Traci Thirteen aka Girl 13

This profile works to provide an unified view of the character, and offers hypotheses to explain the unusually severe discrepancies. This is why they (don’t) pay us the big bucks, mate.

This profile has S P O I L E R S.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Girl 13 is still a teenager. But she is steadily growing in competence as a detective and as a paranormal adventurer-cum-super-heroine. Her best-known abilities, however, rest with her budding mastery of the mystical arts.

Originally a specialist in urban magic, Traci has broadened her occult skills to become a fuller sorceress drawing from a number of influences. Furthermore, she now has access to a potent artefact, the Staff of Arion, which considerably boosts her might and versatility.

Traci studies very hard, and that brings results. She’s clearly more powerful every year, and her style of magic keeps evolving and broadening. She seems to have a high potential.

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Traci is able to anticipate trouble and thus be in the right place at the right time to intervene. While this all occurs off-panel , it seems to be a mix of :

• Free Occultist (Precognition) uses granted by the GM  to advance the plot.
• Unspecified magical alarms set up by the Croatoans to detect magical threats.
• Scrying routines using her connections with magical entities.

Though the staff of Arion allows her to conjure up some big-time effects, this has a limit. Her spiritual strength is solid but not enough to handle using the Staff’s full might without brutal mystical feedback. Even though the Staff helps handle such strain, she won’t be able to sling major mojo for long.

But the Staff allows her to do a endless variety of magical effects, including unusual stuff such as purging nuclear radiation from an explosion site.

Leeeeerrrroyyy !

Traci’s familiar is an iguana named Leroy. When they are together, Leroy usually rides on Traci’s shoulders. It occasionally sits on top of her head, presumably for heat.

Leroy is fully sapient, and can converse telepathically with Girl 13. Normally, he keeps its size down to look just like a pet iguana. But he can grow into a vaguely draconic, truck-sized creature when needed. He likely has capabilities beyond the ones documented in our game stats.

Since Leroy is not always with Traci and seems to have his own life, he’s not considered a Pet or Sidekick, but a Connection. This is not traditional for familiars, but Thirteen presumably didn’t like all the forced servitude stuff.

Leroy was with Traci in Washington and Metropolis, but has not appeared since. He hasn’t even been mentioned, and it’s entirely possible that he left.

Some girls wander by mistake

Girl 13’s personality, physical appearance and fashion choices vary significantly from one story to the next – even by comic book standards. This section suggests a No-Prize Hypothesis  to account for these discrepancies.

Traci originally practised something called ’urban magic‘. It put her in touch with the soul of city she’s in. Our take is that her style, appearance and personality were affected by the city she was currently connected with and drawing power from. The hypothesis is that she mimicked the style, the urban vibe, the soul of the neighbourhood feeding her magic.

Thus the Description, Personality, illustrations and quotes have been arranged by city. This is under the assumption that it’s what govern her style at that moment – and that it’s what explains the changes.

Our No-Prize Hypothesis assumes that her baseline appearance and demeanour are what is observed in her appearances in Tales of the Unexpected, where she accompanies her father. The action takes place away from major urban centres, and Dr. 13’s presence has a documented influence making the mystical seem more mundane.

Her characterisation and style then settle around the Blue Beetle and Tales of the Unexpected appearances. More or less. In the No-Prize framework proposed here, this reflects the fact that Traci has moved away from urban magic to practice broader, more powerful magic. She is also more mobile than before, not tying herself to a urban centre.

Thus, it would seem that the era of Traci’s personality and appearance fluctuating from story to story are gone. Or at least it does as of this writing.

History

(The person initially identified as “Terri Thirteen” among the Croatoans has been assumed to be Traci).

Traci Thirteen is the daughter of the famous ghost-breaker Dr. Thirteen. Dr. Thirteen’s strange destiny is to forever brush against magic and yet deny its existence, being a professional — perhaps even ontological — sceptic, materialist and debunker. This is how he met a sorceress, who became Traci’s mother.

Traci’s mum died while her daughter was very young. Doctor Thirteen was marked by this loss, and it reinforced his belief that mysticism was a harmful delusion. When he discovered that Traci had been taught some magic by her mother, he forbade her from practising or studying further.

Doctor Thirteen raised his daughter as a single father, likely explaining his dearth of appearances during those years.

A kind of magic

During her early teens, Traci clandestinely resumed her study of magic. Genetics had made her homo magi  rather than homo sapiens, and she was an able ritualist and caster. She could perform real magic even from cobbled-together sources of instruction.

