In 2000, Ruddock found out that Slaughterhouse Smith‘s daughter had had a son, who inherited powers akin to that of his grandsire. Dreaming of revenge against the relatives of Saul Baxter (who was officially dead), Ruddock told Samuel Smith the truth about his grandfather and his powers — only to discover after he was done that Samuel was actually an utter, murderous psychopath. Feeling crushed that he had thus led the Smith family to what would obviously be an ignominious end – feelings worsened by a plot for treason he had conceived at one point and which he was trying to atone for ever since – the aged valet stopped Slaughterhouse Smith’s life support equipment and took a suicide pill, dying near the inert form of his master.
Samuel Smith, after a number of psychotic murders in an attempt to find and kill Mr. Marlowe, the supposed descendant of Saul Baxter, was killed by Grifter. However, his grandfather survived even the shutdown of his life-support equipment and emerged from his coma unaided a few years after those events.
Powers
Samuel inherited abilities from his grandfather but were moreso limited in comparison. He could project concentrated heat beams from his eyes for undetermined amounts of time, at their most focused they can slice and burn through flesh and steel with ease. When emitted at full power his optic blasts erupted into a wide arcing flash flare reducing everything in their path to cinders. Potent as they were being able to blind and cripple Maul of the WildC.A.T.s they proved ineffective against Spartan even using full strength.