Lady Vic
31 years ago - Elaine Marsh-Morton is born to English aristocracy, descending from a long line of soldiers and mercenaries.
26 years ago - 5-year-old Elaine begins her training with her father.
17 years ago - 14-year-old Elaine begins accompanying her father on his assasination jobs.
14 years ago - 17-year-old Lady Elaine’s father is killed. She takes over the estate.
12 years ago - 19-year-old Lady Elaine is one of the assassins to take the job from Carmine Falcone to kill Batman.
8 years ago - 23-year-old Lady Elaine is hired by a crime boss to kill Floyd Lawton. She is incapacited when he shoots her, but neither of them take it personally.
6 years ago - 25-year-old Lady Elaine is stiffed by one of the crime lords of Bludhaven deposed by Roland Desmond, and wreaks havoc until she’s given a retainer. She begins clashing with Nightwing.
3 years ago - 28-year-old Lady Elaine, working for Roland Desmond, tries to take out Oracle but is stopped by Black Canary.
2 years ago - 29-year-old Lady Elaine finds Gorilla City & murders one if it's citizens to claim a heart for Roland Desmond.
1 year ago - 30-year-old Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton gets a new retainer with Vandal Savage, tracking his runaway daughter Scandal Savage, and administering the nano-virus designed to rewrite her consciousness.
Lady Vic has essentially been a background character for a long time, and while she fills the role of "and one more assassin in a world full of them" well enough, we happen to think there's the potential for quite a bit more. Nightwing's story has always seemed to have a role in it for "female archnemesis assassin". It's been filled by a few different characters over time, some of them more sympathetic than others. Lady Vic is completely mercenary, but we think that can be the foundation for a really great villain, as long as we decide that she's going to be dangerous enough to consistently challenge the good guys.
Lady Vic's Comic HistoryLady Vic appeared for the first time in 1996, in Nightwing #4, which means she was a very early part of the work Chuck Dixon was doing to build a world for his hero to occupy. There were a number of early stories where she was the primary antagonist. She was an aristocratic assassin, and the latest descendant of a long line of mercenaries who specialized in using the unique antique weapons that belonged to her family. In a book that was full of a variety of original assassin characters all meant to be stacked up against Nightwing, Lady Vic seemed to stand out... she might have basically just been one more hired gun, but her design was just a little bit more elegant than everyone else's, and because of that she showed up a lot She was a big part of a major crossover between Nightwing & the Birds of Prey, and then would often appear in large groups of villains, particularly in Gail Simone's Secret Six series.
Perhaps her most relevant appearance, however, was in Devon Grayson's Titans. When Vandal Savage was creating Tartarus, a team whose members were being deliberately selected to counterbalance the Titans members, Lady Vic was the character meant to oppose Nightwing. |
Our Lady Vic StoryNightwing, just like most superheroes, is really only as good as the villains you pit against him. In his case, that often means martial artists and other types of physical assassin-types... but rather than engaging in a revolving door of basically disposable characters, We'd rather just really strengthen and focus on the potential of the character who really is Nightwing's first real antagonist counterpart. All we have to do to really make her work is to just lean into her skill level and make her as dangerous as she needs to be to give Nightwing a run for his money. To that end, we actually included her in several stories that pit her against some of the deadliest assassins in all of DC, just to make sure the threat she poses is adequately represented.
Of course, as a regularly occurring character in several of my favorite comics from my favorite era, Lady Elaine winds up playing a role in several major storylines, and we're absolutely using a bunch of them, so she winds up featuring in our timeline pretty heavily. Moving her connection from Blockbuster after his death to Vandal Savage is a clear promotion. She's specifically selected for the team Savage is building to fight the Watchtower, and that should indicate just what a major threat she's becoming. |