Black Mariah
First Appearance: Power Man 5
What's Her Problem? She faces the problems all small business owners face: low cash flow, late shipments, unreliable employees. Of course, her business is dealing illegal narcotics, so she also has to square off against the occasional do-gooder...
Abilities: She has a sharp head for business and even sharper knitting needles. Her left hook wasn't bad, either.
Heroes She Keeps Running Into: Power Man needed just one issue to knock out her little neighborhood operation. When she got out on parole, she headed back into business and straight into a confrontation with Heroes for Hire when they feared their friend, D. W. Griffith, had fallen victim to a particularly lethal designer drug she was peddling. As it happened, D.W. wasn't quite that depressed, but Iron Fist had already K.O.'d her hired muscle before discovering that.
People Who Think She's Not So Bad: Iron Fist's old foe Scimitar stood up for the old bag, but that's about it. Really, Mariah didn't need anyone else -- she had her poison-tipped knitting needles to protect herself, and she wasn't afraid to use 'em!
Most Despicable Act: Mariah continued to peddle the dangerous narcotic Acid Z, mistakenly made even more toxic by a chemist's mistake, even though she knew those who ingested it invariably died. As she put it: "I got to keep sellin' it 'cause I need the money to pay for a new shipment of drugs due in tomorrow. It ain't easy being a small business-woman."