Though she realised that her father was very boring, monomaniacal and overprotective, she loved him. Traci thus kept lying, assuring him that she wasn’t messing with any of the ’hogwash‘ that had led to her mother’s death.

Traci thus secretly acquired a small mystical library and developed her own style, a personal approach to the “urban magic” used by some modern mystics.

One story mentioned that Traci had “a horrible destiny ahead”, without further detail. Recent events lead one to suspects that this destiny might be to become a power-hungry evil witch. It is possible that Ms. Thirteen knows that horrible things are in store for her. If so that presumably played an important role in her drive and precociousness.

Urban species

From her mid-teens onward, Traci lived in a series of major US cities – with her father’s financial help. Though she made pretences toward studying in college, she was actually a budding mystical super-heroine. Traci was methodically working on becoming a more competent protector and adventuress. Her main inspiration was apparently Superman.

For a while, she lived with Ralph and Sue Dibny. She considered them a second set of parents with whom she could be herself. Ralph taught her deductive reasoning and to be a competent amateur sleuth, and Sue taught her to be her own woman. She applied their lessons to grow up smart, weird and with an attitude.

The Dibnys introduced Traci to the Croatoan Society, a band of obscure detectives specialising in the paranormal and the unexplained. Beyond the Dibnys, the Croatoans included such nigh-forgotten sleuths as Bobo (aka the Detective Chimp) or Tim Trench. They had various adventures that often involved strange solutions to historical mysteries. Despite her youth Traci became an active Croatoan.

Land of hope and dreams

When Traci was 15 or 16, her father disappeared. She came looking for him in Washington, D.C.’s Hell’s Heart. This neighbourhood is believed to be the most desperate and dangerous place in America.

Traci soon realised that invisible mystical parasites were attached to the locals. These entities were constantly worsening the conditions of the slum. She studied those creatures, which she called the Heartbreakers, and determined how they were operating. But she couldn’t find a way to destroy them.

Attempting to get help in fixing Hell’s Heart, she wrote to the White House. The wife of the VP, Lana Lang Ross, was moved by the letter and came to investigate. Poor, well-meaning Lara was soon eaten alive by the dangerous ’hood. Pete Ross contacted Clark Kent for help.

Kent found Thirteen while she was busy dodging the Secret Service looking for Lang. Though he ended up with three Heartbreakers leeching his hopes away, Superman :

• Saved Lana.
• Found a way to destroy the Heartbreakers by focusing on loving memories.
• Prevented Dr. Thirteen — then under the influence of a Heartbreaker — from killing his daughter.

Superman then worked to restore hope in the neighbourhood so Heartbreakers would be warded away. Girl 13 came to consider herself as one of Superman’s allies.

Sound of da Metropolis

Traci thus moved to Metropolis’s Suicide Slum to help Superman when needed. When she did find the Man of Tomorrow, he had been grievously wounded by a killer called Gaki. Traci frantically worked to protect him and save his life.

A tad out of her depth, Traci ended up teaming with two other teenagers who responded to the crisis – Natasha Irons and Cir-El, the latter then calling herself Supergirl. The three “supergirls” narrowly saved Superman. :They convinced Gaki to renounce her vengeance.

Though the ’supergirls” ended up battered, wounded and exhausted, the recovered Superman thanked them for their heroism.

Tragedy then struck the Croatoans, however. Sue Dibny was murdered, and her husband became obsessed with resurrecting her. This eventually resulted in his own death. Weeks later, Tim Trench was found dead. At that point the Croatoans were down to half their roster — Traci, Detective Chimp and Edogawa Sangaku — and Girl 13 had lost two of her parents figure.

(The Dibnys continued to exist as ghosts. It is possible that the magically gifted Traci Thirteen was able to re-establish contact with them despite their death.)

Despite these losses, the Croatoans continued to investigate mysteries and famous historical enigmas. It is presumably during this era that Traci acquired several artefacts, including various magical alarm systems warning her of potential crises.

Traci was also instrumental in finding the Rock of Eternity fragments that had showered Gotham, hastening the reconstruction of the Rock.

Tales of the unexpected

Months later, something unusual occurred. Traci accompanied her dad on a case, staying as secretive as possible when she had to cast spells. This strange caper led them to meet other obscure characters from shadowy folds of the DCU (I, Vampire ; the Primate Patrol ; Infectious Lass ; Captain Fear – that sort of guys).

