Jennifer Takeda

Stamford, CT

## Background

### **1992 - 2009: Jennifer Takeda**

Jennifer Takeda was born to a Japanese father Satoshi Takeda & his American wife, Christina Gage. She considered herself to be a normal girl with a normal family, normal friends, and a normal life in California. She was an honor roll student, at school on a full scholarship for track & was extremely popular without being a complete bitch.

One day, Jennifer was kissing her boyfriend Greg when he suddenly fell into a coma. She was taken to the hospital to be tested where it was discovered that her body leaked radiation & she was the cause of the coma. Her parents accused Roxxon Energy Corporation, a multinational oil and gas corporation, of being responsible but Greg's parents accused Jennifer herself. As the story gained more popularity, Jen was asked to write her stories by countless media.

After weeks of staying in the house, Norman Osborn kidnapped Jennifer & jump-started her powers against her will. When she returned home, her family became exposed, leading to them becoming extremely ill & her dog Taco died. Hearing of the story, Hank Pym reached out to Jenny & invited her to the Avengers Academy, promising to work on a way to cure her condition or at least help her regain control of it somehow. For other safety, Jenny was forced to wear a protective radiation suit that was designed by Pym.

### **2009: Hazmat**

Jennifer was recruited into the newly formed Avengers Academy alongside other young potential heroes Veil (Madeline Berry), Striker (Brandon Sharpe), Finesse (Jeanne Foucault), Reptil (Humberto Lopez) & Mettle (Ken Mack). She & the rest of the class were trained so they use their powers for good & don't become supervillains.

While training with the older heroes, Hazmat plotted her revenge on Osborn along with fellow students Mettle & Veil. The three went searching for Norman & asked him how to reverse their powers so they can have normal lives again. When he began taunting Mettle, attempted to kill him. Their plan was quickly foiled by the instructors & they went back to the Avengers Compound.

When Tigra learned what had happened, she was furious. She claimed the three were not Avenger material & that the three should be expelled from the Academy. The other teachers vetoed their expulsion but Hazmat was to take anger management classes. During her anger management, Hank Pym invited Leech from the Future Foundation to be with her for the day. Leech could use his ability of negating powers to allow Hazmat live the day outside of her suit. She went home to see her parents but was brought to tears when her parents were expecting her to be permanently fixed. Pym & Leech offered the compromise of Leech to be with her biweekly but she turned the offer down, saying that she will wear the suit until a permanent cure is found.

Jennifer's current mentality continued to shut her off from the rest of the world, as did her newly formed angry & standoff personality, a trait that stemmed from her disillusionment with her inability to interact with others without her containment suit. Though she disliked it, she took on the codename Hazmat as she felt it best suited her predicament.

### **2010: Hazmat**

Along with other Academy students, Hazmat contacted by the Briggs Building to meet their teammate Veil, who has working with another subject of Osborn's experiments, Jeremy Briggs. He had been working on a cure for all their conditions. Only Hazmat & Mettle decided that to take his clean slate process which restored them to their normal forms. Free from their deformities, the two went off together. Unbeknownst to them, his true plan was to wipe every superhumans powers off the planet & to regift it only to the people who would use it properly. When he reveals this to Veil, she goes to find Mettle & Hazmat to reveal his true intentions. She gives them an antidote that restored their powers for good. Confronting Jeremy, the students find Jeremy with his accomplice, Enchantress. Finesse went after Briggs with a combat knife, slicing & dicing him before stabbing Briggs' arteries. As he sat bleeding to death, Finesse reminded Briggs that they were recruited so they would use the powers to be heroes. As she said this & walked off, Briggs bled to death.

Despite working together to get back at Osborn & even bonding when they lost their powers, Hazmat continued to be standoff & rude Mettle. When Reptil stated that they would make a good couple, the two to became disgusted. During the spring fling, Hazmat lashed out at Veil for trying to set her up with together with Butterball, asking why she should be stuck with ugly potential boyfriends. Mettle overhears this & smashes a statue in the hallway. Hazmat apologizes & the two open up with one another, being honest about what they think of the other. After spending the following nights venting to each other, they began dating. As a couple, they attempted to participate in regular couple activities but their unusual appearances make it hard for them to enjoy it.

