History
Alex Danvers: 1983 - Present
Alex was born in 1983 in Metropolis to her parents; Fred and Sylvia Danvers. Fred was a police officer at the time and Sylvia was a medical researcher. Alex also had a younger sister, Linda. Linda was six years younger than Alex and was adopted by the Danvers after being rescued from a domestic argument that turned into a murder-suicide in which Fred was the first responder. Aside from the circumstances of Linda's adoption, the Danvers were a fairly typical family. They had their troubles stemming from Fred's demanding work schedule and Sylvia's alcoholism, but they did well at keeping their daughters uninvolved in their marital problems. When Alex was eight years old, Alex displayed a gifted intellect and attitude towards science. As a teenager she obtained scores and grades, prompting her parents to scrape up money to enroll both Alex and Linda in a private school.
Where Alex excelled, Linda struggled. Linda found it difficult to keep up in the more intensive curriculum and even found it difficult to make friends. Known as a weird and strange girl, Linda's only real friend was Alex who played the role of a good, big sister. When Superman first made his public debut, Linda was one of his early saves, rescuing her from a fire at their school's chemistry lab. After that, Linda was obsessed with Superman and Alex used this love to better bond with Linda, eventually creating a fascination with all things Kryptonian in Alex as well which only made her even more passionate about science.
When Alex graduated high school and left to attend Ivy University, Linda was twelve and begged her sister not to leave her. Alex tried to reassure her she would visit often but once she got to college, Alex began to explore a side of herself that she had previously kept hidden. Away from her family, Alex finally had the realization she was lesbian and pursued that freely.
While Alex was away at college, Fred Danvers got a job with the newly formed DEO and moved the family to National City. While working a case, Fred had a moment where he was in Ivy Town and decided to drop in on his daughter between classes. He discovered Alex in the midst of a romantic encounter with another female student and did not react well. This put a divide between Alex and Fred and Alex let herself become petty and chose to find a job on campus to support herself, never accepting her parents' requests to come home. Alex would even decline Linda's pleas to visit for holidays.
This rift lasted for years until Fred admitted he was wrong to act the way he did and apologized. By then Alex was working on her doctorate's degree in the burgeoning field of xenobiology. When Alex finally came home, after five years away, Linda had become a very troubled girl. Her parents had her admitted to a care facility when they discovered her pyromania and sadistic impulses. After seeing this decline, Alex felt guilty and visited Linda whenever she got a chance, but most visits only served to put Alex into tears.
After graduating, Alex took a job with the DEO. Alex had her first assignment in Metropolis where she was tasked to Metropolis' experimental Science Crimes Unit. This is where Alex met Maggie Sawyer. Maggie was a few years older than Alex, but nevertheless Maggie and Alex hit it off quickly, both at work and in their private lives. They had a passionate relationship for a while but when Alex's assignment of observing the SCU's operations was completed in the summer of 2007, Alex was reassigned to the West Coast. Alex begged for Maggie to join her, but Maggie didn't feel like Coast City was the right fit for her and she was just promoted to the rank of captain. So, after weeks of arguing, Alex and Maggie decided to break it off and they bid each other adieu.
The night that Alex left for Coast City was the same night that Linda Danvers escaped custody of the treatment clinic she was in. Alex took three weeks of vacation to fly back home and search, but nothing came of it. Linda had seemingly vanished into the ether.
In Coast City, Alex did not really know how she fit into the dynamics of her workplace and for many years, she simply existed. She had a chance encounter with Supergirl, who she had a few encounters with in Metropolis, and this developed into a full friendship when Karen Starr showed up at Alex's apartment door and said she needed to vent. Alex let the woman do so and discovered that Karen Starr and Kara Zor-El were one and the same. At the conclusion of this encounter, Alex promised she would keep Karen's secret and the two continued to be friends for the remainder of Alex's stay in Coast City. On occasion, Alex would also receive phone calls from Linda. They were always brief and told Alex nothing beyond Linda was still alive.
