Velocity

Origin

Carin Taylor was the younger sister of Cassandra Lane (the woman who would later become known as Ballistic). As a child, she loved to play baseball and run around with her sister and father. But her father eventually left her mother, and Carin was often beaten by her alcoholic stepfather.

One night when their stepfather was beating their mother, Carin ran from the house at superhuman speed to the nearest police car for help — the first manifestation of her super-powers. She then raced back to the house only to find that her sister Cassandra had inadvertently killed their stepfather by throwing a comb through his heart. Carin was sent to an orphanage.

Creation

Velocity was created in 1992 by writer Eric Silvestri and artist Marc Silvestri as a member of their cybernetic super-team CyberForce — one of the first titles published by Image — and first appeared in CyberForce #1.

Major Story Arcs

Cyberdata

Many years later, Carin was chosen by Mother-May-I to be a S.H.O.C. (Special Hazardous Operation Cyborg) for Cyberdata, an evil organization founded by Emil Zadrok. Carin was brainwashed and trained in combat and in the use of her superpower. At about age 16 she managed to escape from Cyberdata , only to be hunted down by S.H.O.C.’s under the command of her sister, now known as Ballistic. She escaped with help from CyberForce.

CyberForce

As a member of CyberForce, Carin fought against Cyberdata until it collapsed. With every new fight, she gained more and more self-confidence and became a full-time member of the team.

After Cyberdata’s downfall, CyberForce split off but not because of losing their archenemy. They had to search for a cure for the members of the team because they all were infected by the so-called Doomsday Virus, which was created by Cyberdata to kill CyberForce.

Velocity and Ripclaw headed to Antarctica without the others, because Cyblade and Stryker were too ill. Why Antarctica? Because it all started there, over a hundred years ago, as Emil Zadrok explored the Antarctic. What Emil found was an extraterrestrial living machine, which was waiting for a master. His mind was corrupted by the incredible power, and he founded Cyberdata.

Betrayed and attacked by the ship’s crew, which brought them to Antarctica, Velocity and Ripclaw found themselves in a life-or-death struggle. The two heroes killed them all, but Ripclaw died from his wounds and the Doomsday virus. Now alone, Velocity stayed in the cavern beside the living machine which invaded her dreams. While there, she learned that she, CyberForce and other mutants are only “copies” (or clones) from aliens, which crashed a million years ago with their spaceship on Earth. She found “herself” and others in protecting shells. The machine cured her and then she left Antarctica. This is how she lost her facial tattoo.

After her departure, the living machine resurrected Ripclaw but made a mistake. The man called Ripclaw was no more, for now only a monster remained. This monster searched for the ultimate power and was only stopped, but not killed, by CyberForce and the JLA. After that, the “real” Ripclaw (newly “made” by the living machine) appeared and rescued Velocity, Ballistic and Cyblade by killing the monster definitively. After that, they decided to stay together as a team. With Impact and the resurrected Heatwave, they fought against an extraterrestrial invasion. Impact died saving CyberForce and the Earth. Now, they have their base of operations under Mikquit Island which is located somewhere off the east coast of the United States.

Sometime after this incident, the Angelus force claimed Carin as a host. She was driven out by one of Cyblade’s energy blades. Carin did not remember the incident but did recall something bad was about to happen.

Hunter-Killers

In a seemingly accidental turn of events, Hunter-Killer‘s are dispatched to CyberForce’s new HQ and tasked to kill. Ellis learns of this and realizing what is going on, manages to convince his former teammates that the CyberForce members are Mutants, not Ultra-Sapiens and that they have been tricked by Morningstar. The two groups divide up and try to thwart Morningstar’s plan. Unfortunately, Ellis miscalculated and found out too late that Morningstar was infecting millions of people through their JETTs (Cyberdata designed personal earpiece telephones) and making them Ultra-sapiens. Cyberdata would then deploy S.H.O.C.s to deal with the problem and both Morningstar & Cyberdata would emerge heroes to the general public that were completely unaware of this nefarious scheme.

Carin herself had bought a JETT and while she was unconscious, Morningstar replaced it and she too became an ultra-sapien that attacked her friends & teammates. Ellis managed to dampen the genes affecting her while Damper and Argent jammed the viral broadcast by plugging Damper into the network, thus sending his Ultra-Sapien powers out through the JETTs, effectively subsuming the newly gained powers of those affected. Ellis joins CyberForce to stay close to Carin and ensure that she does not regress into the hostile entity again, while Heatwave takes his place on the Hunter-Killer team to keep an eye on them.

Artifacts

During the events of Artifacts, the HQ of CyberForce is invaded by Aphrodite IV. After subduing Ripclaw, Cyblade, and Velocity, Aphrodite IV is placed at gunpoint by Ballistic. The artificial intelligence tells CyberForce that a group of individuals are attempting to destroy the world by gathering the 13 Artifacts in one location at the same time. Velocity asks Ripclaw if he trusts Aphrodite IV, to which he responds with a, “No. I’m convinced we can’t risk NOT trusting her.”

A battle ensues between CyberForce and the altruistic artifact bearers. Velocity manages to get hits on Magdalena and Abigail van Alstine before the Angelus picks her up into the sky and drops her on Ballistic. The team manages to determine that the artifact bearers are not the one’s they should be fighting.

After Aphrodite IV destroys their ship, CyberForce and the others are taken to the base of the Hunter-Killers. Velocity is shown interacting with Abby and Patience just before Glorianna Silver attacks the facility with an army of Aphrodite cyborgs. During the fighting, Velocity attempts to close the vortex that Silver and the cyborgs used to enter the base. She manages to save Tilly Grimes and then goes to help Interface just before being knocked out by the rebooted Aphrodite IV.

Powers and Abilities

• Cybernetic Enhancements
• Superhuman Speed: Carin can run at speeds in excess of 3300 miles per hour but has yet to max out her speed for any reason. She has proven that she can sustain Mach 1 (700 miles an hour) when she destroyed a warship from within while saving CyberForce from an updated killer robot unleashed by Cyberdata. Cyberdata cybernetically implanted layers of Kevlar under her skin to avoid friction burns. Her speed also grants her super-fast reflexes. In issue #31, when she spends a day with her sister Cassie, Carin also demonstrates that her eyes can move at an incredible pace as well, allowing her to follow the path of a card while playing a game of Three Card Monty. The Brain Box also enhances her reaction-time and ability to process sensory input, so she will be able to control herself and understand what she sees and hears when moving at high speed. Although an exact upper speed limit isn’t known, she is capable of exceeding the speed of sound at ground level.