Origin

A high school student from Atlanta, Georgia; Kevin's powers first came to light when he noticed that things simply began dying around him. His father, after coming home and seeing his distraught son, attempted to calm him down only to be affected as well by Kevin's mutation until his eventual death.

Danielle Moonstar, while out looking for students to bring into Xavier's institute for higher learning, came across Kevin being harassed by men in a local junkyard as they bore witness to his mutation in action. After protecting Kevin and subsequently convincing him to enter Xavier's Institute, where he met and had developed a crush on fellow mutant and classmate, Laurie Collins. In an attack against Laurie initiated by the cyborg known as Donald Pierce which resulting in impaling Laurie, Kevin lost control of his anger and lashed out at Pierce, decaying the skin off the face. Kevin’s attack was interrupted by Danielle Moonstar, who was forced to stop Kevin by revealing his worst fear, Killing Laurie. After the situation, Kevin had realized that he had felt comfortable using his power, which scared him into leaving the institute. A few months later Danielle Moon brought him back to the institute with the help of Emma Frost. He has since joined up with the second incarnation of the New Mutants using the codename Wither

During the confusion of M day, when he saw that other mutants had lost their powers, he assumed that he had lost his too and reached out to Wallflower, but when he touched her arm he was devastated to see that not only had he not lost his powers, but he had just caused Wallflower's arm to 'wither'. Sadly no one was able to heal Wallflower's arm, not even Elixir, as Wither had held it for too long, there was nothing left to heal. Overcome with remorse, and after overhearing a conversation Mercury and Hellion were having regarding the incident with Wallflower, and how Hellion didn't know how to deal with him, Wither decided to flee the institute and ran to hide out in 'Mutant Town' (or what was left of it after M Day). There he stayed with a seemingly weak, elderly woman in a run-down apartment, but this woman turned out to be Selene (aka The Black Queen) in disguise. In her disguise she told Kevin to embrace his power, as he was still resentful of his power after what he had done to Wallflower. Eventually Wither did use his powers again, to kill two out of four policemen that raided the apartment to capture the old woman as she was connected to other deaths that were occurring in the region, the old woman touched the two policeman that tried to apprehend her, causing them to wither away instantly just like what happens when Wither touches someone, the other two policeman shot the old woman, which enraged Wither, forcing him to use his death touch on them. After the two remaining policemen had died, Selene revealed herself to Wither, telling him that she would be 'his queen' if he just said yes, to which he replied 'yes'.

He has recently become Selene's new apprentice.

Powers

Withers powers include the ability to disintegrate any organic matter through skin contact, requiring him to dress in synthetic fiber lest he cause unwanted harm. He is unable to 'turn off' his powers, much like Rogue.

Alternate Realities

Earth-58163
House of M - Wither made a brief appearance in 'The House of M: Academy X' in which he worked for S.H.I.E.L.D as an interrogator/torturer. He was able to use his powers with Elixir to create a very painful interrogation method where they would both touch the same person and cancel each other’s powers out, however this process involved apart of the torture victim to die via Wither's death touch and get brought back to life via Elixir's healing abilities before it dies completely, which is said to be a very painful experience to undergo.

They used this technique to try and acquire information from a human terrorist who earlier that day was a part of a group of human terrorists who tried to blow up the New Mutants Institute by strapping bombs to their bodies and blowing themselves up when they got close enough to the mutants and their institute. The suicide bombers were foiled by the Hellions who also worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Surge saw the torture in process and put an end to it, when Wither tried to stop Surge by touching her while Elixir was already forcing blood to go into her lungs with his powers, Surge was able to electrocute Wither. He did not die, but he was knocked out by the attack, for an undisclosed amount of time.