Despite her befriending Supergirl and helping her through her transition into Power Girl, Alex still never felt like she belonged in Coast City. Her heart ached to be closer to home to help her parents search for Linda. On a whim, Alex put in a for a special assignment to fill one of the coveted ARGUS liaison positions within the Department, never thinking she would get it. Alex not only got it, but got called into a meeting with Director Bones who also asked that Alex be his personal liaison to ARGUS. Alex accepted the request and moved back out to the East Coast.
Shortly after moving to National City, Alex's father had a heart attack. While he was hospitalized, Fred Danvers pleaded with Alex to find a way to bring Linda home before he died. Alex agreed to this request and then asked for some time off to personally pursue her sister, something that Bones granted without much begging involved. To Alex's surprise, Bones also called in some big guns to help Alex in her search, ace reporter Clark Kent. Alex had met the reporter a time or two while in Metropolis but she felt like his behavior suggested they were much closer than that. Alex mistook it for an attraction and confronted the married man about her own sexuality and to her surprise, he assured her that was not the case at all.
In the course of the investigation, Alex and Clark encountered some seedy individuals that Linda had run afoul. In the course of questioning a thug in Hub City, the man pulled a knife and slashed Alex across the gut. Clark not only knocked the man out with a finger flick to the man's forehead but then lowered his glasses to cauterize Alex's gash. Having witnessed this before passing out from the pain, Alex put two and two together and realized that Clark Kent was, in fact, her old pal Superman.
It turned out that Linda run afoul with a deranged orderly in her care facility, a man by the name of Clyde Phillips. It turns out the orderly had stumbled onto some alien hardware among some space debris he had found while partying with friends in the forest. Clyde knew Linda was obsessed with aliens and claimed to even know some Kryptonian so he thought Linda could help him make sense of the stuff. He helped Linda escape and the two had used the gear to go a spree of small-time crime up and down the East Coast under assumed identities. At some point, the two were holed up in a motel while laying low from the cops. Clyde and Linda had an argument about Clyde's escalating violence and while Linda was calling Alex as she did from time to time, Clyde went drinking. Clyde met a waitress and convinced her to come back to the motel. When Clyde found Linda on the phone with Alex, he snapped. By the time Alex and Clark found the body of Linda, buried behind the motel, Clyde was nowhere to be found. The same could be said of the alien hardware and Julie, the missing waitress. Clark Kent had an idea as to how to lure Clyde Phillips out of hiding.
As it so happens, Clark had been letting a pair of Kryptonian refugees hide out in the Fortress of Solitude. Clark was planning to orchestrate some paperwork to give them both new identities but this presented an opportunity for a female of the pair, Thara Ak-Var. Thara resembled Linda enough as a passing resemblance and with Alex's skills at subterfuge and the combined skills of Karen and myself at altering electronic information, we resurrected Linda Danvers as an alias of Thara Ak-Var. Clark, Alex, and other members of the House of El gave Linda a new resting place in the quiet wilderness near the Fortress.
Thara Ak-Var was then implemented in a feigned rescue operation. She told a number of news outlets she had been kidnapped and triggered a manhunt for the former orderly. The orderly turned up in a drug den in Gotham, driven to a raving lunatic asserting he knew he had killed Linda and buried her remains. The man was extradited to National City, but before he could be sentenced to serve time for kidnapping, Clyde Phillips escaped a prison transport with the help of his waitress turned criminal girlfriend and the alien hardware which had now been professionally worked into high-tech gadgetry by some criminal benefactors.
Though Clyde is still on the lam, Alex feels closure with Linda. She wishes things had worked out differently with Linda, and maybe because of that, Thara Ak-Var agreed to continue the ruse and properly assumed Linda Danvers' identity. The two were prepared to tell Fred and Sylvia the truth, but when they embraced Thara as their own, Alex decided that she couldn't do that to her parents. The Danvers family needed a win.
Recently, Alex herself has been seeing Renee Montoya whenever Alex happens to be in Gotham.
