The Dated Doc D

[massey]

Time travel. Lazarus Pit.

[Prometheus]

Albrecht is in his 90's. Even a hale 90 year old is fragile and spends half their time napping. Destroyer dozing off mid-plan seems more likely than a burst of youthful energy to conquer the world anew.

 

I can't say that this is an assumption I'd make, really. His genetic quirk-- which I can't remember from Day of the Destroyer (that was a long time ago!), but is in more recent material-- seems to be flavor text to lend a sense of urgency to his schemes and give him some weakness. There may be a disconnect somewhere, but his write up includes a substantial amount of Life Support, implying health and (arguably) longevity aren't a real problem. I understand that it's a separate issue, but regardless, I don't see the details in Destroyers background making him any less of a credible threat.

 

I'd posit that the issue is linking him to Nazis. Tying Nazis exclusively to the Third Reich (and the WWII era) is hardly a stretch, and that group casts a long shadow. If Destroyer's background were shifted to de-emphasize the association would he feel as dated? Lord Liaden makes mention of Vandal Savage and Ra's al Ghul, both of whom are less about being Cro-Magnon or an Arabian nomad than about being very old and having historically colorful backgrounds.

[Sketchpad]

When I was running the CU, my Doctor Destroyer had long abandoned his original and had himself either placed in cloned bodies or bodies that proved compatible with his unique system. During one stint, he had a battlesuit created that housed just his brain in a thick, syrupy fluid. Toward the end of the campaign, one of the heroes, a patriot from WWII that had traveled forward in time after an accident in pre-Doc D's lab, had hunted the brain down and brought it in to UNTIL to answer for its crimes.

[Michael Hopcroft]

@BTolputt

 

I have been increasingly moving towards "move the world on," as you put it. World War Two is no longer a living reality (except for a few ancient hangers on) and the Cold War was yesterday's set of problems. The old Nazis and Commies are bad guys milieu doesn't really fit today. its time for something new. A "Death of the Destroyer" story is brewing in my brain.

 

One off-topic thought that passed through my brain on this topic is that there is one very bad effect from the passage of time making the memory of the Nazis (or the Communists, for that matter) a more and more distant memory. That is that the object lessons in the nature of the evil that these horrors represented is fading from living memory as well.

 

How is this bad? Because people no longer have the experience that tells them the consequences of the ideas and actions that brought these horrors about. Almost immediately after the September 11 attacks in 2001 (has it really been twelve years?) anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media and among certain politicians became more and more visceral and more and more persistent. To the point that pundits with national audiences wrote books and articles advocating virtual genocide against Islam on a global scale. Many of these were based on deliberate mis-interpretations of history, statements about what Muslims believe and practice that were outright lies, and hammering home the idea of a grand conspiracy that all Muslims secretly or openly belonged to to destroy the "Western" world.

 

Sound familiar? It should, because in the 1920s and 1930s the Nazis were beating exactly the same drums to spur hatred of the Jews. Before the campaign started Germany was one of the more tolerant Western nations: all the ghettos were gone and Jews were treated as full citizens with full civil and social rights. When the campaign reached its climax, the road it had built led to Auschwitz.

 

I see the same patterns today that happened then, and nobody seems all that alarmed. That may be because we have forgotten that the fruits of hatred are bitter beyond bearing.

[BTolputt]

For me, the issue with Dr D is not so much that he's associated with the Nazis, it's that the whole "getting old and running out of time" idea doesn't work forever. Like the New 52 and Marvel's Ultimate line-up, new players are going to identify easier with villains & heroes that work in the world they know. I'm running games with my kids and even I never really knew much about the Nazi threat or recall much more than a fuzzy outline of the Cold War outside Rambo movies.

 

For me to use the Champion's Universe with the kids I'm running games for/with - Dr D needs to either pass on the mantle or be updated to something they understand. I'm not going to jump on the Middle East bandwagon (sorry, but I won't use that stereotype with kids - period) and kids/teens today weren't exposed even to the Commie scare. The nationalist/racist angle just doesn't give the oomph to Destroyer's background it used to. Without something in his background players can identify with as ruthless evil, he simply comes across as a geriatric in a power-suit. That's a gag villian, not the image of CU's premier world conqueror.

