Doc Prometheus

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Futoshi Motoyoma may have acquired a rather sinister image as "Doc Prometheus", but it wasn't always so. Originally, there was nothing sinister about Dr Motoyoma – a promising roboticist from Tokyo, who had spent three years in Venture City to work on his thesis among the most advanced research facilities of the era, and returned to Japan to build his own cybernetics company, Prometheus Incorporated. If anything, he was a success story, producing some of the world's most sophisticated robots, and becoming rather wealthy in the process.

Then one day, things started going wrong. Prometheus Inc.'s chief accountant fled with a sizable amount of the company's founds – not enough that Motoyoma wasn't wealthy anymore, but enough that he needed to take quick action to prevent his company from going under. He was contacted by the Yakuza, who lent him money at high interest rates – interests that he wasn't able to keep up with. This situation didn't exactly sit well with his son, a police officer whose relationship with his father was already rather strained (Dr Motoyoma had never approved of his son's career choice, and would clearly have preferred for him to follow in his footsteps). As the doctor's debt to the Yakuza kept increasing, they started offering him the option of paying them (partially) with technological support rather than money. Nothing majorly heinous at first – just hacking the security robots he had built in the past to allow a Yakuza heist to proceed flawlessly. But every time he helped the mobsters, he discovered that they would ask for something bigger afterward – using his previous actions as blackmail. Before too long, he was providing them with advanced combat robots capable of fighting Japan's superheroes, never mind its police.

While his father was sinking deeper and deeper under the mob's greedy control, the police detective Hideaki Motoyoma had decided to investigate. He suspected (and was not alone in this) that the Yakuza's recent use of advanced robotics was linked to his father's involvement with them. His investigation revealed that the accountant that had stolen Prometheus Inc.'s funds had in fact been working for the Yakuza – all a part of the mobsters' plan to get the company's technology on their side. Unfortunately, the Yakuza murdered him over the course of his investigation (it is unlikely that they knew he was the doctor's son at the time of the killing).

When Dr Motoyoma learned of his son's murder, as well as his discoveries concerning the Yakuza's actions, he snapped. Over the following weeks, he channeled what money and resources he had left toward a great operation – his own one-man war against the Yakuza. After his weeks of work and preparation were complete, he launched his new combat robots – far more advanced than any of his earlier creations – to attack Yakuza gathering spots and hideouts, killing the mobsters by the dozens. Renaming himself "Doc Prometheus" and going underground, he sent the media his blood oath against the Yakuza, publicly stating his intention to exterminate them. Doc Prometheus's war had begun.

For months, chaos ensued. Doc Prometheus kept sending new robots to kill the Yakuzas, with gradually decreasing concern for collateral damage. The Yakuzas fought back, to no avail, and eventually most of them chose to go into hiding. The police and superheroes tried to fight the robots, and were on several occasions killed for their trouble. What had started as a war between Doc Prometheus and the Yakuza had turned into a war between Doc Prometheus and the rest of Japan.

Many superheroes would fight against the mad scientist's robots, but the only one who won more often than not was Titan, of the Global Champions. While she wasn't her country's most powerful superhuman, she was highly skilled and resourceful, and managed to foil the Doc's plans several times – some of the media would refer to her as his arch-nemesis. Titan eventually asked for the advice of the Global Champions' new tech expert, Techno-Paladin; while he never actually fought against Doc Prometheus's robots, his technological expertise was enough to give Titan the edge she needed to defeat all of the mad scientist's mechanical minions and finally track him down and arrest him. After several months, Doc Prometheus's campaign of destruction had finally ended.

For two years, Doc Prometheus remained in a maximum-security jail (both because of the danger he presented and because of the Yakuza's desire for revenge against him). At a certain point, he began receiving visits from Techno-Paladin. The exact content of their discussions is unknown, but Techno-Paladin and Titan both clearly played a central role in convincing the Japanese government to grant Doc Prometheus conditional freedom, allowing him to go to Venture City and work in Venture Industries' labs, as long as he remained under heavy surveillance. His wife followed him there.

It is unknown what Doc Prometheus is working on at the time, but he seems to be collaborating with Techno-Paladin on an important project for Venture Industries. Both Techno-Paladin and Titan have expressed their confidence in the doctor's redemption.