Profile: Jet

Jet
Real name: Celia Windward
First appearance: Millennium #2, 1988

History: a black woman of Jamaican/British background, she was one of several people chosen to be part of the group of superhumans the Guardians of the GL Corps and Zamarons wanted to create (or, more specifically, Herupa Hando Hu and Nadia Safir), and was granted powers of electromagnetism, pulses and microwaves. She was a cast member of the brief New Guardians series in 1988-89, which was published under the short-lived "New Format" DC sub-label, and was co-created by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton.

Current status: uncertain.

Was subjected to the following acts of discrmination: an attack by a villain called the Hemo-Goblin, sent by the villainous and racist African government bigwig named Janwillem Kroef resulted in her being infected with AIDS (this story element was seemingly meant to address the problems faced at the time), and she fought during the Invasion crossover of 1989 to stop the alien attackers before succumbing altogether to the disease.

What's wrong with how this was done? I think the writers/editors of NG wrote themselves into a corner and got nowhere fast. Why not a story where she not only survived Invasion, but also got cured of what the Hemo-Goblin (who died soon after fighting the NG) infected her with? All they did by knocking her off was make it look like they had no faith in what was already turning out to be a failed spinoff of the Green Lantern mythos (I'm sure it didn't help that a villain like Floronic Man was turned into a cast member). The use of a bizarrely thick accent may not have helped either.

Interestingly enough, she was later seemingly revived in the mid-2000s for "One Year Later". But that was coming on the heels of such a repellent "event" as Identity Crisis, it ruined everything. Since then, she appears to have vanished yet again.