Vera Black

Sister Superior (Vera Lynn Black) is a fictional character from DC Comics. She is the sister of British anti-hero Manchester Black, and a member of the JLA offshoot known as Justice League Elite.

Fictional character biography

When she was a child, her parents would often fight, so her brother would take her out to play. As his psychic powers developed, this 'play' would develop into killing sprees. This twisted Vera in later life. When her brother died after attempting to destroy Superman, Vera tried to get revenge. She underwent cybernetic enhancement, replacing her arms (which were long ago lost in an accident) with cybernetic versions that could turn into any weapon she wanted, and went on with her misguided mission of revenge.

Thanks to the Elite member the Hat, an Earth elemental with a connection to the planet, she became aware that the Planet Earth, in a reflex response to all the strife it endures, was going to destroy human life. Vera and the JLA devised a plan in which she would lead a reformed The Elite (right) in one last battle in a bid to scare the United Nations into cooperation. The ruse worked, and the Earth did not follow through.

The JLA, mainly on the encouragement of the Flash, asked her to lead the new team permanently, handling black ops that the JLA couldn't tackle due to what they represented to the public. She brought together members of The Elite, Coldcast and Menagerie, with some Justice League members, Flash, Manitou Raven, Major Disaster, Green Arrow and Kasumi, and added the spy Naif al-Sheikh to keep the team in check and serve as a liaison to the world's governments. Those stories were told in the Justice League Elite mini-series.

Vera and the elite tackle the Crime Syndicate of Amerika in the storyline running through "JLA #107-114". They are not happy about it, with Vera remaking sarcastically about the Elite's usual method of operating from the shadows. She reluctantly acknowledges the world-threatening aspect of the Syndicate. She and her group hold their own, at one point stopping the villains from creating a slave-backed stronghold in China.

Somewhere along the way, Vera began showing signs of madness. Eventually, it came to light that she was haunted by the spirit of her dead brother. In reality, it wasn't him, but her own weak psyche that represented the cruel and murderous side of herself with an image of her brother. It tormented her, stole her body and proceeded to destroy London. Her teammates in the Elite helped her see that she was better than her brother, and she overcame him, and prevented the outright destruction of the city.

Presumably, she is still leading the Elite, as several members of the team were shown as still being together under her as of the end of the series.

Powers and abilities

Vera's cybernetic arms have many moving parts that can shift and reform to several different weapons.

Her most common form of attack is to turn both her hands into guns (ranging from energy to projectile guns), but they also contain melee weapons such as claws and knives.

Also noteworthy is the extremely advanced camouflage technology her arms contain. Not only does she have a sophisticated holograms projector, which she can use for both on herself and to project images separate from herself, but her arms also house technology capable of interfering with how nearby nervous systems interpret sounds, textures and other things beside visual information. Essentially, she has techno-psionic camouflage. During her time as the leader of the Justice League Elite, she used this to go undercover under several false personas.

Also, even without drawing out any of her weapons, she once punched through a solid brick chimney, showing that her cybernetic arms have some degree of super strength even without calling on the weaponry housed within.

External links

• Vera Black at the Comic Book DB
• A profile