| Bulleteer | |
|---|---|
 Seven Soldiers: The Bulleteer #4, art byYanick Paquette. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Seven Soldiers: Bulleteer #1 (November 2005) |
| Created by | Grant Morrison (writer) Yanick Paquette (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Alix Harrower |
| Species | Human |
| Place of origin | Earth |
| Team affiliations | Seven Soldiers Justice League |
| Abilities | Smartskin originally granted superhuman strength and durability, was later shown to have developed flight |
Bulleteer is a fictional character andDC Comicssuperheroine, a member of theSeven Soldiers. She debuted inSeven Soldiers: The Bulleteer #1 (November 2005), and was created byGrant Morrison andYanick Paquette.[1] The character is based in part on theFawcett Comics characterBulletgirl.[2]
27-year-old Alix Harrower is married to Lance, a research scientist who has developed a thin metal skin that can bond withcollagen, turning tissue indestructibly hard. When this "smartskin" is applied to a living being, such as Lance's initial test subject, a mouse named "Metal Mickey", the subject becomes endowed with superhuman strength. Though the potential military applications are obvious, Lance dreams of using it on himself, modeling a superhero career after the WWII superheroesBulletman and Bulletgirl, but after testing it on himself, he begins to suffocate. When he touches Alix, the smartskin bonds to her. Rushed to the hospital, she is saved thanks to medics gaining access to bare skin covered by her wedding ring. Lance was not wearing his, and dies ofasphyxiation.[2]
Alix spirals into depression as her new appearance forces her to quit her job teaching autistic children. Another emotional blow comes at the discovery that her deceased husband's superhero dreams stemmed from a fixation on superhero-based pornography and an online affair with "Super Sally Sonic", an immortal superhuman porn star. Distraught, Alix attempted suicide. While trying to find a structure hard enough to kill her on impact, she comes across a train wreck, and saves the people still inside. After those she saved call her a superhero, she decides to live up to the title, taking the name Bulleteer.
InSeven Soldiers: Bulleteer #2, it is revealed that Alix was going to be the seventh member ofGreg Saunders' ill-fated newSeven Soldiers of Victory, but got cold feet and thus escaped the massacre. She meets Agent Helligan fromSeven Soldier: Shining Knight #3 and helps her interrogate Ramon Solomano, alias "the Iron Hand" (an old enemy of Saunders from his days as the costumed hero Vigilante), for information on theNebula Man and the deaths of the six other soldiers as seen inSeven Soldiers of Victory #0.[3]
InSeven Soldiers: Bulleteer #3, Alix works as a bodyguard to a mermaid movie star at a convention for C-list superheroes, interacts with various secondary Soldiers characters (including the original Bulletgirl), and eventually survives an assassination attempt by the apparently undeadSpider. Alix also learns more about Sally Sonic from a superhuman porn actress, and discovers that Sally enjoys seducing husbands and breaking up couples. Upon her return home, Alix is crushed with a refrigerator by the indestructible Sally Sonic, who was posing as her boarder.
InSeven Soldiers: Bulleteer #4, Sally Sonic beats Alix while ranting about her ruined life. Flashbacks reveal Sally's backstory as a 1940s superheroine who is immortal and stuck in the body of a superpowered teenager. After outliving all of her friends and family and being forced to live in an abusive orphanage (since no one believed her true age), Sally Smart met "Vita-Man", a superhuman who manipulates her into a sexual relationship and a role in a pornographic film. Sally is pulled into the seedy underworld of superhuman sex work and drug abuse, and eventually goads Alix' husband into the experiment that killed him and transformed Alix. Her motivation for this act is revealed to be jealousy: Sally loathed Alix for having the life Sally could never have. Alix refuses to let Sally take her grief out on her and manages to knock Sally out with a car engine, despite a broken arm. Afterwards, a ghostly Greg Saunders approaches Alix and attempts to recruit her to 'save the world'. Though she is not even sure that Saunders is real, she rejects him and the entire superhero role.
InSeven Soldiers of Victory #1, Alix tries to drive Sally to the hospital when theSheeda invade Manhattan. Sally wakes up and tries to kill Alix yet again, until the car collides with the fallen Sheeda queen, Gloriana Tenebrae, and bursts into flames. Alix survives, but Sally and Gloriana do not.
It is revealed that Alix is The Spear that Was Never Thrown, the downfall of the Sheeda race. This Spear is thrown byAurakles, the world's first superhero from 42,000 years ago, and Alix's ancestor. Aurakles appears as an imprisoned demi-god in the pages ofMister Miracle.
Alix appears inInfinite Crisis #7 as one of the heroes fighting against the rampaging villains inMetropolis and is later seen in the two-page line up of the heroes of the DCU. She appears to be flying.
She appears in52 #24, as a member of an interimJLA, also featuringFirestorm,Firehawk,Super-Chief, andAmbush Bug. This goes badly, as their first major villain,Skeets, kills Super-Chief and many civilians. She then reappeared in issue four of theWorld War III event. That and her appearance in52 issue #50 both involve her efforts as part of a multi-hero, worldwide attempt to take down the insaneBlack Adam.
She appeared inBirds of Prey #100 as one ofOracle's potential recruits for the team. Despite this, she made no further appearances in the series, indicating that she ultimately did not join the team.
She is later seen inFinal Crisis #2 and #5, as part of a resistance group of heroes battlingDarkseid's invading forces.[4]
Alix appears in the final issue ofJustice League: Cry for Justice, where she andMr. Scarlet rescueFreddy Freeman after he is tied up and has his mouth sewn shut byPrometheus. When asked byRay Palmer how she was able to contact theJLA Watchtower, Alix explains that she kept the communicator given to her by Firestorm during her brief tenure with his League.
She later appears as part ofWonder Woman's all-female strikeforce when a group of androids invadeWashington D.C. After the robots are defeated, Alix attempts to strike up a conversation with Wonder Woman, and nervously tells her that she must not have any idea who she is. Wonder Woman tells Alix that she does indeed know who she is, which makes her day.[5]
Bulleteer is later shown aiding the JLA during their mission into Hell, where she helpsDonna Troy defeat the demon Lilith.[6] Following this, Alix is recruited byCongorilla as part of an emergency Justice League assembled to repelEclipso's invasion of the Emerald City on the moon. Alongside her teammates, Alix is quickly defeated and brought under Eclipso's control.[7] The reserve JLA members are all freed after Eclipso is defeated.[8]
Post-Rebirth, Bulleteer helps with search and rescue when a tropical storm floods a town.[9] She is again shown to be capable of flight. After events have calmed down, she approaches Green LanternSimon Baz and asks if he has seen her friend, Night Pilot. Bulleteer reveals that she and Night Pilot sometimes work together in New York, and that Night Pilot did not show up for a recent fight with the villain Snowflame. She appears to be good friends with Night Pilot, despite neither knowing the other's secret identity; she is aware of Night Pilot's multiple dates with a Green Lantern and that Night Pilot had a date with another, unknown, individual before disappearing. She requests Baz's help with finding her.
Alix Harrower was originally a normal human with no superhuman abilities. After bonding with "Smartskin" created by her husband, Alix's body became coated in a virtually indestructible metal shell, though it was implied that her bones and other organs remained mostly unaltered. This metal coating grants Alix a degree of superhuman strength and nigh-invulnerability. In her appearances afterSeven Soldiers, Alix also seems to have developed the power of flight.
