Looker (comics)
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Looker (Emily Briggs) is a fictional character, a female superhero in the DC Universe of comic books. The character's first appearance was in Batman & the Outsiders #25.
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[edit] Character history
[edit] Emily Briggs
Emily Briggs was a mousy bank teller who lived a quiet life with her husband in Gotham City. That all changed when she was kidnapped by people from the underground civilization known as Abyssia. The Outsiders set out to rescue Emily. After a battle with the people of Abyssia, Emily's heritage was revealed to her and as Halley's Comet passed by the Earth, Emily underwent a metahuman transformation, as well as becoming more physically attractive.
[edit] Joining the Outsiders
After leaving Abyssia to its people, Emily returned with the Outsiders and an astonished husband. She soon took on the name "Lia" as well as a more confident, yet self-centered, personality.
Emily's first outing as Looker occurred after the Outsiders had been captured by the Masters of Disaster. After defeating the Masters of Disaster, she freed the Outsiders and was welcomed into their ranks.
Her first tenure with the Outsiders showed how much the mousy Emily Briggs had changed, as she became obsessed with her beauty, something that usually created some tension between her and Katana. The tension was only heightened with the budding friendship between Looker and Halo, where the more free-spirited Looker was in sharp contrast with Halo's stricter legal guardian, Katana.
Looker's role as somewhat of an outsider amongst Outsiders continued to worsen, especially when Windfall joined, a former Master of Disaster and peer of Halo, and the two were constantly involved in a rivalry of sorts. On top of that, Looker started a short affair with the team-leader Geo-Force during a time that they were stranded on an island but which continued when they returned. Eventually though, there came a mutual decision to call it quits, it being unfair not only to Gregg (Looker's husband) but also to Denise (Geo-Force's girlfriend).
Some time later, Looker received a call for help from Abyssia. Traveling to the underground city, Looker discovered that Abyssia had been taken over. Looker invoked a challenge on the despot, and in the course of the battle, she was stripped of her beauty and much of her power. Shortly afterwards, Geo-Force disbanded the Outsiders, and Lia returned to her previous life in Gotham City.
[edit] Becoming a vampire
When Geo-Force's homeland Markovia was overrun with vampires, Emily's powers returned, and Looker was back in action alongside the Outsiders for a night. During battle with the vampires, Looker became a victim of their leader, Roderick. Having become a vampire, Looker's existing powers were joined by some new abilities.
A change that not all readers felt was right, when they discovered Looker's status as a vampire, feeling this was the downfall for a potentially interesting character [citation needed]. Once the vampires were defeated, the Outsiders were 'un-officially' disbanded, working nearly solely out of Markovia, Geo-Force's homeland over which he reigned. Served with divorce papers and now living under the vampiric curse, Lia has apparently broken all ties with her past life.
[edit] Retirement
Lia at some point after this may have cut her ties with her vampire coven as well as she became more independent in her choice of actions. She eventually became one of the hosts of the television program The Scene, which is similar to our version of The View. Her co-hosts included Vicki Vale, Tawny Young, and Linda Park. Two episodes were shown in which they interviewed Wonder Woman on her career, which were shown in that title comic.
[edit] Infinite Crisis
Lia was last seen as Looker in Infinite Crisis #7, where she was aiding in stopping the destruction of Metropolis by an assembled army of supervillains, and appeared to have been caught up in a massive explosion involving Breach. She had a telekinetic shield around her body at the time so whether or not she survived is still unclear.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Looker possesses the full spectrum of psionic abilities: telepathy, telekinesis, psychometry, enhanced metabolism, mind-control, levitation, the creation of force shields, remote vision, and enhanced healing. Due to her vampiric nature, Looker can turn into vapor, but only at night. She also has the vampiric ability to mentally command vermin such as bugs. Due to possessing psionic powers, Looker does not share the vampire weakness to sunlight.
[edit] Comparisons
Except for the black and pink Harlequin-type outfit she originally wore, many readers felt Looker was similar to the Marvel Comics character, Jean Grey:
- Both women had telepathy and telekinesis as their powers (though Looker would mesmerize people more often than Jean would).
- Both were tall and had red hair and worked as models.
- Both had brooding husbands.
- Both gained their powers/power enhancements through an external cosmic source.
- Looker later donned a green-and gold costume that looked similar to Jean Grey's classic Phoenix costume.
- Looker's vampire costume is similar to the one worn by Jean Grey when she temporarily joined the Hellfire Club.
