Freefall (comics)
Encyclopedia
Freefall is the code name of a fictional comic book
character Roxanne "Roxy" Spaulding from Wildstorm Comics. She is a member of the superhero team Gen¹³
.
in San Antonio, Texas
. Gloria was the daughter of the base commander. Despite her father's dislike of Alex, Gloria and Alex grew close, but soon Alex was called away on another secret mission. Gloria, who had become pregnant, had no way of contacting him. Gloria later married another man and told everyone, including her daughter Roxanne, that the child was merely her stepchild.
Details on Roxy's life before coming to Project: Genesis are sketchy. But a picture of her past can be gleaned from comments Freefall makes over the course of the series.
During a dream sequence Roxy is called "trailer trash" by classmates from her Catholic school
. This, along with Roxy's habit of sometimes wearing a crucifix
necklace and comments during some conversations confirmed that she was raised a Catholic
, though her behavior indicates that she is a lapsed Catholic
.
Freefall tends to speak with something of a valley girl
accent, hinting that she may have grown up somewhere in Southern California
, though she visited her mother when staying in New York City
. In Las Vegas
Roxy had missed her mother by mere hours at a casino she had been working at. This could be a hint that Gloria Spaulding has a tendency to move often.
, thought that their children had inherited their powers and started Project: Genesis, testing and recruiting children who were gen-active from all over the United States
. Roxy is the youngest member of Gen¹³. She managed to escape Project: Genesis with them after they found out that the I.O. was planning to enslave them. During their escape, Roxy's powers manifestated: she was now capable of manipulating gravity and took the codename Freefall. Roxy became infatuated with fellow teammate, Grunge
, whom she sees as "the man of her dreams". She developed a jealousy of her statuesque teammate, Caitlin Fairchild
, who is often ogled by Grunge, even though she likes Caitlin a lot.
During her time in Gen¹³, Roxy would find out that Alex Fairchild was her father and that her teammate Fairchild was her half-sister. She would also learn that the woman she thought was her foster mother was in fact her birth mother. Roxy was deeply upset that her mother had lied to her for her entire life, even if the lies had been meant to protect her. However, the two did eventually mend fences. It also led to frictions between her and Alex Fairchild, who had become the team's mentor. After Alex explained to her that he had no way of knowing about her, she came to accept him as a father, but Alex died protecting the team shortly afterwards.
Over the next few months, Roxy had a lot of arguments with her teammates, who had always had difficulties understanding Roxy's infatuation with Grunge, her smoking habits, and her general attitude. Their concerns were proven correct when Roxy found out that Grunge had been having an affair with Swift
from The Authority. Despite this all, Roxy was still in love with Grunge. During this time, Roxy also became a bit of an otaku
, with a great love for J-pop
music and anime
.
Roxy was thought to be killed in an explosion with the rest of Gen¹³, but in fact, Gen¹³ had been displaced to an alternate universe
and they returned to their own Earth months later.
and with art by Talent Caldwell
has been announced for mid-2006. Freefall is still a member, albeit she goes by her first name, Roxy. A rebooted Roxy is here described as the aftereffect of a bald-faced attempt at clonation and gene splicing by Tabula Rasa, an off-shot of I.O. When the first part of the experiment ends, and she's abducted and brought back to tabula rasa with the current Gens, now boys and girls experimented upon as she was, she escapes with them.
She later participates to the activities of the group, namely escaping from I.O., facing a group of teenagers from an alternative universe based on the Authority and another batch of I.O. clones sent to apprehend her teammates.
During her adventures, Roxy is revealed to be, as well as her other Gen¹³ teammates, the recipient of the soul of her original namesake, collected by the Doctor and restored in the new body. However, in this life all the Gens exhibit different tendencies, becoming progressively their own persons.
During the World's End events, Roxy is the first to witness the devastation brought on Earth, after a teletransport mishap left the entire team frozen for months. Emotionally shattered, she tries to cope and help the team to survive. Pressured to share her fantasies about the post-atomic world as a way to crack the tension, she reveals to have none: she just wanted to have had more time to live a happier and more peaceful adolescence, becoming a better student, a beloved cheerleader and growing up in a caring family: things she feels she'll never have again.
