History
Jenny Quantum is a Century Baby of the 21st Century, a member of The Authority and the adopted daughter of Midnighter and Apollo.
Origin[]
Jenny Quantum was born January 1, 2000 in Singapore, during the death of Jenny Sparks, where her birth mother was killed by super villains attempting to kidnap her and shape the coming century. Her biological father's identity and whereabouts are unknown. She was rescued and cared for by the Authority and later adopted by Apollo and Midnighter shortly after their marriage. She is the current leader of superhero team, The Authority.
Jenny was first named when she was kidnapped by the superteam known as the Americans(though a baby shown when Jenny Sparks died at the turn of the century is inferred to be her). Quantum is the corporeal spirit of the 21st century, and the youngest known Century Baby, as well as the reincarnation of the Spirit of the 20th Century, Jenny Sparks.
Quantum forced herself to age several years into her teens so that she could better fight the threat of Henry Bendix and his evil group.[1] While fighting Bendix, Jenny was able to free the current Doctor, Habib Bin Hassan, and enlist him in the fight against Bendix.
Creation[]
Jenny Quantum was created by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely and first appeared in The Authority #13 in May 2000.
Character Evolution[]
Wildstorm Universe[]
Jenny Quantum (Wildstorm)
Jenny was born with a twin sister Jenny Fractal who was brought up as a psychotic sociopath by the Chinese government. Jenny went one-on-one with her twin sister Jenny Fractal at the age of 5 and died but her consciousness and spirit were saved by the doctor and she took her sister's body when the Midnighter was sent back in time to their birth and killed Jenny Fractal in her sleep as a baby. Jenny is raised by Apollo and The Midnighter and though she was pretty much sheltered and loved, she has said she gained her skills by being raised by gods and monsters.
Jenny is actually 8-years old, but has accelerated her age to that of a 14-year old. Jenny Quantum's lineage extends to the earliest accounts of human history, which include Jenny Stone and Jenny Fire, the first two "Century Spirits". Her direct ancestors before Jenny Sparks are Jenny Steam, Jenny Revolution, Jenny Plague and Jenny Inquisition. It has been suggested that, like Jenny Sparks, Jenny Quantum and the human race are linked for the current century and in Jenny Quantum's case, until the end of 2099. Meaning during a great depression, Jenny would be in a state of personal depression, though it is unknown if one causes the other or how. It has also been theorized that if she were raised with, for example, Nazi beliefs then humanity would fall under similar philosophies, though this has yet to be determined.
Worldstorm[]
When Captain Atom was trapped in the Wildstorm Universe, he accidentally killed Jenny Quantum after she'd tried to help him.[2] This event, like so much else, was overwritten when Nikola Hanssen, the new Void, took control of her powers.
In the post-Worldstorm universe, Jenny Quantum, now renamed as Jenny Quarx, is the leader of the new Authority, which also appears to have the same line-up as the previous version. Quantum/Quarx is wearing a t-shirt with the Singaporean flag, in a manner reminiscent of Jenny Sparks' Union Jack t-shirts.
Number of the Beast and World's End[]
With the destruction of the earth heralded a resurrected John Cumberland (The High) of The Changers, Jenny sacrificed herself by using her body as a containment device to prevent the Carrier's engine, a caged miniature universe, from overwriting and destroying the universe when the damaged Carrier crashed to earth's London, England. Before absorbing the universe she kissed goodbye to The Doctor, telling him that should she return he should find her and tell her how it all turned out.[3] What happened to Jenny after this is unknown as of yet.
Post-Flashpoint: Earth-0[]
Jenny Quantum (Earth-0)
After the events of Flashpoint, Jennifer Emily Quantum is 11 years old and a member of a new version of Stormwatch. This version is a super-secret organization that researches and defeats alien threats to Earth. Jenny Q. is currently being mentored by Adam One (he mentions that Jenny is among his top 18 favorite Century Babies that he has personally mentored). Jenny was the adopted daughter of Apollo and Midnighter in the Wildstorm universe. Since she is already 11 years old and Apollo and Midnighter have only just met in the DCnU, it would appear that she is no longer related to them. It remains to be seen whether she will eventually develop a similar foster parent-child relationship with either or both of the two. The reset, however, makes them a totally new question.