[Greywind]

Whilst I haven't played in the Champions Universe much, I'm running a game with my children that works better with the "corny tropes" prevalent in the material. With that said, my kids only know of Nazis as "the bad guys from the Capt America movie". My eldest is dealing with them (briefly) in high school history, but none of them know the true nature of the atrocity that made Nazis the "go to bad guy organisation" that makes up Dr D's history.

 

For them, I'd probably mix up his history a little but for others & the CU in general, I'd see it as an opportunity to move the world on in general. Dr D is aware of his impending demise, knows that even if he should take over the world - he's not going to rule it for long as he is, and (as a fan of the whole genetic purity thing) wouldn't consider someone other than his direct progeny worthy of the throne.

 

There is a good campaign waiting adventure there with multiple clones/children of a Dr D theme trying to prove themselves, another worldwide threat needing to be taken on, and the one candidate that steps up to help his/her old man save the world being the new bearer of the mantle Destroyer. Hell, you can even steal cheesy lines from movies with the heroes coming on the dying Dr D having made his last sacrifice for the world he deemed his to rule looking up into the sky to see a new Dr D taking on the enemy whispering "Though this may be the death of my body, my will is done regardless"​.

 

Later adventures can be had using stories like the new Dr D having to crush opposition to their rule both inside & outside the ranks of the Destroyer organisation, having one of the other candidates begging the Champions for asylum, and even having the new Dr D going through an identity crisis as they find the soul of the old guy coming back to take back what his is... by possessing the new Dr D whenever he wears the armour the old man died in

Actually, I think they made a point that the bad guys were "Hydra".

[massey]

Nazis still hold classic appeal as villains to me. Yes, they're the villains from my grandpa's day, but to people my age WWII was still a defining point in history. It's really when "modern" history began to me. Of course I watched Indiana Jones movies as a kid, so Nazis have always had a strong place in my mind. They are just perfect bad guys.

 

If you've got a generation of players who have no sort of connection with them, you might want to update it. If saying he's a Nazi to your players is the same as saying he's a Confederate general or something, then maybe it's time for Evil Corporate Luthor, err, Destroyer. He's head of Zerstoiten Industries, and he has the nickname "Dr. Destroyer" because he destroys the environment or something. His first appearance the players fight the old 4th edition version, and then it turns out its just some corporate employee in armor and he dies at the end because of radiation poisoning from the faulty armor.

[Escafarc]

There are still Nazis they just don't dress as well as they use to.

[Dr. Hercules]

Here's what I did.

After the Defenders season six, Dr. D took some major damage, but still (barely) survived. though his organization didn't.

Anyway, a year later he kidnaps Cateran to steal her genetic code to clone himself an immortal body. The Defenders showed up saved Cateran, and watched a Destroyer, hooked up to life support die. But Destroyer uploaded everything, including his mind to a secret location. He will make a reappearance next season in a younger, more powerful, and more importantly Immortal body. With red hair

[Marcus Impudite]

The original Nazis may be gone, but there are still plenty of Neo-Nazis, Skinheads, etc. running around these days; being a racist asswipe is about the only real requirement to join their ranks.

 

As for Dr. Destroyer, my solution is that he finally had a fatal heart attack and one of his smarter, more ambitious minions took over Destroyer's organization and even assumed the mantle. Destroyer 2.0 could either then start wearing the old doctor's armor or build his own suit if he has the skills. Either way, it's "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

[Lawnmower Boy]

"The Nazis? Oh, yes, I worked for them. They, with their brotherly dream of comradeship for all who shared one strand of the vile dreck that makes up the common man's genome. Fools! They wanted wonder weapons and death machines. I knew better. But, oh, they had money, and I took it, and I spent it.

