Shikari (comics)
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Shikari is a fictional character, a superheroine in the future of the DC Comics universe and a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. She was created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Oliver Coipel and first appeared in Legion Lost #1.
Some fans have noted that she shares her tracking power with Dawnstar, a character from a previous incarnation of the team, but Abnett and Lanning have frequently denied that she is a new version of the earlier character.
Her name is a Hindi word for hunter, derived from shikar - 'hunt'.
[edit] Character biography
Shikari is a member of the Kwai, a nomadic race of humanoid insects who live in the "Second Galaxy", and who were chased and oppressed by the xenophobic Progeny - another insectosoid race who they first encountered when following the appearance of an apparent new, "feral star", which the Kwai considered good luck. Unlike her fellow Kwai, however, Shikari was a rebel, displaying throwback, aggressive "Lonestar" tendencies, including using her retractable exoskeleton for fighting rather than simple protection from the vacuum of space.
She first encountered the Legion of Super-Heroes when she happened across the remains of the Legion Outpost when fleeing from a Progeny attack, containing several Legionnaires in stasis. A hologram of Element Lad, triggered by her entering the Outpost, attempted to explain to her how the group had been thrown through a space-time rift across a vast distance. The Legionnaires were then revived by the Progeny's attack, and helped her fight them off. In return, she took them to the Kwai's "brief-home," where they aided the Kwai in gathering resources for moving on, and they gave the Legionnaires data and materials to help make the severely damaged Outpost habitable. In addition, Kid Quantum discovered that the "feral star" which had drawn the Kwai to the region was in fact the Legionnaire ERG-1, who Shikari accidentally renamed Wildfire, a name which stuck. When the Kwai moved on, Shikari proceeded to remain with the Legion.
Shikari then led them, using her tracking power to attempt to find them a way home, to a rock-encrusted hardlight pyramidial structure. At the centre, they found a space-time rift which could have got them home - but was in fact a prison for a creature called the Omniphagos - something which literally ate all matter in its' path - which had been inadvertently freed by the Progeny and they were forced to seal it once more.
Thereafter, they were captured by the Progeny and taken to their creator, the Progenitor - who was revealed to be the Legionnaire Element Lad, who had been cast a billion years back in time when the Outpost passed back into the normal universe, and who had created all the races in the sector - including the Kwai and the Progeny, a fact which seriously disturbed Shikari. Eventually, after he had killed the Legionnaire Monstress and freed the Omniphagos for experimenting, Live Wire sacrificed his life to kill both Element Lad and the Omniphagos, as Shikari's tracking power directed the rest of the team through the Omniphagos' prison and back home.
There, she was separated from the team for "Quarantine" and was to be vivisected until rescued by Triad, who took her to the "Bouncing Boy," Chuck Taine's ship, where they in turn rescued the other "Lost" Legionnaires from being drowned in toxic sludge. The whole group was then taken to Legion World, an artificial planetoid constructed to be the headquarters for the Legion while half the group was "Lost". There, Brainiac 5 constructed a "Threshold" teleport system based on the rift that had been the Omniphagos' prison, but which was dependent on Shikari's tracking powers to work. After they retrieved Spark from her homeworld as a test, Shikari then helped send a group of Legionnaires to talk the Kwai into becoming guides to help turn the Threshold system into a practical transport network - who eventually assented - while she remained on Earth to help the team defeat Ra's al Ghul, who had usurped the Presidency of the United Planets.
She would remain a core member of the team thereafter, playing key parts in their defeat of Computo and Universo.
At the end of the Teen Titans/Legion special, the majority of the team seemed to fade from existence. Shikari was the only Legionnaire to be deposited in the new "Threeboot" timeline. However, the Legion and Shikari separately made it back to "Earth-247" as depicted in Infinite Crisis #6.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Given time, Shikari can find a path to any object or area, if such a path exists - this power can also be used to see through illusions. She also has an armoured exoskeleton, and can remain active indefinitely in a vacuum. While she has wings which move while she flies, the fact that she can fly in a vacuum implies that this is mostly for show.
