Origin
Janice Lincoln is the daughter of the superhuman mobster Tombstone. Janice’s mother was an ex-girlfriend of Tombstone during his early days in organized crime. Janice grew up having a relatively normal life with Tombstone occasionally showing up to help out with bills and schooling and being an active father as much as he could. However, Janice sought the thrill of her father’s lifestyle despite Tombstone wishing for her to be a lawyer so she could be a “legal crook”. After graduating from Columbia, Janice rose up quickly as a criminal defense lawyer for a high-end law firm. It was a few years later that Baron Zemo and the Fixer provided Janice with a suit of Beetle armor and a nano-virus as part of their plan to destroy the new Captain America after they sought her help smuggling some illegal goods legally through the right channels.
Creation
Janice Lincoln was created by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Jackson Butch Guice and first appeared in Captain America Vol.1 issue 607 (2010).
Major Story Arcs
No Escape
The all new Beetle fights Bucky and Black Widow in a short battle and is defeated. Bucky unmasks her, and realizes she is culpable in using the nano-virus on him. She is imprisoned in the Raft, where she reveals that she knows Captain America and Bucky are one and the same. While Janice resists Bucky and the Widow’s attempts to interrogate her for the identity of her employer, the Fixer asks Zemo whether they should punish her for her failure. Zemo is merciful, saying that she knows no information that would hurt them. Janice is left to her own devices, and the heroes still manage to piece together Zemo’s identity. However, Zemo still exposes Captain America’s true identity to the general public.
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man
Later, she is a member of Boomerang‘s Sinister Six. After being defeated by Superior Spider-Man, Boomerang is secretly contracted by the Chameleon to recover the head of former Maggia leader Silvermane from the Owl. To this end, Boomerang deceives the team into agreeing to help him. However, after the original Beetle, the reformed Abe Jenkins, is assigned to be Boomerang’s parole officer, the team vote him out and Janice as their new team leader. Speed Demon‘s vote is motivated by his unrequited attraction for her. The others note that the Beetle becomes more despotic as team leader, but attribute this as a reaction to the pressure to succeed and avoid incarceration. Boomerang secretly notifies Power Man and Iron Fist of the Sinister Six’s whereabouts. Janice and her teammates are arrested, but Boomerang frees them in transit to jail and reclaims his leadership role.
After assaulting the Owl’s base the Beetle, Overdrive and Speed Demon were captured by the villain and interrogated. The Beetle tried to blackmail the Owl into releasing them while covertly dialing for back-up. Unimpressed the Owl got ready to execute her when reinforcements arrived in the form of Tombstone who was revealed to be her father to rest of the group.
Ant-Man
Beetle took a job to assassinate Tony Stark. To get close to him, she interviewed for a âHead of Security Solutionâ job at Stark Industries. However, she was stopped by Ant-Man (Scott Lang), who was also interviewing for the job and caught her in the act.
Later, they crossed paths again in Miami and started up a casual romantic relationship. Lang would recruit her to help him with a case against competing henchman-for-hire apps, one created by the Power Broker and one by Cross Technological. Scottâs daughter, Cassie, got mixed up with the apps when she wanted her powers back, so Beetle hired a bunch of super criminals to help Ant-Man and Beetle break into Cross Tech and rescue Cassie. Their rescue was successful, but Ant-Man took the fall when the cops showed up
In the meantime, Beetle put her law degree to good use by getting a job with the local district attorneyâs office, and when Ant-Manâs day in court came, she was the prosecutor. She did her best to assassinate his character to the jury and ultimately wanted to extort him for doses for pym particles so that she can add size-altering to her Beetle suit. However, her case was sunk when Scottâs ex-wife, Peggy Rae, took the stand and was surprisingly supportive of Scott.
The Syndicate
Beetle assembled a new Syndicate. They first debuted by saving the new Electro, Francine Frye, as their sixth member. As Beetle explained, organized crime had the worst gender disparity of every profession. She wanted the new Syndicate to respect the contributions of women to evil and foster support among a community of female supervillains. They were going to smash the glass ceiling with the bodies of their enemies. The rest of the team was made up of Lady Octopus, Scorpia, White Rabbit, and Trapstr.
