Dart (comics) - Fictional Character Biography

Fictional Character Biography

Jill August was born on August 12, 1969, in Detroit, Michigan. She grew up timid and demoralized, witnessing her mother's constant spousal abuse at the hands of her father, and her friends' abuse at the hands of a cruel coach at school. She witnessed her father beat her mother to death, a crime for which he was sentenced to life in prison, effectively leaving Jill an orphan.

As a teenager, Jill saw a female friend being assaulted by several men in a bar in Detroit. Attempting to intervene, she fell against a dartboard hung on the barroom wall, and the men began to attack her as well. Instinctively, she used the darts to defend herself, throwing them at her attackers with astonishing accuracy, seriously injuring all of them. She subsequently decided to use this newly-discovered skill to both help others and manage her feelings of helplessness (and the rage that comes with those feelings).

Jill trained herself in a number of martial arts disciplines and sharpened her already formidable dart-throwing accuracy. She designed a costume and took the name "Dart" to become a superhero in Detroit. Early in her career, she occasionally teamed up with another Detroit-based hero, the narcissistic Kill-Cat.

After spending three years as a Detroit-based costumed vigilante, Dart was contacted by the Chicago Police Department to solicit her participation in a new program wherein super-powered vigilantes would be recruited into the police department for legitimate service. She accepted and moved to Chicago where she met the Savage Dragon, Ricochet, Horridus, Barbaric, and other super-powered recruits. The program was a failure, though, as most of the costumed heroes could not or would not cope with the realities of everyday police work (such as wearing a police uniform instead of a costume). These recruits quit en masse and, along with newfound friends Superpatriot and Mighty Man formed their own heroes-for-hire outfit known as Freak Force, under the nominal leadership of Dart.

Dart attempts to assist in a reality-disruption event; however it's very nature causes many of the participants to forget their even was a problem.

After a few years of reasonable success as independent troubleshooters, Dart and most of the Freak Force were recruited by the United States government to replace Youngblood, who were presumed to have been killed by Martians. This new group was called the Special Operations Strikeforce (S.O.S.), although Dart was refused active status for a number of months due to administrators' reservations about her reliability.

Once she was allowed active status, Dart participated in a raid on the fictional nation of Lieberheim to assassinate the super-powered dictator Dread Knight. During the battle, Dart was hit by an energy blast that vaporized both of her legs to just above the knee.

Due to her disability, Dart was relegated to a role as Strikeforce's team trainer. Several years later, Dart and other former members of Freak Force were attacked by an evil Mighty Man while attending the funeral of Ann Stevens (the second Mighty Man). In the ensuing battle the Savage Dragon killed this evil version, and the super-powerful Mighty Man persona was passed on to Dart, enabling her to transform into a massively powerful blond male by making a magic gesture of tapping her wrists together.