Lucas Trent

### Powers

Agility, Gadgets, Healing, Immortal, Implants, Intellect, Marksmanship, Omni-lingual, Precognition, Stamina, Stealth, Super Hearing, Super Sight, Super Smell, Super Speed, Super Strength, Unarmed Combat, Weapon Master

Midnighter is an augmented hero with superhuman physical abilities and the power to run through thousands of fight scenarios in his head before a single punch is thrown. Although he's one of the good guys, Midnighter enjoys violence and brutality and never feels more alive than when he's in the middle of a bloody brawl.

## **Origin**

Midnighter was a member of an secret experimental academy team created by the insane former Stormwatch Weatherman, Henry Bendix. Bendix erased the team's memories when he gave them superpowers. Midnighter, alongside Apollo, Lamplight, Crow Jane, Amaze, Impetus, and Stalker, formed the ill-fated team that would be sent to their deaths by Henry Bendix on their first mission. When Midnighter and Apollo sought extraction during this mission, it was only to discover that Bendix has no intention of wasting time or resources to save them when he could so easily replace them with more "super-soldiers."

Betrayed, Apollo and Midnighter managed to escape with their lives, but would spend the next six years in hiding on the streets, attempting to remain invisible to the Weatherman's ever-watchful eye from the Stormwatch headquarters orbiting the earth. During this time, both team members fought to better the world on a smaller scale, and came together as lovers. Because of their self imposed exile, both Midnighter and Apollo were ignorant of Stormwatch's battle against Henry Bendix, and of his supposed death at the hands of Jenny Sparks. Only when Jackson King, the new Weatherman, discovered them on radar and brought them in for questioning (ultimately testing their loyalties by sending them on a mission) did the pair realize they were free to live in the open again as normal human beings. All files related to whom both Midnighter and Apollo were before their introduction into the team were believed to be lost, and since neither man could remember, Jackson King instead gave them new identities with which to retire from the super-soldier business.

## Creation

Midnighter was created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch.

## Character Evolution

Midnighter appears to be the Wildstorm Universe's equivalent to Batman, but without the moral restraint. He is also married to Apollo and has an adopted daughter named Jenny Quantum.

## Major Story Arcs

### The Authority

However, it was not to be. Less than a year after Apollo and Midnighter's retirement, nearly the entire Stormwatch team was slaughtered in an Aliens/Stormwatch Crossover. Jenny Sparks would develop her vision for a new team, known as the Authority, and she approached Apollo and Midnighter about joining. Reluctantly (and because of Apollo), Midnighter agreed. It was then that he would take his place as "Night's Bringer of War," on a team consisting of Apollo, Swift, Jack Hawksmoor, the Engineer, the Doctor, and Jenny Sparks. His relationship with Apollo would only be hinted at until the Regis story arc, in which it was confirmed they were a couple.

Of the many foes Midnighter faced with the Authority perhaps the most life-altering was the very governments they sought to improve. At one point, the political powers of Earth attempted to overpower the Authority and replace them with The New Authority, consisting of Surgeon, Teuton, Machine, Last Call, Rush, Street, and The Colonel. Of his team members, only Midnighter (along with baby Jenny Quantum) managed to escape capture and evade detection. His skills would ultimately free and save all the other original members of the Authority, though it very nearly cost him his life. Midnighter is notable for being one of the few gay superheroes in print. After his near death at the hands of government creation Seth (where even his backup heart was ripped from his chest), he married his longtime partner, Apollo, in a civil service on The Carrier. Together, they adopted the reincarnation of Jenny Sparks, Jenny Quantum, as their daughter.

Recently, even this happiness has been short lived. Midnighter was manipulated into believing that an Apollo from the future contacted him to tell him how the the Authority would ultimately become the very world oppressors they sought to overcome. This information prompted Midnighter to leave the team, as well as his husband and daughter, and to work alone for a time. However, it was discovered he was being controlled by a still-living Henry Bendix, who then set him in battle against his previous team members after getting on board The Carrier. Fortunately, Bendix's control over Midnighter was broken by the combined efforts of Jenny Quantum and Engineer, freeing him to once again join the team and be with Apollo.

### Time-Traveling

Midnighter currently has his own series in which he works apart from The Authority. In the first three issues he was kidnapped and forced to travel back in time to kill Hitler by a man named Paulus who replaced his second heart with a remote controlled bomb. A simple task that got very complicated when few officers from Temporal Police Department tried to stop him. He was captured by them, but forced their ship to crash in 1945. He teamed with them to get back to his time where he threatened Paulus with the death of his younger self. He then battles a mad scientist who experimented on stray animals. He defeated him and returned a missing cat to a young girl who asked for his help. He then had the scientist experiment on criminals he captured and then adopted a cyborg dog from the scientist.

