Doc

Origin

Doc got his medical degree at the University of Notre Dame, where he also served as the quarterback for the Fighting Irish. While working towards his degree, he served a clinical rotation in a Virginia prison where he saw some of the worst mankind had to offer when he an inmate slit another inmate's throat with a sharpened toothbrush like it was nothing.

After graduating from college, he went into the military as a combat medic.

Creation

Doc was created by artist and writer Frank Cho for his 2005 mini-series Shanna, The She-Devil and first appeared in issue #1.

Major Story Arcs

The Killing Season

After crash-landing into a strange, hostile land and wandering it aimlessly for over three years, Doc and the military unit he was part of came across a seemingly abandoned Nazi facility, filled with highly advanced technology and bizarre experiments. Among these were numerous glass chambers filled women who were apparently part of some kind of breeding farm for genetically enhanced human beings. When one of the soldiers hacked a nearby terminal however, the glass chambers activated and the woman inside one of them woke up. Desperate to get her out before she drowned, the unit's lieutenant opened fire on the chamber, only for his gun to jam. Doc then finally grabbed a metal pipe and smashed the glass chamber open, sending the woman inside crashing into him. Unconscious but alive, Doc and the lieutenant covered her in a blanket and laid her on a table. Checking the other chambers, Doc found that none of the other women inside them had survived. He also wound up finding the brutally mutilated remains of one of the facility's scientists. Shortly after the unit spread out to search the facility for supplies and weapons, one of the soldiers found the carnage's culprit: a vicious velociraptor. The raptor killed several members of the unit, including the lieutenant, and then set its sights on Doc. Just as he thought he was about the die though, Doc found himself saved by the mysterious woman from the chamber, who effortlessly snapped its neck.

Doc and his unit took the woman and a rescued scientist named Dr. Elsa back to their base camp. The woman eventually got the name "Shanna" because of her uncanny resemblance to a certain comic book character. Due to the experiments performed on her, Shanna was shown to have extraordinary strength and durability for a human being, and proved to be a valuable asset in defending the base from the vicious dinosaurs and other creatures that wandered the area. Doc was somewhat concerned over Shanna however, due to her having been largely created to be a human weapon, leaving her sense of right and wrong rather questionable - especially after she nearly killed two men for leering at her. The men in Doc's unit began to think it was necessary for them to have a countermeasure against Shanna in place, but Doc tried to be adamant in his belief that Shanna still had a sense of humanity within her, even if she wasn't quite in touch with it yet. This discussion was immediately set aside however when several soldiers began becoming violently ill from a viral agent that they had accidentally taken with them from the Nazi facility.

Having been infected with the disease herself, Dr. Elsa informed Doc of the nature of the disease, and how it would kill everyone it infected within eight day unless an antidote from the facility was administered. With the facility six days away and the survival rate of the virus dropping daily, Doc wasted little time to assemble an move out with a team of volunteers consisting of himself, Shanna, and two other soldiers. Shanna openly stated to Doc that she saw no chance of the infected people surviving, and while he admitted to the strong possibility of the grim outcome, Doc firmly told Shanna that they still had to try for the sake of all those people. Suddenly, a T-Rex appears out of nowhere and devours one of the two soldiers. Shanna tries to fight it off while Doc covers her with a rifle. In the end, Shanna's quick thinking and a well-placed spear allows her to send the T-Rex careening down a cliff.

On day three of the journey, Doc and company make it to the Nazi facility and are able to quickly find the antidote thanks to Dr. Elsa's instructions. Doc became rather concerned over Shanna though when she came across the lab where they had made her and other attempts like her. He worried how this reaffirming of her origins would send her farther down the path of being a human weapon, with her cold genetic programming possibly winning out over her inherent humanity. Through it all though, Shanna simply remained eerily still. Finding a Humvee and some dynamite for good measure, Doc, Shanna, and the remaining soldier headed back for camp. The Humvee unfortunately soon wound up being outmatched by the terrain and got stuck. As they attempted to get the vehicle moving again, the T-Rex Shanna had speared returned and now devoured the other soldier. Still suffering from the wounds of its last encounter, the beast attacked Shanna and Doc even more viciously than before. Just as the T-Rex began to overpower Shanna, Doc managed to come to the rescue with some of the dynamite, and he blew the beast's head to bits. By the end of day four, the Humvee ran out of gas and Doc and Shanna were forced to make the last bit of their trek back to camp on foot.

