PATCHWORK

 

PATCHWORK

Real Name: Kyle Barker

First Appearance: Doc Samson (Vol. 1) #1, January 1996

Powers: Kyle Barker was a student at Empire State University where he worked as an imaging intern on a magazine looking to photograph the perfect woman. An accidental exposure to a gamma particle accelerator transformed him into a monstrous demonic creature calling himself ‘Patchwork’. Like other gamma-mutated humans before him, Barker had some unknown genetic factor in his body that saved him from being killed by a great dose of gamma radiation. Instead, the radiation had an immediate mutagenic effect upon him.

Patchwork has a troll-like appearance, complete with razor sharp teeth and claws. He possesses a baseline Class 70 strength, superhuman stamina, and was virtually impervious to physical impact, injury, temperature and radiation extremes, etc. He could generate shockwaves by clapping his hands together and leap over a mile with his powerful leg muscles. If injured in some way, Patchwork also has a healing factor that rapidly restored his body. Patchwork has the added ability to siphon gamma ray energy, and if he comes into contact with a gamma powered individual, Patchwork can drain them of their strength and power and add it to his own.

It's also noteworthy to mention that in comparing the mutated forms of gamma-irradiated subjects such as the Hulk, the Abomination, Doc Samson, the She-Hulk, Patchwork, and the Leader, different frequencies of gamma radiation affect different human beings in different ways. The effect that intensive gamma radiation has on most people is cellular deterioration and eventual death, but there are others whose genetic constitution enables them to mutate so as to gain superhuman powers. The type and extent of mutation is determined by four factors: The frequency of the gamma rays, the amount of the gamma rays, the subject's latent potential for mutation, and the subject's psychological make-up. The subject's potential for mutation is dictated by certain mysterious "interstitial" segments of DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid), the molecules which carry a living organism's genetic code. Under the action of mutagenic influences, such as gamma rays, the segments can trigger many body wide restructuring events. As for the subject's psychological make-up, it has been theorized that the gamma radiation somehow acts to mold the subject's mutated form according to repressed desires within his subconscious.

In Kyle Barker's case, his gamma mutated form is the physical embodiment of his own self-loathing stemming from an abusive childhood and repressed feelings about how women perceive him.