Freefall (comics)

Freefall is the code name of a fictional comic book character Roxanne "Roxy" Spaulding from Wildstorm Comics. She is a member of the superhero team Gen¹³.

Character history

Early life

Roxy is the daughter of Team 7 member Alex Fairchild and Gloria Spaulding. The two met when Alex was a soldier, stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Gloria was the daughter of the base commander. Despite her father's dislike of Alex, Gloria and Alex grew close, but soon Alex was called away on another secret mission. Gloria, who had become pregnant, had no way of contacting him. Gloria later married another man and told everyone, including her daughter Roxanne, that the child was merely her stepchild.

Details on Roxy's life before coming to Project: Genesis are sketchy. But a picture of her past can be gleaned from comments Freefall makes over the course of the series.

During a dream sequence Roxy is called "trailer trash" by classmates from her Catholic school. This, along with Roxy's habit of sometimes wearing a crucifix necklace and comments during some conversations confirmed that she was raised a Catholic, though her behaviour indicates that she is a lapsed Catholic.^[1]

Freefall tends to speak with something of a valley girl accent, hinting that she may have grown up somewhere in Southern California, though she visited her mother when staying in New York City. In Las Vegas Roxy had missed her mother by mere hours at a casino she had been working at.^[2] This could be a hint that Gloria Spaulding has a tendency to move often.

The Gen¹³ Project

Roxy's father, Alex, was exposed to the Gen-factor, a substance which gave him and his fellow Team 7 members superhuman powers. Team 7's superiors, International Operations, thought that their children had inherited their powers and started Project: Genesis, testing and recruiting children who were gen-active from all over the United States. Roxy is the youngest member of Gen¹³. She managed to escape Project: Genesis with them after they found out that the I.O. was planning to enslave them. During their escape, Roxy's powers manifested: she was now capable of manipulating gravity and took the codename Freefall.^[3] Roxy became infatuated with teammate Grunge, whom she sees as "the man of her dreams". She developed a jealousy of her statuesque teammate, Caitlin Fairchild, who is often ogled by Grunge, even though she likes Caitlin a lot.

Life after the project

Gen¹³ relocated to San Diego after their escape and one evening, Roxy sneaked out of the house to go to a dance club called The Soil Machine.^[4] In the club, she found the alien, Queelocke, who was hunted by alien bounty hunters. Gen¹³'s mentor, John Lynch, noticed the aliens arriving on Earth and sent the rest of Gen¹³ to help Roxy. They drove back the bounty hunters and the Queelocke became Roxy's pet. Shortly afterwards, Grunge finally returned her affections and the two became romantically involved. However, Grunge was unfaithful, insensitive and immature and their relationship often broke apart.

During her time in Gen¹³, Roxy would find out that Alex Fairchild was her father and that her teammate Fairchild was her half-sister. She would also learn that the woman she thought was her foster mother was in fact her birth mother. Roxy was deeply upset that her mother had lied to her for her entire life, even if the lies had been meant to protect her. However, the two did eventually mend fences. It also led to frictions between her and Alex Fairchild, who had become the team's mentor. After Alex explained to her that he had no way of knowing about her, she came to accept him as a father, but Alex died protecting the team shortly afterwards.

Over the next few months, Roxy had a lot of arguments with her teammates, who had always had difficulties understanding Roxy's infatuation with Grunge, her smoking habits, and her general attitude. Their concerns were proven correct when Roxy found out that Grunge had been having an affair with Swift from The Authority. Despite this all, Roxy was still in love with Grunge. During this time, Roxy also became a bit of an otaku, with a great love for J-pop music and anime.

Roxy was thought to be killed in an explosion with the rest of Gen¹³, but in fact, Gen¹³ had been displaced to an alternate universe and they returned to their own Earth months later.

Worldstorm

A new Gen¹³-series, written by Gail Simone and with art by Talent Caldwell has been announced for mid-2006. Freefall is still a member, albeit she goes by her first name, Roxy. A rebooted Roxy is here described as the aftereffect of a bald-faced attempt at clonation and gene splicing by Tabula Rasa, an off-shot of I.O. When the first part of the experiment ends, and she's abducted and brought back to tabula rasa with the current Gens, now boys and girls experimented upon as she was, she escapes with them.

She later participates to the activities of the group, namely escaping from I.O., facing a group of teenagers from an alternative universe based on the Authority and another batch of I.O. clones sent to apprehend her teammates.

During her adventures, Roxy is revealed to be, as well as her other Gen¹³ teammates, the recipient of the soul of her original namesake, collected by the Doctor and restored in the new body. However, in this life all the Gens exhibit different tendencies, becoming progressively their own persons.

During the World's End events, Roxy is the first to witness the devastation brought on Earth, after a teletransport mishap left the entire team frozen for months. Emotionally shattered, she tries to cope and help the team to survive. Pressured to share her fantasies about the post-atomic world as a way to crack the tension, she reveals to have none: she just wanted to have had more time to live a happier and more peaceful adolescence, becoming a better student, a beloved cheerleader and growing up in a caring family: things she feels she'll never have again.

Powers

Freefall has the ability to manipulate gravity to various effects. She can nullify gravity beneath her allowing her or others to levitate. She can also increase the gravity around a specific area inflicting damage or just making it impossible for an enemy to move. This ability requires concentration and is exhausting to maintain for long periods of time. It has also been suggested in dialog that if she tried hard enough she could affect gravity to the point of warping spacetime.

Alternate versions

• Roxy becomes an unwilling member of the harem of Spawn, who has become the brutal ruler of Earth in 2015. To deflect male attention, she has starved herself.^[5]
• In an alternate universe, Roxy is the main bodyguard for Jack Hawksmoor, who heads StormWatch.^[6]
• In the new Gen13 series set after Earth suffers a civilization-ending apocalypse, Roxy becomes a new member of STORMWatch.

References