Contributed by Mike McDermott
Marcus Roston used to be a member of the L.A. based superhuman crime syndicate known as The Pride, but he was kicked out for being insane. After he implied threats against Chase Stein, a child of one of The Pride’s families, they had Roston exiled to Europe. Chase only knew him as “Crazy Uncle Eli” — what Roston’s true name is and whether he is actually a family member of the Steins is unclear.
After The Pride were killed, Roston returned to Los Angeles in his new identity and became an influential movie star. He also became a drug dealer, providing his Heat pills to the Hollywood elite at his exclusive parties. It was at one of those parties where Roston first encountered Daken Akihiro, the villainous son of Wolverine. Daken crashed the party, looking to rapidly make a name for himself in the L.A. crime scene. He tried the Heat pills and was both shocked and intrigued to find that they could disable his healing factor, which led to him losing a fight to Roston’s security guards.
After regaining consciousness Daken initiated a sexual relationship with Marcus, who was closeted for the sake of his movie career. Marcus became both Daken’s lover and his drug dealer, and while it originally appeared that Marcus was Daken’s patsy it turned out that Marcus was a psychopath who was secretly manipulating him all along.
Marcus began murdering various young actors of both genders as the “Claws Killer”, and framed Daken for the crimes between using his powers to mimic Daken’s appearance, and committing the murders during periods that Daken was blacked out from his Heat use. FBI Agent Donna Kiel originally believed Daken to be the Claws Killer, but realized her mistake and on further investigation deduced it was Roston. When she attempted to confront him, Marcus forced her to consume Heat pills as well, turning her into another one of his controlled addicts.
Marcus grew bored with his games and revealed his powers to the world with a violent rampage in the streets of L.A. He was finally defeated by the combined efforts of Daken, Donna Kiel, and The Pride’s super-powered teenage kids, known as the Runaways. Marcus expected Daken to kill him, but instead Daken left him alive to live with the knowledge that Daken had defeated him with the help of a drug addict and a group of kids.
Roston’s wide range of powers include superhuman strength and durability; he was shown to be bulletproof. He can also fly and move at superhuman speed. He can become invisible. He may also be able to project energy discharges – he appeared to fire a blast of energy from his hands once, and his eyes were often seen glowing with energy.
He possesses a limited degree of telepathy – the exact limits of which are unknown. He can read thoughts and project his telepathic voice into others heads, but he can’t control someone unless they are under the influence of his Heat drug.
He also has the ability to mimic the appearance of other people. The precise nature of this ability is unclear – security camera footage of him when he was posing as Daken only showed a blurry distorted image, rather the duplicate of Daken that he appeared as to people who saw him in person.
Marcus Roston first appeared in Daken: Dark Wolverine #10 (2011) by Rob Williams and Matteo Buffagni and Riley Rossmo.
All rights reserved Marvel Entertainment