Jester

While Jester does not possess any superhuman powers, she does have physical strength, speed, agility, and durability not possible for non-metahuman women of her build, height, and weight.

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This, combined with her immunity to Joker Venom, indicates she was conceived after Red Hood went for a swim, and that she has subtle metahuman enhancements due to the changes wrought in his DNA by the chemicals.

This is confirmed by the fact that her skin is chalk white, her hair is green and her eyes are purple, since she did not grow up this way. Her skin, hair, and eyes, all changed colors radically in her early teens, leading her adoptive family to throw her out, and to her eventually finding her way to a Morlock community in Metropolis, where she met Domino, her first mentor.

Background

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Powers & Abilities

Karole is a low grade Metahuman, she has abnormal skin, hair, and eye colors, and her bones, muscles, and skin are all denser than unpowered humans. Despite her greater bone and tissue density she is not abnormally heavy, largely due to a hollow skeletal structure.

As a result of these alterations she is stronger, faster, and more durable than what is possible for an unpowered woman of her height, build, and weight.

She is also highly skilled in a variety of areas, from weapons, martial arts, and gadgetry, to disguise, undercover work, detective work, and various other areas. She received her early training from the (mostly) well intentioned metahuman mercenary Domino, and has been further trained by some of the most skilled heroes on two planets.

Money

With the fortune she “inherited” when Domino was supposedly killed Karole has built a global snack food/soft drink empire on Counter Earth, with the exception of the continent where the Gorilla People live.

Her company sells their products in every city on Counter-Earth. She has even been able to launch a special line of products made by and for the Korbinites (Beta Ray Bill’s people) who also live on Counter-Earth.

With this wealth she has built an incredibly effective, yet highly unconventional arsenal of weapons, gadgets, vehicles, and so on, many of which are concealed inside the vending machines that sell her products, all over her world (in game terms she has My Playground My Rules, and Weapons Stash Schticks).

History

The woman now named Karole Marsh was born in Dakota City Missouri in 1972, she was abandoned by her mother within hours of her birth, and only chance (or an Angel named Zauriel) saved her from death. She was taken to an orphanage where she spent the next year before she was adopted by the wealthy Alva family, specifically, Horatio Alva, brother of Edwin Alva head of Alva Industries, and his wife Kathleen.

Her early childhood was spent surrounded by the wealth and luxury the Alva family enjoyed, and she was a very happy child. All that changed shortly after her 11^th birthday. As she entered puberty she underwent a radical shift in physical appearance with her skin turning white, her hair green, and the irises of her eyes purple.

Unfortunately her adoptive family did not take it well, to say the least, throwing her adoption papers in her face as their way of explaining she wasn’t their child as they threw her out of their home, and their lives, going so far as to have her dumped in a different city by their security personnel. She always wondered why they didn’t just kill her, they could have.

Wandering the streets, alone, only the newfound physical abilities she possessed allowed her to survive at first, sometimes having to protect herself from people who thought she was some sort of “fan” of the Joker (who she had never heard of before), and sometimes for being a “Mutant” or Metahuman.

Always on the run, stealing to survive, she gradually worked her way back towards Dakota, eventually arriving in its sister city of Metropolis Kansas, in 1983.

Luck is funny

A day or so after she arrived in Metropolis, as she hid on the roof of a fairly tall building she happened to notice activity on another nearby roof and saw the woman named Domino involved in a fairly stealthy combat with a group of assailants using silenced weapons.

Suddenly riveted she watched the strange woman, who looked similar to her, work her way through the attackers, when she saw one of the supposedly defeated men slowly moving into position to get a clean shot on Domino.

As Domino was taking down the seventh of her opponents she visually scanned her surroundings and happened to notice the young girl watching her, startled, the man she still hadn’t noticed nearly killed her, until he was knocked unconscious by a brick slung by the teen from the neighboring roof.