Major Story Arcs[]
Wildstorm Universe[]
Jenny Fractal[]
In the 'Fractured World' story line (issues #10-#13 of the second volume of The Authority), it is revealed that Jenny Quantum had a twin sister. It was believed that there were no other survivors. Jenny's twin sister had been found unharmed in the ruins of the Singapore hospital by the Chinese government, who recognized the potential weapon that she could become. She was immersed in a cruel assassination program that involved hyper-learning, as well as ways to kill and wage war. She was named Jenny Fractal after it was realized that she could tear reality apart at the seams.
Fractal escaped, causing a series of fractures in the fabric of reality. She forced the government to help her, on pain of total annihilation; she was able to convince the Authority that she was Jenny Quantum's biological mother. She was on the Carrier when another series of fractures led to the near-destruction of many cities. The two Jennys battled it out; Apollo was nearly killed while the others were trying to control the damage on Earth. Fractal was able to seize control of the Carrier after killing Jenny.
In a bid to bring her back to life, the Doctor captured her spirit at the moment she died, temporarily placing her in the Garden of Ancestral Memory. The Authority went back in time to the birth of the twins, where Midnighter was sent to kill baby Fractal. The Authority took on Fractal, who had followed them back in time, to distract her. After the baby's death, the Doctor helped Jenny's spirit return to the other body. Because both of them were the reincarnation of Jenny Sparks and identical twins, when one died, the other would have become the sole spirit of the 21st century. Since Fractal's consciousness was not captured at the time of her death, Jenny's was able to transfer to her body.
Revolution[]
Jenny displays her "Authority"
After the Authority took America, a group called the Sons of Liberty made of old American super heroes caused the American people to revolt. After a member of their group with nuclear powers caused an explosion, the Authority gave up their power and broke up. 3 years later - now eight - Jenny was being raised by Apollo alone while Midnighter went across the planet fighting evil. Jenny took a trip to the Garden of Ancestral Memory despite not being a Doctor to see the previous one now dead. However he was not there. She came back to her plan and met an older form of herself and was taken to the Infinite City where the Century Spirits go when they die, much like the Garden. After talking with Jenny Sparks, Henry Bendix was revealed to have been behind all the trouble.
Jenny aged herself to 14 and brought the group back together to overthrow Bendix. Bendix now had an army of alien beings as well as the new Rose Tattoo. He had also been keeping the Doctor's spirit prisoner as well as the new one: Habib Ben Hassan. She freed both and soon the group attacked Bendix. However he revealed he had implanted nanobots in Midnighter and forced him to fight and almost destroy the team. However Jenny and the Engineer freed him and he ripped Bendix's head off as revenge.
Number of the Beast and World's End[]
The destruction of the Earth heralded the resurrection of Jenny Sparks' ally,The High of The Changers. Jenny Quarx sacrificed herself by using her body as a containment device to prevent the Carrier's miniature universe engine from overwriting the Wildstorm universe when the damaged Carrier crashed to earth's London, England. Before absorbing the universe she kissed goodbye to The Doctor, telling him that she would return. What happened to Jenny after this is unknown as of yet.
Post-Flashpoint: Earth-0[]
The Dark Side[]
On the team's first mission in the new reality, she accompanies the Engineer to the moon to investigate Harry Tanner's disappearance while confronting the Scourge of Worlds. After finding Tanner, they return to Earth to protect it from the meteorite entities the Scourge starts bombarding it with. One of them, supposedly containing a lost city within it, acquires sentience, and despite the warnings of Midnighter Jenny and the rest of the team are absorbed into it. After Midnighter gets the Projectionist to beam concentrated sunlight to Apollo, he is able to fly through the antibody and free Jenny and the rest of the Stormwatch team. Later, when the lost city of Alba Umbra arises from the ground after being awakened by Hawksmoor, Jenny uses her powers to transmute the rampaging antibody into glass.
Upon returning to the Eye and meeting a representative of the Shadow Cabinet, a bit of Jenny's past is revealed: she is the daughter of a high-ranking military general who believes she was killed in a terrorist attack years ago. When the Eye is blown up by Harry Tanner, Jenny quickly creates a force-field to save the team from the conditions of hyperspace while Jack and the Engineer manage to persuade the Daemonite program that runs the Eye to reform the structure. Since Adam had been taken away by the Shadow Lords and Projectionist had been kidnapped by Tanner, the team meets to elect a new leader, deciding on Angie by unanimous consensus. The Engineer takes up the position of team leader, but mentions that this is a temporary situation until Jenny comes of age and assumes the mantle from her as all Century Babies before her have done.
