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SALAMANDRA

Real Name: Salamandra

Identity/Class: Human mutate (or something else completely; see comments)

Occupation: Professional criminal

Group Membership: Frightful Four (Hydro-Man/Morris "Morrie" Bench, Trapster/Peter Petruski, Wizard/Bentley Wittman)

Affiliations: Devos the Devastator, Diablo, Dragon Man, Dreadface, Iconoclast, Klaw, Kree, Mahkizmo, Mad Thinker, Mole Man, Moloids, Occulus, Over-Mind, Rama-Tut, Red Ghost, the Ruined, Staak, Super-Apes, Super-Skrull (Kl'rt), Terrax, Zorba

Enemies: Fantastic Four (Human Torch/Johnny Storm, Invisible Woman/Susan Richards-Storm, Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards, Thing/Ben Grimm)

Known Relatives: Cole Wittman (daughter), Bentley Wittman (husband, divorced)

Aliases: Dragon's Daughter, Fire Maiden, Salamandra Wittman, "my dear" (nickname given by the Wizard), "Sally", "yer royal high maintenance" (nicknames given by Hydro-Man)

Base of Operations: Mobile

First Appearance: Fantastic Four I#514 (July, 2004)

Powers/Abilities: Even in human form, Salamandra is fireproof, superhumanly durable and strong (class 50). She can generate intense energyblasts of unknown composition and teleport over unknown distances. Salamandra is engulfed by a sheath of blue flame when she uses her teleportation abilities. She can change into a form resembling a dragon, which grants her greatly increased strength, durability and also gives her a prehensile tail. Arrogant and thinking herself superior, Salamandra is dismissive of humans in general and Westerners in particular, though she's not above working with them in order to achieve her goals. Given to referring to herself in the third person, Salamandra believed herself to be royalty and expected to be treated as such. Being part dragon, she has an obsessive interest in obtaining gems, jewelry and other treasure. She has extensive knowledge of human anatomy and can disable foes by targetting neural pressure points, thereby inducing partial paralysis.

Height: 5'5" (by approximation)
Weight: 135 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Blue (green in dragon form)
Hair: Black

History:

(Fantastic Four I#515 (fb) ) - Very little is known about Salamandra before she met and agreed to marry Bentley Wittman, also known as the supervillainWizard some nineteen years ago. Though not in love, the couple found one another beneficial to their individual schemes.

   Not too long after their wedding, Salamandra found she was pregnant even though her marriage to Wittman had never been consumated. Realizing the Wizard had artificially inseminated her and, through genetic manipulation, attempted to create the perfect child, she tried to terminate the pregnancy. Not wanting his experiment to fail, the Wizard captured and sedated Salamandra until the child was born. However, when his daughter Cole was born without any apparent powers, he considered her a failed experiment and allowed Salamandra to leave with the child, never once checking in on them.

(Fantastic Four I#514 (fb) - BTS) - After Cole reached puberty, Salamandra spent most of her time seducing wealthy men and enjoying a jet set lifestyle, utilizing her beauty to seduce rich men, joining them as their concubine on various luxurious trips around the world. All this to the chagrin of Cole, who felt abandonded by her mother who she only saw once or twice a year.

   After agreeing to join her ex-husband's team in return for treasure, Salamandra travelled with Cole to New York where she gave her daughter a golden ring that was actually an advanced piece of technology created by the Wizard. The ring allowed the Frightful Four to monitor Cole and her surroundings and also acted as both a teleportation device and a homing beacon. Unaware of all this, Cole accepted the gift but was annoyed when Salamandra teleported away.

(Fantastic Four I#514) - After leaving her daughter behind at JFK airport, Salamandra reappeared at the Wizard's headquarters to report the success of her mission. She also met her two Frightful Four teammates Hydro-Man and Trapster for the first time. Thoroughly unimpressed with the villains, she later joined them as they observed how Cole unwittingly carried out her part in the Wizard's plan by meeting Johnny Storm and the other members of the Fantastic Four. When Cole confessed to Johnny that her mother had been so inattentive, she wouldn't even miss her if she died, Salamandra remained unaffected, merely stating her child still had much to learn. Salamandra later teleported with the other Frightful Four members to the Baxter Building using Cole's ring. There, they confronted the FF.

