The Controller

The Controller (real name Basil Sandhurst) is a Marvel supervillain introduced as an enemy of Iron Man but then became a minion of Thanos during the Mad Titan's battle against the Kree hero Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell).

Story
Basil Sandhurst was an unethical but brilliant scientist, who became barred from most research labs due to his ruthlessness. His brother Vincent, a crooked lawyer, found work for him at Cord Company (then a credible competitor for Stark Industries) – but the work was too tedious for a genius such as Sandhurst, and when Vincent came to visit him the insane scientist became violent because of this.

During the fight, Vincent accidentally pushed him into volatile chemicals, crippling and disfiguring Sandhurst.

Feeling extremely guilty, Vincent embezzled funds from Cord to built his brother a fully automated laboratory. Basil used these resources to design, build and subsequently improve radical technology and build an exoskeleton for himself. He became The Controller.

Although he was twice defeated by Iron Man, the Controller reached his zenith when he was contacted by Thanos to act as an agent for the Titanian on Earth. Using an enhanced armor, he actually defeated the Avengers and Captain Mar-vell (Thanos has Leadership), but ultimately lost and was banished by Thanos. He, however, managed to return after Thanos’ defeat, even using other agents from Thanos, the Blood Brothers, in his own schemes.

When he learned that the Controller had integrated Iron Man technology into his exo-skeleton, Tony Stark tracked Sandhurst to the tanning salon and adjacent abandoned church that served as his current headquarters. One of the Controller’s slaves was killed in the ensuing battle which led Iron Man to use a negator pack without concern for the possible effect on his foe. The feedback from the fusing of his exo-skeleton nearly killed Sandhurst and he was forced to depend on a room full of machinery simply to live.

Establishing a new base, the Controller proceeded to develop a variant of his control disks that was undetectable and allowed him to leave his shattered body to share the sensations of the bodies that he mentally controlled. He also developed hormonally-modified cyborgs to serve as combat drones. Once his infrastructure was in place he kidnapped the also-paraplegic Tony Stark to enslave him but was foiled when Stark’s mentally-controlled Iron Man robot distracted the Controller enough for Stark to completely free his mind from the Controller’s taint.

Powers and Abilities
Basil Sandhurst has a stainless steel exoskeleton attached to his body. Not only does it protect him from injury, it’s also powered by cerebral energy. Using his own cerebral energy, the Controller can imbue his exoskeleton with superhuman strength. However, the Controller often deploys “slave discs”. These high-tech gadgets, when affixed to a human being’s brow, will siphon a large part of his cerebral energy and transmit it to the Controller. With enough mind slaves, the Controller can become extremely strong.

Since most humans have a potential for psionic powers, sometimes a subject will have enough potential that the amplified cerebral energy can be used by the Controller to manifest actual psionics. Statistically, the larger the population under the thrall, the more likely he is to benefit from such high potentials. If one of the subjects has an actual psionic power, the Controller can Power Drain it (although with a shorter range than run of the mill cerebral energy).