LOTUS

REAL NAME: Lotus Newmark

OCCUPATION: Movie Producer, Businesswoman, crimelord

IDENTITY: Publicly known

LEGAL STATUS: U.S. citizen with a criminal record

MARITAL STATUS: Single

KNOWN RELATIVES: Jerome Newmark (deceased)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Los Angeles

GROUP AFFILIATION: None, although she has many
employees, including Splice, Armed Response, Rampage
and Prince Charming

BASE OF OPERATIONS: Los Angeles

HISTORY: The truth of Lotus' childhood is unclear; she has told

at least two variations of the story, although there are many similarities. In one version, her mother was killed in a car accident, and her father began drinking and gambling heavily. He got deeply into debt, and when his creditors threatened to cut off two of his fingers as payment, he offered them Lotus instead. She was raised by Hong Kong businessman Li Fong, who gave her an impressive education in both academics and self-defense. On her 21st birthday, Fong allowed her to strike out on her own to form her own life. Lotus returned to L.A. to look up her father. She cut off two of his fingers, which she kept as momentos, and then killed him.

In another version, her mother was murdered, and Lotus
was given to the killer as payment for her father's debts. The two stories are very similar, but a few important

She has been very involved with the L.A. gang
situation. For a time, she was using the Stone Perfs
street gang to distribute drugs, but the situation got
complicated when the Avenger Hawkeye declared war on
the Stone Perfs and began a crusade to shut them down.
At first Lotus attempted to have Hawkeye killed, but
when that failed she had the entire Stone Perfs gang
executed to prevent Hawkeye from discovering her
involvement with them.

Lotus was also involved with the kidnapping of Andrew
Chord, legal guardian of Dwayne Taylor (also known as
Night Thrasher), as part of an elaborate scheme to
gain control of the Taylor Foundation, but Lotus had
only a minor involvement in that situation.

Later, Lotus organized an ambitious scheme to gain
control over L.A. through her own personal anti-crime

force known as Armed Response. She hired various street gangs to go on a violent crime spree, stirring
up public fear of gang related violence. Then, she advertised her security-for-hire team, which would
slowly be put in power to maintain order in the city. Her plan was foiled, however, by the Avenger Wonder Man and several of his friends who formed a temporary super hero group. Lotus organized several attempts to eliminate Wonder Man, but none were successful.

During a strange encounter with Mephisto, Wonder Man learned about Lotus and discovered that she had been

responsible for many of the attempts on his life. He was also led to believe that she was Mephisto's lover, and that she had been killed by the Black Talon.

When Wonder Man returned to L.A. months later, he was shocked to learn that Lotus was still alive. None of his encounters with her had been real, and most of what the fake Lotus had told him was lies, but he still knew about her criminal past. Shocked that Wonder Man had somehow exposed her, Lotus
made another desparate attempt to kill him, but she failed and has been taken into custody. Presumably
she is currently in jail.

EYES: Black

HAIR: Black

STRENGTH: Lotus does not have superhuman strength, but is a deadly martial artist, and is more than capable of killing a person with her bare hands. She has been known to punch her had through a man's chest.

POWERS: Lotus has displayed some limited hypnotic, mind control powers. With her hypmotic eyes, she can take control of a man's mind, but this leaves the man somewhat unable to think for themselves, and lacking initiative. Therefore, Lotus prefers to use others ways to control people, ie sex, money, etc. We have never seen Lotus use her mind control powers on a woman, so it is possible that it only affects males.