Scorcher is an Infernian extremist in National City. She attempted to assassinate President Olivia Marsdin in opposition to the Alien Amnesty Act, but failed.

Biography

In 2016, Scorcher attacks secret service agents and nearly kills Olivia Marsdin before Supergirl shields her with her cape. Later, Olivia gives a speech to a crowd about the Amnesty Act and begins to sign the bill. Suddenly, she is attacked again by Scorcher, who takes out multiple secret service agents, Supergirl, and Alex Danvers. Maggie Sawyer attempts to apprehend her, but Scorcher grabs her gun. Scorcher ties up Maggie and tells her that she is pathetic for fighting for aliens and tells her that she believes amnesty is just a form of registration. Supergirl arrives and blasts Scorcher with heat vision, which Scorcher reciprocates. She then blasts Maggie and Alex and does battle with Supergirl. Supergirl uses her cold breath to encase Scorcher in ice. Scorcher melts the ice and they fight again. Supergirl flies in circles around Scorcher to create a vacuum, negating her fire powers. Maggie grabs a gun and arrests her.^[1]

Powers and abilities

Powers

• Infernian physiology: Like every Infernian, Scorcher has special abilities.^[1]

  

  • Pyrokinesis: Scorcher is able to manipulate fire.^[1]
    • Pyrogenesis: Scorcher is able to generate fire from her body, which she can form into fireballs. She can also produce enough heat to cause solar-powered Kryptonians mild pain.^[1]
      • Heat vision: Scorcher is able to shoot concentrated fiery beams out of her eyes, which could be strong enough to physically repel a Kryptonian. It is similarly reciprocated by Kryptonian heat vision as well.^[1]
  • Enhanced strength: Scorcher possesses sufficient strength to put up a fight against solar-powered Kryptonians, but is not quite as strong as them.^[1]
  • Enhanced durability: Scorcher is more durable than humans, able to withstand repetitive hits from several sources. However, she is not bulletproof and can be knocked down even by humans with enough force. Scorcher is also heat and fireproof.^[1]

Abilities

• Expert hand-to-hand combatant: Scorcher is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant.^[1]

Weaknesses

• Vacuum: A vacuum negates Scorcher's fire-based powers, as they cannot burn in such a space.^[1]

Appearances

Supergirl

Season 2

• "Welcome to Earth"

Trivia

• After Mercy Graves revealed Olivia Marsdin to be an alien, the latter was forced to resign and the Alien Amnesty Act subsequently came under fire. Thus, given Scorcher's belief of the president being a hypocrite and humans inherently fearing aliens, it's possible her "assassination attempt" was actually a gambit to expose Olivia's true identity.
• Ironically, Scorchers fears came true with the emergence of the Children of Liberty, an anti-alien organization overseen by Lex Luthor.

Behind the scenes

• There are several characters, mostly super-villains, with the name Scorcher in the DC comics, though only three are female and are related to the element of fire:
  • Cynthia Brand debuted in Scare Tactics #3 (February, 1997) and was created by Len Kaminski and Anthony Williams.
  • An unnamed woman, who was a member of the super-villain team known as Dark Nemesis, debuted in Teen Titans vol. 2, #7 (April, 1997). The character was created by Dan Jurgens and George Pérez.
  • Aubrey Sparks (also known as Scorch) debuted in Superman vol. 2 #160 (September, 2000) and was created by John DeMatteis and Mike Miller.
• Scorcher resembles in appearance another super-villain and enemy of Superman from the DC universe, Claire Selton a.k.a. Volcana. The character first appeared in Superman: The Animated Series, in the episode "Where There's Smoke", voiced by Peri Gilpin. Besides from the similar skillset, both characters have red hair and wear clothes with color themes of different variations of red.

References