.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
character Roxanne "Roxy" Spaulding from Wildstorm Comics. She is a member of the superhero team Gen¹³
Gen¹³
Gen¹³ is a fictional superhero team and comic book series originally written by Jim Lee and Brandon Choi and illustrated by J. Scott Campbell. It was originally published by Image Comics under the banner Wildstorm, which went on to become an imprint for DC Comics, who continued publishing the Gen¹³...
.
Early life
Roxy is the daughter of Team 7 member Alex Fairchild and Gloria Spaulding. The two met when Alex was a soldier, stationed at Kelly Air Force BaseKelly Air Force Base
Kelly Field Annex and is a former United States Air Force facility located in San Antonio, Texas. In 2001, the runway and land west of the runway became "Kelly Field Annex" and control of it was transferred to the adjacent Lackland Air Force Base, part of Joint Base San Antonio...
in San Antonio, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. Gloria was the daughter of the base commander. Despite her father's dislike of Alex, Gloria and Alex grew close, but soon Alex was called away on another secret mission. Gloria, who had become pregnant, had no way of contacting him. Gloria later married another man and told everyone, including her daughter Roxanne, that the child was merely her stepchild.
Details on Roxy's life before coming to Project: Genesis are sketchy. But a picture of her past can be gleaned from comments Freefall makes over the course of the series.
During a dream sequence Roxy is called "trailer trash" by classmates from her Catholic school
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...
. This, along with Roxy's habit of sometimes wearing a crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
necklace and comments during some conversations confirmed that she was raised a Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
, though her behavior indicates that she is a lapsed Catholic
Lapsed Catholic
A lapsed Catholic is a person who has ceased practicing the Catholic faith, in the sense of attending Mass. Such a person may still identify as a Catholic.-"Lapsed Catholic" and "ex-Catholic":...
.
Freefall tends to speak with something of a valley girl
Valley girl
Valley Girl is a stereotype leveled at a socio-economic and ethnic class of American women who can be described as colloquial English-speaking and materialistic...
accent, hinting that she may have grown up somewhere in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, though she visited her mother when staying in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
Roxy had missed her mother by mere hours at a casino she had been working at. This could be a hint that Gloria Spaulding has a tendency to move often.
The Gen¹³ Project
Roxy's father, Alex, was exposed to the Gen-factor, a substance which gave him and his fellow Team 7 members superhuman powers. Team 7's superiors, International OperationsInternational Operations
International Operations is a fictional American Intelligence Agency in Wildstorm comics. I.O. first appeared in WildC.A.T.S. volume 1 #1 and was created by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee.-International Operations:...
, thought that their children had inherited their powers and started Project: Genesis, testing and recruiting children who were gen-active from all over the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Roxy is the youngest member of Gen¹³. She managed to escape Project: Genesis with them after they found out that the I.O. was planning to enslave them. During their escape, Roxy's powers manifestated: she was now capable of manipulating gravity and took the codename Freefall. Roxy became infatuated with fellow teammate, Grunge
Grunge (comics)
Grunge is the codename of Percival Edmund Chang, a fictional comic book character from DC Comics/Wildstorm, and is a member of the superhero team Gen¹³.-Character history:Philip Chang sent his son into hiding while he was still an infant...
, whom she sees as "the man of her dreams". She developed a jealousy of her statuesque teammate, Caitlin Fairchild
Caitlin Fairchild
Caitlin Fairchild is a fictional comic book superhero, who appears in the Wildstorm series Gen¹³. She was created by writers Jim Lee and Brandon Choi, and artist J. Scott Campbell.-Early life:Fairchild is the daughter of Alex Fairchild of Team 7...
, who is often ogled by Grunge, even though she likes Caitlin a lot.