 

"After the war, it was the Americans who had the money. Americans who would recognise my genius, and I went to work for them. Not the kind of garbage that I threw together to amuse that Austrian small town yokel. Oh, no. The Americans let my genius flower, let all the work that I had been doing on control systems flow into their nascent surveillance apparatus. Their dream was short-sighted and banal: the ability to read their enemy's communications in real time and plain text, instantly machine translated out of Russian into English.

 

"It was hopelessly optimistic for their machines, especially the IBM kludges they gave me to improve. Or, worse, computers made by sewing machine mechanics who fancied themselves engineers. They leaked hydraulic fluid on the output. Oil on cardstock, can you believe it? Yet within it, the dream of the true objective: absolute, total surveillance would mean absolute, total control. At last, the human race, disciplined, ordered, the tool of a superior mind. That was a future worth hours adjusting the rate of fluid return to the reservoir, the smell of burnt circuits in the lab.

 

"At last, though, I had accomplished all that it was worth wasting my mind on. I could leave it to the followers, to the mundane, and strike out on my own. That is the era you know of, the Era of the Destroyer. It was fine, for what it was worth. I accomplished much. More than you know. More than those prattling superheroes who thought that they stymied me can imagine. I should like to tell you about it all, and perhaps one day I will.

 

"To all good things there must be an end, however. I am, as you see me, history's greatest intelligence locked within a decadent, aging, dying body. Yet there is more: this armoured apparatus, embodying the power of my intellect in the form of an instrument of surveillance and control that will extend my earthly life another generation or more. It has come to fruition, and this is no coincidence, in the same moment that my lifetime's work unveils itself in what the American authorities now dare not admit: that their surveillance tool has become my instrument of control. As with my body, so the world. In this latter day, decrepit, teetering towards death. Yet, yoked to the power of my intellect through my tools, it will yet be able to leave a monument to the greatness of the human race behind; a monument to its supreme genius.

 

"Do not think that you can resist. The instrument that controls is 70 years in the making. It knows you better than you know yourself. Nothing you do is not uttered first, in the reflexive, regenerating control loops of my systemics. Surrender yourself, instead, to the Destroyer, and make the last days of the world the greatest, so that all galactic life can look down from the Heavens and see the works of the mighty on this cenotaph world and despair."

[Cancer]

Make him an alien who donned the Nazi trappings when that gave him access to resources 75 years ago. He can reinvent himself (as an alien he wouldn't be subject to human limits) and have the new version take control of the organization. I mean, look at mainland China. Mao would be unable to recognize the place now, but his inheritors are no less autocratic.

[assault]

Make him an alien who donned the Nazi trappings when that gave him access to resources 75 years ago. He can reinvent himself (as an alien he wouldn't be subject to human limits) and have the new version take control of the organization. I mean, look at mainland China. Mao would be unable to recognize the place now, but his inheritors are no less autocratic.

The sad thing is that Mao would instantly recognise the place, and know it for what it is.

[bigbywolfe]

Jump him a generation by making him the son of one of the Nazi scientists. Maybe he was born and raised in South America in the 50's.

 

 

Trap him in his armor 24/7.

 

 

Have him hold a worldwide tournament/scavenger hunt to choose his successor.

He is already in his armor essentially 24/7.

[bigbywolfe]

Wow. One more time! I don't care about the super-humans Doc D has or hasn't created. They aren't relevant to the question at hand. I care about him. The man' date=' the myth, the historical anachronism. The ego-maniacal cult of personality that single-handedly holds his whole organization together (like Qaddafi in Libya once did). What are people doing about the now 90-something supervillain with an increasingly cliched, hackneyed, and out-of-date backstory? The guy should die of old age any day now.[/quote']

 

well nationalism/fascism isn't dead

 

the american traided egyption army just slaughter and bunch is muslims. Maybe he's involved in that

Still completely and utterly off topic. Whether he is involved there or not has absolutely no baring on his age or the character's origin.

[death tribble]

The other thing we have to look at is his successor either male or female.

