Female Furies

1738 - Lashina & Bernadeth are selected for the Female Furies.
Membership: Lashina & Bernadeth

1744 - Stompa and Big Barda are selected to join the Female Furies, becoming lifelong rivals.
Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth & Stompa

1748 - Big Barda becomes the new field leader of the Female Furies, passing over Lashina, Bernadeth & Stompa.
Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth & Stompa

1802 - Granny Goodness assigns Big Barda to guard duty in the Terror Orphanage as a punishment, where she meets Scott Free. Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth & Stompa

1928 - Mad Harriet is selected for the Female Furies
Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

1958 - Auralie is selected to join the Female Furies.
Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa, Mad Harriet & Auralie

9 years ago - Granny Goodness discovers Auralie's love of dancing. She fits her with High Voltage Shock Boots and makes her dance in them before the Female Furies until she immolates herself. Barda secretly helps Scott Free escape the X-pit, but is not yet ready to free herself.
Membership: Big Barda, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

7 years ago - Granny Goodness is assigned by Darkseid to recover Scott Free on Earth after the failure of Doctor Bedlam, and sends her Female Furies. Big Barda switches sides, helping Scott defeat the Furies and escape, leaving the them in chaos.
Membership: Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

5 years ago - Gilotina competes for leadership of the Female Furies, defeating all other candidates to become their new field leader. Membership: Gilotina, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

4 years ago - Female Furies join the Parademon wave invasion of Earth, and are defeated by Big Barda. Membership: Gilotina, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

2 years ago - Granny Goodness sends the Female Furies to Earth to capture Supergirl, sending an army of Doomsday clones as a distraction. They attempt to brainwash her as a new recruit with Desaad's help, putting her through a training gauntlet against the other Furies. She defeats them all, as well as Granny Goodness, earning her own freedom. Membership: Gilotina, Lashina, Bernadeth, Stompa & Mad Harriet

Membership

The Fourth World was built out of an extremely high concept attempt to evolve the language of superheroes, but on the way it managed to bring about a lot of smaller evolutions in the process. While I'm sure Jack would happily name himself as a feminist today, I don't think it would even have occurred to him at the time that it was even a thing that needed a label. He clearly just saw how fun and awesome a well-imagined female hero or villain could be, if only because it was such a new idea. It's STILL rare for anyone to deliver the same wildly original female characters that Jack seemed to crank out effortlessly, and the Female Furies are an absolute showcase of his creativity.

Female Furies's Comic History

The Female Furies were introduced in the original Mister Miracle, but I struggle to say when. They actually show up in issue #6, the latest threat sent from Apokolips, but they are SUCH an extension of the idea of Big Barda. isn't it just as accurate to say that they were introduced with her in issue #1? Kirby could always be relied on to find new ways to introduce powerful women, but the Furies were clearly an opportunity for him to get weird about it. At first it was only the original four continually ambushing Scott and getting beaten down by Barda, but within a few issues we saw the barracks of the Furies and their huge cast. In the years after Jack Kirby, we've been introduced to lots of other Furies of various degrees of coolness, but the original four have always been the most consistent.

Interestingly, while the Post-Kirby Furies have always been depicted as agents of Apokolips like in their earliest appearances, that actually changed pretty quickly in the original Mister Miracle series. Fairly early, Barda actually went back to Apokolips and reclaimed her leadership of the Furies and essentially led a revolution. For the rest of the series, especially after they moved away from the complex mythology of the New Gods and instead followed the adventures of normal superhero Mister Miracle, the Furies were pretty much a cohort of badass lady warriors led by his even more badass girlfriend. Kirby knows what's up.

Our Female Furies Story

Of all the parts of Kirby's Fourth World that have crossed over into the normal Earth-based world of DC, the Furies might occur more often than anything else. They've appeared as enemies for all sorts of characters, from Hawk & Dove to Superboy to the Suicide Squad. We're very deliberately trying to dial back on that sort of thing, so it becomes important for us to limit their appearance on Earth and focus more on their role in the drama building up the story of Big Barda. The recently produced graphic novel Barda by Ngozi Ukazu, which is just outstanding, gave us a beautiful new perspective into the world these characters occupy, and we will absolutely use as much of that as possible.

This series is also why we chose to expand the membership of the Furies beyond the original four members. Gilotina is kind of a gimme because she actually does appear back in the Kirby comics even though her personality was defined later, but Auralie's role in Ngozi's story makes her absolutely vital in the story of not just the Furies, but of our heroes Barda and Scott as well.

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