Alphonse Rodin

Alphonse Rodin is a retired mutant supervillain. He was once a member of Dr. Destroyer's elite inner circle and is now the leader of the New Canaan mutant colony.

## Biography

Born the son of a wealthy business family in the early 1900s, Alphose Rodin wanted for nothing. Graced with intellect and wealth, he found the family business a bore, with little challenge or artistry. Instead, he devoted himself to the sciences, and was fascinated with the medical breakthroughs brought on by the first World War. He aspired to be a biochemist, though he diligently followed through on his duties to the family in order to keep his father appeased. In 1929 Alphonse made a shocking breakthrough in his research of microbes. He accidentally bred a slime mold whose spores would corrode any iron-based metal and feast upon the resulting rust. Fascinated by the aggressive little organism, he weaponized it by storing it in glass globes, which he hurled with a sling at targets in his yard. Testing the slime on dummies, he found that they could corrode and ruin a soldier's entire kit just minutes after exposure, with no harm to the soldier. Alphonse began to wonder about the potential of such a microbe... perhaps it could mean total disarmament, preventing any further trouble with the Austrians or other invading powers!

Unfortunately for Alphonse, France was at that time in a state of frenzied war preparation, and the concept of a weapon-devouring microbe was extremely alarming. When word leaked out about his discovery, he was arrested and tried on charges of attempted sabotage. Alphonse was thrown in jail and his research destroyed, but not before a few tattered pages of his journals reached the young Albert Zerstoiten, the young Bavarian genius who would one day be known as Dr. Destroyer. Zerstoiten was very impressed with Rodin's work, and with a few well-placed bribes he managed to furnish Rodin a crude laboratory in his cell. Less than a year later, Alphonse escaped jail with the aid of a new, improved version of his mold which chewed straight through the walls, allowing him to flee and collapsing the entire ward of the prison behind him.

Alphonse vowed to have his revenge on the nearsighted, war-obsessed society that persecuted him, and also to repay Zerstoiten's generosity. The latter vow would take time, but he started on revenge immediately. Calling himself "the Gene-gineer," he began the very campaign of sabotage and crime he was originally falsely accused of, destroying the military's artillery, vehicles, and weapon caches wherever his slimes could reach.

Rodin worked in cycles, researching new breakthroughs in biochemistry and then unleashing these new creations on the hapless French government. He was caught several times, but always managed to evade justice-- either by escaping with carefully-prepared microbes secreted on his body or through bribes of 'miracle youth cures' proffered to the right aging judges and politicians. When the second World War came, he eagerly switched sides, defecting to join the Germans because he had heard that Zerstoiten was developing weapons for the Nazis. But Alphonse was appalled by the "science" of the Nazi regime. His fellow scientists were little better than bureaucrats and state-sponsored psychopaths, and their research yielded almost no new knowledge despite the staggering human cost. Alphonse realized his mistake in joining the Nazis and fled, hiding out through the war and the subsequent Nuremburg trials. Finally, in 1950, he received a most curious letter from his old friend Zerstoiten, inviting him to come join his new organization. Eager to resume his old life of crime, Alphonse packed up his lab and headed for South America.

Rebranding himself as "Biomaster," Alphonse Rodin became one of Dr. Destroyer's most constant companions and aided him in nearly all his schemes. In 1975, however, their partnership came to an abrupt end. During a friendly boasting match over dinner, Destroyer claimed to know Rodin better than he knew himself. Rodin challenged him to prove it, and Destroyer stabbed him in the chest with a carving knife. The pain and fear caused Alphonse's latent mutant gene to activate, and Destroyer won the bet: Rodin had had no idea he was a mutant at all.

Rodin's mutant gene was of the most debilitating type, as his mutation caused the soft tissues of his body to instantly begin to calcify. He left Dr. Destroyer's employ immediately to research his own condition in private, choosing an artificial island they had created and abandoned in the southern Pacific as his base of operations. During the course of his research, Rodin became fascinated with the mutant gene and its incredible possibilities. He was so fixated that he simply gave up supervillainy and instead dedicated himself wholly to mutant study. When mutants became more and more prevalent over the course of the 1990's, he opened his island to help provide a haven for mutant refugees. That influx of refugees brought the island's population from a dozen scattered mutants into the hundreds where it is now.

Rodin still spends his time researching and managing his island. Just lately he has become obsessed with the idea of finding the "perfect mutant," an infant possessing the most powerful and beneficial combination of mutant genes possible. To that end he is carefully observing all the births that happen on New Canaan as well as keeping tabs on mutants across the globe.

## Personality

Rodin is a pragmatic, idealistic visionary whose zeal has been tempered by decades of setbacks in the world of superhumans. He has come to acknowledge the futility of his early attempts to punish society, and instead focuses his energies on pushing his research to the very limit.

The 'good doctor' does still have a bit of the supervillain left in him, however, and when threatened or betrayed can prove to be just as brutal as he was at the height of his criminal career. He learned at the feet of Dr. Destroyer, after all, and is more than willing to crush any unreasonable person who poses a threat to his peaceful life.

## Powers

Rodin is the world's foremost expert on genetic engineering, a genius whose accomplishments in the field of mutant study dwarf those of even the most advanced government agencies and criminal organizations. There is little he cannot accomplish, given the time to formulate an appropriate solution. His research has conquered disease, aging, and even mastered the delicate process of body-swapping, so that a dying person can live on in a new cloned body (his own form of "immortality"). Rodin's expertise is so great that he has given up on most forms of high technology, and can achieve his aims with little more than his primitive, almost medieval laboratory setup.

Rodin is credited with creating some of the most powerful biological weapons ever created, including the mighty Gorgon, but his expertise extends to far more than weapons. He developed the Greater Amaranth plant (*Amaranthus Magnus Rodinsa*), an extremely nutritious grain that can grow in even the most rocky and barren soil, along with the entire ecology of the New Canaan ecosystem.

To compensate for the immobility of his own calcified body, he crafted a species of modified lemurs to act as his eyes, hands, and voice. His consciousness is spread throughout a number of these primates at any one time, and although they are poor fighters they allow him to simultaneously carry on conversations, experiment in his lab, keep an eye on the island and respond to dozens of different situations simultaneously. He is usually seen with four or five of these animals on his person.

Rodin has one other servant with him at all times: a psychoactive virus that hovers around him in an invisible cloud, expelled on his every breath. Anyone who gets within ten feet of him will be quickly infected, and the viral agent can take effect almost instantly if Rodin wishes it. As it activates in response to Rodin's mental command, the virus won't harm its host until ordered; when that order comes, however, it can quickly cause weakness, coma, and even death in any biological attacker.

## Weaknesses

Rodin cannot move his own form without extreme, painful effort. He is utterly immobile and mute without his lemurs. Although his calcified body is fairly durable, he could be easily killed if caught alone.