Getting Through The Teenage Air Of Indifference

With Secret Six #26, I really enjoyed seeing Black Alice actually get angry once she figured out why Bane's team had been sent to Skartaris (namely, imperialism). Partially because it reminded me of myself in high school, when we'd learn about something a world power had done to some other group of people, and I'd get self-righteously angry about it. Alice's indignation about it struck me as realistic, and maybe more importantly for the character, she showed a genuine interest in something, besides Ragdoll that is.

Since she's joined the team, Alice has pretty much treated the whole thing as a game. She complains about the jobs, ignores orders, seems to flirt with Ragdoll around Bane just to rile him. When she's not acting heedless of consequences, she's usually panicking as the dangers are presented to her bluntly. She was feeling pretty cocky breaking into Belle Reve with Giganta's powers, until Vertigo dropped her. Then she swiped Nightshade's abilities, and the cockiness returned until all the zombies attacked, at which point she could barely calm down enough to use said abilities. She treated finding Catman as a jaunt, until she saw what he did to the first guy he was after.

Not that her reactions are strange. She's an incredibly powerful teenager, and unless she had something happen to her that demonstrates her own mortality, she probably thinks of herself as invincible. She temporarily stole the Spectre's powers and lived to tell about it, that'd be an ego boost for most anyone. At the same time, she's relatively new to the costumed business, particularly the brand the Six engage in, it could be a little much at times. Still, I find it hard to care much about a character that doesn't care about anything. Even Floyd Lawton cares about stuff. Not so much concepts like colonization or imperialism, but there are people he cares about, enough to try and commit acts of what he'd consider kindness. So I appreciated Alice, not sure she can use her powers in Skartaris, picking up a sharpened rock and declaring her intention to fight, because she is definitely not OK with the people of Skartaris being subjugated. She doesn't even know these people, but she thinks it's wrong, and she'll fight for them.