Leila Davis aka Hardshell aka Beetle

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Leila is an accomplished driver, and a talented engineer.

She is good with firearms, and with the weaponry she developed with her husband.

She has displayed good acting abilities and persuasion.

Davis also maintained her composure when forced to work closely with the object of her hatred, and kept order amongst argumentative super-villains.

Beetle

The Beetle armour provides her with enhanced strength and protection, and a built in air supply. It allows her to project energy on a number of wavelengths, and its wings, composed of molecule-thin gravitonic spatial distortions, can slice through targets, as well as allowing her to fly.

The armour also allows her to :

• Fire blasts of energy, which can be set to bypass Moonstone’s phasing ability, although it’s unknown if Leila is aware of this option.
• Adhere to surfaces and targets.
• Run a powerful electric current over it’s surface, electrocuting anyone touching it at the time.
• Obscure its appearance to electronic surveillance.
• Shoot wire from the fingertips, which allow it to ensnare opponents, and fly them off the ground.

Part of the flight suit she wears within the armour allows her to summon the suit to her. But if it is a significant distance away, she needs some method of boosting the signal.

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History

Leila was the wife of Anthony Davis, the super-villain known as the Ringer. She helped him developed the technology he used. He was killed by the original Scourge.

Leila, unable to find Scourge, decided to focus her anger on the Beetle. She held him responsible for her husband’s unwillingness to retire from his life of crime. The Beetle had mocked Anthony, making him feel he had to prove himself.

Sinister Syndicate

She started a relationship with Boomerang. Yet this was but a means to getting involved with the Sinister Syndicate, and getting an opportunity for revenge. She became the getaway driver for the group, working on a few jobs with them. When Boomerang was arrested, she began working on Speed Demon, who had evidenced an attraction to her.

But the team began to fall apart, due to the Kingpin’s machinations. Davis recruited Boomerang and the Rhino, who had both developed reasons to hate Beetle. They clashed with the other members of the Syndicate in a public street. She was prevented from getting her revenge by Spider-Man, and was soon arrested.

Hardshell

Released from jail early for good behaviour, she again meets up with Boomerang and the Rhino, and their new ally, the Vulture. She recruits them to help her try to gain revenge against Beetle again, and somehow acquires the Hardshell suit. They attack the US Atomic Research company. Spider-Man arrives to try to stop them, but they manage to escape with the weapon they wanted.

The three super-villains begin fighting amongst themselves, but Leila manages to control their animosities. They vote on what to do with the weapon, with the Vulture voting to keep the weapon, and the others preferring to sell it to AIM. The discussion is interrupted when the Beetle and Stegron attack their hideout.

During the ensuing fight, Beetle manages to flee with the weapon, but Leila gives chase. Her team manages to capture Beetle, and Leila recovers the gun. When Stegron tries to attack Leila, he’s shot by a cyborg calling himself Strikeback.

Leila recognizes Strikeback as her supposedly dead husband, Anthony. He prevents her from delivering a killing blow, saying that they should leave the super-villain business and start a new life together. She agrees and they spent a short time together, but his cybernetic systems soon break down. Strikeback dies quietly, at peace.

Redeemers

Feeling guilt over her past actions, she turned herself in to the authorities. But, instead of prison, she was offered the opportunity to join the Redeemers program. She was given a recent version of the Beetle armour.

The Redeemers were sent to try to foil Henry Gyrich’s plot to take control of all superhumans using a nanite virus. They were caught by surprise, infected with the nanites, and forced to protect him from the Thunderbolts. They were freed from his control, only to discover that Gyrich himself had also been infected by similar nanites, and was acting under someone else’s control.

When the Thunderbolts were offered pardons, provided they stopped costumed activities, Jolt and Charcoal joined the Redeemers. The group took up residence in the Thunderbolts base in Mt. Charteris. Leila struck up a friendship with fellow Redeemer Valerie Bernhardt (Meteorite III).

Captain America temporarily replaced Citizen V. During this time the group travelled to Latveria, where they had to fight the Young Allies from Counter-Earth, who were threatening eco-terrorism against Doom’s homeland.

Fall of the Redeemers

Soon after Citizen V returned to lead them, the Fixer accidentally releases the extremely dangerous Humus Sapien on the world. Beetle didn’t get to do much against him, as he teleported her armour a few miles away.

As soon as the Humus Sapien left Earth, the side of the mountain around their base was ripped off by Graviton. Disappointed at not finding the Thunderbolts, Graviton settles for taking it out on the Redeemers. After he crushes Charcoal into dust, ripping Jolts electric body apart, he sent Meteorite to hurtling into orbit.

Using her remote caller, Beetle manages to recover the armour, intending to rescue Valerie from orbit before her limited air supply runs out. Before she can leave the area however, she is confronted by Graviton, who crushes the armour into a one foot cube, while she is inside it.

Description

Outside of her armours, Leila is attractive, and she dresses well, as appropriate for the situation.

Personality

When she first appeared, she was driven by her desire for revenge. She felt guilty that she had not stopped Anthony from being the Ringer. Unable to cope with it, Leila transferred her hatred of herself onto the Beetle, who seemed a more accessible target than Scourge. She was controlled enough that she managed to hide it until she was ready to strike, even working closely with the Beetle.

She manipulated people to get what she wanted. Yet she couldn’t stop herself developing relationships with some of them, and felt guilty about using them. When the Shocker decides he can’t stand to continue as a super-villain, she empathized with his self-confidence issues. She let him walk despite needing his help, wishing that her husband could have done the same.

Following her time reunited with her husband, she lost her anger. She forgave herself, and decided to pay for her crimes, trying to redeem herself.

As the Beetle she was calm under pressure, focused on her goals, and was developing a strong friendship with Meteorite.

Quotes

“Get off ! Now shut up and listen to me. Those cops out there weren’t cops. They were the Kingpin’s men. The Kingpin arranged the hit with the approval of your good buddy, the Beetle. The Kingpin hates you from way back, Fred, and the Beetle was afraid you’d implicate him in crimes to reduce your sentence.”

“This look familiar, Abner ? Very good, Beetle. The Ringer — Anthony Davis — the man you totally humiliated, who wouldn’t quit being a costumed villain until he could prove to himself he wasn’t the worthless non-entity you made him believe he was. The man who was murdered by Scourge, while still trying to prove himself… who died thinking himself a failure. The man who was my husband.”

(After blasting a huge piece of machinery the Rhino hurled at Boomerang in a squabble) “You signed on with me. We agreed to put past differences behind us. Remember that.”

(To the Beetle) “I could kill you a dozen times — and I would still owe you for the anguish, the agony you cost me.”

DC Universe History

The Redeemers were a branch of the Suicide Squad set up to take advantage of super-technology confiscated by the government. They located appropriate people, usually those somehow associated with supers, who were in trouble with the law, but who weren’t necessarily hardened criminals, and provided them with super-technology, allowing them to redeem themselves by working on missions.

The Beetle armour was modelled after designs of those made by Luthorcorp.

By Gareth Lewis.

Source of Character: Marvel Comics.

Helper(s): Sébastien Andrivet (a bunch of stuff on pre-Beetle Leila), capita_senyera.