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Featuring the following heroine!
Huntara
by Sean Kleefeld
Real name: Mary Elizabeth Alvarez
AKA: The Warrior Princess of Elsewhen
First appearance: Fantastic Four 277
Favorite quote: "Though you be a worthy foe, I must not tarry here while a true enemy of the Emerald Throne stands unpunished!" (Fantastic Four 378) I like this for two reasons: 1) it is testimony to 'Tara's devotion to her friends and her job and 2) I actually like that ultra-formal, pseudo-archaic English.
Team affiliation: Fantastic Force
Powers: Huntara spent most of her childhood studying hand-to-hand combat. She has incredibly honed battle senses, possibly augmented by some limited telepathic ability. Her weapon of choice is a battle scythe capable of breaching dimensional barriers allowing 'Tara to jump between realities. The dimensional hole it creates is big enough and lasts long enough to allow roughly ten people through before sealing itself, apparently causing no damage to the space-time continuum.
Favorite story line: Early issues of the Fantastic Force. When Huntara first appeared, she was a battle-ready, headstrong warrior with very few traces of a personality. I think Tom Brevoort and Mike Kenterovich did a good job a fleshing out the character and giving her some semblance of life.
Least favorite story line: The sub-plot of Fantastic Force 8 and 9 where reporter Paul Alvarez reveals Huntara is his long-lost sister. It's rather hackneyed and cumbersome to the already-full story arc. The Fantastic Force as a series had a lot of potential, but a couple of ill-timed crossovers forced some awkward plot turns and left several strings dangling uncomfortably.
Future for the character: It looks pretty bleak. The poor management of the Fantastic Force book will probably limit all of its characters to insignificant cameos, such as Fantastic Four 416. I expect we won't really see Huntara again until either a very uninspired writer or a phenomenal one starts on the Fantastic Four. Let's hope for the latter.
