BIOGRAPHY - page 3
However, Sturdy's original notes proved prophetic. Nefaria indeed became immortal as a result of his treatments, just as Wonder Man, Atlas and other recipients of the ionic enhancement procedures had become. The exact circumstances of his resurrection remain unrevealed, but he did return to life after several years. However, Nefaria learned that in order to maintain his full powers, he needed outside sources of ionic energy to feed upon. Working from the shadows, Count Nefaria had his cousin Vittorio Silvani orchestrate a series of robberies in order to gather the funding necessary to get him back to his peak. When Vittorio was captured by Iron Man on one of his jobs, he swore to take revenge on the Armored Avenger and his employer, and Count Nefaria saw the risk of Stark interfering in his plans. Therefore, they hired several mercenary villains to make attempts on Stark's life, including the Deathsquad, Whiplash and Nitro. [Iron Man (3rd series) #1, 8, 15]
Meanwhile, Count Nefaria learned the most expedient way to maintain his ionic energies was to drain ionic power from other ionic super-beings. He started small, targeting the residual ionic 
energy in former hosts of the alien Lucifer. Nefaria kidnapped Charlie Grey and exhumed the corpse of Rafe Michel to steal their energies. [Iron Man (3rd series) #16, 18] He ramped up his efforts when he captured and killed Nefarius, his ionic imitator who had duplicated the Sturdy process in his absence. His efforts finally drew the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., however, who contracted with Tony Stark and Iron Man to uncover why ionic beings were being targeted.
Nefaria dispatched the Death Squad, Whiplash and Nitro together to interfere with Iron Man's investigations, but they proved incapable of eliminating the Armored Avenger this time either. Instead, the Death Squad lured Iron Man back to Nefaria's castle in Sicily so the count could 
address his foe directly. Iron Man was surprised by Count Nefaria's survival, but Luchino monologued too much during the fight and clued Stark in to the fact that his restored power was finite. Iron Man pushed him into overexerting himself, and Count Nefaria was weakened enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. to take him into custody. Nefaria's pull with the local authorities was significant, however, and he was quickly released from imprisonment. [Iron Man Annual '99]
For his next scheme, Count Nefaria conceived the idea to cultivate his own ion powered cattle instead of seeking out existing super-beings who might be missed. Adopting a stylized look as the witch-doctor Stox, Nefaria traveled to the bottom of the world and began experiments in the Savage Land. He kidnapped Ka-Zar, Shanna and a large number of tribes-people and dinosaurs as test subjects for his work. Humans and dinosaurs alike mutated under his experiments into bipedal dino-people that came to serve Stox's cause. One juvenile dinosaur, nicknamed "Barney," 
escaped the Savage Land and ended up drawing Sharon Carter and Captain America into investigating the situation. Despite his minions and technology, Count Nefaria was at the weaker end of his power spectrum at the time, barely tougher than a normal human. He was captured by Captain America and turned over to Ka-Zar for Savage Land justice. [Captain America (3rd series) #28-31]
Count Nefaria escaped from the Savage Land and abandoned his scheme to artificially construct ionic beings on a small scale. Instead, he revised his agenda with new, global ramifications. Count Nefaria discovered his ionic powers and willpower were strong enough to impose his control on other ionic beings. He kidnapped the Avenger Wonder Man and absorbed some of his ionic energy, subverting him into becoming his minion. Nefaria then dispatched Wonder Man to capture the Lethal Legion's old Power Man (now Atlas of the Thunderbolts) and did the same thing to him. With these two as ionic batteries, Count Nefaria was able to restore his full might and now had two powerful servants to carry out his commands.
In his efforts to reclaim all that had been taken from him, Count Nefaria intended to seize control of the Maggia and all its various families. He hired the Grim Reaper and his Steelskulls as his enforcers, orchestrating a meeting of the major Maggia heads in Chicago to stake his claim. In particular, Nefaria sought to bring his rebellious daughter Madame Masque and her faction to 
heel. The Avengers intervened on the meeting, capturing several Maggia heads, but the remainder did fall under Nefaria's control. He acquired a great deal of funding and technology from various sources, including details on the original ionic bombardment process used by Heinrich Zemo to create Wonder Man.
