| Vixen | |
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Vixen from Justice League Of America vol. 2 #4, artist J. G. Jones. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Action Comics #521 (July 1981) |
| Created by | Gerry Conway (writer) Bob Oksner (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Mari Jiwe McCabe |
| Team affiliations | Justice League Suicide Squad Checkmate Ultramarine Corps Birds of Prey |
| Abilities | Mimics the abilities of any animal that has ever lived on Earth |
Vixen (Mari Jiwe McCabe) is a fictional character, a comic book superheroine published by DC Comics universe. She debuted in Action Comics #521 (July 1981), and was created by Gerry Conway and Bob Oksner.
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She was nearly the first black female DC superhero to star in her own series, but the first issue of her series was canceled in the DC Implosion in 1978, never to be released. The story was subsequently printed in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade.
Since her debut in Action Comics, she has primarily appeared in team books, most notably various incarnations of the Justice League and Suicide Squad.
In October 2008, G. Willow Wilson began the new five-issue limited series, Vixen: Return of the Lion.[1][2]
In ancient Africa, there was a legend that the warrior Tantu asked Anansi the Spider to create a totem that would give the wearer all of the powers of the animal kingdom, if they would use the power to protect the innocent. As shown in the pages of Animal Man, it is possible that the "Anansi" who Tantu met, may have been a member of the alien race who gave Buddy Baker the ability to "tap the morphogenetic field" — or, as shown in the pages of Justice League, the aliens may have been Anansi in disguise. This field allows Buddy to imitate the abilities of nearby animals. According to the Animal Man series, Mari's Tantu totem may tap into that same field. Tantu used the totem to become Africa's first legendary hero. The totem was later passed down to Tantu's descendants until it reached the McCabes.
Growing up in a small African village in the fictional nation of Zambesi, M'Changa province, Mari Jiwe McCabe hears the legend of the "Tantu Totem" from her mother. Sometime later, Mari's mother is killed by poachers and she is raised by her father Reverend Richard Jiwe, the village priest. Reverend Jiwe himself is killed by his half-brother (Mari's uncle) General Maksai. Maksai wants the Tantu Totem, which Jiwe had possessed.
Mari moves to America, where she establishes an identity as Mari McCabe and gets a job as a model in New York City. She uses her newfound wealth to travel the world. On a trip back to Africa, she comes across her uncle and takes back the Tantu Totem, using its power to become the costumed superhero Vixen.
After this, Vixen made only two appearances as a solo crime fighter: once fighting poachers in India[3] and then against the techno-psycho criminal, Admiral Cerebrus.[4] In fact, she was a reluctant hero until the Justice League of America was reorganized by Aquaman. She applies for full-time League membership and is accepted.[5] During her time with the JLA, the totem is taken from her by General Maksai, who still sought its power.[6] The totem would only grant its full power to those who would use it to protect the innocent, and it causes Maksai to be transformed into a raging beast. Maksai dies in battle with Vixen.[7] When the team faces the killer android Amazo, Vixen and several of her teammates are beaten into unconsciousness and then left bound and gagged in a walled off pit. Vixen saves the lives of herself and her fellow Leaguers by using her powers to shatter her bonds and dig to freedom.[8] Vixen continues with that particular incarnation of the JLA until two members were killed, Steel and Vibe, and it was disbanded by the Martian Manhunter.[9]
Around this time, Vixen teams up with Animal Man again. She travels to his suburban house with knowledge of a mysterious murderous force. Animal Man's own powers have become affected because of this force, as he finds himself unable to correctly access the right powers.[10]
Vixen returns to modeling, but a Caribbean photo session turns violent; Mari's colleagues are killed by drug smugglers. She appeals to the government, who turn the matter over to the Suicide Squad. She goes undercover to capture the drug kingpin Cujo, who has been revealed by footage shot during the shoot. Along with Captain Boomerang and Black Orchid, she destroys the operation, but not before she loses control and kills the criminal kingpin, too. Revolted by what she has become, she agrees to work with the Squad until her animal instincts can be curbed.[11] She works with the Squad for some time, again seeing more teammates and friends killed. When it is disbanded for a year,[12] Mari returns to modeling and even launches a successful line of clothing. Her failed romance with Ben Turner (the Bronze Tiger) makes Vixen decline an offer to rejoin the Squad. She realizes Turner needs mental support, and she reluctantly returns.[13] She ultimately gives up on a future with the Tiger, sensing that he would never admit to needing help, and leaves the team.[14]
After the Suicide Squad's heyday, Mari continues to do undercover work. She is drafted for at least one mission for Checkmate (the Squad's brother organization).[15] At some point, she signs on to work with Oracle's Birds of Prey. She goes undercover to investigate a strange "superhero" cult, where the leader was using mind control and winds up brainwashed by him herself. The Huntress tries to help her and is nearly killed. Vixen regains her senses by channeling the stubbornness of a mule to hold back the mind control of the cult leader. She and Huntress then rescue the other brainwashed heroes.[16]
Vixen may still have trouble controlling her animal side while using the totem, as witnessed when she worked alongside the Flash to stop Gorilla Grodd.[17] She also serves on one mission with the Justice League Task Force,[18] came to Wonder Woman's aid during a battle with Circe,[19] and helps her former JLA comrades protect Lex Luthor.[20] She then joins the loose-knit Ultramarine Corps.[21] While part of the Corps, Mari is brainwashed by Gorilla Grodd who sends her and other heroes to battle the JLA. Ultimately, Vixen and the others are freed. The main Corps members move on to another universe.[22] Through all of these adventures she manages to remain active in the fashion industry.
