Destructor

Real Name: Jay Hunter

Identity/Class: Human mutate

Occupation: former drug dealer

Affiliations: None

Enemies: The Mafia, Slaymaster, Deathgrip, Huntress

Known Relatives: Simon (father)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unknown

First Appearance: The Destructor #1 (Atlas Comics, February 1975)

Powers/Abilities: Superhuman strength and agility. Later he gained the ability to fire energy blasts too.

History: Jay Hunter was a low-level drug dealer whose research scientist father Simon was trying to get to go clean. An error on the son's part brings the wrath of Max Raven, his employer, down upon both father and son. Riddled with bullets, the father manages to dose his son with his project before expiring himself. The son rapidly regenerates and discovers all his physical abilities enhanced to superhuman levels; turning over a new leaf to honour his father's self-sacrifice, he dons the identity of the Destructor and begins cutting a swath through the Mafia, running a gauntlet of superpowered hitmen like Slaymaster, Deathgrip and the Huntress.

Later on, during an adventure in New Mexico, the Destructor encountered a hidden community of mutants in some caverns. When an underground nuclear test was carried out nearby (roughly ten miles away) the radiation flooded the cavern, interacting with his father's chemical in the hero's bloodstream, giving him the ability to fire energy bolts.

Comments: Mike Murphy provides the following details about this character: "The most fondly remembered (and most collected) Atlas title, the Destructor was ably handled by the team of Archie Goodwin, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood for the first three issues (although Wood sadly did not stay beyond #2).

Although planned as the Atlas answer to Spider-Man, Goodwin came up with a new twist on the grief-stricken origin stereotype (as exemplified by both Spidey and Batman). Sadly, Goodwin was replaced by Gerry Conway with issue #4 and we were treated with some nonsense of the Destructor running around subterranean caverns, fighting a lost race of ancient hobos, and mutating further (energy blasts, etc.). Not Conway's best work by any measure. A bad end to a good book."

CLARIFICATIONS: None.

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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