Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wonder Girl



Wonder Girl and the other Teen Titans were next featured in Showcase #59 (December 1965) before being spun off into their own series with Teen Titans #1, cover-dated February 1966. With the character called only Wonder Girl or "Wonder Chick" by her teammates, her status as either the younger Wonder Woman displaced in the timeline or another character altogether is not explained until Teen Titans (vol. 1) #22 (August 1969).[1] In a story by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane it is established that Wonder Girl is a non-Amazon orphan, rescued by Wonder Woman from an apartment building fire. Unable to find any parents or family, Wonder Woman brings the child to Paradise Island, where she is eventually given Amazon powers by Paula von Gunther's Purple Ray. The story ends with Wonder Girl wearing a new costume and hairstyle, adopting the secret identity "Donna Troy."

1980s

Donna's origin is expanded in "Who is Donna Troy?" (January 1984), issue #38 of the 1980s relaunch of the team, The New Teen Titans. Robin investigates the events surrounding the fire from which his old friend had been rescued as a toddler, discovering that her birth mother had been a dying unwed teen who had given her up for adoption. The subsequent Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries (1985-1986) rewrote the history of many DC Comics characters; Wonder Woman's own pre-Crisis history was written out of existence, and the character was reintroduced in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #1 (February 1987) as a new arrival from Themyscira (the former Paradise Island).

With the character of Donna tied predominantly to the Titans, her origin was retconned to fit into the new continuity created by Wonder Woman's relaunch, one severing her direct ties to the Amazons. In the storyline "Who Is Wonder Girl?" featured in The New Titans #50-54 (December 1988-March 1989), the Titans of Myth enlist Donna's aid against the murderous Sparta of Synriannaq. It is revealed that the Titan Rhea had rescued a young Donna from a fire; Donna and Sparta had then been part of a group of 12 orphans from around the universe who had been raised on New Cronus by these Titans as "Titan Seeds," their eventual saviors. The Seeds had been given superhuman powers, and named after ancient Greek cities. Called "Troy," Donna (like the others) had eventually been stripped of her memories of her time with the Titans of Myth, and reintroduced into humankind to await her destiny; Sparta had retained her memories, and the knowledge had eventually driven her mad. Killing her fellows Seeds to "collect" their powers and destroy the Titans of Myth, Sparta is ultimately defeated by Donna and the only other Seed left alive, Athyns of Karakkan. In The New Titans #55 (June 1989), Donna changes her pseudonym from "Wonder Girl" to "Troia" and adopts a new costume incorporating mystical gifts from the Titans of Myth.

Post-Wonder Girl

Donna's origin was rewritten again in the 1990s, reattaching to the Wonder Woman mythos. It is revealed that the Amazon sorceress Magala had animated a mirror image of young Princess Diana to create for her a mystical, "identical twin" playmate. This twin is soon mistaken for Diana and kidnapped by Dark Angel. Dark Angel disperses the girl's spirit across the multiverse, condemning her to live multiple lives, each one cut short by the Dark Angel at a moment of tragedy.[volume & issue needed]

In at least one of these variant lives, Donna would become a superhero and encounter her grown sister, now Wonder Woman, and their mother Queen Hippolyta, without realizing who she really was or how she was related to them. After that timeline ends with the death of Donna's son, Diana and Hippolyta intervene to find what happened to Donna. Donna finally defeats Dark Angel, destroying the evil entity and regaining her original Amazon powers; she returns to reality to continue her life from that point.[volume & issue needed]

The 2005 miniseries The Return of Donna Troy reveals that Donna is actually an amalgam of every Donna Troy, who remembers all of her other incarnations. After the events of Infinite Crisis (2005-2006), Diana briefly passes the mantle of Wonder Woman to Donna. However, Diana continued to be the star of the book, and reclaimed the title of Wonder Woman in the first story arc of Wonder Woman vol. 3. Wonder Woman Annual (vol. 3) #1 gives Donna a new origin that combining elements of her three variant origins:

Donna was born as Princess Diana's mystic twin through the help of Amazon sorceress Magala. Months later, an old enemy of Queen Hippolyta called Dark Angel kidnapped Donna thinking she was Diana. Donna was placed in suspended animation by Dark Angel for years and was eventually left to die in a burning building. But fate intervened and the now grown-up Diana came onto the scene as Wonder Woman and rescued Donna. She was brought back to Themyscira where she received training from both the Amazons and The Titans of Myth and years after followed Diana into the outside world as Wonder Girl and helped form the Teen Titans.

