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longitudinalwaveme · 11 months ago

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Jay Garrick: the Flash Headcanon

SPOILERS for Jay Garrick: the Flash #1-4

So, Jay Garrick: the Flash has just introduced a villain named Doctor Elemental. His real name is Professor Hughes, and he was Jay Garrick's chemistry professor. He was also responsible for activating the metahuman powers of both Jay Garrick (the first Flash) and Jay's recently-introduced daughter Judy Garrick (the Boom), and is a nasty piece of work. He's experimented upon---and killed---dozens of people in an attempt to give people superpowers on a wider scale, and he's also frustrated with the fact that he was able to give Jay superspeed but was unable to grant himself metahuman powers. In spite of his lack of powers, however, he did manage to invent a pair of gloves that let him transmute the elements---hence his supervillain name.

So, we have a supervillain who calls himself Dr. Elemental, wears a big fancy cape and cowl, can transmute matter, and is obsessed with giving people superpowers by any means necessary. This leads me to my new headcanon----namely, that Dr. Elemental played a part in the creation of Dr. Alchemy.

Albert Desmond was born around forty years ago to an astronomer named Peter (or Herbert, or Herman---Cary Bates was bad at remembering characters' names) Desmond. Shortly after he was born, his father discovered a pulsating sun known as the Dragon's Eye. The energy from this star passed from his powerful telescope into the ring he was wearing, and then, when he held baby Albert, that same energy passed into the boy. Unbeknownst to everyone, this would imbue Albert with incredible power---but also a propensity towards mental instability. (This information comes from Flash vol. 1 #216.)

We know from Rita Desmond (Albert's wife) that his powers and mental instability were both dormant until he turned 20 years old and the Dragon's Eye star began pulsing. Thus, I think it's reasonable to guess that he was already in college, and possible that he had already met and become romantically involved with Rita, by the time his mental instability and powers first surfaced. (We also know that Albert had to have gone to college at some point, because, as per Gotham Central #28-31, he has PhDs in chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology.)

Now for the headcanon stuff.

Professor Hughes is a creepy scientist who's invented technology to give himself elemental powers, and he is totally obsessed with granting other people superpowers. He also has an obsessive hatred for the first Flash, Jay Garrick, and, even though at this point the first Flash has retired (and has possibly become trapped in time thanks to a scheme from the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade), there is now a new Flash---clearly with metahuman powers---running around. Worse, this Flash, from the name alone, is obviously a fan of the original Flash (whom Professor Hughes hates). He can't reveal himself to fight this new Flash directly, since that would necessitate revealing himself and jeapordizing his very long-term revenge plan against Jay Garrick's whole family, but he might be able to create a new superpowered rival for Barry.

This is where Albert comes in. Since Professor Hughes/Dr. Elemental seems to be a creepy, obsessive stalker, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for him to keep tabs on people who seem as though they may possess---or have the potential to develop---metahuman powers. So, when he hears that there's a brilliant young scientist, who has recently developed some mental health problems and who keeps having inexplicable things happening around him, he poses as a normal scientist, promises Albert explanations for the weirdness around him, and then uses their sessions together as a way to carry out his experiments on him.

Once he has Albert, he starts experimenting on him with a variety of substances (allegedly, they're meant to help him control his mental instability and the weird things that are happening around him, but in actuality, they're to either give him superpowers outright or greatly increase the potency of the powers he already has). This, naturally, does not do wonders for Albert's already unstable mental state, and things are made even worse for him by the fact that Dr. Elemental starts deliberately playing on his unstable psyche to induce a second personality, one that's basically the embodiment of his darker impulses and mental instability. After all, if he's going to fight the Flash for Dr. Elemental, he's going to need the proper motivation.

Dr. Elemental's experiments prove to be a phenomenal success. While the pulsing of the Dragon's Eye star would have eventually ensured that Albert developed incredible metahuman powers, the stress that Dr. Elemental's chemicals placed on his body caused the powers to manifest much more rapidly than they would have naturally. There was only one problem: namely, the fact that Albert's powers proved to be more powerful and extensive than Dr. Elemental could ever have predicted.

Albert Desmond possessed the power to transmute any substance into any other substance. Through his metahuman genes, the effect of the Dragon's Eye, and Dr. Elemental's experimentations, he could meet---and surpass---the abilities and powers that Dr. Elemental's own technology granted to him. Dr. Elemental, always jealous of those with natural abilities, and paranoid that his creation might turn against him, decided that he needed to take some precautions. To that end, he helped Albert create an "Element Gun", and, through a lot of manipulation and possibly even some drugs, convinced Albert that he needed to use the gun in order to manipulate the elements, and that he would be effectively powerless without it.

