Jinx

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Powers and Abilities

Jinx is a sorceress, and can create all sorts of phenomena by concentrating and gesturing. Some said she was an elemental sorceress, though she manifested many effects that had very little to do with an ’elemental‘ theme. Jinx seems to be most comfortable with spells that involve things melting and/or flowing.

Manifestations have included –

• Violent but highly localised ground tremors.
• Animating nearby objects and obstacles — usually to make them grab and restrain nearby people like tentacles.
• Creating clouds of green, very hot flame.
• Mystically sensing danger before it occurs.
• Melting flesh into a sort of sewage.
• Melting and parting stone and soil.
• Firing lightning or heat beams from her hands.
• Emitting gusts of wind from her arms.
• Creating bonds capable of holding a superhumanly strong person.
• Teleporting.

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Jinx seems to have some spell or technique that allows her to evade incoming fire. SWAT gunfire during the Fearsome Five’s attempt at blackmailing New York City never hit her, and even Arsenal could not hit her with either bow or guns when they tangled.

She never displayed any special ability to evade melee attacks, but there’s something abnormal going on with ranged attacks directed at her.

Grounded

All of Jinx’s conjurations immediately disappear if her bare feet cannot touch the floor or the ground. She’s unable to conjure new phenomena as long as she hasn’t re-established that contact.

One appearance depicted her as being able to magically fly. Given the blatant contradiction this represents, this was ignored in this writeup as an authorial mistake.

Magical progression

In late 2009, Jinx starts using spells that are quite probably Rituals in DC Heroes RPG terms. She boosts her normal magical puissance for specific tasks, and this requires long preparation and arduous concentration.

Those effects cover a much larger volume than any of her previously witnessed spells, and she has explained that she needed to “talk to the Earth” for a while.

Since I wanted to work everything in seamlessly, I’ve opted for a very cheesy approach with Power Reserves in her DC Heroes game stats. It would either not make sense, or would not be allowable (depending on the amount of character creation points and the build), for a Player Character.

Jinx’s Rituals are mystically fairly potent. Obviously she’s not going to make Dr. Fate sneeze, but breaking Jinx’s ritual Force Wall was only possible for a brilliant young mage (Traci Thirteen) by expanding so much energy that she knocked herself out.

As often, the names for the Rituals are arbitrary.

History

The early career of Jinx is largely undocumented. It took place in India, far away from the focus of comic books back then. It was stated that she spoke Urdu, so there’s a good chance that she might be from North-Western India (or Pakistan).

One flashback revealed that she was a part of a priesthood (with somewhat Vedic themes in the temple’s architecture), along with a master and 4 other acolytes. But she eventually harnessed ’dark forces’ that made her powerful enough to destroy the others.

In unrevealed circumstances, she was somehow stopped by the police. Since India lacked facilities to hold superhumans, she was incarcerated in the US. American technicians and corrections officers came to fly her there.

Jinx was imprisoned in the Tri-State prison, an apparently privatised and recent jail complex built to hold superhuman criminals. They kept her immobile, floating within a liquids-filled tank, presumably in a state of complete sedation. Those extraordinary measures to hold her turned out to be pointless, however.

The Fearsome Five

Psimon of the Fearsome Five developed an interest in acquiring a powerful new member for the team after Doctor Light left. He more or less convinced the others that Jinx was the right choice.

The Fearsome, well, Four (Psimon, Shimmer, Mammoth, Gizmo) attacked the prison and easily overran the security there. Three Teen Titans (Starfire, Wonder Girl and Nightwing) responded, but were defeated, and the gang left with the equipment holding Jinx.

They reanimated the sorceress, who reacted violently as she emerged from sedation. Psimon quickly neutralised her by levitating her – and psionically taught her English. Jinx soon agreed to join the Fearsome Five.

The recruitment drive launched by Psimon continued, and the Five invaded a STAR Labs installation. There they kidnapped Dr. Jenet Klyburn so that she could reanimate Neutron, a dangerous villain who also had been stored in suspended animation of a sort.

First we take Manhattan

Now having the power to wreck a major city, the Fearsome… well, Six decided to blackmail New York City. The Mayor refused and the villains started thrashing the NYPD.

The Titans attacked, and started repelling the villains through superior teamwork. As the tide turned Jinx cautiously retreated into the shadows of a nearby alley to assess the situation.

The battle was interrupted by the Monitor. He summoned many of the fighters present (including Jinx) to his satellite, as the Crisis on Infinite Earths started. What happened to Jinx during the Crisis is unrevealed, though a secondary source mentions that she was arrested.

