
Frustrated with the lack of paternal affection and enraged that his father preferred a malformed clone of himself to the fruit of his loins, Scott used access to his father's time portal to travel back in time with the intention of wiping his father out.
Scott Evil was an ignorant young man. He could be considered the poster child for the MTV/video game generation. He lacked fundamental knowledge of many basics that did not revolve around entertainment. He did not understand that without a time portal in the past with which to return, a time traveler would be trapped in the past. Dr. Evil had sent back an agent to contact the Number Two of 1967 and had a time portal built in 1968 so that when he traveled back to 1969 there would be one waiting for him. When Scott Evil traveled back to 1938, he had no way to get back to 1999.
Once he was stuck in 1938 he also realized that he did not have a clue as to how to find his father and destroy his life.
In order to survive in the primitive world of 1938 that Scott Evil found himself marooned, Scott was finally forced to use his mind and to absorb knowledge. Once he applied himself, he turned out to be quite as brilliant as befits a Luthor. Knowing that Scott Evil was a name likely to attract attention he chose an alias he thought sounded familiar. He combined the name on a pair of his favorite shoes with one of his favorite video games. Perry from Perry Ellis combined with Degaton from Degaton the Destroyer. He would realize after a few years that Degaton was also an unusual surname.
In two years time he had accumulated enough scientific knowledge to talk his way into becoming the laboratory assistant to Dr. Malachai Zee. Dr. Zee was a member of the Time Trust, a group of scientists dedicated to replicating the experiments of Bruce Clarke Wildman, the Time Traveler.[1]
Scott believed that if they were successful this would be a good chance to return to his original time period.
It was while he was in the past that Scott realized just how sheltered a life he had experienced. Frau Farbissina was a doting and over-protective mother. She might have run the evil minions of Dr. Evil with an iron fist, but she doted on Scott and spoiled him rotten. He had been shadowed by bodyguards wherever he went. These bodyguards had not only kept him from harm but had also made certain that Scott did not run afoul of the law. If for example Scott had gotten into a fight with the owner of a video arcade over hogging a particular machine, the bodyguards would persuade the video arcade owner to change his mind and let Scott do as he wished.
Because of his sheltered life, Scott had never experienced criminal activity first hand or had any encounters with the police. He had also never seen a costumed vigilante first hand and so tended to discount their existence despite evidence to the contrary.
A group of Nazi spies had broken into the laboratories of the Time Trust and threatened the scientists at gun point, demanding that they reveal their secrets. Scott stood and watched the drama unfold, not frightened, just not foolish enough to get involved. Two costumed vigilantes, however, did happen on the scene, Dr. Mid-Nite and the Sandman. Between the blackout bombs and the knockout gas, the Nazis did not stand a chance[2]
To show
his gratitude for the rescue, the head of the Time Trust, Dr. Everson,
demonstrated his time ray to Dr. Mid-Nite and The Sandman. The time ray was
what the scientist called the device that allowed him to get visual and
auditory samplings from the future. Using the knowledge accumulated by this
"time ray" the scientists were putting together a force field that
would be proof against bombs. They believed it would revolutionize war and give
the
The problem with the time ray was that it took a great deal of power and could only be sustained for a short time before the unit powering it would overheat. Because of the fluid nature of the future, which was in a constant flux, every time that the ray was used a different version of the future was contacted. Although the year and general location that the ray contacted remained constant the city was different sometimes slightly, sometimes drastically different, sometimes in an entirely different environment. It took the scientists the better part of two weeks to assemble the formula from the snippets of information from the 25th century. [3] The ray first touched upon a future city in a swamp, then the city was encased in a glass bubble, next the city was inside giant trees, the next time the city was located under water, next time it was a city in an oasis surrounded by a harsh and barren desert, the city was floating in the sky and finally the city was in an airless canyon. [4]
The scientists doubled checked their figures and created a device that would generate the force field they desired. Scott noted a flaw in their mathematics and when he pointed it out to Dr. Everson, he was told to stick to washing test tubes. The scientists believed that Per Degaton was brilliant but erratic.
Dr. Mid-Nite and the Sandman were talked into witnessing the test of the force field. The harmonics of the energy field were unstable and destroyed the tank it was supposed to shield. The feedback from the explosion also destroyed the device generating the force field, killing Dr. Everson and two other members of the Time Trust. The force field was a failure and the time ray technology was lost with the death of Dr. Everson.
Everson
had been the glue that held the temperamental and often combative scientists of
the Time Trust together. After his death the various scientists of the Time
Trust split up and began working on their particular methods of traveling
through time. However none of these scientists needed research assistants at
that time and Perry Degaton was forced to find other employment. Due to his
association with Professor Everson, Degaton was able to talk a Professor
Mazursky into giving him a job as a research assistant. Professor Mazursky was
part of Project M. This one of the many projects researching methods that would
allow the
It was through Project M. that Perry Degaton became acquainted with the futuristic robot Mekanique.
In 1942
the Nazis re-activated Dr. Rotwang's mechanical woman by infusing it with
another woman's soul. The girl was the winner of a contest to be chosen as the
perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood. The contest was held among the Lebensborn.
This was a Nazi sponsored foundation which placed racially pure women with
racially pure men most of whom were in the S.S.[6] They sent the revitalized robot to the
While Mekanique was being repaired at Project M, Perry Degaton was contacted by a private scientific organization that was willing to pay for information and materiel from Project M. Perry thought that this would be an easy way to make some extra money and agreed to the arrangement. To his dismay the private organization turned out to the criminal organization of the Ultra-Humanite, now working for the Nazi’s. The Ultra-Humanite’s henchman Jake Simmons blackmailed Perry Degaton into having access to the facilities of Project M so that he could loot to his heart’s content. Simmons had been a survivor of the Ultra-Humanite’s attempt to make him into a human bomb, he had instead gained the ability to discharge electricity and hard radiation. Perry Degaton let Simmons into the facility but made him promise that they would be in and out without raising suspicion. Perry Degaton knew that he was in trouble when Simmons electrocuted two guards who challenged their passage. Perry Degaton could have talked his way past them but Simmons had chosen the more direct method.[9]
Some
members of the
One of Simmon’s energy blasts had struck the body of Mekanique. This was the first time that Perry Degaton had seen the seemingly de-activated robot. He had noticed that it had twitched. Mekanique reminded him strangely of the fembots that his mother created.[14] Adam Link had also noticed that the robot had twitched. Analyzing the energy blasts that Simmons bioelectricity had produced Link reproduced this energy, realizing that Mekanique had not seen activated by the “souls” of women that supposedly given her life by rather she had been powered by the women’s bio-electricity. Link discovered that electric eels could produce the same result. As he worked on Mekanique he discovered various circuits that the Nazi’s had not activated. He believed that these had been provided by her creator to give her self-awareness and perhaps a conscience, much like Dr. Link had given him. He activated these circuits and brought the robot back to life.
To all appearances Mekanique was changed, she had no memory of her previous existence. She learned quickly however and when told about her previous encounter incarnations she wanted to make amends. She began working with Adam Link and Dr. Grayson to improve the G. I. Robot. She became aware that that the little red haired lab assistant would often stare at her. Mekanique visited Perry Degaton’s office to discover why he was so fascinated with her. When she saw the drawings on his blackboard, she realized his interest in time travel. She explained how her creator Rotwang had created her to become a time traveling machine. A key component of the time traveling circuitry had been dislodged from her during her fight with the ALSTR squadron, yet she could not ask Robotman for it since she supposedly remembered nothing of her previous existence. She needed Perry Degaton’s assistance to break into AlSTR’s headquarters and retrieve the circuits. Once he had installed them she could then take Perry Degaton to whatever time period he wished to go.
Perry Degaton accompanied Mekanique to ALSTR headquarters in the middle of the night. When Perry Degaton’s efforts to pick the lock proved to be ineffective Mekanique grew impatient and pushed him aside. She informed him that before taking Perry through time she had to finish her remaining programming from the Nazi High Command and destroy the United States Special operations teams. She wrenched open the doors and entered the building. Perry hid outside wondering if she had triggered any alarms. When members of the AlSTR squadron began to stir from their rooms.[15]
In a battle royal between Mekanique and ALSTR Mekanique’s body exploded. Her head flew out of the building and landed near Perry Degaton’s feet. Without thinking he grabbed it and ran away before anyone could spot him.
Although Perry Degaton had avoided arrest for his somewhat naive involvement in two highly illegal operations, his luck ran out. In early 1942 Scott Evil was arrested, tried and convicted of a jewel heist. Ironically he had nothing to do with it. He spent a year in jail for a crime he did not commit and was released on probation. He did learn during his prison stay that it had been either Batman or Dr. Mid-Nite that had provided the police with the evidence that convicted him. Why they had done so will be explained later in this article.
When Perry Degaton was released from prison in 1943 the kindly Dr. Zee gave Perry Degaton a job as a lab assistant after he was released from prison. Working from Dr. Everson's notes, Dr. Zee was able to create his own version of the time ray. As with Dr. Everson's time ray, there were severe limitations on Dr. Zee's device. The device could be set to observe and even travel to the period of history desired but to the past only; the future fluctuated too much for Dr. Zee's device to calibrate stabilized time periods correctly. While Professor Zee’s device made a stable conduit between two points in time. While the device was running time flowed normally between the two points of time. Dr. Zee proved by experimentation that an observed hour in the past was equivalent to an hour passing in the laboratory. Zee discovered by accident a change in history could happen but would not be observed in the environs of the time machine and its power source. History remained unchanged in areas were where the power lines that fed the time machine's power source crisscrossed their way back to the generator. A sort of electromagnetic time stasis field was formed in the areas of the city where the power line feeding the generator crossed. Once the machine was shut off, however, access to the unchanged time period from where the historical divergence was created was impossible and so was any possibility of rectifying the historical change.
During the four year period that Scott Evil, as Perry Degaton, worked for Zee he did so resentfully. He resented that Zee treated him like a flunky, that his brilliance was dismissed, and that his leadership abilities were ignored. Perry Detagon felt Zee treated Scott Evil much as his father Dr. Evil had treated him.
In 1947
when Dr. Zee's machine began functioning with some degree of reliability, Scott
realized that he could use the resources of the early twentieth century to
reshape the world. In the four years he had spent as Dr. Zee's assistant he had
studied history, a subject that in his Scott Evil days he had entirely skipped.
All he knew about history in the days of Scott Evil was that George Washington
Carver was the first president of the
After having exposed himself to real knowledge, Perry regarded his younger Scott Evil self as a fool and an idiot. Perry Degaton believed that the best time juncture would be to help the Persian Emperor Darius win against Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. He also believed that this would be a good place to start if only because he could prevent the Persian cat from becoming a widespread breed, and so deny his father the pleasure of having his damned pet cat. Sometimes the smallest pleasures entail some of the most intricate plans.
Degaton learned Persian and made preparations to use the time machine. When he was ready he turned the machine on and kept it on. Professor Zee interfered. We know that Scott Evil’s basic solution to a problem was direct action, as we have seen from his mockery of his father's approach of death traps to get rid of archenemies. Even the more matured Degaton took care of the interference by shooting Professor Zee. As Perry Degaton made his arrangements with Darius and Alexander's forces were defeated, the world changed in the areas not shielded by the electromagnetic time field.[17]
This meant that part of the city containing the power source and wiring that were connected to the time machine remained unchanged but everything else disappeared into untamed wilderness. A few costumed vigilantes happened to be in the unchanged areas. They found Professor Zee stumbling through the wilderness that had appeared in parts of the city and took him to the one remaining hospital. They learned what had happened and decided to go on what could be a suicide mission. Zee could not send them back in time earlier than Per Degaton since that would have meant shutting the machine off and losing the connection to the altered time nexus point.
They had to go back in time and destroy Degaton's superior weaponry and help Alexander's army conquer Darius. Fortunately, despite the power of Per Degaton's machine guns, Alexander had not been killed, although his forces had scattered.[18] The Green Lantern and a few others were able to destroy Per Degaton's weapons and help Alexander gather his forces and defeat Darius. Overall the historical significance of the interference of Per Degaton and the costumed vigilantes was negligible and became part of Alexander’s mythological connections-that the Gods aided in his battles.
