Real
Name: Kimmo Tuolema
Dr.Tuolema
Real
Name: Kimmo Tuolema
Identity/Class: Normal human
Occupation: Scientist
Affiliations: Commander Nion, The Black Watch, Strikeforce: Morituri
Enemies: The Horde, Ghost, Tiger, Wind
Known Relatives: Paula (wife)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Switzerland
First Appearance: Strikeforce: Morituri (Marvel Comics)
Powers/Abilities: Dr.Tuolema was a genius in the science of genetics.
History: After the arrival of the Horde, alien marauders who plundered the Earth, Dr.Kimmo Tuolema was one of a number of scientists who began working for Earth's government, the Padeia, trying to develop weapons to defend humanity against the vastly technologically superior invaders. Working at Bio-War Facility Alpha, Tuolema discovered a process where a new and enhanced metabolism could be overwritten over a host human's original one. For those with a genetic make-up compatible to the process, this would grant superhuman powers; however the body would eventually fatally reject the new metabolism, resulting in a swift and often dramatic demise (many victims either exploded or literally melted away) - the treatment was dubbed the Morituri process in recognition of this. Though the duration a host could survive was unpredictable, the rejection was inevitable, and no host could survive more than a year; some only lasted days. In spite of this death sentence, Earth's war was sufficiently desperate that the decision was taken to use the treatment anyway; Tuolema was guilt-stricken by the realisation that his discovery would be responsible for killing so many heroic individuals, but recognised the necessity of it.
The first volunteers to receive this enhancement were dubbed the Black Watch, but it soon became clear that there greater age had lessened their life spans; after their demise, later volunteers were always chosen from an optimum age range between 18 and 21. Tuolema helped design a facility within Alpha called the Garden, a booby-trapped environment designed to trigger powers in the final stage of the Morituri process faster by raising the subject's stress levels. Tuolema was involved in the creation of five generations of Morituri (another generation, created without his involvement, went disastrously wrong), and he was finally able to find a way to theoretically prevent the fatal side effects when one of the last few Morituri created proved to be infected by an alien virus which stabilised the process. As the war came to an end, Tuolema was left with the hope that the remaining Morituri might still have a chance to enjoy a full lifespan.
However the government insisted Tuolema create three new Morituri, Ghost, Tiger and Wind, even though the conflict was over. Tuolema realised that the men he had empowered were unlike the volunteers he had previously dealt with; each one was a stone-cold killer. Fearing both for his life and what else might be demanded of him, he destroyed all the files on the Morituri process and fled. Two of the assassins came after him (Ghost and Tiger), but both let him live when he revealed to them that the cure was untested, and they might have been tricked into signing their own lives away.
Tuolema hid in Switzerland, where he met and married a woman named Paula. Still fearful of attack, he created a handful of new Morituri (including Paula, who could teleport) to protect him. Several years later the surviving Morituri tracked him down, wrongly believing he was behind attempts to kill them, something he managed to disprove.
Comments: Created by Carl Potts.
Thanks to Enrique Acosta for images and information. Joni Ahonen notes "Dr.Kimmo Tuolema is of at least partial Finnish origin. His surname may also be a pun of sorts, as Tuolema is eerily remniscient of "kuolema" or death, thus making him "Dr. Death""
CLARIFICATIONS: None.
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