Hazard (Marvel Comics)

Hazard (Carter Alexander Ryking) is a fictional mutant character in the Marvel Comics Universe. His first appearance was in X-Men vol. 2 #12.

Fictional character biography

Carter Ryking's father worked at the Alamogordo Nuclear Research facility alongside Brian Xavier and Kurt Marko. When Carter's mutant powers first manifested themselves, his father placed him under heavy sedation because the power was uncontrollable. Unfortunately, no measures to cure or assist Carter worked, and he spent most of his life under tranquilizers. It is later revealed that he and Charles Xavier were experimented on by Dr. Milbury who injected them with a substance.^[1]

However, when Carter saw a news report of his father's death, he went berserk and lashed out with his powers. Although he was successfully brought under control, that night he dreamt of an earlier sedation at his father's own orders, a nightmare that woke him with tremendous energies cascading around him. He was so out of control that when the medical team tried to stun him with tasers, which had always worked on him before, Ryking shrugged off the tasers' charge and used the taser wires now connected to him to route his plasma charge back to the med staff, frying them to the bone.

Wearing a battle-suit that incorporated the taser wires at his father's funeral, Carter, now calling himself Hazard, attacked his father's funeral and taunted Professor Charles Xavier, whom he had known as a child. Xavier had come because Hazard's father had worked with his own father, and because a folder of files that had recently come into his possession intimated that the research at Almagordo was not what it appeared to be.

Hazard revealed that he sent Xavier the file, and then kidnapped Xavier and took him to Almagordo to reveal its secrets to him. Hazard implied to Xavier that Almagordo's purpose was mutant research, not nuclear research, and intimated that he, and presumably Xavier, were purposely mutated. The X-Men arrived to free Xavier and in the battle, Hazard unleashed a blast that destroyed the facility. Ryking was captured and returned to his father's clinic.

Hazard was later contacted by the woman known as Fontanelle through his dreams. Fontanelle was gathering information about Gambit for her employer, the New Son, but the nature of the link between Hazard and Gambit is unknown. Hazard lost his mutant powers after the M-Day.^[2]

Ryking was later seen as a patient at the Ryking Secure Psychiatric Facility. While there, Carter receives a visit from Charles Xavier, who had lost portions of his memory after being shot in the head by Bishop. The staff at the facility informs Xavier that since his depowerment, Carter has become more mentally unstable. Carter helps Xavier recover a part of his memory by allowing him to read memories of when they were children. After helping Charles, Carter predicts that his death is close, and he reveals that he has been counting down towards it. Later, while the staff attempts to sedate him, Carter mutters the words "One. One. One. Zer--" and promptly dies.^[1]

It is revealed that Mister Sinister, posing as Milbury, had implanted his own DNA into Carter and Xavier (along with Juggernaut and Sebastian Shaw) so that upon his death the machine would trigger the implants, turning one of them into Sinister. Because he had lost his powers, Carter died.

Powers and abilities

Before being depowered, Hazard could generate explosive surges of super-heated plasma through his body. He also possessed a cyber-suit that could channel his power through retractable metallic wires on his wrists and through boot rockets that granted him flight.

Bibliography

• X-Men vol. 2 #12-13

References