Penny Dreadful

Creation

The character Penny Dreadful belongs to the band of meta-humans called Helix was created by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas as an adversarial team to the group of heroes called Infinity Inc. Her first debut was in Infinity Inc Infinity Inc. #17 (August, 1985).

History

The stern and bossy Penny Dreadful is a meta-human woman with the ability to absorb and re-channel electricity, she also is a member of the Helix, a group of children whose pregnant mothers had been subjected to genetic experiments by their gynaecologist, Dr. Amos Love. Love brought up the Helix and manipulated them into believing that they were unwanted by their parents and the world. As teens, the Helix found out Dr.Love’s true history and their own in his diary and killed him in a fit of anger and disbelief

Penny Dreadful behaves as the oldest Helix member after Mr. Bones and helps him maintain order among the dysfunctional Helix “family”; like him she increasingly had to resort to physical intimidation. Penny seems to have a relationship with Mister Bones, and was the most affected by the various separations between Bones and the rest of the Helix “family”.

Penny and the members of the Helix than attempted to gain wealth by attacking two affluent young superhero’s named the Silver Scarab and Fury. They along with their teammates on Infinity Inc had recently revealed their secret identities. Although only confronting Fury, Mr. Bones defeated the young amazon and had Silver Scarab turn himself in to the team as a hostage and left both in the care of Tao Jones. However the rest of Infinity Inc came to the rescue of their comrades and Penny Dreadful and the Helix were defeated.

Another character who had been separated from the other children of Helix called Carcharo, a ferocious shark like creature, intimidating Penny Dreadful he tried to gain leadership of Helix. Since Mr. Bones had left them and Baby Boom, who had recently renamed herself Babe, and was becoming increasingly sociopathic, sided with Carcharo. These two were the most dangerous Helix members and tried to force the others to follow Carcharo. Penny Dreadful, Arak and Tao Jones left, and Babe refused to use her powers to explode them despite Carcharo’s orders.

Most of Helix accepted to join a low-security psychiatric hospital for therapy and socialization. Mr.Bones, who was considered to wield too much influence over the group, was ordered to join Infinity, Inc. instead to perform more community services. Though they were dismayed at being separated again, the Helix ‘family‘ realized that they had received very favorable terms and complied.

Penny turned up again years later working as secretary to her former teammate Mr. Bones in his new role as Director of the DEO. Being a lifetime friend of Bones and raised alongside him and whom she had previously had a romantic relationship. She eventually returned to villainy though, briefly working for the sorceress Circe.

She recently reappeared as a hired villain for Prometheus, she worked with Arak the Wind Walker, and ran into Congo Bill and Mikaal Tomas. While Arak was beaten by the two heroes and was about to divulge who had hired them was Prometheus she electrocuted him instantly killing him. Next attempting kill Bill, Mikaal instead ended her life.

Powers and Abilities

Penny Dreadful can absorb energy and release it as powerful blasts. Her body is not simply a conductor, it considerably enhances the power of the current that flows through her. She can easily generate dangerous bolts from a small battery-powered gadget. Penny eventually developed the ability to modulate her lightning discharges to lock the muscles of her target, making it very difficult to move

Statistics

Real name: Unknown

Marital Status: Single

Known Relatives: None

Group affiliation: Helix

Base Of Operations: Formerly the outskirts of L.A. (a ghost town in the desert near Bakersfield), then an abandoned mall in L.A., then Terminal Island (off the L.A. coast)

Height: 5‘9”

Weight: 125 lbs

Eyes: Green

Hair: Red