As a young medical intern, Ewald Herman Maxwell III worked in New York City's general hospital. There, he was attending medical school and doing his internship...which all came to head in January 2000 when the Soltan Star Empire invaded Earth and started killing people all over New York City.

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During those horrendous several months, Maxwell became quite traumatized with the death, gore and insanity that anyone in the medical field had to persevere during those horrific times. Maxwell did all he could in triage, performing amputations and forcefully attempting to save lives, even saving the lives of dying superheroes and magical creatures, which, for the most part, were the worst patients he ever worked on.

 

No sooner than Maxwell would get a wounded or dying superhero stable, the same superhero would jump off the bed or table and attempt to run back into battle, tearing out their stiches and opening their wounds all over again, causing Maxwell to have to redo, sometimes several times, the redressing and fixes of their injuries and wounds. Time and again, those same injured heroes would threaten Maxwell with his life if he didn't give them drugs of whatever was needed to get that hero back into battle.  Maxwell would do as they requested only to see, dozens of minutes later, those same heroes that threatened him arrived on a gurney - dead. 

 

Maxwell quickly learned to hate superheroes as a result.

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When the invasion was over several months after it started, again, Maxwell was severely traumatized. On one of his last jobs out on a battlefield looking for injured combatants, Maxwell found a glowing alien Soltan 'hammer' stuck in the mud next to a dead Soltan Medic.  Without knowing anything about the hammer, he grabbed it and lifted it up. It was light in weight, but was definitely VERY sturdy and tough with an unknown alien metal and some form of an energy cube in the center head of the hammer. When Maxwell touched the energy block, it lit up flooding the area in a pure bright, white light, zapping Maxwell with strands of psionic and other strange alien energies. Maxwell eventually passed out.

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After Maxwell woke up in the same spot he'd fallen, he realized the hammer was gone and that his head felt 'crowded' and a bit 'confused'. He swore he was hearing strange Soltan-like whispers all around him, but later deduced in was all in his head. He also began to think of ways to fix his medic station's failing medical equipment and make it work...all suddenly easy for him to understand. 

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Maxwell sprinted back to the medic station an in less than an hour fixed over 20 critically damaged medical units and made them work better than ever before. Later that same day, he went amongst the patients at the medical station and stabilized all of them, using medical techniques no one had ever seen before. When someone tried to pull Maxwell away from a patient, demanding to know how Maxwell suddenly 'knew' all this stuff, Maxwell rotated around and that same alien 'hammer' he'd had in his hand before now appeared in his hand again out of thin air. With a thought, Maxwell sent an electrical blast from the hammer into the person bothering Maxwell and sent the bothersome guy flying over 30 feet across the room. The bothersome guy was okay (shocked of course), but as for Maxwell, the hammer seemed to respond to anything he thought of or desired...of course within the hammer's range of capabilities. If he thought about healing a man with a damaged leg, he immediately was not only able to save the leg, but was able to improve the patient's muscle tone and circulation as well.

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Maxwell, wielding a strange alien hammer and acting, well, 'strange', didn't go well with the medical station's staff. They called for the military police, to which all the responding military police persons all got zapped or pummeled by Maxwell with his new alien hammer. That's when the superhero "Major Deej" arrived and intervened. After a 'unique' discussion with Maxwell, Major Deej believed it'd be best to take Maxwell back to Major Deej's superhero base and keep an eye on him there. 

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For the next few years, Maxwell was able to work with Major Deej's new superhero group called "The Challengers" at their HQ in Staten Island.  There, Maxwell became a medical assistant who, on most occasions, would help with healing or saving the team's superheroes from their deadly fights with villains and nefarious organizations. Maxwell became a bit of a 'favorite' around the base, however, his hammer and his weird and crazy demeanor didn't engender himself well to others...except a couple of 'mental patients' who came to the HQ to visit him at times, named Rose and Valerie.  They pretty much became 'Doctor Maxwell's' groupies, even though Maxwell still wasn't officially a doctor...but thanks to the knowledge and experience Maxwell gleaned from the alien hammer, he was more capable than most human medical doctors would ever be. As such, Major Deej eventually decided to 'commit' Maxwell to a professional psychiatrist, who recommended Maxwell continue his formal education and major in medicine. 

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Although no longer working with the Challengers full time, he still was 'on call' for any medical or scientific emergencies. As such, one hero in the Challengers, Science Lass, became an object of Maxwell's affection...although Science Lass didn't like Maxwell in return. She eventually agreed to keep a 'professional relationship' with Maxwell, but also agreed to, once in awhile, at the bequest of Maxwell's psychiatrist, go with him to social functions on occasion. She really didn't like that, and tried to do her best to work it out, but sadly, Maxwell was just too 'weird' for her. Even after she said 'no' to several dating requests, Maxwell kept stalking her...as well as talking more and more to his alien hammer...a hammer that seemed to be now 'telling him' things he should now do, rather than informing him or educating him.

 

Maxwell, majoring in medicine, called his quizzical, pataphysical  science girlfriend, Joan (AKA the Challengers' female superhero called 'Science Lass'), who was at the Challengers' lab late one night working with test tubes. Maxwell called her on the phone and asked her if he could take her out to the movies, but she not only said no. Maxwell wasn't pleased with that answer.

