Lady Eve

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Context

Lady Eve is a minor DC Comics villainess.

She first appeared in 1985. And primarily fought the Outsiders during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Eve is closely associated with Kobra (Jeffrey Burr). Normally I’d encourage you to read our Kobra profile first, but we never had time to write one. 😿

(Lady Eve’s entry will receive additional detail when full Kobra research takes place. For starters, I’m far from certain I caught every single appearance. Never mind the behind-the-scenes ones.)

Role

She can be useful as a conspiracy/terrorist leader. And she’ll likely have hired a number of obscure mercenaries of low-ish power level.

You can think of her as a mix of Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian) and Talia al Ghul. I guess.

The character’s main downside is that she’s loaded with colonial-era, “exotic adventures for men” imagery and information. A bit like the Mandarin, I suppose.

But with enough knowledge (esp. about India), I think the character could be refurbished for your own stories.

Background

Powers & Abilities

Eve has an array of elite skills :

Other assets

Assets available to Lady Eve have evolved over time.

During the 1980s it’s standard operatives with some advanced weaponry. Plus some distinctive, heavy vehicles.

During the 1990s she has access to low-tier superhuman mercenaries. See our Strike Force Kobra team profiles for examples. She might also deploy some enhanced assets, such as Kobra reptile soldiers.

During the 2000s, Kobra is a much beefier threat. Power armourStrength-enhancing body armour, like Iron Man’s, big energy rifles, giant combat robots, ritualist blood magicians, fanatical suicide bombers with extremely powerful explosive vests, some world-class computer hackers, etc..

History (part 1)

Eve (not her actual name) is from “the Indian desert”.

She was the only daughter of a family of nomads. Since she was reportedly the only woman, her mum had likely died or ran away.

A tall, handsome stranger

The nomads stumbled upon the unconscious Kobra (Jeffrey Burr). He had been undergoing a sort of vision quest among the dunes.

Eve and Kobra fell in love. The fetching stranger also was the nomad’s ticket out – as she was desperate to leave.

Her family objected. This led to a knife duel between Kobra and Eve’s father. Her lover slew her father.

Eve packed her few things and eagerly left for a completely new life.

(Presumably, she went by “Eve” as a Biblical joke about snakes and knowledge.)

Thar she blows

I’d guess that “the Indian desert” is the Thar desert. Since it’s big and famous.

But the desert in the comic looks closer to an Arabian-style sandy one. Whereas the Thar has a distinctive, arid ecology that supports a surprising number of folks.

On the other hand, the Thar is well gigantic. So there presumably are some large areas without the distinctive wildlife and settlements.

Spoiler – India is big and diverse

But even if we assume that it’s the Thar, and we assume a state — say, Rajasthan — that tells us little about Eve’s possible roots.

To get why, you can look at this Wikipedia page  which simply *lists* the ethnic minorities in India.

And these are only the recognised ones. A tiny nomadic band could easily lack any state recognition as scheduled tribals.

If you want to develop Eve’s background, you can always watch relevant documentaries on YouTube  . Then make up some fictional tiny polityGeneral term for an organised group (a tribe, a democracy, a theocracy…), drawing elements from actual cultures there for verisimilitude.

Carmen Sandiego, you are our only hope (again)

Beyond the fact that it’s an erg  , one thing we know about Eve’s homeland is that there are king cobras.

This is silly :

That said, the Thar desert has fine species of dangerous snakes – mostly vipers and cobras.

The simplest assumption is that Kobra just embellished the snake’s species. From cobra (naja naja) to king cobra (ophiophagus hannah).

Another “genre convention” in Barr’s Outsiders comics is that everyone speaks English. Including, I suspect, nomadic tribals in the arse end of the Thar.

Soundtrack

For that 1980s ambience, Eve debuted during the year one of Yello’s most famous hits  was released.

It fits her nicely.

Yello often had a goofy, camp  style. But their synthpop was tight by the standards of their day.

History (part 2)

During his vision quest, Kobra had been inspired to try more long-term strategies. His new plan was to set up, as “Brother Abraham”, a large commune for hippie-adjacent youths.

As this plan unfurled, Eve learned a great many skills. With those, she could function as her lover’s aide and lieutenant. As “Sister Eve”, she played a similar role for “Brother Abraham”.

Within an astonishingly short time, the backwater desert nomad was entirely proficient at running a vast, high-tech chaos death murder blood cult conspiracy.

(Where the “Lady” Eve moniker comes from is unrevealed. I’d assume that it’s a sort of title/honorific within Kobra, but it is possible that it refers to Eve’s status with her desert people.)

Did you ever think of me as your best friend

The Eden commune plot worked well. Hundreds of youths were slowly, subtly groomed to become sympathetic toward Kobra.

The best catch was one David Harrison, the son of a four-star USAF general. General Harrison was in charge of Strategic Defense Initiative  military satellites.

Kobra planned to use his son as access. This worked — Eve slipped a hypnotic drug to the general while he was visiting his semi-estranged son.

