| Bladewielders |
| |
| In reverse
chronological order: |
|
|
| |
|
| Who
successfully wore the Witchblade? |
|
| Sara
Pezzini 2000AD |
 Current
blade wielder |
|
|
|
| Elizabeth
Bronte |
|
 British
spy in WWII (1.02 Conundrum)
The
last wearer of the Witchblade. She was a WWII spy who wormed
her way into Hitler's inner circle. She took a lover, an SS
officer, who stole the Witchblade for her. Her intel was key
in breaking the enigma code, which helped win the war (1.04
Sacrifice).
Elizabeth Bronte appears to Sara in the Periculum. She and
Sara are in the SS officer's bedroom. Bronte talks to Sara
about time and tell her that both past and present are contained
in the eternal present. Bronte also tells Sara that time is
a gift of the Witchblade she never learned to control. Irons
killed Elizabeth Bronte (1.07 Periculum). Irons has preserved
Elizabeth Bronte. She is wearing a long pink dress with lace
trimmed sleeves that cover her hand and is posed on a couch
with mist rising from the floor. Irons contact with the Witchblade
gave him a longer life span. When the effects begin to wear
off, he uses Bronte's remains to extend his life (1.10 Convergence).
Elizabeth had a daughter who never wielded the blade, but
did give birth to Sara. Elizabeth Bronte appears and reminds
Sara, who's been stabbed in the back by Irons, that time is
reversible (1.11 Transcendence)
|
|
|
|
| Marie
Curie
1900AD |
| Polish-born
French physical chemist. Born in Warsaw, she studied at the
Sorbonne (from 1891). Seeking for radioactivity, recently discovered
by H. Becquerel in uranium, in other matter, she found it in
thorium. In 1895 she married fellow physicist Pierre Curie (1859-1906).
Together they discovered the elements polonium and radium, and
they distinguished alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. For their
work on radioactivity (a term she coined), the Curies shared
a 1903 Nobel Prize with Becquerel. After Pierre's death, Marie
was appointed to his professorship and became the first woman
to teach at the Sorbonne. In 1911 she won a Nobel Prize for
discovering polonium and isolating pure radium, becoming the
first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She died of leukemia caused
by her long exposure to radioactivity. In 1995 she became the
first woman whose own achievements earned her the honor of having
her ashes enshrined in the Pantheon in Paris. See also F. and
I. Joliot-Curie.* |
|
|
|
|
Florence
Nightingale 1854AD
|
| British
(Italian-born) nurse, founder of trained nursing as a profession
for women. As a volunteer nurse, she was put in charge of nursing
the military in Turkey during the Crimean War. Her first concern
was sanitation: patients' quarters were infested with rats and
fleas, and the water allowance was one pint per head per day
for all purposes. She used her own finances to purchase supplies.
She also spent many hours in the wards; her night rounds giving
personal care to the wounded established her image as the "Lady
with the Lamp." Her efforts to improve soldiers' welfare led
to the Army Medical School and a Sanitary Department in India.
She started the first scientifically based nursing school, was
instrumental in setting up training for midwives and nurses
in workhouse infirmaries, and helped reform workhouses. She
was the first woman awarded the Order of Merit (1907).* |
|
|
|
| Queen
Isabella 1481AD |
| Queen
of Castile (1474-1504) and of Aragon (1479-1504). Daughter of
John II of Castile and León, she married Ferdinand V in 1469.
Her reign began with civil war over her succession (1474-79),
but in 1479 the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon came together
in the persons of their rulers, though they remained separately
governed. In a long campaign (1482-92), Isabella and Ferdinand
succeeded in conquering Granada, the last Muslim stronghold
in Spain. In 1492 Isabella approved support of C. Columbus's
journey to the New World. That same year she was involved in
the expulsion of the Jews under the Inquisition. Along with
her spiritual advisers, she reformed the Spanish churches.* |
|
|
| |
| Joan
of Arc 1428AD |
|
 Joan
of Arc appears to Sara in the Periculum. She and Sara are
in a battlefield. A wielder arises when dark forces reach
a critical mass. In Joan of Arc's time, her nation was under
the lash of a foreign army.(1.07 Periculum)
French
military heroine. She was a peasant girl who from an early
age believed she heard the voices of Sts. Michael, Catherine,
and Margaret. When she was about 16, her voices began urging
her to aid France's Dauphin (crown prince) and save France
from the English attempt at conquest in the Hundred Years'
War. Dressed in men's clothes, she visited the Dauphin and
convinced him, his advisers, and the church authorities to
support her. With her inspiring conviction, she rallied the
French troops and raised the English siege of Orléans in 1429.
