Doctor Frye (Earth-616)

History

Doctor Frye was a medical doctor and expert in the field of radiation, working out of a small town in Colorado where he made a number of breakthroughs in chemo-therapy treatment for cancer patients. He married Claire Frye, and raised a son, Del Frye. When Claire passed away, Doctor Frye was left with crippling existential fear and became obsessed with creating a medical breakthrough that could prevent death. He found himself drawn to the work of Bruce Banner, seeing him as the man that death could not claim and ignoring his colleague's beliefs that Banner's monstrous form was a cautionary tale.

Frye began experimenting with Gamma radiation, and injected on himself a serum that enhanced his physique without any visible side-effects. Encouraged by his immediate success, he pressured Del into taking the serum as well- claiming that with all the physical injuries sustained in football, his star athlete son would need the serum to protect him when he went professional. Unlike his father, Del suffered side effects of the injection immediately- his eyes turned a deep green, and green blood began pouring from his mouth and eyes as he hallucinated about a great green door and a being beyond it, before he collapsed dead.

Horrified and ashamed that he had killed his own son, Doctor Frye rushed his burial at the Green Peak Cemetery, before burning the formula and all his notes so no one could replicate his work. Shutting himself inside his home and refusing to speak to his neighbors out of guilt, no one noticed when Doctor Frye began to experience the delayed side-effects of the serum for himself- his skin became irradiated and glowed a sickly green, and his hair fell away, leaving him with the appearance of a desiccated, glowing skeleton. Frye went into exile deep in the caves of the local mountain, where he killed anyone who stumbled upon him- draining the life from them with a touch.

What Frye didn't realize was that since he didn't reveal Del's cause of death, his son was given a regular burial, and the distance between the casket and the ground was too shallow to contain the radiation emanating from the body. As mourners visited the grave, they were infected with Gamma sickness, and died as well, spreading what the locals dubbed a "Chain of Grief." While drifting across the country, Bruce Banner learned of this regional illness. He visited Del's grave and identified the Gamma radiation coming from it. After alerting the E.P.A., Banner scaled the mountain where Frye lived, since he had noticed a flash of green coming from it hours earlier.

Terrified of being discovered and losing his life, Frye lunged at Banner and crushed his neck, triggering his transformation into his new, vengeful Hulk form. The Hulk explained Frye's responsibility in the series of mystery deaths, before tearing off the man's arms and legs and burying him alive under the mountain, trapped beneath stone and surrounded by darkness- a fate the Hulk deemed an ironic one; the man who had become so afraid of death that he became a monster, would spend the rest of his days trapped alone, fearing life and begging for death. In the meantime, the E.P.A. had unearthed Del's coffin, and the boy turned out to be alive, but in the same condition as his father.^[1]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

As a result of his experiments, Frye possesses enhanced physical attributes and a healing factor. While the extent of his healing factor is unknown, what is known is that it doesn't allow him to regrow missing limbs.^[1]

Abilities

Knowledgeable in medicine and radiation.^[1]

Weaknesses

Frye constantly produced lethal levels of radiation. He also had a pathological fear of death.^[1]

Links and References

• 1 Appearances of Doctor Frye (Earth-616)
• Minor Appearances of Doctor Frye (Earth-616)
• Media Doctor Frye (Earth-616) was Mentioned in
• 6 Images featuring Doctor Frye (Earth-616)
• Quotations by or about Doctor Frye (Earth-616)
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Footnotes