With Per Degaton in custody, the costumed vigilantes returned to their own time period to discover that the world outside of the influence of the time shield was once again back to normal.
When Dr. Zee recovered from his wounds he used the time machine to travel back in time to the day he had achieved his success with the machine and sabotaged the machine hours before Perry Degaton could use it. This caused Per Degaton to forget his plan of conquest and for the events that transpired a few months later never to have happened. The "future" Professor Zee disappeared in a temporal implosion as the new timeline realigned. Because of the time shielding factor, even though Professor Zee had negated Per Degaton's time manipulations, he had also created a localized temporal paradox. Scott Evil in his Perry Degaton identity remarked to Dr. Zee that he dreamed that he had conquered the world. Dr. Zee told him to shut up and wash the test tubes. It’s reasonable for Zee’s attitude toward Detagon to match Degaton’s view of Zee’s attitude because of all that had happened between them, even though because of time travel it didn’t happen—if Degaton remembered some version of these changed events, even as a dream, so would have Zee Perry Degaton grew angry from resentment.
A few days later Dr. Zee discovered that some of the wires had somehow gotten torn in the machine and fixed them. He successfully broke the time barrier.[19]
He told Degaton he was going to travel forward in time to the 100th anniversary of his birth. Dr. Zee contacted several eminent scientists and asked them to come to the demonstration of his time machine.
Plagued by his recent dreams, which were vivid enough to be called visions- of a conquest thwarted and betrayal by Professor Zee, Degaton pummeled Dr. Zee to death and dropped the body in a trash pile.[20]
Dr. Zee's improved machine still had many of the same problems that the earlier model had, specifically unless the power was kept on the portal between the two time periods disappeared. Once the power was shut off unless the changes made to the past were extreme, a sort of temporal inertia would undo any anachronisms.
Per Degaton still had the desire to rule the world and do it successfully, something that his father had never achieved. He also by wished to rule the world of the past and so prevent his father from ever becoming an evil mastermind. He had dreams of his father coming to work for him as a bottle washer.
Scott
believed that his dreams about trying to change the distant past and ultimately
being defeated were a vision, a warning to try to change the recent past. If he
changed the recent past, he believed that the temporal inertia effect could not
build up enough momentum to completely wipeout all of his work should he have a
set back. He briefly thought about contacting Adolf Hitler and giving him
military advice that would allow the Nazis to win the War but rejected that
idea. Even in the unlikely event that Hitler would listen to Degaton, Hitler
and the victorious Nazis would be too hard to control or subjugate. He needed a
scenario in which the major powers of the world had a political stalemate and
exhausted resources by 1947. Scott's plan was to make certain that the
Per
Degaton made several trips into the past. He gathered up gold from pre-Gold
Rush California and had it converted into cash. He used the cash to purchase
several planes in 1941 which he had converted to look like Japanese Zeros. He
hired several Asian actors with flying experience, telling them that they were
going to take part in a film about World War II. Degaton could make these many
trips to the past because he was not altering the past in anyway. Once Degaton
had the planes in place, he blindfolded the Asian actors and took them through
the time portal to
Since
locations on
Unbeknownst to Degaton, Professor Zee had not died from the savage beating but had been found crawling on the sidewalk in a critical condition. Zee had contacted several scientists about his functioning time portal. Most believed he was a crank, but two men believed that there was some merit to his theory and had came to visit him at his lab. They discovered him crawling on the sidewalk near the laboratory.
These men were James Clarke Wildman (a.k.a. Doc Savage) and Carter Hall (i.e. Hawkman). When Zee regained consciousness he told them about Per Degaton and his plans. Wildman and Hall found the still running time machine. Believing Professor Zee that Degaton planning to do some evil deed in the past, Hall, who had dealt with Zee in the past, believed that his rather shifty lab assistant Per Degaton was capable of doing just as Zee said he was. Although they knew each only through reputation, Hall and Wildman agreed to work together to bring Zee's attacker to justice [21].
They exited the time machine outside an airfield. They saw several Japanese Zeroes take flight. Per Degaton, who was dressed in a black military outfit, was urging them to destroy.
They
easily captured Per Degaton. Wildman and Hall were able to obtain, through the
use of Doc Savage's truth serum, a complete picture of Degaton's plans. His
plan was to attack the West Coast of the
Wildman
and Hall were able to down the planes that were attacking
Traveling
to
When Per Degaton exited prison, his thoughts were less on destroying his father than on getting vengeance on those who had ruined his life. He remembered enough of future events to have invested in certain companies he knew would grow and so had a small fortune at his disposal.
While in prison he had studied all of the existing theories of time travel. In 1966, he assembled what he believed was a time machine that would physically travel through time, rather than Zee's method of opening a hole in time.
Per
Degaton first attempted to travel to
By experimenting with the time controls, Scott discovered that although time did not move linearly in this realm his controls did have some forward or backwards movement, which also seemed correlate with making objects in this realm more or less tangible. He used the controls to move the vehicle to a state where the costumed people were more tangible. They told him that in 1964 Superman had accidentally opened a gateway into their world, which was in a parallel dimension to Superman's. [25] History was different in the two worlds yet oddly alike in many regards.
The slight opening was enough for the Syndicate to see Superman's Earth and see how chaotic it was. It was a world crying for order. The Syndicate traveled to Earth to bring it under control. It took virtually all of the costumed vigilantes then active on Earth to subdue the five members of the Syndicate. Instead of returning the Syndicate to their original world, the costumed vigilantes imprisoned them in the Phantom Zone.[26]
As soon as the Syndicate was corporeal and inside Per Degaton’s machine, the one called Power Ring used his ring to enthrall Scott Evil and take them back to their original world. The world had been devastated by nuclear war. The Syndicate realized that without their strong, firm rule the world had collapsed into anarchy and nuclear war had broken out.[27]
Degaton learned more about their world. The world of the Syndicate's history diverged from Degaton’s world when the Mayan explorer Kukulcan touched the shore of England in the mid-fourteenth century.[28] England had just been devastated by the bubonic plague. It also suffered from a devastating harvest due to poor climatic conditions and a lack of agricultural workers to harvest the salvageable grain. Kukulcan had arrived with several ships filled with warriors and trade goods including foodstuffs.
The King of England, Edward III, saw these arrivals as a miracle from God and quickly established a trading treaty. A fleet of English ships returned with the Mayan fleet to their homelands across the ocean. The English brought with them various trade items and foodstuffs. They also brought asymptomatic carriers of the bubonic plague. The Mayan population was hard hit by the plagues and a clash of cultures over the Mayan religion began. John of Gaunt seized the lands of the Maya for the English crown. The peasant revolts that occurred in England during this period were suppressed harshly by the Engilsh military. The rebels were sent to the Crown Colony of New England (Central America) as slave labor to work alongside the remnants of the Mayans. John of Gaunt continued to conquer more and more territory for the Crown, aided by the pestilence. The great Aztec empire fell to the English as John's brother, Edward the Black Prince, made serious gains in France.
With mercenaries gathered from the New England (Central America) colonies and the lands to the north, Richard III conquered the Kingdom of France and its holdings. He transferred the seat of the British Empire to the Western continent, placing his new capital on the shores of a newly built city in the center of the northern part of the Western Lands. The city had been built by French prisoners of war who had named the city St. Louis after the former French monarch. To cement relations with his new subjects, Richard III kept the French name for this city. The Plantagenet’s eventually conquered all of the Western Lands (North America) and ruled with an iron hand. Yet the old nations of Europe believed that they were getting short shift as the Plantagenet’s concentrated on exploiting the new riches and resources of the Western Lands.
A rebellion among the British was put down in the 1660s with its instigator, a Protestant extremist named Cromwell, beheaded. In the late eighteenth century, several of the European states of the English Empire revolted—France, England and Holland.
The protracted war drained the resources of the Empire as other states, including some of the Western Lands, revolted. England and France were granted their independence.
The Henry X Plantagenet Emperor of the British Empire died without issue and a mad scramble ensued for power. A year after the death of the last Plantagenet Emperor an event happened that certain individuals believed was an omen for the destiny of their families. A small consortium of aristocrats from all over the Plantagenet Empire were traveling to a conclave to decide how they could seize and share power within the Empire. The coaches that they were riding in were nearly struck by a falling star. That they survived unscathed seemed to an omen that they were destined for greatness. These families and their descendents soon began to rule if not in name then in reality Britain and the Western Lands. Because they felt that they shared a special destiny, they began to intermarry and informally called themselves the Wold Newton Family after the town where the meteorite has struck.[29]
Shortly after France became independent, the citizens of France tried a social experiment called republican government. According the Syndicate’s beliefs, a Republic was a system of government proven to be disastrous and unrealistic as proven by the French experiment in the late 18th century. This self styled Republic of France had fallen into factions that had persecuted one another until the former French Kingdom had fallen into chaos. Only when Bonaparte rose to power and restore the rule by the superior man did France once again become stable.
Napoleon Bonaparte set himself up as Emperor of France. Throughout Europe and many of the Western Lands several such strong men rose to take power. This established a pattern of strong-man rule for the centuries to follow.
In the mid 19th century, the Western Lands became embroiled in a great civil war as various factions vied for control. A demagogue and former actor arose to seize power, he was assassinated by a barrister from the backwoods. The backwoods barrister was something of a political crank who believed that John Wilkes Booth’s assassination would pave the way for the creation of a Republic[30].
The Western Lands once again became embroiled in war until a group of strong men from various sections of the Western Lands hammered out an agreement to settle borders and share power.
One of these strong men, named James Clayton who was one of the infamous Wold Newton family, was obsessed with creating a dynasty that would last a thousand years. He spent several years searching for the perfect woman to bear his child, a child who would be trained to be a leader among men, a mental and physical giant who could bring the world under a benevolent yet firm rule. In addition to taking his son away from his wife to be trained by a cadre of scientists and military men, Clayton also began a eugenics program to improve the human race in general.[31]
James Clayton's plans for his son were aided by what appeared to be three meteorites falling from the sky circa 1905. One fell in the middle of the Western Lands, a few hundred miles from St. Louis, another fell near the central mountains of the Western Lands and the last fell in the Siberian hinterlands. The meteorites turned out to be rockets from a far distant planet, each containing an infant. The infants were raised by the people who found them, afraid to turn the strange children over to the security forces of their demesnes because they had legitimate fear of what would happen to the children.
The rocket that landed a few hundred miles from St. Louis was found by a family of tenant farmers named Kent. They named the child Henry after the last Plantagenet Emperor, perhaps seeing this child as a sign that the glory days of the Empire might be restored.
The rocket that fell near the central mountains of the Western Lands contained a girl child. It was found and raised by Matilda Danner. Matilda Danner was a widow in effect if not in fact. Her husband Abednego Danner had been conscripted to help with James Clayton’s eugenics program. Matilda raised Diana to be a fiercely independent woman, something that was oddly enough echoed in Diana’s background from her home planet.[32]
Diana Danner and Henry Kent would eventually become the members of the Syndicate known as Ultra-man and Superwoman. The other members were The Owl, Power Ring and Johnny Quick. Before they were the Syndicate however they would become this world’s version of the Fabulous Five.
Near the crash site of the shattered rockets, which for years were believed to be meteorites, were pieces of an odd mineral.[33] Thomas Wayne, a young man from New York, acquired a piece of one of these minerals as a child and the radiations helped to increase his intellect. He may have also gained the ability to cloud men’s minds.
Wayne’s father was the Chief Magistrate of New York although Thomas felt that his father was too lenient by far to the rabble that filled the city. James Clayton’s efforts of increase agricultural production through increased mechanization had thrown many farmers off of their lands. They began to pour into the urban centers seeking employment in the industrial centers. When Thomas was ten his family’s was robbed while walking home from a motion picture. He watched as his parents handed their valuables over to the gunman. Thomas memorized the face and later returned to the area. Over the next few nights he looked for the robber. Once he found him Thomas gunned down his first victim.
While maintaining the façade of being a normal boy Thomas began to lead a second life as a vigilante,that is someone who took the law into his own hands. He hunted down thieves, retrieved their stolen goods and executed them. He used the retrieved goods and money to start a business empire. He was called a robber baron by the less worthy. Even after he became a wealthy business man, he continued his vigilante activities, extending them to terrorizing rival businesses that the considered unethical. Yet eventually he went after the wrong rival who happened to be a friend of James Clayton. All the law enforcement and security resources of the Western Lands were turned towards catching The Owl.[34] Although Wayne eluded them for a year, eventually James Clayton’s son uncovered Wayne’s identity. Wayne was given a choice by James Clayton to work for the Western Lands Intelligence services or be shot.
When Kent Allard, a young street tough, became a fighter pilot in the Great War of 1925-1933, he was among those assigned to help the ally of the Western Lands, the Tsar of All the Russias, bring his pitiful air force up the standards of the twentieth century. Allard saved the life of the Tzar by disarming a would-be assassin named Lenin. Lenin was a former priest who had been a member of the religious maniac Rasputin's cult. Allard eventually found himself face-to-face with Rasputin who tried to hypnotize him with a ring. Allard emptied his guns into Rasputin, stabbed him several times, and finally ended up in hand-to-hand combat with the monk. Rapustin died after an extended fight in the icy waters of the Neva river. Allard stole the ring off of his finger. Later during the war Allard was shot down over China. Imprisoned with some Tibetan refugees, he was told that his ring was a great talisman and trained by a lama as to how to use it.
During the Great War a super-strong man was discovered to be among the soldiers of the Western Lands and he was unleashed on the Germans to wreak havoc. However, the super-strong soldier, Henry Kent, was overcome by gas, and he was chained, manacled, and placed in an inescapable prison on orders of the Kaiser. He became fast friends with two other prisoners. One was Thomas Wayne of the intelligence corps, the other was a man who called himself Clark Savage (he was, in fact, James Clayton Jr.). Savage and Wayne overcame their guards, opened Kent's cell, and picked the locks on chains. They escaped from Camp Balder and went their separate ways.
A geologist named William Harper Littlejohn who had been experimenting with the mineral found near Kent's ship had applied an electrical charge to the mineral. The feedback had struck him like a lightning bolt. After this he began undergoing a series of ever increasing rapid and violent convulsions and spasms. Henry Kent was contacted by the Office of Scientific Inquiry and asked if he would donate blood to help save the Littlejohn’s life. His blood transfusion stabilized Littlejohn’s condition. The combination of the blood transfusion and the experiment had somehow given geologist Littlejohn a hyperkinetic ability, that is the ability to move at super speed. He was kept in custody for the good of the realm, as was Kent.[35] Angered by this, Henry Kent broke out of custody and went on a drunken rampage. He found himself imprisoned by the Western Lands military police, forced to undergo various tests for the good of the realm. He and Littlejohn were freed from their prison by a young woman who possessed the same powers as Kent. In addition she carried an unbreakable lariat, which she used to great effect. Raised among a ranching family in the Far West, she had become something of a wrangler. The rope was woven from threads from a blanket that had covered her as an infant. She was named Diana Danner.[36] She was from the same planet as Henry Kent. They were the result of generations of selective breeding on a planet whose normal citizens could be considered super-men compared to the Earthlings. The planet had been ruled by genetically created super-men but the planet had collapsed into social chaos and the genetically bred supermen were hunted down and destroyed. It was decided by the three remaining members of the ruling class that their children should be sent to a far distant planet where their abilities would make them gods among men. Henry Kent's parents had been rulers of a technocratic society, Diana's parent had been the leader of a group of women who rejected male companionship. The third child had been from a strict religious sect that controlled a fourth of the planet. Danner and Kent had believed for years that the third child had apparently died on impact since the Tunguska area in Russia where the ship was supposed to have landed had been devastated and since no word had ever been heard of him.
Henry Kent, Diana Danner, and Littlejohn rebelled at the treatment they had received by going on a crime rampage. James Clayton dispatched his son to apprehend the super criminals. On one hand, James Clayton Jr. was a well regarded medical man who made many innovations to the science of medicine, yet his innovations to the treatment of criminals were looked upon with some degree of horror. Dr. Clayton took a great delight in apprehending criminals, often using brutal methods to do so. After the criminals were captured, Doctor Clayton then used a brain operation of his own devising to cure criminal tendencies, these operations were, effectively, lobotomies. For these reasons James Clayton achieved the nickname of Doc Savage. This appellation held even after Clayton acquired another method of changing the behavior of criminals. One of Doc Savage’s pursuits of a criminal had taken him to China where he was shot down by Tzarist planes. He crash landed in Tibet. Even though Savage had been injured in the crash, he was able to help the Tibetans fend off a Russian-sponsored Chinese invasion. A grateful lama gave Clayton a magic blue hood, which had a sacred ruby on its forehead. This magic cowl endowed Clayton with super-strength and hypnotic powers.[37]
James Clayton Jr. was aided by Thomas Wayne and Kent Allard in his hunt for the three super criminals. Wayne was able to accurately plot the moves of the three criminals. Doc Savage and his two associates intercepted the three super criminals during one of their crime sprees. Doc and Allard used their stones to hypnotize the three criminals into working for the forces of truth, justice, and the Western Lands way. In other words to wholly accept James Clayton Sr.’s reign and work to advance it.
James Clayton Sr. was assassinated and Doc Savage and his fabulous five associates hunted down the dissidents and took care of them in a way that demonstrated that Doctor Clayton was fully capable of living up to his Savage nickname. Doc “Savage” and his fabulous five associates spent the next twelve years combating all of the supervillains in the world. These super villains were, of course, the other strong men in the world who would not acquiesce to Doctor Clayton’s pre-eminent rule.
After the Great War, a priest—an acolyte of the now sainted Rasputin—rose up to become the power behind the Tzars. He was a priest from the Siberian wastelands bearing the name of Jozev Djushavali. In 1932 he survived the assassination of the Tzar. The Tzar and his entire family were killed in a bomb blast, but Djushavali was miraculously untouched. Seeing that he was favored by God, Djushavali seized control of Russias. He exerted a harsh control over his people that even James Clayton would have found excessive. Djushvali forced people into collectivized farms, inducing famine to make them cooperate. He used the millions of peasants under his control to invade China. Djushvali led his troops into battle, killing thousands and always emerging unscathed. Because of his ferocity and apparent invulnerability he was nicknamed the Steel Wolf, Stalniviok.
Eventually Stalniviok came into direct confrontation with Doc Savage and his fabulous five. Henry Kent and Diana Danner realized that Stalnviok was the third child who had crashed in Tunguska in 1905. Although Stalnviok was defeated, it came at the cost of Doc Savage’s life. Rather than let the world descend into chaos after Doc Savage’s death, the five made it appear as though after defeating the last of his opponents Doctor Clayton abruptly retired, leaving the world to be run by his five associates. Clayton, it was claimed, had gone to explore the mythical interior world.[38]
Between them the five associates pooled their talents to make their world peaceful and orderly.
Dividing the world into five sectors, they formed the Syndics of the World Syndicate. War, poverty, and crime were eliminated throughout the world under the benevolent rule of the Syndicate. The social engineering begun by the Claytons that made the individual a member of the state was continued by the Syndicate, governed by the Syndicate, and enforced by a world-wide security organization that Thomas Wayne created. They also continued the eugenics program begun by the Savages to create an elite race of genetic supermen to continue their legacy. By the end of the fifties, the world was such a peaceful place that the Syndicate was bored. When the window accidentally opened up into Superman’s world, they realized that this was the challenge that they had been looking for, a new world to bring peace, prosperity, and order. Yet upon arriving on this Earth their efforts had been thwarted by the strong men and women of this world and they had been consigned to a hellish dimension. To the Syndicate’s way of thinking, the oddly parallel super beings were obviously criminals who wished to control the world for themselves.
After their imprisonment in the Phantom Zone and the devastation of their home world that had occurred in their absence, The Syndicate's hatred for the costumed heroes turned to rage. They agreed to help Degaton destroy them. They used Power Ring's power ring to guide them through the Phantom Zone to a weak section in the dimensional barrier. The power of the time machine combined with Power Ring broke through the dimensional barrier and they were once again on Perry Degaton’s home world.
Once in his own world again, Degaton traveled to 1961 and aided by the Syndicate stole four nuclear missiles. These were stolen one at a time and then transported to 1942. After all four missiles were in 1942, [39] he had the members of the Syndicate place them in a strategic places in Europe, Asia, and America where they could hit the capitols and major cities of the United States, Germany, Japan, England, and Russia. Per Degaton convinced the five members of the Syndicate that he needed technology from 1982. Afraid that he would try to pull a fast one, they insisted on traveling with him. Once in 1982, Per Degaton bolted back to his machine and stranded the five Syndicate members in this future of a world strange and bizarre to them. He believed that once he had changed the past, the Syndicate members would either disappear as time ripples from his alteration of the past eradicated this version of 1982 or else they would be struck in an alternate universe. Either way they would not be a threat to him.
Back in 1942, Perry borrowed an idea from his father, Dr. Evil, who had sent a 1990’s television set and video cassette player to the President of the United States in 1969. Degaton sent the various national leaders of 1942 a similar gift, only his were rigged with self-destruct mechanisms that destroyed the internal electronics once the tapes had been played.
The leaders, especially in Germany, Japan, and Russia did not accede to Per Degaton's threats. Berlin, Tokyo, and Moscow disappeared into nuclear fireballs. Threat of further reprisals and the surgical decapitation of the governments of Nazi Germany, Japan, and Russia gave Per Degaton control over most Eurasia. Even when Washington D.C. and London had been incinerated, the Anglo-American alliance did not immediately fold. Degaton instead had to conquer them by numbers and military might. Once he had he made America his seat of operations. He formed a fascistic cult of personality with himself at the core. He kept all customs and technology at the 1942 level through various means of enforcement including secret police, state control of education and moral boards. Per Degaton had a rival rise up in the late fifties who seized control of the Eurasian sector. This was Kane the Immortal, also known as Vandal Savage. They shared the world with an uneasy peace, their societies oddly similar.[40]
Per Degaton and Vandal Savage ruled a world that did not change that much from 1942 until 1985. Per Degaton planned for the possibility that the Syndicate members had not been wiped out in the changed timeline. As it turns out his hunch was correct. Since the Syndicate members were slightly out of synchronization with the world that Per Degaton had stranded them in, they felt and saw the world change about them but remained unchanged themselves. Unlike everyone else they were aware of the change in history.
Almost soon as they had shimmered into the new reality, they were set upon by black garbed Security Forces who shot to kill. Per Degaton had remembered the time and place that they would appear and so made plans to capture or kill them if they did so.
Fleeing from the armed assault, the Syndicate members regrouped and agreed to try to stop Per Degaton, despite their approval of his methods of social control. Their efforts over the next few months to dismantle his infrastructure brought them against a group of rebels led by the vigilante Batman. The Syndicate member Thomas Wayne thought it would be wise to parlay with them; the rebels might be useful.[41] The Syndicate members agreed that they could always destroy these rebels later if need be.
At the meeting place, a former hospital, Power Ring scanned the area with his magic ring but did not discover any traps. They stepped into the door and the four most powerful of the Syndicate members found themselves back in the Phantom Zone. Only the relatively powerless Thomas Wayne stepped into a room and found himself surrounded by people in military garb and masks. Only the man named Batman wore a costume.
Thomas Wayne deduced that the rebels had learned of the Syndicate members’ origins from stolen files kept by Per Degaton's security forces. The rebels had somehow learned to build a Phantom Zone projector or else had discovered Superman's.
Batman summed up the situation to Thomas Wayne. It was known to the rebels that Per Degaton had used time travel to bring advanced weapons to 1942 to change world history. However to keep Vandal Savage or rebel elements from gaining control of the time machine, Per Degaton had destroyed the time machine and had all the members of the so-called Time Trust killed. Many efforts to create a time machine to undo Per Degaton's time manipulation had been enacted. They learned that Nicholas Tesla had designed one or that one of his designs had been used to create a device to broadcast power. This had apparently opened a hole in the time barrier instead of broadcasting power.[42] They had discovered what they thought was prototype of this machine in what had been Superman's Secret Fortress in the Catskill Mountains. The device had only opened a window into a bizarre limbo world. Files from Per Degaton's Security Forces had allowed them to understand the Phantom Zone device. According to Degaton's files the Syndicate members were just as bad as he, only more powerful. Carefully monitored by the rebels, the Syndicate members had proven to be as Per Degaton stated and so had been sent back to the Phantom Zone.
Since Thomas Wayne lacked superpowers and so was not as dangerous as his companions, he was kept out of the Phantom Zone. If he helped the rebels, he would be allowed to remain free of the Phantom Zone. The rebels needed to know the precise time and place that Per Degaton first used the time machine.
Wayne told them that this was in 1947. Both he and Batman realized that Per Degaton's changing of time in 1942 had made stopping him in 1947 an impossibility since that version of 1947 had never existed in this time line.
Batman had hoped to stop Per Degaton just as he was about to enact his crime, but since this was impossible he had to do so much earlier before Degaton ever became a menace. To save the world Batman would sacrifice his principles and convict an innocent man.
Batman was hypnotized by Professor Nichols, the only living associate of Professor Zee. Nichols induced Batman to travel back in time via hypnosis. Batman took over the body of his younger 1942 self and planted evidence that caused Per Degaton to be arrested for jewel theft. Per Degaton had gone to prison, yet Per Degaton had still shown up in 1942 with the atomic bombs.[43] Thomas Wayne realized that Batman had merely reinforced Per Degaton's personal timeline rather than altering Per Degaton's time manipulations.
Thomas Wayne offered his opinion that the nexus of the time change was the exact moment that Per Degaton had showed up in 1942 after having dropped the Syndicate members off in 1982. If it was possible, he should be taken out at that moment, probably with a sniper since one could not approach the machine without making him aware of it.
Several hours of discussion followed over the ethics of killing Per Degaton and whether the Thomas Wayne’s information could be trusted. It was finally decided that Batman would trust the Thomas Wayne’s information and would remove the threat of Per Degaton as he arrived in 1942. Thomas Wayne watched with some fascination as Batman was hypnotized by Professor Nichols and his mind sent through time.[44]
Although Batman was a crackshot, he also had an ethical opposition to killing, especially in what could be considered cold-blooded assassination. It may be for this reason that his first shot at Per Degaton missed. The first shot hit the control panel of the time booth, starting the machine, Per Degaton fell backwards into the timefield, as he did so Batman’s second shot hit him in the chest. Perry Degaton felt a flash of searing pain accompanied by a ripping sensation.
Per Degaton found himself lying on the sidewalk with a dull ache in his chest. The time machine had vanished, stranding Per Degaton in 1942.
The time booth containing a time twinned and dying Per Degaton headed uncontrollably for 1986.
The Per Degaton trapped in 1942 saw the world change around him as the time line reversed itself and the time ripples washing over him drove him mad.
Because of his machinations with the fabric of time Per Degaton became a time wraith until 1947. Out of synchronization with the time stream he had created, Per Degaton was unable to directly influence historical events, he was unable to be seen, heard, or touched by living things, he could only touch items that had no significance to history such as discarded food or clothing. As he found, not all garbage or trash fit this description; if food was slated to be eaten by other living beings significant to history, he could not touch it.
He could still feel hunger, still feel the effects of heat or cold, still feel pain, yet he could not die, as he would discover in his many suicide attempts. His senses were also blunted to the point at which sounds seemed as though they came to him from underwater, vision was constantly foggy, taste, smell and touch were virtually nonexistent. He spent the next five years, a lonely shadow in the world, living off garbage, dressed in rags, and residing in abandoned buildings.
Per Degaton could see and hear his younger 1942 self yet Per Degaton could not communicate with his younger self. His younger self was once again framed for a robbery by Batman and put in jail falsely, which was one of residual time anomalies.
As before when Per Degaton was released from prison he was given a job by the kindly Dr. Zee in 1945.
In 1947 the time wraith Per Degaton felt as is he were sucked through a vortex and found himself merging with his younger self as the time stream corrected its course.
One day in 1947 Per Degaton awoke knowing that his plans for conquest through time travel had been thwarted several times; he had a great hatred against Dr. Zee and costumed vigilantes. He began to plot how he could achieve his plans for world conquest.
Plagued by dreams, Degaton assaulted Zee in an attempt to steal his technology. After being shot by Degaton, Zee made it to the time machine first and set a course for 1983, leaving Degaton surrounded by his equipment[45]
Through bribery, trickery, and boastfulness, Degaton used these laboratory materials to embark on a thwarted career as a supervillain. Certain members of CIALD had gotten wind that Perry Degaton planned something big but moved against him peremptorily before he had actually committed any crimes. However Per Degaton could be charged with the suspicion of having something to do with Dr. Zee’s disappearance. Perry Degaton was so charged and sent to jail as a suspect. He was still in jail while the police were investigating the supposed murder. He was, however, broken out of jail and took part in an attack on various costumed vigilantes. The organizer of the attack believed that Per Degaton had more skills than he actually possessed.[46]
In the winter of 1947, a man named the Collector contacted Per Degaton as well as Brainwave or Dr. Henry King[47] who was working in concert with a man named the Thinker,[48] and a pair of lesser known criminals known as the Gambler[49] and the Wizard.[50] Dr. King was contacted by a man who knew at least one of his criminal personas, that of Dr. Psycho. The Collector was in truth Vandal Savage[51]. The Thinker was to negate the Flash's power, Vandal Savage was to capture Hawkman's wings, Per Degaton was to take on Dr. Mid-Nite, the Brain Wave was assigned the task of stealing the Green Lantern's ring, and the Gambler was to challenge Dr. Fate.[52] To accentuate their plans and to create a diversion, the Wizard was in charge of releasing prisoners from penitentiaries across the nation. The criminals were initially successful in capturing their particular foes and removing their sources of power, but the whole plan collapsed because of the arrogance of the Brain Wave. Having felled the Green Lantern with a mind blast, the Brain Wave saw the Lantern fall into a ravine and plummet to a certain death. The Brain Wave did not follow through to make certain that the Green Lantern had indeed died. Although his ring protected him from serious harm, the Green Lantern was quite injured.[53] It took him a few days to recover enough to track down the location of the captive heroes where the villains were attempting to wrest the secrets of their technology from them. The mock trial in the comic-book version was a fiction created by the comic-book writers at the vigilantes’ request not to disclose the fact that they had been tortured for information about their devices, so as not to give other villains the same idea. Green Lantern did impersonate the Thinker but did so to free the others. Once freed, the vigilantes rounded up the criminals and turned them over to the police.[54]
Per Degaton spent the next 12 years in jail. He tried several methods of creating a viable time machine, failed efforts which resulted in depression and madness. After he assaulted Dr. Nichols, he was remanded to Bellevue Asylum. There he met another patient who claimed to have been a time wraith, a patient named Roger Hayden who claimed to remember the universes dying. Per Degaton was in and out of insane asylums for several years. In 1975 he saw a newspaper article discussing the murder of a FBI agent, the partner of Foxxy Cleopatra.
This article unlocked long-suppressed memories of being Scott Evil in his mind. His mother Frau Farbissina had traveled to 1974 from 1969, giving birth to him in 1974. His mother had been involved in setting up the Midas Touch project with Johann Van Der Smut in 1975. He realized that his entire life had been wasted because of a sullen brat’s decision to destroy his father out of spite. There already was an empire waiting for him to rule, but he had to gain control of it by guile and wit rather than force.
Scott made himself as disheveled and downtrodden as possible and then went to look up his mother in 1975. He told her the truth of how he had grown up to resent his father, had traveled back in time to prevent his father from becoming Dr. Evil but had become time lost instead. Scott wanted to spend the rest of his life getting into his father’s good graces and to prevent his younger self from living the life Per Degaton had lived. Actually Scott only wanted to get in good with the old man, that is Dr. Evil to succeed him as the head of a world wide criminal empire. Scott Evil had no intention of convincing his younger self not to go through with the stupid plan that had resulted in the existence of Per Degaton. Scott Evil/Per Degaton had too strong a sense of survival to imperil his own existence by altering his personal timeline. He also dimly remembered being a time wraith and did not want to replicate that experience.
Frau Farbissina was horrified at the tale that the middle-aged Scott had told her and gave him access to Vitrucon, Dr. Evil’s legitimate corporate empire. These were assets and materiel that she had shunted away from the main body of the corporation without the knowledge of Number Two.
Scot Evil used his hazy time-addled memory of the future to begin investing in various ventures. Many of these were failures; he was often too early to invest in successful ideas.
Yet the middle aged Scott remained hidden from Number Two and quietly built his own organization. He dyed his hair and had cosmetic surgery to look younger. In June of 1975 he was mentally contacted by his old ally from the 1940’s, Brainwave. Dr. Henry King’s reputation was in a shambles in 1975 after the debacle of Symbion.[55]
Dr. Henry King had eluded capture but was sought by the authorities. Wishing vengeance on the world for having destroyed all that he had created and loved, he planned a great devastation. Scott Evil had become quite wealthy through various criminal schemes, and he briefly assumed the guise of Per Degaton once more to help Dr. King because it would further some of his own plans. Per Degaton allowed Dr. King the use of a satellite and a weather-making device, these were left over schemes of his father’s that had never come to fruition. With these Dr. King staged a series of catastrophes across the globe in a bid for world domination. A volcano formed in Peking, an earthquake occurred in Seattle, a gas disaster occurred in Africa. These activities captured the eventual attention of CIALD and the Diogenes Club. A team of CIALD contractors and two members of the Diogenes Club were sent to stop the satellite and its controller before any more disasters occurred.
It was learned that the disasters had in fact not been real, as with many other of Dr. Evil’s inventions the disaster satellite did not work. Dr. King had used the satellite to augment his projective telepathy so that he created realistic illusions of the disasters, so real in fact that some people did succumb to injuries.[56] In a few days' time, Dr. Henry King was again in jail.
Dr. King proved to be a fair-weather friend and gave up Per Degaton for a lesser sentence.
Per Degaton was arrested and remained in prison for seven years. The year after his release from prison he became involved in a legal battle that resulted in his being returned to prison.
In 1982 the Director of CIALD, Bruce Wayne, disappeared while on a mission. A year after Wayne’s apparent demise the aged Professor Nichols delivered to reporter Clark Kent the document that would become known as the Bat-Man Diary. In this document, Bat-Man claimed that Nazis had infiltrated the OSS’ elite program that utilized costumed vigilantes, the Auxiliary Logistical and Special Tactical Response Squadron, known as The ALSTR Squad. The diary claimed that many of the famous vigilantes of the period were active agents of Germany. Many of the old-time vigilantes were summoned before Congress to answer these charges, in a violation of the privacy agreement that the government had consented to as a condition of their service, the names of the vigilantes were made public.[57]
Concurrent with this was the hearing to stop publication of the Batman diary on grounds that it was a forgery.
Per Degaton learned that both of these efforts were part of a concerted agenda to discredit and possibly criminalize vigilantism, either costumed or otherwise, both sponsored by his relatives in the Luthor family. The congressional hearings were spearheaded by Congressman O’Fallon from Ohio. The Congressman’s father had also been a member of Congress and had in the 1950’s also attempted to discredit the costumed vigilantes but had labeled them as them Reds, as willing or naïve agents of the Soviet Union. The publicity had briefly turned the public against costumed vigilantes. Many of these had either retired or curtailed their activities for a few years.[58] It was not generally known that the congressman from Ohio had received large campaign contributions and other gratuities from Alexander Wainwright Luthor and Lawrence Luthor funneled through dummy corporations. His son had maintained this relationship although through Alexander Wainwright Luthor’s son Alexis Luther and Lawrence Luthor’s son Wilson Fisk.
