Psyche

Origin

Psyche was a member of the Wanderers, a futuristic team of adventurers that existed during the time of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century. Her real name and the name of her homeworld have never been revealed. Her parents both had the ability of enhanced empathy, which they passed on to their daughter. Psyche’s empathic talents turned out to be far greater than those of her parents, so much so that she had the power to control the emotions of others, bending them to her will. Because of this, Psyche and her family were feared and shunned by the other inhabitants of their homeworld, and they decided to live in an isolated stronghold away from populated areas. Once Psyche reached adulthood her abilities attracted the attention of the Wanderers, who recruited her into their ranks.

Creation

Psyche was created in 1968 by writer Jim Shooter and artist Win Mortimer, along with the other six members of the original Wanderers. Twenty years later, a revamped version of the character was created by writer Doug Moench and artist Dave Hoover.

Major Story Arcs

Alliance and Conflict with the Legion

The Wanderers became renowned for their exploits and inevitably they crossed paths with the Legion of Super-Heroes. The two teams immediately became friends, and even went so far as to erect a monument to honor their alliance. But shortly afterwards, the Wanderers were exposed to psychotropic radiation from the Nefar Nebula when returning to their sector of space, altering their minds and temporarily turning them from heroes to villains. They went on a crime spree, stealing seven valuable stone artifacts in the process, and the Legion was called upon to stop them.

The two teams battled each other in contests of strength. Psyche used her emotion-control powers on the Legionnaire Bouncing Boy, quickly enthralling him. She then ordered him to attack his own teammate, Chameleon Boy. The tactic was unsuccessful, as Chameleon Boy subdued his enthralled teammate and then defeated Psyche. The Wanderers eventually surrendered to the Legion and their minds were restored, and the two teams parted as friends once again. The Wanderers showed up as guests for the wedding of Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy, and later fought alongside the Legion against Darkseid’s Daxamite army.

Death and Cloning

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Wanderers went on a mission to investigate enigmatic and deadly beings that were posing a threat to the civilized galaxy. It proved to be the original Wanderers’ final mission, as their starship was overwhelmed and the entire team murdered by the mysterious enemy. A Controller named Clonus located the ship drifting through space and brought most of the Wanderers back to life via cloning. Since Clonus had inadvertently created the creatures that had murdered the Wanderers, he now felt responsible for their deaths, so he took the opportunity to enhance their powers during the cloning process in hopes that the new team could defeat the creatures that had destroyed them earlier.

The cloned version of Psyche had platinum hair instead of blonde, along with a more elfin appearance. Her emotion-control powers were much stronger than those of the original, and she also gained the ability to levitate herself and move objects with her mind. However, a side effect of this added power was that she had become a psychic vampire – needing to draw energy from any intense emotions experienced by those around her. The other female member of the team, Quantum Queen, first noticed that Psyche was feeding from the emotional energy of her teammates. The Wanderers soon determined that Psyche’s empathic vampirism was not actually harming them in any way, but they often found her presence to be a bit unnerving as a result.

Personal Tragedy

After the new team successfully completed several missions, Psyche decided that she wanted to visit her homeworld and her parents again. She explained to her teammates that her parents’ large estate was both isolated and secure, and could serve as a home base for the wandering team. They agreed to take Psyche there and allowed her time to see her parents alone, but her visit turned out to be a disastrous one. Psyche’s parents did not recognize their daughter in her cloned and altered body, and instead came to the conclusion that she was their daughter’s murderer. Psyche, distraught, fled from her parents’ home and was pursued by powerful terminator robots (completely immune to her empathic powers) sent by planetary security. The rest of the Wanderers, upon discovering that Psyche’s visit had gone seriously wrong, split up to find her. Psyche evaded the pursuing robots just long enough to make it back to her parents’ home, sending off a desperate empathic cry as she approached, which her empathic parents finally recognized as being truly their daughter’s. Her parents tried to stop the security robots from killing Psyche, but were themselves attacked by the robots. The other Wanderers arrived and destroyed the robots, but too late to save Psyche’s parents, who died from their wounds. Planetary security belatedly admitted their error and named Psyche the sole inheritor of her parents’ estate, but her grief from the recent tragedy was too great for her or her teammates to want to use it as a base.

Disappearance

The cloned Wanderers eventually became agents of the United Planets and successfully completed several more missions, including solving the murder of their original selves. On their last recorded mission they met and felt compelled to follow mysterious aliens into another dimension. Their current whereabouts are unknown. DC's 30th-century universe has been rebooted three times since, and Psyche has yet to make an appearance in the current continuity.