Songbird


Melissa Gold was a troubled runaway from an alcoholic father and incarcerated mother[citation needed]. In order to survive on the streets, Melissa developed a hard edge to her personality, referring to herself as "Mimi."[citation needed] She was eventually imprisoned, where she met Poundcakes, a female wrestler who invited her to join the Grapplers under the name Screaming Mimi, alongside Titania and Letha[citation needed]. The Grapplers became renowned for their colorful personalities and ringside antics, but the wrestling federation denied them the opportunity to make the amount of money their male counterparts made. Instead, the group agreed to earn supplementary income by performing a covert operation for the Roxxon Oil Company. The Grapplers were given special paraphernalia to assist them in their mission; Mimi received an apparatus that converted her voice to high-frequency sonics for various effects. The Grapplers tested these powers by fighting Thundra in a wrestling ring.[1] On their mission, Thundra led them into Project Pegasus to smuggle in the Nth Projector for Roxxon. The mission failed when they were defeated by the heroes Quasar and Giant-Man.[2] The Grapplers were tried and jailed for their misdeeds. Alongside the Grapplers, she victimized Dazzler while she was in Ryker's Island prison with them.[3] When the Grapplers were finally paroled, they discovered that the women's wrestling movement had lost its momentum without them, so they continued to perform crimes to support themselves and working as professional criminals. Alongside the Grapplers, Mimi attempted to attack the Thing while he was in the hospital, and battled Captain America.[4] Later, the Grapplers set their sights on a women's division of the superpowered Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. Their manager, Auntie Freeze, arranged for the women to augment their natural abilities with artificial powers created by the agency Power Broker, Inc. While the other Grapplers received superhuman strength, Mimi instead had her vocal enhancements internalized as a throat implant; it was once believed that Mimi had also gained superhuman strength, but it was established after the fact in the Thunderbolts series (see below) that this was not the case.[volume & issue needed] The all-new Grapplers made a legitimate professional comeback that proved short-lived. When Titania was murdered by the vigilante Scourge, Mimi was among the female wrestlers of the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation who participated in a mass attack upon the Thing, blaming him for Titania's death.[5] After Letha was later also killed by Scourge,[6] the Grapplers broke

Black Widow



Born circa 1928, Natalia "Natasha" Romanova was apparently orphaned as a child when she was trapped in a burning building during an early attack on Stalingrad by enemy forces. Ivan Petrovitch Bezukhov, a Soviet soldier, found Natasha in the inferno and rescued her. Although Ivan kept a close eye on Natasha as she grew, by the late 1930s she had attracted the attention of Soviet intelligence, which began her training. In 1941, she was almost brainwashed into serving the ninja clan the Hand, but was saved by Ivan, Logan (James Howlett, later Wolverine) and Captain America. Following World War II, Natasha was recruited to become part of the Black Widow Program, a team of elite female

Real Name
Natalia "Natasha" Alianovna Romanova

Aliases
Natasha Romanoff, Nadine Roman, "Nat," Tsarina, Oktober, Laura Matthers, Nancy Rushman, Black Pearl, Natalia Shostakova, Natuska, Czarina, others; impersonated Yelena Belova

Identity
Publicly known

Citizenship
Former citizen of Russia/U.S.S.R., resident in United States of America under extended visa authorized by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Place of Birth
Stalingrad, former U.S.S.R

