Professor Ivo

Professor Ivo
Professor Ivo as drawn by Luke McDonnell in Justice League of America #258.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Brave and the Bold #30 (1960)
Created by	Gardner Fox Mike Sekowsky
In-story information
Alter ego	Anthony Ivo
Team affiliations	Secret Society of Super Villains
Abilities	Genius level intellect Longevity

Professor Anthony Ivo (pronunciation:EYE-voh) is a fictional character, a mad scientist in the DC universe and is the creator of the androids Amazo, Kid Amazo, Tomorrow Woman and Composite Superman in his retconned origin.

Fictional character biography

Anthony Ivo grew up with a crippling fear of death. The thought of his life ending was so great that he even avoided his own mother's funeral. For Ivo, avoiding death became his life's obsession. Ivo took to studying cybernetics and soon became an employee of the criminal organization Locus, where he gained new insights through the dissection of one of the Appelaxians. He used this knowledge to build Amazo; Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, his desire to perfect Amazo was so great he held little qualms as to kill his own father and a complete stranger in the benefit of the mental and biological templates he needed to create the android. In any case, both Pre- and Post-Crisis, he had Amazo attack the JLA^[1] in the hope of using their powers to imbue himself with immortality, though Pre-Crisis he tried to use Amazo to steal long-lived creatures, though he captured the JLA on the way in gas filled cylinders, save Batman and Superman, stole their powers and placed them in Amazo, and made a potion that would allow him to live for 500 years, though he can make more. He then told Amazo to remove their memories. However Green Lantern recharges his ring, having used the yellowish-greenish gas he had inhaled, then exhaled to protect him from the ring, and draws the powers out of Amazo and back to their rightful owners, also giving them back their memories. Ironically at the end of the story Ivo is sentenced to 500 years, while Amazo is stored in the trophy room.

Years later, Ivo discovered an immortality potion and drank it, but found that the immortality brought with it horrible disfigurement that made his skin scaly.^[2] He blamed this on the JLA and drifted further into insanity as he attacked the League on numerous occasions. Ivo built duplicates of himself to keep him company. These duplicates were repulsed by the insanity of their creator and locked him away, then carried out his dreams of revenge by attacking the new Justice Leaguers (Vibe, Gypsy, Steel and Vixen) and killing Vibe.

A year later, Ivo built a private island populated by robots. There, Ivo created "Men In Black" nicknamed Amazoids who had similar powers to Amazo. The Amazoids could steal one superpower each; they succeeded in robbing the powers of Red Star, Rebis, Valor, Power Girl, Starman and Geo-Force. However, this time Ivo's goal was not revenge, but suicide. Ivo realized that the disfigurement was not the side effect; it was the immortality. His body was becoming more and more infected, more and more immobile, until he would be nothing but a pain-filled living statue. Fearing this even more than death, he ordered the Amazoids to turn their full power on him. It didn't work. The JLA'er Ice, sympathizing with him, unknowingly invoked the power of Guy Gardner's Green Lantern ring to cure him.

Professor Ivo's disfiguring experience was not enough to keep him from the temptation of the immortality serum and he once again brought about his own deformity by drinking it. As both Ice and the Green Lantern rings were gone, Ivo apparently consigned himself to his own horrible fate and was later imprisoned. Later, he would form a partnership of sorts with fellow mad scientist T. O. Morrow, constructing the powerful mechanized superheroine Tomorrow Woman as a trap to mindwipe the JLA with an electromagnetic pulse. While both men bickered and bantered all the while, they formed a friendship or camaraderie of sorts, even drinking a toast when he was imprisoned by the JLA. Still, Morrow was deeply annoyed at Ivo's boasts about Amazo, and to spite him, snitched on the JLA when Ivo planned to use the android to escape. Still, they remained comrades of some sort and still delight in spiting and belitting each other.

Later on, the nearly omnipotent android Hourman sought Ivo to have him explain the very nature of androids. As the father and precursor of the entire race, Ivo gave him the best explanation he could in exchange for a minor piece of knowledge Ivo wanted: whether he would die or not in the end. Hourman told him and left Ivo in his lair to meditate on the answer.

