About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Tigress (comics)

Encyclopedia : T : TI : TIG : Tigress (comics)

Tigress is the name of three different DC Comics supervillains.

The original Tigress was a Golden Age villainess who battled Zatara. The second Tigress was a member of the Young All-Stars, who later became a villainess named the Huntress. The third Tigress is the daughter of the second Tigress, and is a member of the Injustice Society.

Contents

Foe of Zatara

The first Golden Age Tigress was a thief/spy and foe of Zatara in the late 1930s. She debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), and was created by Fred Guardineer.

She wore tiger-striped sweaters and ran gangs of thieves and murderers. Apparently, she had no powers.

List of appearances

Synopsis: Recently returned from England, Zatara dines at the El Storko Club, where he notices the Tigress. He sees her poison the drink of Ed Burton, a banker. Zatara saves him. The Tigress meets with the Mask and discusses their plans to kill Ed. Zatara hunts after the Tigress to stop them. Synopsis: Regan of police headquarters asks Zatara for help in a case where wealthy men are killed by the "mottled death." Zatara deduces that it was from the bite of an insect, a South American jungle jumbo. Shortly, he finds out that the Tigress is involved. He follows her and a magician named only The Master to South America.

Tigress battles Zatara in Action Comics #1.
Enlarge
Tigress battles Zatara in Action Comics #1.

Synopsis: A sharper cons young Bill out of his watch and ring, and Zatara helps him track the man down. They discover that the ring has some special value. At the pawnshop of Pawnshop Pete, they encounter the Tigress, who tells them that Pete wants to replace young Bill to secure a million dollar inheritance. Zatara leaves Bill with the Tigress, but she quickly double-crosses him. Now Zatara must deal with two fiends. Synopsis: Zatara spots the Tigress and Frosty Parke and decides to follow them. He catches them trying to rob a bank and quickly stops them, putting Frosty into the hospital. There, Frosty uses an experiment that allows him to control men's minds, and somehow the power is transferred into him. He escapes and meets with Tigress to continue their crime spree. Zatara discovers Frosty's new power and investigates.

Relationships

Who's Who Update '87 #1 states that she is the mother of Tigress II/Huntress I (Paula Brooks) and the grandmother of Tigress III (Artemis Crock). See the Artemis entry in the comic.

Who's Who Update '87 #5 states that neither Tigress II/Huntress I (Paula Brooks) or Tigress III (Artemis Crock) are related to her. See the Appendix (Huntress I entry) in the comic.

Paula Brooks

The second Golden Age Tigress was a supervillain with the real name of Paula Brooks who battled the superhero Wildcat, first appearing in Sensation Comics #68. Initially, she sought to add Wildcat to her collection of big game trophies.

Pre-Crisis

Paula Brooks as the Huntress, with the Injustice Society.
Enlarge
Paula Brooks as the Huntress, with the Injustice Society.

As a member of the Injustice Society named the Huntress, she fought the Justice Society of America. During this period she met the original Sportsmaster, whom she later married.

Pre-Crisis, the Huntress battled the Helena Wayne Huntress and was defeated.

Also pre-Crisis, an Earth-1 Huntress and Sportsmaster were revealed. They fought Batgirl and Robin in "Batman Family" and then challenged the Earth-1 superheroes to a baseball game between heroes and villains. When the heroes won, the Earth-1 Huntress and Sportsmaster reformed and weren't seen again. After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the villainous pair ceased to exist as the Golden Age versions became the dominant version in the new unified universe.

Post-Crisis, Helena Wayne never existed, so that battle did not take place. It is assumed that the Huntress and Sportsmaster vs. Batgirl and Robin battle did still take place. The softball game did not.

She never used the Tigress name during her Pre-Crisis adventures.

Post-Crisis

In the pages of Young All-Stars she was retroactively renamed the Tigress II (before becoming the villainous Huntress). These stories took place prior to her villainous career.

