Angela Spica
In 1998 writer Warren Ellis brought the Stormwatch ongoing series to an end with the destruction of the team, retaining several Stormwatch characters for his new Wildstorm series, The Authority. The roster of the eponymous team in his new book also included successors to two members of the Changers, a new Doctor and a new Engineer. The latter was introduced in issue 1 as Angela Spica, a Brooklyn-born scientist. Though she had known the first Engineer, she had not known about his involvement in the Changers until his death, when her home computer filled up with his nanotechnology notes and started linking it to her work in human-machine fusion. She distilled an incalculable number of intelligent devices into nine pints of liquid machinery, which she used to replace her blood. This nanotechnology gave her extensive mechanical abilities: she can cover her body with liquid metal at will, fly, communicate with machinery, and create devices - including radio-telepathy bugs, weaponry, rocket engines, replacement lungs to cope with unfamiliar atmospheres and even additional copies of herself. Jenny Sparks recruited her as a founding member of The Authority.
In 2001 Mark Millar, Ellis's successor as writer on The Authority, wrote a five-issue Secret History of the Authority exploring the team's lives before their joining up. Angie appeared in the fifth issue, describing to Jenny Sparks how her desire to be a scientist - and later a hero - arose from a childhood diet of comic books.
In the "Transfer of Power" storyline, Spica was replaced by "Machine", a woman from Japan who received the nanotechnology extracted from the Engineer's body. Spica's blood was temporarily replaced with that of a heroin addict. She was given memory implants and forced into the life of a minimum wage worker in a Seven-Eleven, with an abusive husband and six children (all of them actors paid by the hostile government that had sanctioned the Authority's overthrow), until she was saved by Swift. Spica's deep desire for revenge on Machine was thwarted when it was learned she had been killed by teammate Apollo.
Spica has an open on/off relationship with Jack Hawksmoor, but she also slept with The Doctor on one occasion. She also had a brief fling with a squat, hairy Mexican (a type she is very attracted to) she picks up in a bar. It ends badly.
She also had a deep, even if somewhat short, relation with Captain Atom, a universe-travelling hero hailing from the DC Universe. At first tasked from Jack himself to keep an eye over Captain Atom, using her charms if needed to keep him close and devise a plan to bring him back home, or kill him should he become a menace for the Wildstorm Universe. Spica, unable to find his proper universe, uses her nanotechnology to apparently disable the fragment of the Void lodged in Captain Atom's body, defusing the threat posed by his survival in the Wildstorm Universe, and starts a relationship with him, sharing some intimate moments and trying to mold him into the proactive hero needed by her world. However, upon discovering that the Mark of Void was never purged by his system, and upon finding Captain Atom embracing Nikola Hanssen, the current host for the Void entity, Angela turns against him, and mixing jealousy to anger and self-righteousness, attempts to slay him. Captain Atom, still deeply in love with her, disables her powers, until Void is able to reboot the universe, leaving Angela no memories of the events surrounding the destruction and recreation of her world, and possibly, no memories about Nathaniel Adam.
Spica was apparently sexually assaulted during her school-age years by a renegade Doctor who travelled back in time while they were fighting.
Read more about this topic: Engineer (comics)