The Gravity Miners & The Vitruvian Man[]
When beings from 5-space called the "Chryszy-rr" (the Daemonite translation of the phrase "gravity miners") enter Earth's dimension and attempt to steal it's gravity and destroy it as they did to countless galaxies before (including the Daemonite galaxy), Apollo is pulled into their dimension. Jenny and Midnighter enter their dimension to rescue him. They find him and Jenny sets out to place a bomb inside their dimension to destroy it completely. Before she can make it back to the point where she can teleport back to Earth's dimension, Midnighter betrays her and leaves her trapped inside the doomed dimension, reasoning that Jenny is far too powerful a threat to be allowed to exist; being potentially capable of wiping out galaxies with a mere thought. Midnighter teleports back to the Eye and tells the rest of Stormwatch that he could not save Jenny before the dimension collapsed, and is then astonished when the Engineer tells him that Jenny teleported back to the Eye five minutes before Midnighter arrived.
Later, the duo have a conversation about what happened in 5-space, and Jenny tells Midnighter that although she understands his reasons for attempting to kill her, she does not agree with them, and that whether she is socially maladjusted or not is her decision to make, not his.
Some time later, Jenny, Jack and Martian Manhunter travel to Rome to take down a rogue metahuman called Piero Rosci, aka V-Man. Jenny traps him inside a force-field to nullify his telekinetic powers and then uses her control over dark matter to teleport back to the Eye, where Rosci tells Stormwatch that he was a member of an earlier incarnation of their team, 500 years in the past, before he revolted against the Shadow Lords.Attributes
Powers
- Spirit of the 21st Century: She was born "with the century" - on the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve of 2000. Normally as a Century Baby grows they displayed certain superhuman abilities and skills, as well as immortality (not aging beyond her 20's until the century is over). In Jenny's case she displayed her powers a little after birth, whereas her previous incarnations only developed their abilities at 19. As with all Century Babies, it has been theorized that they act as an immune system for the planet; her very existence protecting Earth. As such she represents an aspect of the century into which she is born.
Quantum Powers
- Template:Reality Alteration: Jenny has the power to manipulate reality at the quantum level allowing her to achieve anything she can conceive of at the quantum molecular level. Jenny has the ability to manipulate the laws of quantum dynamics, manipulate ambient energies, and accelerate her own age. Her father Apollo once described her as having the ability to do "basically anything".
- Chronokinesis
- Dimensional Travel
- Energy Projection: As a newborn she produced an energy blast of sufficient strength to disintegrate the legs of a giant who was attempting to kill her.
- Flight
- Force Field
- Phasing
- Template:Probability Manipulation
- Teleportation: She has the ability to teleport between points on Earth and also other dimensions.
- Immortality: She has stopped aging at nineteen and will most likely remain this way until her death. She is assumed to have at least a 100 year lifespan, not aging anymore at adulthood. Theoretically, she will live on through the next Spirit of the 21st Century.
- Template:Reality Alteration: Jenny has the power to manipulate reality at the quantum level allowing her to achieve anything she can conceive of at the quantum molecular level. Jenny has the ability to manipulate the laws of quantum dynamics, manipulate ambient energies, and accelerate her own age. Her father Apollo once described her as having the ability to do "basically anything".
Abilities
Weaknesses
- Vulnerability to Psionics: Telepathy is her only known true weakness, due to her being weak at blocking mind control.
- Spirit of the 21st Century: As with all century children that came before her, Jenny is pre-destined to die the moment the old century dies and the new one along with the next spirit is born.
Trivia
- Jenny was actually 8-years old in 2008, when she accelerated her age to that of a 14-year old.
- Jenny Quantum's lineage extends to the earliest accounts of human history, which include Jenny Stone and Jenny Fire, the first two "Century Spirits". Her direct ancestors before Jenny Sparks are Jenny Steam, Jenny Revolution, Jenny Plague and Jenny Inquisition.
- It has been suggested that, like Jenny Sparks, Jenny Quantum and the human race are linked for the current century and in Jenny Quantum's case, until the end of 2099. Meaning during a great depression, Jenny would be in a state of personal depression, though it is unknown if one causes the other or how. It has also been theorized that if she were raised with, for example, Nazi beliefs then humanity would fall under similar philosophies, though this has yet to be determined.
- Jenny has displayed the ability to summon alternate reality versions of herself from throughout the multiverse to aid her in conflicts. She can create imaginary universes at will, through this ability she created the universe known as Infinite City. [citation needed]
See Also
Links and References
References
- ↑ The Authority: Revolution #7
- ↑ Captain Atom: Armageddon #9
- ↑ Number of the Beast #8