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| “ | Freak! You made me lose my robots! You ruined my operations! You put a target on my back! | „ |
| ~ Livewire lashing out against Superman. |
| “ | You got scared. But love is not for cowards. Sometimes you have to put it all on the line to be with the person you love. Working together to rob the woman who kidnapped you. | „ |
| ~ Livewire to Lois Lane. |
Leslie Willis, also known as Livewire, is a major antagonist in Season 1 and a supporting character in Season 2 of the 2023 superhero cartoon series My Adventures with Superman.
She is a highly intelligent mercenary and thief who specializes in stealing technology, and wields a powerful suit granting her electro kinetic abilities, though her powers eventually evolve to the point she doesn't need the suit.
She is voiced by Zehra Fazal, who also voiced Talia al Ghul in Catwoman: Hunted, Jataaka in Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match, and General Yunan in Amphibia.
Appearance[]
Livewire is a woman with dark skin, blonde hair with a darker undercut, and blue eyes.
Personality[]
While the comics Livewire is egotistical and in need of attention, this adaptation of her is much more serious, not caring about being in the spotlight. That said, she is still selfish, ruthless and sadistic, being willing to blow up half of Metropolis. She is also greedy, seeking to steal and sell technology to get richer and more powerful. She eventually develops a hatred of Superman, calling him a "freak" due to his powers and being against her. Despite this, she also seems to care for Intergang and Heat Wave, given how she saved them and escaped with them and especially with Heat Wave being her romantic partner.
History[]
Backstory[]
Prior to the series, Leslie Willis gained a reputation and an infamous thief and mercenary. With aid from a group of hired mercenaries, she would eventually break into Mt. Simonson Base, an inventory warehouse for experimental military technology, robbing several shipments of advanced weaponry. Leslie and her gang subsequently brought their weapons to Metropolis in order to sell them off.
Season 1[]
"Adventures of a Normal Man"[]
Leslie is first seen driving in a garbage truck concealing a shipment of weapons, nearly running over Jimmy Olsen, which Clark Kent prevents using his super-speed. Leslie returns to the warehouse where she and her gang have stored their weapons, and approaches her second-in-command Badger. She informs him that their buyer has backed out of their deal, and that every buyer, fixer and fence in Metropolis has disappeared on them.
Badger questions what they should do now; Leslie sarcastically telling him to panic in front of the thieves and killers they have hired. She declares that they need to keep moving, and find a way to get their weapons out of Metropolis. Just then, one of the gang members, Brad, is attacked by one of the stolen robots after activating it, forcing Leslie to shut it down. Leslie announces to her gang that their operation has hit a snag, and that they must follow her orders to get paid—instructing them to load up the weapons, as they are moving to plan B. Meanwhile, Clark and Jimmy, under Lois Lane's guidance, decide to investigate the weapon thefts for the Daily Planet; although Clark gives up when he realizes that Lois tricked him into thinking they were performing an official investigation.
Lois and Jimmy track the weapon shipments to the docks, where Leslie notices them. She orders her henchmen to take care of the two, resulting in one of them activating a robot, to her annoyance. Clark hears about the robot from the Newskid Legion member Flip and defeats the robot using his superpowers, disguising himself with a workman's uniform. Leslie and Badger witness this; the former cowardly abandoning her upon seeing the robot defeated. She quickly decides on a new plan and activates all the robots at once, sending them after Clark. Lois and Clark manage to respectively deactivate and defeat the robots, although Leslie manages to escape.
The next day, special ops agents begin attempting to hunt Leslie down, forcing her to lay low. After easily defeating two of them, she steals one of their earpieces to speak to their employer. She declares that she is tired of being hounded by them and their "flying freak", and so offers to meet with the agents' employer alone at the City Bistro, or else they won't see their tech again. Simultaneously, Lois and Jimmy try to track Leslie down as a lead for their Superman story, while Clark decides to learn more about his powers and origins by investigating the ship that brought him to Earth; Lois and Jimmy follow Leslie's trail into the sewers and discover that she has planted countless explosives, while Clark learns of his Kryptonian origins and receives a costume for himself.
