Frances Kane/Magenta

Subject Facts

Full Name: Frances Kane
Codename: Magenta
Age: Late 20s
Gender: Female
Archetype: Neutral
Aliases: The Magnetic Witch, Mistress of Magnetism, Frankie, Francine, Francis, Fran
Marital Status: Single
Affiliation: N/A; formerly the Rogues & Teen Titans

Subject Attributes

Meta-Human Abilities:
Frankie was born with powers of magnetism allowing her a variety of abilities. Her state of mind can increase or decrease the potency of said abilities.

Frances can attract and repel metal or magnetic materials around her, moving them around or changing their trajectories with ease. Frances can manipulate or remold the shape of a metal object. An object can be something as large as a building or as small as the iron in a person's bloodstream.

Offensively, Frances can use her powers to create concussive magnetic pulses to forcibly blast a target or enemy. Much like her concussive pulses, she can use her powers defensively creating a barrier around herself and/or her allies. She can also create disruptive magnetic pulses which could interfere with various signals or equipment functions.

Her magnetic levitation can also be used on herself to facilitate a kind of flight.

If a device puts out enough of a magnetic field, Frances can focus her magnetic powers to hone in on it and detect it.

She can also manipulate a person's magnetic field/aura and is able to hinder their movements by countering it using a magnet prison to amplify her abilities.

Standard Abilities: N/A

Paraphernalia: N/A

Subject Weaknesses:
Distance/Weight: Frances' powers are only viable so long as an object or person is in range of her magnetic field. Her powers lose their potency outside an immediate range. She can lift objects as heavy as cars and trucks but not, for example, entire buildings. If an object is too heavy for her to lift, she can shove it. She cannot extend a concentrated magnetic shield very far outside her person without it weakening.

Concentration: It takes at least minimal concentration to be able to manipulate her magnetic abilities and if she were to be distracted, knocked unconscious, or otherwise disabled, her abilities will fail her.

Inexperience: Frances never wanted powers and has spent much of her life trying to suppress her abilities. Though she has some training and her alter-personality uses her abilities without restraint, her power likely has yet to reach its full potential.

Insecurity: Frances doesn't think much of herself when it comes to hero-ing. She once called in the Justice League in an attempt to avoid going in after her fellow teammates by herself. She underestimates herself at every turn and may be just as likely to give up or not try than follow through. The assumption that she will fail or that she doesn't belong in the hero life could be dangerous under the right circumstances.

Lack of Magnetic Material: If she were placed somewhere that had no metal her powers would be somewhat obsolete.

Reverse Polarity/Electricity: Zapping Frances with a reverse polarity or electric shock has shown to disable her and her powers and also jolt her out of the Magenta persona.

Isolation: Frances doesn't really have anyone. Her family is dead and her relationship with Wally has long since ended. Her civilian boyfriend ended up dead because she can't escape her powers. Her ping-pong back and forth from villain to hero hasn't endeared her to many. She still struggles with the other personality inside her but doesn't really trust therapists anymore given that it was a psychiatrist that implanted the Magenta personality in the first place. She has no support system.

Mental Health: Frances has struggled with her mental health ever since her powers first surfaced. She feels like her powers are a curse and carries the guilt of her family's deaths. She struggles with wanting a normal life and to not use her powers vs an obligation to use her powers for good and to protect people. She also feels like those that get close to her end up hurt or dead. She struggles with wondering if the Magenta personality is her true personality and that she is as her mother thought, evil. Her mind has been manipulated and controlled on a number of occasions and sometimes it is hard to tell faction from fiction. Because it was a psychiatrist that implanted the Magenta persona in her in the first place, and because in the past those that were supposed to be her friends pressured her to use her abilities despite not wanting to, she has trouble truly trusting anyone. The Magenta personality buried within her makes it impossible for her to even trust herself. It's also possible that her magnetic powers are causing disturbances in her own brainwaves putting her mentally off balance.

Multiple Personality: A doctor named Alysia Damalis was helping to create superhuman sleeper agents and overlayed the Magenta personality into Frances Kane. Magenta is not afraid of her abilities and instead revels in them. She has no moral code and is willing to kill without a thought. She is violent and often directs her violence and hatred toward an old flame Wally West. Francis may actively allow this personality to become dominant because it's easier than dealing with the fallout as herself. There is no real known trigger as to what causes the Magenta personality to surface.

