TERROR, INC

 

TERROR, INC

Real Name: Unknown, possibly Shreck

First Appearance: St. George #2, August, 1988

Powers: Terror, Inc was born a Shadow, like all super-beings from Earth-88194. Shadows are a highly diverse race that developed alongside humanity. Shadows could be human or inhuman in appearance. They often had superhuman abilities and had immortal lifespans. A Shadow would live forever and youthful until they chose to mate and have children. Once a Shadow conceived progeny, they would age naturally and die a mortal death. As a result, the Shadow population was always substantially less than humanity.

However, Terror was cursed by a demon called the Mare, and wasn't born with his attributes. He is a patchwork entity whose soul is afflicted with the Mare's Curse. His body suffers continuous rot and decay, but he can survive by replacing his damaged or decaying body parts with fresh ones from corpses or the still-living. Although animated by his curse, Terror's pilfered body parts are still dead and continue to decay on their own, forcing him to regularly replace every part of himself. Terror produces a molecular acid on contact that allows him to cleanly (if gruesomely) relieve people of their body parts. The acid is mentally controlled to some degree: By grabbing someone by their wrist, Terror can make the acid attack the shoulder, letting him pull an entire arm free from his victim. The acid then acts like a coagulant, letting Terror affix the severed limb to his own body, incorporating it into his unique nervous system. Although he frequently swaps out limbs, vital organs, and sensory organs, every aspect of Terror's body is modular and disposable. Terror can even briefly disguise himself as someone else by cleanly removing their head and placing it on his shoulders as a replacement. He can be dismembered, melted to ooze by acid, and flushed down separate toilets...and still survive. His essence supernaturally latched on to a passing frog, then a cat, and finally reaching a human body he could assimilate to regain his full stature.

Terror can also acquire skills and information through a combination of psychometry and kinetic memory from the body parts he steals. With an eye and an ear, he can relive the memories of his victims, seeing and hearing anything they did. In the past he has called upon a sniper's eye, a safecracker's ears, a dancer's legs, a martial artist's limbs, etc. He even acquired the time-displaced severed arm of Wolverine once through a paradox or two, giving him Adamantium claws on one hand. Much like Rogue, however, Terror also acquires the personal memories and intimate sensory impressions of his pieces, and maintains a strict business-like personality to help focus and regulate his feelings.

For most of his history, Terror used a left arm encased in metal and enchanted by magic so that it would never decompose like the rest of him. This was the arm of his one true love who died alongside him in battle, and begged him to take her parts so that he would survive. With this arm, a portion of that love was with him always, and it acted as a touchstone to maintain his sense of self. Due to their centuries together, much of Terror's soul and his curse have migrated into the arm permanently. If separated from the arm, Terror will still survive, but his body parts will decompose faster and his mind will be more vulnerable to the influence of his parts.