Lady Styx
22,000 BCE - The fall of the Manhunters leaves a power vacuum that leads to the rise of the Arakacian Terror Fleet, and begin breeding their biological death engines, the Stygomorph.
20,000 BCE - The Green Lantern Corp defeat the Arakacian Terror Fleet, destroying the last of the Stygomorphs. Styx survives by fleeing the known galaxy, spawning new bodies for herself by planting eggs inside her living victims that remain dormant until her current body dies.
8,000 BCE - Styx finally evolves a level of intelligence beyond mere instinct and beings establishing herself in the outer depths.
400 - Lady Styx founds the chuch of Styx, building a new Terror Fleet.
2 years ago - Lady Styx's Terror Fleet returns to the galaxy, taking territory in the outer spiral. Kanjar Ro becomes an agent of her faith. Her followers attack several former members of the Omega Men, killk The Durlan & Ferrin Colos, and assimilating the Darkstar tech. Adam Blake is tortured and jettisons his consciousness, letting Styx forces capture his brain.
1 year ago - Lady Styx's forces take the territory of Lobo's space dolphins, forcing him into exhile. The Controllers join them creating new Darkstar Technology. She begins growing brainwashed clone telepaths of Adam Blake.
now - Lady Styx's fleet reaches Raan. Komand'r bargaining the codes for it's defenses in exchange for a role in her armada. Adam Strange forms the new Omega Men to fight them. On Kalanor they relight the Flames of Py'tar. Despero emerges again in a new body, becoming her most powerful lieutenant.
You're often limited when you're building these comic book adventure stories by just how good a villain you're working with. This is probably one of the main reasons that the regular comic baddies get reimagined so often... a certain story just requires a certain style of antagonist, and the regular catalog of villains will supply someone who more or less fits the bill, who is then adjusted enough to make them fit the role being written for them. There's a certain appeal to using those classic baddies, but there's also something to be said for just strapping in and making something completely new. Lady Styx was invented entirely out of one of those pushes to innovate rather than reusing an existing character. She is absolutely stuffed to exploding with unrealized potential, and I think it's pretty obvious that our timeline has her all over it.
Lady Styx's Comic HistoryLady Styx debuted during the 2006 series 52, the weekly series that followed Infinite Crisis written by a who's who of DC talent. Of the series many ongoing subplots, one featured Starfire, Adam Strange, & Animal Man having an adventure in deeps space, and Lady Styx was introduced as the antagonist of that story; a terrifying monsterous leader of an galactic death cult. Keith Giffen said that she was basically an attempt to create a new Darkseid-level threat without using him again, since the writers agreed that he was pretty overused at that point.
In the aftermath of 52 several new series went on to feature different galactic adventures for different characters, like the Omega Men, Countdown to Adventure, and the Raan/Thanagar Holy War. Styx was a great villain for all those series. She would also continue to appear in some post New 52 stories, although she was reimagined here as an antagonist for Giffen & JM DeMatteis's Justice League 3001, but the character was pretty heavily reimagined as much more humanoid and elegant and less of a HR Giger nightmare. |
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Our Lady Styx StoryThe 52 series was a real whirlwind of creative energy, and Lady Styx is a pretty good example of that. She was a strange creation that really filled a niche in the larger DC story, and we've decided to really take that ball and run with it.
First, we needed to build out her backstory and give her some actual origins. We're stealing a little from the obvious xenomorph influence and make her an ancient biological weapon from way back in the history of the Green Lanterns. (We also absolutely stole the name Arakacian from something as well, and if you can tell me what it is without googling, you'll get a prize). The idea is basically that a Queen Xenomorph survives for millenia, surviving by planting new bodies for herself in her victims, which lets her evolve over the centuries. She spends thousands of years in exhile before she evolves to have intellect, and then thosands more before she begins her church and starts building her fleet. We are using Lady Styx like crazy, making her the crux of several major plots all over our timeline. Her fleet has been pushing to control more of space, and as it effects more and more of the cosmic characters they will start to band together against her, giving us the makings of one epic space opera story. |
Lady Styx's DesignIn her appearances after the New 52, Styx saw a pretty drastic redesign. You can absolutely see what they were going for, giving her a look that was at once more regal, befitting the head of a glactic religion, while also being vaguely... I guess the word is probably insectoid?
The character does absolutely lose something by making her appear less like an HR Giger monster, but at the same time, I don't actually know that they ever really landed on a SOLID design for her in her original appearances. They might have found something monsterous, but she was meant to be a Darkseid-level villain, and I wonder if she might have been a more popular character if they found a more stylized look that better balances between her as a monster and her as a regal leader of a space religion. I would really love to see some artists come up with new looks for this character, because she has an absolutely HUGE role to play in the DC landscape and I for one would love to see more of her. |
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