Painkiller Jane

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Painkiller Jane is a comic book heroine created by Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada for Event Comics in 1995. Originally a 5-issue miniseries, the character went on to star in numerous cross-over titles with the likes of The Punisher, Vampirella, and Hellboy. Recently the series relaunched at Dynamite Entertainment with the first issue selling out.

1 History and origin
2 Powers and abilities
3 Movie
4 Publishing History
5 External links

[edit] History and origin

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jane Vasko was once an undercover police officer attempting to infiltrate the Fonti Mob. After gaining the trust of mob boss Joey Fonti, she was given the assignment of passing a message onto rival gang member Adam, not realizing that she was planted with an explosive device. As she met her target, the explosion caused significant injuries, but Adam was uninjured. Through mysterious means, he managed to revive Jane, giving her superhuman regenerative powers in the process. Leaving her life as a police officer behind, she became the vigilante Painkiller Jane.

[edit] Powers and abilities

Jane Vasko is virtually indestructible, making her very hard to kill. With Jane's exceptional recuperative abilities, minor injuries heal in seconds, and don't even slow her down; more major ones tend to take a few minutes. She has recovered from multiple gunshot wounds, explosions, axes buried in her spine, even a shotgun to the face (which simply knocked her off her feet for a bit). The healing power doesn't stop the injuries from hurting however, which is where her new name come from; given her new profession, Jane tends to get hurt a lot. On the offensive side, she has no real powers except being a tough woman to kill. Other than that, she is a skilled fighter and master of undefined martial arts. As well as a master marksman with her weapons of choice, a pair of hand-guns.

[edit] Movie

Painkiller Jane was made into a made-for-television movie and broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in December 2005. The film stars Emmanuelle Vaugier as the titular heroine. The film took significant liberties with the character's origin.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After an Special Forces army unit is exposed to a biochemical weapon, everyone is executed to contain the infection except one young woman, Captain Jane Browning (Emmanuelle Vaugier). She not only recovers from the exposure but has developed the ability to recover from any type of injury within days, plus other extraordinary physical (increased dexterity, strength, sight and hearing) and mental abilities (her eyes enlarge to take in and process information at a hypernormal rate, and her mind reorganizes what she has seen into analytical logic, such as plotting out a chess game, or "seeing" a place name on a discarded plastic wrapper). She discovers in a secret government observation facility, that scientists are not trying to help cure her, but rather are experimenting on her to develop a serum to be used on other soldiers. Realizing she is likely never to be set free, Jane escapes in an effort to seek out answers for herself no matter where they may lead. Obviously the army wants to hunt her down and get her back under their security. Also, there are various "interested parties" who would like to get their hands on the secret of her powers. Along the way, she meets up with a disparate group of outsiders who become her surrogate family.

The 2-hour movie was a backdoor pilot for a possible television series. As of July 14, 2006, based on the strong ratings of the movie/pilot and successful repeat showings, Sci Fi Channel has greenlit the series for 22 one-hour episodes beginning January 2007 starring Kristanna Loken as Painkiller Jane.