Origin
Night Thrasher’s parent’s were killed in front of him when he was very young. He started to hate lawbreakers, and began to train in the martial arts in order to punish them. He forgot about how his parents died and the face of their killer. He later learned that his parents had been killed as part of a plan orchestrated by an elderly Asian women named Tai. During the day, he ran the Taylor Foundation. By night, he trained and began to patrol the streets. Dwayne met two other vigilantes, Silhouette and Midnight’s fire, and the three began to try to lessen the gang population in New York. Both vigilantes were the children of Dwayne’s guardian, Andrew Chord.
Creation
Night Thrasher was created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz and first appeared on the last page in The Mighty Thor issue 411 (1989) and fully in The Mighty Thor issue 412 (1989).
Major Story Arcs
Partners against crime
Dwayne had formed a partnership with Silhouette and Midnight’s fire, but their partnership ended when Silhouette was paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet. Midnight’s Fire blamed Dwayne, and began to try to draw Dwayne into a confrontation. Silhouette sided with Dwayne, distancing herself from her brother’s evil. It was because of the threat of Midnight’s Fire that Dwayne built his power suit.
Forming the New Warriors
Dwayne began to recruit member’s for a new team (which he was basing off of the Fantastic Four, himself taking the role of Reed Richards.) He chose the supposedly de-powered Nova to be “The Thing” in his new team. He abducted Nova and dropped him off of a building, hoping it would ignite his powers. It did, and Nova was (understandably) cautious of joining, but the return of his powers by Night Thrasher’s doing made him join. Night Thrasher then recruited Firestar to take the part of the Human Torch, and Marvel Boy to take the part of Invisible Woman. Almost immediately afterward, Terrax began wreaking havoc in downtown New York City. When the newly formed team arrived at the scene, they discovered Speedball and Namorita fighting Galactus‘ former herald. The six were able to win by using unorthodox teamwork, but the glory was stolen by The Avengers. The six then became The New Warriors. The team became mildly successful, but during the time, Dwayne unraveled the strange conspiracy that was his life. Also, both Folding Circle and Tai’s true role were revealed. Thrasher became the official guardian of Rage during this time.
Thrasher pretended to join the Folding Circle as a means to infiltrate it. He, however, neglected to tell his team about his plans, and he left the team. Dwayne became a slight ally to the Warriors, and the team’s leader became disputable. At first, it was Namorita, and then it turned to Marvel Boy. Night Thrasher traveled to learn martial arts skills. He discovered a plot by the Hand against Iron Fist, and he brought back the team to save Iron Fist. He rejoined the team at the end of the volume. Dwayne retired, but stayed semi-active at the Taylor Foundation. He began searching for a cure for cancer. It appeared that the cure had been found, but it turned out that the biologist who created the cure actually was using his mutant son to “command” the cure. The Taylor Foundation fell through, and the biologist died trying the cure on him.
Civil War and Seeming Death
Dwayne later adopted the biologist’s son and announced that he was beginning a super hero reality T.V. show. For some time, the New Warriors where the hightlight of television, as the superhero group fought villains on live television. This all changed when Night Thrasher and the New Warriors tried to apprehent a number of vugitive supervillains. Among them was the villain known as Nitro. When Namora hit Nitro into a schoolbus, he used his explosive powers. The schoolbus exploded, making the blast even bigger. Night Thrasher seemingly died along with Microbe (the biologist’s son) and other members of the New Warriors. That was the event that started the superhuman Civil War. Dwayne’s body was the only one that was never recovered after the explosion. In the midst of the Civil War, the presumed that it had been destroyed by the blast.
Legacy
Some months later, a new Night Thrasher was seen, fighting Iron Man’s established Super Hero Registration Act which had started after the Civil War. This however turned out to be Dwayne’s brother, Donyell better known as Bandit, whom wanted to honor his brother’s legacy.
Alive
Many months later, it was revealed that Dwayne had not actually died but was transported into a different domain where he had to fight otherworldly beings in a Contest of Champions. When the Ultimates-616 got involved, he was able to hitch a ride with them back to Earth-616.
Powers and Abilities
Due to tampering with his mind by Tai, Dwayne was immune to telepathic probes. Emma Frost herself could not scan his mind. He has trained in the martial arts with numerous tutors. He was able to gain a near-victory in unarmed combat against The Punisher. The Punisher only won by switching to his weaponry again. Dwayne was also a skilled acrobat and a brilliant inventor with skills eclipsing most engineers.
His light armored suit consisted of Kevlar, silicate-oriented fiber in ceramic matrix and titanium nitride micro-mail. The suit was bulletproof and fireproof, and also impenetrable by knife blades. It included camouflage equipment which blended the suit to its surroundings. It also gave him an enhanced level of strength. The goggles of his helmet allowed him to see infrared vision, telescopic vision and magnetic resonance scanning. The helmet also included a breathing apparatus, a voice scrambler, a radio communications device (allowing him to communicate with his teammates) and a parabolic sound enhancer. In battle he typically employed battle staffs. He used a high-tech fiberglass skateboard for transportation. The skateboard was equipped with a retractable razor-sharp blade, allowing it to be used as a weapon in battle.
Variations of his armor came with titanium spring-loaded blades in the forearms, adamantium-laced garrote wires, surface-to-surface missiles, compartments concealing hand-weaponry. His favorite weapon was a Uzi sub-machine pistol. He also carried with him explosives, plastique, napalm gel, cordite packs, magnesium flares, smoke capsules, incendiary packs, spur jacks and ball bearings.
In Other Media
Television
- In 2002, it was announced that UPN was working on a live-action Night Thrasher TV series from writer Michael Elliott and executive producer Ben Silverman. For unknown reasons, the project never came to fruition.
Video Games
- Night Thrasher appears as a playable fighter in the Marvel Contest of Champions mobile game.
Merchandise
- Night Thrasher was featured in the HeroClix figure game.
- Night Thrasher was featured in Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line as part of the Kingpin Build-a-Figure wave.