Fury (DC Comics)

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For other uses of the term "Fury", see Fury.

Fury was the codename of two DC Comics superheroines, who are mother and daughter.

[edit] Fictional character biography

[edit] Pre-Crisis

Originally Fury was Hippolyta "Lyta" Trevor, the daughter of the Golden Age Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor; as a result of this lineage, Lyta had all her mother's powers. She was introduced in Wonder Woman (vol. 1) #300. Like all Golden Age related characters at the time, Lyta was stated to live on the parallel world of "Earth-Two".

Lyta later adopted the identity of the Fury, named after the Furies of mythology, and was one of the founding members of Infinity Inc., in the book of the same name written by Roy Thomas. She also began a relationship with her teammate Hector Hall, the Silver Scarab, who she had met as a child, and now shared classes with at UCLA, which led to their engagement. Shortly after their decision to marry, Hector was possessed by an enemy of his father, Hawkman, and killed. It turned out that Fury was pregnant with Hector's child, and it was instrumental in the Silver Scarab's defeat.

[edit] Post-Crisis

[edit] Lyta Trevor-Hall

Following the 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Golden Age Wonder Woman retroactively no longer existed, although Lyta still did. Lyta was now the daughter of the newly created character Helena Kosmatos, the Golden Age Fury (a Greek superheroine and member of the All-Star Squadron) and had been raised by Joan Trevor (nee Dale), the Quality Comics superheroine Miss America and her husband, Derek. Lyta was also visited on a yearly basis by the time travelling Hippolyta who trained Lyta and even brought her to Themyscira on occasion. Apart from this, her history was relatively unchanged.

For a while, Lyta continued to serve with Infinity, Inc., but eventually left the team, to go home and bear her child. Once she had returned home, Lyta was visited by a mysterious costumed figure at night. This turned out to be Hector, who, after his death, mistakenly believed he had been chosen as the Guardian of Dreams, the Sandman. Hector and Lyta got married and she joined him in the Dream Dimension, together with his sidekicks Brute and Glob, who were secretly running everything without him.

After suffering a nervous breakdown, Lyta Hall searches for her baby Daniel in The Sandman #60. Pencils by Marc Hempel, inks by D'Israeli.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, it was revealed that the Dream Dimension was a pocket of the Dreaming that Brute and Glob had shut off during Morpheus' imprisonment, intending to create their own King of Dreams. Upon Morpheus' return, Hector's soul was released and Lyta was sent back to Earth where she gave birth to their son, Daniel. After this incident, Lyta hated Morpheus and blamed him for her husband's death (although he was already dead to begin with). Morpheus visited the child and informed Lyta that he was destined to be in the Dreaming. When Daniel later mysteriously disappeared, Lyta lost her mind and sought to destroy Morpheus, aided by the mythical Furies. Ironically, it was this that began the chain of events which lead to Daniel becoming the new Lord of the Dreaming.

Showing up at the the wake held for Morpheus, Lyta was still very much mentally unhinged. She eventually met her son in his new role, unlike the old Dream, who would have enacted some kind of revenge, he instead gave her his protection. Lyta was returned to the waking world, her experiences having changed her.

Lyta's story continued in the graphic novel Sandman Presents: The Furies. Following this she appeared in JSA where she was reunited with Hector, now reincarnated as Doctor Fate. Evidently at some point between the graphic novel and her return in JSA, the evil wizard Mordru had captured Lyta and imprisoned her in Dr. Fate's amulet. Once freed, she rejoined her husband and later regained her true memories about their son Daniel.

During the Spectre's quest to destroy magic throughout the DC Universe, he banished Doctor Fate and Lyta to a freezing mountain, later identified as part of hell. In JSA #80, Lyta recalls being visited by her son Daniel in a dream, where he offers to bring Lyta and Hector to the Dreaming for all eternity, but they can never return to Earth. Seeing that Hector is unconscious and near-dying, Lyta takes Daniel up on his offer. Daniel appears through a mystic doorway, and Lyta carries the unconscious Hector through it. In the next panel we see the bodies of both Lyta and Hector, unconscious in the snow, presumably dead, signifying that their spirits are now in the Dreaming.

[edit] Helena Kosmatos

Helena Kosmatos as Fury. Art by Brian Murray.

Helena Kosmatos (a new character created to replace the Golden Age Wonder Woman as Lyta's biological mother) began appearing in Thomas' Young All-Stars, a book set in World War II, and her backstory was revealed in an issue of Secret Origins. She was a Greek national who had learned her brother was co-operating with Italian Fascists who previously killed her father. When she confronted her brother with this revelation in front of their mother, it was too much for the widow to take and she died of an instant heart-attack. Wishing revenge upon her brother she was approached by Tisiphone, one of the Eumenides or Furies, who gave her a suit of magic armor, which increased her strength, speed and stamina. When angered, she became an avatar of Tisiphone, and it was in this state that she killed her brother. This made her a highly unpredictable heroine. She was later briefly released from this possession, and retained the other powers, but as seen in Wonder Woman #168 in cameo and more fully in Wonder Woman #169, she is once again acting as Tisiphone's avatar.

At one point the Amazon Queen Hippolyta took over the role of Wonder Woman and traveled back in time to aid the JSA against the nazis. During this time Helena began to look to Hippolyta as a mother figure and began a strange fixation that she was indeed the daughter of the Amazon Queen, despite the knowledge that her true parents were killed in the war. When Queen Hippolyta returned to her own time Helena's fixation began to get more and more bizarre. She sought out a magical means to gain eternal youth in order to be with Queen Hippolyta in the future. After this was done she met Hippolyta's true daughter Diana and took an immediate dislike to her. By this point Helena's mental state was near collapse as she began to act on irrational thoughts. Not wanting her to be on her own in the world, Diana took her to Themyscira to be placed in Queen Hippolyta's care. Helena liked this arrangement very much and stayed on the island as an honorary Amazon. And though they are not physically related, Hippolyta began to refer to Helena as a daughter in order to help her sort out her fragile psyche. After Hippolyta's death during the Our Worlds At War saga, Helena went into mourning and much of her mental imbalance was gone as a result. Still a resident of Themyscira, she served the island's present rulers Artemis and Phillipus as a trusted aide.

In Infinite Crisis #3, after OMACs engaged the Amazons of Themyscira in battle, the Amazons and Themyscira relocate to another plane of existence. Helena Kosmatos is shown leaving with the other Amazons.

[edit] Other media

Aresia from the Justice League series, lifting up Batman, about to toss him away.

A character with elements of both versions of Fury appears as a villainess named Aresia in the Justice League animated series[1], in an episode titled "Fury", though Aresia herself is never named as such.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Furies (article by Bob Rozakis)