The Many Looks of Black Alice: The Return: The Sequel

[kamino_neko]

Continuing my irregular series showcasing the many costumes worn by Black Alice, seen here, and here, as well as this post by gargoylekitty, which has a couple that I didn't post as I hadn't read the issue, and this one by icon_uk which kicked the whole thing off.

A smallish post, this time. Lori's not been wearing a lot of different costumes for the last few months - and the last SS arc had her powers borked, so she only gets to change once, once she's in Skartaris.

But, anyway...To the images! (Each will be preceded by a link to the character she's swiping for comparison's sake.)

FIRST! We have her swiping from Circe:



I was a touch disappointed by Ted Naifeh's art on the Coven backup in Teen Titans, because I'm a big fan of his stuff, in general. The costume designs for Lori were a big part of that. The headdress and the change of the tights into ripped stockings are the only 'Lorizations' of the costume, and aren't terribly impressive. Too bad.

Next, also from the Coven, Traci 13...



You may have noticed that, contrary to my earlier statement, I didn't include a link to what Traci looks like. Because the look of Traci's she's swiping (the look that she's wearing at that story)...is exactly like that, only with different hair - you can just vaguely see her in the bottom of the frame. Not very much Lori in it, at all.

OK, and the last non-repeated character in this post...Lord Deimos (image taken from the same issue as the Black Alice image), a tyrant from Skartaris.



This one is interesting - she's actually pulled Deimos himself out of Machiste, who he'd been possessing. So, it's not quite a traditional stealing of powers. Lori remains somewhat in control - and influences the final appearance of her transformed self - the black scales, the ragged crest - but Deimos is also influencing her (she's very upset about having killed the people she's frying in that image, when she lets Deimos go). I'm not going to rank it against the others, for just that reason.

OK, now we get some further variants on characters she's swiped from before!

First, Doctor Fate...

First, from Naifeh in the Coven:



Better than his designs for Circe!Alice or Traci!Alice. At least he varied it some more. I think the face-baring helmet kind of misses the point of Doctor Fate's costume, but I like the boots, and detailing on the bodice, and the skirt isn't bad. Thumbs up on the whole, but some generalized disappointment.

Now by Marcos Marz in Secret Six:



A slightly toned down version of her first Fate costume. The loss of the 'how does she not skewer herself' level of spikiness is fine by me, but I am very disappointed by the helmet going full face, rather than vertically bifurcated like the earlier version. For some reason I can't quite put my face on the shape of the helmet makes me giggle.

Now, Blue Devil:




All told...not bad. Blue Devil's a good character for Alice - assuming, like all artists seem to who've done her with his powers, she gets a variation on his original costume, not his new one. That said, I like what Naifeh did with it here more than what Nguyen did with it in Secret Six - not that Nguyen did badly, or anything. Naifeh just did better, IMO.

And finally, some more of the ever popular Green Lantern:

First, Naifeh's take from the Coven (two shots, since neither showed it well enough for my taste on its own):




Serviceable, IMO - there's definite Alice elements - the skirt, the garters, the tattered collar. But, on the other hand, it almost feels like a generically feminized version of Alan's costume, even so. Nothing to the level that I'd complain, but...I dunno, it could be better.

Next, Calafiore, from Secret Six:



I like it a little better than Naifeh's, though the same mini-complaint does hold - with some minor changes, I could see a female version of Alan, or an heir of his, wearing exactly this. That said, the Alice elements are enough to make it hers, and it's a very nice design in general.

And, finally, Marz from Secret Six:



I wish we'd gotten a better view of this one, but, from what we see. Very generic, and not much of either Lori or Alan in it. By far my least favourite Black Alice costume, yet.

So, there you have it...part three of The Many Looks of Black Alice. Random single panels from Secret Six 25, 29, and 30, and Teen Titans 84, 85, and 87.

Comments

[auggie18]

Something always kinda bothered me about Lori. When she takes powers, the other person loses them, but we never see the fallout from that. We never see Danny eating his cheerios and no longer being big and blue, or Wonder Woman suddenly realizing she's lifting a tank with no super strength.

It just seems odd that, except when she borrows the powers of people she's fighting, her borrowing powers never seems to have any fallout.

[icon_uk]

Yup, my fundamental problem with the whole concept of Black Alice, she's going to get someone ELSE killed by using their powers when they need them.

[dr_jekyl]

I would love to see this addressed, because it's bound to happen eventually, just based on the number of characters that rely on magic for flight. One minute you're fifty stories in the air, the next you're in free-fall.

[jaybee3]

This is exactly what happened to Mary Marvel when the Wizard "died" (and let to her going into a coma and the Countdown story that shall not be named). She was fighting some villain in the sky, boom she loses her powers and falls into the sea. Considering how Black Alice has taken Shazam powers (and the Marvels are always in the air when powered up) before (indeed the first time she appears) I'm surprised the possibility of this has never been brought up.

Or the possibility of someone who's powers she's taken trying to get back at her when she's done. So far, Black Alice's "victims" have given her a free ride.

