Vibrania

Firstly, Did anyone else hear that Disney is buying Marvel for $4 billion??? What a way to start the day! I don't know how to feel about this. I just hope Disney doesn't try to anesthetize my comics!

On to Vibrania. The more involved a character history, the more invested in that character I become - which explains my interest in Vibrania (who first appears in 1990 alongside Marvel's Speedball in Marvel Super-Heroes vol. 3 #4). Vibrania's entire history is invented: she comes from the fictional African nation Kwarrai and was paralyzed, but also ultimately granted her powers (and name) by the alloy Vibranium, a metal which only exists in the Marvel Universe (the same Vibranium of which Captain America's shield is comprised).

Vibrania's powers include the abilities to project Vibranium blasts (???) , affect the Earth's plates and create targeted tectonic shifts to distract her opponents, and surround herself with a Vibranium force field.

Vibrania's first exposure the the fictional element occurred after an encounter in her father's lab left her paralyzed and wheel-chair bound, unable to move from the waist down. After an Earthquake destroyed her home land and killed many of her loved ones, the latent effects of her exposure were made evident.

Krystalin

Krystalin (Krys Porter/Ruth Kristen) first appears in X-Men (2099) #1. She has the ability to gather and consolidate mineral content from the atmosphere into hardened crystals that she can, in turn, use as weapons or to encase and freeze an enemy.

Wanda & Cyan Fitzgerald (Zealot) + Granny Blake

Three generations of Black Female comic book characters in one post!

Wanda, Cyan, and Granny Blake appear in the Image Comic Spawn. Wanda was Al Simmons' wife (who the bastard abused!) before he died and reappeared as Spawn. Wanda remarried Al's friend after his death and had a daughter, Cyan, who - in an alternate future - becomes Zealot. Granny Blake is Wanda's mother.

Cyan as Zealot:

Syn

Det. Wanda 'Synaethesia' Jackson is a detective and possesses the unique talents that come along with the condition, synesthesia - she literally sees sounds (Like the NERD album lol). It's a condition where all 5 senses are interconnected and often mixed up... so when you touch something of a certain texture or hear a specific noise, you get a corresponding taste in your mouth... just an example. This makes her a keen detective as she can see colorful auras around suspicious people. Syn also has mild psychic and precognitive abilities.

Debrii

Debrii first appeared in Marvel's New Warriors. She has the ability to move objects around her through telekinetic magnetism. She can move things one at a time or create a cyclone-like mass of debris around herself to defend from attacks.

Jet

Birthname: Celia Windward... Jet is Jamaican and has the ability to fly, create blasts of heat and force, and generate electromagnetic pulse, move and manipulate metal with magnetic fields, fire blasts of electricity, and see in other frequencies of the spectrum besides visible light such as ultraviolet and infrared. She first appeared in DC Millenium #2 in 1988.

Monica & Maya (Heroes)

Surprisingly, I've never gotten into Heroes. I watched the pilot episode and missed the next few and never tried to catch up - Regardless, I'll try to sum these characters up as best I can. Monica, played by Dana Davis (top 3 photos), is from New Orleans, works at a fast food restaurant, is the cousin of a character named Micah, and has adoptive muscle memory - which basically means that after she sees something once, in person or otherwise, her mind records it and she acquires that skill, either temporarily or permanently. This power applies to martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, playing the piano, cooking, etc.

Here's a clip of Monica beating the BREAKS off of a would-be robber:



Maya, played by Dania Ramirez, is from the Dominican Republic and has (or had?) the ability to emit poison and cry black tears (if you can't tell, I'm kind of lost in these character descriptions because they're pretty complex, so I don't know if the black tears ARE the poison or...). She tries to make her way with her twin to America to meet a doctor who can help her with her abilities and ends up killing some people on the way - but she's not evil.

Lightning

I profiled a character named THUNDER aka Arissa Pierce in one of my earlier volumes of Black Female Superheroes, not realizing that in the DC COMICS Universe, she had a younger sister named Lightning aka Jennifer Pierce (fitting, no? Thunder and Lightning?) Their father is Black Lightning. She doesn't yet have the ability to control her powers and often shocks people and shorts out any electrical appliance she touches. She can also shoot lightning bolts out of her palms.