Profiles in Supervillainy: La Dama

Eileen’s main literary love is comedian books, however she’s all the time looking out for her subsequent literary journey it doesn’t matter what kind it takes. She has a Bachelor’s in media research, a Grasp’s in digital communication, a smattering of revealed brief tales, and a critically cute canine. Comply with her on Tumblr and Twitter.

View All posts by Eileen Gonzalez

What’s a superhero and not using a supervillain? Not a lot. Some supervillains, nevertheless, are value much more than others. I’ve due to this fact determined to highlight some lesser-known villains. Are they underrated gems or irredeemable losers who should be forgotten? You determine! In the present day’s topic: La Dama!

Within the eyes of Brenda Del Vecchio, one among Blue Beetle’s associates, Amparo was the most effective aunt you possibly can ask for. She was definitely higher than Brenda’s father, a violent abuser who serendipitously died in a automobile accident after placing Brenda within the hospital.

There was only one drawback: unbeknownst to Brenda, Amparo can be La Dama, the top of a prison empire who is decided to construct her personal military of magical meta-humans. And she figures out Blue Beetle is basically Jaime Reyes very quickly flat. Oops.

Like many criminals, La Dama has one large weak spot, and that’s Brenda. She’s going to do completely something to maintain her protected and comfortable, as much as and together with homicide. She organized her father’s automobile “accident” to guard Brenda, and he or she tolerates her friendship with Jaime as a result of she is aware of the 2 genuinely take care of one another.

Amparo and Blue Beetle every have blackmail materials on one another — she is aware of he’s Jaime Reyes, he is aware of she’s La Dama — so they comply with a truce on the finish of her first look (Blue Beetle #3-6). Evidently, that doesn’t final actual lengthy.

Notable Appearances

Regardless of her personal love for Brenda, and regardless of being an astute observer, La Dama doesn’t fairly appear to understand that different individuals have loyalties, too. She is regularly stunned by the lengths to which Brenda’s different pal Paco is keen to go for her.

She was, nevertheless, conscious sufficient to maintain her actual profession a secret from Brenda, solely to have Brenda unintentionally discover out about it in…

Blue Beetle #19

Clearly, Brenda may be very upset by the information, however she does additionally be taught that Amparo had been making efforts to tone down the worst of her prison actions to be a greater guardian for Brenda.

In two panels, Brenda realizes that her aunt has been scaling back her criminal activities ever since learning she might have to take Brenda in.

Sadly, we didn’t get a lot decision to this revelation. In later points, Brenda moved in with the Reyes household so she might course of every thing, and we noticed a few temporary interactions between her and La Dama that indicated they could have the ability to restore their relationship sometime. And that was how issues stood when the sequence (and the complete DC universe) acquired rebooted in 2011.

Blue Beetle #1-5

I hate this reboot. Along with altering Jaime and the Scarab’s backstory and inserting some questionable Spanish (why would you employ the casual You to speak to your boss, who can be against the law boss?), it revived Brenda’s dad and erased all data of La Dama’s actual identification from the primary characters’ minds. Oh, and she will be able to do magic now, I suppose.

La Dama prevents Jaime from moving through the use of magic. She refuses to let him go until he tells her what he did with the Scarab.

On the upside, Amparo lastly will get a final identify: Cardenas.

Beetle’s first encounter with La Dama on this reboot ends along with her unintentionally magicking her home — and herself — out of this aircraft of existence.

Justice League 3001 #8-12

In a far-off future the place every thing sucks, the Justice League is cloned and set to battle Woman Styx, a supremely highly effective despot who has conquered Earth. It goes sort of unhealthy and culminates within the sequence getting canceled and not using a clear decision.

What does this need to do with La Dama? Nicely…sigh…

Blue Beetle #13

This problem reveals that Amparo Cardenas is definitely an immortal being who has passed by many names, together with La Dama and Woman Styx.

Lady Styx reveals to a shocked Blue Beetle that she is also la Dama. — Why do I really feel like Oscar Isaac saying Palpatine has one way or the other returned?

I’ll get extra into why I hate this in a second. However what actually burns my toast is the assertion that Woman Dama is incapable of affection or heat emotions for anybody, even Brenda. Whereas Brenda was beforehand the point of interest of Amparo’s life and even impressed her to vary (considerably), the rebooted model simply desires energy and can step on anybody to get it.

The difficulty ends vaguely (sure, once more), with the implication that Blue Beetle will sometime work for Woman Styx. So far as I do know, although, she — and La Dama — haven’t appeared in any new tales since this one.

Something Else?

Not likely. She apparently confirmed up in Catwoman: Hunted as a member of Leviathan. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say which model of the character this was.

The Verdict

Each.

The unique model of the character is a refreshing change of tempo out of your regular villain. La Dama is a “large fish in a small pond” (as Batman places it in Courageous & the Daring #3) on function. She by no means grew to become a world or nationwide menace as a result of she doesn’t need or want that sort of hassle: her empire in El Paso offers all the cash and energy she wants, and he or she is proud of that. There’s one thing to be mentioned for a villain who doesn’t let their ambition get the higher of them for a change.

After which the reboot occurred and threw all that out the window. It pains me to say this, since I usually like Giffen and DeMatteis’s Justice League work, however the Woman Styx enterprise is totally the fallacious transfer for this character. They took a morally complicated antagonist and turned her into one other generic supervillain. Possibly the truth that Justice League 3001 acquired canned hampered their capacity to flesh out Woman Styx, however the very idea of that character goes towards every thing that made La Dama attention-grabbing.

I’d very fortunately see Woman Styx dropped right into a volcano, however La Dama deserves one other likelihood — maybe in a future Blue Beetle film (trace, trace)?

Wish to meet extra neglected villains? Try my profiles on King Tut, the Matador, Peek-a-Boo, Man-Killer, Mad Mod, Huge Wheel, KGBeast, the Residing Monolith, Egg Fu, Mahkizmo, my One-Shot Particular, Lord Manga Khan, and Lethal Nightshade!