Grateful, and curious, Domino took the child back to her temporary refuge in the Morlock community beneath Metropolis, where the young girl finally found a degree of safety, and acceptance. She took to calling herself Delia (which was not her adoptive name), and she learned everything Domino had to teach her gratefully, and she was an exceptional student, physically gifted, and very smart.

When Domino moved on from Metropolis, Delia went with her, for most of the next year, even when Domino went on a mission with fellow mercenary Cable, Delia was handling the comms for them. Cable went so far as to nickname her “Jester”, for her many sarcastic quips, at what were sometimes highly inappropriate times. That is he did it once, Delia reacted badly to the gesture, with memories of her persecution for some imagined affiliation with the Joker still so fresh.

Cable is a good man though; he did what he could to repair the pain he caused, showing her films and newspaper articles about a hero called The Jester, from the 1940s, who was a member of the team called the Freedom Fighters. It helped more than she was ready to admit though, so Cable was left thinking he should have maybe steered her towards the Xavier School.

Dominoes Fall, part 1

In 1986, shortly after “Delia” turned 14, while Domino was on a mission she was seemingly killed as the helicopter she was flying in exploded on live news. In actuality Domino had come to a similar conclusion as Cable, the girl would be better off if she did not end up in the life of a mercenary.

Therefore she had carefully prepared a false mission and a specially prepared temporary HQ where Delia was monitoring the “job”. After the explosion Delia followed the instructions Domino had given her for such a situation.

Domino wanted her to be safe and in the “HQ” she had left vehicles, equipment, clothing, a new identity, and 50 million dollars in cash. Delia had learned well, and she was soon in another city, where she heard that a new team of Teen Titans was being formed by Night Thrasher and decided that she would try to join.

While she was able to join the team she did not get along well with several of the members, and her inability to settle on a code name sometimes hampered communications. Still, she was a member for close to 2 years, until 1988, when the Titans encountered the Joker shortly before the “death” of the second Robin.

While the team stopped Joker, Delia found herself with the Joker’s DNA (in the form of blood) on her gloves, and after years of hearing the hated “Joker’s Daughter” whispered behind her back, she decided to run a comparison with her own DNA to finally prove the Joker was not her father.

Unfortunately she found out that he was in fact her father, somehow she was the child of one of the most evil men the world has ever known.

Dominoes Fall, part 2

Psychologically shattered by the revelation she disappeared from New York and the Titans, not even explaining her departure to the team. Abandoning her identity as “Delia Dent” she became Nancy Napier, after an (incorrect) rumor the Joker’s real name was Jack Napier.

She was back in the caverns of the Morlock community under Metropolis when Batman found her. ”Nancy” was not doing well, she had horrific dreams, and couldn’t stand to look at herself in a mirror.

Once Batman got her angry enough to pay attention to what he was saying to her; he explained that when she had run the DNA test on herself at Titans Tower it had also tripped a security signal in the computers of the JLA and Avengers, which were linked.

Since she had partially covered her tracks it had taken them some time to learn it had been her DNA that triggered the alert. The computer had believed she was Lois Lane (no he did not explain why Lois is in the JLA computer system) due to the data she corrupted covering her tracks.

When the teams learned their mistake they had run her DNA through the system again from a blood sample in the tower Med Lab and discovered that she was the great-granddaughter of Charles (The Jester) Lane.

She did not find out her mother’s name, as her grandmother Janice had left home and severed all ties with Charles before having any children (1958), and it is unknown how exactly Janice’s daughter became pregnant by Joker, though the fact that she abandoned her daughter implies that it was not by choice.

Batman spent almost a month in the Morlock caverns, working with “Nancy” every day, he also spent a lot of time with the Morlocks.

Shortly after he convinced Nancy to come with him to the JSA Mansion he sent his LMD construction crew down to the Morlock community, to install generators, basic sanitation and sewage, reinforce and strengthen the caverns, instruct the Morlocks how to maintain and repair the equipment, install florescent panels in several large caverns for growing crops, and setup monthly supply drop-offs from the Wayne Foundation’s new Morlock Outreach program (which is also a great way to hide several million of Batman’s other expenses).

