Jill Carlyle, the Crimson Avenger, serves as a minor Spirit of Vengeance.
History
She used to study law but when she became a lawyer she lost a case in which the defendant was clearly guilty. Jill obtains a pair of Colt pistols originally owned by the first Crimson Avenger (Lee Travis) and uses them to exact vengeance upon the criminal. These guns are cursed such that, if the possessor uses them out of revenge, he or she will be cursed to track and kill those who have taken innocent life. As part of the curse, an ever-bleeding bullet hole appears on her chest.
Upon gaining a new assignment, she mentally relives the death of the victim, and then is teleported to their place of burial. She then gains the memory and skills of those whose deaths she is avenging. Her guns never miss, never run out of ammunition, and have no triggers. The bullets are capable of penetrating any substance, and can wound invulnerable heroes such as Superman and Power Girl, as well as crack the armored shell of Captain Atom. The guns seemingly have a mind of their own, as she speaks of having to restrain them from shooting those who come between her and her target. Her intangibility does not function against her own weapons or other magical forces. Unless the curse is lifted, she is seemingly immortal. She once attempts to kill herself with her own weapons, but this merely results in ending her current "assignment" and delivering her to the next one.
Jill is a member of the Justice Society of America, she joined the team when after the Ultra-Humanite has used the Thunderbolt to take over the world, where her mission is to avenge the death of Lee Travis, revealing that the explosion that killed him was caused by the Ultra-Humanite. She returns later tracking down Wildcat for framing a man called Charles Durham for a crime he didn't commit, only to learn that Wildcat only framed Durham after he killed his brother, sister-in-law and nephew after his brother killed his fiancee. Since the D.A. didn't have anything on Durham, he was going to go free after killing an entire family, driving Wildcat to plant evidence implicating him in the death of his fiancee. With this revelation that she is not always contacted by the spirits of the innocent, the Crimson Avenger attempts suicide by shooting herself in the head with both guns, but this only terminates her current 'contract', leaving her resolved to try and find another way to end her curse.
Though attacked by the Spectre the Crimson Avenger is seen at Blackgate Prison, fighting escaping inmates during the worldwide super villain breakout the Society engineered. The Crimson Avenger later appears, alongside the current Vigilante and Wild Dog, on a rooftop in the great Battle of Metropolis, raining bullets down on the Trigger Twins, the Madmen and Spellbinder.[1]
She is later seen gunning down the super villain known as Catalyst after Prometheus sends random super-criminals to attack the world's heroes in order to distract them from his master plan.[2]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
- Spirit of Vengeance: Jill Carlyle is a minor spirit of vengeance and as such is fated to be forced into exacting revenge on whomever is her next assignment. Part of her "curse" is gaining the abilities of the deceased she is forced to understand as well as giving her her own powers that she sometimes cannot use at will.
- Intangibility: She can become intangible and all physical objects can travel through her without harm to her body. However, it doesn't work against magic spells or her own bullets.
- Phasing: More of an active ability than her previous power, she can force herself to phase through buildings and obstacles instead of just becoming intangible as a reaction. She uses this power to doggedly pursue her assignments.
- Teleportation: Another ability she cannot use on command, as a Spirit of Vengeance, she is forced to teleport to her next assignment.
Abilities
Weaknesses
- Suicidal Resurrection: She cannot die by conventional means, even if she takes her own life with her mystical pistols she arises for her next assignment.
- Eternal Gunshot Wound: Part of the curse attached to the pistols there is a constantly bleeding painful bullet wound in her chest that cannot or will not be healed.
- Vulnerability to Self: Her own bullets can harm her likely even if she is intangible. Power Girl was able to catch the Crimson's bullets and threw it back injuring her leg.[3] However, the Crimson's mystical bullets has not been shown to kill or destroy her permanently.
- The spirit seeking justice through her did not have to be totally innocent. She could be used for the revenge of a spirit who was innocent of one crime but guilty of another.
Paraphernalia
Weapons
- Crimson Avenger Pistols: Two twin Colt pistols that are cursed to turn whoever uses them for revenge into the next Crimson Avengers. These guns come with certain abilities that set them apart from regular firearms and even afford mystical properties. The guns also lack triggers and fire instinctively against threats to the wielder.[4] According to Jill, the bullets from her pistols can pierce any substance, as she demonstrated when she shot and critically wounded Power Girl with them.[5] She also managed to easily shoot through the near-invulnerable shell of Captain Atom.[4]
Related
- 20 Appearances of Jill Carlyle (New Earth)
- 17 Images featuring Jill Carlyle (New Earth)
- 3 Quotations by or about Jill Carlyle (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Jill Carlyle (New Earth)
Footnotes
This article suffers from a lack of quality writing. You can help the DC Database by improving this article's grammar and sentence structure to bring it up to a higher standard of quality. Poor Perry's gonna have a heart attack if you don't!
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Jill Carlyle (New Earth). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.  Justice Society of America member |