The company that was attempting to publish The Batman Diary for mass distribution was a prestigious company. However it had been purchased recently by another publishing house with a less-than-reputable reputation. This company published a small paperback line that published exploitation/sex novels. The company was owned by Jonas Cord Jr.[59] Jonas Cord supported efforts to discredit vigilantes not so much because of he wished to encourage or wished to hide criminal activities but because he was philosophically opposed to the very concept of the “super-man hero.” He believed that costumed vigilantes promoted lawlessness even the vigilantes supposedly chose to ignore laws for the greater good; their illegal actions gave rise to the notion that the legal system could be flouted if deemed necessary. Vigilantism made people distrust the capacities of the law-enforcement system. The costumed “heroes” also promoted an elitist philosophy that everyday people such as a police officers and firefighters were ineffectual in taking care of their fellow citizens, instead a special outsider was needed. To Cord’s mind this philosophy went deeper in that it instilled that idea that no matter how much a person strove to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, no matter what odds they overcame to better themselves, this would not be good enough because an elite group of outsiders would better be able to lead them and provide them with safety. Cord believed this philosophy was dangerous to society as a whole.[60]
However Per Degaton’s testimony at both hearings was eventually rendered moot by two events that ended with both legal proceedings being dropped. These were the revelations that the Batman Diary was indeed a hoax and forgery written by a man who had formerly clerked in the files section of CIALD and who had been paid by Cord Industries to do a hatchet job on the costumed vigilantes. Cord Industries denied the charge. [61] The other revelation was the star witness of the case against the costumed vigilantes, the criminal known as The Wizard was an imposter. The original Wizard who had fought against many of the costumed vigilantes in the Forties had rehabilitated and become a member of Prince Zarkon’s Omega Men and came forward to prove that Congress had been fooled by a phony.[62]
Per Degaton had been arrested on suspicion of assault while waiting to be cross examined at the Batman Diary forgery trial. An older man, wandering the streets in a daze claimed Per Degaton had assaulted him. He claimed to be Dr. Malachai Zee, who had traveled from 1947 and appeared in 1984 with a concussed skull courtesy of Per Degaton. Even though the identity of the person could not be determined—Dr. Zee having disappeared in 1947—the claims of his time travel were deemed the result of delusion brought on by the concussion, and this claim was enough to have Per Degaton’s parole revoked. The older man disappeared from the hospital, after telling orderlies he planned to travel to his 200th birthday.
Per Degaton finished out the rest of his ten-year sentence and was released in 1988. He had spent the last few years studying the science of robotics with the express purpose of attempting to rebuild the body of Rotwang’s Mekanique using the head that he had saved several years before. He knew he had been too stupid to realize that Mekanique’s story of Rotwang having created her four hundred years in the future and that she had the ability to travel through time had been truthful to a certain extent. He believed that Rotwang was like him a time-lost traveler from the future. Rotwang had indeed created Mekanique in the 2300s and used her to travel to the past, but she had malfunctioned and he had been unable to repair her. Rotwang had tried to repair her by imbuing her with a human life force but this too had failed. Per Degaton believed that if he could re-make Mekanique’s body, he would be able to use her as a time-travel device. From prison he made several inquiries, seeking a position where he could use the facilities to rebuild Mekanique, but because of his prison record he was rejected by just about everyone. He was hired by Heywood Industries with the stated opportunity of working on research of his own with the facilities of the company.
Once Per Degaton arrived in Detroit, he discovered that there was a catch. The owner of Heywood Industries wanted Per Degaton to use his expertise to create a cyborg. He had picked Per Degaton because of his criminal background and his scientific genius, knowing that Degaton would carry out the operations and be silent about it.[63]
The subject of the cyborg operation was Heywood himself. He had a set of plans and a formula for something he called a bio-retardant. He insisted on having his bone structure replaced with a metal skeleton powered by powerful micro-motors and while he was under a local. Knowing that there was a good chance that it would kill Heywood, Per Degaton still carried out the operation.
The initial pain of the operation required Heywood to reveal many things that Per Degaton noted for future use. Heywood’s father had been the WWII hero Commander Steel, who was disappointed that Heywood had not become a hero like himself. Yet as the operation continued it soon became apparent to Per Degaton that Heywood was nuttier than a fruitcake. He claimed that Commander Steel was not quite the hero that he was portrayed. Heywood also claimed that his father was the mysteryman called the Guardian and also the Russian terrorist Stalnoivok. Heywood also claimed to be Commander Steel and seemed to believe that he was his own grandson. He also claimed to be the son of Superman and Amelia Earhart.[64]
Per Degaton wondered if he should also install a cuckoo clock in Heywood. The operation was a success of sorts. The bio retardant kept the body from rejecting the metallic skeleton and also allowed for the muscles to attach themselves to the metal skeleton. However the micro motors functioned erratically and Heywood found that he felt quite tired and weaker.[65]
While Per Degaton used the facilities at Heywood Industries to rebuild Mekanique’s body, Heywood embarked on a short career as a superhero, conning local several teenagers into joining his superhero team: a Puerto Rican break dancer with a amazing ability to throw knives, a would be model who believed she could manifest the powers of animals, and a young homeless girl who was a master at concealment and disguise.[66]
Per Degaton learned of the work of a Dr. Dolenz, an expert in robotics.[67] He made a raid on the scientist’s laboratory. He saw agents of his mother working on Dr. Dolenz’s staff. Degaton realized now who the true inventor of the Fembots was. His mother had stolen the idea from Dr. Dolenz. Per Degaton stole information and supplies from Dr. Dolenz, repaired Mekanique, and left Detroit.
He later learned that one of Heywood’s companions had been killed when Dr. Dolenz sent robots to raid the laboratories at Heywood Industries. Heywood and one of his companions had been severely injured in the attack. Dolenz was probably seeking Per Degaton. Heywood was put on life support because of his compromised immune system.
Degaton activated Mekanique. She still could not physically travel through time but she could locate temporal nexus points, points were time machines had been or would be operated. She believed that she could use the residual chroniton particles to activate her temporal conveyance.[68] She sensed one such temporal locus in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, Degaton became involved in the drug trade to provide cash for his living expenses and to provide for their search for the temporal locus.
Degaton discovered that Mekanique had been imprinted with the engrams of a human female and so felt emotions. To his dismay, she became emotionally attached to him, extremely attached to him.
One of the drug deals that Per Degaton brokered was busted by a pair of costumed vigilantes. One was a new generation version of the hard-fisted brawler named the Wildcat the other was a newer vigilante named Mr. Bones. They were members of the group known as Infinity Inc., but Per Degaton had never expected to see any of them since they ran in different circles. He had heard a rumor that due to a deal that the city of Los Angeles had made with Infinity Inc. that they were going to start patrolling the streets and fighting street crime, but he had given it little credence.[69]
Per Degaton fled from the scene on foot and was struck by a car. He fell into a deep darkness and came awake abruptly with Mekanique’s cold hand on his naked chest. She claimed that he had died and she had used her temporal powers to bring him back to life. He was certain that if there was any truth to her statement that what had transpired was that his heart had stopped and she had tricked a charge from her body into him to jump start his heart.
Mekanique stated that for some reason when Per Degaton was clinically dead, she had gotten a stronger reading on the temporal locus. She helped him out of the hospital and they traveled to the spot where she claimed the temporal locus was. They had not traveled unseen, however; Yolanda Montez had seen them leaving the hospital from her window. She followed the pair still dressed in her hospital gown. Because of her concussed state and because of the injuries sustained during this incident, her testimony was looked upon as delusional by law enforcement authorities.[70]
Yolanda Montez saw Mekanique deposit Per Degaton on the ground, having half-carried him for miles. Mekanique walked over to a small area and told him that she sensed the chronoton activity. She was going to try to increase her connection to the chronoton field and draw the temporal device to their time and location.
As Degaton stood waiting beside the silent and eerily glowing Mekanique, Yolonda Montez dashed forward to capture Degaton. Debilitated by her injuries Yolanda found the older man a handful. Mekanique paused in her task long enough to send an electrical discharge into Montez. This knocked her back and slammed her into a tree a few feet behind her.
A hazy square took shape on the field. This coalesced into a solid form. Per Degaton had a sinking feeling, a feeling of dread as he recognized the arriving time vessel. This was Professor Zee’s time booth; he fully expected Professor Zee to pop out of the time booth an accuse him of either having shot him or assaulted him. To his shock and dismay a severely wounded man did exit the time booth, but the man was a younger version of Per Degaton. He had been shot in the chest. Per Degaton realized that back in 1942 when Batman had shot at him he had been split in two by the time field, one version of Per Degaton had been shot and the other version of Per Degaton had not. He was a living example of Schrödinger’s cat.[71]
The dying Per Degaton lurched forward and grasped his older doppelganger. For some reason, possibly because of the way Per Degaton had been time twinned, possibly because of Mekanique’s interference in the time stream or possibly because of the highly charged chroniton particles in the area, a chain reaction occurred. Both Per Degatons began screaming as they dissolved into energy particles. Mekanique used all of her remaining energy to maintain the physical reality of Per Degaton. The two versions of Per Degaton dissolved and melded in an agonizing process that left one remaining Per Degaton but in an unconscious state. Mekanique imploded and was sucked into a temporal vortex that also took the time booth.
Per Degaton had been physically rejuvenated by the experience to the extent of being once again biologically thirty years old. However the melding was imperfect and he was left physically frail and not in the best of health. He was still unconscious when the party that had tracked Yolonda Montez arrived. He spent ten years in prison for drug dealing.
In prison Per Degaton discovered that his fusion with his previous self from what was now an alternate timeline had altered him to some extent. Previously when he had lived into his biological sixties he had retained his thick mop of hair, although it had gone silver. However the time meld had altered him in a way that he did not understand. One of the effects was that he began to lose his hair. By 2000 he had lost so much of his hair that he began to look like his father. He realized that it was time for Perry Degaton to die and for Scott Evil to be reborn. After Scott Evil was released from prison he once again hooked up with his mother. His younger self had already traveled back into the past. Scott insinuated himself into the organization once again, since his father was in prison in Geneva this was fairly easy to do.
Scott worked hard to shed himself not only of his Per Degaton baggage but also his previous Scott Evil baggage. Instead of being a smart ass, resentful of his absent father, he worked hard to reconcile with his father. Using the resources of Virtucon and his own intellect, he was able to create sharks with lasers attached to their foreheads, the lasers hard-wired into the shark’s brains to respond to attack stimuli, which could be artificially stimulated through a remote control.
He worked behind the scenes with his mother to make certain that the Midas Touch Project was a success. When Dr. Evil saw that Scott was balding and when he was presented with the sharks with the lasers on their foreheads, he immediately bonded with his son, and sent the vile, abominable clone Mini-Me away. When Mini-Me turned traitor, this strengthened the father-son bond. Things were going well. The Midas Touch Project was coming off to a success when the damnable Austin Powers and his father Nigel Powers interfered.
Austin Powers had Dr. Evil in his gun sights and was prepared to shoot him. Scott felt an impulse to leap forward to save his father but quelled it. They had already done the father-son binding thing and Dr. Evil was destined to be killed one day. Somebody would have to take over the organization. . . so Scott stayed back. Austin Powers was however stopped from killing Dr. Evil by Nigel Powers
In a revelation that collapsed Scott’s new sense of family, Nigel announced that Austin Powers was Dr. Evil’s brother. This would made Austin Powers Scott’s uncle and Nigel Powers his grandfather.
Considering how Dr. Evil had been quite willing to kill his own offspring, Scott was certain that Dr. Evil would use Austin’s sudden fraternal compassion against him. However to Scott’s shock and dismay, Dr. Evil actually seemed to be emotionally overcome with the revelation of his true origins. He even worked with Austin Powers to stop Goldmember from carrying out the Midas Touch Project.[72]
Dr. Evil and his cronies were sent to prison, but Scott managed to escape. He seized the reigns of power over the Evil organization and vowed to destroy Austin Powers and all of his family. In a unconfirmed report, Scott Evil was last seen plotting the destruction of Austin and Nigel Powers from the shambles of the lair behind the Hollywood sign. [73]
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[1] The Time Traveler depicted in H. G. Wells classic the Time Machine was unnamed. Philip Jose Farmer identified this individual as Bruce Clarke Wildeman in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (Bantam, 1975)
[2] All Star Comics 10, DC Comics May 1942
[3] All Star Comics 10, has the various members of the Justice Society of America physically travel to the future to get the component sections of the defense shield, an obvious dramatization.