[dr_jekyl]

Ah, I remember that now that you come to mention it.

A revenge plot would make a lot of sense. Or the appearance of super team up of 'good' guys trying to talk some sense into her. It'd probably go very badly, but would be amusing to see.

Mind you, there are hints that Gail might be willing to look more at the darker repercussions of her magic thefts, with the whole 'accidentally giving my dad cancer by using Raven's powers without knowing jack about how they work'. Come to think of it, I'm a bit surprised Raven hasn't had words with her about those thefts; Lori's really playing with fire there given Raven's practically the antichrist.

[icon_uk]

Of course, I still have a bit of an issue with Raven's powers being magical at all, but that's another discussion (She's an empath yes, and the original intent of Wolfman and Perez was for her to cast spells (hence the bare fingers her gloves had) but they changed their mind and thought a healer/empath would be more interesting.)

[dr_jekyl]

I tend to handwave it under the guise of 'a human/extradimensional-demonic-entity hyrid is an inherrently magical creature'. It's not a perfect dissonance fix, admittedly (with one or two exceptions I don't think it's ever been clearly established just how many and to what extent of Raven's powers are innate vs trained), but it's enough to get me by.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, but that's an issue too, as originally defined and presented Trigon was never magical either, so was never a "demon" in the "classic" sense.

He was an extradimensional alien. Yes, he looks like a demon, but Superman looks human after all. Trigon had never lived in Hell, and was much more Ming the Merciless than Etrigan. There was never much suggestion that magic and spellcasting had any part of his empire. He had energy based powers, and some psychic abilities but not demonic ones.

[dr_jekyl]

I think you can make an argument that Raven herself is a magical creature even though Trigon is not (I do agree with you on that one - he's an alien with demonic aspects). It's quite likely that Trigon would have had to employ either high level magic or advanced science in order to conceive an heir with a human woman. Seeing as this was apparently done through the Church of Blood, the magic angle seems much more likely than the science one.

[icon_uk]

Not sure why that would be, the Church of Blood has never used magic either.

Every time we've seen the Church and it's staff it's been all super-duper tech equipment, blaster rifles, communications centres, flying gear, state of the art acrobat-turned-hero stripping and torture equipment. etc, not a spellcaster amongst them.

They use religious trappings and titles, but the only mystical thing they have ever had going for them is the robe that the incumbent Brother Blood wears that allows him to absorb life force from people whose blood went into the Olympic sized blood bath.

Also, given how commonplace human/alien hybrids are in the genre, I can't really see why special equipment would be needed for Trigon anyway.

[dr_jekyl]

Hmm, yeah, I was thinking of the more recent Blood stuff from Johns*, which has had a much more magical bent to it than the original. In fact, the modern Church seems to have lost almost all of its technological trappings. It seems fairly certain that Raven's current body was created through magic.

*Which is, now that I think of it, really got underway the regression of Trigon from interdimensional evil to just another standard 'from hell' demon. Which led to the abomination that was Winick's Titans run.

[icon_uk]

I had a depressing feeling you were going to say that. Why some people rave about how great the Johns Titans run was, I'll never understand...

[dr_jekyl]

Guilty. To be honest, I actually came into the fandom (and rediscovered comics in general) through the cartoon, so my first comic Titans exposure was Johns; his work therefore tends to spring to mind first. But then I decided I couldn't be a proper fan unless I did the research, and eventually managed to scrounge enough back issues to discover that the people complaining about Johns' take on the team were largely right.

I mean, there are things about his run that I do like, and I can see, I think, why he made some of the changes he did... But on the flip side of that, I think he made the title successful at the expense of making the characters all more generic.

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to have to stop using my handwave. Ah well. :)

[blackruzsa]

I'd definitely pay money to see that happen.

[ravenous_raven]

Yeah, I always thought that was tough for the random person whose powers she grabs. What if subsequent writers tweak the idea that if the source is within a certain radius, say, 500 feet, it's a full steal, but if not, it's just a copy?

That way she can steal powers from people she's fighting and people that aren't involved in the fight at all will only have their powers copied, no harm done.

[icon_uk]

If she had the control over whose powers she takes that might work, but one of the more galling aspects is that she doesn't have that level of control either, she never knows whose powers she's going to take.

[ravenous_raven]

Really? That's difficult for her to use them then. What does she do, memorize all the powers of the magical superheros and their costumes so she can identify them when she gets them?

Also, didn't she once purposefully steal Banshee's powers when Banshee was being snarky to her?

[bewareofgeek]

First person to draw fanart of Alice chanelling the X-Man Banshee wins a cookie.

[icon_uk]

IIRC she just triggers her powers and a random magic user is depowered and their powers given to her.

If she did manage to take someone's powers specifically then that's certainly an interesting development, but I don't think it's standard.

[valtyr]

I remember her saying 'Wonder Woman coming right up' once? And then she found her powers were borked?

