#derek powers

Heroes & Villains The DC Animated Universe - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles

Derek Powers 

A corporate shark of the highest order, Derek Powers would stop at nothing to become the most successful businessman out there.  He ran Powers Technology and attempted on numerous occasions to take over Wayne Enterprises.  Bruce Wayne had long since stepped away from the company and once Luscious Fox retired, Powers finally had the votes needed to orchestrate a merger, creating the conglomerate, Wayne-Powers with Powers himself as the chief executive officer.  

Wayne-Powers would go on to branch into multiple fields, absorbing numerous smaller companies and making Powers incredibly wealthy and powerful.  

In his unhinged efforts to augment his wishes and influences, Powers began to focus on weapons manufacturing, specifically biological agents to be sold to overseas entities.  Herein, Powers had his scientists cultivate a deadly, mutagenic nerve toxin.  In order to test this toxin, Powers arranged for an employee to be infected, making it look like an accidental leak.

Dying from the infection, the employee managed to smuggle out information on what Powers was up to, passing it along to Warren McGinnis.  Powers was aware that McGinnis had this information and he had his agent murder McGinnis and stage the scene so that it appeared a random crime perpetrated by the street gang known as The Jokerz.  

Warren’s teenage son, Terry, looked into his father’s murder, an investigation that ultimately led him to Bruce Wayne and resulted in the youth taking on the mantle of the new Batman.  As Batman, Terry was able to break up Powers’ scheme and prevent the sale of the biological weapon.  In the ensuing fracas, Powers was exposed to a lethal dosage of the nerve toxin.

Powers was rushed into treatment and bombarded with mutagenic radiation in hopes of counteracting the toxin.  The process succeeded in saving Powers life yet left him gravely transformed.  He was changed into a living dynamo of radioactivity with translucent skin.   Somehow he was able to evade prosecution and remained the CEO of Wayne-Powers.  Yet his condition continued to worsen and his efforts to reverse it all failed.  He slowly descended into madness and the super villain known as Blight.

Continuing my Batman Beyond 25th anniversary celebrations, I take a look at one of his most prominent foes, the nuclear monstrosity Blight. We'll look at Derek Powers, how he was used in the show, and some of the comic books that inspired his creation.

#batman #batmanbeyond #blight #batmanbeyond25

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

0:50 The origins of Derek Powers

2:34 Blight's villainy

4:10 Ascension

6:05 Blight's comic book appearances

7:46 Summary

8:22 Self-promotion

8:59 Next Time

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