This motley crew tried to fight the Architects, four writers (Morrison, Johns, Waid and Rucka) tasked with reorganising the universe.

The Architects had decided that some obscure characters had to go, including Dr. Thirteen and his new allies. In contrast, the Architects agreed that Traci Thirteen would stay, since they were all big geeks with a weakness toward really hot half-Asian chicks.

With Traci’s help, the obscure characters apparently prevailed and continued to exist. Terrence Thirteen definitely still is a part of the universe despite the plot of the Architects.

Shortly after this strange adventure, this mysterious suspense, this cancelled comic cavalcade, Traci resumed her adventures with the Croatoans. She discovered that Eclipso was back. Though the entity was channelling much of its mystic might into evading magical sensing, it could still be picked up by mundane detection work, which the Croatoans routinely used.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso

Ms. Thirteen came to El Paso to confront Eclipso. He was possessing Jean Loring – the murderess of Sue Dibny. Allying with powerful local hero Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) and his buddy Paco, Traci managed to stop Eclipso from transferring its consciousness into a newborn homo magi.

During this fracas, she and Jaime started a relationship. Traci also became the Blue Beetle’s advisor about mystical situations.

A war later erupted between Jaime Reyes and the mercantile alien space empire the Reach. Traci invited herself to join the ’ground team‘ that protected the Reyes and their friends from retaliation by the Reach. The situation escalated into a shooting war in El Paso.

With Traci providing invaluable firepower and protection via her Staff, everybody made it out alive.

Traci was also part of the Zatanna-led mystical staff organised by Checkmate during the Final Crisis. She briefly considered joining the Teen Titans, though she and Jaime agreed that being on the same team would just be too weird. She did operate a few times alongside the Titans as a consultant of sorts, though.

The craft

Titans allies and homo magi Traci Thirteen, Black Alice and Zachary Zatara were later targeted by the Demon Three — Abnegazar, Rath and Ghast – -as potential hosts. To manipulate her, the demons leveraged Traci’s resentment against her dad for forcing to hide her magic, and her feeling of power of dominance stemming from her rising magical puissance.

Like the other two, Girl 13 was projected into a made-up world flattering her fantasies. In this timeline, her dad had died alongside her mother, and she had saved the world from a crisis using her enormous mystical might. Traci had become an unstoppable archmage and essentially ruled over the world. A magically modified Metropolis was her private fief.

This dream world miserably failed to sway Traci. But it completely worked on Alice (who was reunited with her parents) and left Zachary (who was reunited with his lover) hesitant. The Demon Three offered to make the new world they had created permanent, overwriting the normal Earth timeline.

Alice broke, accepting the deal and stealing Traci’s power to prevent her from intervening.

The three youths eventually got over their differences. They formed a coven to repulse the Demon Three, putting the world back to its normal state. They then reached an agreement to reunite as the Coven of Three when necessary to counter further magical menaces.

Signs of tension abound, though. In particular, while Traci beat back the temptation of power with some ease, it would seem that the worm is actually in. She took the artefacts of the Demon Three with her while pretending to destroy them, being fascinated by their power.

Description

Traci’s appearance varies greatly from time to time and place to place. Generally speaking, she’s a petite Eurasian female, aged about 17 during her Blue Beetle appearances (and aged 14 or 15 in previous appearances). She’s very attractive, and this is often commented on – Jaime’s close friend Brenda has described Traci as ’improbably hot‘.

In Hell’s Reach she looked almost completely Asian – perhaps Laotian or Cambodian. Her eyes alternated between green and light brown and her hair was solid black with purple highlights. She had the look with the grungy green calf-length pants, clogs and fake white fur coat illustrated in the sidebar.

She still had that look when she came to Metropolis, but this changed as soon as she established herself in Suicide Slum. She still looked almost completely Asian, but her features looked much more Northern – perhaps Han. Her hair were the same colour as before but shaved on the sides and worn in what may have been a trendy Korean or Japanese cut.

Her eyes were now a darker brown, and she wore outré clubbing clothes. These included a sort of halter top exposing most of the river between her breasts, matching skin-tight micro-shorts, cargo pants and a small leather backpack.

In her appearance along with her father, Traci is clearly Eurasian – Asian eyes, brown hair and eyes, mixed skin tone. She dresses in a fairly typical way for a teenager at that point, though the mid-calves length cargo pants are still there.

In Gotham, Traci’s skin was a light purple and her hair black with two orange streaks looking like thunderbolts. Her eyes were light, orange-ish brown and her ethnicity impossible to determine. She wore something like the skimpy Metropolis outfit, minus the trousers.

