LORALEE TATE
Real Name: Loralee Tate
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Nurse
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Bambu, Brother Voodoo, Pete Hawkins, Samuel Tate
Enemies: Black Talon, Cult of the Dark Lord, Mama Limbo
Known Relatives: Samuel Tate (father)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Delta General Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana
First Appearance: Strange Tales I#172 (February, 1974)
Powers/Abilities: Loralee Tate was an educated nurse.
History: (Strange Tales I#172 (fb)) - Loralee Tate was a nurse at the Delta General Hospital in New Orleans when she received a package one day with no return address. Inside she found a black rooster and a note proclaiming "the Dark Lord has chosen you for his own!" She took a drive along the river to clear her head, but ran into the Cult of the Dark Lord, and narrowly escaped them in her care. Suddenly, a fearsome face appeared in the fog, and she drove her car off the road trying to get away from it, and plunged into the river.
(Strange Tales I#172) - She was saved from the river by Brother Voodoo, who brought her back to his mansion. As he and his servant Bambu helped her recover, she told them what had happened to her. As she finished her story, the Cult of the Dark Lord arrived, and overpowered Brother Voodoo with the same fog Loralee had seen before. They took Loralee with them to their altar, where they proclaimed she would be the bride of the Dark Lord.
(Strange Tales I#173) - Brother Voodoo eventually found Loralee by allowing the cult to capture him, and he was chained to an upside-down cross at the Dark Lord's altar by the cultists and their leader, the Black Talon.
(Tales of the Zombie#6/2) - Mama Limbo attempted to bleed Loralee so that she could regain her youth through Loralee's virgin blood, but she was crushed by part of the cross Brother Voodoo had been chained to. Brother Voodoo brought Loralee to safety, and summoned her father to arrest the cult.
(Tales of the Zombie#10) - Loralee visited Brother Voodoo at his mansion, and learned of his origins, and how he possessed the spirit of his brother Daniel within him. Her father arrived as they spoke, and he annoyed to see her associating with Brother Voodoo again, even though he had saved her life. When Samuel Tate presented Brother Voodoo with a note from Haiti, indicating that the dead were returning to life there, he left immediately for Haiti.
(Marvel Super-Heroes III#1/4 (fb)) - Loralee came to Port-Au-Prince with Brother Voodoo for awhile, and comforted him after Bambu passed away. The two drew together romantically, but when Loralee realized that he was only interested in her because he was desperate to be needed, she tried to leave, but he took possession of her with the spirit of his brother Daniel, forcing her to love him.
(Marvel Super-Heroes III#1/4) - Loralee remained devoted to Brother Voodoo, but he was gradually tormented by what he had done, and removed Daniel from her. Having regained control of her faculties, she told him she was sorry that he didn't believe enough in her to let her love him on her own. She returned to New Orleans to continue her career as a nurse.
Comments: Created by Len Wein, Gene Colan and Dick Giordano.
Loralee puts in some upper female nudity in Tales of the Zombie#6 that felt out-of-place even in Marvel's black and white magazines.
Of course, that was nowhere near as out-of-place as the coloring job done on her in Marvel Super-Heroes III#1, where she was rendered as a white woman!
I'm not sure which part of Marvel Super-Heroes III#1 is more unsettling-- that Brother Voodoo used Daniel to make Loralee love him, or that he romanced a woman being possessed by his brother. Was it rape, or was it homosexual incest? Let's not go there...
by
CLARIFICATIONS:
Loralee Tate should not be confused with:
Samuel Tate was chief of detectives of the New Orleans police, and was Loralee's father. He disapproved of Brother Voodoo, even after his daughter was brought back safely from the clutches of the Black Talon. After the Black Talon case, he provided Brother Voodoo with a note from Sara Le Jeune which set Brother Voodoo on the trail of the houngan Dramabu.
--Strange Tales I#172 (173, [Tales of the Zombie#6/2], 10
Pete Hawkins was Samuel Tate's right-hand man, and had more faith in Brother Voodoo than his superior, but was still bound to obey Tate's orders when they brought him into conflict with Brother Voodoo.
--Strange Tales I#172 (173
Pete's goatee was probably meant to implicate him as a candidate for the identity of the Black Talon.
Images taken from:
Strange Tales I#172, page 6, panel 5
Strange Tales I#172, page 7, panel 5
Samuel- Strange Tales I#173, page 6, panel 3
Pete- Strange Tales I#172, page 22, panel 5
Last updated: 09/05/05
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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