| abstract
| - Provident was born Edmond Durand, in Metropolis. His father was John Durand, a criminalist. Little is known of his mother. Up through college, Edmond lived a fairly normal life (of which little is known). At some point in his life, Edmond discovered that he had the ability to see things happen just before they occurred. He could sense a moment into the future. It is unclear whether this was a power he was born with, one that developed over time, or one that was the result of some accident. Working for law enforcement, John had first-hand experience with guilty criminals getting off scot-free due to their being captured by superheroes, whose exact powers were constantly in question. So, John took it upon himself to research the various metahumans, hero and villain alike. With this research, he would form a comprehensive encyclopedia of sorts that would explain in detail what each metahuman could do, their known whereabouts, and other pertinent information. His plan was for this encyclopedia to be used as a reference guide for all criminal investigations and court cases, and thereby help the guilty go to prison. For some of his research, John Durand visited Gotham City's Arkham Asylum to access the information it contained, especially psychological profiles. Unfortunately, there was a breakout at the facility. One of the convicts killed John in the rampage. Edmond had only just recently graduated from college. Upon his father's death, he received everything his father had owned, including a large sum of money leftover from lottery winnings. Edmond soon learned the breakout had been caused by the villain Bane as part of a systematic effort to wear down and defeat Batman. Furious, he threw himself into his father's work to finish the database. Soon, he began seeing patterns within the metahuman community. He noticed things like the existence of one super-hero causing there to be super-villains to rise against them. He noticed the destructiveness metahuman battles tended to cause and even interviewed some that had been terribly affected by such battles. Most importantly, though, he saw that super-heroes had essentially free reign to do whatever they needed, that they were not paid civil servants like law enforcement but were still their own sort of global law enforcement, acting really only in accordance to their own rules and codes of ethics. He himself had seen first hand the destruction caused when Superman battle Doomsday and the massive death that occurred when the Cyborg Superman destroyed Coast City, including the death of Edmond's close friend Dr. Louis Agnew. Edmond, inspired by these acknowledgments, passed the research into a hand of trusted associates. Edmond then traveled the world. He had decided to start a crusade against the metahuman community, to destroy and restore the power of law to the normal citizen. In order to do this, he felt he needed to be prepared. In his travels, he mastered many forms of martial arts and fighting styles and learned how best to use them with his power of foresight. When Edmond finally returned, he thoroughly examined the updated research database. He realized that his training and his power were not enough. He needed weapons and physical protection. He determined that he could design a suit himself, but would need experts, with greater skill in technology, to create his weapons for him. Edmond filed several patents and then had multiple parties work on individual pieces of the equipment, with no one but himself knowing the function of the overall mechanism. Organizations he used to complete this feat included S.T.A.R. Labs, Wayne Enterprises, and Kord Industries. He sought and was granted research funds for his database project, which was constantly ongoing. He used much of these funds in conjunction with his own money to build a secret fortress beneath Kansas that could store large amounts of data, large amounts of armament, and several cryogenic chambers, supposedly used for "research purposes". Some time before the weapons and suit were complete, he finalized on a name. "Provident" from the Latin providentia, meaning foresight. He assembled the suit, the weapons, and everything else when they were all ready. The suit design itself was based on Edmond's own belief that the number 3 is an integral part of the universe. While still keeping with the design, he kept a few alternate suits for specific battle needs. Shortly thereafter, Provident hit the streets. Over the following months, he defeated every hero included in the encyclopedia his father started. Instead of killing his opponents, Provident instead locked them in the cryogenic chambers of his headquarters. Due to Provident's efforts, the crime level dropped, as did the amount of property damage. However, the public viewed him as a lawless vigilante and a menace to society. The people clamored for their heroes back. Provident became a fugitive from the law and was forced to hole up within his fortress.
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