Maddie Van Horn is a second-generation metahuman child with the telekinetic ability to control glass.
Powers and Abilities
- Hyalokinesis: Chloe observed that Maddie is a second generation metahuman. She shares the same gift as her father, Tyler McKnight. This suggests that some meteor powers can be inherited genetically.
In fact, Maddie was able to overpower her father's telekinetic powers when she fought her father. Using her powers, she could shatter and reshape glass, subsequently moving it via a form of telekinesis, although she could only affect glass that was present in the same room as her.
Early life
Maddie is the daughter of Tyler McKnight, one of the victims of the 1989 meteor shower. Her mother, Teri Van Horn, died in a car wreck when she was a child and her father was sent to Belle Reve institution. Maddie believed she was responsible for her mother's death and after the accident, she stopped talking.
Maddie bounced from foster home to foster home throughout her life.
Season Five
When she was eleven, her last foster mother, Naomi, Martha Kent's Chief of Staff, was killed when all the glass in her kitchen shattered. Clark Kent found her just after her foster mother's death and took her to temporarily stay with the Kents. Clark became a brotherly figure to her, and, after he told her that he wouldn't "ever say mean things to her," she began speaking to him (Having initially spoken to Shelby in a low voice that Clark only heard because of his super-hearing). It was the first time she had spoken to another person since her mother's death.
When Clark, Chloe and Lois found out about her powers, Lois and Chloe suspected that she was responsible for her mother's and foster mother's deaths. However, Clark believed Maddie's explanation that her power couldn't reach through walls, so she couldn't be responsible.
Tyler then kidnapped Maddie to try to force her to live with him, traveling to the Talon to recover a glass window he'd made before his arrest; he'd hidden seven diamonds that he had stolen in the window. Clark was able to save Maddie and defeat Tyler, subsequently admitting to Maddie that he had a somewhat poor relationship with his birth father as well, but they didn't have to turn into their parents.
Later that night, Tyler escaped and attempted to force Clark to bring Maddie to him by holding a shard of glass to Martha's neck. Although Clark knocked the glass away with his heat vision, allowing Martha to escape, Tyler then summoned a barrage of glass and hurled it at Clark, only for Maddie to arrive and take control of the glass before it could touch Clark. She briefly contemplated killing him with the resulting glass shards, but Clark reminded her that she didn't have to become her father, and she released her control of the glass.
After Tyler was arrested again, Maddie was sent to live with her paternal grandmother. Clark told her that if she was to ever lost control, she could call him, Maddie subsequently leaving him a drawing she'd made of him, her, Martha and Shelby in the Kent fields.
Notes
- Although Clark once used his super-speed in Maddie's presence- creating a large pile of hay for her to jump into, she is one of the few friendly metahumans Clark has met who is unaware of his powers; when Clark used his super-speed, her back was turned to him, and she later stopped the glass that her father had attempted to strike Clark with before it could make contact, thus preventing her from witnessing his invulnerability.