Stephanie Harrington
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Glitter (Stephanie Harrington) is a fictional paranormal in the Marvel Comics imprint New Universe. She first appears in D.P.7 #1.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Pre-White Event
Stephanie Harrington was born Stephanie Lindquist in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in May of 1956. She was raised in an Episcopalian family.
During her high school years, Stephanie was a cheerleader, but she never went on to higher education after graduating high school in 1974. At some point, she met her husband, Chuck Harrington, and they married. She stayed at home as a housewife and he worked in a meat packing plant. In 1980 she gave birth to her first child, Benjamin. Two more children followed, Emily (in 1982) and Jill (in 1984). They had what was reportedly a fairly happy family. She's only even left Wisconsin twice in her life.
[edit] The Clinic
The White Event occurred in July of 1986, but it was almost two weeks later, one August 2, 1986, that Stephanie first manifested paranormal abilities. She felt a wave of dizziness while watching over one of her daughters. Jill tried to comfort her, but became charged with energy and began running through the house. She later healed a minor bump the child suffered as a result.
Although at first Stephanie put the sparks she saw off to being dizzy, her other children and became hyperactive around her as well, and soon her husband noticed. He had her committed to the Clinic for Paranormal Research in the hopes of them finding a way to cure her condition. He threatened not to take her back unless she finished her treatment.
There she joined a therapy group and became friends with the members. One in particular, David Landers, developed a crush on her, but if she noticed she gave no sign for a long time. When one of the group discovered that the Clinic had nefarious plans for them, she escaped with them.
At first she was reluctant to go back home, because of fear of her husband's reaction and because the clinic had sent out bounty hunters after them. Her need to see her children quickly outweighed those fears and she asked the others to take her into Sheboygan. David Landers and Jeff Walters accompanied her into the city, where she learned her husband had taken her kids to his mother's. He also called the Clinic to inform them her wife was there, and the bounty hunters showed up again. The three barely escaped. Her feelings about the event also intensified her paranormality. Before, she only gave off sparks when using her abilities... after her husband's betrayal, she emitted sparks constantly, making her quite noticeable in anything other than direct light.
She had trouble with the way her ability kept her away from her children, and even went so far as to attempt an exorcism to extinguish it, but when that failed she became more depressed, until she and David came up with a plan to split up the group temporarily. The two of them, along with Lenore Fenzl, went to get her kids while Randy and the others searched for Scuzz, who'd recently left the group.
The two picked up Stephanie's oldest son from school, and then went to her mother-in-law's to get the others. Unfortunately, Stephanie's husband happened to visit while they were there. In an attempt to stop him, Dave Landers got into a fight and severely injured the man. Stephanie was afraid to heal him with his bones unset, but went to the hospital later. While there, she was captured by bounty hunters from the Clinic. Her friends, not knowing what else to do when she went missing, returned the children to their grandmother.
The Clinic attempted to brainwash all of the captured members of DP7 with psychic reinforcement during dreams, but due to her powers, Stephanie kept breaking out of REM sleep. Frustrated, Clinic security chief Harlan Hackbarth decided to kill her so she wouldn't be a problem. Telepathic psychologist Dexter Charne tried to stop it by traumatizing Stephanie's mind until she fell into a coma, and it succeeded, but Hackbarth fell victim to the same fate as his mind was connected to hers.
She remained in the coma for several months, even after the rest of her group managed to turn out the sinister forces controlling the Clinic and turn it back closer towards its stated goal. David Landers visited her bedside regularly, reading her stories.
Dave finally, reluctantly, left with the rest of her group on what was planned as a short trip to go after one of their friends, although they never returned. Shortly after Dave left, Stephanie's husband came to visit her. He claimed to have reformed his ways, but in actual fact he was worried because he had been having an affair with a woman who turned out to be HIV positive. He hoped his wife's healing abilities might save him from AIDS. His visit and the promise of them being a family again finally brought her out of a coma.
She left with Chuck and resumed what seemed like a happy family life, at least until Scuzz, a former member of her therapy group, showed up with his teenaged gang after the Clinic closed. Her husband, in an effort to please his wife, agreed to let them stay with them for a while.