### Midnighter Remember His Past

The Midnighter became increasingly unhappy with not knowing his original identity or even remembering a normal human life, so Jenny Quantum helped a hacker friend of the Midnighter's discover that his true name was Lucas Trent, born in Harmony, Indiana on July 14, 1967. When the Midnighter tried returning to his hometown and his old identity, he ended up battling paramilitary superhumans who wanted to take over America. But he also became certain he never had been Lucas Trent, because Trent was remembered by everyone as a nice and decent man and the Midnighter knew himself to be a gleeful killer through and through. To Jenny's surprise, however, he wasn't angry with her for the deception; instead, he returned to Harmony to impersonate Trent further and practice being a normal person in a normal daily life. He also recently teamed up with the hero Grifter.

### World's End

Due to the events following the assault by clones of the High the planet is now in a ruined state. Midnighter along with the rest of the Authority have been stranded in London (now Unlondon) due to the death of the Carrier. He spends his time bringing refugees to the Carrier's corpse as it is the closest thing to a safe location. He has to protect them from several threats such as diseased super beings called Incubites. When Apollo is infected by the Warhol virus (now calling itself the Burn), he attacks the Authority, seeking to use the doors to the Bleed as a way of spreading the Burn throughout the multiverse. The team manages to freeze him in order to prevent this from happening. Midnighter has a dream where a Century Baby named Gaia asks him to find her, telling him that she knows how to save Apollo. When he reaches the island that Gaia is stranded on, he finds himself under attack by a god-like force of nature called the Green Man, who turns out to be the former Doctor driven insane by the planet's demise. With the help of the team, Gaia manages to take control of the island and subdue the Doctor so that she can heal him. She gives Midnighter a magical apple and tells him to feed it to the infected Apollo. When he does so, Apollo is cleansed of the Burn and restored to normal.

## Powers and Abilities

### Super-Human Abilities

Midnighter's abilities were designed by Bendix to give him an all encompassing advantage in close-combat and tactical scenarios. He has superhuman strength, reflexes (and moving speed when necessary), healing, senses, aim and various other enhancements. He is said to have multiple redundant systems to keep him fighting in the worst of conditions. One example of this is a backup heart. Midnighter can also turn his pain receptors on and off so he can keep fighting when the pain would stop a normal man. The pain is not totally cut off though, so his healing factor is also very helpful. He's fought with, and healed from, a broken neck, broken limbs, holes through his chest, having his whole body set on fire, contracting various viruses (including AIDS) and other things. He can also function perfectly in anaerobic environments when necessary.

Midnighter's body has been altered to give him inhuman balance as well as faster nerve endings so he can move and react quicker than any human and many super humans. He normally moves at slightly above human speed but can move so fast that enemies with super speed can't see him. Midnighter's senses allow him to detect any modifications or powers in anyone he looks at, as well as how they work, so he can defeat them. His other senses are so powerful that to trick him, his creator needed to find an alien that could not only change its appearance, but its scent and DNA.

Midnighter's most famous ability is his power to predict how a battle will happen before it starts. His fight implants include a combat computer that allows him to run through a given combat situation millions of times in his mind, almost instantly covering nearly every possible result before the first punch is even thrown. He uses this information to predict the actions and or reactions of his foes, counteracting their moves almost before they even think to make them. According to Midnighter, his powers also work by letting him see the outcome of the battle he wants, and working backwards, following the right steps to get there.

He liked to begin fights by announcing all of this, but got bored enough with the speech to have it printed on business cards, which he can leave for absent opponents (or kill them by throwing the sharp-edged cards).

In the tour-de-force issue Midnighter #7, we see his world view in action as the issue begins at the final scene when he returns from battle to kiss Apollo, and each following page takes us further back in the actions that got him there--ending on the last page with his initial speech:

> "See, I'm one of those jerks who always skips ahead to the last page of a book before he reads it. I find a closing scene I love, then work my way back to the beginning to figure out exactly how it all went down. It's the same way my crazy brain processes every possible outcome for a battle before the first punch is even thrown. So let's cut to the chase, shall we? I've already run through a trillion potential versions of this entire day in my head, including the spectacularly banal conversation we're about to have. And I've settled on the finale that leaves your sick operation toppling like a house of cards...and me making love to my husband."
>
>

## Other Versions

### Daylighter

Daylighter is an alternate version of Midnighter from another universe. He and Pluto travel to the Wildstorm Universe to stop an idea-plague from killing everyone in the world.

### Daybreaker

Daybreaker is an alternate teenage Midnighter serving on a team called the Authoriteens. Gen13 are the only ones who have met this team.