Origin

Night Thrasher's parent's were killed in front of him when he was very young. He started to hate lawbreakers, and began to train in the martial arts in order to punish them. He forgot about how his parents died and the face of their killer. He later learned that his parents had been killed as part of a plan orchestrated by an elderly Asian women named Tai. During the day, he ran the Taylor Foundation. By night, he trained and began to patrol the streets. Dwayne met two other vigilantes, Silhouette and Midnight's fire, and the three began to try to lessen the gang population in New York. Both vigilantes were the children of Dwayne's guardian, Andrew Chord.

Creation

Night Thrasher was created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz and first appeared on the last page in The Mighty Thor issue 411 (1989) and fully in The Mighty Thor issue 412 (1989).

Major Story Arcs

Partners Against Crime

Dwayne had formed a partnership with Silhouette and Midnight's fire, but their partnership ended when Silhouette was paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet. Midnight's Fire blamed Dwayne, and began to try to draw Dwayne into a confrontation. Silhouette sided with Dwayne, distancing herself from her brother's evil. It was because of the threat of Midnight's Fire that Dwayne built his power suit.

Forming the New Warriors

Dwayne began to recruit member's for a new team (which he was basing off of the Fantastic Four, himself taking the role of Reed Richards.) He chose the supposedly de-powered Nova to be "The Thing" in his new team. He abducted Nova and dropped him off of a building, hoping it would ignite his powers. It did, and Nova was (understandably) cautious of joining, but the return of his powers by Night Thrasher's doing made him join. Night Thrasher then recruited Firestar to take the part of the Human Torch, and Marvel Boy to take the part of Invisible Woman. Almost immediately afterward, Terrax began wreaking havoc in downtown New York City. When the newly formed team arrived at the scene, they discovered Speedball and Namorita fighting Galactus' former herald. The six were able to win by using unorthodox teamwork, but the glory was stolen by The Avengers. The six then became The New Warriors. The team became mildly successful, but during the time, Dwayne unraveled the strange conspiracy that was his life. Also, both Folding Circle and Tai's true role were revealed. Thrasher became the official guardian of Rage during this time.

Thrasher pretended to join the Folding Circle as a means to infiltrate it. He, however, neglected to tell his team about his plans, and he left the team. Dwayne became a slight ally to the Warriors, and the team's leader became disputable. At first, it was Namorita, and then it turned to Marvel Boy. Night Thrasher traveled to learn martial arts skills. He discovered a plot by the Hand against Iron Fist, and he brought back the team to save Iron Fist. He rejoined the team at the end of the volume. Dwayne retired, but stayed semi-active at the Taylor Foundation. He began searching for a cure for cancer. It appeared that the cure had been found, but it turned out that the biologist who created the cure actually was using his mutant son to "command" the cure. The Taylor Foundation fell through, and the biologist died trying the cure on him.

Civil War and Seeming Death

Dwayne later adopted the biologist's son, Microbe. When Night Thrasher started running low on funds, he decided to offer the group up for a reality show. Most of the group did not agree with this idea and left. This left Night Thrasher with just Speedball, Nova, Namorita, and Microbe. In addition, the network put Debrii on the team.

hey would go on a few softball missions until Speedball got a lead on fugitives from a breakout at the Raft. These villains were beyond what the team could handle, especially after Nova and Debrii left the team. Among them was the villain known as Nitro. When Namorita hit Nitro into a school bus, he used his explosive powers, letting loose at this full power. Night Thrasher was presumed dead alongside his teammates (except survivor, Speedball).

That was the event that started the superhuman Civil War. Dwayne's body was the only one that was never recovered after the explosion. In the midst of the Civil War, it was presumed that it had been vaporized in the blast.

Legacy

Some months later, a new Night Thrasher was seen, fighting Iron Man's established Super Hero Registration Act which had started after the Civil War. This however turned out to be Dwayne's brother, Donyell better known as Bandit, whom wanted to honor his brother's legacy.

Contest of Champions

At the moment of his death at the hands of Nitro, Thrash was teleported to the Battlerealm by The Collector and his summoner, Maestro. They were in a competition with Grandmaster and his summoner, Punisher 2099. They were collecting fighters from across time and the multiverse in a contest of champions over an ISO-Sphere.

When the summoners teamed up for a mutiny against the Elders of the Universe, Both of their teams, including Thrash, were locked up. Thrash was able to use the food dispenser in his cell to hack into the security network. He led them to the armory where they geared up and took the fight to the summoners.

They found the Ultimates from Earth-616 already engaging them. Maestro ended up using the ISO-Sphere to return anyone from Earth-616, which accidentally included Thrash. He ended up in the Ultimates HQ with no memories of how he got there. Blue Marvel invited him to join the Three Xs along with himself and Jimmy Woo, as they investigate the Eternity Mask.

Remix

Dwayne has been struggling with survivor’s guilt when he was kidnapped seconds before the explosion in Stamford. He jumped from mission to mission, answering the call of anyone who asked. After a period of time, globetrotting, Dwayne finally came back to New York for the funeral of Chord. He used it as an opportunity to call an emergency meeting of The Taylor Foundation, where he announced he’d be shutting it down.

Around the same time, he was approached by a councilman, who wanted the foundation’s help with the recent increase in petty crimes and police violence, thanks to a gentrifying effort and a new player calling himself The O.G. This inspired Dwayne to go out one more time as Night Thrasher. He ended up confronting The O.G., the leader of the new gang of shoplifting vandals, who turned out to be his former protege, Rage.

