Cutthroat (comics)

Cutthroat (Daniel "Danny" Leighton) is a comic book character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #89. He is the brother of Diamondback.

Fictional character biography

Danny Leighton was born in Austin, Texas. He was a member of the Savage Crims, a New York street gang, as a young man.^[1] He later became an assassin and was (as his first high-profile job) hired by Amos Jardine to kill Spider-Man, in place of the mad killer Arcade. Cutthroat battled Nightcrawler, who had gotten wind of the plan, and Spider-Man, and they defeated him with some secret assistance from Arcade himself.^[2]

Many years later, he defeated Mangler and Deathstrike in a fight to the death to become the Red Skull's new chief operative, replacing Crossbones.^[3] He underwent training by the Taskmaster.^[4] He tried to persuade Blackwing and Jack O'Lantern to help him free Mother Night from the police.^[5] He initiated a brief affair with Mother Night.^[6] With the Skeleton Crew, he battled Crossbones and Diamondback. He realized that Diamondback was his sister, Rachel,^[7] and revealed his true identity to her.^[8]

When Crossbones returned, Cutthroat feared he would be made redundant and so planned to kill Crossbones in his sleep. However, Mother Night alerted Crossbones to the plan, and so Crossbones was waiting for the "ambush" and slit Cutthroat's throat and he was seemingly killed.^[9] The Red Skull even inspected the apparent corpse.^[10] However, unknown circumstances show that he is alive and was an inmate in the Raft where he escaped with a lot of other convicts.^[11] He was later recaptured.

The Hood has hired him as part of his criminal organization to take advantage of the split in the superhero community caused by the Superhuman Registration Act. He helped them fight the New Avengers but was defeated by Doctor Strange.

As part of the Hood's gang, he later joins the fight against the Skrull invading force in New York City.^[12] He joins with the Hood's gang in an attack on the New Avengers, who were expecting the Dark Avengers instead.^[13]

Powers and abilities

Cutthroat is a master at various forms of unarmed combat, having received special combat training from the Taskmaster. He is also highly skilled in throwing bladed weapons.

Cutthroat also wears lightweight body armor, and uses a sword and adamantium-edged knives. He carries a gun that fires rockets that explode on contact; upon exploding, some rockets trigger a "sonic screamer" that induces pain in nearby victims. He also uses darts which release blinding magnesium flares on impact.

References