Of course, they weren't home free just yet. Suspicious of something, Shanna scouted ahead of Doc and came back with the news that there were raptors going through the valley on the way to camp. Hundreds of them. Shanna suggested they backtrack and go around the valley to avoid the raptors, but Doc wouldn't have it. Going around would take them three more days, and the infected people didn't have that long. He stated that the only way to deal with the raptors was to go straight through them. Shanna found it a stupid risk, bit Doc assured her that all human life is worth the risk. All the risks even. Begrudgingly, Shanna followed Doc's plan. Blowing a hole in the raptor horde with dynamite, Shanna charged ahead with Doc right behind her.

Having caught the raptors by surprise, Doc and Shanna were making good progress in crossing the valley, until Doc got clawed in the leg by a raptor and took a tumble. Another raptor then lunged at him, but Shanna saved Doc once again and cleaved the thing in two. She then threw Doc clear of the raptor horde and soon after caught back up to him. Doc and Shanna sprinted to make the last bit of the distance back to camp, but a step in the wrong place destabilized the cliff they were on and sent them both tumbling down in a landslide. The two came out of it relatively unscathed, until they saw that Doc's leg had gotten pinned under a massive boulder. Shanna tried her utmost to move the boulder just enough for Doc to get free, but even she couldn't budge it. As the raptors came closer to their location, Shanna was resolved to stand by Doc and fight them off. Doc wouldn't have it however, and he instead handed the antidote to Shanna and demanded she leave him and save everyone in the camp, but before she left him, he wanted Shanna to kill him. He'd wanted a mercy-killing rather than get eaten alive by the raptors. Shanna was hesitant, but Doc begged her to do it.

Shanna just couldn't bring herself to do it though, and she instead amputated Doc's leg to get him free. She then carried both him and the antidote back to camp before the raptor horde could reach it. The horde was still coming however, and there was little chance for a group of men who were just now recovering from a deadly illness could fight them off. Thankfully, Shanna was able to come up with a plan in time, and destroyed the bridge to the camp, sending several raptors plunging into the raging river below, and making what remained of the horde unable to reach camp. With the immediate dangers finally resolved, Shanna wound up tearing up over what she had to do to Doc, but he soon wound up limping over to her on crutches, and assured her that she had done the right thing. Despite the odds, she'd saved everyone. Just glad to see Doc okay, Shanna hugged him, leaving Doc to admit that despite his concerns over Shanna, she was going to be all right.

Survival of the Fittest

Even after Doc's unit found a way off the island (rather than the Savage Land, the island now winds up being referred to as Monster Island), Doc chose to remain behind with Shanna, as she considered the island her home. He and Shanna made a rather comfortable living for themselves, complete with an extensive treehouse of considerable size.

When some modern-day pirates stole diamonds from a Chinese gangster's boat, they wound up getting scuttled on Monster Island. After Shanna saved them from a group of velociraptors, she took them to the relative safety of her and Doc's home. Four days later though, the Chinese gangster arrived on the island to retrieve his diamonds, giving the pirates a way off the island if they could steal the gangster's plane.

Doc didn't go with Shanna and the pirates, but after a considerable ordeal involving the gangsters, dinosaurs, Nazi neanderthals, and Hitler's lost city of gold, Doc still had his moment to shine when he saved everyone from a horde of raptors with the use of his homemade - but highly effective - coconut bombs. Although she had become quite interested in the pirates' leader, Shanna was still content to stay on the island with Doc, and Doc figured he'd simply be bored with his life if he wasn't running from dinosaurs every day. So they bid farewell to they friends as they flew off, and then went to check out the TV Doc had made out of coconuts.

Powers & Abilities

Doc is a relatively fit human being with ample knowledge of both medicine and weaponry. He's proven to be an effective marksman, and has especially good aim with his throwing arm - which proves very useful when he's chucking explosives. He also has proven himself as a capable leader, even in otherwise dire situations. While not foolhardy, he can be rather reckless if someone else's life is on the line, because as he puts it: "Every human life is worth the risk. All risks." He's also proven to be quite inventive, such as by making explosives out of coconuts.