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Quote1 To a genius like me your insipid ramblings are laughable! I sneer at you all! Quote2
Egghead[src]

History

Elihas Starr (Earth-616) from Avengers Assemble Vol 1 1 0001

Early Life[]

Dr. Elihas Starr was a scientist working at an atomic research center for the government of the United States. He was caught when trying to smuggle drafts of an atomic project, probably to sell them on the open market. He was then fired from the center and was waiting to be judged for treason. However, the criminal world discovered his ordeal because of tabloids (where he was nicknamed "Egghead") and offered him freedom if he was ready to put his intellect to the service of the crime lords.[4]

Ant-Man[]

To prove his skill, the crime lords wanted Starr to defeat the original Ant-Man. Starr developed a device to communicate and control ants, and then competed with the Ant-Man for the loyalty of insects. However, his attempts to win them over using greed and vanity did not work and they revealed Starr's plan to Ant-Man who prepared for the trap and captured the crime lords who were there with him. Starr barely escaped capture and went into hiding in a poorhouse.[4]

Egghead then began working with two escaped crooks in trying to destroy Ant-Man. To this end, Egghead developed the false identity of Professor Carl Striker. Using false credentials of a Zoologist, he put on exhibits on insects and after masterminding the theft of Middleton Diamond he put on a wasp exhibit at the local zoo to lure the Wasp into a trap. It succeeded and the Wasp was captured and Ant-Man was lured into a seemingly escapable trap. Even with all escapes electrified, Ant-Man bested a lizard and anteater that were set on him and freed the Wasp from captivity. While they managed to capture the two thugs, Egghead managed to escape once again.[2]

Tirelessly, Starr developed a new scheme to confront his nemesis the Ant-Man (who had changed his alias to Giant Man) with Spider-Man. Here he used ants to relay a false message to Hank and Janet that Spider-Man was out to defeat the pair. This distracted the heroes allowing Egghead and his gang to commit a series of daring robberies. However, Giant-Man's ants informed him of the double cross, and the trio stopped Egghead and his minions.[5] After his failure, Starr was sent to prison, which increased his obsession with the Giant-Man even more. He escaped from prison and created an Wax Android to kill Giant-Man, but was defeated once more.[6]

Starr then left prison somehow and allied himself with the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master.[7] Starr built an infrared laser that could send a destructive ray to Earth. The laser was built on a satellite that the three villains managed to obtain and tested it in an abandoned city in the Midwest. After this test, Starr tried to blackmail the government of the United States.[8] However, the Avengers discovered the secret location of the satellite thanks to con man Barney Barton, who was the brother of Avenger Goliath. The Avengers destroyed the ray, but Egghead escaped and Barney Barton died in the process. After that, Barton's brother Clint developed an enmity with Egghead comparable to Egghead's with the Ant-Man.[9]

Swordsman[]

Starr then hired the criminal Swordsman to attack the headquarters of the Avengers and kidnap Henry Pym, the original Ant-Man who, Starr believed, was using the identity of Goliath; however, weeks before this, Pym had changed his alias to Yellowjacket. The Swordsman captured Clint Barton and took him to Starr's lair. There, Goliath defeated the Swordsman and Egghead and sent them both to jail.[10]

Escape[]

Starr escaped from jail and began building a machine to steal intelligence from people. To test it, Starr captured his own niece, Patricia. Henry Pym, who was again the Ant Man, rescued her and sabotaged the machine. There was an explosion when Starr tried to use it on himself but, unbeknownst to Pym, Starr had survived.[11]

To make Patricia pay for his defeat, Starr placed a bomb in her car. Patricia survived the explosion, but she lost an arm. Yellowjacket had a suspicion that this attack may have been orchestrated by Starr and tracked him down, beating him until he confessed to trying to maim his own niece.[12]

Intelligencia[]

Egghead was revealed to have been a founding member of Intelligencia.[13]

Emissaries of Evil[]

After a time, Starr stole from an special NASA lab, and created the Emissaries of Evil alongside with Rhino, Solarr, and Cobalt Man. He was trying to get the Star of Capistan, a mystic object he discovered while in prison. The Emissaries were caught when trying, the Cobalt Man exploded and Starr was believed dead, but he used a teleport device to survive.[14] He, however, wanted the world to believe him dead while he was building a new lab in Manhattan. They also battled the Canadian hero team Alpha Flight.[15]

Months after that, Starr discovered that Pym had fallen in disgrace to the Avengers, and developed a plan to destroy him utterly. He designed and built a bionic arm and approached Pym, explaining that he wanted to make amends for his past. He had built Patricia a new arm, he said, to replace the one he took from her, but he needed Pym to take the arm to her. Patricia, obviously, would not trust him.

