SCUZZ

Real name: Dennis Michael Cuzinski
Occupation: Terrorist
Identity: Scuzz's identity as a mutant and former terrorist is a secret.
Legal status: Citizen of the United States with no known criminal record.
Other aliases: Scorcher
Place of birth: Green Bay, Wisconsin
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: Michael Cuzinski (father), Shirley Cuzinski (mother, deceased)
Group affiliation: Formerly Mutant Liberation Front, currently member of the Brotherhood.
Base of operations: New York City
First appearance: September, 2000
History:

Scuzz gained his nickname before he got his powers. It was merely a play on his name, and he grew to prefer others call him that. His childhood was mostly unremarkable, living a comfortable life in Green Bay.

His mother died of cancer when Scuzz was thirteen, and his life started going downhill from there. His father wasn't prepared to handle the responsibility alone, and was consumed with slowly cultivating alcoholism. Instead, he pretty much let Scuzz do what he wanted, without much care or supervision. He'd give Scuzz a spanking when he talked back or did something too out of hand, but pretty much as long as it wasn't done in front of him, he didn't much care.

Scuzz started hanging with the wrong crowd, smoking (cigarettes, not clothing) getting drunk and listening to rock and roll music. The only sign of his mutant abilities at this point was that his clothes seemed to wear out faster than usual, which made his father angry because money was tight.

One morning while Scuzz was asleep, he awoke to find the bed smouldering beneath him and his father accusing him of smoking in bed. Scuzz claimed he wasn't, and the denial was enough to earn him a spanking, which was cut short as his father's hand seemed to be burning.

Over the next few weeks, Scuzz saw the effects slowly starting to intensify, and realized something was wrong with him. Not wanting to seek help and get doctors poking and prodding at him, especially with the hysteria over what happened at the Black Prom, he dropped out of school and started hitchhiking, covering the smoke from his clothes with cigarettes.

He wound up in New York, panhandled for a while and doing some light breaking and entering mainly to keep him in decent looking clothes. For a while, he lead a small group of street toughs. At age 19, only a few weeks before the Symposium revealed mutants to the world, the MLF found him, and he decided to join up with them.

Feeling himself an outcast from society, forever denied touching another person without hurting them, he has come to revel in his status as a mutant, and his place in the MLF. However, recently, after an solo attempt to attack Dr. Jean Grey and 'convince her' that mutants existed, unsanctioned by the MLF leadership, his status with the group has been somewhat shaky, and he's been kept out of some of their more recent operations.

He has since broken from the MLF entirely. He originally focused on trying to form a gang of mutants for petty crime rather than political motives, then pretty much went solo for a year, only occasionally interacting with mutants he considered friends.

In 2004, he was blindsided by a group of people looking to capture mutants alive, and use them to fuel a sacrifice for an occult ceremony. Because he would scuzz out tranquilizers too quickly, he was beaten severely to keep him unconscious. The Brotherhood and the X-Men together stopped the ceremony in the middle, and, although Scuzz has no memory of the event, the Brotherhood took him to one of their safehouses.

While recovering, Scuzz made the acquaintence of a Brotherhood member named Jill. She could temporarily disable and render herself immune to his powers by touch, through a foam she generated... this immediately drew Scuzz to her, even though she had very little interest in him. Through her, he was slowly drawn into the Brotherhood on minor matters, eventually both earning a little bit of trust of and gaining a little respect for Brotherhood leadership. Finally, trying to get on her good side, Scuzz took up full membership. She was beginning to become friendly with him, but still wasn't interested in anything romantic. Scuzz continued to hold out hope, as she was one of only a handful of people he met who he could touch without causing pain.

Sadly, she was killed by a group of nazi-inspired mutant haters. Her death led Scuzz to stick with the Brotherhood for the time being.

Height: 5'7" Weight: 140 lbs.
Eyes: Blue Hair: Strawberry Blond
Unusual physical characteristics: There is usually smoke coming from Scuzz's clothing, as though it is smouldering.
Strength level: Scuzz possesses the normal human strength of a man his age, height and build who engages in regular exercise.
Known superhuman powers: Scuzz's body exudes an unidentified corrosive chemical through his pores which acts similar to a molecular acid, causing materials that come in contact with it to deteriorate. All his bodily fluids carry traces of this substance, including his sweat, tears, saliva, blood, and liquid waste. The acid eats through a wide variety of materials, including skin, glass, wood, plastic, and metal. Generally, the denser the material, the longer it takes the chemical to dissolve it. Since this 'acid' evaporates about as quickly as sweat does, he usually requires extensive physical contact to disolve tougher materials.

Cuzinski can spit into his hands, mix the saliva with the sweat of his palms via a rolling motion, and produce a small globule of his chemical which can be thrown and, if at sufficient force, will detonate on impact (to a minor degree).

He has some degree of control over his body's production of this; he can never halt the production completely, but he can accelerate it by working himself into an excited high-adrenaline state. In this state, which he calls his "Scorcher mode", his entire body turns red as though he has sunburn, and he can throw his "scuzz-balls" simply by flicking extra moisture from his hands. He can only maintain this state for about three minutes, and it takes about one half hour before Cuzinski's body regains its normal level of corrosive manufacture.

Normally, Cuzinski's clothing lasts about 24 hours of wear before he has completely disintegrated it. In "Scorcher" mode, it lasts about two minutes.
Other abilities: Scuzz knows how to ride a motorcycle.
Weapons and paraphernalia: Scuzz has any paraphernalia that the Brotherhood chooses to provide.
Other notes: Scuzz used to be an NPC, then was apped. He was originally from the comic "DP7" from Marvel's short-lived New Universe.