At the City Bistro, she meets with the one who has been pursuing her, Agent Slade Wilson, and attempts to cut a deal with him; offering the stolen technology in exchange for being left alone. Slade laughs her proposition off, claiming that she has no idea what kind of technology she is dealing with. Leslie then reveals that she has planted explosives across the city and is prepared to set them off. Slade offers to listen to her, but before their deal can go any further, Lois and Jimmy appear out of a nearby sewer grate. Believing that she has been set up, she kicks Slade away and prepares to activate her denotator. Slade knocks it away from her, and Leslie reveals that she is wearing a suit possessing electro kinetic abilities, using them to blast Slade away.
Leslie continues her battle with Slade, throwing a truck at him, Lois and Jimmy, which is stopped by Superman. Leslie then turns her attention to Superman, blaming him for her current situation. She attempts to detonate her explosives using a blast of electricity, which Superman prevents, injuring himself in the process. Leslie prepares to finish Superman off, until Slade attacks the battery powering her suit. The suit's power begins to overload, causing Leslie to lose control of her abilities and begin to mutate. Superman tries to intervene, and Leslie declares that if she is going down, she will take him with her. Superman instead removes Leslie's suit, causing her to power down and fall unconscious. However, moments after Superman sets her down, she mysteriously disappears.
Later on, Leslie—still partially mutated and fused with her suit—awakes to find herself bound in an interrogation room. Slade talks to her from outside and informs her that they have discovered the rest of her explosives, and that her plan has failed. She responds the her explosives were a distraction, and that their technology has now been carted off by every low-level criminal in Metropolis. Slade is unconcerned by this and begins asking a clueless Leslie what she knows about Nemesis Omega, Zero Day, Task Force X, and finally the "flying man", torturing her into compliance with a shock collar. Terrified, Leslie says that she believed that Superman was with Slade, and asks who her captors are. Slade, joined by Amanda Waller and the General, replies that they are the good guys and demands to know everything she knows about Superman.
Following Leslie's capture, she would be nicknamed "Livewire" by Jimmy on his conspiracy blog Flamebird. At the same time, several criminals would begin using the technology provided by Leslie to begin committing crimes, including a group of small-time criminals named Intergang, who attempted to use her technology to become respected criminals; Anthony Ivo, the CEO of AmazoTech who used Leslie's technology to create the Parasite 1.0 armor; and Heat Wave, a small-time criminal seeking to escape Metropolis. These criminals would subsequently be hunted down and kidnapped by Slade Wilson under orders from Waller and the General, just as Leslie had been.
"Zero Day"[]
In this two-parter, the General and Waller recruit all the criminals they kidnapped - excluding Mist, who ran away - into Task Force X so they could take down Superman. When he finds the ship they're on, he is attacked by everyone at once, including Livewire. While he eventually gains the strength to fight back against most of them, Ivo's Parasite armor proves too much and he is defeated. All the criminals are then imprisoned again.
While in imprisonment, Livewire realises her powers are still working. Once Waller turns the cameras off (apparently as part of her plan to take control over Task Force X), she uses this to break out and free everyone else. After fighting off Wilson and various guards, Livewire escapes with Intergang and Heat Wave while Parasite goes to fight and kill Superman.
Season 2[]
"Fullmetal Scientist"[]
To be added
"Olsen's Eleven"[]
To be added
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
- This is one of the few incarnations of Livewire who is portrayed as originally being a criminal, rather than a shock jock/social media influencer who turned to crime after developing powers in a freak accident. Additionally, her electrokinetic powers are provided by a suit rather than being a natural ability; although it is implied that her mutation will cause her to develop this.
- Also unlike previous versions of Livewire, Leslie is never shown referring to herself by that alias, as Jimmy Olsen is the one to nickname her Livewire. Despite this, Slade implies that she uses an alias; although it is unclear if this is also Livewire.
- This is the first version of Livewire to be a lesbian, since she typically displays no interest in romance or sexuality, so may be asexual in other iterations.
- Livewire's portrayal in the series is possibly a homage to John Corben from Superman: The Animated Series, as both are mercenaries who stole and smuggled military technology, and became Superman's first major opponents after setting said technology against him (Corben using Lex Luthor's Lexo-Skel Suit, and Livewire using her stolen robots). Additionally, in their second appearances, both develop powers after receiving mechanical enhancements.
- Livewire was originally Asian in her debut in the DCAU, Anglo in the Arrowverse, and switches between either depending upon iteration, but this is the first version to be African American.