Just as Hazmat & Mettle have sex for the first time, they were teleported away from Avengers Academy. They found themselves in Murderworld with fourteen other super powered teens teleported by Arcade. He explains that only one of them will survive & that they will have to kill to survive. Hazmat openly defies Arcade, leading to him choosing her to the first sacrifice. Another member, Red Raven argued that he can't just kill one of them like that, leading to Arcade blowing her to pieces.

When Death Locket attempted to approach her about what happened, Hazmat reacted with anger. Slipping into a trance, Death Locket attacked Hazmat with a flamethrower. Hazmat returned fire, causing Death Locket to flee into the snow. Going off with Talon & her fellow Avengers Academy teammates, she assumed a leadership role. After Juston & his Sentinel disappeared, Hazmat agreed to an alliance with Nico Minoru & Chase Stein, motivated primarily by a food tree created by Nico. After a burst of flames left Reptil injured & near death, the alliance imploded with blame being placed on Chase. Believing him to be the attacker, Hazmat opened fire on Chase before killing Nico's tree.

When Arcade announced the supply cache, Hazmat's group attempted to ferry Reptil there to get medical supplies. Along the way, Reptil regained consciousness & revealed that it was Death Locket who attacked him, not Chase. As they continued, Hazmat accidentally triggered a mine that bathed them in Trigger Scent, causing Talon to fly into a rage & injured Mettle. Reptil then shape-shifted into a Pterodactyl & evacuated him, Hazmat & Mettle away to Safe Zone 3.

While the game continued to play out & claimed the lives of Juston, they managed to stay safe in the safe zone until they are reunited wit Talon & the remaining contestants right into their midst. Despite some initial tension, they decided to work together & search for the missing Nico. After returning to the mainland, a robot douses the entire group in trigger scent. Hazmat ends up seriously injured by Talon before Cullen transforms into a monstrous form in order to save them.

Her injuries caused her radiation to leak & build up, making her close to detonating & killing everyone in Murder World. Reptil transformed into a prehistoric crocodile & carried her into the water where she detonated safely. The explosion causes everyone to stop fighting each other with the Murderworld being shut down shortly after by the death of Apex, who attempted to take over. As she crawled back onto the beach, she convinced the other survivors to make a pact to never talk about what happened in Murderworld. The surviving teenagers were then rescued by S.H.I.E.L.D. as Henry Pym had become aware of the teenagers' disappearances.

## Romantic Relationships

* Greg McKone: Boyfriend (2008 - 2009)
* Ken Mack: Boyfriend (2010 - )

## Powers & Abilities

* **Mutant Physiology**: Hazmat can produce various deadly substances from her body. A side effect was that she was poisonous to others & prolonged exposure to her would result in illness & death, so she wore a containment suit most of the time.
	+ ***Light***: Hazmat can brighten her body with her powers.
	+ ***Radiation Generation***: Due to her body creating natural radiation from her own body, she can create different forms of blasts that can harm anyone it hits. She is also able to use EMP, which can disable anything electrical.
	+ ***Substance Immunity***: Hazmat is immune to the various deadly substances she produces.

### Weaknesses

* **Anger**: Whenever she is angry, she tends to lose control of her actions & can sometimes almost blow up from anger.
* **Containment**: Due to being poisonous to others with prolonged exposure, Hazmat must wear a containment suit.
* **Hazmat Suit**: Hazmat wears a containment suit whenever she was outside of a controlled environment due to the side effect of her powers

### Ratings

* **Intelligence:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Strength:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Speed:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Occult:** 1 - Nonexistent
* **Weapons:** 2 - Impaired / Below Average
* **Energy Projection:** 6 - Expert / Advanced
* **Strategy:** 3 - Average / Basic
* **Fighting Ability:** 4 - High / Trained

## Trivia

* She had a Dazzler poster in her bedroom.
* Jen has a Beta-Level Avengers Security Clearance.
* While in Murderworld, she suffered a psychotic break. The death of Juston, loss of Talon & waiting for a week with nobody other than a grievously injured Mettle & Reptil for something bad to happen to her had caused her to give up & accept that she was going to die.
* Hazmat has a power ranking of 57, classifying her as Power Level 2 / Low Threat.

## Notes

* The original character of Jennifer Takeda belongs to the Marvel Universe.
* In the comics, she is a mutate.
* The last name of Greg McKone is a nod to one of her creators, Mike McKone.