Despite her thunderous introduction to the DC Universe, Jinx was not seen again for about 15 years (publication time ). What happened is unknown — perhaps she returned to India, or was in prison.

The 2000s

Like a host of costumed and/or super-powered women, Jinx took part in Circe’s foiled take-over of New York City in 2001. It was perhaps during this battle that she met one or more future members of the new Villainy, Inc. that Queen Clea soon organised.

Clea initially assembled the team (Jinx, Giganta, Trinity, Cyborgirl, Dr. Poison II) to conquer Atlantis.

A scene flashing back to Jinx’s recruitment into Villainy, Inc. has Dr. Poison helping Jinx out of some confinement/isolation pod. So it is possible that she was captured and put into deep sedation again after the Circe offensive in New York City.

Clea’s plans to find lost Atlantis did not produce the expected results – they found a way to Skartaris instead. But that was deemed an adequate substitute for conquest.

Villainy, Inc., wielding considerable power, conquered Skartaris without major difficulties. The capitol fell to their onslaught. The conquest was soon foiled by Wonder Woman, though.

Jinx was defeated. This was in large part because she spent too much time tormenting and torturing their prisoners Jennifer and Travis Morgan (the Sorceress Supreme and the Warlord of Skartaris, respectively) rather than help with the defence.

Wonder Woman left Jinx tied to a pillar (high enough so her feet would not touch the ground). When Dr. Poison fled she neglected to free her colleague, even letting Jinx accidentally inhale some of the poison gas she breathed at her foes.

Presumably Jinx was saved by the Morgans and their ally Machiste. After some travel difficulties involving Nazis and dinosaurs, the Villainy, Inc. members were imprisoned by the Amazons.

Do not mess with Sivana

Under unrevealed circumstances, Jinx ended up in the restored US prison at Alcatraz. This lasted until the criminal scientist Dr. Sivana assembled the Fearsome Five to serve as his henchmen. Jinx and Mammoth in particular were replaced in their cell by android duplicates built by Gizmo.

When the Outsiders discovered the substitution, the androids self-destroyed and Gizmo also escaped from Alcatraz. Sivana then used the Fearsome Five as part of a simple plan. He massively shorted on Lexcorp stock, then sent his new allies to inflict enormous damage to Lexcorp holdings.

Jinx and Psimon, in particular, psionically forced a senior VP of Lexcorp to give catastrophic orders then kill himself. They then flooded the entire office building with poison gas, likely killing hundreds.

Everything worked right, and Sivana had even gone to great length in restoring the Fearsome Five to a fighting trim – basically resurrecting Shimmer. Yet Psimon predictably decided to get cute with the scientist and dictate their own terms to him. Sivana seemingly killed Gizmo to convey that he was not impressed, and dismissed the Five.

At Psimon’s urging, the Fearsome Five (well, Four) used the Lexcorp data they had to take over a secret nuclear missiles silo. They decided to nuke Vancouver then blackmail the world, but their plan was quickly thwarted by the Outsiders. The Fearsome, except for Mammoth, managed to flee.

The Fearsome Five (well, Three) then spent months holed up somewhere in the Mexican countryside. They couldn’t nail any large contract and increasingly got out of touch with the underworld. Sivana then approached them again, offering them a job, a plan to free Mammoth, and a new ally – Sabbac.

As Jinx, Shimmer, Psimon and Sabbac were freeing Mammoth, an unpredicted event occurred. The Rock of Eternity was shattered, and the Seven Sins were freed. The Sins were immediately absorbed by Sabbac, much increasing his power and stature. Having the power of the Sins at his fingertips, Sabbac hit Alcatraz with irresistible Lust.

He was eventually taken out by the Outsiders (reinforced by Katana and Donna Troy). But Jinx was too busy boffing Mammoth to follow what was going on.

The Society

Though they likely were captured as Alcatraz stopped being gay sex central, the Fearsome Five (well, Four) were soon hired by Lex Luthor, via the Calculator, as agents of the Society. They were sent to capture Pariah, which they swiftly did.

The Society then sent them to recover Chemo after he had been weaponised and dropped on Blüdhaven, razing the city and killing tens if not hundreds of thousands. That one failed, however, and Jinx was taken out by a sleep gas bomb from Robin before she could react. The Fearsome Five (well, Four) were then arrested and carted off.

The Fearsome Five (possibly less) were next seen as Sivana’s thugs again. They were part of the army of super-villains that attacked the wedding of Black Canary and Green Arrow. They were next arrested by the government and summarily deported to an alien planet, along with dozens of costumed villains.