In El Paso, her skin colour is the same as the Latinx members of the cast, such as Jaime and Paco. Her eyes have a noticeable epicanthic fold, but they seem to be a very dark blue, and the rest of her features are hard to place, not looking particularly Asian.

Her hair is solid black, she’s still wearing BDU-style pants (though they now have the usual length) and fairly ordinary T-shirts and belly shirts.

As she steps away from urban magic, her physical appearance and wardrobe seem to be stabilising. She now tends toward more mainstream clothing (long black skirts, jeans, little beige vests, pink t-shirts, sneakers, little purple dresses, etc.) rather than street fashion. When she starts flinging hexes her irises go solid purple.

Generally, purple/violet seems to be the colour associated with her magic. When she casts there tends to be ephemeral, intangible manifestations akin to purple glass slivers floating around. Those minor manifestations disappeared by the time she met with Jaime Reyes.

Likewise she used to speak her incantations in a strange, unknown, violet-looking language, but hasn’t done so recently.

Personality

It used to vary a lot.

In Hell’s Heart, Traci was weird, spirited, and fearless. She was uninterested in social validation of her acts. She did whatever she wanted, moved in mysterious ways, and was very driven, direct and dedicated. That nobody understood what the hell she was doing and saying does not bother her in the slightest. She had an important job to do.

She was cynical, unusually smart, bohemian and precocious. Howbeit she was still 15, with the limitation that it entails.

Despite her youth, Traci had already experienced far more danger and weirdness than most at that point. She could handle herself even in very dangerous areas, was a decent detective and tactician, and had an obvious, indolent form of courage. She was not quite a super-heroine. More like a adventurer, professional troubleshooter and activist, and a mystical explorer and protector.

Using our No-Prize framework, one observes that Hell’s Reach is full of junkies, weirdoes and headcases with an hostile attitude and who live in their own world. Traci was reflecting that while connected to this ’hood.

In Metropolis

In Metropolis, she had a distinct hip-hop/urban Black vibe. She was using a lot of slang from those subcultures. She seemed much less experienced and more hectic than in Washington. In particular, Traci clung at Natasha since Nat seemed to know what she was doing (she didn’t).

Interestingly, Traci spoke as if she was herself African-American. She didn’t seem to realise that it wasn’t actually the case.

Using our No-Prize framework, one notes that Suicide Slum has been predominantly African-American since the 1970s, and has a strong hip-hop street culture. Traci’s immodest manner of clothing also matched the Slum – where being a stripper is considered a desirable profession, as Jefferson Pierce once mentioned.

Traci was channelling those elements of local culture all but physically. And it is possible that her mixed features would eventually have included elements from Black ethnicities frequent among Suicide Slum residents.

Tales of the Unexpected

In her appearances along with her father, Traci looked like a normal, somewhat superficial teenager. She did not evidence any special experience or attitude. She was afraid that her father would see her using magic, and would only use her spells as a last resort.

It was as if much of her savvy and toughness had washed away once she couldn’t tap the urban soul of a tough area.

In El Paso

In her El Paso appearances she’s a playful, vital, funny, particularly intelligent and courageous young woman. She’s already a professional, if minor, adventurer. Traci is obviously working hard to improve her skills mundane and mystical.

She clearly has the potential to become a major presence in the mystical community, and she knows it. She’s very mature and confident for her age – way more than Jaime. She’s also probably a bit older than him, maybe 17.

At this stage Traci is very confident and well-adjusted, though she knows a lot of weird things and lives in a weird world. She likes the weird, perhaps even thrives on it. Traci has been practising her ominous remarks and mysterious airs, as well as her super-heroic banter.

Thirteen is almost preternaturally cool, nice, understanding and gracious. She comes across a bit like a young actress with training as a stand-up comedienne, who has been told to play “the perfect mysterious girlfriend”.

It’s a weird, perhaps even creepy, but a much more subtle kind of weird than before. Most people won’t notice it.

In 2010

In 2010, as she evolves away from urban magic and toward more classic and powerful sorcery, Traci adopts a pantheistic worldview. In her school of magic all gods, demi-gods, spirits, etc. from Earth and beyond exist, can be contacted and are connected with each other.

Her hocus-pocus involves a hodge-podge of mythologies, routinely mixing Astarte, Athena and Kali together. She also now uses terms quite reminiscent of Harry Potter spellbooks for some spells and entities.