At this point, the young Paula Brooks (approximately age 18-19) was super-heroine, and fought both Nazis and criminals alongside Iron Munro, the first Fury, Neptune Perkins, Tsunami, and Dan the Dyna-Mite. During these stories, Paula expressed a fan worship of Paul Kirk, the Manhunter. She frequently made a play for Iron Munro as well. During a battle with the Nazi warriors known as Axis Amerika, Tigress was attacked and seemingly killed by the Valkyrie known as Gudra. She came back to life or was revived (it was unclear if she really was dead or not) with a new attitude which eventually led to her becoming the villainous Huntress.

Paula Brooks as the Tigress, with the Young All-Stars.
Enlarge
Paula Brooks as the Tigress, with the Young All-Stars.

In the All-Star Comics two-issue mini-series of the late 1990s that went under the byline "JSA Returns," Tigress was seen on the side of the law again, this time as the companion of Manhunter.

At some point though, she moved permanently to the criminal side and became one of Wildcat's biggest foes, as well as a member of the Injustice Society, and renamed herself the Huntress. She later married Sportsmaster aka Crusher Crock, one of the biggest foes of the Golden Age Green Lantern. The two of them were known as Mr. and Mrs. Menace and fought Black Canary and Starman in the 1960s as well as continuing to serve as members of the Injustice Society.

At some point, Huntress and Sportsmaster had a daughter named Artemis Crock. Artemis grew up to be a supervillain much like her parents. As Artemis she served as a member of Injustice Unlimited, fighting Infinity, Inc. She later took the name Tigress III and served as part of the new Injustice Society.

The Paula Brooks Tigress/Huntress was last seen out of uniform in Young Justice at an Olympic Games-type event where her daughter Artemis competed on behalf of Zandia, a country that harbours supervillains.

Powers

Brooks had no powers or unusual technology, but she did utilize various types of wild beasts in committing her crimes, and also was a skilled hand-to-hand fighter whose nails were sharpened like talons.

Artemis Crock

Paula Brooks and Sportsmaster had a daughter named Artemis Crock who became Tigress III.

Tigress as Artemis with Injustice Unlimited (standing between Hazard and Solomon Grundy).
Enlarge
Tigress as Artemis with Injustice Unlimited (standing between Hazard and Solomon Grundy).

Artemis has fought both Infinity, Inc. and the Justice Society of America as a member of Injustice Unlimited and the Injustice Society. She has also fought Hawkman and Hawkgirl. She is on-again, off-again lovers with the second Icicle.

Recently, Icicle invited her back into the reformation of the Injustice Society. She helped him, Wizard, Solomon Grundy, Gentleman Ghost, Rag Doll I and Thinker break into JSA headquarters and steal the Promithius Key, a key that is used to open doors between reality and magic. This allowed Johnny Sorrow who had asked the Wizard to bring him back, to re-enter the earth.

This character should not be confused with the characters Artemis (who took on the mantle of Wonder Woman for a brief time) or Artemiz (a member of the Female Furies).

Elseworlds

Tigress and Captain Triumph learn the dark secret in The Golden Age.
Enlarge
Tigress and Captain Triumph learn the dark secret in The Golden Age.

Outside of regular DCU continuity, James Robinson and Paul Smith featured the Tigress in 1993's The Golden Age.

In August of 1948, Paula Brooks was granted amnesty for her crimes in return for her allegiance to Tex Thompson's newly created anti-communism force (The Golden Age #2). After learning that Thompson was actually the ruthless Ultra-Humanite (The Golden Age #3), Brooks joined other heroes on January 8, 1950 in opposing him and his allies.

Traumatized by the deaths of her lover, Lance Gallant, and friends such as Miss America and the Sportsmaster in the ensuing conflict, Paula returned to crime and, by 1955, was reported to have "made the F.B.I.'s most wanted list" (The Golden Age #4).

See also

External links

Foe of Zatara Paula Brooks Artemis Crock

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: