Friday 21 October 2011

Un-mystifying the purple lady of the DCU

Since DC launched their New52, there's been one question on people's lips: just who is that purple hooded woman?

She first appeared in Flashpoint as the new DC universe was brought into existance.


And then she went on to appear in every single issue number 1 in the first month of the DC reboot, as if checking on her handiwork.



Who was she? An obscure Wildstorm character? A reimagined existing DC character (I briefly wondered if it might be a re-done Raven)? A convenient re-set button if DC decide their risky reboot has failed?

But then I stumbled upon an answer. While reading For Tomorrow, the 2004-5 Superman arc by Brian Azzerello and Jim Lee, I turned the page and what did I see? (Apologies for the quality - no scanner...)


It's a purple hooded woman with marks on her face.

And look, she has a glowing purple aura too!



She's a witch called Halcyon. Beyond that... I don't really know. She's Middle Eastern and seemed to have it in for Superman, who accidentally worsened the war in her country. But all I know of her is what was in For Tomorrow. I haven't seen her in anything before or since. If I Google 'Halcyon DC Comics' she doesn't pop up anywhere. It's almost as if the universe has been re-written and she's vanished from it...

So, I think the guessing games might be over. The mysterious purple lady of the DCnU is Halcyon. Or someone massively ripping off her appearence.

5 comments:

  1. havent seen her in any of the 2nd issues od new 52

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  2. Hi there,

    My names Mark McCann and I run an alternative nerd site based in Ireland called BAD HAVEN (http://www.badhaven.com/) and we specialise in news, reviews, opinion pieces, Cosplay that sort of thing. I came across your blog and really loved it and was wondering if you'd be interested in maybe contributing to BAD HAVEN in some capacity. If not, no worries, but you can follow the url and see what we're about and if you would be interested you can give me an e-mail at info@badhaven.com and let me know what you think (ps sorry to post this directly on your blog wall but I wasn't sure how else to get in contact.

    Cheers :)

    Mark

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, I've also been doing a bit of backissue reading; and tonight while reading StormWatch PHD #11 from 2007 I ran into this panel:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/60738522@N02/6285420868/

    Perhaps its completely unrelated, the hooded figure here only appears in that single panel of the whole series as far as I can tell. Why would there have been such glimpses of her back then on a Wildstorm comic?

    I dunno, I just wanted to share it.

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  4. Hmm, that's interesting. It definitely looks like her. I've recently heard suggestions that she's the Time Trapper from Legion of Superheroes, which also seems kind of likely... The more you look into it, the more confusing it gets!

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  5. She didn't just appear in Flashpoint. She's been seen in Watchmen, Infinite Crisis, Death of Superman, Even that 1951 Batman about the Joker's boners.

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