Created by: Gary Friedrich, Ross Andru, & Mike Esposito (possibly John Celardo and Rich Buckler)
1st appearance: Hell Rider #1 1971; Skywald
Nationality: African American
Aliases: none
Team Affiliations: Hell Rider
Legal Status: no criminal record
Skills and abilities: singer/entertainer, skilled hand to hand combatant, athletic
Powers: none
Weapons: costume includes a jet pack for flight, suction cup fingertips for enhanced grip, and the inside of the cape is capable of emitting a blinding light
Biography
Marian Michaels is a singer in Las Vegas who patrols the city as the costumed heroine, The Butterfly. fights the henchmen of a villainous costumed drug dealer, The Claw, who are using their profits to build a fascist army out in the desert. and works to defeat a racist, Ku Klux Klan-inspired organization, the Order of the Crimson Cross, which is referred to as “a gathering of sick, distorted minds such as this country has not witnessed since the Ku Klux Klan‘s rule of terror held the South in its deadly grip.” The Brothers of the Crimson Cross captures but fails to corrupt the superheroine with its mind control technology.
*notes* The Butterfly is the first black female super heroine
