If ever there was an evil engineering genius with a "Snidely Whiplash" mentality and a steampunk fetish, Eugene Hazard as "Dr. Phlebotinum" would be him.

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In 1975, Eugene was born to his two eccentric and rich British parents in London, England.  Silver spoon lifestyle, exclusive private schools and high-end science and engineering tutors made up all of Eugene's youth. As such, he was a geek when 'geek' was a 4-letter word in society.  He was ostracized and demeaned for his brilliance and education.  As a result, Eugene always 'turned the other cheek', allowing his anger to build up inside of him rather than find an outlet, creative or otherwise, to release his anger. By age 15, his IQ was immeasurable, with him building and creating new devices and applying new theories and test models on a weekly basis at his prep school  His love for Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, George Griffith, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Garrett P. Serviss, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain and Edgar Rice Burroughs, who were themselves inspired by the likes of Charles Babbage, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, inspired Eugene to create most of his designs with a Victorian-era "Steampunk" flair to them.  As such, his peers never took him seriously and found ways to demean him.  For several students, one too many times was enough.

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After developing a flapping winged backpack that was actually able to lift a standard-sized person aloft over 40 feet in altitude for several minutes at a time, several students decided to play a prank on him.  They set up a school rally where he, Eugene Hazard, would be the focus of showing off his 'winged backpack' before the school, as well as several business entrepreneurs (very rich parents of other students at the school).  The event was hyped to a fever pitch for which Eugene thought that his day of being recognized as a brilliant genius had finally arrived.  As the auditorium filled to capacity, Eugen prepared his winged backpack for the demonstration.  One of Eugene's 'conditions' he always had was a small bladder; as such, he went to use the restroom before his demonstration.  That's when several very cruel pranksters literally 'gummed up the work' of Eugene's Winged backpack by placing wads of bubblegum in the gears and mechanisms in the internal mechanisms of the backpack.  As Eugene finished his business, he was called to the auditorium, without time to do an addition check on his equipment, feeling more confident than he'd ever felt in his life, he slung on his winged backpack and started it up.  He intended to fly into the auditorium with the winged backpack; the results, however were far worse.

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As Eugene started flying into the packed auditorium, the pranksters' gum got stuck in the gearing of Eugene's backpack. Eugene lost control of one of his mechanical wings and started flying out of control with only one wing flapping wildly, Eugene tried desperately to regain control of his winged backpack only to crash onto the auditorium stage.  His backpack blew open with springs, gears and oil gushing out of the back in an almost cartoonish manner.  The entire auditorium erupted in uncontrollable laughter. 

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Eugene was embarrassed before the entire student body and before the entrepreneurs he was trying to impress.

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Eugene stood up screaming at them to stop laughing, but the animated gears falling out of his back, the oil squirting atop Eugene's head and continued flapping of the one pseudo-operational wing just made him look even more comical.  Instead, the auditorium roared even louder in laughter, drowning out Eugene's demand for them to stop laughing at him.  He instead walked off the stage in shameful disgust...and anger.

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In his workshop later than night Eugene found the gum in his winged backpack.  He'd been sabotaged.  He remembered a handful of his fellow students hanging out in the hall near the room he and the winged backpack were in when he went to use the restroom.  They were the same one's who gave him grief and derided him daily.  He deduced they were the ones responsible for 'gumming up' his big day.  Revenge became Eugene's focus. Over the next week, Eugene skipped school completely, spending that time to repair his winger backpack and create several more 'devices' to get even with those that made a fool out of him.  The following week, he returned to school to exact his revenge.  Little did he know that his actions would pave his future in so dark a tone.

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The night before he went back to school, Eugene went to the cafeteria and did some 'modifications' to certain things at the school. The next morning he arrived at school, bringing his flight backpack with him...as well as several new inventions in his book bag.  Throughout the morning, Eugene was made the butt of every joke that day, with his fellow students laughing at him in class in the hallways about his comedic entrance the week before with that 'stupid looking' set of wings.  At lunchtime, Eugene gather his book bag, put on a flashy Victorian-era set of gentlemanly clothes and strapped into his remodeled winger backpack and entered the cafeteria for the last time ever.

