Selena Lionheart

Little is known about the woman who calls herself Selena Lionheart except that her real name may be Betty Munroe and that she was raised in an orphanage somewhere in the Midwest. Betty ran away from the orphanage at the age of 16 sometime in the mid 1970’s and made her way to San Francisco. There she got lost in the counter-culture of the time.

Around 1975, Betty met a man who called himself Dionysus and who claimed to be the High Priest of a coven of witches who call themselves the Wise Fools. Dionysus taught Selena his particular brand of witchcraft which stressed reaching levels of Higher Consciousness through ritual sex and the use of drugs such as Tannis Root and Ayahuasca. It was during this time that plain old Betty Munroe learned that she had an aptitude for magic. Betty transformed herself into Selena Lionheart and pronounced her self to be the Priestess of Sekhmet, the Lion-Headed Goddess of Ancient Egypt.

For a time, Selena was happy being with Dionysus and assisted him in leading the Wise Fools. When shewasn’t with Dionysus, Selena could be found telling fortunes in Golden Gate Park or among the stacks of the San Francisco Public Library reading about magic and witchcraft. It was during this time that Selena learned she could make more money telling people what they wanted to hear rather than the truth. Hustling her clients with small time cons and candle scams became rather profitable for her.

It was during the ritual celebration of the Blood Moon  that the course of Selena’s life took a turn for the worse. Dionysus, her lover and Priest, died of an accidental overdose after ingesting a fatal amount of Ayahuasca. Being an underage runaway and having no desire to return to the orphanage Selena packed her bags and disappeared again taking with her the stash box in which Dionysus kept his drugs as a memento of their love. Later, Selena would fabricate a story about this stash-box being an ancient artifact of mystical origin which she called the Coffer of Shadow.

Selena resurfaced a few months later in a section of Gotham City known as The Village. Selena met Jon Billings in Gotham Park one day where he found her offering tarot reading. Billings, a professor of psychology at Gotham State University, became smitten with Selena and it wasn’t long before she moved into his apartment.

Billings considered himself an adept Sorcerer. Selena convinced Billings to teach her sorcery. Billings put Selena through several rituals which he claimed were to prepare her for uniting with her Higher Self. While Billings was at work one day Selena took the opportunity to study his personal Grimoire---something which he had forbidden her to do. Reading the rituals Billings had lead her through, Selena realized that Billings was preparing her to be a human sacrifice for the demon Nebrios.

Using the Grimoire as a guide, Selena summoned Nebrios and offered up Billings’ soul in exchange for power. Nebrios admired her viciousness and the pact was sealed. Billings died of a stroke that day and once again Selena disappeared taking Billings’ Grimoire with her.

Having tasted real power, Selena wasn’t satisfied with what had been given her and so she sought out those she believed could give her more power. Everywhere she went Selena made it a practice to seek out powerful men for their knowledge and then leave them as soon as she felt that she had outgrown them.

Selena met her final mentor, Nigel Lovecraft, while reading tea-leaves in Lake Tahoe where he was on vacation. Nigel impressed Selena with his knowledge of Ceremonial Magic and it wasn’t hard for her to convince him to take her back to Midvale with him. Whereas Selena found it easy to manipulate Nigel, getting him to reveal the inner-most secret of black-magic was another matter.

Frustrated with Nigel’s lack of sharing his knowledge, Selena began attending meetings of the Psychical Research Society of America (PRSA) in hopes of finding someone more forthcoming. It was at these meetings that Selena met Bianca Versace and eventually the two became roommates. Bianca taught Selena what she knew about Stregheria (Italian Witchcraft) and even allowed Selena access to her family’s extensive occult collection of Grimoires and personal magical diaries. In return Selena made a decent enough living to cover their expenses by telling fortunes out of an office she set up on the fairgrounds.

Selena eventually came into possession of a piece of alien technology in the form of a crystalline sphere. It was later identified as an omegahedron by Supergirl who had come from another dimension to retrieve the mystery ball. The omegahedron was a power-source vital to her home-world, but in Selena’s hands it became a powerful force of magic.

Selena became aware of Supergirl’s existence on Earth when the heroine interfered in her plans to seduce Ethan, a local landscaper. Selena tricked Ethan to her fun-house, where she lived, with the prospect of hiring him as a landscaper. She secretly fed Ethan a love potion which rendered him unconscious and he wandered away while Selena was temporarily distracted. Selena scryed out his location in her magic mirror and called upon the power of shadow to bring him back. The spell animated a nearby bulldozer which pursued Ethan. After tearing apart a portion of the business district along Main Street the bulldozer captured Ethan inside its jaws.

A bystander interfered with the spell by climbing inside the bulldozer in attempt to bring its path of destruction to an end, which caused Selena to lose control of the bulldozer. Selena and her cohort Bianca watched as Supergirl appeared out of seemingly nowhere to save the bystanders from the effects of the bulldozer’s rampage. Once Supergirl secured the scene, she removed the jaws of the bulldozer to a safe location and freed Ethan.

Upon awakening from his potion-induced stupor, Ethan laid eyes on Linda Lee and subsequently fell in love with her. Enraged, Selena called upon the power of shadow to take the form of a destructive invisible force to destroy Linda. Supergirl interfered and, after a brief but hard-fought battle, defeated Selena’s demonic creation. Afterward Selena spied Linda Lee snooping around the fun-house, followed by a love-sick Ethan. When Selena confronted the couple, Supergirl interfered and removed the two to safety.

Desperate to defeat her enemy and master her newfound powers Selena called upon Nigel for assistance once again. Nigel brought Selena a special wand that allowed her channel the power of shadow more directly. Selena and Nigel were successful in teleporting Ethan back to the fun-house in hopes that Supergirl would come to save him and fall into their trap. Nigel didn’t trust Selena completely, but little did he know that she would betray him so soon. In a moment of passion, she snatched the Burundi Wand out of his hands and turned its power on him. Weak and helpless he could only stand by as Selena transformed her home into a castle stronghold high atop a mountain in the center of town.

When Supergirl arrived to save Ethan, Selena cleverly banished Supergirl to a dimension where her powers abandoned her. With Supergirl trapped in the Phantom Zone and Superman on a diplomatic mission in a galaxy several hundred trillion light years away there was no one to oppose Selena’s will. She quickly overtook the town and intended to expand her power until she had achieved nothing less than world domination.

Before Selena could achieve her sick dream Supergirl found a way out of the Phantom Zone and returned to Earth with her powers restored. Supergirl confronted Selena who called upon the full power of the Coffer of Shadow which had grown to gigantic proportions. Supergirl fought Selena’s evil creation and would surely have been defeated had Ethan not been able to sever Selena’s connection to her power-source. Supergirl used the opportunity to sweep Selena, Bianca, and her monstrous creation into the Phantom Zone and sealed the portal between dimensions. After Selena’s defeat everything returned to normal.

Nigel Lovecraft