·
Name: Matthew Callahan
· First appearance: Gen13 (miniseries) #1
· Family: Nicole (sister), Rachel (mother, deceased), Stephen (father, deceased), Sarah Rainmaker of Gen13 (half-sister)
· Profile: For a long time, the government has been
conducting experiments on human beings to get an army of super
soldiers. The twelfth iteration, called Gen12, was a result of Miles
Craven's jealousy toward the Stormwatch project and his desire to
control his own team of SPBs (Super-Powered Beings.) Craven took Team
7, I.O.s super-secret fighting force drawn from the best the U.S.
military had to offer, and deliberately exposed them to the
Gen-Factor virus. This disbolical experiment produced bona fide
psychic powers, but also made most of the subjects mentally unstable.
A new improvement was tried, this time using the children of Gen12,
under the belief that they would be easier to mutate, since they
already had mutated genes. Not all the members of Gen12 were willing
to give their sons and daughters to such manipulations. That was the
case with Team 7 member Stephen Callahan, who tried to escape in 1979
with his wife and his two children. He failed, and he and his wife
were killed before their children's eyes. Fifteen years later, both
Nicole and her older brother Matthew, were the most valuable pawns of
the Genesis Project within I.O. (International Operations).
Matthew, who had to take care of his sister (who is quite unstable) and train his body and powers, turned out to be a quite serious and reserved man, concerned abut his work and powers. He's a talented and deadly student of martial arts, in addition to possessing enormous psychic potential. However, he lets his anger control his acts, being quite dangerous even to his allies. He's known to inhale some kind of drugs that he calls his medicine; it is still unrevealed what could happen if he stopped consuming it. Although I.O. thought that Threshold was to be a good and disciplined soldier, he had his own plans: he was trying to join all the genetically enhanced youngsters involved in the project to rule the world. Then, Craven and Ivana began to recruit personnel for the Gen13 project, but a small group composed of Caitlin Fairchild, Roxanne Spaulding, Percival Chang, Sarah Rainmaker and Bobby Lane escaped after having their potentials triggered. Threshold, in disguise, joined them in their escape, which was planned by him to have Grunge and Roxy's powers triggered or kill them, whichever occurred first. He also tried to make them bloodthirsty, turning their powers against their pursuers and killing them. After that, he exhorted the group to return to I.O. and destroy them all before they had the chance to destroy the kids themselves. They all agreed, except for Caitlin, who didn't like the excess of violence that Threshold had shown till then. Thinking that Caitlin didn't have the guts to do anything herself, he left her behind and pushed the rest into a trap, torturing Grunge, who still hadn't shown any trace of powers. Caitlin somehow got a glimpse of Freefall's thoughts and came back to help them, but Threshold at last revealed his true colours and defeated easily the strongest members of the gang, for in addition to his abilities, he was able see their next movements by reading their minds. When everything seemed lost, Sarah captured Bliss, his sister, and ordered him to stop or she would kill her. Threshold then, quite reluctantly, gave up, taking Bliss and flying away, not without promising first to come back for revenge. Since then, Threshold had aided Ivana Baiul in the formation, training, and control of the group known as DV8. It has recently been revealed, for all of Matthew's boasting about control, that he has become an unwitting slave to Ivana, controlled by her ample charms and mind-numbing drugs.