For as the thread says Dated Doctor D. So who did he date and what was the result ? A slap across the face mask or a night of hot welding ?

[Greywind]

...Dr. Destroyer is an evil timelord and he doesn't have access to a tardis , so he's suck here, but can regen.

[Lord Liaden]

FWIW Dr. Destroyer in my own campaign blends elements of his Fourth Edition, Fifth Edition, Sixth Edition, and New Millennium incarnations. You may recall that for 4E and earlier, Albert Zerstoiten was hideously scarred after a ship he was attempting to flee Europe on after WW II was torpedoed by the British -- an obvious attempt to make him more Dr. Doom-like. In the New Millennium setting he was very different, a terrible sorceror-tyrant long trapped beneath the sea-floor after the destruction of Atlantis, and reborn into the modern world. His origin was nearly identical to that of Sharna-Gorak the Destroyer in the 5E CU.

 

So, this is how I set it up. Albert Zerstoiten's early career proceeded along its mostly-recognizable course, including working for the Third Reich. The ship sinking occurred as in 4E; however, it occurred over the burial site of Sharna-Gorak. Zerstoiten's rage and hatred at the imminent untimely death of the greatest intellect of his age, at the hands of ignorant fools, touched similar emotions in Sharna-Gorak. The Destroyer was roused enough to touch the mind of Zerstoiten and attempt to seize control of his body. The two struggled briefly, but Zerstoiten's will was too strong for Sharna-Gorak, weakened by millennia of imprisonment, to overcome. But the two discovered they had much in common, and agreed to cooperate. They became a hybrid being, master of the darkest sorcery of ancient Atlantis, and of the most advanced technology of the modern age: Dr. Destroyer. The fraction of the Destroyer's power that Zerstoiten's mortal body could contain sustained it until they could be rescued.

 

From then on, Dr. Destroyer's career followed much the same course as in published books, although his schemes employed magic as much as science. His followers in the Vale of Javangari were actually devotees of a degenerate cult of Sharna-Gorak, who recognized Destroyer for who he was. Dr. Destroyer also plotted to free Sharna-Gorak's immortal body and reclaim his full power, but the physical and magical barriers surrounding it remained beyond his abilities to breach.

 

The Battle of Detroit occurred essentially as described for the 5E/6E CU, but for the reasons everyone thinks it did, not as part of some grand deception. Dr. Destroyer actually did die beneath his orbital cannon. However, his essence not only survived, but inadvertently absorbed the life-force of the 60,000 innocents also slain by the cannon. Destroyer gradually coalesced into physical form, Sauron-like, filled with greatly enhanced magical might. It took him years to gain control of his power, during which he allowed the world to think him dead.

 

At last Dr. Destroyer wielded sufficient power to free the body of Sharna-Gorak and take back his ancient might. But he was enraged to discover that in the interim someone had stolen much of its power, leaving the body inert and useless to him. (As per current Champions Universe history this was Luther Black, aka the Edomite, leader of DEMON.) What's worse, the mortal shell inherited from Albert Zerstoiten, long preserved in youthful vigor by Sharna-Gorak's spirit, is too frail to contain his boosted life-force, and is rapidly decaying.

 

Dr. Destroyer has announced his return to the world, pursuing three goals: ascending to his rightful throne over all the Earth; finding a way to preserve his failing body; and finding the thief of his power, reclaiming it, and making him pay more dearly than any lesser being can imagine.

 

The design for Dr. Destroyer I've been using recently borrows heavily from that of Shadow Destroyer, his extra-dimensional counterpart in the 6E Champions Universe, who is himself a master of both science and magic.

 

 

[intp]

I find Dr. Destroyer to be an uninteresting villain, personally. Too powerful and one-dimensional. I prefer not to use him at all. Really, there is no good explanation why a character as powerful and egomaniacal would not run amok and kill just about every character that has ever annoyed him-- including Gravitar, Mechanon, and all the rest.

