Harbinger (DC Comics)

Harbinger (Lyla Michaels) is a fictional character, a DC Comics superheroine created in the early 1980s.

Fictional character biography

An orphan whose ship sunk during a violent storm, Lyla Michaels was rescued from certain doom by the Monitor, a cosmic being locked in an eternal war against his anti-matter counterpart the Anti-Monitor. Raising Lyla as his assistant, the two monitored the multiverse's heroes and arranged for weapons and super-powered henchmen for various villains, to test heroes that the Monitor would recruit for his impending final battle against the Anti-Monitor.

When Crisis on Infinite Earths began, Lyla assumed the identity of "Harbinger" after entering a womb-like chamber which energized her and allowed her to create a series of doppelgangers in her new costume. These doppelgangers recruited a wide variety of heroes and villains to fight the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons and protect a series of vibration towers, designed to protect Earth 1 and Earth 2 from the wave of Anti-Matter destroying the DC Multiverse.

However, while recruiting the hero Arion, a shadow demon merged with one of Harbinger's duplicates, allowing the Anti-Monitor to control her once her various doubles merged into a single entity. Under the Anti-Monitor's control, Lyla killed the Monitor. Ironically, Monitor foresaw the Anti-Monitor's gambit and arranged to have his life force be the fuel to power up the vibration towers, saving Earths 1 and 2 from doom. The shock of what she did caused Lyla to revert to a version of her normal form, which then sacrificed all of her powers to save the last three alternate universe (home of the Freedom Fighters, the Charlton heroes, and the Captain Marvel family) from annihilation.

When the five remaining universes merged, Harbinger suddenly regained her power in the process of time and space merging to create a new single universe DC Universe. Afterwords, Harbinger recorded the history of the Post-Crisis DC Universe into a computer satellite. This led to the Millennium crossover, which had the satellite fall into the hands of the Manhunters, who used the data to confirm the identities of much of the Earth super-hero population as part of a greater plan to infiltrate the super-hero community. After the mini-series, Harbinger joined the New Guardians and was infected with the AIDS virus along with half the team. She reunited with fellow Monitor allies Pariah and Lady Quark during War of the Gods, after which she was offered membership with the Amazon tribe of Themyscira as the Amazons' official historian.

When Kara Zor-El, aka the original Supergirl, was discovered to exist in the Post-Crisis DC Universe and arrived on Earth, she was given shelter and lodgings on the island of Themyscira. Harbinger befriended Supergirl and remembering how she sacrificed her life during the original Crisis, Harbinger willingly died protecting Kara in a failed bid to prevent Darkseid from kidnapping her.

Donna Troy/Dark Angel Connection

During the events of the "Return of Donna Troy" mini-series, it was revealed that Donna Troy's arch enemy (and temporal doppelganger) Dark Angel served a similar role to Harbinger during the original Crisis before severing ties with the Anti-Monitor. Furthermore, the Titans of Myth revealed that Donna was a temporal anomaly thanks to the Crisis changing her and Wonder Woman's histories. The Titans, seeing potential in exploiting Donna's unconscious knowledge of the Pre-Crisis universe, rescued her as a child in order to manipulate her into becoming their own version of Harbinger.

Following the events of the Infinite Crisis, Donna recorded a new version of the "History of the DC Universe" reflecting the changes in the timeline following Infinite Crisis. Meanwhile, a new incarnation of Harbinger, a genetically altered being called The Forerunner was introduced that was tasked with killing anyone who crossed over between universes for the Monitors.^[1]

Harbinger was reanimated as a Black Lantern during the Blackest Night crossover. She uses her knowledge of history to provoke her targets by bringing up emotional memories,^[2] but is destroyed with the other Black Lanterns.

In Multiversity #1, the AI of the Monitor watchstation known as the House of Heroes refers to itself as Harbinger and bears a resemblance to the previous character.^[3]

In other media

Film

Lyla appears in the September 28, 2010 direct-to-DVD film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, voiced by Rachel Quaintance. In the film she lives on Themyscira among the Amazons. When she begins to receive horrible visions of Supergirl's death she joins Wonder Woman in trying to save her. In trying to save Supergirl from Darkseid's forces, she dies in her place.

Television

Lyla Michaels appears on The CW's Arrow, portrayed by Audrey Marie Anderson. In the first season episode "Unfinished Business", she is introduced as an "old friend" of John Diggle, from Afghanistan, now working as an A.R.G.U.S. agent. In "Home Invasion", she sets up a sting to capture Deadshot, and uses the codename "Harbinger". In the season two episode "Keep Your Enemies Closer", she is captured and placed in a Russian Gulag while searching for Deadshot. She is revealed to be Diggle's ex-wife. In "Suicide Squad", Michaels is a member of Task Force X, again using the codename "Harbinger". By this time, Diggle and Lyla have resumed their relationship. In "Unthinkable", Amanda Waller reveals that Lyla is pregnant with Diggle's child. She gives birth to their daughter Sara in the first episode of Season 3, "The Calm." In "The Brave and the Bold" she is the target of Digger Harkness, also known as Captain Boomerang, a former Suicide Squad agent who survived the eradication of his team by the order of Michaels. Bent on revenge, he attacks A.R.G.U.S.'s headquarters, trying to kill Lyla, but is thwarted by Arrow, Arsenal and the Flash. Diggle later proposes to her and she accepts. They remarry in "Suicidal Tendencies", where they get sent on another mission with the Suicide Squad. After the mission, John and Lyla both agree to leave the Squad in order to raise their daughter. Later on, Lyla is captured by Oliver while he is actually tricking Ra's al Ghul into thinking he has been manipulated by him; however, her capture is thwarted by a plan Felicity makes to set Lyla free. In the episode "My Name is Oliver Queen", Oliver breaks free from Ra's' control and quickly reports to Team Arrow, only for Diggle to punch Oliver for capturing Lyla and abandoning their baby Sara. In the fourth season premiere episode "Green Arrow", Lyla convinces Diggle to stop being mad at Oliver for the situation, as she has gotten over it in the previous months. Later on in the season 4 episode "A.W.O.L.", Amanda Waller is killed by the head of the organization known as Shadowspire, making Lyla the new head of A.R.G.U.S. Thanks to Barry altering the timeline in Flashpoint, their daughter Sara was replaced with their son, John Diggle Jr.

Anderson reprises her role in a crossover with The Flash in the episode "King Shark", where she and Diggle come to Central City for Barry Allen's help with capturing the titular metahuman King Shark after he escapes A.R.G.U.S. custody, in which Amanda Waller had been planning to manipulate him into becoming a weapon for A.R.G.U.S. before her death. After the Flash defeats King Shark, Lyla and Diggle take him back to A.R.G.U.S., with Lyla promising to help King Shark and possibly even cure him instead of turning him into a living weapon. In the crossover episode, "Invasion!," Lyla and ARGUS cover up the Dominators existence from the media and she reveals to Team Flash that they've covered up their existence for over 50 years. She disagrees with the government on not taking action to stop the invaders, and is warned by one of the politicians to listen to him as Amanda Waller did.

Toys

On July 7, 2005 the DC Comics owned company DC Direct released an action figure of Harbinger as part of the line of Crisis action figures.

References