History
When she was a child, her parents would often fight, so her brother would take her out to play. As his psychic powers developed, this 'play' would develop into killing sprees. This twisted Vera in later life. When her brother died after attempting to destroy Superman, Vera tried to get revenge. She underwent cybernetic enhancement, replacing her arms (which were long ago lost in an accident) with cybernetic versions that could turn into any weapon she wanted, and went on with her misguided mission of revenge.
She became aware that the Planet Earth, in a reflex response to all the strife it endures, was going to destroy human life. Vera and the JLA devised a plan in which she would lead a reformed The Elite (right) in one last battle in a bid to scare the United Nations into cooperation. The ruse worked, and the Earth did not follow through.
The JLA, mainly on the encouragement of the Flash, asked her to lead the a new team permanently, handling black ops that the JLA couldn't. She brought together members of The Elite, Coldcast and Menagerie, with some Justice League members, Flash, Manitou Raven, Major Disaster, Green Arrow and Kasumi, and added the spy Naif al-Sheikh. Those stories were told in the Justice League Elite mini-series.
Somewhere along the way, Vera began showing signs of madness. Eventually, it came to light that she was haunted by the spirit of her dead brother (who was a powerful telepath in life and had hid in the dark corner of her mind after his death), working through the mental problems she got from playing with him as a child. He tormented her, stole her body and proceeded to destroy London. Her teammates in the Elite helped her see that she was better than her brother, and she overcame him, and prevented the outright destruction of the city.
Presumably, she is still leading the Elite, as several members of the team were shown as still being together under her as of the end of the series.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Cybernetic Enhancement: Vera's cybernetic arms have many moving parts that can shift and reform to several different weapons. Her most common form of attack is to turn both her hands into guns (ranging from energy to projectile guns), but they also contain melee weapons such as claws and knives. Also noteworthy is the extremely advanced camouflage technology her arms contain. Not only does she have a sophisticated holograms projector, which she can use for both on herself and to project images separate from herself, but her arms also house technology capable of interfering with how nearby nervous systems interpret sounds, textures and other things beside visual information. Essentially, she has techno-psionic camouflage. During her time as the leader of the Justice League Elite, she used this to go undercover under several false personas.
- Superhuman Strength: Vera's cybernetic arms have some degree of super strength even without calling upon the weaponry housed within. Without drawing out any of her weapons, she once punched through a solid brick chimney.
Trivia
Her first and middle names are based on the wartime singer Vera Lynn. Both she and her brother are based on Jenny Sparks but Vera looks the most like her. However, her ability to turn her arms into guns is most similar to the Engineer II.
Related
- 16 Appearances of Vera Lynn Black (New Earth)
- 15 Images featuring Vera Lynn Black (New Earth)
- 1 Quotations by or about Vera Lynn Black (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Vera Lynn Black (New Earth)
Footnotes
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Vera Black. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Template:History Needed