Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Outsiders v3 #1 (August 2003)
Created By: Judd Winick and Tom Raney
Biography:
Grace Choi grew up in the foster care system with little knowledge of her past or parentage. At nine, she ran away from an abusive foster home and was abducted by a child prostitution ring, where she spent the next few years. When puberty hit, though, Grace suddenly found herself with super strength and durability and accelerated healing – enough to break herself and the children she was imprisoned with out of captivity.
Grace presumably spent the next decade or so acquiring tattoos and breaking faces before being recruited by Roy Harper as part of his new Outsiders team. Though Grace’s face-breaking abilities continued to be extremely effective, her abrasive personality didn’t win her many friends at first. Still, she stayed with this incarnation of the Outsiders longer than any other member, and even wound up in the world’s cutest relationship with fellow Outsider Thunder.
As time went on, more about Grace’s past was revealed: namely, that her mother had been a member of the Bana-Mighdall tribe, a rebellious offshoot of the Amazons. This only kinda sorta explained her powers (most Banas don’t have any), but it did give her an excuse to pal around with Wonder Woman, so there’s that.
When last seen in the old DCU, Grace was still with Anissa and both had rejoined the Outsiders under Anissa’s father, Black Lightning.
So What’s So Great About Her?
There’s a scene early in the third volume of Outsiders where Grace catches a plane. And I don’t mean she books a flight on JetBlue for a weekend getaway in Aruba. I mean she braces herself against Thunder and catches a freaking fighter jet with her bare hands. No easy feat, but that’s Grace: six feet and some-odd inches of muscle, tats, and sheer grit.
The great thing about Grace is how physical she is. She’s one of the few women in comics who is usually drawn with actual muscles – her abs and biceps are almost always clearly defined, while her female cohorts are drawn with smooth, slender limbs and torsos. She’s got definitely-wasn’t-born-with-it red hair and a whole canvas worth of body art. She’s big, she’s tough, and she’s never afraid to get loud. The fact that she’s Asian American makes this particularly refreshing; unlike so many women of Asian descent in comics, she’s not a ninja or a Dragon Lady, but a fierce, fearless brawler.
She’s also very up front about sex: namely, that she likes it and that she’s had a lot of it. But here again she dodges a stereotype, because while she clearly enjoys no-strings sex and has had flings with several male heroes, she’s also fully committed to her relationship with Anissa. She’s not a damaged woman who has one night stands because she’s not in touch with her feeeeeelings; she likes sex, with or without love. Yeah, bad stuff has happened to her, but it doesn’t definite her character or her relationships. Revolutionary!
All told, Grace is a unique character who adds some much-needed diversity to DC’s lineup and is a hell of a lot of fun besides. It’d be great to see her pop up again in the DCnU.
Notable Appearances:
Outsiders v3 #1-50
Amazons Attack #3-6
Outsiders: Five of a Kind: Wonder Woman/Grace
Batman and the Outsiders v2 #1-12