After the murder of Sue Dibny in the Identity Crisis miniseries, Vixen rejoins her Justice League colleagues. She is present when the original Firestorm dies during a battle with the Shadow Thief. Vixen adopts a new uniform in Infinite Crisis #7, similar to the one worn by her television counterpart on Justice League Unlimited.
Vixen is tricked into battle in Hub City by a currently intelligent Solomon Grundy (whose rebirth came with increased intelligence).[23][24][25] The totem is essential to Grundy's plans: he intends to use it as a catalyst to merge his perpetually reincarnating soul with the shell of the Amazo android, and thus gain further power. Grundy uses the totem to increase the metahuman mimicking abilities of Amazo. Without her totem, Vixen finds that her innate connection to the "Red", the 'essence' of animal life', is falling apart.[26] She manages to 'lock onto' the totem, but her mind becomes lost in a flock of migrating birds. After mimicking the abilities of a young boy, Vixen manages to regain her mind and quickly flies to New York to retrieve her totem.[27] Vixen literally drops into the JLA battle against Amazo.[28] After the villains are subdued, Vixen becomes a charter member of the newly revamped Justice League of America.[29]
Vixen's main story arc in the early issues of Justice League of America vol. 2, center around a change in her powers, which means she is no longer drawing on animal characteristics, but rather the powers of those around her, matching their skill levels and, she suspects, draining powers from the owner him/herself. Superman is first to catch on to this and she subsequently reveals it to Red Arrow.[30]
She seeks out her former Suicide Squad teammate Bronze Tiger to discuss her situation, and subsequently admits everything to the League.[31] Chairperson Black Canary instructs her to hand in her credentials and removes her from the team, but then discusses with Mari the possibility of seeking Zatanna's assistance in fixing the properties of the totem.
When Zatanna attempts to find the source of the problem, she sees a mystic image of Vixen and Animal Man as puppets. When she tries to break the spell, she is repelled by an unknown force. When Vixen attempts to defeat the newly-restored Amazo by absorbing all his stolen powers, she becomes mysteriously weak.[32] She falls unconscious, with Amazo bearing down on her.[33]
When Zatanna and Red Tornado finally resolve the crisis, Vixen goes to seek Animal Man, since he's been affected by similar power fluctuations, and left unable to tap into the powers of Earth-borne animals. There, they are both sucked into the Tantu Totem, where, like in Zatanna's vision, they are entrapped into Anansi's net. Anansi, the Trickster God of African folklore, reveals his powers and how being the King of the Stories, he changed Buddy and Mari's personal histories and sources of powers to test them.[34]
In an attempt to keep them contained, Anansi restores their connection to the Red, but alters the personal histories of the Leaguers, to prevent them from ever founding the JLA. Vixen however escapes, and seeks the new Leaguers to fight Anansi at their side. Although she succeeds in gathering allies, they are still no match for Anansi's power. Vixen holds a gun to her totem, knowing that if it is destroyed, they will all be destroyed, and forces Anansi to return things to normal. Anansi then reveals to Mari that the whole thing was actually a test. He explains that reality had been changed on a fundamental level, and he needed someone to act as his agent against an individual who could take advantage of the situation. He restores Mari's powers, returns her and the JLA home, and says that he will one day call upon her.[35]
Vixen: Return of the Lion is a limited series detailing Vixen's return to her home village for the first time. She finds that a local warlord named Aku Kwesi and his men have taken over several Zambesi villages. It turns out that this is the same man who killed Vixen's mother years ago. When she confronts him, she finds that he has powers that rival and possibly surpass hers. These powers are based on advanced technology and chemicals that were given to him by Intergang lieutenant Whisper A'Daire. The rest of the Justice League of America go to Africa to render assistance only to have several members get doused with Kwesi's specially prepared Vodun zombie potion. This allows A'daire to take control of Superman and Black Canary and pit them against the rest of the League.
