By the time he graduated, however, the field had become so oversaturated that it was extremely difficult to land a job with any of the two dozen major biogenetic firms. And finding employment with one of the hundreds of small firms was virtually impossible… unless you wanted to work for peanuts. DeMarco found that taking a job at the local “Platinum City Burger” fast food joint would actually afford him a better standard of living.

But flipping burgers was not his passion and unlike some of the other would-be scientists who pursued a career in biogenetics because of the trendy veneer, DeMarco wanted to actually do groundbreaking and revolutionary work. So after his shifts and on his days off, he would submerge himself in books and research. And as he got deeper and deeper, he found that many people in the field of biogenetics were attempting to create human chromosomes from scratch. It was a field that could potentially lead to a plethora of biomedical engineering breakthroughs. But honestly, healthcare had nothing to do with the widespread interest in Human Artificial Chromosome (HAC) development. It was the potential to create hyper-beings that drove women and men of science to work ‘round the clock.

Despite their best efforts, however, no one was able to create fully viable HAC’s. Then one night, in his little makeshift lab, DeMarco was able to essentially hack the human genome and discover the secret! Instantaneously, Dr. Scienza’s research became one of the most sought-after things on the planet. Every biogenetic firm in the world wanted to buy his research, but he turned them all down, and instead took an offer from the multi-national corporation, Universal Intelligence, which was owned by diabolical business tycoon Edgar Lockhart, and run by the cutthroat CEO, Reina Valencia.

They offered him the opportunity to maintain the rights to his research, as well as the chance to develop more new and amazing biomolecular techniques. They also offered to fully fund him with pretty much infinite money. He jumped all over the opportunity and built a state of the art lab for himself and his hand-picked team. The lab, however, was not built at Universal Intelligence headquarters, for the projects Dr. DeMarco Scienza was working on were not just illegal, but very extremely, ridiculously illegal: human experimentation, unsanctioned hyper-serum development and brain-farming – just to name of few.

It didn’t take long for DeMarco to stop caring about right or wrong, and soon he was willing to do whatever it took to see the next amazing breakthrough, no matter how evil or sadistic the methods turned out to be.

This would be especially true when DeMarco’s team set out to create the perfect human being. They had discovered a way to harvest consciousnesses from people and would subsequently use this metaphysical technology to steal the minds of 21 brilliant children, fuse their conscious minds together into a cell and then incubate the sample until it grew into the woman who would come to be known as Virtuosa.

Virtuosa was indeed perfect and had a plethora of super abilities. But when Scienza and his team attempted to use her for evil purposes, she turned on them, destroyed their lab and became a force for good. The doctor was forced to go into hiding, as Virtuosa had made him her number one target.

And for years his whereabouts had been largely unknown. However, that changed when Cybernetica, a former employee of Universal Intelligence and current member of the female super hero squad, the Sista Clique, discovered some secret computer files that would essentially expose the illegal operations of the company.

Edgar Lockhart and Reina Valencia, of course, had no intention of letting that info get out to the public. And Furthermore, Reina wanted to capture the leader of the Sista Clique, Kharma Lucky, and deliver her to DeMarco – who had built a new secret lab – so that he could harvest her telepathic mind. To that end, Universal Intelligence had deployed several super-villains to hunt down the Sista Clique.

Kharma and her pals, to this point, had prevailed against the onslaught of super-powered baddies, but the constant battles were beginning to wear on them. If they were going to survive, they needed more info and a little backup. The files Cybernetica had gathered led them to Virtuosa – and essentially she would provide both the info and the backup. After working through the files together, they learned the location of Scienza’s new lab.

Virtuosa and The Sista Clique traveled to the lab and found him. But although he was surrounded by six super-powered women who all had an ax to grind with him and/or his employer, the evil doctor was very relaxed and actually threatened the heroes, telling them they had two choices: either surrender or die.

The ladies, of course, chose neither and prepared to enact all kinds of wrath on Dr. Scienza. And that was when he unleashed his secret weapon. The door to a pressurized chamber slid open and before the heroes knew what hit them, what seemed like a bolt of lightning had torn through the lab and knocked them all off their feet!

They looked up to see a woman who had been enhanced through the use of dozens of HAC’s.

This was Mania!.

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