 

I prefer having more of a 'balance of power' among master villains, with none quite paramount; this avoids the obvious question of, why doesn't the uber villain just swat everyone like fleas whenever he feels like it?

 

I thought about maybe modifying the character by powering him down some, and making him more like Dr. Doom by giving him some (very) minor aspects of pathos (scarred face; somewhat tragic past-- Doc Doom's mother's spirit was captured by Mephisto; something along those lines) and some mildly sympathetic or redeeming qualities (i.e. Doc Doom does have a very minor honorable and courageous element; and, despite his ego, knows deep down that he's second best to Reed Richards; however, he is overwhelmingly villainous). As written, Dr. Destroyer is just an unmitigated scumbag that just about everyone in the world would be better off with not having around anymore. But I find it easier to just not use him.

 

Mechanon seems like an adequate substitute as a techno-villain.

[Epiphanis]

Doctor Destroyer still works as a villain for me. Canonically, his genetic abnormality prevents his rejuvenation, but tech and therapy slows his deterioration to a crawl, allowing him to feasibly be active for decades more while he seeks a more permanent solution. His roots may lie in Nazi Germany, but its somewhat ironic and clearly he isn't steeped in Nazi regalia like the Red Skull is. Anyway, Nazis may not be as immediate a menace as they once were, but their evil has gained a kind of legendary status now that so few of the original gangsta Nazis are around. Like pirates and ninjas, being relegated to history has given them a cachet that the originals didn't have in reality. In Darren Watts' Golden Age playtest, a young pre-Destroyer Zerstoiten made a cameo. As WWII was winding down, the Allied heroes were sent to shut down a Nazi research center. They broke in, expecting a fight, only to find youngish Albert happily working on an experiment surrounded by twoscore or so of his Nazi handlers and coworkers, all dead. Zerstoiten rather blasély explained he had enough of their nonsense now that their usefulness was ending, and immediately offered his services and assistance to the Allies (and specifically the non-Communist allies), insinuating he had information that could be useful in ending the war and gaining an edge over Russia. Not exactly canon as Steve Long wrote it, but close and it worked. (We also killed Necrull and incinerated his body during the playtest, with no explanation as to how he could have returned for the 21st Century as is canon.) The impression was that Zerstoiten was so evil he actually made his Nazi coworkers look sympathetic in comparison.

[Lord Liaden]

Pursuant to Epiphanis's point regarding the now-iconic status of Nazis as villains, when I frequented the Champions Online discussion forums I read quite a few players asking for Nazis to appear in the game, or whether there were any canon Nazi villains in the CU. (There are at least two BTW.) Few of those fans sounded fogeyish, like most of us here. Nazis may be more villainously fashionable than one would think.

[Greywind]

Did Dr. D ever date?

[death tribble]

Did Dr. D ever date?

I asked that above. But in the original Island of Dr Destroyer he does have a girlfriend

[kahuna's bro]

here is a ninjaHERO version of the bad dr.

dr .zerstoite was a doctor who deliberately prescribed performance enhancing drugs to patients he knew to be athetes and then tipping off the appropriate sports organizations in effect destroying their careers earning him to be called"doctor. destroyer by the news media

[Enforcer84]

My way to deal with it, mostly theoretical because I stopped using the CU, was to have him die in Detroit. I had considered my new Dr Destroyer a few ways, Military specialist sounded too close to Warlord for my tastes, a recycled Super-genius was a possibility, Sennucherub was too Mechanon, didn't like Shadow Destroyer, in the end I just went with what was left.

There was a civil war as the loyalists in his regime battled those who sought to fill the vacuum of power.

 

In the end Gigaton became "The Destroyer" the rest of the Superpowered Lieutenants either stuck with him or jumped ship and the organization dropped its dead weight, took the name: The Destroyers. They wanted to create a better society based on his mentor/master's plans but the new Destroyer lacked Zerstoiten's intellect and arrogance and saw some sociological flaws.

 

This would be somewhat like the end of the first Thunderbolts run by marvel, where Zemo decides to save the world from itself.