Allies of the Superwomen of EVA #4: Nadia of Atlantis
"In the wake of Second Impact, a young girl named Nadia, born of Afro-European parents, was orphaned by the disasters that engulfed the Iberian peninsula; the only item left to her was a mysterious blue jeweled pendant. To survive, she found work as a circus acrobat specializing in stunts performed in both air and under water. Her closest friend came in the form of Jean, a French teenager working as an apprentice engineer for the circus's special effects team. For the most part, their life with the circus was fine and simple, until Nadia was approached by a trio of jewel thieves who sought her pendant, having been hired by a mysterious third party to acquire it. Nadia and Jean would go on the run from the thieves, until they were rescued by a mysterious submarine captain who'd taken the name of Nemo, after the character from the works of novelist Jules Verne. The two teenagers stayed with Nemo, who protected them from the thieves that relentlessly pursued them. Eventually, as the journey wore on, Nadia would learn that Nemo was in fact her real father, and her mother was an inhabitant of the legendary undersea kingdom of Atlantis. The thieves had been hired by the current ruler of the kingdom to retrieve her pendant as that was the proof of her status as a member of Atlantis's royal circle. It is at this point that the path of Nadia diverges into two different universes.
1. In one universe, the pendant marked Nadia as being descended from a long line of Atlantean mages going back to the days of the legendary Arion, lord of Atlantis. The pendant had been passed down through her family line until it, along with the infant Nadia, were sent into hiding by the half-human Orin Marius, the current king of Atlantis, who along with his most loyal followers were thrust into exile after his half-brother Orm (the self-styled "Ocean Master") overthrew him in a coup. Nemo had been instructed to bring Nadia to Orin and his rebels when she came of age to help in the fight to reclaim the throne of Atlantis. For months, Orin, his wife Mera, and their chief advisor Vulko, among other retainers, trained Nadia in the use of her natural-born abilities as well as Atlantean combat magic. Nadia eventually became adept with a set of 'water-bearers', which allowed her to manipulate the water around her into various types of weaponry; she also was trained in the art of telepathic communication with sea life. Her experience of living among her ancestral people helped Nadia further overcome her social ineptitude and irritability; it also helped that she and Jean fell in love during the course of these developments. Once she was ready, she joined Orin's faction in bringing Orm's dictatorial rule (along with his plans for invading the surface world) to an end. Nadia was then given the position of a retainer to the reinstated King Orin (as well as occasional babysitter to his and Mera's two children, Artur and Marina).
Nadia would not encounter other surface-dwellers until 2016, a year after the end of humankind's battle with strange, otherworldly creatures codenamed 'Angels' by the U.N. special agency NERV, and the prevention of a sinister genocidal plot by the organization SEELE, both by NERV's biomechanical Evangelions and a recently-emerged group of superhuman women and girls. A new, monstrous entity calling itself the Centre had emerged and sought to raze humanity to the ground, and the superwomen had banded together to figure out a means of stopping it. One of their number, Supergirl (former Evangelion pilot Asuka Langley-Sohryu) had volunteered to scout out the Centre (which took the form of a giant, sentient island that could grow dinosaur-like minions), only to be knocked out by the force of its main beam weapon and sent falling into the ocean below. When the others thought she was lost, she resurfaced moments later in the arms of Nadia, who earlier had been assigned with a small platoon by Orin to track the progress of the Centre. Joining forces with the other superwomen, Nadia led both her platoon and an army of larger sea creatures as they battled the Centre's forces, while another of the superwomen, the Flash (another former EVA pilot in Mari "Illustrious" Makinami), was dropped off on the Centre itself. She proceeded to run the entirety of the Centre's mass with a white dwarf star projector on her back, emitting a ray that, once shone on every inch of the entity, would cause the Centre to shrink and ultimately explode (after Green Lantern (former NERV tactical director Misato Katsuragi) used her ring to slingshot the rapidly-shrinking mass into outer space, where the explosion wouldn't harm anything).
