Black Alice

Lori Zechlin grew up in Dayton, Ohio and discovered while still a teenager that she possessed an extraordinary connection to magic. Rather than producing one fixed form of sorcery, Lori could seize mystical power from other beings and temporarily make it her own. She adopted the name Black Alice and initially used those abilities against criminals around her home. Her immense potential quickly attracted the attention of the Birds of Prey, whose attempts to guide her were complicated by Lori’s anger, difficult home life and distrust of people attempting to control her.

Lori’s abilities eventually drew her into a crisis involving the Spectre and the destruction of magic itself. She demonstrated that she could take power even from entities operating at the highest levels of the supernatural world, briefly usurping the Spectre’s abilities during the struggle. Experiences like this established Black Alice as an unpredictable presence within the magical community. Lori later joined the Secret Six when she needed money and protection for her family. She worked beside hardened mercenaries such as Deadshot and Catman while struggling with how easily her powers allowed her to become more dangerous than nearly everyone around her.

Black Alice continued moving between reluctant heroism and criminal alliances rather than settling permanently on either side. Her power made her valuable to anyone dealing with supernatural threats and dangerous to anyone who attempted to force her into obedience. Amanda Waller eventually placed Lori within the Suicide Squad alongside Dreamer during her campaign against metahumans. After Waller’s defeat, Lori joined Dreamer, Deadshot, Catman, Jon Kent and Jay Nakamura in a new Secret Six when Waller disappeared from Belle Reve. Lori remained willing to challenge the others when they judged choices made under Waller’s control, reflecting her own complicated history with coercion and morality.

Appearance: Black Alice has pale ivory skin and a slim curvy build with a narrow waist and long legs. Her eyes are gray-brown with heavy dark eyeliner and sharply defined black brows. Her black hair has a deep blue cast and is divided into two large spiked pigtails that flare outward from either side of her head. Several loose strands curl across her forehead and around her cheeks.

She wears a short dark navy crop top with a wide rounded neckline and fitted short sleeves. Her midriff is completely exposed. A matching asymmetrical mini skirt sits low on her hips with a slightly angled hem.

Her arms are bare except for thick metallic gold cuffs around both wrists. A black choker circles her neck with triangular markings along its surface. Her fingernails are long and painted dark purple.

She wears translucent purple thigh-high stockings with broad dark navy bands around the upper thighs. Additional dark bands wrap around the lower legs in layered horizontal sections. Dark ankle boots cover her feet

Personality: Lori is sarcastic, defensive and fiercely resistant to being controlled. She has spent much of her life surrounded by people who either fear her abilities or want to use them, leaving her suspicious of authority and impatient with moral lectures. Her temper can push her toward reckless or violent decisions, especially when someone threatens people she cares about. She is not indifferent to right and wrong, but she distrusts simple divisions between heroes and villains and reacts badly when others assume they understand her circumstances better than she does.

The Secret Six became one of Lori’s most important groups because its members rarely demanded that she behave like a conventional hero. Catman showed concern for how comfortable she could become with violence while Deadshot understood much of the cynicism behind her behavior. Her relationship with the Birds of Prey was more difficult because their attempts to help her often felt intrusive from Lori’s perspective. Dreamer later became an important ally after both women were manipulated by Amanda Waller. Lori defended Dreamer against people who reduced her to the things she had done while under Waller’s influence because Lori understood what it meant to have powerful people define her as dangerous before considering the circumstances.

Black Alice can temporarily usurp magical power from another being. The original wielder loses access to the stolen magic while Lori gains their mystical abilities and enough instinctive understanding to use them. Her appearance can also change to reflect the individual whose power she has taken. Lori has drawn abilities from sorcerers and supernatural entities of vastly different strength, including Doctor Fate, Etrigan, Nightshade, the Phantom Stranger and the Spectre. Her upper limit is extraordinarily high, making her capable of temporarily wielding forces that would normally be far beyond a human sorcerer.

The exact abilities available to Lori therefore change with whoever she targets. She can gain teleportation, magical energy projection, transformation, dimensional travel and other supernatural abilities when she takes them from an appropriate source. Her greatest limitation is experience rather than raw potential. Possessing another being’s enormous power does not automatically give Lori the judgment or complete mastery developed by its original owner, and unfamiliar magic can be difficult for her to control safely.