What's This? Earth-6's only survivor.
The facts: Created for Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, Lady Quark was one of the rulers of the also-new Earth-6 just before it got destroyed. First appearance in issue #4 (July 1985) and after the event, DC tried to find her a home on the single Earth (as a native of an alien planet destroyed in the revised Crisis, easy to do since her Earth was so unlike Earth-1). After an appearance in the 80s Starman series (see below), she found that home in L.E.G.I.O.N.'90+ (as of issue 18), apparently killed three and a half years later by a shapeshifting parasite (who impersonates her for a while). No worries, she reappears alive and well in Villains United #5 (November 2005) without explanation, a pawn in Luthor's plan to resurrect the Multiverse, so she's on hand to help the heroes in Infinite Crisis. The New52 shows her to be an ARGUS captive (in Vibe #6), and Multiversity restores her Earth as #48 on the map.
How you could have heard of her: After Infinite Frontier, she joins Justice Incarnate (the interdimensional JLA).
Example story: Starman #8 (March 1989) "The Queen and the Commoners" by Roger Stern, Tom Lyle and Bob Smith
After making Lady Quark the sole survivor of her world, DC wanted to use her in some way, but it would take a while for her to find her proper niche - if she ever did. This early attempt, which goes the Maxima route, was... shall we say, a dead end? We catch up to her in the comics (pardon, non-fiction) section at a Waldenbooks in Los Angeles, wearing a lot of leather over her yellow leotard(?). I guess she missed the Invasion! crossover (or mostly did, she remembers fighting aliens, but is definitely not in any of the Invasion issues or tie-ins).
She buys the trade and is quite short with the clerk, showing you can destroy Royalty's whole universe, but you can't take the Royalty our of a former queen. The book is where she first encounters Starman, and the author gives such a glowing report on the new hero on the block that she immediately gets it into her head that he should be her romantic partner. Especially after Pariah shows up and... well, it's not clear... wants to start a Crisis survivor's therapy group?
There goes the outfit, anyway. Is this where it's established that her costume is just a normal yellow until she powers up and fills it with Kirby crackle? She soon arrives in Phoenix where she tries to attract Will Payton's attention by showing up on the local "Today" show, where she asks Starman to contact her. Could have been worse, given the usual comic book tropes. Then she hangs around the station, simmering, until she decides she wasted time with the softer approach. Her second attempt is more successful:
She recaps her origin, but before she can tell Starman why she wants him, a scream for help interrupts. Some idiot leaned off his balcony to take a picture of the hero, and fell. Will saves him, of course, but Lady Q admonishes him for rescuing someone who will only go on to pollute the gene pool with his stupidity. Still, his compassion is a royal trait. She can work with that.
Her plan to unite our Earth the way hers was, with an absolute, super-powered monarchy is not gonna play, however, and Will is quickly out of there. She pursues and perhaps only catches up because he stops a gas station robbery/shoot-out. But at least she sees to a woman hit by a stray bullet. She overhears that the criminal was a repeat offender and uses that to argue that he should have left the guy to the mob building around the station rather than delivered him to the cops. Later, at the hospital...
He tries to get through to her, but it seems impossible. She hears his words of wisdom, but because he's so young (yeah, we haven't talked about the age difference), she decides they're driven by cowardice. His comforting touch makes her tingle, though (maybe it's their energy powers), but she can brook no weakness and flies off, crying (hey, hey, watch the weakness). By the end, she's learned nothing, and seems set to become a villain who tries to conquer Earth to save it from itself. No one really picked up that thread.
When she joined L.E.G.I.O.N., I wasn't particularly enthusiastic either. I don't think the character EVER really worked in our universe, though I'd have been intrigued by a series set on Earth-6. Maybe.
Who's Next? A killer clan.
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