application @ capeandcowl

[boobwindow]

[PLAYER INFO]

NAME: Nita
AGE: 23
JOURNAL: erewhile
IM: hierarchics
PLURK: dylandy
E-MAIL: ziodynes @ gmail.com
RETURNING: Gilbert Nightray (invoking) & Kate Kane (gevurah)


[CHARACTER INFO]

CHARACTER NAME: Kara Zor-L Karen Starr | Power Girl
SERIES: DC Comics
CHRONOLOGY: Power Girl Vol. 2, #12
CLASS: Heroine ;)


BACKGROUND:

RETCONS.

It starts with Earth-2 – Krypton, specifically. In this universe Krypton is also doomed to meet its unfortunate demise. To ensure the survival of infant Kara Zor-L, her parents send her away in a symbioship destined for Earth where her cousin Kal-L will be. While Kal-L lands almost immediately, Kara journeys throughout space for approximately sixty years. In her travels she ages while in the ship and it implants memories and knowledge of Krypton in her head. The ship makes it to Earth some years after Superman has made his place and an eighteen year-old Kara emerges, although Superman and Lois Lane keep her a secret from the public until she has assimilated to a degree in society.

Kara makes her debut as Power Girl and assists members of the Justice Society of America during a few disasters and helps to stop villains Brainwave and Per Degaton. Eventually, the Superman of Earth-2 retires and she replaces him as a full-time member of the team. Initially, Kara has some trouble integrating with Earth’s society, but is able to assume a civilian/secret identity as Karen Starr and the Purple Ray machine on Amazon Island inducts her with knowledge of the planet. (It’s dumb but it’s comics.) She works as a computer programmer and becomes good friends with the Huntress of this world – Helena Wayne, daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. It’s also during this time that her adventures with the JSA lead to crossing the dimensions and meeting the Justice League of America on Earth-1 and she becomes a founding member of Infinity Inc. when younger heroes begin to step up to the plate.

During the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, much of Earth-2’s history and characters are either altered or erased altogether, Karen’s included. She’s now made to believe she is not Superman’s cousin, but granddaughter of Atlantean sorcerer Arion, and actually put into suspended animation for nearly a millennia. This confuses the hell out of her. The JSA disbands not too long after this and without a decent explanation, Karen ventures to Skataris, hoping to find some answers about herself. Needless to say, she finds nothing and returns to her world, accepting membership into the newly formed Justice League Europe. It’s a rocky start, but the team is able to come together and get along for the most part despite clashing personalities. It’s also during her early tenure with this team that Karen is nearly killed by the Gray Man. With doctors unable to operate on her invulnerable body, Sue Dibny brings in Superman to perform the procedure and he is able to do so successfully – but not without consequences. As a result, Karen’s powers are drastically reduced and she loses her ability to fly and her vision based powers. Her initial thoughts are that this won’t tether her, but over time she’s proven wrong.

The JLE is at times seen as more of a problem group by the UN and sometimes the public, however their growing victories help to get the UN to clear them and they are converted into the Justice League International to be sent on worldwide missions.

CW: rape and incest (?? retcons) Highlight to read: Unbeknownst to Karen, her own Atlantean relative “mystically impregnates” her so she spends most of her time in the JLI pregnant and sometimes in battle a magical pregnancy shield protects her. I’m not even joking. It’s an unfortunate, horrifying part of the run. During Zero Hour she gives birth to the child that a demon winds up hunting her for. Because of the mystical nature of the child, he ages rapidly in a short span of time into a grown man, saves Karen and everyone from said demon, and then disappears forever. Nobody brings up the magical baby ever again.

Feeling at a loss with what to do with her life again and with no answers about her past or family to console her, Karen leaps at the chance given to her by Barbara Gordon to play the big damn hero in spite of her reduced powers. Her mission ends in disaster when caught between either saving two thousand innocents or the president she’s supposed to be protecting. The civilians are killed by a torpedo and the president is assassinated by an enemy on board. The incident sets Karen at permanent odds with Barbara, though she occasionally provides the extra muscle when the Birds need it.

Karen returns to the JSA as fulltime member, helping to take on the likes of Ultra-Humanite, Kobra, Mordru, and so on. She suffers another near death experience and her powers continue to act up while Dr. Mid-Nite confirms her powers are not magic based. This begins to damage her confidence, which Alexander Luthor of Earth-3 takes advantage of. She becomes a major player in the Infinite Crisis storyline, after Psycho-Pirate wears her down by repeatedly attacking her psychologically. He reveals like her, he’s a survivor of Earth-2, but she’s forgotten it and that she’s an anomaly for surviving while others like Helena Wayne and the Dick Grayson of Earth-2 did not.

When other survivors of the Crisis (Earth-2’s Superman and Lois Lane, Superboy-Prime, and Alexander Luthor) emerge, her memories of her previous life are returned to her. However, the celebration doesn’t last long when she’s faced with either helping her cousin restore their Earth or allowing Lois, who is sickly and weak, to die. She is conflicted but reaches out to them in the hopes they can come to a compromise – only to be attacked by Superboy-Prime and discover Alex has been using them all from the very start in the hopes of finding the perfect world. While he is easily dispatched, taking down Superboy-Prime is no easy feat and Karen is forced to watch her Superman sacrifice himself in stopping him. He dies and she is left alone again.