[4] According the remaining notes of the Time Trust the year contacted was 2442. None of these described cities seem to resemble the New York City of the 2442 which could be found on the Earth that is the center of the Federation and so were probably divergent futures from the Star Trek Future. A few of them may be futures in which variant versions of Buck Rogers had his adventures, the city inside the trees may be from the future depicted in the novel Armageddon 2419 by Philip Nowlan, the city floating in the sky may be from the future depicted in the serial Buck Rogers (Universal 1939) the city in airless canyon may be from the future depicted in the Buck Rogers television show (ABC 1950) in which city was inside a cavern behind Niagara Falls, the city encased in the glass bubble may from the future depicted in the Buck Rogers of the 25th Century television show (NBC 1979). The city in an oasis surrounded by a harsh and barren desert may be from the future depicted in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” 20th Century Fox (1970)
[5] The story of Robotman being Paul Crane a scientist who had his brain transplanted into an experimental robot body was a fabrication. This was either a fabrication created by the writers who did not know the true identity of Robotman, a deliberate mistruth perpetrated by Robotman or disinformation planted by the U.S. Government intelligence services. Robotman was in fact Adam Link, a robot of some fame and notoriety whose exploits had been depicted in a series of stories in Amazing Stories magazine between 1939 and 1942 by Eando and Otto Binder. In 1941 Adam Link and his robotic mate, Eve Link departed for the Moon. A tragedy occurred and Eve Link was destroyed. Adam Link returned to the Earth but blamed himself for the death of his mate. How or why he came to assume the identity of Robert Crane a medical researcher is unknown. Link had grown adept at disguising himself as a human being in the late thirties as seen in “Adam Link, Robot Detective” Amazing May 1940. In the course of stopping a robbery at the research facility, Link’s human disguise was compromised and two of his co-workers were killed. (In the published version, Star Spangled Comics 7, April 1942 Robert Crane was shot and his brain transplanted into the robot body). Link abandoned his identity of Robert Crane and assumed a new identity as that of Paul Dennis. He hunted the killers of his co-workers and brought them to justice. He then used his talents as a vigilante dubbed Robotman. He was recruited for ALSTR shortly after Pearl Harbor.
[6] Dr. Rotwang and his mechanical woman are most familiar from the classic silent film Metropolis (Kino International 1927) by Fritz Lang. The film was based upon the novel Metropolis (1926) by Thea von Harbou. Although the novel was a social commentary set in the future, it was based, in part, on a contemporary account of Dr. Rotwang’s robotic experiences. Rotwang tried to surpass Thomas Edison's creation of an artificial woman—reported in The Eve of the Future (1886) by Villiers de l'Isle Adam—by extracting the life force/soul out a living woman and placing it inside a robotic form. Rotwang also had the idea of discrediting the communists by creating an uprising among the poor and indigent led by his robotic woman. Rotwang planned to lead the rebels right into the hands of the government officials and demonstrate the effectiveness of his device. Unfortunately the woman whose life force he had chosen to use was Rosa Luxembourg. Under Rotwang's control, the female robot succeeded inciting the German Communists to open rebellion, but Luxembourg's will was too strong and she escaped the robot body at a crucial moment to return to her own body. After Rotwang’s still born rebellion in late December 1918, the German Communists or Spartacists openly revolted in January 1919. They rose up in Berlin against the newly formed Republic, forcing the government to flee to Weimar.. Many soldiers had returned from the war fronts massively disillusioned with the German government and hugely suspicious of anything that smacked of left-wing political beliefs. Many who had quit the German Army joined the right wing Free Corps (Freikorps). These would have been battle-hardened men who had been subjected to military discipline. The fledgling Republic allowed the Freikorps and what remained of the regular army to bring peace and stability back to Berlin once again. No mercy was shown to the Spartacists/Communists. The Freikorps was better organized and armed - they also had a military background. The majority of the Spartacists were civilians. Rosa Luxembourg was one of the leaders of the Spartacist Revolt and she perished at the hands of the police while attempting to escape. For more information on the Spartacist Revolt please see The Spartacists The German government took Rottwang’s mechanical woman and he was arrested and jailed for public disorder. This was done to appease the moderates who blamed Rottwing and the right wingers for inciting the Sparacists to rebel. The lifeless body of the robot was put it into storage. When the Nazi’s came to power Rotwang found common cause with the Nazi’s and was set up in a program to revitalize the robot. Rotwang was actually from the 24th Century had had used an experimental teleportation device and ended up in the early 20th Century. He used the resources of the Nazi’s and the more advanced technology of the Thirties to enhance Mekanique with time traveling circuitry so that he could escape this primitive time era. However Rotwang suffered a fatal heart attack just prior to infusing the robot with a new life force.
[7] All-Star Squadron 59 “Out of the Ashes” DC Comics, July 1986. The comic book version of events had Robotman come into conflict with other members of the Squadron over the disposition of Mekanique’s body. He wanted to revive her so that he would not be alone. There may have been some truth to this. Adam Link believed that Mekanique could be repaired and reprogrammed. He took the damaged Mekanique to the facilities of Project M.
[8] In addition to robotic facilities Project M was custodian to the body of the slain King Kong, it also had a live specimen of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex.
[9] In the published version of events Young All Stars 12, May 1988 Per Degaton knowing works with Deathbolt. He makes a deal to let Deathbolt into Project M so that Deathbolt could install the brain of the Ultra-Humanite into the body of King Kong. However the Ultra-Humanite was still in the body of Dolores Winters at this time and she was in Nazi Germany, so this part of the story is entirely fictional.
[10] Fury’s comic book backstory depicted her as Helena Kosmatos a young Greek orphan who became possessed by Tisaphone, one of the one of the Erinyes, the detectors and avengers of crime and wickedness. Fury was actually Helena, a member of a trio of young woman from Themyscryia, Paradise Island, the home of Wonder Woman. As revealed in the Wonder Woman article, Paradise Island was actually a pocket universe designed by Jadawin, one of the Thoan Lords depicted in Philip Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers series. United States Air Force pilot Steve Trevor’s damaged plane had triggered the gate that opened between Paradise Island and the Earth. Diana had fallen in love with the Amazon’s male captive. She escaped from Paraside Island with her chosen mate but in doing so she also stole three sacred treasures of Paradise Island, the golden rope of Hephastus, the invisible chariot of Ares and the Girdle of Hippolyta. Queen Hippolyta made vain attempts to contact Ares (Jadawin) but he remained aloof. Finally she help a special set of games to find three champions to send out into the Man’s world to recover Diana if possible, to bring back the sacred objects and to bring back male captives. The women chosen to compete in the games were from the ranks Priestesses of Artemis. These were young women who as young girls had been taken by Ares into Olympus and transformed so that they would be stronger and faster than most women. There were twelve of these at a time. When a Priestess of Artemis died, one of the girls taken into Olympus sometimes centuries before would be found sleeping on the altar of Artemis. Obviously what was actually happening here was that Jadawin selected certain women from among the Amazons to biosculpt with enhanced musculature with a set number of 12. When one of the twelve of the biosculpted women perished a replacement was automatically released from a stasis chamber and gated to Themyscria. Two of these champions who were victorious in the games were experienced warriors but one was a girl barely out of her teens who had recently been sent to replace one of the women killed by Diana in her escape. Hippolyta named the Erinieyes of Themyscria. The women were given unbreakable swords and impervious armor and sent out into the Man’s world to bring back Diana and the objects or die trying. The three women went their separate ways once they were in the Man’s World. They were soon confronted with the armies of a world at war. They were also totally unprepared to forage for food or supplies. Helena confronted a Nazi Patrol in Greece and barely escaped with her life, although her impenetrable armor stopped bullets an artillery shell still concussed her. She wandered in a daze into a small village. The villagers gave her shelter. A village priest was able to understand her archaic Greek. The Priest and most of the villagers believed that she had discovered an ancient tomb but had been set upon by Nazi soldiers when she emerged from the tomb. She had miraculously escaped being killed but had been addled by the experience. She stayed with a family named Kosmatos for a few months until she had learned modern Greek and something of the conflict going on in the world. A Nazi patrol rode into town searching for the mystery girl. Although the townspeople stoically refused to tell the Nazis where she was, when the Nazi commander threatened to kill the villagers Helena gave her self up to them. The Nazi’s shot a few of the villagers for good measure, among them the couple with whom Helena had been staying. Helena was put in the back seat of commander’s car, he sat next to her holding a pistol in one hand and stroking her thigh with the other. When the Nazi patrol reached the outskirts of town one of the villagers ran up to the truck convoy and was given a monetary reward for having given the Nazis information about Helena. It was the rather lazy son of the couple with whom Helena had been staying. Helena’s rage got the better of her and she knocked out the Nazi commander with a punch to his jaw. She also knocked out the driver of the car causing the car to go off the road. Helena opened the door and rolled out into the brush. She donned her armor and attacked the small contingent of Nazi soldiers. Her speed, strength, armor and sword play allowed her to quickly dispatch a good portion of the patrol before the rest fled in terror. She saw the traitor to the village running down the road and threw her sword into his back. A few days later while tracking some Nazi soldiers she happened across an OSS operation being carried out by OSS operative Johnny Quick. She aided Quick by keeping a Nazi patrol occupied so that he could plant several radio transmitters. When she learned that Quick was from America she asked if she could accompany him back to America. She knew that Diana’s man had been from America. When Helena learned that Diana was using the sacred objects of the Amazons to fight the Nazi’s she no longer felt compelled to retrieve Diana or the objects. She joined the fight against the Nazis by becoming part of the OSS ALSTR Squadron under the code name Fury.
[11] Flying Fox was another member of ALSTR who was not a United States Citizen. He was a Canadian. Flying Fox was a member of the Quontauka tribe of Northern Canada. He was a descendent of the legendary Native American explorer/warrior Arak. He also claimed descent from Mani the Native American companion to Chevalier de Fronsac Flying Fox claimed to a Shaman whose magical powers made him an asset to the ALSTR team. Flying Fox was an accomplished martial artist with a great agility and speed. He was also accomplished in the arts of misdirection and legerdemain. He may also have had the ability to cloud the minds of people near him, making them see temporary illusions.
[12] Many of Namor’s 1940’s adventures were depicted by DC Comics as happening to Aquaman and/or Neptune Perkins.
[13] In Young All Star 12, the reason given for the members of ALSTR to be at Project M was to seek medical aid for one of their team mates. This was supposedly Helena who was suffering from the effects of turning into an embodiment of the mythological Fury. This was purely comic book hyperbole.
[14] Frau Farbissina claimed in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery to have invented fembots. While it is true that she may have come up with the concept on her own, it more likely that she stole the technology from Dr. Franklin, whose fembots plagued Steve Austin and Jaimie Sommers.
[15] Although ALSTR was a group made of all civilian volunteers, they did have a facility where those had volunteered to be on “duty” would be housed for the duration of their mission. Some members such as Robotmen who had no permanent address lived at the facility.
[16] If you think that Scott Evil’s rather pathetic historical knowledge was unique, please see Hendriksson, Anders Non Campus Mentis, Workman Publishing, New York 2001 which is both hilarious and saddening as it contain portions of texts contained in term papers and final exams.
[17] In the comic book portrayal of this event (All-Star Comics #35 (October 1947) Per Degaton is shown using tanks to defeat Alexander's forces. However even one tank would not have fit through the doorway of the time machine, so this part must be fictional. It would also have taken an extremely long time for Degaton to disassemble a tank and then reassemble it in the 31 B.C. Perry Degaton armed Darius with machine guns and mortars. The disappearance of parts of the city not protected by the static time field is symbolized in the comic book version of events when it portrayed a modern city was a odd symbiosis of ancient and modern technology, for example it had elevated tracks but no trains and light bulbs but no electrical wiring.
[18] It was rather difficult to kill Alexander since he was the immortal Flint. See Eternal Shard of Time: Flint the Immortal.
[19] Professor Zee fixed the damage caused by his doppelganger from a future that would no longer exist. The fact that Professor Zee’s successful time trip was delayed by a few days was enough to negate the previous timeline.
[20] All Star Squadron No. 3, DC Comics November 1981. Although depiction of this event only shows Per Degaton beating Professor Zee to death, he would have had to move the body in order to operate the time travel device and have free access to the research laboratory’s facilities.
[21] This previously unrecorded episode in the life of James Clarke Wildman probably took place in May of 1947 in between the adventures entitled Let’s Kill Ames and Once Over Lightly.
