Dr. Oswald Minett

DR. OSWALD MINETT

Real Name: Oswald Minett

Class: Human

Occupation: Research scientist

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Gotham City

First Appearance: Hitman #13 (April, 1997)

Powers: Dr. Minett was the creator of Wormwood Gas, a nerve agent that could resurrect the recently dead, turning them into mindless zombies that craved brains.

History: (Hitman #13, 14) - Dr. Oswald Minett worked alongside Dr. O’Hearn and Jackson on Project Wormwood, a research project involved in creating a nerve agent that could resurrect the recently dead for the Pentagon. The end goal was to make American soldier recyclable. The project hit a snag because the resurrected zombies were violently uncontrollable and craved brains, and the Pentagon threatened to pull funding. Dr. Minett said he’d put on a demonstration the Pentagon couldn’t ignore. Minett and O’Hearn argued over the ethics of what Minett was planning, and Minett ended up murdering O’Hearn and stealing several canisters of Wormwood Gas. Jackson hired metahuman hunter Hitman to take Minett down, and the project’s directors hired hitmen Ringo Chen and Hacken for the same purpose. Minett went to the Gotham Aquarium and heated up the tanks until all the animals within were dead. He exposed them to Wormwood Gas and unleashed a mob of zombie seals, sea lions, octopuses and penguins on the hitmen. The hitmen went into battle guns blazing, and a zombie seal bit Hacken’s hand. He was worried that he was infected and would turn into a zombie, asking Hitman to cut off his hand with his chainsaw. Hitman told him he’d watched too many zombie movies, but Ringo was happy to perform the amputation for him. They made their way to the Shark Encounter area, looking to flee the aquarium. Minett surprised them by dumping a bucket of chum on them. He said a video of his zombies killing several dangerous hitmen would be the perfect demonstration for the Pentagon. Hitman asked him if you could turn into a zombie after being bitten, and Minett dismissed the idea as ridiculous. A zombie shark full of bloodlust crashed through its’ tank and bit Minett in half. The hitmen avoided getting eaten and fired on wave after wave of zombies. The Wormwood Gas revived Minett, who said being dead hurt, and Hitman put him away with a bullet to the brain. The Gotham research center burned the aquarium to the ground, covering up the incident. Hitman and Ringo got drunk at Noonan's, disturbed at having to slaughter so many animals, and they decided to donate their ghit money to Greenpeace.

Comments: Created by Garth Ennis & John McCrea.