Elihas Starr (Earth-616)

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.

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. The Ant Man defeated Starr, and he barely escaped capture.

Shocked, Starr lay low for a time until he finished a new scheme to defeat the Ant Man. To do so, he wanted to use the Ant Man's then-new partner, the Wasp, as a bait. This scheme ended in a new disaster for Starr.

Tirelessly, Starr developed a new scheme to confront his nemesis the Ant Man (who had changed his alias to Giant Man) with Spider-Man. After his failure, Starr was sent to prison, which would increase his obsession with the Ant Man.

Starr then left prison somehow and allied himself with the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master. Starr built an infra-red 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 Mid-West. After this test, Starr tried to blackmail the government of the United States. However, the Avengers discovered the secret location of the satellite thanks to con man Barney Barton, who was the brother of Avenger Goliath (Clint Barton). 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.

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 to Yellowjacket). The Swordsman captured the other Goliath (Clint Barton) and took him to Starr's lair. There, Goliath defeated the Swordsman and Egghead, and sent them both to jail.

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, unbeknowst to Pym, Starr had survived.

To make Patricia pay for his defeat, Starr placed a bomb in her car. Patricia survived the explosion, but she lost an arm.

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.

He, however, wanted the world to believe him dead while he was building a new lab in Manhattan.

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.

During the following weeks, Starr formed the third Masters of Evil and sent them to the court were 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.

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

However, when the Avengers came, Pym had defeated the Masters of Evil. Starr was feigning inconsciousness, and took a gun to shot Pym from behind. 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.

Hawkeye was judged for this murder, but found not guilty (although he was reproached more than once due to his tendency towards comtempt of the court).

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

Egghead was a scientific genius in many fields, including Biology, Nuclear Physics, Robotics, Biology and Electronics. He was also a gifted engineer.

Strength level

Normal human male with no regular exercise. In fact, he viscerally rejected physical training.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Egghead used equipment designed by himself, including:

Insect control devices
Laser satellites
Mind control devices
Robots

Trivia

In the slang of the United States, specially 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).
There was a D.C. villain called "Egghead", but mainly in the 1960s Batman television series. He was played by Vincent Price, and was also bald (although Price kept his trademark moustache). This Egghead's crimes, weapons and speech always had an egg-motif. He was, however, an intelligent villain who discovered Batman's secret identity. To date, this Egghead has only appeared twice in a comic book. (Shadow of the Bat #2-3)
The Egghead was considered as a villain for a possible movie about the Avengers, starring Arnold Schwartzeheimmer. However, the production quickly disregarded all the historical documentation on Egghead, rather imagining him with an golden egg-shaped helmet and an egg mixer as a weapon. ^{[citation needed]}

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