Woodsmoke

Name: Woody Woodward
Age: 24
Sex: Male
Height: 8'0" (without spikes)
Weight: 450 lbs.
Eye Color: Fire
Hair Color: Fire
Powers:
Flesh made of a hard organic substance
similar to tree bark that can be rapidly
regenerated & splintered into sharp fragments
that can be used as weapons or projectiles
Powers are fueled by internally-generated
flames, which he can also use offensively
Increased strength and durability as a side-
effect of his massive size and mutated
physiological structure

Born to alcoholic, narcissistic parents who blamed him for their misery, Woody Woodward started life on very rough terms. It hardened him at an early age. When he started going to school, Woody discovered that the other kids were easily intimidated, and that he could take advantage of that. He quickly slipped into the role of being the school bully, and over the years he got very good at playing that role. His desire to be the alpha at school stemmed from a deep-rooted need for attention that his parents failed to ever provide.

As time passed by and Woody entered his teenage years, his cruelty towards others and destructive behavior began to escalate. Starting fires, instigating (and winning) vicious brawls, selling drugs to other students… nothing was really off limits when it came to his troublemaking. Schools began expelling him, and it forcing his family to relocate multiple times in search of a school that would take on his unrelenting chaos. Young Woody was slowly pushing his family towards financial ruin with every move they made.

One night when he was still an early teen, Woody was stuck at home with his parents after a very poorly-timed expulsion. Woody's drunken father decided that he’d had enough of the stress his son put him through. He confronted Woody, and the two exchanged blows. Woody, who was only a kid at the time, was not prepared for the altercation. Battered & angry, he vowed to get revenge against his father… and later that night, he did.



When his parents went to sleep, he snuck a canister of gasoline from the garage into his bedroom, poured it all around, and then set the room ablaze. Always drawn to the uncontrollable chaos of flame, Woody lingered in his bedroom a moment and admired the way the swallowed everything it touched. His parents were in the room above, unaware of the fire growing beneath them thanks to him thinking ahead and removing the smoke detectors in the house. Woody briefly wondered if he might be making a mistake, but he didn’t have time to think too deeply about it before the structure of the room collapsed and buried him in the fiery rubble.

It should have killed him, but instead his body went into survival mode and a mutant gene was activated within his DNA. With intense agony, his body transformed. His flesh became hard, almost like tree bark. The flames that surrounded him no longer hurt him; instead, his body seemed to consume it. He could feel the warmth of it energizing him. He grew to a massive size, and became strong enough to pull himself out of the wreckage that was once his home. There was no time to look for his parents’ bodies before he heard sirens heading his direction, so he fled and never went back.



Unsurprisingly, the on-the-run lifestyle came to Woody very naturally. He was glad to be rid of his family, and it turned out that being a hideous flaming tree monster made it pretty easy to intimidate people. His mutation even gave him the power to back him his bark with a remarkably vicious bite, which to him meant that his favorite hobby, bullying people, got a major upgrade. He bullied his way around the country as an "independent contractor" for street criminals who needed extra muscle here and there, and anyone who got in his way met the same fate as his parents. It wasn't a glamorous life, but he was making a name for himself and he was proud of it.

Eventually, Woody found a cool gig working as security for the infamous Hellion musician Judas. Judas and his high-profile connections helped elevate Woody from a petty criminal to a globally-feared supervillain in his own right. Although he continues to work security for Judas, Woody has also been working as a prominent member of the Sinister Squad, and he has become a well-recognized player in the Rogue Isles and Paragon City through various murders, terrorist incidents, & robberies that have put him at the center of media frenzy on more than one occasion.



Sinister Squad
Judas
Mirage



Woodsmoke Goes to the Dentist



"HEAT" by BROCKHAMPTON
"The Fever (Aye Aye)" by Death Grips
"Dangerous" by Big Data
"Campfire" by Aminé
"Jump Off The Roof" by Vince Staples