Foes of the Superwomen of EVA #13: Monarch
"In the future year of 2030 A.D., a bleak, dystopian Earth is ruled by the merciless, oppressive Monarch, whose identity is perpetually hidden by the powerful suit of armor they wear, which in spite of its pseudo-medieval stylings is actually constructed of a highly-advanced technology. They are aided in their rule by their equally-merciless advisor Extant, who also served as head of the secret police unit known as the Dark Wings. In their rise to power, they succeeded in defeating or outright destroying the superhuman segment of Earth's population, be they hero or villain. Earth's people were unhappy with Monarch's rule, to say the least, with some forming an underground resistance movement to hopefully bring the technological tyrant down. Some of them infiltrated positions within Monarch's military and scientific circles; one such who embedded herself in the latter was Dr. Lucinda Cromwell, a young scientist specializing in temporal physics. Cromwell was convinced that she could use the time-travel technology being developed in Monarch's labs to venture into the past and prevent Monarch from ever coming to power in the first place.
At one point in her research, Cromwell learned of the moment when Monarch was 'born': in the year 2016, a tragedy results in the deaths of thousands in Berlin, Germany. The lone survivor of the event, who'd fled in the chaos, returned months later and effectively went on to conquer the world, so as to prevent such a tragedy from happening ever again. The identity of the survivor was among the key details heavily redacted by Monarch and Extant. Cromwell is chosen by Monarch to participate in a time-travel experiment, which proves to be the opportunity she'd been looking for to travel back in time, find out Monarch's real identity, and stop them from ascending to power. On entering the rift in the timestream that was opened, Cromwell is mutated into a being of living temporal energy, and on arriving in 2016, she takes the alias Waverider.
Waverider travels to Tokyo-3 in Japan, where she seeks out the resident team of superheroes in this time period, the Justice League (whose members were once part of or affiliated with the since-dissolved U.N. special agency NERV). On making her case to them, the heroes agreed to help her figure out who Monarch's past self was. Waverider used one of her new abilities to peer into the futures of many of the members of the team in order to find clues, and upon using it on Supergirl (former NERV Evangelion pilot Asuka Langley-Sohryu), she finds a very promising lead on seeing a lapel worn by someone speaking with the girl of steel's future self in her civilian identity. With the help of another League member, Ms. Martian (Asuka's best friend and classmate Hikari Horaki), Waverider telepathically relayed what she saw to the other members, and Asuka identified the woman seen as looking like an older version of one of her former university classmates, Edelgard 'Edie' von Hresvelg. The lapel's design, as it turned out, was the crest of Edie's family, who came from a long line of German nobility; it bore a similarity to a design found on Monarch's shield. Waverider and a number of League members proceeded to head to Berlin, where Edie, along with her longtime friend and companion Hubert von Vestra (he also bearing nobility in his ancestry), was accompanying her father, a diplomat, to a conference to negotiate a peace treaty between the two warring factions of the Eastern European country of Kasnia. It was here that Waverider began putting more of what she learned from her research together, explaining that a terrorist attack during the peace negotiations would lead to the death toll that spurs whoever survived to become Monarch. Together with the League, they found the terrorists, who were in reality members of the international criminal group Intergang, and brought them to the security forces guarding the event. Interrogation of one of the gang members revealed that the attack they were meant to carry out was to be a distraction while some of their comrades broke into a museum nearby to steal an artifact on display, the supposed 'Spear of Destiny'; one League member, Zatanna (former NERV tech Maya Ibuki) confirmed they'd really dodged a bullet, considering the Spear possessed an impressive level of power, enough that no superhuman could stand in the way of those who wielded it. For Waverider, the final pieces of her research puzzle fell into place, as she realized that the Spear was what aided the future Monarch in their campaign of conquest. Just when Waverider thought that she'd succeeded in her mission, a time portal opened above her and the League members, and from it emerged Monarch, Extant, and a small squad of Dark Wings.
Monarch revealed that they and Extant had been monitoring Waverider's movements since they arrived in the past, waiting for the right moment to follow them and thwart their efforts at preventing their erasure from existence, which included securing the Spear of Destiny. Waverider and the League members fought Monarch and their forces, the former trying to keep the latter from entering the museum, and at one point in the battle, Monarch's helmet was blasted off, revealing to a horrified Edie the face of her future self underneath. Seeing no point in keeping things subtle, Monarch ordered Extant to unmask themselves, revealing their identity to be a future version of Hubert, to his younger self's shock. Monarch and Extant renewed their offensive against Waverider and the League, even as the squad of Dark Wings were defeated. The duo proved to be a powerful match for even the League's strongest members, and just when Monarch was on the cusp of taking out Waverider and Supergirl, she received the shock of her life when Edie, her own past self, pierced the center of her armor using the Spear of Destiny, which she and Hubert had removed from its display case. Disgusted by what her future self would do to the world, Edie took it upon herself to end the reign of Monarch before it began, declaring that she would never let grief or anger rule her decisions from that point on. That declaration, along with the critical damage done to Monarch's armor, resulted in a temporal paradox that wiped out both Monarch and Extant, with Waverider using her powers to protect Edie and the League members from the fallout. When the chaos subsided, a look into the future confirmed for Waverider that Monarch no longer existed and the world was free and at peace, though she was now effectively without a time period. Green Lantern (former NERV tactical ops director Misato Katsuragi) offered her a place with the League, which Waverider accepted, becoming a reserve member. She would later go on to become a recruit for a team called the Linear Watch, which protects the timestream from incursions and attempts to change history for malevolent purposes."
*Author's Note(s)*
For this new wave of villains-which, taking a page from Impel's DC Cosmic Cards, bears the theme of 'villains from beyond'-I start things off with my take on the chief villain of the controversial 1991 DC Comics line-wide event Armageddon 2001. Why is it controversial? The identity of Monarch was unexpectedly leaked ahead of the issue where it would happen, as readers found out it would be Captain Atom under the armor (which, in-story, had clues pointing in that direction up till that point). In wanting to salvage the story, DC editorial had it changed so that it would be Hank Hall, aka Hawk of Hawk and Dove, who would become Monarch. Hall would wear that mantle until 1994, when during the DC event Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, he adopted the new identity of Extant after gaining time-manipulation abilities. I knew that for a SWOE take on this particular villain, I had to make sure a lot of that continuity/editorial baggage was ditched immediately.
As for the anime-or rather, anime-esque-character I chose to use as the basis for my Deviation, I was inspired after playing 2019's Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the first time. For some reason, Edelgard's Flame Emperor alter-ego made me think of Monarch, so I knew I was set. I decided to split off Extant as a separate character so that Edelgard's ever-loyal aide, Hubert, could be part of the story. (The 'Dark Wings' name is a nod to the Black Eagle house in Three Houses.) And to further the Fire Emblem influence, the Waverider for this take on things is based on the Fire Emblem franchise's most famous time traveler, Lucina from 2012's Fire Emblem: Awakening. The Linear Watch is a renamed version of the DC team the Linear Men, a group led by cult-favorite DC hero Rip Hunter. Throw in classic DC macguffin the Spear of Destiny (which, fittingly, is also sometimes called the Spear of Longinus), and I had the makings of a neat alternate take on Armageddon 2001. (Or, if we're being technical, 'Armageddon 2026'.)