The Leslie Thompkins Foundation (endowed separately from the Wayne Foundation, and jointly by Bruce Wayne and Pieter Cross [Dr. Mid-Nite]) also got involved, opening a free medical center in the Morlock city, and teaching everything from first aid and CPR, to full blown MD training for Morlocks with the aptitude, inclination, and (possibly) powers.

“Nancy” spent 3 months at the JSA Mansion, training at a relaxed pace and gradually starting to come to grips with her own identity. No one could have been more surprised than “Nancy” herself when Wonder Woman invited her to come to Themyscira.

Her time on the island has forever changed her, not only have her skills been sharpened by the very finest teachers, but she has made peace within herself (or at least a lasting cease fire).

Clown Princess, part 1

In 1990 she decided she wanted to return to the outside world and after traveling around for a while, she decided to relocate to the city of New Atlantis on Counter-Earth and using the fortune she had been given by Domino (which she had added to through smart planning, mainly putting her money in the hands of Fox Financial Inc.), she created the KM Foods Corporation, and it’s subsidiary Impulse Soda, and a new Identity as Owner/CEO Karole Marsh.

Building a brand based on low cost, tasty, and only moderately unhealthy snacks and drinks sold from vending machines installed seemingly overnight all over New Atlantis. When she was firmly established in her new life she finally claimed the identity of The Jester for herself.

Karole, as she now called herself, kept a loose contact with the Bat-bunch for the most part, and had refused several offers from SHIELD CE Director Cecil Steadman to join the Guardians of the Globe, but in 1994 she joined forces with 5 other heroes to form the Secret Six.

These new heroes were the Jester herself, Captain Atom II [Luke Adam, clone of Nathaniel Adam], The Ray III [Lia Nelson, a being of living light], Raven II [a Rachel Summers who is host to the Anti-Matter universe’s Phoenix Force], Proteus [Gunther Ganz, a man of living polymer], and the newest ring-slinger of the Sol System Darkstar [Ferrin Colos, Red Power Ring].

Since the team had come together as a result of events that happened as several of them were pursued by agents of Project: Rebirth (Luke, Lia, Gunther), they spent a lot of time between 1994 and 1998 taking direct, covert, action against the group, often alongside Gen13, coincidentally allowing her to meet her distant cousin Bobby “Burnout” Lane.

Clown Princess, part 2

The sudden disappearance (seeming death) of the major super teams of Earth in 1998 changed a lot of things for the Six. While the effects were reduced by distance, the loss of the JLA, JSA, Avengers, and FF was mourned by the entire Sol System, from Atlantis to Saturn, and from Attilan to Subterrania.

Jester and the Six nearly called it quits, but they decided instead to step up their individual efforts, and increase their co-operation with other heroes. They did take one trip to Earth during 98, after Oracle contacted Jester and requested help with a complicated situation. The Secret Six found themselves drawn into a covert war between a team of fake heroes (The Thunderbolts), and a team of fake villains (Masters of Evil).

While on Earth Jester was responsible for convincing Anarky [Lonnie Machin] that he was on the wrong path, resulting in Anarky becoming the partner of Disaster [James Redcross, partner of Batman after Jason Todd, before Tim Drake] when he went solo (Disaster is the senior partner, the “Batman” of the team, Anarky is the “Robin”).

The Six, who had always kept their activity as a team low profile and out of the press, made an appearance in Washington DC, billing themselves as the New Warriors, they became competition for Baron Zemo and his Thunderbolts, distracting him, delaying his plans, and allowing Jason Todd, Josiah Bradley, and Gregor Nagy and their “Masters of Evil” to gain the advantage in the struggle to expose and defeat Zemo.

They had now been seen in public as a group so they saw no real need to continue to act in secret after Zemo was defeated and the missing heroes returned. When the team returned to Counter-Earth they launched an open campaign against the tentacles of Project: Rebirth on their world, eventually joining together with Nick Fury, Frank Rock, Captain America, Gen13, and many others whose life had been shattered by Rebirth, and finally bringing the whole organization down and bringing those responsible to justice.

