Vera Black and Naif al-Sheikh build a Superteam

[espanolbot]

I started writing a huge post here about the history of Vera Lynn Black, a character that combined Jenny Sparks with Inspector Gadget to create a character that, to me at least, is one of the more underated ones of the past decade or so.

Butttt... the thing got a little too huge, so I've moved it over to my blog while I stick it together, and I'll link it when it's finished.

In the mean time, here is Vera meeting with Naif al-Sheikh, a Saudi who essentially acts as Oracle for the CIA, MI6 and many of the world's secret services, militaries and governments, to be the one who will co-run the team with her, as his dislike of superhumans will give him an objective eye to what they're doing.




Weirdly, despite being a strict Muslim who dislikes how Vera dresses, how she behaves and the fact that she's mostly robot, she's actually his best friend and vice versa.

Comments

[q99]

It's too bad they didn't really show up again after JL E.

[espanolbot]

Apparently Naif was in Flashpoint as a member of HIVE, but other than an appearance in JLA during the comic's run and a semi-cameo around Infinite Crisis (they appeared on a computer bank of superheroes that the Martian Manhunter was organising, Kasumi/Cass Cain specifically was on the screen at the time) but other than that they've pretty much disappeared from the public eye.

Which is how they would have wanted it, really.

[q99]

Yea. They're a case where it makes perfect *sense* for them to have vanished, but where it would've been easy to have a new writer come in and say, "Oh, they spent the last several years dismantling a giant evil organization in South America" or something (I say South America because there was that group after Faith in Kelly's JLA).


Also, if I ever got a chance to do a Cass book, you would've seen Coldcast show up as friendly backup at some point.

[rainspirit]

Man, I do like those robot arms.

When did this come out? All the lines on her flesh-coloured limbs look like the civilian prosthetics in Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

[espanolbot]

Well the series ran from 2004 to 2005, so about eight to seven years ago.

And it isn't just her arms that are robotic. Her pupils are rectangular, she's got superstrength in her legs and jokes that she's got a "metal bum", so I think that she might have a "full-body prosthetic", to borrow a term from Ghost in the Shell.

She still smokes and drinks though. That with her angular pupils could arguably say that she's a Manc, less malevolent version of Bender.

[q99]

Her arms are *entirely* metal (due to her losing her arms as a kid), the rest of her is metal interlaced in her flesh.

There's a core thingy implanted in her that threads throughout.

[rainspirit]

Are her goggles implants, or do they somehow stick to her face?

[espanolbot]

They're kind of sunglases, but I think that they're inspired by Batou's artificial eyes from GitS.

She does taken them off though, showing her... odd, eyes,

[lieut_kettch]

Ah, good times. I think pretty much the whole world wanted to talk back to Dubya that way.

[q99]

"Hey, I'm British, whattyda want?"

Not that it'd actually stop her from voting for whoever if she wanted too ^^

[mrstatham]

They look more like pince-nez glasses, to me - like the ones Morpheus wears in the Matrix and the contemporary Dr Eggman design has in the Sonic games. They don't need the arms to go over the ears, but still have a bridge going over the nose.