Who's This? A hex-casting queen in exile.
The facts: One of the original Omega Men who premiered in Green Lantern #141 (June, 1981), she was one of the main characters of the 1983 series for the length of its run. She was killed Invasion! After Flashpoint, Queen Kalista was a character in the New52's Omega Men series; the group had premiered in Deathstroke #9 (July 2012), where the "Omegas" were tutored by Zealot. They got a series in the DC You initiative.
How you could have heard of her: If you know the Omega Men, Kalista is probably in the mix. If not, you're fresh out of luck. But her planet, Euphorix, was featured twice on My Adventures with Superman (or at least, its name was used for the planet savaged by a Brainiac-controlled Kara Zor-El).
Example story: Omega Men #3 (June 1983) "Assault on Euphorix!" by Roger Slifer, Keith Giffen and Mike DeCarlo
Look, Kalista is a female character in an early non-Comics Code approved DC book, so CLEARLY, she has to do nudity. I dunno, if I have to sleep in front of giant propaganda screen in a science-fiction story, I'd likely think it's a two-way circuit and they can see me.
Euphorix is the planet of which she is queen in exile, and the Citadel is going after it, force-field or no. If you don't get Princess Leia/Alderan vibes from this, you've been living in a cave for the last 50 years. But time to call the Omega Men to stop the carnage. The trouble - her partner Primus hasn't returned from the last mission. To her credit, the Omega Men are ready to go into battle under her banner and she's not waiting. To her discredit, she should have left a note, because Primus and Tigorr just think they deserted. Kalista's ship comes out of hyperspace inside an asteroid, unfortunately, and loses a wing, the crew safe apparently thanks to her sorcerous powers (we don't see it). Still, not everyone is happy with following her orders, but I don't think they'd be too happy if it were Primus either. People like Humbek... hm, seems familiar.
Humbek falls prey to 1st appearance leotard Lobo(!) who kills him with the flick of his finger, and we're basically waiting for Kalista to stop playing Captain Janeway and get down to some superhero action. But Lobo is painted as so overpowered, it can't possibly go well.
At least Lobo acknowledges that her sorcery would have normally been enough to beat him, which is why brought those weird organic things with him (they are currently overtaking the hold). They eat energy, so she's done. From here, the cover - Kalista taken to Darth Hokum, the weirdly-human leader of the Citadel, or rather, to a cell where he can talk to her on a giant screen. He reveals that it was all a trap, and Euphorix's force field never came down. The illusion was perfect because they used a telepathic creature to get the images, and the secrets of the force field can be extracted from Kalista the same way. Time to use those energies again...
Oh boy. The battle blows her out into space and she only survives thanks to the creature having already started the process of becoming her. Yeah, it's not telepathy exactly. It's mind-and-body copying. And it's gross. But we know she survives, so I guess it must all have worked out for the best.
Who's Next? The last boy on Earth.
Comments