Derek Powers

**Aliases/Nicknames** | * Ho Rider
* The Rider
* Blight Rider
* Vlad
* Dracula
* Vlad Dracula
* Aunt May
* Derek "Danger" Powers
* Wayne-Powers Industries
* Hydra

[Source]

"*And behold, I shall be a blight upon the land, and everything I touch shall wither and die!*"
―Blight[src]
**Derek Powers**, (also known as **Blight**), was a Human Mutate businessman who served as CEO of Powers Technology and later as a member of Hydra.

## Biography

### Early life

Derek Powers was born in the United States sometime in the mid 1900s though rumors persisted that he was somehow much older than that. While little was known about his past, Powers ran Powers Technology and starting in the 1990's was dubbed a "financial czar" and "corporate kingpin" by the media. He attempted to take over Wayne Enterprises at least once as early as 2000, and was also extremely distant with his son, Paxton, to the extent that he even backed out of a promise for a fishing trip.

### Hostile Takeover

"*How in the name of Zeus' butthole... is that going to help my company absorb Wayne's!?!*"
―Derek Powers[src]
After finally succeeding in taking over Wayne Enterprises in 2008, he turned the merged company into Wayne-Powers Industries. One of his first actions upon assuming leadership was to fire its Vice-President, Lucius Fox. Powers soon gained the reputation of a corporate shark for his strategies of downsizing and gobbling up smaller companies. Under his leadership, Wayne-Powers continued to grow, and entered into the research and manufacture of weapons.

## Personality and traits

"*It's better to be feared than loved.*"
―Derek Powers[src]
Derek Powers, even before his mutation into Blight, was shown to be extremely ruthless and corrupt, using any means to get what he wanted, whether it involved unethical business practices, such as forcing potential business rivals to fold via a late-hour negotiation, arranging for corporate sabotage of rival companies to take out the competition, illegally monitoring people's homes, and even murder. He also was shown to do actions within his company that are highly illegal, such as human experimentation, at least if done in a way that looked accidental, such being demonstrated with Harry Tully where he subtly experimented the nerve gas on him to see if it was effective on humans by staging a chemical leak and ensuring he got exposed. In addition, he was also shown to be extremely Machiavellian in his outlook, pursuing any means to gain power and influence over a wide scale. At one point, he even briefly quotes Machiavelli's dictum of it even being better to be feared than to be loved towards Walter Shreeve, who by that point was a fugitive for being exposed as a criminal, when convincing him to become a supervillain. He also believed that he was supposed to seize power the moment the opportunity arrived, and likewise taught this to his son, which ultimately backfired on him severely and led to his downfall.

He also displayed no remorse for any of his actions, and very often had changes in emotions, indicating that he was a sociopath. He also held a strong hatred for Bruce Wayne, strong enough that he wished to do him harm for several years, as he implied when he was forced to expose his Blight identity in front of everyone when he told Wayne, when the latter interfered with his attack on Mendez, that he was "waiting to do this for years!" before throttling him.

However, after the mutation, he frequently had his temper increased, both because of his inability to retain his human form for long with his increasing radiation power, which was caused in part by his rising temper, and because of his anger and hatred of Batman. The only other emotion he actually had beyond anger was a brief panic attack during a demonstration by Walter Shreeve, which for unknown reasons never actually caused his cosmetic skin to flake.

## Powers and abilities

### Powers

* **Radiation Production**: Powers was transformed into a living nuclear hazard. He gave off dangerous amounts of radiation even passively that made it lethal to be near him, let alone touch without some form of protection. He had little control over this.

* + **Energy Projection**: Powers could manipulate this radiation for various effects. At first, he could only project this radiation from his hands as energy beams or fireballs. As his powers grew increasingly unstable, he was able to emit wide range waves of radiation.

* + **Thermokinesis**: His powers also caused him to be extremely hot in the literal sense. Powers was incapable of feeling the cold, and his touch could sear even metal.

### Weaknessess

* **Mental Illness**: As his powers grew, Derek Powers' condition slowly ate away at his mind, regressing his mental condition. This caused him to suffer heightened aggression or lower rationality, making him quick to anger and eventually leading to murderous fits of rage under the slightest provocation.