Later that night, as Joan was getting ready to leave the lab, a knock came on the lab's door. When Joan answered the door...

BANG! BANG! Maxwell's Silver Soltan Science Hammer came down upon her head.  He did so again to make sure she was dead.
 

After dodging the Challengers' and police officers' questioning about her murder (and somehow getting cleared from it), Maxwell went back to his college classes the next day. While in class, he started talking to him alien hammer again and started acting silly. The teacher corrected him several times to behave but still, Maxwell play the fool again. The teacher got annoyed. Rather than charge him with any disciplinary actions (since he was a 'highly noted' superhero medic), she felt pity on him and instead, had him write 50 times on the white board after class that he wouldn't be so...unusual. When the teacher's back was turned from him and the board, Maxwell creeped up from behind and once again...

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BANG! BANG! Maxwell's Silver Soltan Science Hammer came down upon her head.  He did so again to make sure she was dead.

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This murder, however, resulted in his capture and a full blown media storm and trial of Maxwell. The hammer, which was deduced to be the murder weapon, however, was nowhere to be found. Since no one 'really' knew much about the hammer (even Major Deej and his team couldn't get anything off or from the hammer other than it was a Soltan Science Hammer used by Soltan Medics to help heal Soltans and/or read their vitals, as far as they knew), the trial became a circus. No matter what the prosecution had, it seemed that Maxwell and his lawyers were one step ahead. Nonetheless to say though, the judge, a man who loved to throw the book at murderers, wasn't happy with Maxwell and his legal team. As such, the judge vacated several motions and demands by the defense team, leaving Maxwell wide open for the death penalty if (most likely) convicted.

 

Rose and Valerie, his two groupie mental patients, attend the proceedings. At one point, the judge ruled for jury nullification and that the ruling would come from the judge rather than the jury. Rose and Valerie, screaming from the gallery, said 'he must go free!' The judge did not agree, and he told them so. However, during the final judgement, when the judge's words were leaving his lips, Maxwell leapt at the  judge, wielding the Soltan Hammer, and...

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BANG! BANG! Maxwell's Silver Soltan Science Hammer came down upon his head.  He did so again to make sure the judge was dead.

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Maxwell somehow escaped and got away. A major manhunt ensued all about the borough looking for Maxwell, but thanks to his hammer's 'advice', he was able to evade capture and stow away on a ship bound for Russia. The ship eventually stopped in Vilnius, Lithuania for engine repairs. Maxwell disembarked from the ship there. Maxwell figured Lithuania was a good enough place to hide in (at least, according to his hammer). Maxwell, who by that time in his career, had learned nearly all there was to learn about medicine, applied for a job with a coroner. Working for money under the table, Maxwell was able to use his skills to dissect bodies and help sell the body parts on the black market, netting the coroner some serious money. As a result, word got out about Maxwell's skills and he was contacted by an infamous man known as Dr. Bruno Dreime (AKA Doc Saw), who worked for a group that hated and despised super-powered people. Since Maxwell also hated super-powered people (he remembered his terrible times during the Soltan Invasion and with the Challengers), he opted to join Dr. Drieme and his organization, "Baltic Force".

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Together, Dr. Drieme and Maxwell were almost like professional brothers...except Maxwell was simply...mad. They did, however, have the same immoral and sadistic manner in cutting open bodies, even while alive, and dissecting tissue samples, organs, livers, hearts and of course anything that made their 'super' patients tick.  Thanks to Dr. Drieme's tutelage and connections, Maxwell was finally able to 'earn' his medical doctor's degree in Lithuania over the next few years.

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Today, Maxwell, simply called "Dr. Maxwell", works with his fellow Science/Medical Department lead, Boleadora, (and Rose and Valerie, both of whom he sent for and trained to be his new medical 'assistants') in what in now "The Exterminators", a rebrand version of what was once "Baltic Force". Through the leadership of The Exterminators' new leader, Director 13, and with Doc Saw as the group's new Master Scientist, Dr. Maxwell has become quite the mad doctor and scientist of the group. His ideas, at times, seem crazy, however, Maxwell continues to come up with some of the most genius medical ideas; ideas that many believe are being transmitted to Maxwell from his Soltan Science Hammer; a hammer that seems to only be attuned to Maxwell and him alone...making Maxwell quite an important science and medical asset to the Exterminators.

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Dr. Maxwell, as brilliant as he is/was, has become severely unhinged and seems crazy most of the time due to his exposure to the Soltan Science Hammer. He considers it a 'part of him' and becomes agitated when anyone tries to separate him from it, becoming downright psychotically aggressive and physically attacking said people as a result. At times, he's even been heard uttering words in Soltan, however, he never remembers saying such things.  His genius is tied to the hammer, yet he is a true genius as a result. He has concocted hundreds of new medical and science equipment that surpasses most things made on Earth by at least two decades.

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Although a bit unhinged, he is an outstanding doctor when he wants to be. Humans that need medical help, get the best care from him; anyone (or thing) else however (i.e., supers, magic beings, mutants, etc.), he will cut them open without anesthetic and disembowel them before he attempts to save their lives, no matter how normal they look or say they are.

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