The Madame Masque in Chicago had actually been a bio-synthetic duplicate, and Nefaria tracked the real Whitney to an isolated sanctuary hidden in a Nevada desert butte. Count Nefaria attacked 
his daughter's sanctuary with Wonder Man, Atlas, Grim Reaper and the Steelskulls, but was drawn into a three-way battle with the Avengers, who had also tracked down Madame Masque. Nefaria easily shrugged off the Avengers' attacks, but they routed his minions and prevented him from claiming his daughter. Nefaria chose to flee with Wonder Man and Atlas, rather than pursue Madame Masque further at the moment.
Count Nefaria retreated to his castle in the Livingstone Range of Alberta, where his scientists put the final work in on his master plan: an ionic bomb. Nefaria planned to irradiate the entire planet with ion particles. Millions would likely die, and many more would be horribly mutated, but those that remained would be susceptible to his ionic control. Nefaria had always been an example of old money and European royalty, a man who believed he was better than others by circumstances of birth and breeding. His treatment by other people over the preceding years had been lacking in his mind, and Nefaria intended to change that. His ultimate goal was not world domination, but to ensure that people staying out of his way and delivered respect where respect was due, in his mind.
The Avengers and Thunderbolts assembled for a siege on Nefaria's castle. With the assistance of Madame Masque, they constructed an ionic lock weapon she had conceived in the event of her father's return. The ionic lock successfully shut down and "rebooted" the ionic energy levels of Wonder Man and Atlas, leaving them temporarily weakened but restoring their self-determination. 
When turned against Nefaria himself, however, the ionic lock proved ineffective. Laughing, Count Nefaria descended to a nearby town, threatening human life with mass devastation in order to lure the Avengers away from his castle while the ionic bomb completed its charging cycle and prepared for detonation. Nefaria struck down any hero who attempted to flee the battle and return to the castle.
The ionic lock hadn't worked because, in her paranoia, Madame Masque held back a necessary intensifier unit that would make it work against her father. Whitney still wasn't certain of her loyalties, whether Iron Man and the Avengers intended to betray her to her father or whose side she should be on. Masque, one of her bio-synthetic duplicates, had gone rogue and briefly allied herself with the Avengers months prior. Masque struck down Madame Masque and rigged the ionic lock with the intensifier unit, ready to unleash it on Count Nefaria. Instead, Nefaria cut her 
down without hesitation in a blast of ionic vision. Recognizing the count couldn't have known that Masque wasn't her due to their identical appearances, Whitney realized her father had no compunctions about killing her without a moment's thought. Madame Masque emerged from the bushes and grabbed the ionic lock, firing it at Nefaria before his surprise over seeing two Madame Masques allowed him to react.
Under the ionic lock's influence, Count Nefaria began leaking ionic energy. Still extremely powerful, his ionic levels were finite and at the beginning of the battle Goliath of the Avengers had estimated Nefaria would run dry of power after about three weeks of continuous exertion. Thanks to the ionic lock, that time table sped up dramatically. Count Nefaria continued to fight the heroes, holding himself together by sheer force of will, but the mental and physical stress of the fight was taking its toll. In the meantime, Atlas and Wonder Man recovered and flew off to stop the ionic bomb from detonating in the upper atmosphere. They managed to collectively absorb the ionic 
radiation it released on activation, taking the ionic power into themselves and saving the world. Their success enraged Nefaria, as he saw his plans falling apart. This loss of control caused his ionic breakdown to speed up, and Count Nefaria finally erupted as pure energy, his ionic form being dispersed through the atmosphere, a far more harmless dispersal than he had intended with his bomb. [Nefaria Protocols crossover]