Chief (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Dr. Niles Caulder is a paraplegic gifted with a genius-level intellect. Caulder uses his scientific knowledge to develop numerous inventions and innovations that have made him wealthy. Caulder founded and organized the team called Doom Patrol to protect the innocent and fight crime, and to teach humanity to accept others who live as ostracized "freaks," who have been radically transformed from terrible accidents. It is Caulder's genius that allowed the team members to survive (e.g., designing Robotman's body, devising Negative Man's medicated bandages), and helped grant their freakishness and amazing abilities.

Caulder growing up had developed an interest in creating better life, based on the conceptof the story "Frankenstein" (in which a fanatical scientist demonstrates a similar idea through the being he creates), as well as "The Singing Ringing Tree" (in which 'well-to-do' people, who were transformed into beasts, have to prove their worth to the world by becoming selfless). Proving at a young age to be both a brilliant inventor and engineer, Caulder received funding from a mysterious benefactor. Thanks to the funding, Caulder succeeded in creating a chemical capable of prolonging life. Ultimately, it was revealed that the benefactor was a man called General Immortus, who hired Caulder to create a chemical to replace the one that had been prolonging his life for centuries but was now failing. When the young scientist discovered the truth about his employer, he refused to continue the work. Immortus responded by implanting an explosive device in Caulder's upper torso, which he could set off remotely, and any attempt to remove it while Niles lived would also detonate it. Caulder eventually devised a plan to get the bomb out, but it cost him his ability to walk. The incident inspired and reminded Caulder that a better life may come from surviving a tragic event, such as his own. Another general and another explosive device seemingly obliterated the Doom Patrol team but Niles and most of the others came back from that as well.

Caulder's back-history seemingly remained intact following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths; however, when writer Grant Morrison took over the Doom Patrol title (starting with vol. 2, #19) he reimagined him as a cold, detached and somewhat mysterious individual. Near the end of his run, Morrison even revealed that Caulder had been responsible for the "accidents" that caused the original Doom Patrol members to gain their powers, since his personal philosophy is that true greatness comes through overcoming tragic events.

In the early years of the Patrol, Caulder not only kept his true identity and appearance secret from the public; even his team knew him only as the Chief. In issue #88 (June 1964), their third battle against Immortus forces him to tell the rest of the Patrol his back-story and real name, which suddenly and with no explanation becomes common public knowledge for the rest of the original 1960s series (even two "flashback" miniseries that ran in the back of the comic, detailing how Cliff Steele and Larry Trainor became "freaks" and were recruited by Caulder, casually used the name).

In recent years, in keeping with the above retcon that he manipulated the original Doom Patrol's transformations, it has been revealed that Caulder had also experimented on other characters in the world who would both benefit and destroy humanity. The most noted are a bitter group called the Brotherhood of Evil, a group of people who also live like "freaks" led by the Brain. The Brotherhood exists as an elitist paramilitary organization involved in terrorist acts around the world such as the destruction of the American city Blüdhaven, occasionally attempting global control of humanity, and the death and destruction of Niles Caulder for causing their tragic transformations.

Towards the end of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run, Caulder is discovered working on a nanotechnology bomb that will destroy half the world and replace it with humans transformed into freaks of nature — his theory being that from the destruction would rise a better human race. He murders the original Tempest, Joshua Clay, to protect his secret but the Doom Patrol succeed in stopping his plans.

During these events, he is decapitated by a creation of Dorothy Spinner's known as the Candlemaker. Doctor Will Magnus of the Metal Men builds a new body for the Chief, telling him that he should try helping the Patrol to make up for what he did. Becoming suicidal with guilt, the Chief states that he can never do enough to make up for his actions, and uses his new body to rip off his head. Magnus is able to save the Chief by getting the head to a cryogenic chamber, but after this the Chief exists solely as a severed head in a bucket of ice, subsisting on milkshakes. He expresses remorse at his actions and rebuilds the Doom Patrol to continue their efforts in the war against weird crime.

In the final issues of the series, the Chief had combined himself with Alice Wired-for-Sound, one of the SRS (Sexually Remaindered Spirits), who powered the DP Teleporter, as a means for more mobility. During the last story arc, Imagine Ari's Friends, the Chief died entering the Tree of Life, the Sephirot.