Life after the project
Gen¹³ relocated to San Diego after their escape and one evening, Roxy sneaked out of the house to go to a dance club called The Soil Machine. In the club, she found the alien, Queelocke, who was hunted by alien bounty hunters. Gen¹³'s mentor, John Lynch, noticed the aliens arriving on Earth and sent the rest of Gen¹³ to help Roxy. They drove back the bounty hunters and the Queelocke became Roxy's pet. Shortly afterwards, Grunge finally returned her affections and the two became romantically involved. However, Grunge was unfaithful, insensitive and immature and their relationship often broke apart.During her time in Gen¹³, Roxy would find out that Alex Fairchild was her father and that her teammate Fairchild was her half-sister. She would also learn that the woman she thought was her foster mother was in fact her birth mother. Roxy was deeply upset that her mother had lied to her for her entire life, even if the lies had been meant to protect her. However, the two did eventually mend fences. It also led to frictions between her and Alex Fairchild, who had become the team's mentor. After Alex explained to her that he had no way of knowing about her, she came to accept him as a father, but Alex died protecting the team shortly afterwards.
Over the next few months, Roxy had a lot of arguments with her teammates, who had always had difficulties understanding Roxy's infatuation with Grunge, her smoking habits, and her general attitude. Their concerns were proven correct when Roxy found out that Grunge had been having an affair with Swift
Swift (comics)
Swift is a fictional comic book superhero in the Wildstorm universe, published by DC Comics. Swift first appeared in Stormwatch #28 and was created by Jeff Mariotte and Ron Lim...
from The Authority. Despite this all, Roxy was still in love with Grunge. During this time, Roxy also became a bit of an otaku
Otaku
is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga or video games.- Etymology :Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family , which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun...
, with a great love for J-pop
J-pop
, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music, such as The Beatles, and replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene...
music and anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
.
Roxy was thought to be killed in an explosion with the rest of Gen¹³, but in fact, Gen¹³ had been displaced to an alternate universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
and they returned to their own Earth months later.
Worldstorm
A new Gen¹³-series, written by Gail SimoneGail Simone
Gail Simone is an American writer of comic books. Best known for penning DC's Birds of Prey, her other notable works include Secret Six, Welcome to Tranquility, The All-New Atom, and Deadpool. In 2007, she took over Wonder Woman...
and with art by Talent Caldwell
Talent Caldwell
Talent Caldwell is a comic book artist best known for his work on the Top Cow Productions character Fathom. He has also drawn for DC Comics' Superman and Marvel Comics' Spider-Man characters.-Biography:...
has been announced for mid-2006. Freefall is still a member, albeit she goes by her first name, Roxy. A rebooted Roxy is here described as the aftereffect of a bald-faced attempt at clonation and gene splicing by Tabula Rasa, an off-shot of I.O. When the first part of the experiment ends, and she's abducted and brought back to tabula rasa with the current Gens, now boys and girls experimented upon as she was, she escapes with them.
She later participates to the activities of the group, namely escaping from I.O., facing a group of teenagers from an alternative universe based on the Authority and another batch of I.O. clones sent to apprehend her teammates.
During her adventures, Roxy is revealed to be, as well as her other Gen¹³ teammates, the recipient of the soul of her original namesake, collected by the Doctor and restored in the new body. However, in this life all the Gens exhibit different tendencies, becoming progressively their own persons.
During the World's End events, Roxy is the first to witness the devastation brought on Earth, after a teletransport mishap left the entire team frozen for months. Emotionally shattered, she tries to cope and help the team to survive. Pressured to share her fantasies about the post-atomic world as a way to crack the tension, she reveals to have none: she just wanted to have had more time to live a happier and more peaceful adolescence, becoming a better student, a beloved cheerleader and growing up in a caring family: things she feels she'll never have again.
Powers
Freefall has the ability to manipulate gravity to various effects. She can nullify gravity beneath her allowing her or others to levitate. She can also increase the gravity around a specific area inflicting damage or just making it impossible for an enemy to move. This ability requires concentration and is exhausting to maintain for long periods of time. It has also been suggested in dialog that if she tried hard enough she could affect gravity to the point of warping spacetimeSpacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
.
Alternate versions
- Roxy becomes an unwilling member of the harem of Spawn, who has become the brutal ruler of Earth in 2015. To deflect male attention, she has starved herself.
- In the new Gen13 series set after Earth suffers a civilization-ending apocalypse, Roxy becomes a new member of STORMWatch.