Black Orchid
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- This article discusses a DC Comics character. For the Doctor Who serial see Black Orchid (Doctor Who).
Black Orchid is a fictional superheroine published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Adventure Comics #428 (1973).
Although she has a number of superpowers -- she can fly and is nigh-invulnerable -- her main ability is a mastery of disguise. She often spends an entire investigation impersonating an insignificant background female, such as a maid, a secretary, someone's girlfriend, et cetera, and the other characters only discover her involvement at the end of the story upon finding the abandoned disguise with her calling card, a black orchid.
After appearing in Adventure Comics #428-#430, the character next appeared as a backup feature in The Phantom Stranger #31-#41 (1974-1976), after which the character appeared only sporadically, such as an occasional cameo in comic books as diverse as the Crisis on Infinite Earths 12-issue limited series and Blue Devil Annual #1 (both 1985).
In 1988, the character was relaunched in a three-part limited series called Black Orchid which was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean. The miniseries, published under the Vertigo imprint, fleshed out the character considerably, providing an origin story which explained how and why she became known as Black Orchid. It also gave the character a civilian name. The original Black Orchid is killed in this series, and a new one which is a "sister" of sorts to the original is introduced.
An on-going Black Orchid series for Vertigo, featuring the new Black Orchid, ran from 1993 to 1995.