Real Name

History: Roland Burroughs was selected by agents of the Roxxon Oil Company to be a special agent in covert operations. At the Mutagenic Laboratory of Roxxon's subsidiary, the Brand Corporation, Burroughs underwent extensive surgery to give him gills and a bionic tail. Provided with a special costume and codenamed Death Adder, Burroughs was assigned to Roxxon's new Serpent Squad, whose first mission was to retrieve the ancient power object, the Serpent Crown. Successfully completing this assignment, Death Adder quit Roxxon to become a free-lance assassin and mercenary in partnership with some of his fellow Serpent Squad members.

Later, Death Adder joined the Serpent Society, an organization of superhuman criminals. He proved to be a valuable member of the Society, and was one of those members primarily responsible for the assassination of Modok.

After Princess Python was judged by the Society members to have betrayed them in the course of the mission to kill Modok, the Society held her captive for ransom. The Princess's perennial cohorts, the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime, agreed to pay her ransom, and Death Adder was assigned to fly Princess Python in one of the Society's "Serpent Saucer" vehicles out to Peoria, Illinois, where the Circus members awaited her. While Death Adder was piloting the saucer there, it was suddenly severely damaged through unknown means and crashed in a building in the South Bronx in New York City. Death Adder left the chloroformed but apparently unharmed Princess in the building and, seeking transportation, stopped a taxicab outside. Death Adder got into the cab but was killed when the driver shot him with an explosive bullet. The driver was the man (or one of the persons) calling himself Scourge. Death Adder's corpse was retrieved from the morgue by his friend, Serpent Society founder Sidewinder.

Height: 5 ft. 6 in.
Weight: 150 lbs.
Eyes: Blue-green
Hair: Black

Strength Level: Death Adder possessed superhuman strength, enabling him to lift (press) approximately 1 ton on land.

Known Superhuman Powers: As a result of the extensive bioengineering and surgery performed on his body, Death Adder had a number of superhuman powers. He was amphibious, able to breathe underwater (by extracting oxygen molecules from water through the artificial gills in his throat) as well as in air, These gills used fabricated polymer gill-cloth which was approximately eight times as efficient as average fish gills There was no limit to the amount of time that Death Adder could spend underwater; in fact, he could sleep safely underwater. His entire anatomy was bionically bolstered by the transplantation of synthetic bone and tissue, permitting him to withstand the water pressure variations of a descent to 400 feet and back. A special membrane was grafted over each of his retinas, which rendered his eyes sensitive to the blue-green region of the visible spectrum, predominant in ocean depths to about 650 feet. The largest modification to his body was the implantation of a four-foot-long, spike-studded tail attached to his lower spine and made of synthetic flesh and bone. Connected to his central nervous system, this tail could be whipped at speeds up to 60 miles per hour and acted as a fifth limb. Death Adder could swim at speeds up to 30 knots (34.5 miles per hour),

Disabilities: Due to an accident involving his larynx during the implantation of his gills, Death Adder was mute.

Paraphernalia: Death Adder wore a full body-suit specially treated with a silicon compound that approximated fish-oils viscosity to minimize water resistance. In the five fingers of each glove were special inch-long capsules containing highly concentrated venom of a death-adder, which he could release through the talon-like fingertips. One scratch of the poison was enough to paralyze a 200 pound man in 90 seconds. Without the antidote (which Death Adder carried in his belt), death by asphyxiation would follow within an hour.