Jakita Wagner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jakita Wagner | |
Jakita Wagner from Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth, art by John Cassaday. |
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Publication information | |
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Publisher | Wildstorm |
First appearance | Planetary #1 |
Created by | Warren Ellis |
In story information | |
Alter ego | Jakita Wagner |
Team affiliations | Planetary |
Abilities | Superhuman strength, speed and resilience. Possibly ageless. |
Jakita Wagner is a fictional character in the comic book series, Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday.
Jakita possesses incredible strength, speed and resilience, the limits of which are not known. It has been remarked that she "could drop kick a rhino over the Grand Canyon," though she herself stated that she has never tried it with a rhino, only with an old man who was annoying her (Planetary #1). As the daughter of a century baby (Lord Blackstock), Jakita appears to have inherited her father's agelessness.
Her father was the superhuman Tarzan analogue, Lord Blackstock (aka Kevin Sack), from whom she presumably inherited her superhuman abilities. Her mother was Anaykah, a scientist from the Lost City of Opak-re. Opak-re is a highly advanced, hidden city somewhere in Africa, based to some extent on the Hidden City of Opar in the original Tarzan stories.
In 1933, Anaykah became the lover of Elijah Snow and arguably the love of his life. Snow respected the laws of Opak-re, which forbade inter-breeding between the inhabitants of the city and outsiders. Blackstock was not so respectful. When Snow was absent for a period of 18 months, Blackstock and Anaykah slept together out of simple boredom (to which neither of them had a great resistance). A baby girl was the product of their illegal union. As a half-breed, she was left outside the city to die while Opak-re closed itself off from the outside world for good.
On October 18, 1934, Snow returned to the city just as it was closing. A weeping Anaykah begged him to care for the child if he ever loved her. Heart-broken, Snow rescued the child and placed her with foster parents in Germany. Her foster family, the Wagners, had undergone a strange experience with a crashed alien spaceship the year before. (A reference to the origin of Superman, only this one appears to have ended less happily for those involved.) The Wagners named her Jakita.
Jakita inherited the low threshold for boredom of both her parents and has channelled this into several avenues. She is notably promiscuous in her relationships and has been a member of the Planetary field team for at least a decade and led it for several years after Snow disappeared. Her relationship with Snow is complex - but it is clear that she feels a familial love for him, despite their constant bickering.
[edit] Powers
Jakita Wagner has super strength of undetermined levels. She has been shown to easily twist and bend metal with her bare hands as well as leap dozens of feet in the air. She often combines this with her superspeed to create devastating hits. She is skilled enough with the use of her abilities that she can cause tremendous pain and injury to people without killing them and also stop on a dime when running at full speed.
Wagner is also quite durable, able to survive falls from many stories up as well as taking no damage from conventional gunfire. Her invulnerability has limits and despite it, she is still vulnerable to gas attacks.
From her father, she inherits long life. Though she appears to be a fairly young woman, she was in fact born in the 1930s.
On one occasion, she displayed telescopic vision, clearly making out actions happening a mile away.
[edit] Name
Warren Ellis previously used a very similar name - Jakita Wegener - for a character appearing in one of his Hellstorm: Prince of Lies stories.
[edit] References
- Jakita Wagner at the Grand Comic-Book Database
- Jakita Wagner at the Comic Book DB
- International Catalogue of Superheroes profile