Hailed as heroes by the press who assembled at the scene of their victory, Nadia (given the nickname "Aquagirl") wound up becoming a founding member of the new team the superwomen formally dubbed the Justice League, also acting as their liaison to Atlantis (just as her fellow member Wonder Girl (former EVA pilot Rei Ayanami) did the same for the Amazons). Her membership and the camaraderie she shared with her fellow League members would pave the way for the admittance of both Atlantis and the Amazons' island home of Themyscria as members of the United Nations.
2. In a different universe, the pendant marked Nadia as a member of Atlantis's royal family itself, chiefly her being descended from the Atlantean princess Fen; specifically, she is a cousin of Fen's son, the current prince Namor, as well as Namor's cousin Namora, both of whom were also half-human. By the time she first met the two, they had been forcefully exiled from the kingdom by the barbarian warlord Attuma and their traitorous ex-advisors Byrrah and Krang, all three of whom were being manipulated by the mysterious Ghaur (a member of an ancient humanoid race called the Deviants). Namor and Namora trained Nadia in the Atlantean fighting arts; she also adopted a bit of their mild disdain towards the surface world due to humanity's years of mistreatment of the oceans, though she made few exceptions, as with the case of Jean. Eventually given a unique golden trident by Namor, Nadia joined their faction in ousting Attuma and his minions, as well as uncovering Ghaur's role in the coup. Nadia was formally inducted as a soldier in the Atlantean army, rising to become one of its youngest platoon leaders. (Jean, after being adopted by oceanographers Walter and Diane Newell, would assist Nadia against various seafaring criminals using a specially-made dive suit under the moniker Stingray.)
Like her counterpart in the other universe, Nadia would first become known to others on the surface in 2016, a year after the end of humankind's battle with strange, otherworldly creatures codenamed 'Angels' by the U.N. special agency NERV, and the prevention of a sinister genocidal plot by the organization SEELE, both by NERV's biomechanical Evangelions and a recently-emerged group of superhuman women and girls. These superwomen had assembled for the first time since the Final Battle of Tokyo-3 when they were alerted to the coming of Galactus, the world-devourer, and his four heralds, each of which corresponded to the four classical elements. A contingent of these superwomen and their allies had engaged one of the heralds, Stardust, over the Indian Ocean as they sought to destroy one of the components for Galactus's converter. When Stardust was about to unleash a torrent upon the Wasp (former NERV tech Kaede Agano), the young woman heard a battle cry of "IMPERIOUS REX!" as she then saw Nadia tackle Stardust into one side of the component. Nadia then finished off Stardust after overloading the herald with mystic energy from her trident. It was then Nadia introduced herself to the Wasp and her fellow superwomen, accompanying them back to Tokyo-3 when they all took the fight to Galactus himself. After eventually driving Galactus off-planet, the assembled superwomen-who decided to form a team called the Avengers-offered Nadia membership in their ranks as thanks for her assistance. Nadia declined full-time membership due to her wariness of the surface, accepting a part-time status for the time being, though she continued to aid them when asked. Eventually, she would accept full membership after she and Jean worked with some of their number to form Oracle, Inc., a joint human-Atlantean nonprofit research concern dedicated to undoing the ecological damage to the oceans wrought by Second Impact."
*Author's Note(s)*
In conversations with Mike313, OrionPax09, and marcoasalazarm, I hit upon the idea that any 'aquatic hero' in the realm of Superwomen of EVA should strictly be a 'guest' character, and another Gainax character at that. There was only one who fit the bill, and that was the title heroine of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. She fit the role of the DC/Marvel water hero like a swim fin, and all I needed to do was figure a means to incorporate her backstory into those tied to the differing interpretations of Atlantis between the Big Two. As for an 'artistic rendering' for my DeviantArt gallery, for that I turned to artist ImDrToxic, as their handiwork speaks for itself in terms of undersea-themed imagery. I had them dress Nadia accordingly: as Aquagirl, her outfit is of course inspired by Aquaman and a bit of the Kaldur'ahm/Jackson Hyde version of Aqualad (evidenced by the water-bearer in her right hand); as the teenage Sub-Mariner, she's wearing a more recent version of the outfit worn by Namorita (the other cousin of Namor and a clone of Namora) and wielding a golden trident of her own. You can also tell the difference between the two based on their expressions.