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In the private school's cafeteria, Eugene calmly walked to the center of the cafeteria and got everyone's attention. He then explained that he despised every one of his fellow students and that he was a brilliant genius compared to anyone else in the school, including the faculty.  Other students began to enter the cafeteria to hear Eugene's speech, including some faculty that were motioning Eugene to stop.  Instead, Eugene stated that from that day forth, no one would ever forget the name of Eugene Hazard, as he fired up his winged backpack, hovering a dozen feet in the air in the vast cafeteria and clicked a remote control.  The remote controlled activated powerful magnetic devices placed on the edges of each door and window pane in the cafeteria.  All the doors and windows closed, sealing in all those in the cafeteria. As other started to panic, Eugene donned a gas mask and started throwing toxic gas canisters amongst those trapped in the cafeteria.  He then threw deadly electrically-charged bolos and grenades at the fleeing students, electrifying, stunning...and killing them.  As the students attempted to get through the impenetrable magnetically closed and locked doors, Eugene then took out his "Myriad Gun" and started shooting the students and faculty with a variety of projectiles, ranging from acid bombs to scorpion grenades (explosive grenades that launched dozens of darts tipped with powerful scorpion venom), as well as 'sticky bombs', designed to look and smell like gum, but was a solution that when exposed to air, expanded and enveloped anyone within a 5 foot radius, smothering them or immobilizing them.  To add insult to injury, he had two 'squirt cannons' on his winged backpack that shot a caustic, poisonous oil out onto the floor and students, making them slip, fall and burn.  Eugene was laughing maniacally the entire time as the terror grew each passing second.

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In the end, several minutes later, nearly 70% of the students and faculty in the cafeteria lay dead before Eugene, with the rest dying or severely wounded or immobilized.  With a press of a button, the cafeteria doors magnetically reversed, blasting the doors off their hinges allowing Eugene to fly out of the cafeteria, down the hall and out into the courtyard, leaving his school behind him in absolute anarchy and death.

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Over the next few hours, London police, Scotland Yard and Interpol were working in unison attempting to track down and capture the mass murderer that was Eugene Hazard.  After raiding his parent's stately manor and finding nothing more than a note telling his parents he wasn't sorry for what he had done, the police started a manhunt for him.  After weeks of searching, no leads were found.  The only other thing that was discovered about Eugene was that he emptied out his parent's bank accounts of millions of Pounds, leaving them destitute.  Placed on Interpol's top 10 list for capture, Eugene only laughed from afar as he stepped off a passenger liner in Halifax, Nova Scotia in New Brunswick, Canada under the false name of "Doctor David Russel Phlebotinum", where he'd applied and was accepted as a new faculty member at the Halifax University. 

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Years later, Eugene, now "Dr. Phlebotinum", who'd been teaching in Halifax throughout those years, used his spare time in crafting and engineering incredible machines and devices.  He even ventured into cloning in an attempt to replicate himself should he die one day.  Using his parent's millions of Pounds/Dollars, Eugene soon created him own lab.  He started getting grants for (according to him) 'stupid studies' about the environment and population control, for which he'd devised results within hours of the grant funding, using the grant money for his diabolical engineering and devices.

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In the 1990s, after selling dozens of patents for him 'lesser' quality engineered items, he'd grown to a considerable wealth...but wanted more.  He convinced himself to start engineering weapons and unique combat devices since sales for such things on the black market were gaining in value.  As such, he devised several incredible weapons for villainous organizations.  As a result, the United States' CIA came into the picture, more to the point, Agent John Brown AKA "Major Invader".  Within weeks of selling his unique weapons, Major Invader outed Dr. Phlebotinum for who he really was and had him arrested for illegal arms dealing and making weapons of mass destruction.  Eugene's past caught up with him and he was also to be tried in Britain for mass murder under extradition. During Eugene's transit to Britain for trial, he engaged one of his contingency plans that broke him out of jail.

 

Now free, Eugene decided to get revenge on Agent John Brown for incarcerating him...all the while making back his million of dollars in the process.

