Marc Slayton was born in
Atlantis about three thousand years ago, the son of a human mother and Lord S'ylton, an enhanced Kherubim lord of the alien colony Atlantis. When his father sacrifices his life to imprison one-time allies the D'rahn, a race of hostile aliens whose attack leads to the sinking of Atlantis, young Marc is spirited away by Ferrian, his father's former advisor. Ferrian raises the child to adulthood, tutoring him in fighting skills for his protection. Once Marc is old enough to look after himself, Ferrian drops out of sight and leaves him to fend for himself. Marc spends the next three thousand years traveling around the world, living a life of adventure. He has only fragmented memories of his long life. At one point he is a ninja, at another he is a medieval knight. In World War II, he is recruited for a mission as an intelligence specialist for
Team Zero. No rank is seen until the 1960s when he is an
Air Force Colonel, working as part of the extraterrestrial threats squad
Team One. Later he joins
Team 7, a special ops unit which is deliberately exposed to a mutagenic chemical called the Gen-Factor. All of the members develop superhuman powers—in Marc's case some of these are the result of his alien heritage being fully activated. Team 7 finish their final mission and then go
AWOL, but Marc makes a deal with their boss, brokering his services (and those of
John Lynch and
Michael Cray) in return for the rest of the squad and their families being left alone.
Stormwatch Backlash is then assigned to join and spy on
StormWatch, the
U.N.'s crisis-intervention superteam. He works as the group's field leader and instructor until he loses several members of the first team (later dubbed Stormwatch Prime) during a mission in
Kuwait. After this tragedy he switches to being the full-time instructor. When a Daemonite called S'ryn puts Marc's girlfriend Major Diane LaSalle into a coma, he deserts StormWatch to track her down, breaking Cabal agent Taboo out of prison to help him on his quest. While he eventually catches his prey and revives Diane, he and Taboo become lovers, and both become fugitives. Subsequent to this, Marc discovers he had fathered twin children—a girl named Jodi Morinaka and a boy known only as Aries—by an old girlfriend from
Japan. He learns of Jodi when she tracks him down after her mother's death. Like her father, Jodi's alien genes give her superhuman powers, and she takes the identity of Crimson so she can adventure with him. Backlash and Taboo arrange a pardon for their crimes in return for working for the United States'
Department of Paranormal Science Investigations (PSI). Taboo's initial approach by the government results in a multi-super-powers fight throughout the house as several of the FBI agents lose their cool and employ violence. "Backlash" #21. In the same issue, Marc is dealing with emotions over Ares, he has recently learned not only that he has a son, but Ares is a cold-blooded, brain-washed assassin. Marc makes friends with the animal-faced adventurer
Dingo, who helps him out on more than one case. It is around this point Marc finally learns of his Kherubim ancestry—for reasons best known to himself, Ferrian had never told Marc. Marc is placed in charge of forming a team of superpowered operatives codenamed
Wildcore for Department PSI. Around this time Marc battles several of Dingo's associates, a race of animal-people that call themselves "
The Kindred".
Retirement In an issue of
WILDC.A.T.s, the long-lived Savant attempts to recruit Marc for a new version of the team. He turns her down. He works with Wildcore until most of this team are killed trying to stop a breakout at the Purgatory Max facility, as seen in the
Gen-Active series. Marc survives thanks to the assistance of former
DV8 member Evo who had been imprisoned for the murder of an
NYPD officer. Marc loses a leg, has it replaced with an artificial one and returns to duty. According to his daughter, Marc gives up the name "Backlash"; seeking, as she put it, to keep it in the family, Jodi uses it herself. Marc Slayton appears in
Sleeper as a plainclothes agent of Department PSI with the rank of Commander.
Re-emergence In a back-up story that ran through four different Wildstorm titles, Marc was featured in a story called "Slayton: Gauntlet" in which he must escape from the mutated experiments held within International Operations Research and Containment Facility #42 in New Mexico. Throughout the story, Slayton is required to use his powers in order to survive, revealing that he retains the ability to turn into mist, as well as use his psi-whips. At the conclusion of the arc, Marc laments not having his costume and plans to seek out some of his former Team 7 cohorts, indicating a possible return to his more active role in the Wildstorm universe.
Team 7 Returns In
Wild C.A.T.S issue 14, Lynch approaches the Wild C.A.T.S. with Team 7 in order to team up with them and face the god-like Tao, who is consolidating his power in hopes of reigning over the post-Armageddon world. While severely outmatched, the C.A.T.S. and Team 7 get assistance from Max Faraday, who downloaded God-like abilities from the internet and has saved scores of people in pocket universes that he's kept hidden from super heroes and villains alike. However, Tao wants Max's power, and lures him into battle, leaving Slayton and other Team 7 members to battle Tao's cronies. Slayton is seen leaping into battle and using his psi-whips to lift and incapacitate Blackwolf while Ladytron blasts him with a sonic beam from her mouth. ==Alternate version==