Phase

History
Michael Maloney was born in Boone, NC. His father, Matthew was a professor at Appalachian State University. His mother was a homemaker. Michael himself liked to do things with his hands growing up and learned how to take care of the family car early on in life. Much to the disappointment of his father he didn't choose to attend a university, instead choosing to attend trade school. He attended school to learn more about mechanics and then later attended trucking school. Being able to drive and fix his own truck was an asset to many employers and he found a new job driving for a firm out of southern Georgia. He moved there and started making routine runs to the west coast, great lakes and northeast. Pay was good. In his spare time he learned to fly and work on planes. He met his wife Miranda and married, they have three kids, Malcolm, Moesha, and  Matilda.

LIfe seemed good for Michael, things were going well. HIs kids were starting to enter school when his employer came to him with an opportunity. It didn't require much a blood test and the possibility of joining a pilot program if successful. They promised that if all went well he could make easily two to three times what he was making. Well looking at eventually paying for three kids to go to school and at least two weddings he decided for his family he'd do it. They took the sample and it came back positive. He wasn't positive what it was for at the time but it was that he was a mutant. His powers though were dormant and thus the need for a jump start. He reported to the lab and it was successful. With the help of the scientists he was able to manipulate his density.

They gave him training in his new abilities, the increase in pay came fairly quickly and things looked up. They offered to let him stay near his home and provide security with his new powers at the truck terminal, and well who wouldn't want to spend more time at home. Things went well for a couple years, he increased in the ability to use his power. The family was able to afford jetskis and snowmobiles and even had a share of a private plane. Then one day while at work he found out the truth. The Champions attacked, the truck terminal transformed from seemingly normal to a fortified VIPER base, he was working for VIPER. There was a bit of shock as it set in. Defender entangled him while he was wondering what to do, Mike became intangible and walked through the entangle. He saw VIPER agents appear and begin to attack the Champions. He saw his boss appear as a VIPER commander "Don't just stand there, take em out" he commanded. Mike wasn't real sure about this, he decided ultimately that it was better to surrender for his family. After all he really had no idea he'd been working for VIPER for years. He hoped the judge would go easy on him.

The judge was about to throw the book at Mike when Defender appeared and gave testimony of how Mike had willingly surrendered, had not fought the Champions or the police and seemed to have been in a state of shock. Defender asked for leniency. The judge took the Champions testimony into account and sentenced Mike to community service and time served. The family lost the plane (most of the other owners were also VIPER), the jetskis, skimobiles, and other luxuries. It was almost as if they'd gone back to square one. Still they have one another. Mike inspired by the Champions decided to become a crimefighter himself taking the name Phase. He now works as a corporate pilot when not fighting crime. VIPER is not pleased with how he's using their training and their efforts to awaken his latent abilities.

When the call went out from UNTIL for recruitment to the Justice League, Michael packed his bags and made it to Skyguard. Here he would meet other interesting new recruits like Gauss, Vector, Virgil, Cougar, Perseus and Gears.

He would go on his first mission with Gauss, Virgil and Cougar along with UNTIL agents to the Australian outback where Taipan had been kept in hot sleep. They arrived to find a mess. Video footage showed what appeared to be Morph and possibly at least two clones of her attacking the facilitiy having assumed the forms of dead AFP and UNTIl agents. Unfortunately they were to late to prevent the escape of Taipan. Phase thought they should investigate the agents more but was overuled as Perseus and others pointed out that would be illegal.

Powers/Abilities
Phase can control the density of his body enabling him to become nearly intangible or as dense as steel.

While intangible he can fly about the same speed he can walk.

He has also learned to make his skin dense as the densest body armors avaialble on Earth, able to take small arms fire without many problems.

His body is out of phase, causing some of it to be solid and some intangible, this enables him to take damage that might kill an ordinary man even one in an armored suit.

VIPER helped train him in his abilities and as such he has learned to use his strength efficiently due to their training. He also received some HTH training and defensive training at their behest. VIPER hinted that his abilities to manipulate density were not necessarily limited to himself, though so far he has not mastered the manipulation of others densities.