Charles grew up in Dallas...or Duh duh duh Dallas as he would say it from time to time. Afflicted with a mild stutter, particularly when under stress, Charles was socially ostracized, mocked, and bullied all his life by school mates, so-called friends, and even his own family. He'd laugh it off and pretend that it was funny, but deep down it hurt him on many levels. The older he got the harder it was to pretend it didnt bother him, and the more he allowed some annoyance to peek through the worse the mocking got.
Finally when he was in his senior year of high school his daily trial of lunch played out as it usually did, with him eventually becoming the brunt of jokes at some point. Only this time several kids got on a roll and the jokes just kept coming and coming, one after the other. More and more people got involved until it seemed like everyone was making fun of him. He could see it clearly in his mind...everyone laughing, fake stuttering, pointing at him...like they ALWAYS did...and they wouldn't STOP!!!
In his minds eye he imagined just pushing them all away from him like leaves before the wind, push em all off a cliff, shove em away like toy soldiers off a table. He fed all of his pent up anger in to it as and let the frustration flow out like a massive wave. The screams and cries for help snapped him back to reality...a reality which matched his day dream. Everything in front of him in an arc almost 200 feet long had been flung away with vast force, bowled over like a tornado had ripped through the lunch room starting from Charles and moving forward. Tables, chairs, plates, food, backpacks, people....everything was shoved up against the far wall of the common area in tight piles. Dozens of kids were seriously injured and no one escaped bruises. Many were knocked unconscious outright. Charles was initially mortified...but on the other hand...it felt gah gah gah gah GOOOOOOOOD. No one was laughing at him anymore!
However, the backlash was swift and severe. Charles was expelled, of course, many families filed lawsuits against his parents and the school, he was processed by the cops for unlawful assault, and there was talk of sending him to juevy. Then PRIMUS caught wind of it when it hit the news and went national and there was talk of maybe putting him in Stronghold. "MUTANT MENACES IN OUR SCHOOLS!", "MUTANT ATTACKS 100's IN HIGH SCHOOL DISASTER", and other headlines were carried as far away as New York and L.A., and it became a touchstone frequently referenced in anti-mutant talks.
For his part, Charles found himself ostracized even worse before. Now no one mocked him which was nice....but on the other hand no one talked to him at all which was very lonely. Everyone was terrified of him, even his own mother. Left completely out in the cold and temporarily on house arrest until someone figured out what action to take against him, Charles fell into a depression. If someone had reached out to help him at this vulernable time in his life he may have been turnable to some useful ends. Instead the Minute Men showed up to kill him, and wrecked his house in the process. This was just too much, dammit!!!!
His anger rekindled Charles fought back with a vengeance, destroying three Minute Men in seconds with massive bolts of force, and several houses on his block as well in the process. This time Charles didn't care though. He had been pushed too far too many times. Nobody cared about him, so it was time for him to care about himself! Stealing a motorcycle from a neighboring house that had been plowed over, he fled the state and kept heading west. He was going to California to start a better life for himself, and anything that got in his way would just get pushed aside.
Arriving in San Diego he was looking for work when he was approached by a person that knew of him from all the media coverage and wanted to hire Charles to be part of a new group of supervillains...the pay would be good, the risks moderate, and from time to time Charles would be required to wreak mass damage when the occasion demanded it. This all sounded like a fine idea to Charles, and he signed up...taking the name of Dozer as his nom de villainy. A half year later he hasn't yet had the opportunity to really tear loose, but he's got money and a small social set that basically accepts him, and life is about as good as its ever been for him. |
|
