Archie (Marcus Archibald Weathers) (Earth-4976)/History

== Origins ==
Marcus grew up in South London and was raised by his father, Jordan Weathers. His mother left them when Marcus was barely a couple of years old, something that still remains a mystery to him to this day.
As a child, he inherited his father’s love for action films, particularly martial arts films. This love became the reason Marcus wanted to become just like the action stars he saw on screen, which prompted his father to enroll him in Karate classes. Marcus also wanted to learn archery simply because he believed the name was taken from his middle name, ‘Archibald’. At some point, he also learnt Kenpo; the art of fighting using a bo staff.
Marcus was sort of an average student in school, but his grades were beginning to slip; the older he got, the more disgruntled he became about his own life. His father kept trying to distract him, or dodge anything related to his mother. Marcus soon got himself mixed up with some bad people, joining a small street gang near his early teens.
Around the age of 14, his powers first started to manifest. At the same time, there was a turf war between the gang he recently joined and another, slightly bigger gang. In an attempt to protect his brethren, Marcus found himself outnumbered 3 to 1 and almost got himself injured, or worse, when a beam of pure, transparent crimson energy appeared in his hands in the form of a bo staff. Albeit sloppy (he had never tried Kenpo in combat before), Marcus was barely able to fend 2 of them. Marcus was unable to stop the 3rd, however, from beating him into a bloody pulp.
When the dust settled, it was his gang that was on the losing side. Marcus, not wanting to join the injured, decided to join the bigger gang, and so began a pattern of “if you can’t beat them, join them” for the next several years, until, sick of being on the losing side, gave up being in one altogether.
Without his father’s notice, Marcus took whatever money that was saved, using it to “escape” from the UK, and start anew in a new country: the United States of America.