Origin
Zealot was originally the Lady Zannah from the planet Khera. She was a part of the Kherubim group known as the Coda. The Coda are all women and are responsible for war and battles on Khera and is one of that worlds most powerful factions. She was one of the very few Kherubim women who could have children and did so with the Lord Majestros,giving birth to a baby girl which she named Kenesha. However, not wanting to become a priestess like other Kherubim mothers, she let her daughter believe she was actually her sister and Majestros to believe the child had died. She was one of the Kherubims to have become stranded on Earth, surviving only thanks to her current lover Stratos who was able to get her into one of the ships rescue pods. She would soon join the long war between the Earth Kherubims and Daemonites who wanted to take over the Earth.
Creation
Zealot was created by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee.
Major Story Arcs
Wildstorm / Image Comics
Wild.C.A.T.s
On Earth, Zealot began to train human women in the ways of the Kherubim Coda, creating an Earth-based group. She was part of the Trojan War and was responsible for helping the Greeks against the Trojans. She did so with the promise of being given 99 baby girls for a new group of Coda. With Ulysses she came up with the idea for the Trojan Horse, which also carried many of her own soldiers, however, she decided to save the royal family and didnât want to see women and children killed in the raid. The rest of the Coda called her a traitor and made her leave the group (especially for refusing to kill her ally Artemis after besting her in a dual). She was forced into servitude to Tapestry for 100 years in return for her daughter Kenesha (who did not know their true relation) surviving from being poisoned by the Coda. She was even taught dark magic by Tapestry, but soon after refused to use it for many years.
In the 1900s she used the name Lucy Blaize and became a part of Team One with her fellow Kherubims Emp, Majestros, and John Colt, whom she had a child with but gave to a Siberian family for the child’s protection. (It is later believed that the child is the Stormwatch member Winter, but she decides against telling him.) The teamâs first mission was to battle the evil Daemonite Helspont. Helspont had formed a team of super powered humans as well as Daemonites.
Helspont wanted to destroy all humans so the Daemonites could have Earth which he intended to do by launching a nukes. Team one fought Helspont intent on trying to stop him, even some of his own men tried to stop him after he betrayed them. Helspont was able to launch a missile, but the team member Regiment was on the missile and destroyed it (and most likely himself). The team then disbanded.
Zealot would train a man in the ways of the Coda named Cole Cash with whom she had joined the Wild.C.A.T.s with. As a Wild.C.A.T she again fought Helspont and his Cabal. He intended to bring other Daemonites to Earth, but the team was able to stop his plan. When Voodoo became a part of Wild.C.A.T.s she trained her in the fighting style of the Coda. It was during one of their training sessions that they met Hunstman and Miranda Tai being chased by aliens. One took over Voodoo and went to see Tapestry. Zealot along with Hunstman and Tai went after her battling Tapestry and soon the rest of the team arrived and fought the group known as the Troika that Tapestry had hired. Even Majestros and Savant joined the battle, with Zealot taking a short leave of absence afterwards.
Zealot, along with the rest of the group, found the crashed Kherubim ship and used the ship to travel back to Khera. Once there the team found out Khera was not as utopian as they had once believed. The war against the Daemonites ended thousands of years ago and were now second class citizens to them. Zealot even insulted Voodoo when she told of this straining the relationship. While there the other Coda had wanted to kill her in hopes of making her a martyr for themselves. This act made her disgusted with them and so, along with the rest of the team, she returned to Earth.
When they arrived back on Earth they found that a new team had been formed in their place. The new team consisted of Majestros, Savant, Ladytron , Condition Red and Tao. However, Tao was revealed to have been manipulating the team into starting a gang war. The two “teams” then fought and she almost killed Tao when they attacked him, but Majestic killed him first.
Wildcore
She was also a part of Wildcore, when Department Psi needed her to help them with a group of aliens known as the D’rahn. She invaded Norfolk Naval Base trying to find a General Gant, who was leader of an alien extermination group known as the Puritans. The Puritans have a database of suspected aliens who live on Earth and the D’rahn want to hunt down the earth Kherubim’s. Gant uses his group called the Chasers to protect their base, but the power of the D’rahn overwhelms them and only the groups leader Brawl, Zealot and Gant make it out alive. Later Gant turns out to have been a Daemonite in disguise. His faction of Daemonites promise to obey the D’rahn in return for their lives and are then enlightened by the D’rahn and made more powerful. Wildcore is able to erase all but ten of the names on the list and now with Brawl set out to defend those ten.
They are unable to save one person from the list, but his fiance Alea having been enlightened joined the Wildcore. After she and a member named Ferrian try to find Majestic for help, an ally of Department Psi known as Azrum is revealed to have gone to find Tapestry for help, but hasn’t been heard of. With Majestic, Wildcore attack the D’rahn and in the battle Majestic kills their leader Typhon causing them to retreat. It turns out that Azrum has been imprisoned by Tapestry and after enslaving Zealot reshapes the world, but Ferrian is able to regain his old memory’s and free the others. They defeat Tapestry, but two members die and she soon leaves the group.