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In his time in incarceration, Eugene heard again and again about Agent Brown and his history of capturing, arresting and stopping hundreds of fellow inmates.  A comment made by a long-time prisoner, placed in prison by Agent John Brown in the 1950s, said that he knew people that would love to have 'a younger version of Major Invader working for them in their syndicates', considering Brown to be the 'ultimate' natural weapon one could have in their arsenal.  This got Eugene to thinking about what he could do if was ever able to clone Agent Brown body to that of a younger version of the current Brown, that was instead able to be programmed and/or controlled.  Even better...what if he built an entire army of Agent Browns and sold them off to the highest bidders?  With that idea fomenting in his head, after his escape from jail, Eugene set upon his diabolical plan to clone Agent Brown.

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After his escape from jail, Eugene made his way to Europe and using some of the hidden millions of dollars he'd absconded, set about creating a cloning lab.  He paid off a disgruntled CIA operative to steal Agent Brown's latest brain scan (used by Major Brown as a 'work in progress' to test a unique set of headgear that would prevent him from being mind controlled). Using this and a strand of Agent Brown's hair, Eugene cloned hundreds of Agent John Brown bodies, all with a Tabula Rasa of a brain that Eugene would later 'download' a changed version of Brown's brain scans that would be controllable, thus allowing Brown's innate skills, experiences, memories and knowledge to be used by the clone for whatever evil purposes  the buyers chose to use it for.  Using an accelerate cloning system, within months, Eugene has successfully grew over 90% of his clones into a 22 year-old version of Agent Brown.  he then upload the modified and rewritten brain scans and finally implanted a fail-safe device in the head of each of his clones - a small remotely-triggered bomb...just in case the clone or clones got out of control.

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The day finally came for the great Clone Auction.  Eugene had advertised all across the criminal community about the Clone Auction, amassing hundreds of buyers interested in what he had to sell.  That day, Eugene, again wearing a Victorian-era gentleman's suit and a mask (since he was still a wanted man) with a cheesy twirled mustache, provided a field demonstration of the clones' capabilities in fighting, close-in combat, marksmanship, ingenuity, troubleshooting and tactical combat operations against programmed robots Eugene had built. By the time the auction was completed, every single clone was sold, amassing for Eugene a total of over $50 Billion. As the buyers were given the codes (allowing access to their new clone's remote brain-implanted control device and bomb activation), everything that could go wrong did.

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Each of the clone's heads suddenly exploded in a spray of gore, blood and brain matter.  Buyers were covered in the splatter from the exploding bombs in the clone's heads.  Nearly all of the clones died as a result of this (see Master Marauder,  Liberator and Agent Wind West for more details).  As Eugene was trying to figure out what happened, Agent Brown/Major Invader appeared on the scene.  He fought nearly all of the buyers, their bodyguards and Eugene (as well as some others...see previous three links for more details).  In the end, Agent Brown AKA Major Invader was victorious.  Not only was he able to capture hundreds of international criminal buyers and arms dealers in the auction raid, but was responsible for activating the explosive charges in each of the clones made to be like him (with the exception of the three listed earlier).  To add insult to injury to Eugene, who was also arrested, the $50 billion he'd 'earned' from the auction had mysteriously been drained from his bank account.  By the time Eugene was tried, convicted and ordered to serve five consecutive life sentences, the CIA had frozen Eugene's remaining assets (not the $50 billion; only one person knew what happened to that), closed down several other secret labs, retrieved the clone technology (and vaulted it), and disassociated all of Eugene's money-making patents as 'open source' rights material (with the exception of weapons patents; Agent Brown took personal custody of all those).  All seemed pretty much over for Dr. Phlebotinum at this stage, however, fate once again allowed Eugene yet another chance to be the dubious inventive engineer he'd become.

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During the Soltan Star Empire Invasion of Earth in 2000, Eugene's prison was attacked.  As a result, Eugene and hundreds of other high-security inmates were able to escape their prison.  Eugene made off to a remote location in Canada where he slowly started to amass new materials, some from the Soltans themselves, and started devising new inventions and devices.  Although revenge was still heavy on his mind, he knew he had to survive the invasion and build up his new plans in order to get even for all who disgraced him...especially Agent John Brown AKA Major Invader.

