Lady Vic

Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton, a.k.a. “Lady Vic” or “Lady Victim” is a fictional character in the DC Comics universe. She is an English noblewoman who works secretly as an assassin, bounty hunter, and mercenary. She is employed on a semi-regular basis by Roland Desmond and appears most frequently as an antagonist of Nightwing (Dick Grayson).

Lady Vic
Portion of the pannel from Batwing #24, October 2013. Art by Eber Ferreira (penciller), Eduardo Pansica (inker), and Paul Mounts (colorist)
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Nightwing #4 (January 1997)
Created by	Chuck Dixon Scott McDaniel
In-story information
Alter ego	Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton
Team affiliations	Tartarus Injustice League Secret Society of Super Villains Secret Six
Abilities	Highly skilled acrobat and martial artist Proficient with variety of edged weapons and firearms

Her sobriquet “Lady Vic” is short for "Lady Victim", referring to any of her possible targets.

Publication history

Lady Vic first appeared in Nightwing #4 and was created by Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel.[1]

Fictional character biography

Lady Elaine is descended from a long line of British soldiers and mercenaries, and a genuine English aristocrat. The money she earns from her secret career helps prevent foreclosure on her impoverished family estate.

She completes an assignment for Blüdhaven gang boss Antonio “Angel” Marin[2] and returns to Blüdhaven to collect her fee, and is upset to find Marin missing. She tracks down Marin’s lawyer, and threatens to kill his young daughter if she isn’t paid – a threat she definitely would have carried out, if Nightwing had not intervened. Dudley Soames informs her that Marin had been replaced by Blockbuster, and offers to pay her fee, with a retainer to continue working for him.

Elaine is one of Blockbuster’s hirelings tasked with tracking down Oracle. When Blockbuster was dying of heart failure, Elaine is entrusted with locating Gorilla City in Africa, and finding a replacement heart.

Lady Vic is sent to eliminate Tarantula, Blockbuster's latest ally, when Tarantula had disobeyed his orders. Tarantula defeats Lady Vic, shooting her in the stomach.[3]

During the Infinite Crisis, Lady Vic appeared as a member of Alexander Luthor Jr.'s Secret Society of Super Villains.[4]

One Year Later, Lady Vic is hired by Doctor Psycho and Cheshire in an attempt to destroy the Secret Six. Together with Double Dare she faces Deadshot in a park with his wife and child, who run away once the attackers appear. Unarmed, Deadshot is easily defeated by Double Dare, and is about to be executed by Lady Vic when his wife throws him a gun, allowing him to get the upper hand. Deadshot considers killing his would-be assassins but allows them to escape, not wanting to shoot them in front of his daughter.[5]

When not on a job, she rests easy in the company of her hulking manservant Bivens. Her drink of choice is Darjeeling tea. More recently, she was seen among the new Injustice League and is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run. She also appears chasing the Secret Six to obtain a valuable "Get out of Hell free" card.[6]

Shortly after, Bane takes her on in his incarnation of the Six when the others leave.[7] She is later shot in both knees by Deadshot and left to die in Skartaris.

In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Lady Vic makes her debut in the series Batwing.[8][9]

Powers and abilities

"Talks like Jane Seymour, fights like Bruce Lee." - Nightwing

Elaine is a highly skilled martial artist and athlete, and equally skilled with firearms. She has a sentimental preference for a collection of antique weapons handed down by her ancestors, souvenirs of their colonial exploits: a matched pair of Katar (कटार), a Japanese katana, a Thuggee strangling cloth, a Maasai javelin, and a Webley revolver.

Of the mercenaries regularly employed by Blockbuster, Elaine is one of the most skilled, certainly more skilled than Brutale, Stallion, or Electrocutioner, though usually not on the level of opponents such as Nightwing or Batman, though she has nearly beaten Nightwing. When Blockbuster decided to test Shrike’s abilities by pitting him against all of his regular assassins at once, Elaine lasted the longest, and was the only one to actually inflict a wound on him, and almost killed him, before being knocked out. She also nearly defeated Nightwing in their first fight, and had an upper hand in the battle. She also effortlessly defeated Tarantula in two separate encounters. These feats place Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton among the best martial artists in the DC universe.

Lady Vic also has qualities of determination and ruthlessness that set her apart from the others. Possibly this is because she desperately needs the money she earns, for the sake of her family’s continued standing and honor. As mentioned above, she was more than willing to kill a young girl to get paid; during the Hunt for Oracle storyline, when Black Canary escaped from a plane in which she was being held prisoner, Lady Vic astonished her by leaping into the sky after her, without a parachute.

Other versions

Flashpoint

In the Flashpoint universe, Lady Vic joined with the Amazons' Furies.[10]

References

1. Cowsill, Alan; Irvine, Alex; Manning, Matthew K.; McAvennie, Michael; Wallace, Daniel (2019). DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle. DK Publishing. p. 258. ISBN 978-1-4654-8578-6.
2. Nightwing #4
3. Nightwing no 95
4. Villains United: Infinite Crisis Special no 1
5. Secret Six: Six Degrees of Separation tpb
6. Secret Six v. 2 #4 (February, 2008)
7. Secret Six v. 2 21
8. Batwing #21
9. "What's New in the New 52 – Introducing Lady Vic". May 2013.
10. Flashpoint: Wonder Woman and the Furies #2 (July 2011)