Subject History

Frances lived a rather average life with her mom, dad, and brother in Blue Valley, Nebraska. She was good friends with Wally West whom she had known since they were seven. She went to Blue Valley College, she had friends, hopes, dreams, plans for the future. Then one day driving home from the mall with her father and brother, everything changed as her power manifested for the first time. The car seemed to explode, then swerved on its own toward the gap in the guard rail that had somehow peeled itself open. No matter how Frances fought the car there was nothing she could do and they went over the edge. The car fell and exploded killing her father and brother. She somehow survived, floating away to safety. Unbeknownst to her Doctor Polaris had hijacked her dormant powers in an attempt to escape the dimension Green Lantern had banished him to.

She was out of school for a month after that. Upon her return Wally offered to help her play catch up with her schoolwork. Frances was hesitant at first due to her mother but eventually agreed. Her mother did not handle the death of her husband and son well at all. She blamed Frances openly for their deaths calling her evil, saying she deserved any punishment she got, and that she was possessed by the devil. Her mother also attempted to contact their dead kin through various rituals. One such ritual that Wally was present for, seemed to trigger another magnetic episode in Frances. Frances was taken in for testing and after every inch of her had been probed, scraped, pinched, or pricked, all the doctor could discern was that she was highly anemic and her brain scan indicated a higher than normal magnetic reading. She had another episode at the hospital and her mother attempted to kill her. Even though she failed she denounced Frances as her daughter and left.

Frances was taken to Titans Tower where the Teen Titans began their own tests and took care of her. Her mother would have nothing to do with her and she had nowhere to go. It was here that she admitted to Wally that she knew he was Kid Flash. "I grew up with you, I even had a crush on you once. You really can't hide things like this. I can tell." While in the Tower Frances experienced yet another episode, the team noting that each one was more powerful than the last. This time Polaris manifested physically as an unidentifiable entity that began to wreak havoc on the city. Cyborg came to the rescue with a device from S.T.A.R. Labs that pumped a negative polarity charge into Frances finally severing the connection between her and the Doctor Polaris.
    - The New Teen Titans #17

Eventually Frances' magnetic powers reemerged and she returned to the Tower for help. She and Wally began seeing each other and though Frances never joined the Titans formally, she was friendly with them and they often interacted due to Wally's involvement. Wally began experiencing trouble with his abilities and Frances took it upon herself to practice with her own skillset if only to help keep him safe. She also continued to encourage him to quit the Titans. Due to the struggle with his abilities, Wally eventually did take a break from the Titans and the two of them enjoyed a mostly normal life.
    - The New Teen Titans Vol 1 #29 - #32, #39
    - Tales of the Teen Titans Vol 1 #45, #49

Over time Wally became involved with the Titans again and it put increasing strain on their relationship. When his powers were restored and she discovered he had become the new Flash and kept it from her, she felt betrayed. He and The Titans then asked Frances to join them against Brother Blood and his fanatics on a rescue mission which upset her more. Frances said no despite intense pressuring from Wally and some others. When team was ultimately captured and their lives were in the balance, Frances fought going in herself instead calling in the Justice League to help. When their attentions were needed elsewhere, Frances had no choice but to go after them alone. Though her timely arrival was crucial to saving everyone's lives, she was scared and mostly hid. This was not a life she wanted. They retained the relationship but she often ended up tangled up in Wally's battles such as when Vandal Savage attacked in his home.
    - Tales of the Teen Titans Vol 1 #88-#91 (Same as New Teen Titans Vol 2 #28 - #31)
    - The Flash Vol 2 #1 & #2

After Wally won the lottery he bought a mansion and Frances moved in with him. Shortly thereafter she abruptly packed up and moved out without so much as a goodbye. She loved him and knew he'd try to talk her out of it but with him so involved with the Titans she felt too pressured to use her powers and she just wanted a normal life. To that end Frances took a job at S.T.A.R. Labs as Alysia Damalis' assistant. She helped her with various procedures and experiments but also was treated there as a patient. Frances suffered a lot of guilt not using her powers to help and Alysia was meant to help her with that. Unfortunately, the doctor was not what she claimed. She was creating super-powered sleep agents and had overlayed Magenta, a second extreme, irrational, and dangerous personality, inside of Frances that could be activated with a code word. While Frances wanted a normal life and feared her powers, "Magenta" reveled in them and using them to their full extent against her enemies. After "Magenta" had been activated to kill Thunder and Lightning by Demalis, Frances' primary personality was able to reach through enough to break Alysia's hold but the Magenta personality remained dominant. Only with the code word "Rumpelstiltskin" were they able to subdue her. Though the code word was deprogrammed from her, Frances still feared this new personality that had emerged from inside her.
    - Flash 80 Page Giant #1
    - Teen Titans Spotlight #16 & #17

