Wither
Wither is a comic book character that first appeared in New Mutants #3
Wither is a mutant with the ability to break down organic matter just by touching it.
History
Trying to Kill Pierce
Origin
A high school student from Atlanta, Georgia, Kevin Ford developed his mutant powers at an unfortunate and unlucky time. Kevin's powers first came to light when he noticed that things simply began dying around him and his clothes began to decay. 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. Since his mutant powers manifested, he has considered himself cursed. A talented artist, Kevin lived in a scrap yard for a while (after killing the guard dog with his touch) and turned unwanted scrap into beautiful art.New Mutants
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; she was stabbed through the chest, mortally wounded. Kevin lost control of his anger and lashed out at Pierce in an attempt to kill him, decaying the skin off his metallic face in the process.
Kevin’s attack was interrupted by Danielle Moonstar, who was forced to stop Kevin by revealing his worst fear, Killing Laurie. She was only saved when Josh Foley, one of the Reavers who had just discovered he was a mutant, healed her (she quickly developed a crush on him). After the situation, Kevin had realized that he had felt comfortable using his power, which scared him into leaving the institute.
New X-Men: Academy X
A few months later Danielle Moon brought him back to the institute with the help of Emma Frost in order to fill the sixth place on the formalized New Mutants squad. While Kevin was still angry at Dani, Emma managed to persuade him to return, and he joined the New Mutants squad under the codename Wither. Clashing with Elixir, the current object of Laurie's affections who he'd last seen as one of Pierce's Reavers, Mercury (the only person he could touch without killing) reached out to him, having developed a crush on him. Shortly after he returned to the school, he was arrested by the FBI for killing his father.
While the Hellions tried to "rescue" him (Mercury coming in through a window to let him know), the New Mutants tried to stop them - fearing the consequences of involving the Institute in a fight with the FBI - until the X-Men arrived and ended the fight, taking them all back to the Institute before they were discovered. Kevin however saw this as the final straw (having first been turned over to the FBI by Dani), and he swapped squads with Icarus to become a Hellion.
During Kevin's time at the Institute, he discovered the White Queen's diamond form is impervious to his powers, in the process revealing that Emma Frost's diamond form is derived from inorganic carbon. He discovered Elixir's former relationship with Wolfsbane and revealed it to the school, successfully ending Josh's relationship with Laurie.
M-Day
M-Day
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). 
Selene
Alone in Mutant Town
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.
X-Force
As Selene's new apprentice, Wither has been by her side ever since. But then a former apprentice, Eli Bard, returned and brought with him a key for Selene's ascension. He also saw the resurrection of Caliban and Destiny.
Necrosha
As Selene's plan for ascension moves, she desisted to form her own inner circle. Wither was among them along with Blink, Mortis, Eli Bard and Senyaka. He travelled with her and Eli Bard to Genosha to start its resurrection. What his exact role in Selene's plan is still unknown. He has however retained his feelings for her and is very protective of both her and her plan. Powers
Wither has also mentioned that his powers have an almost hunger of their own, driving him to crave touching organic matter. His power is even more difficult to deal with due to the fact that it wants Kevin to use it. It has a "hunger", which gives Kevin a desire to use it. When he feels this "hunger" he perceives organic matter as if it were decayed
Alternate Realities
House of M
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.
X-Men: The End
Wither saves Cargill from a Warskrull posing as Genesis. After he kills the Warskrull he hopes Dani can forgive him for using his powers to kill.
| Super Name: | Wither |
| Real Name: | Kevin Ford |
| Aliases: | Kevin Ford |
| Publisher: | Marvel Publishing |
| Gender: | Male |
| Character Type: | Mutant |
| 1st Appearance: | New Mutants #3 |
| Appears in: | 39 issues |
| Birthday: | |
| Died: |