[bluefall]

IDK, it's true it's super-convenient that somehow nobody has ever gotten hurt by her doing this, but then so is the fact that the Hulk has somehow magically never killed anybody in his rampages, and Bruce has somehow magically never killed anybody with a bad allergic reaction to his knockout gas or a punch to the head that hit a little too hard, and the cars bad guys throw at Ms. Marvel are always magically empty even when she's in the middle of a city with no street parking. Alice is on the more annoying extreme edge of the genre convention, but she's still well within it.

[icon_uk]

Thing is, I'm not sure what it actually adds to the character except a massive case of rather selfish thoughtlessness.

If she mimicked the powers, she'd have exactly the same powerset without the automatic assumption that some poor bugger (or indeed, malevolent monster) is suddenly without any powers at all.

[bluefall]

Two things.

One, it's sort of necessary for the randomness that's the whole point of the thing. If she were mimicking powers, it would all be entirely her own strength in the end; she would never actually be as powerful as Circe or Captain Marvel, she'd just be faking them at her own power level. There'd be no concern about who's powers she gets, whether they're sufficient for the task at hand, whether she knows how to use them.

It's the difference between Mystique and Deadman. Mystique can make herself look like the Juggernaut, but she'll still only ever have the strength, martial skill and durability of Mystique; or she can make herself look like Xavier, but she'd still have the mobility, strength and martial skill of Mystique. Deadman, on the other hand, gets heat vision if he takes over Superman and paraplegia if he takes over Oracle. If Alice were copying instead of taking, it would be too easy to give her an upper limit, to say "she can ape Fate but she'll never have his power."

Two, the ability to steal from magic opponents is not a small advantage. She can momentarily nullify the Spectre. Not amp up to a point where she can fight him, but straight-up remove him from the board. If she were a copycat she couldn't do that, so calling it the exact same powerset isn't accurate.

[icon_uk]

I can see where you're coming from, but they've sort of shot themselves in the foot that way by having her mortal form able to take on the powers of anything up to the Spectre (God's ball-buster as the Black Cat so aptly put him) and then revert to (borderline) normal human without ill effects.

She's a blank slate, so there's really no difference in effect from her being able to steal that level of power, and her always having a nigh infinite level of power inside her but "merely" filtered by whichever power template she is stealing.

Certainly nullifying someone with that level of power is not a small advantage, but since she can't control who she steals from, that's not always a particularly useful ability. She might nullify the Spectre, but she might have been trying to snag Eddie Deacons power, and vice versa.

Also, how about the side effects of things like stealing the Spectres powers. How many beings of potentially cosmic threat levels are bound by spells cast and maintained by the Spectre himself? The Enchantress is powered by a completely malevolent Succubus, only tempered to the side of good by being bonded to June Moone, after years of experience, taking her powers could be karmic suicide. and so on..

[bluefall]

Well, that's part of her shtick. She gave her own father cancer because she couldn't control the powers she stole. She's as tragic as she is dangerous. DC's version of Rogue. It wouldn't be particularly interesting for her to always be at Spectre level, either; the idea is that she always has to work with what she's got, and sometimes that will be a lot and sometimes it will be jack.

And she does have some ability to control who she grabs from. When the whatsis Age of Magic ended and the Spectre went nuts during Infinite Crisis, she was able to specifically target and drain him. She was also able to gank her opponent's power with some reliability during the stupid underground club fights that all the Teen Titans got dragged into during that Clock King bullshit, and specifically steal Jeanette's once during a Six fight. The general implication seems to be that choosing a target is possible, but requires enough effort, practice and familiarity with the whole process that she can't usually pull it off yet.

[kamino_neko]

As well as those examples, she's also specifically drawn from Faust and Cheetah (Birds of Prey 97), Nightshade (BoP 115*, Secret Six 17), Misfit (BoP 115, 118), a minor villain named Arthur (BoP 115*), Traci 13 (Teen Titans 85) and Deimos (SS 28). It's possible, but unlikely from the context, that the grabbing of Green Lantern in SS 29*, Nightshade in SS 20*, Etrigan in SS 21*, or Giganta in Suicide Squad 67* were completely random, either. Her non-power-theft inherent power (sensing magic) would also be less useful if her theft power was completely random.

* The unmarked ones, as well as the ones you mention, denying the source character the ability was at least part of the reason. The marked ones, like the more likely random grabs, it was simple utility - she needed to do something, and those were powers that let her do them. In Arthur's case, it was specifically to figure out where he was, so, like Spectre, if her powers were entirely random, there'd have been no reason to call her in in the first place.

[icon_uk]

Thanks for the extra info.

[jjgalahad]

Technically, she only steals half their power but yeah, that's interesting. We've seen Jeanette get the vapors when Lori did it to her but I don't think we've ever seen anything like what you're talking about go down.

[icon_uk]

Does she? When was that established? Certainly there have been situations (like when she used Nightshades powers) where the other person was right there and said they had no powers at all.

[jjgalahad]

Really? Coulda sworn it was half. Lemme check Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Alice_%28comics%29
Whoops. It appears that I am as wrong as wrong can be. Sorry!

[kamino_neko]

Gail said, in a reply to my last post, that the source character keeps a touch of their power, but not a noticeable amount.