Ion
Dr. Voletta Todd is a brilliant and determined woman of science. A gifted physicist, she has been pushing herself to the limit to try and develop an unlimited source of non-nuclear energy. The stresses of such a responsibility have taken a toll on her both physically and mentally, and in such a high pressure situation, one careless mistake can have disastrous consequences...
Now a monstrous creature of electro-magnetised hydrogen gas that the press has dubbed "Ion", Dr Todd retains her technologically inclined outlook, even as her humanity slips away. Now operating within the binary that she must either be cured or killed, Ion acts on impulse and desperation, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake and refusing to listen to reason.
Fiction
Dr Voletta Todd worked at the renowned Alternative Resources Centre in New York City, where she had spent a year worked in hydrogen fusion in an attempt to create a clean, cheap, unlimited energy source. According to two of her colleagues, Dr Todd's accomplishments were the only thing paying the centre's bills, and she was also a "gorgeous bundle of fluff".
Dr Todd's experiments had led to the point where she could mass-produce an electro-magnetically charged gas, but neither confine nor contain it. In her overtired state, she made a mistake that caused a power overload, bursting her lab's energy bank, battering her with electro-magnetic energies, and setting the lab ablaze.
Machine Man – who was on the scene due to a tip-off from his day job's boss, Byron J. Benjamin – searched the Alternative Resources Centre for any trapped building, and discovered Dr Todd, now transmuted into a inhuman monster composed entirely of ionised hydrogen gas. Traumatised by her failure to maintain a human form, Todd fired off bolts of electro-magnetic energy at random, obstructing Machine Man long enough to allow her to escape.
Dr Todd spent the next few hours in the alleyways of mid-Manhattan trying to formulate a plan and recreate her human appearance, coming to the conclusion that she needed the knowledge and resources of the Fantastic Four. At the Baxter Building, she found only the Human Torch and the Thing, who proved uncooperative. Ion was immune to the Torch's fireballs, and she hit him with electro-magnetic energy, while also burying the Thing under an electro-magnetised pile of computer equipment.
Machine Man tracked Ion to the Baxter Building and clashed with the two heroes while she escaped, seeking a new method for her destruction. Once more in pursuit, Machine Man zapped using the power source of a streetlamp, causing her to flee into a nearby meat market. Ion lashed out with her powers, intending to kill Machine Man. He lured her into the meat locker, where the change in temperature caused her to stabilise back into her human form, and she was easily subdued. Machine Man left the Fantastic Four instructions on how to keep Dr Todd cyrogenically sealed until they could discover a cure for her. Kill Me or Cure Me
Notes
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- After her Machine Man debut, Ion's next appearance saw her as a begrudging member of the radfem supervillain group the Femizons.
Still not cured, at this point she had a dedicated containment suit that she had to wear at all times to maintain a humanoid shape. This form brought with it a new weakness in that she could now be whanged in the face by Captain America's mighty shield.