She soon defeated the English again at Patay. The Dauphin
was crowned king at Reims as Charles VII, with Joan beside
him. Her siege of Paris was unsuccessful, and in 1430 she
was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. Abandoned
by Charles, she was turned over to the ecclesiastical court
at Rouen, controlled by French clerics who supported the English,
and tried for witchcraft and heresy (1431). She fiercely defended
herself, but finally recanted and was sentenced to life imprisonment;
when she again asserted that she had been divinely inspired,
she was burned at the stake. She was not canonized until 1920.*
|
|
|
|
| Itagaki
1199AD |
| |
|
|
| |
| Septima
Zenobia 250AD |
| Queen
of the Roman colony of Palmyra (AD 267?-272). Her husband, a
Roman client ruler of Palmyra, was assassinated after recapturing
several of Rome's E provinces from the Persians. She became
her son's regent but called herself queen. In 269 she seized
Egypt and much of Asia Minor and declared her independence from
Rome. Aurelian defeated her armies and besieged Palmyra; she
and her son were captured and taken to Rome (272), where she
later married a senator. A second revolt, without her leadership,
brought the destruction of Palmyra (273).* |
|
|
| |
| Cathain
70AD |
|
 A
war goddess and bladewielder. Has a sister named Dierdre.
According to legend, Cathain was stronger than any man
in battle, but lived alone and fought off all who dared approached.
At last, crowned prince Conchobar persuaded her to teach him
in the ways of the sword and the bow and nightly he tutored
her in the arts of love. At last he ascended the thrown Conchobar
begged cathain to lead his armies and for love she agreed,
vanquishing all and uniting a kingdom. King Conchobar could
not hope to keep the thrown without Cathain's skill in battle,
so he sent a druid to summon her back. The druid first sacrificed
an old woman to the goddess, but Cathain was unmoved. Next
the druid sacrificed Cathain's own sister, the fair vain Dierdre,
and strangling her with a silken cord and stabbing her with
a dagger of stone, still cathain would not return to fight
the kingdom. (1.04 Sacrifice)
Cathain appears in the Periculum. She and Sara are in the
woods. She asks whether Sara's willing to sacrifice her life
to acheive her destiny to restore sanity to the race. Sara
replies yes. She says Sara can get Conchobar back. (1.07 Periculum)
|
|
|
|
| Boudicca
61AD |
| Ancient
British queen who led a revolt against Roman rule. When her
husband, a Roman client king of the Iceni, died in AD 60, he
left his estate to his daughters and the emperor Nero, hoping
for protection. Instead the Romans annexed his kingdom and mistreated
his family and tribesmen. Boudicca raised a rebellion in E.
Anglia, burning Colchester, St. Albans, and part of London and
military posts; according to Tacitus, her forces massacred up
to 70,000 Romans and pro-Roman Britons and destroyed the Roman
9th Legion. When the Roman governor rallied his troops and destroyed
her huge army, she took poison or died of shock.* |
|
|
|
| Cleopatra
45BC |
 Egyptian
queen (of Macedonian descent), last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty
in Egypt. Daughter of Ptolemy XII (112?-51 BC), she ruled with
her two brother-husbands, Ptolemy XIII (51-47) and Ptolemy XIV
(47-44), both of whom she had killed, and with her son, Ptolemy
XV or Caesarion (44-30). She claimed the latter was fathered
by Julius Caesar, who had become her lover after entering Egypt
in 48 BC in pursuit of Pompey. She was with Caesar in Rome when
he was assassinated (44), after which she returned to Egypt
to install her son on the throne. She lured Mark Antony, Caesar's
heir apparent, into marriage (36), inviting the wrath of Octavian
(later Augustus), whose sister Antony had earlier wed. She schemed
against and antagonized Antony's friend Herod the Great, thereby
losing his support. At a magnificent celebration in Alexandria
after Antony's Parthian campaign (36-34), he bestowed Roman
lands on his foreign wife and family. Octavian declared war
on Cleopatra and Antony and defeated their joint forces at the
Battle of Actium (31). Antony committed suicide and, after a
failed attempt to beguile Octavian, so too did Cleopatra, by
exposing her breast to an asp.* |
|
|
|
| Artemisia
480BC |
| |
|
|
|
| Myrene
500BC |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