(Fantastic Four I#515) - The Frightful Four's sudden arrival startled Cole, who used her gravitron based powers to defend herself from the Wizard. Seeing this made Salamandra happy to realize her daughter had become a very powerful woman, much like her. Wizard then pointed out that Salamandra, as always, tried to make everything about her, adding that the child's abilities were more closely related to his own anti-gravity technology. After that dispute was settled, the Frightful Four focussed their attention on the Fantastic Four, with Salamandra attacking the Human Torch who soon realized his foe was extremely powerful and immune to flame. Not wasting any more time with the Torch, Salamandra teleported away and appeared behind Mr. Fantastic who was fighting the Wizard. Paralyzing the elastic hero with a nerve pinch, she gave Wizard the opportunity he needed to take out the Fantastic Four. However, when he refused to acknowledge her part in the victory, she angrily abandoned him even as the Wizard broadcast the FF's defeat all across the world to prove how poorly suited the heroes were to defend the people. He then teleported Cole and the other members of his team back to his headquarters. Hoping to make his daughter the new fourth Frightful Four member (after he had dismissed the Trapster earlier), the Wizard's pitch was disrupted by Salamandra who teleported in and started arguing with her former husband. When Cole learned the harsh truth about her origins, she ran away.

(Fantastic Four I#516 - BTS) - Despite the fact she wasn't too taken with him at first, Salamandra developed romantic ties with her fellow FF member Hydro-Man.

(Fantastic Four I#516) - Salamandra was enjoying some quality time in a hot tub filled with Hydro-Man in his liquid state, using his powers to make the waters bubble when a perimeter alarm went off, alerting them to Cole's imminent return. Salamandra teleported ahead to the Wizard's monitor area. Realizing Cole was sneaking in the invisible Fantastic Four, Salamandra immediately snared her daughter to the main staging area of the Wizard's headquarters. However, the Frightful Four were tricked into believing the FF were with Cole. Instead, the team used Cole's signal-ring to teleport in. Salamandra immediately attacked the Torch with her energy blasts, but was restrained by the Invisible Woman's force field. Changing into her dragon form, Salamandra continued her attack. In the end, Sue used a carefully timed force field to put one of the Wizard's stray anti-grav discs on Salamandra. This effectively took her out of the fight, even though she managed to grab Thing with her tail. That particular confrontation was cut short when Cole's powers overloaded, causing her to absorb most of the base's mass before inadvertently destroying it. In the aftermath, Salamandra and the other Frightful Four members had disappeared.

(Fantastic Four: Foes#1) - Salamandra, along with the other members of the Frightful Four, attended the Mad Thinker's summit but left when the villain's proposed plans failed to impress her.

Comments: Created by Mark Waid & Karl Kesel (writers), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)

Given her lizard-inspired name and features, it's very well possible Salamandra is coldblooded. It would explain the prominent presence of the heat lamp over the hot tub she shared with Hydro-Man (which, incidentally, might rival the Hank Pym/Janet van Dyne lovescene from Avengers III#71 in the blatant sexual innuendo department.

Salamandra's origin remains a bit of a mystery. Is she an actual dragon able to assume human form? Is she even native to this Earth? She calls herself "the dragon's daughter", which has caused some other sites to postulate she is related to the Dragon Kings of K'un Lun. She might also be a descendant of the Dragon Kings of Lemuria for all we know. Seeing as she hasn't appeared since 2005, the answers won't exactly be forthcoming.

Salamandra refered to herself in the third person on more than one occassion. It might simply be an affectation intended to emphasize her royal background. Despite the fact her features don't support this, she might be of Asian descent. For one thing: She calls herself  "this one", like Mantis, dragons are a revered presence in many Asian cultures and she clearly doesn't identify herself as being American, Caucasian or even Western.

Salamandra, along with the other members of the Frightful Four, received a profile in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z#4 (2008).

Profile by Norvo.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Salamandra should not be confused with


images: (without ads)
Fantastic Four I#514, p10, pan5 (main image)
Fantastic Four I#515, p10, pan4 (versus Human Torch)
Fantastic Four I#516, p12, pan5 (dragon form)


Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#514 (July, 2004) -
Mark Waid & Karl Kesel (writers), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Fantastic Four I#515 (August, 2004) - Mark Waid & Karl Kesel (writers), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Fantastic Four I#516 (September, 2004) - Mark Waid & Karl Kesel (writers), Paco Medina (pencils), Juan Vlasco (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Fantastic Four: Foes#1 (March, 2005) - Robert Kirkman (writer), Cliff Rathburn (pencils & inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)


Last updated: 01/08/14

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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