Evazan, Doctor

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Species:
  Human

• Gender:
  Male

• Size:
  1.7 meters

• Weapon:
  Blaster pistol

• Vehicle:
  Formerly the Shroud

• Affiliation:
  Criminal

• 

From the Movies

A grubby human with a hideously scarred face and the death sentence on 12 systems, this particular character tried to pick a fight with young Luke Skywalker in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Though Obi-Wan Kenobi tried to talk them out of a violent confrontation, this human and his Aqualish thug turned the fight into a deadly situation by producing their blaster sidearms. Even as the harried bartender tried to shout out "no blasters!", Obi-Wan retaliated by igniting his lightsaber and chopping off the Aqualish's arm.

From the Expanded Universe

Once a promising surgeon, Dr. Evazan was corrupted by a bizarre madness which manifested itself in the grotesque skill of "creative surgery." He has left many innocent victims maimed or mutilated in his misguided attempts to perfect biology's flaws.

The Doctor, as he is sometimes known, applied for entrance to the Imperial Academy. His madness was evident then, and he was rejected and institutionalized on the Delrian prison planet. He easily escaped and set up in the Hindasar system. There, the Doctor bought a forged medical license and set himself up as a personal surgeon, promising "droidless surgery." From that date on, literally hundreds were scarred under Evazan's knife. More than 40 had died from their injuries. A consortium of his victims and their families posted a bounty of 1,000,000 credits on Evazan's head.

Evazan was a master of disguise, able to elude capture time and again. The bounty hunter Jodo Kast tried to collect the bounty in the Corellian system. Kast tracked Evazan down to his Creative Surgery -- The Cutting Edge shop, and chased the maniac down. Kast shot Evazan, resulting in the massive scarring on the right side of his face. Before Kast could capture The Doctor, Evazan was rescued by a walrus-faced thug named Ponda Baba. The two then became partners, working as smugglers and mercenaries, but Evazan still was overcome by his demented cravings to carve flesh.

The two traveled aboard Baba's freighter from port to port, eventually settling on Tatooine for some time. There, they adopted the aliases of Roofoo and Sawkee and had their painful run-in with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Their destination thereafter has yet to be revealed, though a number of mangled bodies did turn up on raided merchant ships. Evazan's habit of bragging about his crimes nearly had him captured twice by enterprising crime lords wanting to cash in on his bounty. The hunter Jodo Kast seemed to have made it a personal mission to track down the Doctor.

While lying low, Evazan used his medical skills to replace Ponda Baba's arm. Evazan's insanity resulted in a botched transplant that nearly killed the Aqualish. The two had a falling out, and Ponda swore revenge on the Doctor.

Shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Evazan's expertise was recruited by the Imperial scientist Borborygmus Gog for use in Project: Starscream. Evazan set up shop on the distant and macabre world of Necropolis. His experiments revolved reanimating dead tissue -- and they were a resounding and chilling success. The local superstitions regarding the dead were the perfect cover for Evazan's project.

At this time, Evazan's bounty became sizable enough to attract the attention of the notorious Boba Fett. The hunter confronted Evazan, and succeeded in hitting him with a fatal laser blast. Fett was unable to claim the body, however, since Necropolis laws dictated Evazan be buried immediately.

Evazan was expecting such a turn of events, however. As a precaution against Fett's pursuit, he injected himself with his breakthrough reanimation serum. Shortly after his burial, Evazan escaped from his grave. His experimentation in resurrecting dead flesh had preserved him. The Doctor somehow escaped yet again, and went into hiding.

Evazan returned to hide out in Mos Eisley, eventually opening up a shop called the Cutting Edge Clinic. By this time, Evazan's warrant extended to over 53 planets, and his death was called for in 14 systems. Evazan adopted the name Doctor Cornelius, hired a receptionist named Jubel, and began operating on unsuspecting patients. His specialty was cyborging, but the operations were rarely successful. Evazan even used droid parts purchased from Jawas on occasion. Since most of his clientele were the desperate or the destitute, their maiming or disappearance rarely went noticed.

Having botched one operation too many, Evazan fled Tatooine. He and Baba had some sort of confrontation at this time, but the details of it are rather sketchy. Although seeking revenge, Ponda Baba somehow agreed to let Evazan live in exchange for replacing his arm, which at this point was a clunky outdated robotic attachment.

Baba took Evazan to his homeworld of Ando. There, Evazan was able to make contact with an Andoan Senator. The Aqualish had long been under the strict rule of the Empire, and the Andoan Senator wished to use Evazan's scientific expertise and knowledge to craft an advancement so valuable that the Aqualish would be able to buy their freedom. All Evazan asked for in return was protection.

The Andoan Senator set Evazan up on a remote island, inside an ancient, spooky castle. There, in the castle's basement, Evazan began his experiments again. He had gotten it all wrong, he realized. Perfection of the living form lay not in the body, but in the mind. The cob-webbed strewn basement was soon lined with liquid-filled cylinders containing cadavers of various species. Evazan's latest obsession was mind-transfer technology. To amuse himself, he began training a Meduza as a pet. The invertebrate gelatinous form was capable of emitting a deadly bioelectrical charge. This pet, which Evazan lovingly called Rover, served as added protection for his lab.

Evazan needed the protection. Despite his remote location, bounty hunters regularly attempted to apprehend him. One such raid came while Evazan was hosting a dinner for the Andoan Senator. Evazan had perfected his mind transfer device, and planned to use it to transfer Ponda Baba's consciousness into the Andoan Senator's body. That way, Baba would get the working arm he always wanted. Evazan's twisted experiments were for one purpose -- the achievement of practical immortality.

Evazan's life almost came to an end as the bounty hunter Gurion Silizzar infiltrated his castle. The hunter, using a holo-shroud to deceive Evazan, held the doctor at bay with a thermaldetonator. He had hoped to exact vengeance for the slaughter of his family by Evazan's hands. The timely intervention of Rover saved Evazan, as the gruesome beast knocked Gurion off the castle roof, and against the craggy rocks below. Evazan was nearly dragged down with Gurion's fall. Dangling from the castle parapet, Evazan found himself staring up at Ponda Baba. Or rather, it was Baba's body with the Senator's mind. Evazan's device had worked, after a fashion. The Senator had recovered Gurion's thermal detonator, and activated it. The explosion destroyed much of the top of the castle, and to onlookers, it appeared as if Doctor Death had finally been killed.

But it was an illusion. Rover had saved Evazan again, by surrounding the Doctor with his gelatinous form and dropping from the castle wall. The Meduza's body cushioned the fall. The Doctor survived the drop.

As of five years after the Battle of Endor, Evazan was amazingly still at large. Baba somehow survived the transfer process, presumably in the Senator's body. Reports indicated that at the time he was once again seeking revenge against the "good" Doctor.

Behind the Scenes

Dr. Evazan is identified in the script simply as "grubby human." According to production notes, he was played by Alfie Curtis.

In the radio drama, Dr. Evazan is referred to as "Roofoo." He did not receive his current name until 1989's Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope. Subsequent books revealed a number of aliases used by the fugitive doctor.

Evazan has a conceptual cousin of sorts in Episode II, in the form of a simple-minded nightclub miscreant with the unlikely name of Elan Sleazebaggano.