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| Debrii is best known for how cool she looks in this image |
Name: Deborah Fields
First Appearance: New Warriors #4 (2005)
History: Nothing is known about the background of Debrii or how she acquired her powers. What we do know is that she was hired to join a recently rebooted version of the New Warriors who were being filmed for a reality television show. Her inclusion was meant to create drama, as she was the only member of the team who was not hand selected by leader Night Thrasher but instead the producers who wanted to create conflict. Debrorah is often referred to be a “low-level telekinetic magnet”, which means that while she has telekinetic abilities she is limited to only being able to lift small things. However, she is not limited by the number of small things she can lift and is able to use her ability to affect various debris in many different offensive and defensive ways. She served on the team until the show’s cancelation, choosing not to rejoin the team when they reformed for a new TV series, the exact version that lead directly to Civil War.
Beta Says: I’ve thought about writing about Debrii every year for the last ten, and what kept me from doing so tended to be ether a) I thought of a more interesting character to write about, or b) I just didn’t feel there was enough about her to warrant the effort. Her lack of origin isn’t simply a writing choice on my part; as far as I’ aware, Marvel has never gone into detail about her background or how she got her powers. She’s a decent example of a black character who falls off the radar once their original book ends, though she shows up a bit over the next six years of her existent. Ultimately she ended up being one of many pre-Miss Marvel young characters that were introduce in the 2000s only to have fallen by the wayside in the subsequent decades. The difference with Debrii is that she almost found herself as a main character in a adaptation that likely would have completely changed her level of notoriety. Almost.
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| Why is she a minor character again? |
As indicated, Debrii is a character that was created for the New Warriors. Now, I’ve talked about them before, and numerous members of the team have appeared in Black Superheroes Month. The version she debuted in was during a time where the team was being used a reality television show. This take didn’t last long and, indeed, the book ended shortly after Deborah joined the team. If not for events we’ll talk about shortly, that would have been it; a short lived comic, a couple of new character, nothing to write home about. The most interesting thing about Debrii at this time was her excellent character design by co-creator Skottie Young.
After that run ended, the New Warriors were used as a catalyst for the crossover event Civil War. Now, I have written a lot of this crossover, particularly waaaaay back in my 299th and 300th blogs, but if you don’t want to check those out the short version is that Marvel Comics wanted to take the books in a different direction, both storyline and business-wise, and elected to run a plotline where the US government create a Superhuman Registration Act and the superhero community is split down the middle and the heroes end up going to war against each other. But to get the story rolling, Marvel opted to have a group of young, foolish heroes to make a huge miscalculation that would lead to the government to making a drastic decision.
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| A few months before everything was ruined forever |
And thus, The New Warriors, still trying to be TV stars, tried to take on supervillain Nitro and ended up killing themselves and over 600 people, and about 60 children, in the process. This was flashpoint that changed the direction of Marvel Comics and the effects still being felt today, both in out of the books. And it came abut because of an insanely bad blunder on the teams’ part. This was Debrii’s team, but for whatever reason she happened to not be on the roster at that time and was spared, basically the lone survivor of the team lowest point (well, her and Speedball but Marvel ruined him for while during this storyline).
So, how is she handled in the ensuing storyline? Well, basically she gets “cancelled” by the civilians of the Marvel Universe and ends up joining Captain America’s group of outlaw heroes. After Iron Man’s side wins the war, she joined the Initiative, a training ground of young and rookie heroes who have submitted to the SHRA where she played a fairly big role in the early storylines, alongside fellow ex-New Warriors Slapstick and Rage.
And since then…not a who lot going on. Ove the next few years Debrii would be in and out of the books, usually briefly showing up in situations that called for an ensemble of young heroes, but has never again had a spotlight on her, as he last major appearance seems to be in 2011 during the Fear Itself storyline, so she’s been MIA longer than she was being published at this point.
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| Wow! A TV show based on NW and GLA- Aaand it's canceled |
The world is a funny place sometimes, because Debrii came very close to having all of this turned around for her a few years back. As part of their greater Marvel Cinematic Universe series of shows, a pilot was filmed for a New Warriors TV show. Despite the show being equally influenced by the comedy book Great Lakes Avengers and it clearly being a vehicle for the rising star Squirrel Girl, against all odds Debrii was part of the cast. Played by Kate Comer, I have no doubt that if this show had been greenlit Marvel would have happily brought Deborah back immediately as part of a revamped New Warriors book. But it wasn’t greenlit; despite apparently testing very well, its planned home of Freefall opted not to move forward with it, and the creators were unsuccessful in selling it elsewhere. We don’t 100% know why the show wasn’t picked up, but whatever the reason Debrii has continued to languish in obscurity.
As of this writing, the biggest spotlight Debrii has had was being an unexpected additional to the Marvel Snap digital card game, and as someone who plays the game daily, I can tell you that her card is quite popular amongst players. But being popular in a mid-sized game community doesn’t move the needle. Even so, I think we could stand to see her back in the comics. Because Marvel never bothered to give her a backstory, she’s a unique blank slate character who could fit in a variety of roles for a lot of different ensembles. She seems like an easy layup for Marvel to add a little diversity to a team, but whether someone ever takes advantage of that is something we’ll just have to wait and see.
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| Yeah, this doesn't happen in the comic Have fun in Marvel Snap, though |
For more on Debrii check out World of Black Heroes. Next time, for our final profile of the year, we look at a character who in the last few years has become one of the most high-profile black heroes of the day but has been heavily hampered by good old fashion sexism.
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