The Many Looks of Black Alice (or, most of them, anyway)

[kamino_neko]

In response to a request made in the comments to this post... Mostly random panels, but a couple full pages, because they're too awesome to cut to a panel.

For those that don't know - Black Alice, real name Lori Zechlin, is a character created by Gail Simone in Birds of Prey. She's a teenage girl with the power to steal magically-based abilities (including spellcasting) from those that have them for a short length of time.

But that's not the real interesting thing about her powers - the most interesting thing is that when she does that - her appearance changes. Well, her clothes, anyway - she keeps the same face, body, and hair, but what she's wearing changes into her power-donor's costume...as filtered through Lori's own style, and occasionally incorporating what she's already wearing.

I'll be presenting these in more or less alphabetical order, just because that's how I named the files. >_>

Without further ado, the costumes:

For reference, this is what she typically looks like when not channelling someone's power:



Not only alphabetically first, but also the most boring. From Sean McKeever's second arc on Birds of Prey, Alice steals the powers of a magician working for the Silicon Syndicate, a fellow named Arthur.



Not very interesting, and pretty much exactly what Arthur wears (save for Lori's jewelry...and her skirt, not shown in this image) - it doesn't even change colour! - but I really like that she's got the dude's bigass glasses. They're actually kind of cute on her.

Next, from her first appearance, channelling Dr Fate:



Now, that's more like it. The half-helmet is my favourite touch. It's very spikey, to be sure, but, eh, I think it works.

Oh! And Alice can swipe powers from more than one person!

From her last appearance under Gail's pen until her Secret Six guest shot...Felix Faust, and Cheetah.



This one is kind of interesting, although I actually cut off the interesting bit to make sure Lori could be seen properly without making the image too big - when she takes their powers, Cheetah remains in her furry form, suggesting she's still got her powers...but Lori explicitly takes the powers away from whoever she's channelling. I don't know if this was a mistake, if Cheetah maintains that look even without her powers, or if Lori's powers have changed since Day of Vengeance... Oh, well... Onward and upward...very upward.

Upward to...Giganta (who I actually hadn't realized has magically based powers).



Kind of disappointing, but at least it has more Black Alice in it than the Arthur-swiped look. And she's still a giant woman, so that's autoawesome.


And...now we return to her first appearance, and the most familiar outfit...channelling the power of Shazam:



There's some debate of exactly who she's channelling here - apparently Wikipedia claims Black Adam, but, IMO, the evidence leans to channelling directly from Shazam, and the costume being based on Billy or Freddy.

Later on, back in McKeever's BoP, she has a fight with Misfit (another awesome, and visually neat, Simone creation), and swipes her powers...which neither Misfit nor Oracle had known were magical until this point.



Yeah, not much different from Misfit's usual look, really - just lost the leggings and changed the colours a bit - but unlike the Arthur or Giganta costumes, I'm actually amused by that - with the shirt that doesn't really cover her belly, and the frayed skirt, it's not entirely unlike what Lori'd wear anyway.

And another Misfit pic:



Note the addition of the fishnet gloves - she'd been wearing those when she swiped the powers this time.

And here she is channelling Nightshade just before the Arthur and Misfit swipes:



It's too bad, really, that this costume is only seen when it's washed out with the green glow from Oracle's screens. Alice and Nightshade have the same general colour scheme, so I think this would really work well in its natural colours.

And we're coming into the home stretch with...the Spectre in Day of Vengeance:



She's swiping his powers so he can't use them, more than so she can...which works, though it kind of backfires by making him untouchable, as he lacks a host at this point, so without his powers, he's pretty much nothing. Oops.

And back to Simone's BoP, Wonder Woman:



From the powers she uses - specifically the lasso of truth - she's obviously channelling Diana, but I doubt I'm alone in thinking the costume seems to be based more on Cassie's...except for the tiara which really is a clear reference to Diana's outfit.

And the last of the random panels...Lori channelling Zatanna, in her first appearance:



That's Black Canary narrating in the caption boxes...seeing that she's about to get pwn'd.

And Lori flying later on, still with Zatanna's powers, mostly because it shows the fishnets and boots better than the above:



I'm not sure what happened to the gloves in between...

And now to the full pages, starting with a page from Helmet of Fate, where she channels Raven...



I'm actually marginally surprised it changed anything, since Ra and Lori both have the gothic thing going on, and so little was changed in Giganta's. But there's the frayed edges.

Now don't get the wrong idea...Lori's not always very nice... back in BoP, while being taunted by a cheerleader, she drifts off into a daydream...



And, one final page (well, 2-page spread) from Helmet of Fate, giving a different idea of a Lori-ized Fate look, this one if she actually took the helmet...



... The helmet doesn't want her as a host, and has an interesting defence mechanism. I'm amused that she's still got the same look in the 'absence of identity' teases.

Edit - added one more half page, from Villains United.




The original Black Lantern!

Not her best look, and I don't think Eaglesham was really trying when he designed it.

So, yeah. I love Lori's powers just for the visual possibilities - well, and the rest, too, but the visuals are just truly awesome.

From various issues of Birds of Prey, one of Day of Vengeance, and Helmet of Fate: Black Alice. Most from any issue is 3 and a bit pages from Helmet of Fate.

Comments

[darkblade]

Someone needs to make a collection of Alice taking the powers of every magic character in the DCU maybe even Vertigo too. It could just be a trade sized artbook, no plot, dialouge, ryhme or reason. I'd totally buy it.

[kamino_neko]

Yes, that would be awesome.

And a few pages of the people she's swiped from looking disgruntled, too! After a page of Alice taking the power of Shazam, a page Billy and Adam playing cards. After one of her taking the power of Fate, one of Kent Nelson standing there, making funny hand gestures in his pyjamas and the helmet... Not for every swipe, of course, just the ones that could be funny.

[halialkers]

I would love it if she steal's Raven's powers and Raven starts laughing and says "Good luck, sailor" and walks off merrily. I mean, seriously, she'd be stealing the Antichrist's powers there.....

[cmdr_zoom]

"Well you got it, and everything that goes with it! Phenomenal cosmic power..."
"NOOOOO!"
"iiiiiiiiitty bitty living spacepain, angst, and did I mention the literal Dad From Hell?"

[ravenous_raven]

hm, that may be the wake-up call several users want for Black Alice...

[kintotech]

This would be really neat to see.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

Would she just look like she's buried under a Hot Topic explosion, then?

[darkblade]

Doesn't she always?

[leikomgwtfbbq]

Yeah, but I have the image of Black Alice literally buried under a pile of Hot Topic clothes. She tries to borrow everyone's powers and POOF! All of their costumes are heaped on top of her.

Or she winds up looking like Ralphie's little brother from A Christmas Story, when he's wrapped up in all those winter clothes.

"Okay! I have more power now! Don't move, I'm gonna try to zap you with some magic lightning! If I can see under all these scarves and cape collars and the Stranger's shady-hat trick..."

"...You can't move and you can't see."

"No, I can't. It's 'cos I have too much power."

"...In which case I guess I'll just leisurely stroll away. *whistles obnoxiously loud tune while strolling*"

"Bitch, get back here! I'm Black Alice! I need to blather on about how preps are evil and parrot back some Nietzsche I read the other night!"

(Sorry, resorting to Hot Topic Goth stereotypes. XD)

[darkblade]

I didn't mean all at once...everyone, one at a time.