The Magenta personality triggered within Frances again and she decided it was time to have it out with Wally and disrupted a televised baseball game to get his attention. They fought until Wally was able to zap her with a live electric wire and shock her back into her Frances personality. They shared a kiss and having nowhere else to go, Wally took Frances in to try and help her figure out what had happened to her. She and Linda had a nice heart to heart but were interrupted when Wally asked her to help him stop a bomb. Once more she was put in an impossible situation where she couldn't say no to using her powers. The pair of them tracked it down and Wally used some underhanded tactics to anger her in order to increase her powers to launch the bomb far away. Afterwards she and Wally made their piece and Frances left to find her own way once again.
    - The Flash Vol 2 #80 - #83

Frances once again set off to take control of her life and after a while she realized it had been months without thinking of her powers or Wally or any of her troubles. She began dating again and things were going well until yet another battle landed at her doorstep. Her new boyfriend Jason had taken her to a Georgia Bisoux concert and she was forced to use her powers to protect the bystanders from another bomb threat. Much to her dismay it felt good to use her powers. After the events of the concert Raven ambushed and kidnapped her. Raven performed a ritual through which a seed of Trigon was implanted inside Frances and indoctrinating her into "the children of Trigon". Possessed, Frances willingly allowed Raven to feed on her current boyfriend and assisted in getting accumulating more souls and adding to their ranks. In the end the Titans defeated Raven. Frances and the others possessed by her were taken into an underground cryogenics laboratory beneath a S.T.A.R. Labs hospital in hopes of freeing them from the seeds.
    - The New Titans #119 - #121

Though Frances seemed to be free of Raven's thrall, the Magenta personality was still dominant. After the trauma of what she went through with Raven, Wally was once again her target. Since it was Raven that had come for her and once again overturned her life it made sense to her enraged self to blame Wally again for roping her into everything in the first place. Or perhaps it was the inner Frances Kane hoping Wally could pull her out of it again as he always did. Either way she attacked Keystone and took Linda Park hostage. Linda managed to talk her down and Frances escaped in the ensuing chaos of her action's aftermath.
    - The Flash Vol 2 #106

Frances was once again called upon by the Titans to assist during "The Technis Imperative" where ex-Titan Cyborg was being controlled by a dark influence and planned to turn Earth's moon into a new Technis populated with his allies. While she maintained her stance of not wanting to use her powers, she still couldn't stand by and watch while the world was destroyed.
    - JLA-Titans #2 - #3

Later, Frances fell in with the Cicada cult and returned to Keystone city claiming that she wanted to help Wally. She was arrested for the destruction she caused during her last visit and opted to go willingly saying she wanted to atone for Magenta's actions. When Wally came to visit her she told him she was glad he pushed her to use her powers and that she couldn't be happier. She also told him she had killed her mother. She then attacked and trapped Wally before telling him that she wasn't doing it for hate or revenge, it was because the Children of Cicada loved him. Before vacating the precinct she retrieved a key from beneath the building and left with Wally. She took him back to the cult's hide out where Cicada finally revealed himself and his plan to use Wally's lifeforce to restore his dead wife. (Magenta also sent up a trap for Linda and rigged an explosion.) While Cicada was distracted with his resurrection gone awry, Wally took the opportunity to use his power to super charge Magenta making her into an electromagnet which allowed him to get free. Once again, Magenta used the chaos to slip away and escape.
    - The Flash Vol 2 #170 - #173

