Aliases: Contessa Erica Alexandra del Portenza
Base of Operations : Florence, Italy
Tag : None
Important Plots : Cadmus Rinascere
Journal(s) : contessaerica
Status : Played

Powers and Abilities : The Contessa has no confirmed superhuman abilities. She does, however, possess a brilliant mind and has considerable skill in several disciplines, from diplomacy to tactics to genetics. She is a master planner and even Lex Luthor has acknowledged her as a mental equal. Indeed, Luthor considered her dangerous enough to warrant direct disposal, as she was the first of his enemies targeted upon his bid to become president.

The Contessa may have other abilities as well. The Alpha Centurion, a time-tossed native of ancient Rome, claimed to recognize the Contessa, hinting that her lifespan may be well beyond what she has revealed. One of her former lieutenants, Limbo, believed that the Contessa extended her lifespan via an anti-aging formula. And Klarion the Witch Boy believed the Contessa was a practicing sorceress. Whether any of these theories have any validity is currently unknown, however it must be noted that the Contessa has proven remarkably difficult to kill: Lex Luthor has tried several times to have the Contessa assassinated, going so far as to order a missile strike on her location, and she has survived each time, though in the last scenario she was believed to be dead for a period of years.

History : Former wife of Lex Luthor, much of the Contessa's early life is unknown. She appeared in Metropolis shortly after Lex Luthor was publicly discredited, buying up a controlling share of LexCorp International and taking effective control of the LexCorp board of directors. She allowed Luthor to court her and eventually married him, though both husband and wife entered marriage to further their own agendas.

While Luthor schemed to suborn his new wife and regain his empire, the Contessa was his equal and matched him at every turn. Disbanding Team Luthor, the Contessa created a new security force, the Centurions. She also became a member of Project Cadmus, and led her own small cadre of followers, a group she called the Agenda.

The Contessa became pregnant with Luthor's child, and shortly after expressing interests for her unborn daughter which ran counter to Luthor's was drugged by him and imprisoned in a hospital owned by Luthor. Amazingly, the Contessa recovered from the influence of the drugs and escaped, and hired a mysterious young man to recover her baby daughter from Lex. Her victory was short-lived, however, as Lex promptly commissioned the services of Deathstroke to retrieve his daughter while simultaneously laying waste to the Agenda's American-based locations. The Contessa withdrew to an Agenda base in Siberia, but before she could marshal a counterattack, Lex bombarded her base with a barrage of missiles, viewing the Contessa as his greatest obstacle to becoming president. Mercy reported finding the remains of an individual who's bio-signature matched the Contessa's, and indeed, the Contessa was presumed dead for the next few years.

Recently however the Contessa emerged from obscurity, meeting Jean-Paul Valley in Italy. She revealed that she has not been idle, and that she may control Project Cadmus. She asked Jean-Paul to set up a meeting between herself and Vandal Savage, possibly in the interests of forming an alliance.

Other Sources :

• The Contessa at the DC Database Project
  

Divergences : Obviously was not killed by the missile barrage in President Luthor: Secret Files and Origins #1. Superman: End of the Century is non-canonical as far as her history goes as well; she has no known sons.

Disclaimer - unless otherwise noted, all characters are property of DC Comics, used here only for roleplaying purposes.