A new Supergirl has long appeared and taken her place as Superman’s cousin once more, Lois Lane of Earth-2 is also dead, and Earth-2 remains a long gone universe. Karen is left with little options but to persevere, though she is not completely alone. She becomes the chairwoman of the JSA and they recruit new heroes and life quickly falls back into its usual routine for her.

And again, the universe throws one more curveball at her when another Superman, from Earth-22, appears in their world. Apprehensive at first and still reeling from the death of her actual cousin, she begins to warm up to this Superman until when confronting the godlike being Gog with the JSA cuts their relationship short. After sensing her deep desire is to go home, Gog sends Karen “home” to Earth-2, only she stumbles upon the horrible fact it’s not and there’s already a Power Girl who exists there. Declared some kind of impostor by the people she wanted to fit in with again, she is tortured by the Justice Society Infinity of that world before she manages to flee back to hers. With the aid of Starman the situation with the JSI is smoothed over and they return to their world, leaving Karen alone for good. Though shaken and once again torn from Superman, who has now returned to Earth-22, she resumes her daily life as chairwoman and even begins to devote her time to her old R&D firm, Starrware Labs.

After she befriends Atlee, the brand new Terra, conflicts among the members of the JSA lead to the team deciding it needs to split apart. Along with Magog, she becomes the leader of the All-Stars, a group composed of the younger JSA members. Karen and Magog clash frequently however, which results in her booting him off the team for good. With that, she now juggles leading and training a whole superhero team and her civilian life which is often interrupted by villains of the day and/or week, or silly space men who endanger the planet in the hopes of courting her.

PERSONALITY:

Not knowing peace and quiet can used to describe both Kara’s lives as Karen Starr and Power Girl. Very much aware it comes with the job description, it doesn’t keep her from huffing and cracking a sarcastic remark about it every time she has to go out and save the world. But as exasperating as it can be, Karen cares a great deal about the world around her and will do anything to ensure its protection and that no one will ever have to suffer the way she has.

Losing her universe left her yearning for a place to call home for many years, but losing her past plagued her just as well. Without any memory of where she came from, Karen often wondered what her future had in store for her and if she ever had a place in this world where it turned out she was not Superman’s cousin as she had been led to believe, but a Supergirl already existed in her place. She didn’t let on much about how greatly this shook her, but over the years she held her doubts about her purpose and identity. While she’s considerably calmer compared to her days in the JLE and JLI, she still keeps her insecurities to herself, too stubborn and too proud to let down the walls she’s built for herself. As a result, when she is suffering she prefers to keep it to herself if she can in spite of now having the JSA, whom are like a family to her. Having a reputation for being one of the tougher and overconfident superheroines, she maintains this persona by rarely allowing others know the truth about her. While she socializes among many, the reality is that most people don’t actually know or understand her because of what she chooses not to reveal. It’s stated that a good number of her allies only scratch the surface of Karen’s personality. For a headstrong woman, she surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) conceals a lot.

This is all due to the typical belief that her fears are weakness, therefore a danger to herself and others. Karen’s been in the hero business long enough to have suffered bittersweet victories or worse – failure. The incident with Barbara Gordon came during one of the lowest points of her life and career, resulting in Karen harbouring a deep grudge against the other for what she believed was insisting one person’s life was more valuable than thousands and ordering her to stay on mission. But as she reveals to an unconscious Ted: not being at the top of her own game threw her self-confidence and it was much easier to misplace her anger on someone rather than hate herself.

Although Karen doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve and not many outside her teammates get to see her softer and logical side to. She’s grown wiser over the years and come to understand not all problems can be resolved through violence or even through super heroic feats. Her maturity is showcased through the founding JSA members appointing her as chairwoman of the team and she does an excellent job of it before unfortunate circumstances force the team to split. Her job at Starrware Labs consists of creating solutions for the world around her, understanding how fragile and impressionable it is and that she needs to be proactive there. Call it idealistic, but Karen is dedicated to changing the world – her newly adopted home – for the better. And she’s smart; she picks and chooses the appropriate people with the skills to help make change happen, for the JSA and Starrware. For it she is respected by her colleagues and fellow JSA allies.

Not just as a leader but in general: Karen is no pushover and refuses to be passive when she feels offended. She holds no patience for patronizing behaviours – but really, she has no patience for anything that dares to disrupt her plans nor does she appreciate personal mockery in general. Despite all the years she’s spent wising up, she still holds a quick temper that is conveyed through verbal threats and even physical confrontation (guess who threw Ted Grant out a window when he was being sexist?). Karen can be very argumentative when trying to make her point and is often sarcastic or imposing if the topic at hand is grave. She may not yield unless her sympathies are appealed to, or she’s been calmed down by other, or been able to soothe her temper over herself. Sometimes, she will begrudgingly resign herself, though not without making it clear she’s not pleased by the outcome.

