Strange Visitor

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Strange Visitor


Superman #149 (October 1999). Art by Ron Frenz

Publisher DC Comics
First appearance Superman #149 (1999)
Created by Randall Frenz
Ron Frenz
Characteristics
Alter ego Sharon Vance
Affiliations Team Superman, None
Notable aliases Kismet
Abilities Flight, control over electromagnetic fields, density control, empathy

Strange Visitor aka Sharon Vance first appeared in Superman v2, #149 of October 1999, wearing the costume of Superman's old containment suit and soon known to be called the cosmic entity, Kismet.

[edit] History

Because of a lightning strike on a plane, Kismet and Sharon Vance (Clark Kent's childhood friend from Smallville) became one entity known as the Strange Visitor. She had become a being of pure electromagnetic energy, and was drawn to the laboratories of Professor Emil Hamilton, who still had one of Superman's containment suits. Emil modified the suit to fit her since test results showed that her energy field was dissolving, and the suit would help her maintain solid form. Her memories were weak, and even though she easily used her powers to magnetically levitate trains over destroyed tracks, destroy alien attackers with an electromagnetic pulse, and absorb the powers of a self-proclaimed "god of war", she still wasn't sure who she really was.

Even more disturbing was the fact that her emotional state was affecting her powers, and when she became angry or upset, her power levels surged to the point where her containment suit was almost unable to handle all of the energy. If the suit were to fail, she would lose her physical form. But when Parasite absorbed her powers, she had to resort to a life-threatening maneuver that brought herself and the villain far into the sky. Their contact enabled her to override the Parasite's power and steal her abilities back, along with rebooting her memory. She remembered that she had been connected with Kismet since an accident that would have killed her, if not for Clark Kent's help as a child. When she regained her memories, she found that her powers had stabilized to a level where she could use them safely.

She later went on to become a hero in her own city. She fought Gorilla Grodd in New York, but was accused of attacking a "monkey". When the Imperiex fleet attacked Earth, Strange Visitor gave all of her powers to Superman to defeat them, an act which ended her life.

[edit] Powers

Strange Visitor is connected to the Earth's geomagnetic field, and has the power to manipulate electromagnetic energies, which enables her to fire blasts of electrical energy from her hands or eyes, generate magnetic fields to move, lift, and manipulate metal objects, create force fields, steal energy from others, and even "read" an object's magnetic field. She also has the power fly at near light speeds, lower her density to walk through solid matter, and telepathically sense emotions.