Cornelius Evazan, also known as Roofoo and Doctor Cornelius, also nicknamed Doctor Death or simply The Doctor, is a notorious outlaw and sociopath active during the Galactic Civil War. He considered himself a skilled surgeon, even though his patients were often maimed or killed after botched "operations". By the time of the Battle of Yavin, his activities had earned him a death sentence in at least twelve systems.
Biography
Legends Continuity
Early career
| “ | We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems. | „ |
| ~ Evazan |
No one knows if Evazan ever obtained a true medical degree. Nonetheless, he was remembered as a promising surgeon. His application to the Imperial Academy was rejected when his innate madness was revealed during an interview, and he was shipped off to the prison on Delrian. Evazan escaped to the Hindasar system, where he established his own "practice" specializing in cyborging and inexpensive surgery. Once the medical and law enforcement authorities caught up with him, he disappeared to another system, where he began his operations anew. He would repeat this process on several worlds, with occasional forays into spice smuggling, slaving, assassination, and other crimes. He never stayed in one location too long, and his movement from planet to planet helped him gain more and more victims.
Evazan was searching for immortality, and was hoping that his experiments on his patients' insides would point him on a path to discover it. This pursuit of immortality earned him the nickname "Doctor Death", among others.
His legacy of victims led him to be pursued by the bounty hunter Jodo Kast, who nearly caught up to him in the Corellian system. Thanks to the intervention of the Aqualish thug Ponda Boba, Evazan managed to escape, but not before one of Jodo Kast's blaster shots caught him in the face. Evazan was scarred for life, but he and Baba formed a beneficial partnership.
Partnership with Ponda Baba
Evazan and Ponda Baba fled Corellia to hide out on Tatooine. It was here he encountered a young moisture farmer named Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisley Cantina. They tried to bully the youth into a fight, but found themselves on the wrong side of Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber. The two of them fled the scene after Ponda Boba's arm was cut off.Evazan did his best to replace his partner's arm with a cheap cybernetic replacement. The surgery was not a success, and Baba swore revenge, pursuing Evazan across the galaxy.
Project Starscream and the search for immortality
| “ | Here lies Dr. Evazan. May he find the peace he did not give his patients. | „ |
| ~ Evazan's epitaph on Necropolis. |
Evazan went into hiding on Tatooine, where he set up the Cutting Edge Clinic in Mos Eisley. Under the name Doctor Cornelius, Evazan began operating on unsuspecting patients. He continued to specialize in cyborging and would occasionally use droid parts purchased from Jawas. He was eventually forced to flee Tatooine and, soon after, he was confronted by his old partner, Ponda Baba. The two reconciled and set up base in a castle on Ando, where Evazan made a new breakthrough. He came to the conclusion that it was the mind and not the body that was the key to immortality. He created a mind-transference machine, planning to transfer Ponda Baba's mind into a new body. He lured and trapped the Aqualish senator chosen to provide the body.
Evazan hoped to transfer his own mind into the body of a "perfect" young man he had captured earlier. Unfortunately for Evazan, the young man was actually a bounty hunter named Gurion Silizzar using a holoshroud to disguise himself. Gurion sought revenge because seven members of his family had been victims of Evazan's operations. Gurion forcibly escorted Evazan up to the castle's roof, where Gurion planned to kill the doctor. Evazan's pet meduza, Rover, saved Evazan's life by attacking Gurion, who then fell off the roof to his death. It was then that the Aqualish senator in Ponda Baba's body went up onto the roof and detonated a thermal detonator. Evazan fell off the roof moments before the explosion. Once again, Rover saved Evazan's life by sacrificing his own to cushion his master's fall.
Soon after the Battle of Yavin, Evazan went to work for Borborygmus Gog, hoping to gain information from Project Starscream on bringing life to the dead. Evazan moved to Necropolis to work on bringing corpses to life as part of the project. However, during this time, Evazan was being pursued by Boba Fett himself. The bounty hunter caught up to Evazan on the planet Necropolis and executed the mad doctor while he was holding Zak Arranda hostage.
Pylum required that Fett leave Evazan's body behind, in hopes of holding off the Curse of Sycorax, and Fett agreed, but held them all responsible if he never collected the full bounty. Unknown to them all, Evazan had injected himself with a megadose of his own reanimation serum, and he eventually returned to life. However, the serum only worked well on recently-dead bodies. The longer the body stayed dead before being injected, the less likely it was to survive reanimation. Evazan nearly completed his work, but was stopped by the zombie Kairn. Evazan tried to eliminate Hoole, Zak, and Tash Arranda, but Kairn refused to see his friends killed. He used the anti-serum created by DV-9 to kill the zombie army Evazan had created, then he and Evazan were seemingly killed when the potion touched them.
However, Evazan seemingly cheated death yet again. As late as 9 ABY, the doctor was reportedly still at large. Baba also survived, in the body of the senator, and again sought revenge against Evazan.
Canon Continuity
Background
Hailing from Alsakan, Dr. Cornelius Evazan was a promising surgeon who operated a cosmetic surgery clinic in Pons Ora, a small settlement located on the remote desert world of Abafar. However, he went insane in his training and began practicing "creative surgery" on his patients without the assistance of droids, rearranging the limbs of hundreds of victims and leaving them horrifically scarred. After becoming notorious for his cruel medical experiments, Evazan's own face was hideously disfigured during an encounter with a bounty hunter who was trying to destroy him,though he was saved by Ponda Baba, an Aqualish thug. The two partnered together and became pirates, and began to smuggle spice for the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Successful at their trade, they became wanted men, and by then Evazan had been sentenced to death in twelve star systems. However, there was no love lost in their relationship, and Baba even contemplated turning in Evazan to collect the bounty on the doctor's head before realizing that their ongoing partnership would be more profitable. Still, the two considered each other friends despite their differences.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
By the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope began, Dr. Evazan and Baba was seen in a cantina in Mos Eisley on Tatooine as patron. As he talked with Kabe who frequented the establishment, Baba, drunked and bored, challenge Luke for the fight. Luke tries to reason with Baba to stay out of the trouble, but seeing him as easy target, Evazan escalated the argument by threatening the boy. Worse, he ignored Obi-Wan Kenobi whom defended Luke by tossed the boy to a nearby table. Left with no choice, Obi-Wan was forced to slashed Evazan and sliced Baba's arm that carry a blaster off before he and Evazan could fire the weapon.
The commotion was not only attract the attention of the rest of the patron, but also a group of Stormtroopers on the outside. As Luke, Obi-Wan, Han Solo, and Chewie has sneaked away, Evazan tries to help Baba, but his surgery skill ended in failure and Baba was killed in process.
Trivia
- In the Family Guy Blue Harvest, his name is Pig Nose and a fight with Luke (portrayed by Chris Griffin) is avoided when Luke says "You don't even know me" in response to "I don't like you either".
- Evazan's misfortune at hands of one of protagonist's friend is referenced in Unkar Plutt's in the novelization of The Force Awakens.