When the situation on that planet came to a leadership fight between the Joker and Lex Luthor, Jinx and the rest sided with the Joker. After various tribulations, the villains managed to make it back to Earth, Jinx included – but minus group leader Psimon, who had been murdered by the Joker.

Back on Earth

Back on Earth, the Fearsome, hmmm, Three resumed working for the Society, once participating to an assault against the Secret Six.

Shimmer and Jinx were next hired by the Calculator. They worked as his field agents in his elaborate plan of revenge, designed to break the Titans. This plan is still ongoing as of this writing, and it’s likely the Fearsome Five still have a role to play in it. The stages that have been executed on so far have included:

• Break Mammoth out of Alcatraz, right as Wonder Girl was meeting with the warden.
• Swiftly organise a prison mutiny and goad the prisoners into attacking Wonder Girl, who was overwhelmed and incapacitated. Jinx used her Rituals to greatly delay outside response.
• Move out of the island to escape. However Jinx was mystically overstretched and couldn’t teleport far enough (SPI damage from Sorcery, in DC Heroes terms).
• Slaughter most prisoners on Alcatraz via poison gas as a diversion, and free prisoners Nano and Rumble as new team members so that the Fearsome Five would indeed be a quintet.

The new Fearsome Five were defeated, with the battered Jinx being felled by a mystical attack delivered by Traci Thirteen.

Description

Through some incredible mystery of nature, the amount of fabric in Jinx’s costume keeps evolving toward zero. I wonder what odd phenomenon might be at play ?

When she maintains Rituals through Automatic Actions, she glows purple.

Personality

Jinx is generally intelligent, cautious and quite pragmatic. She doesn’t normally get caught up in the whole melodramatic super-villain behaviour. She tends to just kill her opponents and be done with it.

Jinx’s motivation seems to be a textbook example of Power Lust. There’s an emphasis on proving that she’s the toughest magic-user and that she’s smarter and better than men.

She seems to really like cruelty and to generally be rather evil and murderous. It’s not quite to the level of a DC Heroes RPG Irrational Attraction, but can lead to debatable tactical and strategic choices.

Like the rest of the Fearsome Five, Jinx seems oddly… directionless and lacking in initiative. This is despite her considerable might and her thirst for power. This may simply be poor characterisation due, as it often happens, to the FF having had the all-encompassing “losers” label slapped on them.

No-Prize explanations are of course possible. Perhaps Psimon keeps them under his mental influence so they’ll remain his drudges. Or, in a less sinister fashion, may be Jinx considers that even a mediocre operation in the US is much more financially rewarding than the most brilliant operation in India.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

During her most recent appearances (late 2009), Jinx inexplicably speaks and behaves differently. She sounds much more like a mystic, and will often intone a sort of free-form, free-associating poetry as she maintains her Rituals, or even after she lets go of them.

No-Prize explanations  are of course possible. Perhaps her Rituals require her to get into a specific frame of mind, and she takes hours to shake that off to go back to her normal way of thinking. This is what I have assumed for the last quote.

This hypothetical mindset prevents her from speaking and answering normally, though one may get a vague idea about what she’s talking about.

There’s nothing about Jinx’s behaviour or references that particularly evokes India. In fact she seems to have thoroughly American cultural references, which is odd for somebody who didn’t speak a word of English for most of her life.

Quotes

“Then perhaps, girl, they should learn of the sorcerous power of Jinx. A simple spell of dissolution turns flesh to so much waste. Fail to surrender and the change will not be a temporary one !”

“These idiots rush to their doom. Here or on Earth, men are exuberant fools.”

“Wonder Woman ! Do you think you’re fast enough to prevent me from turning these two into maggots — or you into clay ?”

(Casting a spell) “Narish ! Esha niya besh !”

(As Jinx and Psimon just committed mass murder at Lexcorp and framed one of the victims)
Psimon: “Jinx, did you hear about the Lexcorp executive who embezzled over 200 millions, then out of guilt killed himself and the entire office building ?”
Jinx (mockingly): “Oh, Psimon, that’s awful. It’s all the violence in the movies that does it.”
Psimon (mockingly): “Yes, ma’am. That and the Internet.”

(In the “Ritual mindset”, half-mumbling) “She pulls at the truth, but the truth never breaks, and the rest, forever imprisoned by their own deeds…. The magicks are one, from the Earth through me, a vessel, all places, all time…”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: DC Universe (chiefly Titans books).

Helper(s): Mayfair’s New Titans Sourcebook by John Terra ; Darci.