With that, he released Albert, who promptly designed a bizarre costume for himself, set up a hideout in some caves outside Central City, gathered up a team of henchmen whom he forced to wear even more bizarre outfits (and whom he named after the six inert gases), and started a crime spree as the fantastic Mr. Element. (Dr. Elemental was very pleased by Albert's choice of name.)

Albert fought the Flash and was imprisoned, but later dug his way out of jail with a spoon, then found his cellmate's "lucky stone", which he had decided must be the Philosopher's Stone. Sure enough, once he found it, he discovered that it could transmute the elements, and he used it to start a new crime wave as Dr. Alchemy. (His mental health also continued to deteriorate; the Dr. Alchemy name and costume were a sign of his developing a third personality.) What Albert didn't realize was that the stone he had found was, like the Element Gun, merely a conduit for his powers.

Albert fought the Flash again, and was imprisoned again...but this time, he decided to seek help for his mental problems, which he received. He served out his sentence, was released, and then returned to a normal life with his girlfriend Rita, whom he would soon marry. He also became close friends with Barry (who he did not know was the Flash) and Iris. This probably annoyed Dr. Elemental, so the man was no doubt pleased when manipulations from Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, and Albert's own mental instabilities caused him to occasionally revert to criminality---and he would be even more pleased when Alvin Desmond arrived on the scene.

You see, while neither the Philosopher's Stone nor the Element Gun had initially been anything special, Albert was so powerful that, when he used them as conduits for his power, they eventually gained powers of their own, with the Stone even developing a limited degree of sentience. Unfortunately for Albert, the Stone was very frustrated with his determination to live a normal life, and so it created a new wielder for itself out of Albert's darker impulses.

This new wielder, a simulacrum of a human, was named Alvin Desmond, and he became the new Dr. Alchemy. The Stone gave him false memories of his past and of his position as Albert Desmond's "astral twin", primarily to avoid any risk of Alvin spending more time questioning his existence and identity than he spent committing spectacular crimes with it. The plan worked perfectly, and the much more malevolent Alvin Desmond served as the Stone's perfect host, while also carrying on Dr. Elemental's twisted legacy.

However, both Alvin and Albert would eventually come to realize that Alvin was a creation of the Philosopher's Stone, and Albert would use that knowledge to seemingly destroy his evil "twin" (though the Stone could easily recreate Alvin if it ever wanted to do so). Albert then lived out a fairly peaceful and normal life for several more years.

While Albert was trying to be retired, the Philosopher's Stone was stolen by a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist named Dr. Curt Engstrom, who used it to become the Alchemist (and who lazily barely changed the Dr. Alchemy costume. At least Alvin had the excuse of a) being a simulacrum created by the Stone to be all the things it liked about Albert and b) attempting to frame Albert for his crimes!) He fought Wally once, but then never appeared again. I don't know what happened to him, but my best guess is that the Stone didn't like him for whatever reason and just abandoned him, thus leaving him unable to escape from prison.

A few years after that, Albert apparently had some sort of mental breakdown, and the Dr. Alchemy personality seemed to take over permanently. He generally was more interested in reading ancient tomes (some of which were apparently full of gibberish HTML) than in actively committing crimes, but he was crueler and more amoral than he had ever been before.

Around the same time, a corrupt police scientist named Alexander Petrov started using the Element Gun to kill other police officers, which he was able to do thanks to the residual power that Albert's extended use of the weapon had left in it. Unfortunately for him, he was stupid enough to frame Captain Cold for his murders, and Captain Cold promptly killed him for it as soon as he found out about it. It really makes you wonder how he managed to become a police scientist in the first place, since "framing Captain Cold for murder" is up there with "threatening to kill the Flash's loved ones" and "taunting Gorilla Grodd with bananas" in terms of things that you really, really shouldn't do if you value your health. Dr. Alchemy heard about this new Mr. Element and was not impressed, later thanking Cold for getting rid of his would-be successor.

Through his experiments on Albert Desmond, Dr. Elemental ultimately created FOUR different supervillains who would bedevil the Flashes, a feat which he counts as a unqualified success.

Some photos for reference:

Dr. Elemental:

Albert (and Rita) Desmond:

Alvin Desmond:

Curt Engstrom/the Alchemist:

Mr. Element II (Alexander "I Really Shouldn't Have Framed Len" Petrov)

And Albert's book of HTML:

#flash comics #flash rogues #jay garrick #barry allen #wally west #albert desmond #alvin desmond #dr. alchemy #mr. element #dr. elemental #spoilers #headcanon #rita desmond

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