2010 Girl 13 is not as playful as she was back in El Paso, though she’s still with Jaime. She now sees herself more like a serious heroine and protector, rather than a Buffy-style sassy girl adventurer.

The light-heartedness also recedes as she grows increasingly obsessed with her own power and her — allegedly catastrophic — Price of Magic fate starts looming.

Quotes

Traci 13 (Hell’s Heart)
(In a squalid dinner, Traci uses the salt container to pour a circle of salt around herself)
Clark Kent: “…” (beat) “Most people save some for their food.”
Traci 13: “Yeah, well, if most people knew what I know about the underworld, they’d use their condiments a lot more wisely.”

(Traci and Leroy, the latter perched on Traci’s head, are uncomfortably staring at Clark Kent)
Leroy: “Hssk.”
Traci: “He’s got a double aura, but I think it’s OK.”
Leroy: “Hssk.”
Traci: “Right on, we’ll give him that one for Christmas.”

Irate bartender: “Yo, Miss Saigon ! You 21 ? Ya sure don’t look it.”
Girl 13: “Yeah. Gimme a beer and an apple martini.” (vaguely nodding toward the man’s approximative hairdo) “Oh, and Don King  called. He wants his afro back.”

Traci 13 (Suicide Slum)
“Metal’s dead, dog. Even white boys know that.”

“We haven’t seen Superman once. Thought we could do him a solid, but I don’t know…”

“Nutmeg ! Where’s your damn nutmeg ?!? Come on ! Ladies-who-lunch keep all that junk ! Nutmeg holds back blood wraiths and – candles ! Get me candles !”

“I know that ! I got eyes ! What I don’t got is a way to stop it from here ! 212 ain’t my area code ! I don’t have any soldiers up in here !”

“This has not been my idea of a good day on the block, nowmsayin ? So don’t even unless you want to pick up a lot more than your face !”

“Large and so very in charge ! […] Got to prepare my spells this time. Nothing gets access, ’specially not some pale-face wannabe Lucy Liu reject with no butt.”

Traci: “Holy —-… you’re Black ?”
Natasha: “What does it matter ?? I’m bleeding !”
Traci: “No, I know, I— You really sound White, though. Hasn’t anyone ever told you ?”
Natasha: “BLEEDING !”

Traci 13 (Current)
Traci “Mecka lecka high, mecka hiney-ho…. aaaaand moron says ’what-zap ?”
Eclipso: “What —!?” (ZAP !)
Traci: “Boo-yah ! How’d that taste ?”

“Chains of Hecate bound by light and silver and clarion sound, purgorum !” (reverses an enchantment)

“Okay, crash course on Eclipso : ex-hitman of God. Spirit of wrath. Major magic mojo. We’re talking apocalypse chick.”

Traci: “[Eclipso]’s got everybody’s senses fogged, not just yours. Which means it’s up to detectives, not magicians.” (beat, talking to herself) “…seriously, you could bottle the air and sell it…” (resumes what she was saying) “I handle all the supernatural stuff for the Croato — uh, some detectives. Makes it my job.” (beat, stares at Jaime in a mysterious sexy ominous scary way) “And I can be very dangerous.”
Jaime: “…”
Traci: “How was that ?”
Jaime: “It was good. It worked.”
Traci: “Cool. Been practising.”

“Feel that ? That’s a whole lotta powerful good-guy mojo building up in this holy place, boiling, trying to find a way to nuke you in the face. All it needs is focus. Meet the Staff of Arion.” (as the Staff starts burning up) “Wow. They’re gonna see this from space.”

Traci (telling Jaime not to mess with the Spectre) : “Y‘know, I only did this whole image-casting thing so you could see my face — see how serious I am about this.”
Jaime: “Hey, I like seeing your face.”
Traci: “Sweet and corny. You’re like a good breakfast cereal.”

(After shielding the Reyes household from an alien WMD) “Hi. My name’s Traci 13. I’m dating your son. I brought cookies.”

Jaime: “I’m warning you. This is going to be a culture shock. Nobody on the Leal side of the family speaks any English.”
Traci: “My dad and I once spent a week with the pygmy mummies of Kracht Island. No culture can shock me after that.”

“Uh, Blue ? In the immortal words of Admiral Akbar …”

“It’s not that simple. Nothing is free when it comes to magic.”

“Levo lo velum, exhibeo exibeo nobis ! Exsto ! Exsto ! Exsto !”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: DC Universe.

Helper(s): Darci, Alan Wilkinson, Roy Cowan, Cassius335.