Halo in Eden

However, Eve thought that Kobra was banking too much on David Harrison.

She was right. Halo (Gabrielle Doe) randomly joined the Eden commune, and she and David fell in love.

But Eve had David under surveillance. She spotted the problem in time, and had her guards capture Halo.

Halo was forced to reveal the secret identities of Batman (Bruce Wayne) and the Outsiders. However, the ensuing assassination attempts failed.

Reagan’s (stars) war

In the meanwhile, the hypnotised general let Kobra, Eve and their technicians board a NASA space shuttle in lieu of the normal crew.

They took over the (fictional) master space station for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and demanded billions lest they sell it to the USSR.

However, the Outsiders located and stormed a Kobra base. They stole a Kobra shuttle, and boarded the space station.

As the Kobra forces were being overwhelmed, Eve programmed the station for self-destruction. She also ordered her more valuable experts to evac.

Kobra narrowly beat Batman in a duel, but was left barely able to stand. Eve took him to an emergency escape pod. Though the plan had failed and the Outsiders again survived, the station did explode.

Bikini kill

In 1987, Eve again accompanied Kobra in the field.

They and Strike Force Kobra took over a Stagg Enterprises facility to use its lab. The goal was to turn a new hire, Mr. Parker, into a metahuman with light-based powers.

The Outsiders responded. When Katana (Yamashiro Tatsu) came for Kobra, Eve engaged her. Since Eve was unarmed (and in flimsy haremwear), Katana switched to hand-to-hand.

Eve not only held her own, but she managed to grab Katana’s sword from her back.

However, an attempt to skewer Katana with her own blade accidentally hit a computer. This wrecked the Parker experiment, turning him into an uncontrollable Spectrumonster.

Still, the ensuing chaos allowed all important Kobra operatives to slither away.

Strike Force Kobra returns

In 1995, Eve was detailed to her own operation. Her goal was to keep the Outsiders busy, away from Kobra’s current scheme.

To do so she assembled a second version of Strike Force Kobra.

However, the then-active Outsiders were more powerful and more ruthless than the 1980s version. Particularly their leader, the Eradicator (David Conner). While successful at first, Strike Force Kobra was thus overwhelmed.

Eve would have killed herself rather than be captured. But over the radio, Kobra ordered her not to. She was thus arrested by the Outsiders.

Being forbidden to take her own life apparently created a lasting rift between Eve and Kobra. She came to doubt his devotion to the Lords of Chaos if he’d spare her life out of love.

I’m going back to Kali, hmmm, I don’t think so

In 2000, Kobra was defeated and grievously wounded by the JSA.

King Snake (Sir Edmund Dorrance) then infiltrated the cult. He took partial control over it, and allied with Eve.

Their supporters assassinated the loyalists. Fully rejecting the original Kobra, Eve became Dorrance’s lover.

A new incarnation of the fated brothers had reached their teens. A generation after the Burr brothers, it was the Temple brothers. These seemed to have been genetically engineered, without their knowledge, by the Kobra organisation.

The “good” brother, Daniel Temple, was abducted by Eve and Sir Edmund. They pretended to make him the new Naja-Naja.

Blind man’s bluff

In actuality, they simply used the hapless Daniel Temple as a key. His markings unlocked one of Kobra’s key assets – a Lazarus PitIn the DC Universe, magic underground water that can heal anything and resurrect the dead.

Dorrance bathed in it in order to heal his long-since-disabled eyes. Eve then had a heavy medication cocktail promptly injected into her lover. That prevented the usual post-Lazarus-pit madness.

However :

Eve was badly wounded in an explosion. But before Burr could finish her off, they were separated by Temple’s attack.

Furthermore, Dorrance was blinded anew whilst trying to kill Robin. Sir Edmund was then believed dead in an avalanche.

The schism

While the Kobra cult has an ample history of internecine backstabbing, purges and machinations, that one was a doozy.

Burr couldn’t fully take back control. Eve quickly recovered — possibly using Lazarus Pit fluids — and retained her supporters. The vast Kobra cult split into two blocks.

Eve and her former lover despised each other, and considered each other an heretic. There were heavy paramilitary clashes between the two splinters. Kobra kept calling for the death of “the harlot Eve”, sounding like the ex-boyfriend from Hell.

One such clash took place in San Diego. A JLA intervention was required to avoid a massive death toll.

Castling

In 2003, Burr was murdered by Black Adam and Atom-Smasher (Albert Rothstein).

How much of the organisation Eve could reunite is unclear. However, she likely was the one who led the massive Kobra operation that went live in 2008.

This relied on the Ouroboros, a modified version of the Lexcorp Everyman project. Kobra infected more than 7.4 million persons worldwide with the Ouroboros.

Upon mass activation by microwave transmissions, the unsuspecting infectees would acquire metahuman powers. Then immediately enter a primeval blood rage.

Operation: Grassbeater

This plot led to Operation: Grassbeater. It was a massive military, intelligence, police and superhero worldwide response. It was coordinated by the Checkmate agency.