[23] Although it may have in fact been placed there by other powers to prevent his pivotal day in history from being altered. The time lost USS Nimitz also encountered a time storm that prevented their efforts to neutralize the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, as seen in the film The Final Countdown
[24] All Star Squadron 14, DC Comics October 1982
[25] As depicted in Justice League of America 29 August, 1964 it was the Syndicate who first initiated contact with Earth 1. In the version depicted in the comics Ultra-Man had gained another superpower from exposure to kryptonite. This was Ultra vision which allowed him to see into parallel dimensions. Power Ring then used his power ring to open a portal into this dimension which was Earth 1. The Crime Syndicate members had the members of the Justice League transported to Earth 3. The Crime Syndicate wanted a neutral world where they could fairly fight the Justice League. They chose Earth 2 which where the members of the Justice Society of America were depicted as living. According to DC Comics lore at that time the 1940’s Justice Society was the parallel dimensional counterpart of the 1960’s Justice League of America. The two teams had accidentally discovered the existences of the others’ parallel dimension and arranged to have annual meetings. The combined effort of the Justice Society and Justice League defeated the Crime Syndicate and placed them in a limbo between the dimensions. While it is true that parallel worlds and alternative universes to the Wold Newton Universe do exist, so far as the Wold Newton Universe version of these events depicted here is concerned the existence of Earth 1, Earth 2 and Earth 3 as depicted in the comics are fantasies created by Julius Schwartz and Gardner Fox. The Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America were merely fictional creations of DC comics which depicted the missions, often in a highly exaggerated way, of CIALD’s costumed vigilante division.
[26] As was depicted in the classic JLA/JSA team up in Justice League of America 29-30 August, September 1964. Although the comic showed the Syndicate being exiled to a nameless limbo, this was most likely the Phantom Zone.
[27] In Justice League of America 207 DC Comics October 1982, the world depicted as having been destroyed by nuclear war was that of Earth Prime, the world without Superheroes.
[28] The small backstory that Gardner Fox created for the “Crime Syndicate” as depicted in Justice League of America 29, August 1964 shows a world where history is somewhat the reverse of ours. As shown in the comics Colombus was an American who discovered Europe. Colonial England won her freedom from the United States in the revolutionary war of 1776 and it was actor Abe Lincoln who shot President John Wilkes Booth. Fox wanted to simplify the real history of this world and based his account on the historical information contained in the public information files of CIALD. Fox also wanted to show in a dramatic fashion how supervillains are the inverse of Superheroes. Yet the artists had also placed a visual clue the “Earth 3 Columbus” discovery took place during the middle ages by depicting the Europeans as medieval knights. One theory among researchers is that the universe that the “Crime Syndicate” originated from was one of the so called ‘mirror universes” in which the roles of good and evil are seemingly reversed that is people who were considered heroes in our world’s history were villains and people we thought of as villains were heroes in the history of the mirror universe. There is some justification for this theory as will be seen as the history of Earth-3 unfolds. While the idea of a mirror or inverse universe may have been introduced in Justice League of America 29, the concept probably gained its widest audience through its depiction in the Star Trek The Original Series Episode “Mirror, Mirror,” in which Captain Kirk, Lt. Uhura, Dr. McCoy and Chief Engineer Scott were transported to a universe where the Enterprise was part of a Terran Empire that ruled by power and conquest. Although some researchers believe that “Earth-3” may indeed be one such universe where a variation of the Mirror Universe depicted on Star Trek most of the history of “Earth-3” as detailed in the CIALD file on “Earth-3 seems to cast some doubt on this. For a look at one attempt of a history of Earth-3 based on information disseminated by the comic book and other published fiction please see The Earth-3 Timeline ” by Michael Norwitz For an examination of the variations of Star Trek’s Mirror universe please see The Star Trek Mirror Universe by Win Eckert
[29] This Wold Newton family was in many regards the dark mirror version the real Wold Newton Family.
[30] As in the Justice League of America 29, this assassin may have been Abraham Lincoln who assassinated John Wilkes Booth or it may have been Andrew Jackson or Andrew Johnson. The records are just not that accurate for this time period.
[31] If you are familiar with the genealogy of the Wold Newton family then you may have immediately known that “ Earth-3’s” James Clayton was this universes version of James Clark Wildman, the father of Doc Savage. In his seminal work Tarzan Alive Philip Jose Farmer posited that the great pulp hero Doc Savage was based upon a real person named James Clarke Wildman jr. Doc Wildman (Savage)’s father was the illegitimate son of William Cecil Clayton and Patricia Wildman. William Cecil Clayton was the 6th Duke of Greystoke and the uncle of John Clayton who was better known as Tarzan of the Apes. Philip Jose Farmer reveals in Tarzan Alive, in Addendum 2, (P.228) that James Wildman was resentful of his illegitimate status and took part in the kidnapping of his half brother, an event portrayed in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Adventure of the Priory School with James Wildman being depicted under the name of James Wilder. In the aftermath of that incident James Wildman was horrified at his participation in this crime and dedicated to spend the rest of his life fighting evil and to prepare his son to be Renaissance man that could fight evil in all its forms. The elder Wildman was also interested in Eugenics as seen in Brad Mengel’s article There Are Pretenders Among Us. In the world of the Syndicate’s origin William Clayton acknowledged his child by Patricia Wildman or since there was no stigma for a man to have a child from a concubine or mistress. If the WNU’s James Wilder/Wildman had been legitimized he would have inherited his father’s lands and name he would have been James Clayton.
[32] Although the Superwoman character in the comic was crafted to be a doppelganger of Wonder Woman, in truth she was another Kryptonian sent to Earth. She was however not related to Henry Kent.
[33] One of the main plot elements of the Crime Syndicate stories is that Ultraman was not adversely affected by kryptonite, rather he gained power with every exposure. However there was also the paradox that there could not be any kryptonite since Krypton had not exploded. However Thyoph also existed in this universe and its components made up much of the asteroid belt; however none of the Thyophians made it to Earth. As happened in the WNU survivors from Thyoph became the ancestors of the Kryptonians and three of the Kryptonians arrived on Earth. The three ships pulled with them pieces of the asteroid belt, and these were the “kryptonite” of this world. Thyophite did affect Ultraman, but it also affected Superwoman and Stalniviok. It did not, however, give them new powers but rather its radiations gave them a sense of temporary euphoria and heightened their hormonal levels, making them feel stronger, faster, etc. Thyophite has been discovered in minute amounts of various radioactive intensity throughout Earth's history although it was most often misclassified as similar terrestrial elements. Most thyophite is in fact microscopic and takes on the properties of elements in which is its intermixed. Only sophisticated geiger counters or microscopic examinations can detect thyophite. Thyophite combines with other elements to create new elements which can have differing effects on human beings.
[34] Although Thomas Wayne was depicted as being an inverse duplicate of Batman up to the point of having a costume like Batman with a cowl based on an Owl’s head, this is one of the comic book’s flights of fancy. When Wayne acted as vigilante he dressed in non-descript black clothing and a skin tight black cowl that looked like an executioner’s hood. He was called the Owl because of his nocturnal activities not because of his costume. Although was depicted as being a doppelganger for Batman Wayne was actually more like Richard Wentworth the Spider who used lethal force against the criminal element. Unlike the Spider however Wayne stole from his victims.
[35] One of the main plot elements of the Crime Syndicate stories is that Ultraman was not adversely affected by kryptonite, rather he gained power with every exposure. However there was also the paradox that there could not be any kryptonite since Krypton had not exploded. However Thyoph also existed in this universe and its components made up much of the asteroid belt; however none of the Thyophians made it to Earth. As happened in the WNU survivors from Thyoph became the ancestors of the Kryptonians and three of the Kryptonians arrived on Earth. The three ships pulled with them pieces of the asteroid belt, and these were the “kryptonite” of this world. Thyophite did affect Ultraman, but it also affected Superwoman and Stalniviok. It did not, however, give them new powers but rather its radiations gave them a sense of temporary euphoria and heightened their hormonal levels, making them feel stronger, faster, etc.
[36] Diana Danner was raised by Matilida Danner and her husband Henry Danner. Matilda had once intended to marry Abednego Danner but Abednego Danner had been conscripted to help with James Clayton’s eugenics program, so Matilda had married his younger brother instead. Although the Superwoman character in the comic was crafted to be a doppelganger of Wonder Woman, in truth she was another Kryptonian sent to Earth. She was however not related to Henry Kent.
[37] In Doc Savage Comics No. 5, August 1941, a Tibetan mystic nurses a downed Doc back to health and gives him a blue hood with a sacred ruby on its forehead that endows Doc with super-strength and hypnotic powers. (The 1943 Doc Savage radio program was based upon this version.). How Jack Binder the author of this Doc Savage storyline was aware of this version of Doc Savage, that is the “Earth-3” version, is unknown.
[38] In one of the weird coincidences that often occurred between the Wold Newton Universe and the universe of “Earth-3” Doc Savage’s last adventure also occurred after an excursion into the interior world, Up From The Earth’s Center. Doc Savage Magazine, June 1949.
[39] All Star Squadron 14, October 1982. Despite the visual image of several atomic bombs being transported at one time being pulled along behind the time booth like “charms on a bracelet from hell” through via the energy from Power Ring’s ring, this is also dramatic license. The bombs had to remain in the time field generated by the time booth and this only allowed one to be transported at a time.
[40] In the animated Justice League episode "Savage Time," Vandal Savage travels back in time to seize control of the world during World War II, obviously modeled on the Per Degaton storyline.
[41] Batman or Bruce Wayne was undoubtedly aware that The Owl or Thomas Wayne was the extra-univerasl doppelganger of his father. However Thomas Wayne remained ignorant of the fact that his foe Batman was an alternate universe’s version of his progeny.
[42] The project that the attribute to Tesla was actually a project based on one of Tesla’s designs. The engineer that had created the machine based on the Tesla design was Mark Sampson. The attempt to broadcast energy had opened an inter-dimensional wall rather than breaching the time barrier as many believe. The initial experiments opened a portal into one of the Oz worlds, as seen in A Barnstormer in Oz by Philip José Farmer.
[43] So now we understand the reason that Per Degaton had been falsely accused and convicted of thievery. Ironically this event was probably what created his great hatred for costumed vigilantes.
[44] Professor Carter Nichols began sending Batman through time via hypnosis in 1943, as recounted in Batman 24, August, 1944.
[45] America vs the JSA #4.
[46] All Star Comics 37, December 1947
[47] Dr. Henry King under his natal name Henry Roi Wainwright was Per Degaton’s (Scott Evil) uncle. For more information about this and about the earlier portion of this incident in which the Collector worked with Henry King’s other criminal personas, Dr. Psycho please see the Henry King article.
[48] According to his biography, the Thinker was a young district attorney named Clifford Devoe who had failed to convict the criminal kingpin of Keystone city, Hunk Norvock, because his witnesses suddenly began giving favorable testimony for Norvock. Keystone City was DC’s stand-in for Philadelphia in the Golden Age. Disillusioned, Devoe offered to use his legal training and brilliant mind to work for Novock. Devoe was in seclusion for about a decade. Norvock suddenly called upon Devoe to help him with the problem that was plaguing him, the Golden Age Flash. Devoe eliminated all witnesses against Norvock and realized that Norvock would kill him rather than be grateful. Devoe maneuvered Norvock into shooting himself. Devoe then seized control of Norvock's criminal empire. He was one of the 1940's Flash's most constant opponents. In the late forties he acquired the Thinking Cap, a cybernetic device that amplified intelligence. Actually the story is a bit more complicated. As explained in greater detail in the Lawrence Luthor article, Clifford Devoe's sudden conversion to crime and his decade of disappearance was due to the fact that in late 1933 while in a drunken stupor Clifford Devoe became the first victim of the Black Beller known as Brainiac.
[49] The Gambler, Steven Sharpe, was one of the first criminals to follow the lead of the vigilantes and work in costume. His guise was of an old riverboat gambler, but in reality he was a master of disguise. He based his costume on his grandfather, who was a renowned river boat gambler and an acquaintance of George Devol. George Devol was the renown riverboat gambler who wrote the classic 40 Years A Gambler On Mississippi and Henry Finn. Steven Sharpe spent time with a carnival, learning a variety of knife throwing and make-up techniques to complete his disguises; he became acquainted with the Wizard during this training period. Although the Gambler had sprung to national fame by pulling off a small-town bank robbery against heavy odds, Sharpe in fact began his career in the Mississippi Delta by robbing trains and small-town banks. By 1944, the Gambler's grew tired of the small amounts he was taking from Midwestern banks and went East for larger hauls.