During the Final Crisis crossover event, Vixen is shown at the funeral of Martian Manhunter, and later at the Hall of Justice when Empress, Sparx, and Más y Menos come there seeking help after being attacked by Mirror Master and Arthur Light. She later participates in a massive battle with Darkseid's forces after he nearly conquers Earth with the Anti-Life Equation.
In the aftermath of Final Crisis, the JLA is in tatters, with many of its members having to leave. Mari and the remaining team members enlist the aid of Hardware after Kimiyo Hoshi goes missing in her search for Shadow Thief and Starbreaker.[36][37] With help from Superman's friend Icon, the team emerges victorious in the battle with Starbreaker, with Mari having bright hopes for the future of the team.[38]
A short while later, Vixen is shown to have had her leg broken in a battle between the JLA and the dangerous villain Prometheus with Hawkman's mace.[39] While she and the rest of the team try to recover, they are ambushed by Despero, who seeks to destroy the weakened League. The JLA eventually defeats Despero, only to be informed by Zatanna of the horrific events of Blackest Night taking effect across the globe.[40] After the Black Lanterns attack,[41][42] Vixen tells Kimiyo that she is taking a leave of absence from the team in order to recover from her injuries.[43]
According to writer James Robinson, Vixen was initially intended to have a significantly different exit from the team. According to him, issue #41 of Justice League of America was supposed to have Mari returning to Africa in order to help defend the continent in the wake of Freedom Beast's murder in Cry for Justice, eventually establishing a team of African superheroes known as the Justice League of Africa.[44]
Despite no longer working with the League, Vixen appears as one of the heroes hunting down Maxwell Lord at the start of Justice League: Generation Lost, and is presumably mindwiped by him along with most of the Earth's population. She and Black Canary later travel to San Francisco in order to help Zatanna capture a group of humans who had been transformed into Were-Hyenas.[45]
Sometime after her resignation from the JLA, Vixen travels to the rundown neighborhood of Liberty Hill in order to recruit Tattooed Man for a new team of heroes she is putting together. However, Vixen discovers that a group of gangbagers who had formerly worked under Tattooed Man have taken control of the community and made a fortune for themselves through crime. Mistakenly believing that Tattooed Man is responsible for the acts of violence committed by his former thugs, Vixen rescinds her offer and attacks him.[46] After a brutal fight, Vixen willingly surrenders and agrees to leave and let Tattooed Man take care of his neighborhood in his own way.[47]
Following the events of the Flashpoint crossover, Vixen is recruited as part of the new Justice League International.[48]
Vixen possesses the innate ability to make direct contact with the Earth's morphogenetic field, which is sometimes known as the "Red". This contact with the "Red" allows Vixen to mimic the abilities of animals, by simply focusing on a specific animal's abilities and then drawing it directly from the field. Her natural range for mimicking animal abilities is about 150 feet. Vixen wears a mystic artifact called the Tantu Totem, a fox-head shaped talisman given to her ancestors by the African trickster god Anansi. It was previously thought that the totem was the source of her powers but according to recent stories,[27][49] it merely prevents her natural link to the morphogenetic field from overwhelming her mind. It is assumed that the totem also increases her range for mimicking the abilities of animals, as she has been known to mimic the abilities of animals on the other side of the world. She apparently can also call upon the abilities of multiple animals at once and has demonstrated the ability to hold onto the morphogenetic traits of all the animal in a forest.[50]