Family… strange as it may be (part 1)

Jester was deeply affected by the murder of the Guardians of the Globe in 2002, though she did not show it, she drove herself even harder. When Disaster and Anarky took on the responsibility of watching over Midnight City after the (presumed) death of the second Darkwing, Jester came by to see for herself if they had what it would take.

She was impressed by their abilities, both with a superhuman intellect, and Disaster was even maybe a little more skilled in combat the she was herself. This visit also resulted in her discovery of her true family, both as one of the “Bats” and in her discovery of her half-brother, Anarky, the boy she steered away from a life of crime.

Anarky himself had recently discovered that he was the genetic son of the Joker, like Karole he had been abandoned and adopted. Lonnie had not told anyone except Disaster about the revelation, and had Jester not shown up, Disaster might not have looked into Batman’s file on her, discovering her connection to Lonnie.

Jester spent a few months visiting Anarky in Midnight City, Disaster was kind enough to offer to keep an eye on New Atlantis for Jester, since she could fill in with Anarky in the field.

While she was there they got a surprise visit from Blue Beetle [Kord], who had been asked by Batman to see how Disaster and Anarky were settling in over in Midnight City (Tedd had other business on Counter-Earth as well and hoped they could help).

BB and Jester got along rather well, she volunteered to help him on his case, and traveled to Gorilla City and the Atlantean colony to track down Bane and Nyssa al Ghul.

Not long after Karole Marsh received a visit from Lois Lane-Kent of the Daily Planet, who wanted to interview her about her company’s success. During the interview Karole asked if Lois was related to Charles Lane, and was visibly interested when Lois responded in the affirmative, though she declined to question further.

Lois was interested in why Karole was interested, and so was tipped to the larger story behind Karole Marsh, soon uncovering that Karole had only existed since shortly before KM Foods had launched.

Family… strange as it may be (part 2)

Lois investigated, but was soon visited by Disaster (who she had met before), who asked her not to publicize the story about Karole, and gave her the reason (he knows who her husband is after all), namely that Karole had another secret Lois would undoubtedly figure out in quick order (especially since she is so familiar with the clues), and that Karole was Charles Lane’s granddaughter.

Lois went straight back to Karole and revealed she knew about her connection to Charles Lane, asking her to come to Earth to meet her family, waving off any concern Karole had about revealing her identity with “We all have secrets dear”.

Karole was intrigued, and very interested in meeting the Lane family, and agreed to come to Earth soon, arriving a week later. Lois met her at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport and drove her to the Kent Farm in Kansas (only a 4 hour trip in a flying car), where the Lane’s had agreed to gather for a special reunion.

Karole met Lois’s husband Clark, his mother and father, his aunt Sarah and her son Connor, his foster sister Laura Kincaid, and Clark’s foster son (from before his marriage) Christopher Moore (Gregor Nagy, who she has met as Mimic).

Karole also met Lois’s parents, her sister Lucy, Lucy’s husband Ron Troupe, and their son, Bobby Lane [Burnout] a distant cousin, and his father Nick Fury (nope not kidding, Lois has that kind of pull, besides he knew Charles), and even David Cranston, whose grandmother had been Margo Lane, daughter of Charles’s brother Reinhardt Lane, and wife of Lamont Cranston [The Shadow], David himself is Agent Liberty II.

It only took Karole a little while to realize that most of the people at the farm were superheroes, and that pretty much everyone there knew it, a couple of days later her brother Lonnie arrived, explaining that he had gotten an invitation, and been encouraged to go by people he trusted.

Lonnie was soon made to feel right at home, and he also rather quickly figured out the kind of people they were surrounded by. When Lois’s parents were getting ready to leave a few days later, Lois came to Karole and Lonnie and asked them to stay for a while longer, explaining that one more group of family wanted to visit.

