Cheshire (comics)
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| Cheshire | |
 Cheshire, Art by J.G. Jones. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | New Teen Titans Annual #2 (1983) |
| Created by | Marv Wolfman (writer) George Pérez (artist) |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Jade Nguyen |
| Team affiliations | Injustice League Secret Six Underground Society Tartarus The Ravens |
| Abilities | lethal martial artist poisonous fingernails |
Cheshire is a DC Comics villain.
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
Born (allegedly, see below) to a French father and a Vietnamese mother, Jade Nguyen had an unhappy childhood and was sold into slavery. This trauma made her psychotic, and paved her way into becoming one of the world's most ruthless mercenaries.
After killing her master, Jade is informally adopted by Chinese freedom fighter Weng Chan, who teaches her all he knows about guerrilla fighting. She acquires knowledge of poisons from Kruen Musenda, a famed African assassin known as the "Spitting Cobra" and to whom she is married for the two years prior to his death.
She is a long-standing rival of the superhero team the Teen Titans. However, when Roy Harper, a.k.a. the archer Arsenal, goes undercover for the government in a mission to get her confidence and turn her over, the two fall passionately in love. Knowing he will not be able to turn her in, he walks out; Cheshire would not learn his true identity until later. The result of their romance is a daughter, Lian, whom Roy is raising. Despite her own shortcomings, Jade loves her daughter.
Returning to her mercenary ways after leaving Lian behind for Roy, Jade saves Deathstroke's life so he could help her in stealing nuclear weapons from Russia in an attempt to blackmail the world. To prove she is not bluffing, she obliterates the fictional Middle East nation of Qurac, reasoning that since Qurac is a stronghold of Muslim terrorists, that Western countries would be secretly grateful.[1]. Cheshire's plans are foiled when her base comes under attack and she is forced to flee. She later creates her own team, The Ravens.
Cheshire volunteers to join Tartarus, a group created by Vandal Savage with the objective of destroying the Titans. During a confrontation with the Titans and the H.I.V.E, Savage shoots Cheshire to distract Arsenal. She recovers, but is taken into custody for crimes including destroying Qurac. Sentenced to life imprisonment, she is broken out by the Ravens. Arsenal, however, forces her back into custody.
In 2005 she appeared in the miniseries Villains United as a member of the Secret Six. During the series she had relations with Thomas Blake, a.k.a. Catman, and became pregnant. At the end of the miniseries, having betrayed the Six to Lex Luthor's Society, she is shot and critically wounded by Deathstroke. Though apparently killed, she later turns up alive, living in a mansion in the Himalaya Mountains with her son by Blake. Working with Vandal Savage again, she put out hits on the other members of the Secret Six except for Blake. Taking matters into her own hands, she stabs The Mad Hatter, who is working with the Six. Her blade was poisoned (as usual) and she later bartered the antidote to the poison to Catman in exchange for her safety.
In Justice League of America (Vol. 2) #12, Cheshire was shown in prison, receiving a visit from Roy Harper and Lian.
Eventually, Chesire discovered that her father was a senator named Robert Pullman, and she attempts to torture and kill him. To that end, she defeats Lady Shiva, and devises a plan to use her to fake her own death and flee the country with her daughter. Jade ties up Shiva, duct tapes her mouth shut, and locks her in the trunk of her car, (which is wired to explode), hoping that the authorities will find the charred body of an Asian woman in the flaming car wreck and believe that Jade was killed while fleeing the senator's murder. Unfortunately for her, Catwoman and Gypsy show up and untie Shiva, while Huntress and Black Canary stop Jade from murdering the senator, and then take her into custody. While escaping the scene of the attempted assassination, Jade is punched in the face and thrown out of the helicopter the girls were escaping in by Black Canary to avoid being beaten to death by an enraged Shiva.
In the Justice league of America Wedding Special, Cheshire was shown to be a member of the new Injustice League.
She has recently been seen among the exiled villains in Salvation Run.
[edit] Fatherhood question
In the Birds of Prey story arc Sensei and Student, Cheshire herself stated that she finally found out the real identity of her father. According to her, it was U.S. Senator Robert Pullman who raped her mother and left her alone with her unborn child. This would be a retcon, but it remains to be seen whether Jade is really telling the truth.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Besides being a skilled hand-to-hand combatant trained in several martial arts thought forever lost, Cheshire is an expert triple-jointed acrobat and uses this skill to move quickly and unexpectedly. Of bigger concern are her artificial fingernails, which she dips in several varieties of poisons. She gives her weapons and other accessories a similar treatment. In Birds of Prey #63, Black Canary calls her "the second most deadly assassin in the world', only topped by Lady Shiva.
[edit] Other media
Cheshire was one of the new villains appearing in season 5 of the Teen Titans animated series. She resembles her comic incarnation, just apparently younger with a cat mask, which is the only part of her visible when she turns invisible, much like the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland. She is apparently one of the most skilled of the villains sent by the Brotherhood of Evil to capture the Titans. She uses her long kimono sleeves as a defense (at least against ranged projectiles such as Speedy's arrows) and metal claws as weapons as well as her long hair to pound her adversaries, and is extremely skilled at martial arts as she manages to defeat Speedy in combat and capture him. She later helps in defeating Herald inside the Brotherhood HQ.
She also appeared in Teen Titans Go! #34. In Teen Titans Go! #39, she appeared again; her fight with Speedy (Roy Harper, in his original superheroic identity) was interrupted when Larry the Titan shot the two of them with Cupid's arrows, causing them to (temporarily) fall in love. On the page where all the couples are creating chaos it is seen in the back that Cheshire has taken off her mask to show Speedy her face, it's shown from the back so the reader isn't able to see her face.