However, the arm was a booby trap, controlled by Egghead and with a bomb that would explode if someone tried to remove it. Pym was forced to obey Starr's commands: He went to a military base on Omaha, Nebraska, to steal adamantium containers, and Starr even forced Pym to fight his partners, the Avengers. The Avengers defeated Pym, who tried to explain his acts. But Starr had foreseen this: With false memories on Patricia's mind, she would not corroborate Pym's version. Thus, Pym was sent to jail.[16]

Masters of Evil[]

During the following weeks, Starr formed the third Masters of Evil and sent them to the court, where Pym was being judged, to kidnap him. Starr's plan included the Avengers capturing one of the Masters, the Shocker, who had been implanted with false memories suggesting that Pym had hired them to free him. This would make Pym more disgraceful.[17][18]

Starr made Pym work in a research project to decrease the human aging process. However, unbeknownst to Starr, Pym was building a force field harness and weapon systems, and tricked Starr to let him test it. Meanwhile, technology developed by Tony Stark overcame Schultz's false memories and made the Avengers discover the truth.[19]

Death[]

Clinton Barton (Earth-616), Henry Pym (Earth-616), and Elihas Starr (Earth-616) from Avengers Vol 1 230 001

However, when the Avengers came, Pym had defeated the Masters of Evil. Starr was feigning unconsciousness, and took a gun to shoot Pym from behind.[20] Although Pym could not see Starr, Hawkeye, who was hiding, saw him and shot an arrow to the gun's barrel. The gun, an energy blaster, failed the shot and instantly killed Starr. [21] Hawkeye was judged for this murder, but found not guilty, although he was reproached more than once due to his tendency towards contempt of the court.[22]

Clone[]

Arnim Zola later created a proto-husk of Egghead as part of his Corpse Corp. Deadpool killed the Egghead proto-husk who then had a small bird pop out of his skull.[23]

Resurrection[]

Starr later resurfaced, having survived his deadly fate with the help of a "Rejuvetech serum." He stole a group of artificial duplicates of the Avengers from Hank Pym's lab, and mind-controlled A.I. expert Raz Malhotra to activate them. Pym and Ant-Man followed Egghead's trail and infiltrated his base, but not before the A.I.vengers had been deployed, which were subsequently used to battle the two heroes. Egghead's plan was thwarted once Malhotra snapped out of the mind-control, and deactivated the androids. The villain was subsequently knocked out by Pym.[24]

Egghead was hired afterward by Darren Cross to kill Ant-Man for injuring his son in a fight. Cross promised him access to all the equipment in Hank Pym's Laboratory.[25]

Attributes

Power Grid[28]
:Category:Power Grid/Fighting Skills/Normal:Category:Power Grid/Energy Projection/None:Category:Power Grid/Durability/Normal:Category:Power Grid/Speed/Normal:Category:Power Grid/Strength/Normal:Category:Power Grid/Intelligence/Genius

Abilities

  • Genius Intelligence: Egghead was a scientific genius in many fields, including Biology, Nuclear Physics, Robotics, and Electronics. He was also a gifted engineer.[26]

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Egghead used equipment designed by himself, including:

  • Insect control devices
  • Laser satellites
  • Mind control devices
  • Robots
  • Teleportation devices

Weapons

Egg-shaped devices of his own design which have various properties when thrown. Some of these include:

  • an egg which explodes, wrapping its victim in a nigh-unbreakable material
  • an egg which electrocutes its victim
  • an egg which bursts into a bolo, ensnaring its victim
Egghead has also employed other weapons in the past, such as wrist-blasters.

Trivia

  • In the slang of the United States, especially during the 1950s, egghead was an anti-intellectual insult directed at people considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and lacking in realism, common sense and virility on account of their intellectual interest. Vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon used this term against Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Currently, it is rarely used, having been replaced by terms such as nerd and geek (or "liberal elite" in politics).
  • Egghead was 57 at the time of his death.[citation needed]

See Also

Links and References

References

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