Now a firmly solidified fugitive, Frances fell in with the Flash Rogues lead by Blacksmith. She assisted in freeing Gorilla Grodd from captivity and in the imprisonment of Cyborg. She worked closely with Girder to amplify his abilities and literally prevent him from rusting and falling apart. She also had to deal with Girder's constant advances to which she threatened to rip him in half on multiple occasions. The new Rogue's confronted Wally and infected him with a frenzy virus. At the same time Thinker had taken control of Keystone and Wally opted to take his chances there to grab a cure. The Rogues went in after him and discovered that Thinker had taken control of Flash. A battle ensued and though Blacksmith separated Flash from Thinker, Thinker took control of Weather Wizard. In the ensuring chaos Goldface snatched Flash and took him to a safe place. Thinker tracked them down but with the help of a freed Cyborg, Flash was finally able to thwart Thinker. The Rogues also regrouped and Magenta started literally tearing Cyborg apart. Flash took Cyborg to safety and returned to deal with the Rogues. Unfortunately they got the upper hand and Magenta encouraged Girder to kill Wally quickly. But in those last moments Frances' base personally surfaced. Girder made the mistake of once again propositioning her and she followed through on her promise to him in half. With her primary personality resurfaced, she turned on the Rogues but was promptly taken out by Weather Wizard.
    - Flash Secret Files #3
    - The Flash Vol 2 #178, #183-188

With her primary personality back in control, Frances was recruited by the first Trickster to assist in apprehending the "bad" Flash Rogues. Working for James and the F.B.I. was a way to once again try and atone for her alter ego's crimes. As with so many missions everything went awry and Magenta was incapacitated early on by Weather Wizard. When she came to she learned that the rest of her team had changed allegiances and sided back with the Rogues.
    - The Flash Vol 2 #216 & #217, #1/2 & #220 - #223

Magenta's persona resurfaced at some point and she is sent to the planet Salvation along with a number of other super villains. She passed through Lex's portal to return to Earth.
    - Salvation Run #3, #6 & #7(?)

Still with the Magenta personality dominant, she joined up with a group called the Cyborg Revenge Squad because "Any friend of the flash is an enemy." Cyborg managed to shock her which once again forced her Magenta persona into remission once more.
    - DC Special: Cyborg #5 & #6

Subject Interview

At the sound of the door opening and closing Frances cast a quick glance over her shoulder. "You're a new one," she observed dryly noting the unfamiliar face that entered the room before turning back to the window and resuming her vigil over the parking lot. "Have I frightened away Doctor What's-Her-Name already?" Her tone was flat and empty. Her words tasted bitter somehow. The revolving door of psychiatrists and court mandated therapy had long since grown old.

The newcomer cleared their throat. "Ms Kane, you know that there are a number of doctors assigned to your case. We feel it is most beneficial for everyone for you to have more opinions and expertise as we continue to assess your progress." Or maybe they just liked to be able to talk about me behind my back. Have more eyes on me. The broken girl with multiple personality disorder. The wheels of the office chair squeaked and scraped across the floor as it was pulled away from the desk. A soft thump as the doctor sat down. "Please, come sit down."

Frances turned away from the window and moved mechanically toward the couch and obediently sat down. There wasn't much fight in her those days. Of course, when Frances was in her right mind there was never really any fight in her. That was the whole problem.

"I'm Doctor-" Frances held up a hand.

"I don't care who you are." She told her evenly. Frances suddenly felt very tired, her mind clouded and her gaze vacant. She had to force herself to focus on the person in front of her and shook her head. "You'll be just like the others. You won't be able to help me and then you'll be gone. No one can help me." She was suddenly aware of the weight in her chest once more and she wrapped her arms around her body as if she could hold herself together by sheer will.

"Well," the doctor replied patiently, "I'd like to try."

"Can you get these... this power out of me?" She asked sharply, "I don't want them. I never wanted them. I just want to be normal." Her eyes glazed over, "It's all I want..." She whispered then looked away her eyes clearing once more. "But that's not going to happen." She scoffed wiping away a tear. "I'm cursed. Everyone that gets close to me is cursed. And I'll keep being forced to use my powers no matter what I want." She snapped, rising back to her feet abruptly.

"Ms. Kane, please. I need you to stay calm."

Frances laughed, "Does that usually work for you? Telling someone to calm down?"

"Frances," the doctor said evenly, "We're trying to work with you here. We understand that you have not been completely responsible for your actions. That you have a multiple personality disorder. We want you to be able to live a normal life too. We need to figure out how to completely suppress your alter personality or find a way to untangle that personality from your own permanently. But I need your help to do it. Please, sit down so we can get started."

Frances felt the tightness in her body looses ever so slightly. It was foolish to hope. How many years had she been subject to the ups and downs of her own body's polar opposites. Yet... what if she could be free? Delicately Frances took a seat on the couch again. "Okay so... what now?"

Author's Notes

Player Alias: Yvaine

Other Characters: N/A

How did you find ARFD?: Did I ever really leave?