During a mission against an Irish village were super soldiers were being made, via Daemonite tech, Zealot was thought dead after she tried to save a group of children and was shot. The village was caught in an explosion and the rest of the team thought she was surely dead and so disbanded. Later it turns out she was hiding from Coda factions, while also hunting them down in secret, and even had a one night stand with a drunk Grifter. She and Grifter would then fight the Coda. After she spent some time killing the Coda, the FBI tracked down her location and sent Agent Orange who was secretly under Jack Marlowe’s control.
The Coda also eventually found her location and sent Sarin to take her down. Sarin then captures Zealot, Agent Orange and his agents. She was tortured and scheduled to be executed by the Coda, but thanks to Ladytron being controlled by Grifter, Mr. Dolby, the Beef Boys and C.C Renozzo were sent after her. They battled many Coda but couldn’t make their way through them until Marlowe used Agent Orange to fight the Coda from the inside. Zealot was freed and the Coda, along with their base, were destroyed.
Later Majestros asked for her help after traveling from the future and discovering that soon the Daemonites would take over. The two, along with Desmond, went in search for the Planet Shaper, but Helspont and his creation Biomass attacked them. After Desmond merged with the device, Zealot along with Majestic and Helspont discovered that the Kherubims grew in power by enslaving other species and in turn taking over that world. They also discovered that the Daemonites were a race that fought back against their control. Soon a rogue Kherubim of the Shaper’s Guild named Javen arrived.
He wanted to use the Shaper and remake Earth into a new Khera and use Majestic’s DNA to breed a new race of Kherubims. However he found that Majestic’s body was breaking down due to his dimension and time travel and so attempted to take their child Savant as the next best thing. During the battle Majestic made Zealot reveal that she was in fact Savant’s mother and that he was her father. He then went off to stop the Kherubim forces on his own.
Nemesis
Some time later a Kherubim named Nemesis made an appearance. It was revealed that she (Nemesis) was at one time Majestic’s lover and he had used his position to get her trained as a member of the Coda despite her being an Adrastea. The two women became rivals and friends, but due to her heritage, Kheran politicians ordered Majestic to sleep with Zealot which he did. in turn separating from Nemesis. Nemesis had been used as a scapegoat by Raven of the Brotherhood of the Sword when he killed the Coda in an attempt to overthrow the Kherubims and Daemonites. Zealot swore her revenge on Nemesis, not knowing the real truth. Zealot later found her in 2005 killing members of the Brotherhood and taking a child from them.
Nemesis then defeated the Wildcats and Zealot in short order, but Majestic was able to defeat her. After she was taken to the Halo building the truth was revealed. She explained that the Brotherhood and Daemonites had intended to turn humans into mutant monsters and were going to use the girl-child whom she had taken from them, named Kara, to do it. Zealot along with the rest of the Wildcats were attacked by the Brotherhood using Brotherhood/Shaper’s called Scimitars. After their leader Raven took the the child Kara, Zealot, Majestic and Nemesis made peace and went after them and fought the mutates that had been activated.
After Savant found their ship, the team went after it and found that Raven had taken the population of New Jersey hostage. He told them to surrender, but like a Coda, Nemesis did not. She (Nemesis) used some special grenades causing damage and buying the group time to escape with the hostages. Nemesis then stayed to finish off Raven, but not before telling Majestic that if she hadn’t sacrificed she would have made him happy all those years. She then killed Raven, and would have died herself had Majestic not shown up in time to save her from dying in outer space.
World’s End
Zealot was battling a group of Daemonites and was almost destroyed had it not been for Majestic showing up just in time, killing the Daemonites with his heat vision. He then told her that the Earth was in danger. Zealot will be a part of the new group of Wildcats after World’s End.
Powers and Abilities
Kherubim
Zealot is a member of the Kherubim race. She appears human, but like the others of her species she lives a life span so long as to be practically considered immortal. She can lift around two tons with ease, is durable enough to survive small arms fire, and can heal from wounds that would be lethal to normal human beings. Calling her a master of fighting and weaponry would be an understatement.
For all of her life (which is thought to be in the thousands of years at the very least), Zealot has been training and fighting using weaponry of human and alien origin. She is especially fond of the sword and to battle her with one is considered near suicide.
Due to her time spent with Tapestry she gained an understanding of dark magic and, although she rarely uses it, can use this dark magic to form energy blasts or shields, create objects out of thin air, disappear and reappear any where she pleases and communicate with others by using her mind. However, she has since given up these abilities due to their dark nature.
Other Versions
Image Comics / Valiant Comics
Zealot appeared in the Deathmate crossover.
Post-Flashpoint: Earth-0
Zealot appears in New 52 Deathstroke Vol. 2 Lobo Hunt, where she agrees to aid Deathstroke and The Omegas hunt down Lobo. Lobo had recently escaped from a maximum security prison where he was held for many years. Guided by revenge on his captors, Lobo plans on using his spacecraft called “The Ark” to destroy the earth. Their hunt starts at the maximum security that Lobo escaped from in hopes of finding clues to his whereabouts, or his plans. Instead they battle a Khund Warrior named Kharlak whom told them Lobo’s plans after his defeat. Zealot, Deathstroke, and The Omegas travel to The Ark and battle Lobo where he is ultimately defeated. Zealot also became closely attached to Deathstroke in the process.
Other Media
Television
WildC.A.T.s series
Zealot was a main character on the WildC.A.T.s animated TV series, she was voiced by Roscoe Handford.