Marie Curie
Marie Curie is considered one of the greatest scientists in human history. The groundbreaking work she did with her husband Pierre Curie and her dear friend Nikolai Tesla into the field of radiation was a key component of sending humanity's understanding of the natural world leaping forward.
Born in Warsaw in 1867, her hard upbringing remarkably did not deter her from her pursuit of science. Her impoverished family made every effort possible to train her in the sciences and she eventually studied with the Flying University, an underground movement aimed at educating women in the sciences. Eventually she met and married Pierre Curie and in him, found a lifetime friend, forever love, and academic peer who respected her for her intellect and creativity. Though Pierre was more famous for a time, eventually a contemporary peer of the two would quip that 'Pierre's greatest discovery was Marie'. Their work together unlocked the mysteries of the universe, including the Gamma Rays that would lead to the creation of Captain America and The Hulk; as well, they isolated and categorized Ionic Radiation as a distinct energetic emission. Though they predicted the existence of Zeta Beam energies, the husband-wife team failed to find it in nature. Pierre died in 1906 and Marie forswore all others, declaring science her only love.
During the Great War, Marie set aside her research and began designing and building mobile radiological clinics for the French army. It is estimated a million-some soldiers benefitted from the newly created X-ray technology. She was approached by The League and offered a role alongside Henry Jekyll. In time she also befriended the young inventor Nikolai Tesla, seeing him as a son she never thought she would have.
After a bout with cancer in 1934, she recovered thanks to her friends in The League. Marie's final years were spent continuing the research she and Pierre had completed, and she was awarded a sixth Nobel Prize for her work on nuclear fission with Enrico Fermi.
Marie's work continued right up until Germany's invasion and the start of World War II. She was forced to watch the capitulation of Poland from afar, unable to return to her home city and ensure her family was safe. Marie worked fervently with the French branch of the OSS to develop new technologies and weapons to fight the German war machine. For the first time in her life she researched for the sake of making weapons, to arm the French people. She sent her designs and research to Tesla, allowing the Allies to send much-needed relief to the French.
In 1940, Germany crossed into France and began their relentless march westwards. Marie, living in Paris at the Institute for Radium Research, refused to accept evacuation orders 'as long as a single student remained in her campus'. Moreover, there were thousands of files and experiments that had to be evacuated and the rest, destroyhed.
She converted her campus laboratory into a hardened bunker armed with particle cannons, explosives, and common firearms. While the regular soldiers fled in fear, her friends and postgrads took up arms and swore to defend the center of learning. For days, they fended off the Nazi invaders. Rommel himself had to order Reichsfuhrer Johann Schmidt to deploy HYDRA special assets against the location. Weapons of increasing power and danger were deployed; rail guns, radiation bombs, explosive pyroclastics and even some of Tesla's prototype power-suit armor units saw use.
On the 12th of June, Maquis forces were finally able to evacuate the last of the students and residents of the college. Marie and her assistants knew full well they had absorbed lethal amounts of radiation from the days of fighting. Most were sick and dying; Marie sent the ones with the best chance of survival off for medical treatment. The Nazis eventually bypassed the defenses and stormed the building Marie had so ably defended. The last of her students were cut down by the German's roboterhund. They were supported by HYDRA cultists, led by Standartenführer Conrad Altehaus-- a member of the SS who had been recruited into supporting HYDRA by Schmidt himself. Altehaus and his shock troops, armed with HYDRA advanced weaponry, broke the last barricades and found themselves face to face with Marie herself. Madame Curie, one of the greatest minds in human history, spat at Altehaus from the center of her empty laboratory and declared-- in Polish-- "Through science, all men will be made equal!"
Before Alteus could shoot her, Marie detonated the final failsafe: Tesla's death-ray, hastily assembled by Maquis engineers in the auditorium below. The explosion obliterated every living thing within 500 yards of the detonation point; the range of the emitter was such that the German forces in front of it, for a distance of ten miles, were given a lethal dose of radiation poisoning. The science center itself was turned into a crater.
After the war, French officials were forced to pave over the science center with concrete and lead sheets. Marie's skeletonized remains were so radioactive that they had to be transported in a lead-lined coffin. To this day, the center of the campus has a barren concrete field. Students and faculty do not sit on it, walk over it, or linger near it. There is a single heavily shielded pathway that leads to the center of the field, wherein lies the remains of Marie Curie-- and a plaque, immortalizing her final words and recognizing her as a hero not just of France, but of the whole world.