Friday, March 19, 2010

arrowette





Arrowette is one of few superheroes to retire and have it stick. After serving valiantly alongside Young Justice, she now lives the life of a normal girl... who happens to be an Olympic Gold Medalist.
Origin

Arrowette's childhood was spent preparing her for her life's mission: to be a super hero. This mission was assigned to her by her mother, the original Arrowette. Cissie began her career as an adventurer in a battle against the Spazz in Manchester, Alabama. Arrowette also appeared in Impulse #59 as Impulse's date in the Valentine's dance. Impulse and Max Mercury were on hand to help, but Mercury later pressed child endangerment charges against Bonnie. The charges stuck, and Cissie was remanded to the custody of the Elias School and Dr. Marcy Money. It looked as if Cissie's super hero career was over. Dr. Money inadvertently gave Cissie the idea that she could be a better hero than her mother. This thought seemed to inspire Cissie to resume her career as Arrowette.
Young Justice

Arrowette joined Young Justice during the team's first conflict with Harm. In that battle, Harm caught one of Cissie's arrows and threw it right back at her, seriously wounding her shoulder. The Super-Cycle rescued her and brought her back to Happy Harbor. The team's care for her prompted her to become a member.

Shortly after, the murder of Dr. Marcy Money tumed Arrowette's world inside out. Blinded by rage, she hunted the doctor's murderer, following him and his accomplice into the Pennsylvania woods. After subduing the accomplice, she proceeded to re-enact Dr. Money's murder. But this time, the killer was on the receiving end. He begged for mercy and threw away his weapon. Cissie could have captured him, but instead she fired an arrow directly at his heart. The blow surely would have killed him if Superboy hadn't arrived in the knick of time, snatching the arrow out of the air.
A Normal Girl again

Soon thereafter, Cissie quit Young Justice and has abandoned her Arrowette persona. Cissie now has to do what her mother never allowed her to do: decide for herself what she is going to be.

After leaving Young Justice she went on to win a gold medal for America in the Olympics for Archery. Although not a member of the team she continued to have close relationships with them, especially her best friend, Wonder Girl. She was with Young Justice as the team's medic during the "Our Worlds At War" Galactic Crisis, and acted as the team's pitcher in an intergalactic baseball game with worlds in the balance.

Cissie now attends St. Elias' School for Girls - along with Greta Hayes (Secret) and Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl). Cissie appeared in Teen Titans #7 (vol.3) negotiating with the principal of St.Elias' school about allowing Wonder Girl to enroll in the school along with Secret.

Powers and Abilities
Arrowette is an Olympic-level archer and athlete. She was trained from an early age to become one of the world's greatest archers. She has a variety of trick arrows that she uses such as classic arrows, boxing glove arrows, oil slick arrows, freeze arrows, and even a few sillier ones such as perfume arrows that her mother made her use. Arrowette is also skilled in kick boxing and other hand to hand combat although her skills are best put to use when she's arching from a distance.

Alpha Flight



Base of Operations
Department H, Ontario, Canada; formerly Tamarind Island, British Columbia, Canada; Mansion Alpha, Winnipeg, Canada

Former Members:
Aurora, Box (Roger Bochs), Centennial, Diamond Lil, Earthmover (Charles Moss), Flex, Guardian (James Hudson), Guardian (clone), Groundhog, Madison Jeffries, Major Mapleleaf (Lou Sadler, Jr.), Manbot, Mar, Marrina, Murmur (Arlette Truffaut), Nemesis (Jane St. Ives), Northstar, Puck (Eugene Judd), Puck (Zuzha Yu), Radius, Saint Elmo, Sasquatch (Walter Langkowski), Sasquatch (creature), Shaman (Michael Twoyoungmen), Smart Alec, Snowbird, Stitch, Talisman (Elizabeth Twoyoungmen), Vindicator (Heather Hudson), Wild Child, Windshear, Wolverine (James Howlett), Wyre, Yukon Jack