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The Soltans were routed from their invasion several months later and Earth began to rebuild from the destruction of the invaders. As such, many villainous factions also started rebuilding for their own evil purposes.  Dr. Phlebotinum quickly became the 'go to' guy for underground weapons designs, manufacturing and device creation.  Operating out of an old abandoned saw mill in northern Alberta province in Canada, Eugene created drones and robots to do all the work while he tinkered, created and designed hundreds of new and unique weapons.  In a short time, Eugene had amassed close to a billion dollars.  As a result, the authorities started hunting for him again.  After several close calls at his hidden manufacturing facilities, he was finally beginning to realize he needed a place to set up shop where he'd never be interrupted, allowing him to continue several new futuristic designs he'd gleaned from the Soltans.  In 2005, that opportunity came when a certain Canadian jailed "hero" was broken out of prison; the 'hero's' name - Colonel Chanteau AKA Emperor North.

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After hearing of Colonel Chanteau's escape, Eugene decided to break into the Canadian and United States satellite stations and perform an algorithmic-derived search pattern for the Colonel.  It didn't take but a minute to find Chanteau on a remote island off the US/Canadian border - Wolfe Island. Eugene learned that the Colonel was a resourceful and influential man, but was a tactical zero who kept himself and his troops alive during the Soltan Invasion more due to luck than education, training or skill.  Eugene believed Chanteau just might be the right fool to allow Eugene to continue his work, all the while making Chanteau and his troops believe that he (Eugene) was instead doing the work for them and their ignorant revolutionary movement. A day later, Dr. Phlebotinum introduced himself to Colonel Chanteau on Wolfe Island and offered up his engineering and inventive skills to support Chanteau's revolution.  Chanteau agreed and thus started an 'alliance' as far as Eugene was concerned and a 'new friendship' as far as Chanteau was concerned.

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After their alliance was established, Eugene had his work cut out for him.  The old dilapidated base Chanteau decided to hole up in had outdated 1960s technology, infrastructure and electrical systems that needed a complete and utter overhaul.  As such, whatever Eugene needed, he gave the list to Chanteau who promptly sent his troops (some super-powered) out across the United States, Canada or other locations around the world to get whatever it was that Eugene needed.  In addition to building up the facility and getting it to become a powerful self-sufficient manufacturing and military base, Eugene worked long hours into the night devising one of his greatest inventions - the Force Field Generator.  Over time, he successfully tested the "FF Gen" as he called it in secret.  No one knew of his design, however, Eugene ensured its availability and use from a defensive means by having his drones and robots build several FF Gens all around Wolfe Island.  Eventually, the day came when the world discovered Chanteau's base.  The United States and Canada, although angry with each other over who's authority the raid was to be led by, attacked Wolfe Island with Marines, aircraft and naval shore bombardments...none of which ever harmed a square inch of Wolfe Island.  Eugene activated his FF Gens just as the allied nations attacked Wolfe Island resulting in Wolfe Island being completed protected by an enormous series of overlapping force field domes.  As the allies fired more and larger weapons as the force field, it strengthened all the more, due to the kinetic energy design Eugene incorporated.  The more devastating the attack on the force field, the stronger it got. Eventually, both the United States and Canadian forces withdrew to a safe distant from Wolfe Island after Eugene's missiles and weapons systems delivered a heavy black eye to the allied war machines, sinking ships and obliterating warplanes and drones.

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Over the next few years, Eugene continued his engineering and designs, including equipment that helped replenish the air under the FF Gen domes and equipment needed for crop production and harvesting for the Chanteau's new "United Canadian Empire" movement.  Eugene also participated actively as a founding member of Chanteau's super-powered team, the "UCE Enforcers", especially during the UCE's Operation: Gambit gamble.  Eugene had created more portable (could be loaded in trucks) versions of his FF Gens that was vital for taking over all of New England in an attempt to expand the UCE's real estate from Wolfe Island to land grab the United States' technology-heavy industry on the east coast.  Although the gambit failed, many realized that Dr. Phlebotinum was as much a terrorist and international threat as was Chanteau, who now took to calling himself "Emperor North".

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Since then, Eugene has continued created and designing new weapons, technologies and engineered applications for his designs.  He's even created wrist-mounted FF Gens for Emperor North to use himself on his armor.  As the Wolfe Island base continues to grow as a self-sufficient militant manufacturing base for the UCE, Eugene has also been busy working on new futuristic designs and plans (of course designing them with a Steampunk flair) that not even Emperor North knows of.  One day soon, according to Eugene, he'll be the man in charge of Earth and as the ruler of all especially all those that ever opposed or oppressed him...especially Agent Brown AKA Major Invader...

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