Checkmate eventually spotted a lack of Ouroboros activity in a specific area. There, Kobra had just given birth to a new generation of hybrid human/snake babies.

The infants were a product of genetic engineering and blood magic rituals. Kobra would raise them to become redoubtable agents of deadly chaos.

With a global war raging to take down unwitting Kobra agents, there simply were no ressources left. Checkmate was forced to go for a last-ditch, hideously dangerous contingency.

They activated their Rooks — Gravedigger (Tyson Sykes), Cinnamon II, Sebastian Faust and a rebuilt G.I. Robot (J.A.K.E.).

The desperate strike was a success. The mutant babies were taken into Checkmate custody, to be raised not to become fanatical chaotic evil murderous leaders.

Death ! Death ! Death !

By 2009, Eve had finished a project to resurrect Jason Burr as the new Naja-Naja. This presumably was done using the Lazarus Pit she had retained control off.

Jason, once the “good” fated brother, was even more evil and cruel than Jeffrey. His taking over was an out-of-control bloodbath. It also devastated the Checkmate facility holding the snake people babies.

Eve was apparently among the hundreds of victims of Jason Burr’s carnages and purges as he ascended to be the new Naja-Naja.

Description

For much of her career, Eve sports the same skin tone as Kobra, and usually has lighter-coloured eyes. Normally green, but often blue.

She essentially looks European, further deepening the mystery of her tribe’s origin.

(I’d imagine that Barr was simply going for pulpsCheap, often lurid novels in the US during the 1920s and 1930s-style 1930s mysteriously-exotic-yet-inexplicably-played-by-a-White-actress-from-a-Hollywood-major vibe. Kobra’s origin is rather over-the-top nonsense, after all. But that colonial-empires-era trope aged like milk.).

(If keeping her White appearance, one might attempt to paper over the obvious issues by making up something involving the Phantom. And the descendants of a party of British colonists cursed during the Raj, the men magically unable to leave the desert. If you don’t know zilch about India that might work. Since everyone is now actually from, say, Leeds).

(The obvious alternative is to make her look more Desi, and not sweep her roots under the (mughal) rug).

In 2000, there’s a sudden change. Her skin is now dusky, and both this and her garb now evoke the subcontinent.

Simmer down, Jim Aparo

She is exceptionally attractive. And, as Jack Black once put it, built like the shit . But the effect is marred when she does that cruel, cold, evil smile of hers.

Unless you’re into that, I suppose.

On occasion she’s run around in flimsy, low-tech underwear with a flimsy, low-tech decorative loincloth.

One advantage is that most everyone will assume that she’s some sort of great-looking courtesan. Rather than a gifted operative.

Outfits

During the Eden community plot, Eve was wearing a plain, low-tech dress.

In 1986/87, she had the itsy bitsy tiny bikini/loincloth thing.

In 1995, she had her own Kobra outfit. The one with the blue cape, the snake hood, the snakeskin motifs, etc..

In 2000 she wore traditional Indian-ish garb. But unadorned, and with a bare belly.

Personality

Eve is a coldly competent, smart terror cult manager. She’s not the über-charismatic anointed leader, but she’s his XOMilitary officer in charge of everyday operations. She keeps track of all the details, risk factors, logistics, etc..

She also keeps Kobra (Jeffrey Burr) more grounded, and less prone to flamboyant overconfidence.

Eve is more lucid about impending defeat than Kobra is. On one hand, that often allows her to evac in time. On the other, she won’t attempt a last-ditch heroic effort to turn the tables.

Being a devout harbinger-of-Kali-Yuga cultist, she’s of course into the whole murder, death and cruelty thing. But she’s collected about it.

The union of the snake is on the climb

Eve and Kobra are obviously in love. When they’re in a good mood, they’re in constant and obviously lubriciousFull of or displaying sexual desire physical contact. Lubricious, I say !

When they’re in a really good mood, it looks like they’re only seconds away from breaking the Comics Code Authority’s seal. Eve seems to be pretty big on sex.

She acts in a loving and respectful way toward Kobra. At first glance, she might even seem deferential. But she has no problem with (discreetly) disagreeing with her lover and pointing problems out.

Kobra always takes this constructively and attentively. This is in stark contrast with his evil mastermind tendency to murder annoying henchmen left and right.

He also forbade Eve to take her life over her failures, breaking the normal Kobra policy.

Quotes

“At once, my love !”

“Time grows short ! More than you know, my love ! I have programmed this station to self-destruct ! We have lost !”

“The order changeth like the shedding of skin, my love. Those dedicated to the cause stand ready for the glorious age ahead.”

Marvel Universe Adaptation

(This section proposes ways of using this character in Marvel Universe stories).

Eve would come from the servant caste of Samurai City, I reckon. That’d help distinguish her from the Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian).

Perhaps she’d be the Foreigner’s aide, with a less-than-cordial view of Silver Sable (Silver Sablinova).

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