Fury (DC Comics)

Fury is the codename shared by three DC Comics superheroes, two of whom are mother and daughter, both of whom directly connected with the Furies of mythology, and the third who is an altogether different character.

Fictional character biography

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".^[1]

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. In 52, a new Earth-2 with a similar history is created, and Lyta Trevor serves as a member of the Justice Society Infinity.

Post-Crisis

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 who was an Avatar of the Fury Tisiphone) and had been raised by Joan Trevor (née Dale), the Quality Comics superheroine Miss America and her husband, Derek.^[1] Lyta was told of her mother's history by Alecto with the other Furies present.^[2] 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.^[1] Once she had returned home, Lyta was visited by a mysterious costumed figure at night. This turned out to be Hector Hall, 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.^[3]

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. After this incident, Lyta hated Morpheus and blamed him for her husband's death (although he was already dead to begin with).^[4] Morpheus visited the child, named him Daniel, which Lyta accepted, and informed Lyta that he was destined to be in the Dreaming.^[5] When Daniel later mysteriously disappeared, Lyta lost her mind and sought to destroy Morpheus, aided by the Furies. Ironically, it was this that began the chain of events which lead to Daniel becoming the new Lord of the Dreaming.^[1]

Showing up at 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 (which she sorely needed, having earned the wrath of numerous beings/forces for her role in the death of Morpheus). 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.^[1] Daniel appears through a mystic doorway, and Lyta carries the unconscious Hector through it. In the next panel are Lyta and Hector, sprawled in the snow.

Helena Kosmatos

Helena Kosmatos was a new character named "Fury", created to replace the Golden Age Wonder Woman as Lyta Trevor's biological mother.^[6] She began appearing in Thomas' Young All-Stars, a book set in World War II, and her backstory was revealed in Secret Origins #12. 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.^[6]

She was later briefly released from this possession, and retained the other powers, but is once again acting as Tisiphone's avatar.^[7]

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 during 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. This was accomplished via a magical document that, if destroyed, will revert Helena back to her true age and possible death. After this was done Helena 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 behave irrationally.^[1] 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.^[8] 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.^[9] Still a resident of Themyscira, she served the island's present rulers Artemis and Philippus as a trusted aide. Her powers were briefly stolen from her by Barbara Minerva whose role as the Cheetah had been usurped by Sebastian Ballestros. Minerva used the power of Tisiphone to kill Ballestros, regaining her Cheetah form as a result and giving Helena's powers back to her.^[10]

During the events of Infinite Crisis, OMACs engaged the Amazons of Themyscira in battle. Because of this the Amazons relocate their island home to another plane of existence. Helena Kosmatos is shown leaving with the other Amazons.^[11] A year after their departure the Amazons return to wage war on the U.S., which takes place in the Amazons Attack storyline. Helena is never shown as part of this return.

Erik Storn

In 52 week 21, a new Infinity Inc., created by Lex Luthor was introduced, with a male hero going by the name of Fury. The newest Fury had been given blackened skin and razor-sharp claws from submitting to Luthor's Everyman Project. Infinity Inc. #1 (Sept 2007) reveals that, after Luthor's arrest and the project shut down, Erik has become depressed when his powers were shut down and has developed a stuttering problem. He is also suffering from hot flashes and mistakenly took his mother's clothes from the laundry one day. In Infinity Inc. #3, Erik reveals that the stutter is a defense mechanism to hide his desire for self-castration. He also transforms into a fighting woman named "Erika." In #8, Erik/Erika is given a costume and the superhero name "Amazing Woman".

Erik is later found and tortured by Codename: Assassin, having discovered, and shared with Jimmy Olsen, precious informations about Project 7734, the secret agenda of General Sam Lane for Kryptonians. Shifting one last time to the all-powerful Erika body, Erik is able to put Jimmy in contact with Natasha Irons before dying.^[12]

In other media

A character with elements of both versions of Fury appears as a villainess named Aresia (voiced by Julie Bowen) in the Justice League animated series,^[13] in an episode titled "Fury", though Aresia herself is never named as such.

Aresia is a rogue Amazon bent on exterminating men from the planet. She was born in "Man's world". When she was just a girl, she and her mother were forced to flee their homeland from war. On a refugee ship, she was attacked by pirates, who also sank the ship. After drifting aimlessly for days, she washed ashore on Themyscira, where she was taken in by Queen Hippolyta, and raised as an Amazon. During the last stage of her Amazon rebirth (solitary meditation), she secretly left the island to exact her revenge on the men of the world.

With the help of Lex Luthor's Injustice Gang, she makes a special magic-based poison that will only affect men. She tests it on Gotham City and watches as the city goes into chaos. The other male members of the League are quickly taken out, although Batman holds out the longest, leaving only Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl. With her sidekicks, Star Sapphire and Tsukuri, Aresia plots to send her poison around the world. She believes this will make her a hero among the Amazons.

When Queen Hippolyta arrives, Aresia explains her plan and expects the queen to approve and give her her blessing (she believes she is, after all, acting on everything Hippolyta has taught her), but Hippolyta states that she has violated Amazonian Law by lying, stealing, and committing mass destruction. Disappointed by her disapproval, Aresia knocks out Hippolyta and takes her as a hostage. She then finds Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl, and offers them both a chance to join their cause. She angrily sees Diana's polite rejection as "standing against her own sisters." Then she hijacks a stealth bomber and attempts to release her poison into the atmosphere.

After a brief battle on the jet against Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl, in which Star Sapphire is knocked into the sea, and Tsukuri abandons her, Aresia learns from Hippolyta that she didn't survive the shipwreck on her own; she was rescued by the ship's captain (a man), who brought her to Themyscira before dying of heart failure. Both of them were found by Hippolyta, who buried the captain in an unmarked grave near the beach (making him the only man buried on Themyscira). At first she was angry and asked why she never told her this, her answer was that she thought it didn't matter (that "he didn't matter"). However, this story doesn't change Aresia's mind. ("The acts of one man cannot redeem the sins of his kind," she states, "They must all pay.") She launches the poison missiles, but Hawkgirl smashes in the missile bay doors with her mace, jamming them and making it impossible to launch the missiles. Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl and Hippolyta escape, leaving Aresia alone to die as the plane crashes down and the missiles explode. Later, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl discover Aresia's hideout, and find her notes, which they use to make an antidote for Aresia's poison.

References

• Beatty, Scott (2009), Wonder Woman: The Ultimate Guide To The Amazon Princess, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, pp. 46–47, ISBN 0-7894-9616-X 

External links

• The Furies (article by Bob Rozakis)
• Bio on dcdatabaseproject