Backlash (Marc Slayton) - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

Thanks to his Kherubim genes, Marc is virtually immortal and has accrued three thousand years of combat experience. He is an expert martial artist and trained in the use of most weapons. His agility is superhuman. Exposure to the Gen-Factor released several latent powers, including the ability to generate psychic energy whips out the backs of his hands. He can use these whips for various purposes; in combat he uses them to constrict his opponents, shocking them with the energy running through the whips or to cut through objects. He can use the energy whips as grappling hooks. The whips are very durable, but beings of great strength can break them, causing painful psionic feedback. He can also transform his body and clothes into mist - as well as being useful for infiltration and defense, this also allows him to swiftly heal most injuries, which tend to vanish after transforming to mist and back. While he could at first use this ability at will, when the Gen-Factor was flushed from his system, his ability to use this power was restricted to only once or twice a day. However, his energy whips had doubled in power as a result. When first exposed to the Gen-Factor, Marc had extensive psionic powers including telepathy and telekinesis, but these powers waned over the years and even completely disappeared together with the Gen-Factor removed from his system. It is possible that his telekinetic powers contributed to the strengthening of his psionic whips, which are in actuality just a visible mental projection that allow Marc to manipulate matter with his mind. For instance, if one did not see the whips, it would appear that Marc was picking up an object, or slicing an object in half with telekinetic abilities, so it can be argued that Marc's stronger psi-whips are due to his telekinetic powers becoming part and parcel of his psychic energy whips. Although he had not been seen using his abilities since the loss of his leg during the Wildcore tragedy, based on events in recent stories, it is apparent that Marc Slayton retains his powers in some form. He still has the ability to turn into mist, though he can only do it once a day, for a limited time, and can only 'take along' things very close to his skin, i.e. a costume, since his loose shirt, pants, and cybernetic leg remained behind when he used this ability to escape to safety while being attacked by a monstrous creature. This is a serious denigration of this ability, as Backlash was once capable of turning several people into mist along with him. He also uses his psi-whips, which now appear to have reverted to their purple hue (they were originally pink, then purple, and finally yellow after the Gen-Factor was flushed from his system, when they took on a more erratic, "energetic" appearance along with the shift to being yellow.) After not using them for some time, during Slayton: Gauntlet, he used them in the final scene, explaining that he is "never unarmed." The whips maintained their previous "high energy" appearance, unlike the more "flaming tendril" look that they had prior to the Gen-Factor leaving his body. In recent issues of Wild C.A.T.S. Slayton uses the whips in much the same way he did as far back as The Kindred, lifting and incapacitating a large enemy, in this case, Blackwolf. The whips are not represented as coming from the backs of his hands as has been traditionally depicted, but rather, from anywhere in the erratic sphere of energy surrounding Slayton's fists.