Heather Fox was a meteor-infected activist with the ability to transform into animals by touch.
She is the main antagonist in the Smallville Young Adult novel Animal Rage.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Heather's father Rufus Fox was a cruel man who treated her terribly because he wanted a son instead of her. He took her on hunting trips to "toughen her up" but Heather hated it because she loved animals and didn't want to harm them. Her father kept a room full of animal carcasses as trophies and Heather avoided that room because it caused her pain. When she dreamed, she swore she could hear and feel the screams of the deceased animals.
Heather later moved to Smallville to live with her grandmother to escape from her father's cruelty. Sadly her grandmother had dementia and always stayed in her room, and rarely came out. She became a vegetarian and animal rights activist though her views were seen as extremely single-minded. Others said she couldn't see the necessities of occasionally killing animals.
As part of her diet, Heather was inspired to make her own nutrient drinks. She gathered vegetables from the greenhouse owned by Jodi Melville's family. Unknown to her as well, the vegetables were grown in the same soil with meteor rocks. As a result Heather was able to build up from her initial exposure to the meteorite shower, which had initially cured her of her allergies.
Animal Rage[]
Heather had a rep in school for her strident attitudes about the "criminal" mistreatment of animals by everyone on the planet. Her book bag bore the sticker "Fur is Murder".
One morning, Heather went to the Kent Farm with Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross to meet with Clark Kent to discuss their written assignments for The Torch. Heather wanted to do an article on the county fair. But she was thinking of doing an expose about what modern factory farming does to animals.
She then ranted how animals were overfed was inhumanely cruel. She then questioned Clark about living on a farm and became hostile when Mrs. Kent offered fried chicken from their hen-house. Heather thought the Kents were good people but became enraged when she discovered they ate their own chicken.
After Mr. Kent explained his reasoning for his livestock, Heather's body became rigid with anger and bolted from the kitchen, slamming the screen door in the process. Heather later encountered Clark at Smallville High when he was hanging posters advertising a livestock auction. She called him an animal murderer and pointed an accusing finger at him. This quickly brought him into conflict with Heather Fox.
Clark defended himself saying the poster was for the county fair and he was working with the public speaking competition not the livestock. Heather didn't want to hear him and said he and Luthor should call the writing topic "Man Killer of Wild Animals?" Her face turned red, lips curled back into an angry snarl.
Clark told her to calm down because he didn't know what she was talking about. But Heather spat that he didn't even know that Luthor was providing a special backdrop of murdered, skinned and stuffed pelts of rare animals he hunted. Before she left, Heather told Clark that someday the animals were going to find a way of making him feel what they felt and see how he'll like being the hunted one.
Heather then went to her volunteer job at the Smallville Animal Shelter and sat on a bench across the street, still angry at Clark and his family. Her anger caused her skin to have a crawly feeling. She thought they were her allergies but she claimed they were gone when she became a vegetarian.
She knew the itchy sensation would get so bad that it'd feel as if her bones were vibrating deep inside. Moaning low, Heather grabbed her bag and reached for a box of spinach-alfalfa tablets and bottle of Green Heart juice blend. Heather held the bottle up to the sunset watching the liquid sparkle with its eerie inner light. Not realizing that glow was actually radiation from green meteor rocks.
When Aunt Nell forces Lana to enter an oration contest sponsored by Lionel Luthor, Clark found himself caught up in the preparations. Heather gained control of her long-developing shape-shifting abilities, which allowed her to shape-shift into any animal live or dead she touched. However, while dealing with Heather's harassment in school is one thing, it was quite another when she discovers an ability to become any animal she touches.
Abusing her new powers, Heather staged a one-woman terror spree against any she feels have wronged animals. But her attacks were becoming more violent, and she's losing more of herself to the beasts each time. Clark was presented with a genuine challenge for once.
Heather's attacks could injure him because of the meteor rocks in her system, and in nature, she had an almost limitless array of beasts to choose from. Clark's method of dealing with her is clever, and at the same time, gave Lionel a much needed comeuppance.
Heather came across as both obnoxious and absurdly naive. She should have been aware of the necessities of farm life. As it was, her struggles against her rising animal natures were tearing her apart. Becoming what she hated, a killer of animals, was palpable. Her lack of integrity, when it surfaces involving a whippet, was a telling sign that she's not as holier than thou as she likes to believe.