New Universe, New Blood
Naomi: “Something happened here. Years ago. And no one wants to talk about it.”
Naomi #1
A gang surrounds a young man who accidentally wandered onto their turf so now they’re gonna have fun with him. Several thugs push and jostle him, sometimes punch and kick. One draws a switchblade.
A brilliant golden light hits a gang member, followed by a figure landing on the ground hard enough to shatter concrete. The figure punches three others quick as a blink. The leader stabs the figure, but the blade shatters on their skin. A point-blank blast answers and hurls him into a wall. The figure rushes to the wounded civilian. Naomi lifts him up and leaps into the air, rushing to the nearest hospital.
Naomi is one of DC Comics’ newest heroes. Despite launching less than three years ago, she’s already fought in multiversal wars, solved several mysteries, and joined the Justice League. So who is she? Where did she come from? How did she get her powers? Let’s find out.
Scene Select
Close Encounters: Naomi’s Backstory
[Naomi is asking the local mechanic about a superhero sighting in the past]
Naomi #1
Naomi: “Just… can you… How long ago was this? Exactly how long ago? [beat] Did our conversation just end abruptly? [beat] Amazing. [starts to walk off]”
Dee: “March fourteenth. Seventeen years ago.”
Naomi: “That’s the… That’s the day I was adopted.”
Dee: “I know.”
Naomi McDuffie debuted in Naomi #1 in 2019. She was created by Brian Michael Bendis, David Walker, and Jamal Campbell. Her last name is an homage to the late comic writer Dwayne McDuffie.
Superman and an alien crashed into a sleepy Oregon town during a fight. They quickly left, but almost everyone in town saw them except for local superhero fan Naomi McDuffie. After hearing a rumor that the town had been visited by a hero years ago, she investigated the story, but no one seemed to know anything about it except for a gruff mechanic named Dee.
Naomi learned the sighting happened the same day that she was adopted and found a picture of Dee with a woman who looked like her. After an argument with her adopted parents, she broke into Dee’s garage to ask if he was her birth father. He was not, but reluctantly revealed that he was an alien soldier who had gone AWOL and was hiding on Earth.
Naomi’s father, Greg, found the duo and brought her to a cave containing a spaceship. Greg revealed that he was also an alien who had been ordered to capture Dee. He went rogue after falling in love with a human woman.
One night, Dee and Greg discovered a portal and a young woman being attacked. They fought off the attackers, but couldn’t save the woman. They found an infant they named Naomi, whom Greg decided to raise. They also discovered a small disc, which he gave to the now teenaged girl.
You Can’t Go Home Again: Naomi’s History
Anna: “That was a uniform that your mother and father wanted you to have for some reason.”
Naomi #5
Naomi: “O.K., What reason?”
Mysterious Figure: [exiting a portal] “Maybe in case some bastard comes looking for you. I’ve waited a long time for you to plug in and reveal yourself, kid. Your parents led me to a new world… and just in time.”
The disc was a black box, which activated Naomi’s powers and played a message from her mother. They were from an alternate universe, where a crisis caused twenty-nine people to gain superpowers. Most were killed by a superpowered serial killer called Zumbado, who went on to conquer most of the world.
Naomi’s parents led a resistance against Zumbado and eventually formed an uneasy truce. Unfortunately, that truce was shattered by her birth as the first naturally-born superhuman. Zumbado went on the warpath, leading Naomi’s parents and their ally, Akira, to transport her to another world to keep her out of his grasp.
Zumbado used his powers to bring Naomi back to her home dimension. He posed as a friend of her parents and tried to convince her to join him. She escaped him and found Akira, returning to Earth and sealing a portal between their worlds to keep him from coming back.
Naomi struggled with her powers until she joined Young Justice. Her new allies helped her control her powers. She also fought the forces of the Dark Multiverse in Dark Knights: Death Metal. This convinced the Justice League to invite her to the team and Aquaman named her Powerhouse.
Multiversal Might: Naomi’s Powers and Personality
Zumbado: [training Naomi] “Sometimes just unleashing hell keeps your powder dry, if ya get my meaning. Go ahead and unleash hell, ya won’t hurt nothing. You might have more in you than ya think. Reach inside. It’s really not that different from a real full-body flex. From your core.”
Naomi #6
Naomi: “My core… [summons her power] Aaahhh!”
Zumbado: “See? There you go… bring the thunder! What’d you say your name was again?”
Naomi: “Naomi. [punches him] YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!” –
Naomi is still learning her powers, but has nailed down some. Her main ability is transforming into a superpowered form with golden armor. She’s super strong, fast, durable, can fly and fires energy blasts once she transforms.
Naomi is headstrong and inquisitive, often questioning people around her. She is a big superhero fan and seems to be aware of general tropes, such as asking if Greg’s ship was the one she was sent to Earth in or pointing out the “alien defects for a human girl” cliché. Her curiosity sometimes leads to her not respecting boundaries and demanding answers to invasive questions.
The Actors Who Play Naomi
Kaci Walfall – Naomi
Didya get all that?
An interdimensional hero with an interstellar family.
Image: Kaci Walfall as Naomi, Camila Moreno as Lourdes, Daniel Puig as Nathan and Will Myers as Anthony. Photo by Boris Martin/The CW
Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.
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