Snapdragon (Morituri)

Snapdragon (Lorna Leigh Raeburn) was created by writer Peter B. Gillis and artist Brent Anderson and debuted in Strikeforce: Morituri #1 (December 1986). The codename "Snapdragon" was introduced in issue #2. Snapdragon remained a regular character until her death in issue #4. She was the first regular character to die in the series, opening a long string of deaths.

Nothing is known of Lorna Leigh Raeburn's life prior to her joining Strikeforce: Morituri. A sassy, confident young woman, at some point, in 2073, she volunteered for the Morituri program, a program which could confer superhuman abilities to ordinary people, to be used in the ongoing war of Earth against the evil alien race known as the Horde. However, the powers came at a terrible price: the recipients invariably died within a year of taking the process, their powers flaring up and their bodies rejecting their newly inserted metabolism with fatal results.

Undaunted, Lorna applied for the process and was found genetically compatible to undertake it, one in only six among thousands of applicants. As such, Lorna was subjected to the process, becoming part of the first official generation of Strikeforce: Morituri.[1]

Later, the team members were sent to the Garden (the nickname of Biowar Zone Alpha), a booby-trapped artificial environment, whose objective was to help the heroes manifest their superhuman powers by exposing them to extreme danger and stress. Lorna was the only one of her teammates who was not threatened by any of the myriad traps of the Garden. Instead, her powers surfaced when her panicked teammate, Vyking, snapped out and accused their Commander, Beth Nion, of trying to kill them, seeing how she had not aborted the test sequence, despite the other members of the team almost dying in the process. Enraged at his accusations against their Commander, Lorna slapped him, simultaneously releasing her plasma burst for the first time, as a result of her extreme anger. After the team members all succeeded in the Garden trial, Lorna assumed the codename "Snapdragon" and incorporated wrist mounted projectors in her costume, which could help her focus her bursts more effectively.[2]

In the next few weeks, Snapdragon and Vyking becoming getting closer to each other, although they never spelled out explicitly any feelings. In the first official mission of the team, in Kramatorsk, Soviet Union, Snapdragon proved exceptionally effective when her teammate, Radian used his E-M radiation emissions to help propel her plasma bursts.[3]

Snapdragon had the ability to generate plasma bursts, which she focused through the wrist mounted projectors she wore. As a result of her exposure to the Morituri process, she also possessed enhanced strength and agility.