She is scared of her powers yet she still uses them to help people

She needs to be emotionless, but still needs friends. Both to protect her from others, and others from her. And her from herself.

@N8THGR852 what do you think of Rachel Roth?

Her demon lineage and edginess

Again with the tags!

@ScavengerOne

I reject the use of “Rachel Roth.” Her birth name is Raven. Some characters have taken on new names and have adopted them as their “real” names, but Raven has not done so with “Rachel Roth.” Let’s bring up Superboy. Superboy (the one we now know as Kon-El and Conner Kent) started out not having an identity outside of “Superboy” at all. He eventually had people call him Kid when he wasn’t being called Superboy. It took a long time for him to be given the name Kon-El, and then he took on the name Conner Kent. Superboy took those names to heart. When he reflects, he says, “My name is Conner Kent. I go by Superboy.” But for Raven, she’d go, “My name is Raven.” In New Earth, “Rachel Roth” was just an alias she took on to honor her mother when she decided to forge documents to enter high school after she was reborn in a teenage body during the 2000s. In Prime Earth, “Rachel Roth” is her legal name while living as a civilian in the U.S. (in NE, she attended college while only having the name Raven), but the name was something she acquired later. Her birth name, and the name she identifies as, is Raven. She never introduces herself as Rachel unless she is trying to hide her secret identity, as she did when attending high school and living with her cousins. However, during that time, her thought boxes showed her referring to herself as Raven.

I like that for the first two decades of her heroic career, Raven operated as a superhero without actually fighting anyone. She was built to be a team character, which is why she served as support in the field. She could sense people. She could heal people. She could teleport people. She could use her Soul Self to absorb attacks to defend people. The most offensive thing she could do/did was enwrap her Soul Self around a foe to cause them great fear, which could in some ways incapacitate them. And that wasn’t an ability used often. She was a pacifist. She’d never deliver a physical blow to anyone.

She didn’t use powers more offensively until the animated show released, and the comics version of Raven was resurrected into a younger body in 2003 with slightly differing powers than her initial power set. This “reborn” Raven had more attitude than her original, peaceful self. She suddenly had low-level telekinetic powers, and she could cast some spells. This new Raven also was capable at hand-to-hand combat, as shown when she fought off her demonic half-brothers.

The tougher Raven is still cool, but for some reason the casual comic fans think of her as this insanely powerful and bad*ss combatant. Part of me blames alternate media portrayals. She is capable, and her powers are fairly strong, but she is not in the same league as say Doctor Fate or Shazam, in terms of sheer power. What makes Raven so interesting is the range of powers at her disposal. She has a resourceful power set, and that’s more interesting to me than power. Her Soul Self alone has a plethora of abilities. But I like that she started out and spent two decades as a support character. I feel like we don’t have enough established support characters anymore.

NTT was a great character because she was constantly on guard. She came and went as she pleased. Although she initiated the formation of the team she was the least involved from everyone else’s perspective. They became really frustrated with her, as does the reader. She was so enigmatic for so long that the reader was still engaged even after she disappeared for many issues.

Edit: Note to self, don’t post first thing in the morning. Sorry for that unreadable shambles.

Portal