Kitty Faulkner

19 years ago - 18-year-old Kitty Faulkner attends Metropolis University, studying biochemistry.

15 years ago - 22-year-old Kitty Faulkner begins grad school. She starts developing her designs for her bio-energy catalyser, which uses synthetic bioorganisms that metabolize an energy source to generate surpluss energy while they replicate, creating an infinite, clean energy resource

12 years ago - 25-year-old Kitty Faulkner's work on her bio-energy catalyser is published, and she earns her doctorate. She secures funding, and begins building her labs to test her designs.

11 years ago - 26-year-old Kitty Faulkner meets David Knight to help with his work on the cosmic rod. They begin dating.

9 years ago - 28-year-old Kitty Faulkner breaks up with David Knight, refusing to accept that his misuse of his own research was for the greater good.

8 years ago - 29-year-old Kitty Faulkner begins construction on her first full-scale protype bio-energy catalyser.

4 years ago - 33-year-old Kitty Faulkner's bio-energy catalyser is brought online for the first time. The test is sabotaged, leading to a catastrophic build up of energy. Kitty is caught in the explosion as she works to make sure that her staff can escape. Her body is altered to absorb and metabolize energy, causing her to grow and effecting her ability to think rationally. In her confusion she lashes out and fights Superman. She is only able to stop her body from metabolizing ambient energy by being kept in stasis in Star Labs.

3 years ago - 34-year-old Kitty Faulkner undergoes a procedure by Niles Caulder to implant her bio-energy harnass, allowing her to bleed off energy before her body metabolizes it, letting her leave her stasis for days at a time. She returns to work at Star Labs.

2 years ago - 35-year Kitty Faulkner accepts a request from Will Magnus & Karen Beecher to join the new staff at Oolong Island, working with the Doom Patrol.

1 year ago - 36-year Kitty Faulkner first meets Scandal Savage when she joins the Doom Patrol.

Kitty's Comic History

Kitty Faulkner, or Rampage, was first introduced in Superman #7, really early in the new John Byrne redesign of the Superman mythology. In this issue Lois Lane is present at the test run of a new experimental power source that explodes when one of the scientists essentially sabotages it's operation. Clark arrives on the scene and is immediately confronted by Rampage, a gigantic orange skinned woman mutated by the blast, that he, and we the reader, start to believe might actually be Lois. Eventually, it's revealed that this is actually Dr Faulkner, the woman who designed the machine that was destroyed. Clark is able to absorb the ambient solar energy that her body is metabolizing, letting her return to her normal size.

Dr Faulkner would appear again, hospitalized in the aftermath of her ordeal, before that same sabotaging scientist used his own technology to catalyze her change again. After this, She would wear a special device that would allow her to control her transformation, but from that point on she would generally just appear in her human form as one of the main scientists at Star Labs, and a recurring character for many years in Superman's stories, even helping invent his blue containment suit for his electrical powers. She also became a recurring character over in the 1988 Starman series as she helped Will Peyton understand his powers, becoming one of his main supporting cast and eventual love interest.

Rampage made a much more monsterous appearance in the animated Justice League series, and most of her appearances after this seem to have taken their cues from this. More often than not, if you see her now, she's just a flat-out villain, rather than the much more helpful supporting character with the very particular medical condition she was originally invented to be.

Our Kitty Story

The single most telling fact about Kitty, I think, is that she was invented in 1987, a full two years before John Byrne's legendary run on She-Hulk that revolutionized the character. Given her original design, I think we can absolutely all agree that she's actually a sort of Proto-She-Hulk. When her condition runs unchecked, her body starts to metabolize ambient energy and she grows exponentially bigger and stronger, often losing control and becoming a rage-fueled monster. That is a key point, though... even when she lost control, she was never villainous or malicious at all. Byrne never drew her as monsterous; in fact, even in her first appearance you can immediately recognize the design choices he would later implement with Jennifer Walker that would make her a 90s comic sex symbol.

Kitty herself is a great character all on her own. Even over in the pages of Starman where she was often reduced to an incredibly generic love-interest, she was still often the best part of the series. She certainly isn't a person that would ever think of her condition as a superpower, it's something that needs to be carefully monitored and regulated. She seems an ideal character to associate with the Doom Patrol, especially since she wouldn't ever want to actually join them, but instead become part of the dedicated staff of scientist at their Oolong Island fascility.

Kitty's Relationship

Of course, we do have an ulterior motive for including Kitty. Don't get us wrong, as we read more of her story she really did stand out as a character we should have had in our timeline from the beginning, but the main reason we got here was because we wanted to find a new possible romantic interest for Scandal Savage. What first made us think of her was that, at first glance, she's similar to Knockout, Scandal's wife in the comic; who is a big strong muscle woman. Check.

The more we turned this possible relationship over, the more interesting and nuanced it became. Kitty CAN be a big strong muscle woman, sure, but that's hardly the most interesting thing about her, and in fact she actually rejects that whole part of herself, putting far more of her worth in her own intellect and personality. There are essentially two totally different sides to her, and we can immediately see Scandal being attracted to BOTH of them.

Also, even though Kitty was generally depicted as straight, there is this wonderful unmistakeably sapphic energy to her. The relationship between these two characters just feels like a story that we would all enjoy where they would thrive. We love this idea.

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