The next day 6 people arrived quietly, Matt Murdoch, Dwayne Taylor, Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, his (unofficial) wife Selina Kyle, and his adopted son Tim Drake-Wayne (who provided the excuse for Bruce and Selina to come since Connor is a college friend). Together the assembled heroes made official what was already clear, Karole had earned their trust, and she could trust them.

Isn’t Life Funny, part 1

The Jester has become one of Counter-Earth’s greatest heroes, but she has only gradually come to actually enjoy being the Jester. Many times in her life she felt as if she was only the Jester because she did not have a choice in the matter.

Since helping her friends end Project: Rebirth, and finding her brother, and knowing she saved her brother, she has embraced her identity, and the good she can do, even more than before.

As the years have passed the former group of youngsters and rebels have mellowed somewhat, but you wouldn’t know it from Jester, she is always on the go, in costume or out, while she wears a Holographic Disguise watch (cheaper than make-up, long term) for public interaction, nowadays it is mostly for the sake of her secret identity, rather than fear of persecution of Metahumans.

Jester and the Secret Six (though they aren’t so secret anymore) are still going strong in 2010, they now operate from a facility inside a mountain on Counter-Earth named Mt. Krypton. They are sometimes considered “second string” to the Champions (the team that ultimately replaces the GotG), but they aren’t in it for the billing.

Karole has gotten very close to her brother, visiting him regularly in Midnight City, where he now lives as Grant Richmond, “cousin” to Kyle Richmond [Darkwing I]. When Batman sent Disaster [James Redcross] and Anarky [Lonnie Machin] to Midnight City, after Neil Richmond [Darkwing II] was lost during the “Invincible War”, Lonnie assumed the identity of “Grant Richmond” and took up residence in the Richmond Manor.

This was done to protect Kyle and Neil’s secrets, and to keep the estate intact in the possibility that Neil is found (he did after all vanish into another dimension).

Jester has therefore also become close to the Richmond’s butler Jonathan Brower, who has stayed on to assist “Grant”, and is the person really in charge of the Richmond legacy. Anarky in fact won’t even use Richmond assets to fund his costumed operations, using his own fortune he built even before he came to Counter-Earth.

He does live in the Richmond home, and uses Darkwing’s HQ for his own, but he takes his position as guardian of Neil’s estate very seriously, and is the greatest believer that Neil is still alive.

Isn’t Life Funny, part 2

Disaster lives on his own estate, land he purchased with his own vast wealth, transporting his home (a modern castle) from Earth, brick by brick. KM Foods, Richmond Industries, Stardrift Manufacturing (Redcross’s company), and an anonymous donor (Machin), have funded a project at the Odyssey Research Institute (Counter-Earth Star Labs) which is attempting to use interdimensional portal technology originally invented by Professor Emil Hamilton to find and retrieve Darkwing II [Neil].

Karole is now one of the wealthiest people on Counter-Earth, her company sells their products in all of the cities of Counter-Earth except those of the Gorilla Nation, and the Atlantean Colonial Realm. She has considered expanding her operations to Earth, but really doesn’t feel the need.

Her city of New Atlantis (which is not part of the ACR, and was named before the Atlantean government decided to send a colonial group to Counter-Earth) is not always that happy the Jester is their local hero, but they have grown to embrace her rebel spirit, not through slavish imitation, but through fierce individualism, questioning of authority, and laughter in the face of danger.

Description

The Jester is a small, slim athletic woman, who looks to be in her mid-20s. In her adventuring identity she wears a red bodysuit with alternating black and white diamond patterns, a blue vest with big puffy sleeves and bright yellow striped trim and blue buccaneer boots.

Her white skin is displayed on her face, with red lips and a black square over her left eye. And her wild green hair tops her head.

Personality

The Jester is a wild, crazy, chaotic clown, who delights is jokes, gags, silliness and the gleeful humiliation of her foes. Nothing is sacred, nobody is immune.

By Azrael.

Source of Character: Universe AZ, inspired by DC Comics Tangent U Joker.

Helper(s): KJM’s Tangent Joker writeup (v1.1), Frank Murdock.

Writeup completed on the 17^th of August, 2013.