Profile: Diamond Lil

Lillian Crawley-Jeffries, Diamond Lil
First appearance: Alpha Flight #1 Vol. 1, August 1983. She is the ladyfriend/wife of Madison Jeffries.

Current status: after taking up a sanctuary offer with the Xavier Institute post-House of M, she was among several to leave the grounds along with a strange figure called Mister M.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrimination: from what I can tell of her background, she seems to have been a character who underwent a lot of suffering. She also joined up with the supercrook team of Omega Flight, a rival of Alpha’s, but was later pardoned for it. The most bizarre story was probably when she was discovered to have developed what was initially thought to be a kind of breast cancer tumor, and the problem was that her skin was too hard to penetrate in order to analyze the problem. It was after an alien encounter that she obtained a tool to do so properly, but it turned out to be just an infected cyst. She’d also been exploited by the (Canadian) government.

What’s wrong with how this was done? The supposed breast cancer she developed and the need for proper surgery is so bizarre, it’s…well, ridiculous! And that alone for now is the best example of excessive storytelling I can find here.

Of all the characters to inhabit Alpha Flight, I figure Lillian probably had it the worst.