POWERHOUSE

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Human mutant

Occupation: Professional criminal, human-hater/militant extremist

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Masterblaster

Enemies: Beast (Hank McCoy), humans everywhere, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Warbird (Carol Danvers), Wolverine (James "Logan" Howlett)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Manhattan, New York

First Appearance: Spider-Man I#15 (October, 1991)

Powers/Abilities: Powerhouse has the ability to drain energy off of other living things to increase her own power. She can absorb energy through contact with a victim, even brief contact like a punch. She has demonstrated the ability to fly, shoot destructive energy blasts, and super human strength to an unknown degree (see comments). However, it is unknown if she has any of these powers unless she has absorbed sufficient amounts of energy or whether they are independent within her. It is also unknown if she requires this energy to survive and if so, how often she needs to feed.

History: BTS- At some point, under uncertain circumstances, Powerhouse developed mutant powers and a strong hatred for humanity.

(Spider-Man I#15) - The Beast was giving a lecture at ESU on genetics and Powerhouse decided to show up and send her anti-human message there. Simultaneously, a mutant hater called Masterblaster decided to make his presence and opinions felt at the same lecture. Though it is unclear whether one of them influenced the other's actions at the lecture, Masterblaster came to attack Beast, and Powerhouse attacked humans there and the Beast came to their aid and fought Powerhouse. They fought back and forth, with Powerhouse having the upper hand until Spider-Man showed up. While Spider-Man kept Powerhouse busy, Beast knocked out Masterblaster and the two proceeded to team up on Powerhouse, and defeated her, knocking her out. She was presumably taken into police custody.

(Wolverine II#133) - Wolverine and Warbird saw a news report of Powerhouse attacking the area around the U.N. building, where an international debate on human-mutant relations was to happen. She was attacking everything in sight as a symbol of the way humans' attitude towards mutants was. Before long, Wolverine and Warbird joined the fight, and Wolverine was flown into the air and landed on top of Powerhouse so they could fight. However, Powerhouse started draining Wolverine's energy and Warbird was doing more harm then good because she was drunk and being very reckless with her energy blasts. Eventually, Powerhouse knocked out Warbird. Without the drunk Warbird to get in his way, Wolverine managed to defeat Powerhouse.

(Spider-Man Unlimited II#4) - Powerhouse joined with Masterblaster in robbing a local bank, but were interrupted by Spider-Man, who defeated the duo. One of the men present at the bank at the time of the hold-up became infatuated with Powerhouse, and subsequently visited her in prison, which he intended to continue to do every two weeks for the next seven years, as she served her sentence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments: Created by Erik Larsen

She may not have had very enhanced strength at all. While she definitely had at least slightly enhanced strength after draining energy from an opponent, it might be that the only reason she seemed so strong when hitting Spider-Man and Beast etc. was because she was absorbing their energy and weakening them by her touch, not by her blows. The energy she absorbs might go solely to her energy blasts and flight. However  Beast did go flying after a hard blow from her, so her strength was probably class one or two, but was taken down by a single well placed blow from Spider-Man so was probably way below his class 10 strength.
--I'd guess her strength varies with the amount of power she has absorbed--Snood.

Both of her appearances were Erik Larsen stories. Nobody else has ever used her. If my dream of writing for Marvel works out, I'll bring her back, along with a ton of other characters at this site that haven't been seen since before I was born (which was a relatively short time ago, mind you. 16 years at the time of the publication of this profile).

Powerhouse first appeared in a drawing by Erik Larsen which appeared in Comic Shop News #129, December 13, 1989. She is seen battling the original X-Factor team in the illustration. Larsen evidently had her on his mind for some time. --Prime Eternal
She also has at least passing similarities to Rapture, the former girlfriend of Larsen's Savage Dragon--Snood.

Big thanks to www.wolverine.x-knights.com for the info from Wolverine II #133.

Thanks to MarvellousLuke for the main image from the alternate cover of Wolverine II#133.

PROFILE BY STUNNER

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with:

  • Powerhouse (Rieg Davan) - Xandarian, champions of Xandar --Nova I#2 
  • Powerhouse (Alex Power) - Formerly Zero G of the Power Pack, member of New Warriors --Power Pack I #1
  • Powerhouse -- the extra dimensional storage place of fabric of the universe --Dark Angel #13
  • Powerhouse of Earth-UV (Kenneth A. Sinclair) - Ultra, in insane asylum for 55 years  --Strangers #14
  • Any of the other near countless "power" characters

images: (without ads)
Wolverine II#133, variant cover (main image)
Spider-Man I#15, p8, pan1 (superhuman strength)
Spider-Man I#15, p7, pan1 (energy blasts)
Comic Shop News#129, page 4-5 (promo art)


Appearances:
Spider-Man I#15 (October, 1991) - Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Danny Fingeroth (editor)
Wolverine II#133 (January, 1999) - Erik Larsen (writer), Jeff Matsuda (pencils), Jonathan Sibal (inks), Mark Powers (editor)
Spider-Man Unlimited II#4 (September, 2004) - Robert Kirkman (writer), Cory Walker (pencils), Scott Hanna (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)


First Posted: 01/25/2004
Last updated: 05/25/2015

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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