(Avengers I#330 (fb) - BTS) - Edna M. Haliday was born on April 17th, 1918 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi (see comments).
(Avengers I#328 (fb) - BTS) - The deeply religious Brooklyn native Edna Staples worked as a nurse for most of her life.
(New Warriors I#38 (fb) ) - Edna Staples always dreamed of one day visiting Paris, France.
(Avengers I#330 (fb) - BTS) - Edna lived on 535-19 Dubois Street in Brooklyn.
(Avengers I#328 (fb) - BTS) - When her daughter died and and son-in-law fell prey to addiction, Staples took in her young grandson Elvin.
(Avengers I#330 (fb) - BTS) - Edna became Elvin's legal guardian.
(Avengers I#328 (fb) - BTS) - Edna raised the bookish, timid Elvin as best she could, spoiling him with her home made cooking.
(Avengers I#341 (fb) - BTS) - One of Elvin's few friends was Carmello Martinez, the boys spent a lot of time together.
(Avengers I#328 (fb) ) - When Elvin was 14 years old, he was caught in a chemical spill while trying to escape from local bullies. Edna vowed to fix her grandson up, praying over the sickly boy for days until his body began to change due to the chemicals: within days the scrawny teenager turned into a giant, superhumanly strong muscleman.
(Avengers I#328 (fb) ) - Staples was not impressed by Elvin's massive physique and newfound, belligerent attitude. She quickly laid down the law: if he left her house with hatred in his heart and vengeance on his mind, he was not allowed back. Edna reminded Elvin that the Lord does good work, and if he is to be an instrument of God, he shouldn't be consumed by hatred. She then baked him a big batch of cookies.
(Avengers I#329 - BTS) - Vowing to do good, Rage destroyed numerous crack houses in Brooklyn, earning him the ire of local drug dealer L.D. 50 who had recently taken in interdimensional refugee Ngh the Unspeakable and his band of otherworldly exiles. L.D. 50 and his house guests watched Rage get inducted into the Avengers on live television. During the ceremony, Ngh read Rage's lips, noting that he kept repeating the words "Granny Staples". Figuring this was a clue to the mysterious vigilante's origins, L.D. 50 had his men search the city for her whereabouts.
(Avengers I#329) - At 2.00 in the
morning, Edna Staples woke up when she heard someone banging on her
door. She went down, broom in hand, to see who was there. Believing the
voice she heard was Eldin, claiming he had forgotten his key, she opened
the door and was confronted by Ngh and his minions. Mistaking the
monstrous alien for the devil, she was instantly defiant. (Avengers I#330 - BTS) - During Rage's comprehensive background check for Avengers membership, the team's Support Crew also discreetly reviewed Edna Staples' records.
(Avengers I#330) - Ngh and his band of exiles took over Edna's house, making a mess of the kitchen with Staples trying her best to keep her composure. When she got a call from her grandson Eldin, Ngh picked up and told Rage to immediately come home and do as they say. Rage complied, but got delayed because of the Avengers' ongoing fight with the Tetrarchs of Entropy.
(Avengers I#331) - Rage led the Avengers to Edna's home in Brooklyn, demanding that Ngh and his henchmen (including a corrupted L.D. 50) released his grandmother. Edna watched as the disappointed Ngh explained that he only took her hostage to force Rage to become his agent inside the Avengers. When Rage commented he would never have done that anyway, Edna proudly piped up: "I brought that boy up good!". When the Tetrarchs of Entropy reappeared to take on Ngh as well as the Avengers, he easily kept them at bay. This impressed the crowd, who fell prey to Ngh's corrupting influence. He threatened to transform Edna too, but Rage knew better: he could not corrupt his grandmother. The fight ended when Thor and Sersi returned from an alien dimension with Ngh's counterpart Ahh. On granny's lawn, the two beings merged together into their original form. Quasar took care of the defeated Tetrarchs while Staples chewed out her grandson for his thuggish costume and the mess he had made of her front yard.
(Avengers I#332 - BTS) - When Edna
Staples heard the Avengers were hosting a party to celebrate the opening
of their new headquarters, she baked a big batch of cupcakes for Rage to
bring to the party. Initially taken aback by the home baked goods,
Jarvis assured Rage that any of the Avengers' true friends would rather
appreciate the stylized cupcakes to the fancy canapes.(Avengers I#333 - BTS) - When Doctor Doom held everyone at the opening celebrations hostage, Rage offered one of granny Staples' cupcakes to the Thing who enjoyed them a lot more than the hoity-toity fingerfood. Granny's cupcakes also led Rage to conclude Doom was bluffing: he had threatening to blow up himself and everyone present with a neutron bomb if Thor didn't help him rescue his mother. Rage figured that if his grandmother was also in peril, he'd never risk his own life: who would be left to save her? Thanks to this logic and a well-aimed cupcake at the face of what turned out to be a Doombot, Edna indirectly helped save the day.
(Avengers I#341) - When Rage's childhood friend Carmello Martinez was brutally beaten by police, he gave a television interview as spokesman for the Avengers, claiming the police was letting them all down. Edna watched her grandson make these inflammatory comments and grew concerned. She was later visited by Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson who had traced Rage's communicard signal to her home (see comments). Edna explained that Rage and the fifteen year old Carmello grew up together, inadvertently revealing that Rage was still a minor.
(Avengers I#342) - When Rage returned home after leading the charge against the Sons of the Serpent (which got televised and drew in both the Avengers and the New Warriors), he was met by Edna who had some choice words for her grandson. She felt he was acting foolish to charge in and fight: violence should never be the answer. Their argument was interrupted by the New Warriors who had managed to find Rage. Edna let them in and the young heroes asked Rage's help in taking down the Hate-Monger.
(Avengers I#342 - BTS) - As a result of Edna unintentionally revealing he was still a minor, Rage was removed from active duty as an Avenger.
(New Warriors I#39 (fb) - BTS) - Knowing of Edna's love for Paris, Rage surprised her with a statuette of the Eiffel tower for Christmas.
(New Warriors I#22) - Some weeks after Rage was let go from the Avengers, he was home with Edna when the New Warriors dropped by to ask his help securing a Quinjet so they could go on a mission to Cambodia.
(New Warriors #37) - On July 7th,
1993 Edna Staples was watching Wheel of Fortune in the late afternoon,
bantering with her grandson Eldin who was in the kitchen having a snack
before dinner (see comments). Without provocation, they found
themselves under attack by the Poison Memories gang. The criminals fired
an incendiary missile into Edna's house. The explosion instantly killed
her, leaving an inconsolable Eldin holding his grandmother's charred
remains in his arms as he cried out for vengeance.(New Warriors I#37 - BTS) - With Edna at a Brooklyn coroner's office, Eldin redesigned his Rage costume and joined the New Warriors to avenge her death.
(New Warriors I#39 - BTS) - Edna Staples was laid to rest at Cypress Hills cemetery in Brooklyn. Eldin visited her grave frequently, leaving not only flowers but the Eiffel tower statuette he had retrieved from the rubble of their house. Some time later, Night Trasher (now Eldin's legal guardian) took him to Paris to visit the actual Eiffel tower. On top of the tall monument, he surprised him with recovered pictures of Edna. They tossed the charred photographs into the air, letting the wind carry them away so Edna could at long last see the city she always wanted to visit.