[edit] CIA Agent
Meanwhile, different groups had learned about Stephanie's ability. The US Army who had begun a draft of paranormals, learned about her by monitoring the dreams of David Landers. The CIA had meanwhile recruited the female members of her therapy group and, when one of them was asked to help with a woman who was developing a mysterious skin malady, suggested Stephanie might be able to help. Both groups were very interested in the prospect of getting a woman who was super-strong and could heal battlefield injuries.
Major Zentner, who, before joining the army, had been one of the bounty hunters to chase Stephanie and her friends, ordered Landers to accompany him to try and recruit her.
They arrived on the day Chuck finally decided to throw Scuzz's group out. Stephanie had gone with them to the bus station. This time, instead of turning her in, Chuck snuck out to try and warn Stephanie the army was after her, but was followed. Zentner was prepared to use various forms of persuasion (including the threat of drafting her husband) to recruit Stephanie, but Landers decked the Major and told Stephanie to run. She and her husband fled, but on their way to pick up their children they encountered Lenore Fenzl, who approached with an offer to join the CIA.
Stephanie accepted the offer, and soon came to enjoy training to work for the CIA. They'd kept their promises to her and she was allowed to stay with her family. Through them, she discovered her husband's secret. An agent followed Chuck to a hospital where he checked on his condition. She confronted him and he confessed, although in her anger she roughed him up a little.
Stephanie didn't leave him at that point, and went on her first mission to stop a biological weapon in the jungles of Brazil. The weapon was a huge paranormal blob that ate all flesh in its path. The team didn't manage to destroy it, and barely got out with their lives. Stephanie's best friend on the group, Lenore, didn't make it out. When she returned, she learned Chuck had left and taken the children.
[edit] New York
She tracked Chuck down in North Carolina three days later, reclaimed her children and stopped Chuck from killing himself, finally deciding to leave him. She was also ready to quit the CIA, but accepted a mission with them to put former head of the Clinic and now presidential candidate Philip Nolan Voigt under surveillance in New York City.
Voigt almost immediately learned of the surveillance and used his mental powers to subvert the group to his own aims. He even forced them to attack Dave Landers and Randy O'Brien when they came to investigate him and turned out to be immune to his persuasion, and then threatened that if the two men tried to interfere he'd order them to kill themselves.
The group moved in together despite this awkward situation (and, with the help of a bearer of the Star Brand, were later able to terminate Voigt's influence over them all), and the CIA program employing them was cancelled when Voigt made it clear he was aware of it. One of their handlers sent a paranormal assassin to kill the members of the team, and Stephanie was injured. Her son shot the killer when he tried to attack the rest of the group, and because of this they were able to defeat him.
With no job to hold her in the city, Stephanie considered moving back to Sheboygan. As a Christmas present, David Landers rented a car and offered to drive her. He saw it as his one chance to tell her how he felt. He chickened out though at the last minute and left her in Sheboygan without saying anything beyond that she should write him sometime. He returned to Sheboygan and began dating Merriam, another of their friends who was attracted to him.
Sheboygan didn't work out very well for Stephanie, as she couldn't get a job and her children were bullied at school because of her paranormality. She returned to New York. Merriam felt threatened by his old flame and, fearing she came to take David from her, and asked her to leave. When David learned she'd gone, he tracked her down to a cheap hotel and finally confessed how he'd always felt. She kissed him and they agreed to try a relationship.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
Stephanie Harrington's body produces an unidentified energy, which greatly increases her strength, endurance agility, and reflexes.
Because of this energy, Stephanie can engage in physical activity for long periods of time without tiring, lift approximately one ton, run approximately 40 miles an hour, and has a reaction time about twice as fast as the average human.
The energy also greatly accelerates her own healing process and those of others. It can heal small cuts almost instantly. It can't, however, cure anything the body itself can't cure, as it's merely an acceleration of the natural process. With some diseases, her ability might in fact speed up the progression as the disease could be affected by the same energy.
Her body produces this energy in the form of sparkles that she continuously emits, although the sparkling intensifies when she's actively using her abilities. Anybody near to the sparks can be affected by the same energy and can get the same benefits (although to a lesser degree). Although in normal hand to hand combat the damage she could cause would outweigh the benefit her opponent got from the sparks, certain styles such as wrestling be counterproductive.
As part of her CIA training, she has some skill in Jeet Kune Do.