The team did not get off to the best start though thanks to Beetleâs relationship with Randy Robertson. Randy wanted her to stop being a villain, so she had made a deal with Kingpin to give up Boomerang to become deputized as his security detail. Her team passed on the idea though. They laid low after that, until the Beetle and Randy were kidnapped by Madame Masque and Crime-Master, who were working with a network of crime bosses brought together by Kingpin. The team showed up to rescue Beetle, who was already in the midst of being rescued by Beetle and Randyâs fathers, Tombstone and Robbie Robertson.
Once clear, they revealed they were moving in together.
Sinister War
After recruiting a seventh member (Ana Kravinoff) to her Sinister Syndicate, she is sent to a graveyard with her team by Kindred to take on Spider-Man. There, she runs into a number of other Spider-Man rogues. Kindred announces they were all hellbound villains who could earn a spot as Kindred’s assistant, free from torture, if they killed Spider-Man.
Every time Spidey tried to get away, he was tracked down by a new crew, and all the villain groups were able to catch up. When Boomerang sacrifices himself to Morlun to save Spider-Man, Beetle is one of the villains inspired to help Spidey. Eventually, Doc Ock uses a piece of Black Ant’s helmet to knock everyone, including Beetle, out through the ear centipedes Kindred was using to control them.
Beetle Quits
Beetle leads the Syndicate to steal servers full of cryptocurrency dollars from Crytpo-Corp. During their getaway, they are confronted by three Spider-Heroes: Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and Gwen Stacy. They were forced to retreat without their loot. Beetle attempted to fire the whole team for incompetence, but when they threw their employment contracts back in her face, especially the part about their severance, Beetle had enough and just quit, leaving it all to the team.
If she was going to go solo, she needed a quick influx of cash. She tried stealing precious metals from a lab at ESU on the same day Miles was touring the campus. They get into a fight, which turns into a rescue mission when Beetle’s wings are damaged and can no longer carry her weight. While composing themselves after the dramatic fall, Beetle is saved yet again by the Syndicate, who didn’t know about all the paperwork that Beetle does.
Character Profile
- Height: 5’7″
- Weight: 135 lbs
- Eye Color: Brown
- Hair Color: Black
- Citizenship: American
- Marital Status: Engaged to Randy Robertson
- Education: JD in law from Columbia Law School
- Occupation: Criminal; formerly lawyer, security expert
- Known Relatives: Lonnie Lincoln/Tombstone (father)
Powers and Abilities
The Beetle suit allows the wearer to fly, and stick to walls. Janice’s armor seems to be loosely based on the armor designed by the Tinkerer for Abe Jenkins after his original Beetle armor was destroyed by Iron Man. However, the Zemo/Fixer costume does not seem to have the electro-byte offensive capability or the internal battle computer of Jenkins’ suit. In her initial appearance, she uses military-grade weaponry to ambush Bucky and the Black Widow.
Other Media
Games
Marvel Avengers Alliance
Beetle is feature as a boss in the game, she is introduced in Special Operation 31: “Jessica Jones”.
Her bio in the game says: Janice Lincoln was given a suit of beetle armor by Baron Zemo and Fixer. She eventually found herself working with Boomerang until he had a change of heart and now sells her skills to the highest bidder.
She was later released as a playable character that can be recruited by winning the PVP Season 30 Tournament.
Her bio as a hero says: Janice Lincoln is the daughter of the superhuman monster, Tombstone. She idolized her father, but Janice was encouraged by her father to pursue a safer life. Janice studied law and eventually became a criminal defense lawyer at a high-end law firm. While settling a dispute between Baron Zemo and Fixer, she volunteered to join them as a Super Villain. Janice was given a suit of beetle armor and a persona to match. As a villain for hire, Janice sought to run her own group of Super Villains but was eventually captured and locked away in Ryker’s. Agent Coulson decided to give her another chance working with S.H.I.E.L.D. as a form of community service.
Merchandise
- Beetle was featured in the HeroClix figure game.
- Beetle was included in the Marvel Legends Absorbing Man Build-a-Figure wave from Hasbro.
- Beetle appears as a black pawn in the Marvel Chess series from Eaglemoss Publications.
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