Professor Ivo recently returned in Infinite Crisis as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains. He then appeared in Brad Meltzer's Justice League of America sans disfigurement. However, in a fight with Black Canary, Arsenal and Green Lantern, he claims to still retain his immortality. In Justice League of America #4, it is revealed that he is not the mastermind of the events, but rather working for an intelligent Solomon Grundy. It appears Grundy is using Ivo to build him an Amazo body to live forever.

He also took part in the Salvation Run storyline.

Ivo and Red Volcano on a mission for the SSoSV.

The Secret Society of Super Villains also assigned him to collect soil samples in Auschwitz, Poland which will be used to create the Wonder Woman villain Genocide.^[3] Ivo brings along his newest android Red Volcano as an aid. During this mission it is revealed that Ivo isn't in agreement to create the new villain but follows through with orders at the prospect of having other Secret Society members create an antidote for his physical disfigurement. Following the Final Crisis, he was with Cheetah III's Secret Society of Super Villains.

After tiring of Ivo's torment, Red Tornado coordinated with his Justice League teammates to have his former creator captured and incarcerated.

Maxwell Lord later approaches Professor Ivo with a job to reprogram the Metal Men.^[4]

Powers and abilities

Professor Ivo is a criminal mastermind and a scientific genius. He is responsible for the creation of the androids Amazo and the Tomorrow Woman. He was also able to create an immortality serum.

Professor Ivo created a serum which provides him with an extremely long life span. The serum has however left his body twisted and malformed. As a result of his "immortality" serum, Ivo has developed a thick, resilient second skin. The skin appears to be bulletproof, and impenetrable to most forms of energy.

In other media

Television

• Professor Ivo (listed on the computer screen at one point as Arthur Ivo) appeared in the Justice League episode "Tabula Rasa" as AMAZO's creator. Ivo worked for LexCorp, but was fired when Mercy Graves took over the company. When Lex Luthor goes to see Ivo, he is already dead (contrary to the comics, where he was immortal) but Luthor finds AMAZO instead. Luthor briefly quips that the "cigarettes got you at last".

• Professor Ivo appears in the Young Justice episode "Schooled" voiced by Peter MacNicol. Professor Ivo returns after the League believes he was dead and sends Amazo after them. Four hours after the battle, Professor Ivo sends his Mobile Optimal Neural Quotient Infiltrators (Ivo stated that it took him ages thinking up an acronym for "monkey") to raid the convoys containing the parts of Amazo and steal them back. Superboy ends up trailing the M.O.N.Q.I.s to a boxcar where he encounters Professor Ivo. After Superboy takes down some of the M.O.N.Q.I.s, Professor Ivo unleashes Amazo on him with the fight leading to Robin's school. Professor Ivo showed up in the gymnasium to watch the fight as the other Young Justice members show up. Though Young Justice tries to apprehend Professor Ivo, they were unable to due to Amazo. After Superboy destroyed Amazo by sending his fist through Amazo's head while he was still intangible, Professor Ivo managed to get away. In "Terrors," Professor Ivo makes a cameo as an inmate at Belle Reve. In "Humanity," the team and Zatanna visit Professor Ivo in Belle Reve to interrogate him on where T.O. Morrow's hideout. He snitches that T.O. Morrow's base is beneath Yellowstone National Park somewhere near Old Faithful. Professor Ivo makes contact to T.O. Morrow (who was being impersonated by Red Volcano) warning him that the team is heading their way.

References

1. ^ McDonnell, Luke (p)Wray, Bill (i)"DeMatteis, J.M." Justice League of America 259: 14/2 (February, 1987), DC Comics
2. ^ McDonnell, Luke (p)Smith, Bob (i)"DeMatteis, J.M." Justice League of America 258: 3 (January, 1987), DC Comics
3. ^ DC Universe #0 (June 2008)
4. ^ Justice League: Generation Lost #10