Mad Thinker

The Mad Thinker, also known as simply the Thinker, is a villain known for his remarkable intellect and penchant for using computer modeling to predict future events down to the smallest detail. In spite of the ostensibly rigorous and detailed nature of his plans, they to date have inevitably resulted in failure due to his heroic foes behaving unpredictably.

Biography

The Awesome Android

After a series of lesser crimes that went off without a hitch, the Mad Thinker decided to expand his ambition in 1963. He sought to conquer New York City and establish a new monarchy with himself as king. Identifying the Fantastic Four as the only impediment to his success, Thinker organized ways of diverting each individual member away from the city while he enacted his plan. Each of them were approached by representatives from different organizations that appealed to them: Mr. Fantastic by an electronics company; Invisible Girl by a Hollywood director; Thing by a professional-wrestling promoter; and Human Torch by distant relatives from the circus. Each in need of a vacation, they unwittingly fell into Thinker's plan and left the city. Supported by an army of henchmen, Thinker penetrated the Four's home base, the Baxter Building, and used Mr. Fantastic's research notes to build the Awesome Android, a large mechanical creature that could alter its physical composition. Unsatisfied with their respective vocations, the Four soon returned, as Thinker predicted they would. They were met with a series of traps using their own equipment, culminating in him training an anti-matter gun on them. Unbeknownst to Thinker, the brilliant Mr. Fantastic had outthought him. As a precaution against invading enemies, he had equipped a special doorbell outside the Baxter Building that, when pressed, deactivated all equipment in the lab. Upon returning to New York, he asked mailman Willie Lumpkin to press that button at this exact time, foiling Thinker's plans. Alone and unequipped, Thinker was easily trounced and brought to justice by the heroes.

Alliance with the Puppet Master

About a year after his battle with the Fantastic Four, the Mad Thinker was out of custody and had devised another plan to defeat them. He contacted the Puppet Master, another foe of the Four's capable of crafting puppets made of radioactive clay that would allow him to take control of their likenesses. Puppet Master was hesitant to team with Thinker, but upon hearing his plan agreed to cooperate. Thinker supplied him with the materials to make a puppet of Professor X, leader of the X-Men, the intent being essentially to command the X-Men to defeat the Fantastic Four. Professor X proved an incredibly resistant target, as his exceedingly powerful mental power held off the villains' remote assault for some time. Puppet Master used a larger-than-usual amount of radioactive clay and was eventually able to seize control of Professor X's mind. Through Puppet Master's commands, Xavier told the X-Men that their next task was to defeat the Fantastic Four, arguably the world's premier team of heroes, claiming that they were planning world domination. The X-Men were baffled, but nonetheless trusted in their leader and set out to do as he ordered. The Thinker's plans went as he calculated, as the X-Men kidnapped Invisible Girl and lured the rest of the Four to a predetermined island where Thinker and Puppet Master had set a trap. As the two teams fought each other, the villains sprung various booby traps and released Thinker's Awesome Android. But Beast of the X-Men was able to destroy the Professor X puppet, allowing the X-Men's leader to strike the Android's artificial nervous system from afar and incapacitate it. With the nine heroes' attention turned toward them, Thinker and Puppet Master narrowly escaped by plane through a secret underground tunnel.

Thinker was determined to defeat the Fantastic Four, in spite of Puppet Master having utterly given up on it after falling to them several times. He ensured Puppet Master that he had a new plan with a near-certain chance of success: notably, they would be targeting only the Human Torch, the youngest member of the group. Under Thinker's orders, Puppet Master made a puppet of the Thing, which he used to attack Torch while they were in the Fantasticar together. Thing punched Torch, who hit his head against the side of the vehicle and fell, plummeting unconscious to the ground below. This released the puppet's effect, and ace pilot Ben Grimm quickly flew the Fantasticar under Johnny's falling body, saving him in the nick of time. The two villains didn't see this however, and assumed that Torch had fallen to his death: they soon learned over the radio that their plan had failed. Thinker next had Puppet Master create another Thing puppet, this time with more clay than he had ever used before. He had him command the Thing to "grow weaker" in an attempt to strip him of all of his power. But at that exact moment, Thing was strapped into a special device developed by Mr. Fantastic, which reverted Puppet Master's attack on himself, knocking him unconscious. Thinker cursed his misfortune, but vowed to defeat the Fantastic Four somehow.

The Bouncing Ball of Doom

Frustrated with his repeated setbacks at the hands of the Fantastic Four—and particularly the Thing and the Human Torch—Thinker set out to create a weapon that the duo would stand no chance of overcoming. He constructed a powerful ball that could withstand extreme heat and pressure, making it virtually indestructible by the Thinker's targets. Thinker sent sham invitations to the heroes to appear at the dedication ceremony of a dam. When they arrived, Thinker remotely activated an explosive on the dam from his laboratory while watching the events on hidden camera. The dam was specially engineered to resist such an incident, but the explosion still created a crack in the structure. Before the heroes could respond, Thinker sent his remote-controlled ball after them, and they were befuddled for some time trying to destroy it. Eventually, Torch was forced to use his near-nova heat blast on it high into the sky, successfully destroying it. The engineer of the dam shut off the main valve, ceasing the threat of danger until he could properly repair it, and foiling another of the Thinker's ostensibly foolproof plots.

Thinker received another chance at revenge when he was coerced by Doctor Doom's emotion machine into attacking the Baxter Building on the day of the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. A veritable legion of villains, including Thinker and a repaired Android, fought a similarly powerful force of heroes defending the Baxter Building. Thinker pitted his Android against Iron Man, but it proved no match against the experienced hero. In the end, Reed Richards used a device provided by Uatu to transport all of the villains back slightly in time and wipe their memories of these events. Reed and Sue Storm were thus successfully and peacefully married.

Iron Man's identity

Thinker's computations led to the accurate prediction that a woman named Stephanie de la Spiroza would come to his home seeking the true identity of Iron Man. Spiroza was a spurned ex-lover of Tony Stark, and she believed that having the knowledge of Stark's confidant Iron Man would give her power over them both. Thinker preemptively sent the Awesome Android to Tony Stark's offices, hoping to capture Stark and thereby gain the relevant information. Thinker's computations led to the accurate prediction that a woman named Stephanie de la Spiroza would come to his home seeking the true identity of Iron Man. Spiroza was a spurned ex-lover of Tony Stark, and she believed that having the knowledge of Stark's confidant Iron Man would give her power over them both. Thinker preemptively sent the Awesome Android to Tony Stark's offices, hoping to capture Stark and thereby gain the relevant information. The Android successfully returned with Stark, who carried an attache case with him. Thinker tried to open it, but its precautionary fingerprint scanner caused the case to emit a sleep gas that knocked himself and Spiroza out cold. While they were unconscious, Tony suited up as Iron Man and fought the Awesome Android. Thinker and Spiroza recovered, and Thinker used a large laser to blast Iron Man with power-sapping rays, but Iron Man used a device of his own to emit a reflecting mist that instead focused the rays on the Android. Iron Man destroyed Thinker's control panel, setting off a chain reaction that would cause the building to explode in moments. He flew out with Thinker and Spiroza in tow, explaining that he'd gotten Stark away while they were knocked out. He dropped Spiroza nearby, letting her walk the several miles back to her penthouse suite, and flew Thinker straight to jail.