Harness and Piecemeal are two characters I wanted to talk about together because their entire story is tied into what one of them is forcing the other one to do. I've finished K…

Harness and Piecemeal are two characters I wanted to talk about together because their entire story is tied into what one of them is forcing the other one to do. I've finished Kings of Pain now, so I can go through the whole thing, including where it ends. Piecemeal is Gilbert Benson, a young mutant who can detect particular energy signatures and absorb that energy into his body. Harness is Erika Benson, his mother. She takes him around the world, making him collect the scattered energy left behind by Proteus. And when I say making him, I mean physically abusing him and forcing him to continue even as the process becomes increasingly painful. The story initially has all these different groups moving around each other: the Alliance of Evil, A.I.M., Genetech, Cable's team, and the New Warriors. But underneath all of that, there's a child being used as a container. His part in the operation requires him to keep taking more into his body, and nobody employing him seems interested in what happens to him afterward. Their relationship is important to understanding the powers, too. Harness can control and hurt Gilbert, and her equipment helps her carry out the mission. Gilbert has the ability the mission depends on. They are connected through coercion and the job she's forcing him to perform, rather than having two matching halves of the same mutant power.