Other Members (Honorary, Reserve, etc.):
Formerly Beta Flight and Gamma Flight training squads



Alpha Flight is a team of superhuman Canadian operatives that originated in the private sector with an engineer named James MacDonald Hudson who had developed an exoskeleton to assist in geological exploration. When Hudson learned that the U.S. military had appropriated his invention, he destroyed the plans and made off with the helmet necessary to control the apparatus. Heather McNeil, then executive secretary to Hudson's immediate superior Jerome Jaxon, was shocked by the sudden turn of events and arranged a meeting between Hudson and the Canadian government. Hudson was able to plead his case and the government stepped in to resolve the situation. The Canadian prime minister subsequently invited Hudson to participate in the creation of Department H, a top-secret research and development agency within the country's Ministry of Defense. Hudson married Heather soon after.

Inspired by the debut of the superhuman adventurers the Fantastic Four, Hudson's first recruit for the team's first incarnation, code-named the Flight, was the feral mutant, Wolverine who had joined Department H some years earlier as an espionage agent. Wolverine participated in the initial phases of the team's creation, and after an initial mission against the forces of the criminal mastermind Egghead, it was decided that Wolverine would lead the team. However, for his own reasons, Wolverine left Department H and joined the X-Men, the mutant team formed by Professor Charles Xavier. In Wolverine's stead, Hudson donned a modified version of the exoskeleton he had created and first took the name Weapon Alpha, then Vindicator, then later settled on Guardian. Recruiting five more super-powered champions, the newly formed Alpha Flight initially clashed with the X-Men in an attempt to capture Wolverine, but the two teams later cooperated against the monstrous Wendigo. Alpha Flight subsequently lost government funding, but its members decided to remain operational as freelance adventurers.

Following Hudson's apparent death, leadership of Alpha Flight was assumed by his wife Heather when she donned his battlesuit and succeeded him as Vindicator. The Canadian government resumed sponsorship of Alpha Flight, and the team established a headquarters on Tamarind Island off the coast of British Columbia. However, relations between the team and the government grew strained over time. Alpha Flight's government liaison, a former intelligence agent named Gary Cody, sought to keep the team under control by resurrecting one of Hudson's earliest attempts to create a superhuman being. This creature, known as Bedlam, killed Cody before violently confronting the team. After a pitched battle, Vindicator managed to destroy Bedlam.
Enlarge
During one of the team's adventures in another dimension, Department H created a new team dubbed Gamma Flight to act as their official agents during Alpha Flight's absence. When Alpha Flight eventually returned to Earth, the two teams initially clashed but soon put aside their differences to oppose the threat of the extradimensional menace of Llan the Sorcerer. After Hudson returned alive and well, Alpha Flight and Gamma Flight were combined into the one team that were reinstated as Canada's official government operatives. The restructured team continued to face various threats, at one point teaming up with Wolverine against the forces of the Brass Bishop, but ultimately Department H was dissolved and the team disbanded.

Department H was eventually reinstated under the administration of General Jeremy Clarke, who was charged with creating a new Alpha Flight. The new team, which included a mixture of veterans and neophytes led by a seemingly youthful Hudson, found itself manipulated by subversive tactics and clandestine missions, including one against the X-Men. Department H's deception was not laid bare until an encounter with the remaining members of the original Alpha Flight team, including the true Hudson. The younger Guardian was revealed to be a synthetic being created to supplant the original, who had refused to rejoin the Department H and was subsequently targeted for assassination. The two teams joined forces and regained control of Department H.

Wolverine subsequently helped the reformed team against the weapon-making terrorists of Advanced Idea Mechanics, during which the team regained a former member in Snowbird but lost the younger Guardian who sacrificed his life to ensure the team's freedom. Alpha Flight returned the favor by helping Wolverine defeat the cannibalistic sorcerer Mauvais. Wolverine also briefly served as mentor to a new member, Earthmover, who was being groomed to replace Shaman on the team.

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