DOC SAMSON

 

DOC SAMSON

Real Name: Leonard Samson (born Leonard Skivorski, Jr.)

First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk (Vol. 1) #141, July 1971

Powers: Dr. Leonard Samson was a baseline human who worked with Bruce Banner as a psychiatrist and harbored interest in Banner’s transformation into the Hulk. Banner had managed to temporarily cure himself of his conditioning by siphoning a substantial portion of gamma radiation from his being. Samson, motivated by scientific curiosity and a desire for superhuman powers, exposed himself to the siphoned energy. The result was that the slight, brown-haired psychiatrist was transformed into a massively muscled, green-haired superhuman.

Doc Samson possesses superhuman strength (Class 75), endurance, and resistance to injury. The gamma radiation that transformed Doc Samson fortified his cellular structure, adding roughly two hundred pounds of enhanced muscle, bone, and connecting tissue to his body, and turned his hair green. The source of Samson's added mass is unknown, but probably extra-dimensional. While not exposed to as great a dosage of gamma radiation as Banner or Emil Blonsky (the Abomination), Samson nevertheless gained superhuman strength from the transformation. Samson's legs possess sufficient strength to enable him to leap approximately 580 feet straight up into the air, and to a maximum reported distance of 910 feet. His gamma ray enhanced body is resistant to penetration wounds of any sort up to a high caliper bullet. His bones and muscles are strong and resilient enough to be able to survive a fall at terminal velocity (reached after free-falling 4,000 feet in a feet-first altitude: 145 miles per hour) against sidewalk concrete, provided he lands upright. Unlike the Hulk, Doc Samson neither loses his memories nor his cognitive abilities while in his gamma ray-mutated state, nor does he periodically revert to a non-superhuman form.

It's noteworthy to mention that in comparing the mutated forms of gamma-irradiated subjects such as the Hulk, the Abomination, Doc Samson, the She-Hulk, Patchwork, and the Leader, different frequencies of gamma radiation affect different human beings in different ways. The effect that intensive gamma radiation has on most people is cellular deterioration and eventual death, but there are others whose genetic constitution enables them to mutate so as to gain superhuman powers. The type and extent of mutation is determined by four factors: The frequency of the gamma rays, the amount of the gamma rays, the subject's latent mutant potential, and the subject's psychological make-up. The subject's potential for mutation is dictated by certain mysterious "interstitial" segments of DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid), the molecules which carry a living organism's genetic code. Under the action of mutagenic influences, such as gamma rays, the segments can trigger many body wide restructuring events. As for the subject's psychological make-up, it has been theorized that the gamma radiation somehow acts to mold the subject's mutated form according to repressed desires within his subconscious. Hence, Doc Samson's mutated form is the physical embodiment of his own long-buried desire to become a super heroic figure. Hence, these four factors contributed to the extremely non-human appearance of the Abomination, the neanderthalic appearances of the Hulk, and the relatively normal appearance of Doc Samson, whose only aberration is his hair color. Why gamma radiation tends to produce mutate forms of a greenish hue is not yet known. Also, Doc Samson's strength is at least partially governed by the length of his hair, but that governing itself is at least partially psychological in nature.

Dr. Leonard Samson holds an M.D. with a specialty in psychiatry and is a skilled theoretical technician. He is a gifted psychoanalyst and inventor of various medical devices.