Personality
Alex is a courageous and independent person, who faces danger head on. She is caring, confident, and headstrong, with a passion for justice echoing her father's and a love of science making her mother proud. Alex had once dedicated her life to protecting her sister Linda and is still deeply troubled by the result of that. Still, she has begun to form a close friendship with Thara and is beginning to build a sisterly bond with the Kryptonian.
Despite her good traits, sometimes Alex can be impulsive and prone to make difficult decisions crossing the line between what many would consider right and wrong. Some might even classify her as morally grey, a trait which Director Bones appreciates. Off-the-record, Alex is prone to telling people she trusts that she prefers to do what she feels is right over whatever the law tells her is right.
After much soul searching and exploration in college, Alex found the courage to come out as a lesbian to herself, then to her family. The circumstances surrounding this still haunt her as she sees this as what led to Linda's fate and for that reason, Alex has a hard time committing to relationships, still tying her personal satisfaction to the risk of losing someone important to her. According to Maggie and Renee, Alex's attempts at romance display the flustered, awkward and goofy side of her personality. Still, her own hang-ups with relationships do not stop her from giving Thara advice on her interest in Lor-Zod.
Above all, Alex is a strong woman. Many of her co-workers have referred to her as a "badass". Which is really high-praise for a science nerd working in a testosterone filled work environment such as law enforcement.
Since the loss of Linda, Alex has become a heavy drinker on her day's off.
Threat Assessment
Resources
- Firearms: Though tactical operations are not considered to be her specialty, Alex is considered an excellent shot by the DEO with her monthly firearms qualification scores constantly ranking in the 'Superb' category.
- Fitness: After training with the D.E.O., Alex is in good physical condition with exceptional reflexes, strength and durability. She engages regularly in intense exercises to maintain her conditioning and allow her to keep her field rating qualifications.
- Interrogation: Though most of this is bluffing, Alex has had good luck using the line "I know six ways to torture someone with just an index finger...", something she heard her dad tell in a few of his stories.
- Investigation: Alex sports a considerably high case-closure rate among the DEO.
- Martial Arts: Alex is a skilled close-quarters combatant, but has little training outside of the DEO training program and private lessons with Maggie Sawyer and Renee Montoya.
- Medicine: Alex is a skilled doctor. Though humans are not her primary interest, she is familiar with human anatomy and many medical procedures to the point of making an excellent medic and even a decent surgeon or forensic cadaver analyst should the need arise (which it has).
- Weaponry: Alex is certified in over a variety of government weapons. She is also capable of using alien weapons, having encountered some in her experiences with the DEO. Alex is particularly adept at knife-combat.
- Xenobiology: Alex is a leading expert in the physiologies and anatomies of a number of sapient alien species.
Trivia and Notes
Trivia
- Alex Danvers' caller name on Director Bones' phone is Mata Hari.
- Alex likes pizza and her mother's homemade lasagna.
- Alex's favorite ice cream is rocky road.
- She had the chicken pox when she was in High School.
- She wants to be a mom and have kids one day.
- When taking her job at the DEO, Alex had to turn down a very lucrative offer to work as a doctor in Star City.
- Alex is a fan of the band "Barenaked Ladies", or she just really enjoys wearing their merch for humorous effect.
- Her favorite color is blue.
- Alex's favorite animals are dogs, but she is allergic to them.
- Alex has double piercings in her right ear and triple piercings in her left ear.[1]
Notes
- Alex Danvers is an original character from the TV series Supergirl. Her look in Earth-27 is based on Chyler Leigh, who portrays her in the TV series.
- Alex's friendship with Karen Starr is a reference to the TV series Supergirl where the two are adoptive sisters and share an extremely close bond.
- Alex's medical expertise is a nod to her actress Chyler Leigh starring as Lexie Grey on the TV series Grey's Anatomy. The job offer was in Star City, which is often interchanged with Seattle, where the show takes place.
- Her parent’s middle initials are references to their names on Supergirl, Jeremiah and Eliza.
- Alex's address is a reference to Greg Berlanti, the producer of Supergirl.
- Clyde Phillips and Julie are the villains Punch and Jewelee.
Links and References
- Appearances of Alex Danvers
- Character Gallery: Alex Danvers