Irradicator
Radiation Armor
Radek Rykov was born in Hell - or close enough.
His mother died in childbirth. His father was a nickel miner who spent his nights in a vodka-fueled rage. Norilsk, Radek's hometown, was a place of freezing cold, terrible pollution and crushing labor. Radek himself was always sick, always in pain, always weak. If not his father's hand, he suffered at the hands of his peers, who took advantage of his small and wiry stature to torment him.
His one respite was the library, where he devoured works of all kinds, notably the great scientists of ages past. Radek grew to idolize these thinkers. But this enriching of his intellect only deepened his bitterness and resentment over his station in life. How could Radek ever hope to be remembered while he remained sickly and abused in Siberia?
The answer: he would be abused no longer.
Radek committed his first murder at the age of twelve, when he pushed one of his tormenting classmates in front of a moving train. It was seen as an accident. Then he slew another classmate with an improvised firearm when he was fifteen. Finally, after bearing his father's wrath for sixteen years, Radek arranged for their apartment to spring a gas leak, and killed his father in the explosion.
He went west and settled in Moscow, attending university. It was here his intellect truly came into its own, as did Radek's obsession with radioactivity. As his research deepened and his experiments grew bolder, an accident that killed two of his assistants revealed that he was completely immune to radioactive damage. More than that, it could actually heal his wounds. Radek was expelled, but kept this astonishing discovery to himself. Rather than attempt to work his way back into the academic sphere, he turned to crime to fund his experiments. He would not be swept aside by bureaucrats and pathetic notions of "safety".
Radek Rykov would be a great man, no matter the cost.
Today, Radek Rykov - the Irradicator - is a supervillain, and is fast becoming notorious on the global stage. While his first steps were in becoming the foremost authority on radioactivity on the planet, Radek has since begun to branch out into mass murder, nuclear larceny, and black market arms dealing.
Genius Intellect
Radek is a certified genius, and master of several scientific disciplines. He's an accomplished inventor. He's also a cutthroat businessman and gifted strategist, albeit a brutal one. If he cannot simply destroy an enemy outright, he will move to outthink them, and destroy them later.
Radiation Absorption
Radek's physiology, perhaps galvanized by the harsh environment of his homeland, is entirely immune to doses of ionizing radiation that would kill other humans. More than that, his body seems to use the energy to repair cellular damage, thereby improving Radek's healing factor. This makes Radek uniquely suited to investigating - and weaponizing - radioactivity.
Weaponized Radiation
Radek's power armor carries cocktails of radioactive waste and volatile isotopes, and he uses them to pummel his foes with sickening, burning power. Going toe-to-toe with the Irradicator can cause radiation sickness and burns, often to the point of death. He can also use this power to weaken energy shields, disrupt electronics and melt through obstructions. Even when not wearing his power armor, Radek still wears an emitter belt that can dose his enemies with lethal radiation and carries a polonium dagger that's as poisonous as it is sharp.
Power Armor Defenses
Radek's power armor is made of a durable alloy that's impervious to small arms and resistant to heavy explosives, energy weapons and environmental extremes. It also manipulates its native radiation sources to saturate its surroundings and construct particle fields that can disrupt or even repel certain forms of energy.
Power Armor Strength
Radek's power armor augments his strength by a factor of twenty. The Irradicator can bend steel, throw automobiles, and crush bone in his hands.
Power Armor Weapons
In addition to Radek's radioactive arsenal, his armor contains other offensive weapons including tasers, polonium darts and electric nets.
Power Armor Flight
Radek's power armor allows him to fly at just over Mach 1, the speed of sound. Its controls are fine-tuned, and so Radek can also hover in place or levitate to and fro.
Poor Health
While exposure to radiation and wearing his breather keep the effects at bay, Radek is still a man in poor health, and his habits only make matters worse. His lungs have congenital damage that he will never recover from, making him extremely sensitive to particulates in the air (smoke, dust, dander) or harsh shifts in temperature and humidity. His lung capacity is also below average. If separated from any source of ionizing radiation or his breather mask, Radek's chronic health problems come to the fore and weaken him considerably. As such, Radek always wears his mask.
Egomaniac
Radek's ego is massive, and though it propels his success it may also one day be his downfall. Radek's inability to see beyond himself is a blind spot; even more so when challenged. He does not forgive or forget transgressions, and metes out punishment for each one, sometimes in contradiction to prudence or pragmatism. Appeasement could be used to manipulate him, as he has trouble telling this apart from outright submission.
Lone Wolf
Radek abides no others in the world as equals. All are either tools to be mastered or enemies to be destroyed. As such, Radek has no true friends and no allies who would defend him in a crisis. His associations are often temporary and utilitarian. His love life consists of nothing but a revolving door of prostitutes. Even his employees, who are treated a touch better by him than by Arachnos, are worked long hours and kept in a constant state of fear to control them. In the end, it is Radek against the world, and he may one day find that even he, in all his genius and brutality, cannot stand alone.
To say Irradicator thinks highly of himself would be a masterstroke of understatement. Radek Rykov is the sort of person who refers to himself in the third person. He relies on no one but himself, and has done so his whole life - or so he believes. Only the most grim of circumstances will convince him to act otherwise. To him, other people are either obstacles, or tools. It is rare for him to regard another with any measure of respect, and even more implausible that he'll admit it. However, you do not need to get in his way for him to look down on you. He sees the faults in other people all too well, and is happy to remind them. His manner is spiteful and contemptuous. Even his humor is marked by degradation and malevolence. Truly, if this man has a heart, it is so well buried beneath fury and disdain that it serves as a singularity of hate; nothing good escapes.
Despite all this, Radek is, nominally, a civilized individual. He is well groomed and disciplined, even in his interactions with others. It only makes his brusque demeanor that much more focused, however. No, Irradicator is also pragmatic, insofar as his ego allows it. Often it is easier or more productive to go through the motions of normative behavior, or act within the bounds of the law. But it's obvious to anyone paying attention that it grates on him. When Irradicator does not have his way, you can be sure it irks him to no end, and that he's only biding his time to have his way next time.
So, if there were to be such a person, to whom would he pay respect? Radek respects strength and force of will. He respects pragmatism, even when, and perhaps especially, when it is destructive. Radek values grit and determination, and admires bloodthirstiness. Brutality and cunning are virtues in his eyes. The world is a terrible place; you must be terrible to survive, and even more terrible to take control. Though an intellectual of a sort, many of his contemporaries may regard Radek as an "intellectual brute" (and have in the past), for he is not the wide-eyed, curious sort one might expect from a scientist.
He is a man of science, but in the same way the headsman is an authority on human anatomy. "Does it work?" That's the primary metric of Irradicator's research. Everything else is secondary.
A fast track to earning Irradicator's ire is impracticality and what he often describes as "foolishness". Cheerfulness, giddiness, joy, contentedness, love, hope - all these are offensive in Radek's eyes. If they're not complete wastes of energy, they are to him pathways to slavery and weakness. Mercy is not in Rykov's vocabulary.
In fact, if you truly want to awaken Radek Rykov's wrath? Try crossing him.
Nothing is more cause for obliteration (figurative or otherwise) than daring to challenge him. After all, he is Radek Rykov, and you are not. What do you know?