Unfortunately, confronting Rage got police attention and eventually escalated to the community. Thrash instead tried to confront the police as Dwayne but that also failed. He was thinking about bailing completely, but Silhouette talked sense into him. After an anti-police protest led to the councilman being shot, Thrash had Sil teleport the chief of police and O.G. to a secret meeting where they could put their differences aside.

While he managed peace for one night, Thrash reversed his decision to shut down The Taylor Foundation so he could continue to manage it. He also took official guardianship of O.G.

Emergency Response Squad

After Captain America defended the streets of New York City during Blood Hunt with an impromptu Avengers team, Cap was convinced that a first responder version of the team needed to be on hand while the official Avengers were dealing with the bigger picture. Thrash was chosen as one of the first members, supplying them with new high-tech jackets. At the beginning of the team's formation, they resolved a number of short emergencies. Unbeknownst to the team, these emergencies were being tracked and used as cover by the Serpent Society to steal occult artifacts to sacrifice to Mephisto. Luckily, teammate, Shand-Chi, noticed the trend from police reports and informed Cap.

Cap prepared to stop the Serpents by activating the whole team, so they could answer to alerts at once. While half the team tried to deescalate the newest crisis, Thrash joined the other half, which found the Serpents during a break-in. Unfortunately, these Serpents were expecting the Avengers and also split up. The Avengers confronted the distraction team, while their leader Pit Viper arrived with a completed occult serum to transform the world into serpents.

He threw some of it at the Avengers, knowing Cap would shield them, making him the first snake-human hybrid. Now controlled by his primal instincts, Cap attacked his team, siding with the Serpents. Luckily, his team did not lose a step. They defeated the Serpents and brought Cap home. Using a stasis pod built by Night Thrasher and powered by Wonder Man's ionic energy and Spectrum's vita rays, they were able to reverse the process.

The Staten Island Monolith

As a member of the Avengers Emergency Response Squad, Night Thrasher fought off a moloid army over a mysterious monolith that appeared on Staten Island. After the Avengers won, Thrash was assigned to continue studying the monolith and unlock its secrets. To do this, he called in help from outside the Response Squad. Mr. Immortal was recruited to explore the pocket universe within the monolith and determined it had a consciousness. Psychics Somnus and Moondragon were asked to telepathically link to it. Phone Ranger was hired to analyze the communication methods, eventually determining the language as the same as The Builders.

Translating the word as "Beware" finally stirred the being at the center of the monolith. It was Ahmet Abdol, known as the Living Monolith. He claimed the monolith was a chrysalis. It was made to suck the cosmic radiation out of the sky to further evolve Abdol for his next quest. He claimed he would consume the energy of the Earth next to satiate his hunger, goading Thrash into attacking. Thrash's strike cracked the monolith, and Abdol emerged in his new form calling himself The Living Testament. Thrash was forced to call in the all the Avengers.

Abdol continued to absorb lifeforce from the entire planet, which roused a nearby comatose patient, Elijah Jackson, a previous Captain Universe who became Captain Beyond to fight Living Testament off. Elijah was able to disconnect the Avengers from Abdol's energy drain, but the rest of the Earth was still at risk. Night Thrasher believed they should help Abdol get what he wants. Thrash knows Abdol can't earn his way into paradise and hoped that would knock some sense into him, which it did. Abdol released the energy, devolving to his human form, and gives himself up to the Avengers.

Powers and Abilities

Due to tampering with his mind by Tai, Dwayne was immune to telepathic probes. Emma Frost herself could not scan his mind. He has trained in the martial arts with numerous tutors. He was able to gain a near-victory in unarmed combat against The Punisher. The Punisher only won by switching to his weaponry again. Dwayne was also a skilled acrobat and a brilliant inventor with skills eclipsing most engineers.

His light armored suit consisted of Kevlar, silicate-oriented fiber in ceramic matrix and titanium nitride micro-mail. The suit was bulletproof and fireproof, and also impenetrable by knife blades. It included camouflage equipment which blended the suit to its surroundings. It also gave him an enhanced level of strength. The goggles of his helmet allowed him to see infrared vision, telescopic vision and magnetic resonance scanning. The helmet also included a breathing apparatus, a voice scrambler, a radio communications device (allowing him to communicate with his teammates) and a parabolic sound enhancer. In battle he typically employed battle staffs. He used a high-tech fiberglass skateboard for transportation. The skateboard was equipped with a retractable razor-sharp blade, allowing it to be used as a weapon in battle.

Variations of his armor came with titanium spring-loaded blades in the forearms, adamantium-laced garrote wires, surface-to-surface missiles, compartments concealing hand-weaponry. His favorite weapon was a Uzi sub-machine pistol. He also carried with him explosives, plastique, napalm gel, cordite packs, magnesium flares, smoke capsules, incendiary packs, spur jacks and ball bearings.

In Other Media

Television

• In 2002, it was announced that UPN was working on a live-action Night Thrasher TV series from writer Michael Elliott and executive producer Ben Silverman. For unknown reasons, the project never came to fruition.
• In 2017, a New Warriors TV series was greenlit by ABC Studios' for the Freeform channel, presumably to go along with Freeform's other Marvel series The Runaways and Cloak and Dagger. Jeremy Tardy was cast as Night Thrasher for the pilot, but after Marvel Television was restructured by Disney, the show was abandoned.

Video Games

• Night Thrasher appears as a playable fighter in the Marvel Contest of Champions mobile game.

Merchandise

• Night Thrasher was featured in the HeroClix figure game.
• Night Thrasher was featured in Hasbro's Marvel Legends line as part of the Kingpin Build-a-Figure wave.