WHEN WE WERE ULTRA: What Was I Made For? (SIREN, SIREN SPECIAL, ERADICATOR)

Siren is pretty much the last character to hold down her own series who debuted before the Black September reboot.  She shows up in the background of Eradicator, a miniseries that spun out of Ultraverse Premiere*, interacting with the hero only long enough to ask if he is her father.  Her appearance isn't heralded by the trumpeting that preceded the debut of characters like Hellblade and Foxfire, but according to Roland Mann, Siren's appearance was intended to be a 'back door' pilot:

"Eliminator was a bone thrown to us, made ever sweeter because Mike Zeck was drawing. So we worked Siren in because that was one of the projects Hank had pitched and was working on with Chris Ulm. He (and I agreed) thought that might help to kickstart Siren--and it did."

 

Her next appearance, in Ultraforce #8, was overshadowed by the cover-touted appearance of The Black Knight.  She's a minor part of the next two issues, leading to Ultraverse/Avengers and Black September, after which she gets her own series and a follow-up special.

And that might be why this series lasted only four issues before she was shuffled back into the Ultraforce line-up...she's being overshadowed constantly in issues where she's supposed to be front and center.

You see, Siren Infinity literally dumps Siren into the Marvel Universe and onto Taskmaster's bed, where she insinuates herself as a prospective student and ends up paired with Diamondback, a character from Mark Gruenwald's Captain America run who's looking to destroy Taskmaster's operations.  They're both assigned to kill James Rhodes--at the time running Worldwatch Inc. and rocking a goofy alien armor--and ends up failing on purpose, but also picking up a really, really annoying teleporting kid called Kyi**  During the course of all this runaround and intrigue, Siren discovers she is an hydrokinetic and learns how to use it to her advantage.  By the end of the series, she's dumped back into the Ultraverse in the middle of the desert.

This led to Siren Special #1, which finally lets us know what the origin of the character is.  After she's abducted by Aladdin for wandering near their Groom Lake facility, she learns that she's really Jennifer, one of three genetic experiments using DNA from Rick Pearson.  Rick goes on to become Eliminator and Jennifer ended up in care of her aunt before deciding to be a thief with make-up that disappeared when she sprayed something on it.  Aladdin intends her to become one of their black ops agents and sics her on Shuriken, leading to a fight with her and Juggernaut before Jennifer returns to Aladdin, plants a virus provided by Shuriken that makes its computerized leader believe he controls her.  She has the doo-hickey that Aladdin put in her neck that coerces her to obey removed and...that's it.  She returns to the pages of Ultraforce, where she hangs around long enough to fight some alien invaders and disappear.

Siren was the creation of Hank Kanalz .  If there's one thing that her solo adventures show, it's that (and I suspect it's the fault of the Marvel takeover) no one could decide upon what the character was.  Throughout these few issues, I got a sense of what she could be--at times she looks like she's being set up as a Gambit-like ambivalent hero, a Green Hornet-esque 'hero pretending to be a baddie to fight crime from within', a sassy bad girl ala' Harley Quinn, or a rogue spy ala' Black Widow.  But they don't ever stay with any one character take for very long.  It also doesn't help that her powers and abilities change from moment to moment.  Hell, there's a moment in the special where Jennifer appears to use mind control on Juggernaut, and it felt like that ability was added suddenly when someone remembered her name was actually, you know, Siren.

The artwork is pretty excellent--Mike Zeck does the Eliminator issues, and Kevin J. West (whose style seems even better suited here than it was on Foxfire) did all her solo issues save for the special, which was done by John Fang.  All of these pencillers are very action-oriented, and some of the set pieces are exceptionally fluid and kinetic.  I really thought much of it worked visually.  I just wish it was in service of a series that was more focused than what we ended up with.

After finishing all the issues, I wonder if Siren's development couldn't have been better handled by putting the special in between Eliminator and her initial appearance in Ultraforce.  There's this nagging feeling that all the adjustments and readjustments poor Jennifer went through in her main series wouldn't have occurred if Kanalz had cemented her origin and powers before Marvel gained majority control.  But as it stands, the constant course correcting coupled with the forced Marvel connections obscures what could've been an interesting heroine.  The series and the special are readable and has good looking art, but I would not call it recommended.

We're ramping up to the grand finale of my journey through the Ultraverse.  Coming up next is Steve Gerber's other regular Ultraverse series, in which takes he one of his most celebrated Marvel characters, relocates him to New York City and drops him into the middle of a noir crime epic where one of the gang bosses is...Lord Pumpkin.  Be sure to wear full protective covering when we make the acquaintance of Sludge!

Until then....why be meta when you can be ultra?

*--This was the second series I read during this project.  It made no sense to me then. I figured at the time that the series, a strange fusion of martial arts, cyborg and Stephen J. Connell-style characterization, would make more sense as I got deeper into my re-read...and here, over halfway through, I still don't know what that was all about.  And by now, I understand the first book I read, Break/Thru...I think.

**--For some reason, the Ultraverse was all in on the kid sidekick trend.  At least Kyi wasn't a speedster like Prime's Turbocharge or Rush, who was tacked on to the later half of Mantra volume two.