Alter ego Albert Zerstoiten Place of origin Earth | Species Homo sapiens Publisher Hero Games | |
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Abilities Genius-level intellect, powered armor and skilled scientist First appearance The Island of Dr. Destroyer Similar Mechanon, Psimon, Nighthawk | ||
Doctor Destroyer is the most powerful villain in the Hero Universe. He first appeared in the adventure module The Island of Dr. Destroyer in 1981 and has remained a stable part of the Champions role-playing game ever since.
Contents
Fictional biography
Doctor Destroyer is portrayed as being born Albert Zerstoiten, son of a Bavarian dollmaker in 1917. He was a child prodigy who was enrolled in college by the age of twelve and had two Ph.D's by twenty. His intellect soon made him feel like a god among other human beings, however. He went to work as a scientist for the Third Reich, but when the Allies began to win World War II he sold out his employers to the French Resistance. Zerstoiten thought no more of betraying them than he did his Nazi employers and tried to flee to South America, but was captured by British forces and extradited to America. Despite his crimes his intelligence was sought by the US military and Zerstoiten was put to work on a new generation of atomic weapons.
Zerstoiten had already realized he was destined to rule the world, and escaped to South America with success. There he began building a network of spies and soldiers and formally became the villain known as Dr. Destroyer. One of his disciples, Hernan Cortez, so idolized Zerstoiten that he created a similar guise for himself and became known as Professor Muerte, but Cortez ultimately developed the drive to conquer the world himself and broke away from Destroyer to form a team of terrorist supervillains called Terror, Incorporated. Destroyer went on to attempt many sweeping plans of global domination and in the process would frequently battle the world's greatest superheroes and peacekeeping organizations such as UNTIL.
Alternate versions
In the supplement "Champions in 3D", an alternate heroic version of Doctor Destroyer called Professor Preserver is introduced. He comes from a mirror-world called "Backworld" where the counterparts of heroes are villainous and the counterparts of villains are heroic.
Appearances outside the game
Dr. Destroyer appeared in three issues of the comic book The Marksman, which was based in part on the Champions game. He was assembling a team of international supervillains, including Professor Muerte, with which to launch an attempt at world domination. The League of Champions tracked his henchmen to their island lair and managed to capture some of the other villains, but they lacked sufficient power to breach Destroyer's personal force field and he escaped by submarine.
Video game
Destroyer is a fixture of Champions Online.
