Derek Powers

Derek Powers

Derek Powers is a corrupt businessman who gains control over Wayne Enterprises (now called Wayne-Powers) after merging it with his own company Powers Technologies when Bruce Wayne's health begins to decline. Powers develops a lethal mutagenic nerve gas and intends to sell it as a weapon. One of his employees, Warren McGinnis, discovers evidence of the gas, and Powers has him murdered, inadvertently setting Warren's son Terry on the path to becoming Batman. McGinnis stops Powers' plans and exposes him to the gas; Powers is subjected to extreme radiation exposure to save his life, but as a side effect, his entire body becomes radioactive, rendering him translucent. (Batman Beyond episode "Rebirth") He is able to hide his state and contain his radiation with a special cosmetic skin that, over time, flakes off. (Batman Beyond episode "Black Out", Batman Beyond episode "Shriek") The cosmetic skin begins to disintegrate faster and faster as his temper becomes more and more uncontrollable and his radiation levels keep rising.

Blight

He first introduces himself as Blight when he attacks Mr. Freeze. Dr. Stephanie Lake, a scientist working for Powers, had the idea that, by using Powers' baseline DNA, she could create a new body unaffected by his radioactive condition, then transfer his mind into that new body. To test the procedure, she located and persuaded Mr. Freeze to participate, because, like Powers, his DNA had been permanently corrupted by a mutation. At first, the procedure appeared successful, but several days later his condition starts to resurface. Powers believes a biopsy of his organs will show why the procedure failed, and orders Lake to kill Freeze. Freeze escapes, however, and later returns to Wayne-Powers, wearing a cybernetic suit he had "kept in cold storage", ultimately freezing Powers and Lake. Powers survives the attack by melting off his skin and the ice, before attacking Freeze and Batman. When Batman (not recognizing Powers in his radioactive form) asks who the villain is , he identifies himself as "Blight", declaring his powers make him a walking plague. After a fierce struggle, Freeze eventually jettisons him away from the battle.^[1]

Paxton Powers

Over time, Powers discovers that his condition is worsening, as the radiation burns off his skin more rapidly with each shedding, and his uncontrolled anger is slowly driving him insane. Unable to maintain his public image, he decides to withdraw from his corporate interests and focus on finding a cure, deciding to have his estranged son, Paxton Powers (voiced by Cary Elwes), run the company under his own direction; however, Paxton betrays his father during a televised business meeting by hiring a group of actors to pretend to be fishermen, who throw mutated fish in front of the share holders and claim that Paxton had dumped poison in the river. As his anger grows, Powers' artificial skin starts to flake off, exposing him to the world as Blight. Powers hides inside a nuclear submarine, but is discovered by Batman at the request of Paxton so Derek can be taken into custody for proper medical treatment. Once found, Paxton has Derek subdued and uses a device called a "Pinch Cell" to drain his father's radiation and nearly succeeds in killing him, until Batman intervenes upon realizing Paxton's true intentions. Upon freeing himself of the Pinch Cell, Powers goes berserk with massive radiation bursts that sink the submarine with him inside while Batman, Paxton and his minions escape. A later exchange between Batman and Paxton has Batman, unable to expose Paxton's machinations without jeopardizing his own secret identity, hinting that Derek Powers may have survived and now seeks revenge.^[2]

Return

Blight returns in the Batman Beyond series, of the “Industrial Revolution” storyline where he seems to have survived from Stalker's attack and escaped from his trophy room. No longer using his artificial skin, Blight now wears a containment suit to keep the radiation he is emitting held back. He also appears to recover a portion of his sanity to the point where he remembers his history as Derek Powers. He anonymously arranged for his son Paxton to be released from prison, then set a trap for him in a former Wayne-Powers facility. Blight apparently gets his revenge when the facility is engulfed by an explosion with Paxton and Batman with it, only to find out later that Paxton escaped with Batman. The elder Powers plans to ruin his former company, then rebuild it from the scraps.^[3] It is revealed after his confrontation with Batman and Paxton, Blight has been trapped beneath Gotham Harbor for months and, because of his condition, he no longer needs oxygen and food to survive. After Blight emerges from the water, he comes across a former Wayne-Power scientist, Doctor French, who helps Blight build his suit. However, the suit begins to be as ineffective as his artificial skin and also reveals that Powers' condition is slowly killing him. Eventually, as Batman investigates the identity of the culprit who has been sabotaging Wayne Enterprises and Powers Technology financially, Blight reveals himself and has the young hero at his mercy.^[4] Although Batman is almost killed, he manages to escape by puncturing Blight's suit, forcing him to back off. Batman confronts Blight again when he attacks Wayne Manor. He uses the control module on the back of Blight's suit to overload its settings, reducing him to radioactive slime. The slime is taken in by Gotham PD, although it is mentioned that they are not sure whether Powers is actually alive or dead.^[5]

Blight made another appearance in the Gotham Academy comics Yearbook. He disguises himself as a visiting lecturer in order to kill Warren McGinnis, the father of his arch-foe. He used a portal located in a clock to travel to the past. However, the students of Gotham Academy manage to push him into the clock and destroy it, sending him back to the future.

Video games

• Blight appears as a playable character in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. He is part of the "Batman Beyond" DLC pack.^[6]