So far, Vixen has used the following skills: the flight of a hawk, the ability to breathe under water like a fish, the swimming ability of a dolphin, the speed of a cheetah, tapped into the aggression, physical and mental abilities of Gorilla Grodd,[51] the echolocation of a bat, the wallcrawling of a spider, the jumps of a cricket, the constriction of an anaconda, the sensitive trichromatic color vision of a salamander, the strength of a bull elephant (about 12 tons), the strength of a Rhinoceros Beetle (about 65 tons),[52] the senses of a wolf, the agility of a monkey, the electrical absorption and debilitating shock of an electric eel, accelerate the regenerative abilities of reptiles and earthworms,[53][54] the ability to spit venom like a spitting cobra, the body armor of an abalone and armored beetle (which proved strong enough to withstand a punch from Superman),[55] the nocturnal vision of a cat, the speed of a mantis shrimp to catch a bullet, the kick of a horse, the protective hide of a rhino, the danger sense of seagulls and terns, the rage of a lion, the eyesight of an eagle, the cold adaptation of Methanococcoides burtonii, the heat tolerance of a Pompeii worm,[56] and the stubbornness of a mule (against telepathic attacks and mind control inflicted by Brainiac). Recently, she used the bioluminescence of a Marine hatchetfish to produce light from her hand and Anglerfish to create a laser-like beam from her head.[42] She has even been shown to be able to channel the powers of extinct animals, such as the saber-toothed tiger and the Triceratops, domesticated animals like the Doberman Pinscher, and even mystical beast like dragons.[57]
Vixen's claws/nails are particularly sharp and tough, enabling her to rend through a variety of substances, such as fabric, wood, cinder block and even soft metals with ease. Her claws are magically enhanced and have drawn blood from individuals who are considered highly durable like Geo-Force, Despero and Pre-Crisis Superman.[3][58]
Occasionally, she has been known to physically transform into animals—for example, she has shapeshifted into a wolf, a great horned owl, and a cougar.[59] Vixen can also assume a hybrid form, in which she maintains a humanoid form but with certain animal adaptations, like when she took on the gills, fins, and lack of eyes of a blind cavefish in JSA Classified and later shapeshifted into a humanoid wolf (retaining the cavefish's blindness). The totem also allows her to heal bruises and wounds within seconds by simply touching it.[60]
While the full extent of Vixen's control over the morphogenetic field is unknown, she has on occasions drawn pure energy from it and displayed this energy as a force field and energy claws.[61] While in cooperation with Animal Man and the woman known as "Tristess", she helped to create an entire universe.[62]
One apparent drawback of Vixen's powers is that she is not always able to control the inputs from the morphogenetic field. Sometimes, she has absorbed unwanted animal behavior, such as instinctive rage. The longer she stays in contact with the morphogenetic field, the less human and more animal she seems to become.[63] Vixen also has the ability to communicate with animals and can override the natural predator/prey instinct found in most wild animals.[64]
It is unknown what would happen if Vixen tried to use her magical abilities on an alien animal, or if she would gain access to the morphogenetic field of another planet. During the time when Vixen was mimicking human abilities she was able to mimic the extraterrestrial abilities of Superman. This might indicate that she is able to mimic the abilities of aliens as long as she is aware of them.
After being forced to tap into the human template as a matter to purge herself from pure animalistic sensations, Vixen is briefly left by the God Anansi with a crippled connection with the morphogenetic field, unable to reach any animal except the human animal. In this state she shows the ability to mimic metahuman powers, such as Jay Garrick's speed, Geo-Force's earth-based powers, and Black Lightning's elemental control, as well as the Kryptonian superpowers of Superman, an extraterrestrial.[65] Her abilities are not only limited to that of metahumans, as she was able to duplicate Red Arrow's archery skills and even Green Lantern's ring in a recent issue of Justice League of America, suggesting that she has gained powers similar to that of Amazo.
It is revealed that this is actually trickery on the part of Anansi. Upon confronting him within the Tantu Totem, Vixen learns the truth about her powers: For unknown reasons, Anansi has made the Tantu Totem his current home. Vixen's family are custodians and guardians of the totem, which they have passed down through the generations. While Mari doesn't need to be wearing the totem to use her powers, she is expected to keep it safe for Anansi. Anansi restores Vixen's original animal powers, then, after testing her abilities as a hero, he states that she is his "champion".[34][35]
In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Vixen is a member of Wonder Woman's Furies and one of the former lovers of industrialist Oliver Queen.[66] Vixen and Oliver have a daughter who tries to assassinate her father, but is killed by his security team.[67]