[50] The Wizard, according the biography given to him by DC Comics, was a small-time crook with the name William I. Zard, who learned magic while in prison. He eventually ended up, as did everyone it seems in the thirties and forties who wanted to learn esoterica, in Tibet. He learned the art of illusion and returned to the United States where he used his knowledge for crime. The origin given to the Wizard by DC comics was mostly fictional because the truth would have been hurtful to many people. The Wizard had been a stage magician of some renown, Mephisto the Marvelous, a contemporary of Houdini—who had counted him as a friend/rival in the arts of prestidigitation and escape. When Mephisto's wife and child died, he became an opium and cocaine addict. This eventually led him to use his skills for criminal endeavors.
[51] Vandal Savage was—as has been speculated elsewhere—one of the names used by the immortal named Kane.
[52] The comic book version (All Star Comics, Vol. 1, No. 37,) has the Gambler taking on the Atom, but the Atom was not adventuring much after his near fatal electrocution by Gudra the Valkyrie.
[53] By this time Alan Scott was in almost constant pain from the effects of his ring. The ring was designed to kill unauthorized users and the ring did not wholly accept him as an authorized user, so its defense mechanism attempted to kill him. But the ring was also designed to protect its wearer, so it repaired the damage caused by its defense mechanism. Over time Scott’s immune system was compromised, and he wholly depended on the ring for his health. To remove the ring would have meant certain death. The ring kept him alive, yet at the same time it was killing him. Over time Scott's body could no longer tolerate the constant destruction and rebuilding of his tissues, and he would take the ring off and succumb to sickness a few weeks later. This happened in late 1949. Later stories about Alan Scott were based on previously untold exploits or should be taken as tributes to a man who was a hero despite his constant agony.
[54] All-Star Comics #37 with further details revealed in Infinity Inc. Annual #2
[55] See the Lethal Luthors. Henry King for more details.
[56] (All-Star Comics 58-59, January/February to March/April 1976).
[57] America Vs the JSA Vol. 1. No. January 1985
[58] The public hearings of on the activities of costumed vigilantes that occurred in 1951 was depicted in “Defeat of the JSA” Adventure Comics 455, December 1979
[59] A version of Jonas Cord jr.’s biography was depicted in The Carpetbaggers (Knopf, 1961) by Harold Robbins, and also in The Raiders (Random House 1996) by Harold Robbins and also in a film The Carpetbaggers (Paramount, 1964) which revealed truths not seen in the novels. Jonas Cord jr. was a serious rival of Howard Hughes. Cord had feelings of inadequacy due to his family history as shown in part in The Man Behind the Iron Mask, Part One: The Rocket Men. Cord seems to have had to need to not only emulate his father and better him but also Howard Hughes, which may explain the uncanny parallel path that Hughes and Cord took in terms of their business ventures which included mining, aviation, film studios and investing in Las Vegas.
[60] Some very diligent critics of Jonas Cord have traced his extreme dislike of costume vigilantes to 1933 period when the man known as Superman deliberately demolished a group of buildings that Cord owned (Action Comics 8, January 1939). He also later demolished an automobile factory in which Cord had a vested interest.
[61] In America Vs the JSA Vol 1. No. 4 April 1985, it is revealed that the Batman Diary was partially hoax, it was written as part a convoluted scheme by the original Batman to bring Per Degaton to justice for having shot Professor Zee in 1947 a second before the time machine took off. The diary gave clues that allowed the Justice Society to pinpoint where the time machine would arrive in 1985 and so were on hand to hear Professor Zee’s dying testimony as to Per Degaton’s guilt. Per Degaton then grabbed a pistol and committed suicide.
[62] For more information on the original Wizard’s rehabilitation see The Lethal Luthors-A Deceptive Brilliance; Alexander Luthor
[63] The operation that gave Hank Heywood III a steel skeleton was depicted in Justice League of America Vol.1 No. 235, February 1985
[64] An autopsy on the corpse of this “Hank Heywood” revealed that there was a good reason for his confusion. This was not the person called Commander Steel nor any of his relatives, except in the loosest of terms. This Heywood was what has been termed a bizarro or an evil twin, which most people believed were the same thing, including a good many scientists who have worked with both bizarros and evil twins. A bizarro is a cast off duplicate created by an alien creature which was similar to those offshoots of the Founders called the Skrulls or Dire Wraith. Sent as an information gathering agent, the Evil Twin Maker could reshape itself into the form of the people it met in order to fit into the society it was studying. However the Evil Twin Maker was nearly killed during its stay on earth, barely surviving the volcanic eruption at Pompei. Severely burned and reduced in mass it needed to absorb a great deal of protein matter, mostly from the charred human tissue to regenerate and regain its original mass. Upon regeneration however it was damaged and defective as a result of its injury and of incorporating so much “alien” tissue into its biomass. The being no longer remembered its mission It took on a feeling of being abandoned. Its reproductive system heavily influenced by the terrestrial reproductive cycles now inherent in its system no longer worked as it should have which was to meld with another of its species and form a new duplicating being. It now had monthly discharges of eggs, the resulting offspring being a duplicate of the being it had first encountered when entering estrus. This new body egg would fall off when it was fairly small and grow, usually in some hidden nest. Then it would adopt a persona that was a version of the person it duplicated but also maintained an original sense of itself, causing an internal confict. The evil twin and its offspring kept the sense of being wounded and abandoned. They created out of the duplicated person's memories an identity, but often not the same identity as the person it replaced. Usually it came up with a new name and shaped the person's memories to include an abandonment. Many of these duplicates seem to be ordinary people, people without any superpowers or abilities. This also explains the prevalence of evil twins in fiction. They are actually duplicates this creature has created. Evil twins were often imperfect duplicates at least on a mental and psychological level, often retaining jumbled memories and emotional baggage from their originators previous incarnations, often having feelings of inadequacy or abandonment. It is likely that this seemingly insane “Hank Heywood” was in fact an evil twin of the original, who was the first Hugo Danner as will be explained in the forthcoming article Super Menace the story of the first Hugo Danner.
[65] Although the bio retardant that Heywood had somehow acquired did help counter rejection it did not replace the function of bone marrow, which was not provided by the metallic skeleton. As a result of no longer having bone marrow, Heywood’s immune system was severely compromised as was his blood production.
[66] This “team” of heroes was chronicled in the Justice League of America series beginning with the Justice League Annual 2 (1984) and continuing in Justice League of America 233 (December 1984) until Justice League of America 261 (April 1987). In the comics notable characters such as the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and the Elongated Man are portrayed as part of the team. However this was not the case.
[67] Dr. Dolenz was the original creator of the Fembots. His notorious exploits were depicted in the Six Million Dollar Man episodes "Day of the Robot"; "Run, Steve, Run"; and "Return of the Robot Maker."
[68] Chronitons are subatomic particles that transmit their temporal quanta and are often used in time travel and often emitted from time travel devices. Rassmussen, Berlinghoff The Physics of Temporal Translocation Armstrong City Press, 2110.
[69] Infinity Inc. was a high-priced bodyguard service begun by Sylvester Pemberton, the owner of a small movie studio. As a teenager Pemberton had a brief career as a costumed vigilante in the 1940s as the Star Spangled Kid. His bodyguard/chauffeur was the other half of the team under the name Stripsey. Pemberton had retired in the late forties to take care of his family fortune. After Pemberton had received some threats from a deranged former employee hired a couple of costumed vigilantes to guard his studio. This was partially a publicity stunt to garner interest in the studio’s film about mystery men of the forties. The costumed vigilantes had proved so effective at this that he had hired them permanently. They provided security for the movie studio and also became bodyguards for the stars under contract to the studio. The owner of the studio began subcontracting the services of his unique security force for hire. In a publicity coup, he arranged for the mayor of Los Angeles to grant them quasi-legal status. The city hoped that the illusion that the city was more protected would engender more tourist dollars. The city also entered in a joint marketing scheme with the studio, selling t-shirts, coffee cups, etc. with logos, photos and artistic renderings of Infinity Inc., “The Official Mystery Team of Los Angeles.” The joint venture between the movie studio and the city only lasted two years as other motion picture studios sued the city for giving special treatment to one studio and so in their view creating a monopoly. Although a change of city administration spelled the end of the city’s sponsorship, Infinity Inc. still retained their quasi-legal status until the casualties were caused by the conflict between Infinity Incorporated and another group sponsored by one of the other studios. This studio was not as ethically run as most studios in Hollywood, and as a result the board hired ex-convicts with a penchant for violence to be their bodyguard team. Although the studio disavowed this, the main function of the team was to “take out” Infinity Inc. by whatever means necessary. Pemberton died in this attack and the studio went into probate. Infinity Inc. was no more. Per Degaton knew that a person claiming to be the son of his old friend/foe Brainwave was on Infinity Inc. What’s more, Pemberton was the step-brother of Merry Pemberton, Brainwave’s wife. After Sylvester Pemberton’s untimely death, the studio was eventually turned over to Henry King Jr. King succumbed to a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized. (Infinity Inc. was cast as a super-hero team in DC comics Infinity Inc. and the official super-hero team of Los Angeles Infinity Inc. Vol. 1 No. 12 March 1985)
The new version of Wildcat and the man known as Mr. Bones were very unusual in that what many people thought was make up or costume were the result of genetic mutation. Both Yolanda Montez and Mr. Bones were the results of an experiment by a mysterious figure known as Dr. Love. He was an ob-gyn who injected several of his patients’ fetuses with various experimental genetic viruses. Although she was outwardly human looking, Yolanda had feline characteristics including retractable claws, enhanced senses, enhanced agility, and increased strength. Mr. Bones also had increased strength, but his flesh was translucent, giving him the appearance of a skull. Although the comics portray him as looking like a human skeleton, he looked more a walking anatomical guide since his organs and muscles were also visible. To protect himself, he covered his body from head to toe because of the extreme light sensitiveness of his skin. Even a slight exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet rays would cause skin damage. It is true that his skin did exude a toxic substance that would kill small animals and even human beings with prolonged exposure.
Dr. Love’s practice was affiliated with the notorious Nu-Genesis Clinics, which worked in concert with the Eugenic Chrysalis project of Dr. Sarina Kaur, as seen in The Eugenics War by Greg Cox. They were also responsible for the Pretender program. For more information please see There Are Pretenders Among Us . Dr. Love disappeared in the mid-seventies, some speculate he was at the Chrysalis complex when it was destroyed. Nu-Genesis claimed not to have known what he had been doing.
[70] Although Infinity Inc. Annual No 2. 1988 showed Yolanda soon joined by Dr. Beth Chapel (Dr. Mid-Nite II), and these two were joined by a good portion of Infinity Inc. who took on Mekanique in a battle royal, this is almost entirely fictional. Dr. Chapel did follow after Yolonda Montez but accompanied by law enforcement officers. They arrived after the incident had already transpired. Dr. Beth Chapel was physician for Infinity Inc. Although she adopted the identity of the second Dr. Mid-Nite in tribute to the original vigilante and she would on occasion dress in costume this was primarily for publicity purposes her career as a physician kept her too busy to moonlight as vigilante. The comic book version of her created a fantastic back story in which she was blinded and gained abilities similar to those of the original Dr. Mid-Nite. Dr. Chapel was never blinded, however the comics did, probably by accident, the fact that Dr. Chapel had above normal athletic ability, speed and agility and a higher range of vision than most people. She was most likely an off shoot of one of the Blind Seer families in which the inherited blindness mutated into increased visual abilities, although at a cost of the precognitive abilities.
[71] This phrase has become commonplace and derives from the quantum theory of superposition, proposed by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. Schrodinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level. We take a living cat and place it in a thick lead box. At this stage, there is no question that the cat is alive. We then throw in a vial of cyanide and seal the box. We do not know if the cat is alive or if it has broken the cyanide capsule and died. Since we do not know, the cat is both dead and alive, according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive).
We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously.
[72] Scott’s sudden balding, his new found wish to bond with his father, his gift of the sharks with lasers on their foreheads and the revelation of his relationship to Austin Powers were all depicted in the film version of these events Austin Powers in Goldmember (New Line Cinema, 2002)
[73]
This is at least the last scene of Goldmember
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