But she can be kind and gentle and is aware she’s a role model to many young women out there, including the heroines who fight by her side. She once claimed she wasn’t good at “girl talk”, but the confidence and aspirations she’s filled the likes of Stargirl and Cyclone, to name a couple, prove otherwise. She’s no Wonder Woman, she knows that – yet she’s willing to reach out and help, as seen when dealing with a young girl who terrorized an entire harbour because of her passion for the environment. Upon discovery of the girl’s age, instead of tossing her to the police she offers to help her secure a job at an environmental company and do good there. The world can’t be seen in shades of black or white and Karen does her best to remember that. While she may not weep over the death of a criminal, she’s aware some of them are mentally sick and require help – something she hands to Ultra-Humanite after she accidentally burns his body and then he steals her best friend’s body. She does believe in second chances, but she is less forgiving if it is taken for granted. Worst, if screwing up that chance involves harming those she cares about. Karen is overprotective to the degree she may not hold back her powers if her loved ones have been hurt and in extreme cases is brutal in her retaliation; Satana’s arm being heat visioned off a prime example of why it’s unwise to hit at Karen where it hurts the most.

POWER:

Karen’s Kryptonian biology grants her solar energy absorption which in turn allows her cells to process radiation differently from a regular human. Under the yellow sun her power set is as follows:

heat vision

super hearing

a ridiculous amount of enhanced visions (electromagnetic, x-ray, telescopic, microscopic, infrared)

flight

invulnerability

superhuman speed, stamina, endurance, and strength

super breath (freeze breath included)

However, Karen is a trained and skilled combatant without the use of her powers. She has been trained in boxing by Wildcat, a world renowned boxer, and karate by Mongo Krebs. She has likely trained with other members of the JSA throughout her time in it and in the past, with Captain Atom when her power levels were greatly reduced.

[CHARACTER SAMPLES]

COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

[ The ID on the Network appears as Power Girl.

As the audio begins, anyone with a good ear or paying close attention will notice there isn’t complete radio silence between the time the feed turns on and when a woman begins speaking. There’s a passing wind that lightly filters in through the speaker – and are those wings flapping in the distance? ]

Okay, I get it; Lachesis does not appreciate a hands on approach. Does she really call herself that? I guess she doesn’t get memos, but I thought I washed my hands of this alternate universe mess a while ago.

The City... that’s original. Should have stuck with New York.

If anyone from the JSA or the League is—oh. One second. [ The audio cuts for about five minutes before it’s switched back on and Peej sighs. ] That was a close call.

Sorry, as I was saying: All-stars, JSA, Leaguers, Titans, heck even Legionnaires... this is Power Girl. I think I’ve gotten the gist of the situation, but if there’s anything else I need to be briefed on get in contact with me ASAP.

[ Not that her voice will betray how she really feels, but she really hopes she’s not stuck in another alternate universe by herself again. ]

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

Karen’s lost count of how many times she’s been thrown into another space without warning. With all her enhanced senses, one would think she would hear this coming halfway across the world.

Yet she never does.

The robotic voice greeted her. Not by name (likely pre-programmed), but she called her a “hero” which meant someone wanted her here for some potentially dastardly reason. As Power Girl, the moment she laid eyes on the machine before her, she knew it was the most obvious place to start investigating. But before she could lay as much as a finger on it, she blinked –

And found herself in the middle of the Amazon. Beautiful scenery, but she wasn’t here to play tourist. Thankful for super speed, she zipped back to the City and back to the Porter building.

This time she was dumped in the middle of a restaurant in Singapore. The patrons were unhappy.

“Sorry about... that.” She hovered above the mess she had caused, though nobody was hurt. She felt bad, but she couldn’t linger any longer with the mystery of a machine playing hard to get to be solved.

It was after the third try she stopped, huffed about it, and took the time to read the pamphlets provided in the building. It didn’t quell her frustration and instead, an old and familiar fear crept its way underneath her steel-like skin. It was always her that got dragged across the multiverse. Just when she had thought she had steered clear from the pains of alternate universes. But with growing tension came the decision to survey this so-called “City” she had been transported to. The pamphlet could have been a hoax or the one who wrote it wasn’t aware there was a way out. Because being transported into this world meant there was an exit somewhere that someone hadn’t discovered.

She was determined to be the one to find it.

“Oh... Lady Liberty, what have they done to you?” she grimaced, having spotted the (literal) alien design of the Statue of Liberty from a distance. As she slid out a window she propped open for herself, she heard a low, but angry mewl from back inside the building that startled her. It didn’t matter where in the universe she was; she would always recognize that mewl.

“And they kidnapped my cat. My cat.” She stated aloud to no one in disbelief. She bent over to scoop up the orange feline who was fretting in a corner. “Come on, kitty. I know you hate flying, but we’ve got something to handle first.” She let out another angry huff and floated out the window with a cat clinging to her for dear life.

She had a feeling it was going to be a long day.

FINAL NOTES:

If it would be alright with the mods, I would like Peej to be ported in with her (nameless) cat. He has no superpowers whatsoever unless you count being a giant, terrorizing pain in the ass one.