History
Summary with Minimal Spoilers
Carolyn Forge was a teenage genius with a difficult past. When her mother invented powered armor to get revenge on the League of Disgruntled Post Office Workers, Carolyn ended up inheriting it and joining Teenfactor. She fell in love with Terrence Coffee, AKA Useless Powers Lad, and gained immortality; their relationship suffered many hardships, but they persevered and had three children together.
Carolyn's talents for super-science invention created many amazing things, and lead to battles where her anger and self-righteousness warred with her kindness and compassion. In a dark future, she faced her own worst impulses and won out, saving her children. She lost her team, but married Terrence and went off to what seemed like a happy ending.
But tragedy struck, and Carolyn went missing for a long time. A new version of Doctor Killfile, one of the Legion's greatest enemies, appeared. She was rumored to be an alternate version of Carolyn from a dark timeline— but was in fact Carolyn herself, having survived tragedy and embraced her own darkness!
Full History
[Note: Amabel Holland has elsewhirled the original Teenfactor series, so some or all of Carolyn Forge's original history may no longer be part of current continuity.]
Family History and Early Life
Content Warning: Sexual Assault
The long, strange, sad tale of Carolyn Forge begins with one of the Legion's greatest enemies...
Marie Smith, the net.hero called Miss Calico, was won over by the charm of Dr. Milton Fyle, and fell in love. However, he was already engaged to Caron Forge, a fellow super-scientist and postal worker. On his wedding night, he arranged for Marie to meet him and his fiancee, and revealed the truth: he was, in fact, the diabolical Doctor Killfile. He called off the wedding and raped them both.
They each became pregnant and gave birth, but Dr. Killfile then switched the children: Deliah was raised by Marie, while Carolyn was raised by Caron Forge.
Caron was a cruel, strict and controlling mother, who tried to keep Carolyn away from the outside world. Carolyn had inherited her father's superhuman genius, but had only two friends – Rick Henkerton and Libby. Libby was mute and Rick suffered from a unique disability, so they both understood her sense of being an outcast. One day, Libby and Carolyn had an argument; the next, Libby died of a brain tumor. From then on, Carolyn desired to conquer death, and became determined to save people like Libby.
(See below for notes on the continuity of this part in particular.)
Teenfactor
When Carolyn was a teenager, her mother built a suit of armor...
Caron Forge had been kicked out of the League of Disgruntled Post Office Workers. She built the armor to protect them both, and took the name Aero Lass. Caron killed Brother Gary, the leader of the League, and got into a fight with Teenfactor. But Carolyn was shocked by her mother's actions; this distracted Caron, allowing Teenfactor to defeat her. A regretful Caron passed on her armor to her daughter, who joined Teenfactor.
Carolyn flourished in Teenfactor, finally finding a group of friends and a place where she could fully exercise her genius. When Jennifer Frost took over the team, Carolyn was one of the members who left with Malingerer Lad to form a new version of Teenfactor, but the two teams rejoined to battle Self-Righteous Preacher's evil side, Vice.
Terrence
Shortly afterwards, Carolyn met Terrence Coffee, AKA Useless Powers Lad...
They immediately fell in love, Carolyn responding to his warmth and kindness. Soon, Terrence gave her the gift of immortality through his power to manifest the Spoon of Destiny. But fate intervened, in the form of Time Crapper III, who was Terrence's future self. He brought Terrence to trial for his own crimes, but gave him one last chance to see his teammates. Terrence and Carolyn finally consummated their love before he was taken away.
In spite of losing Terrence, Carolyn persisted as a net.hero, growing in strength and confidence and eventually becoming Teenfactor's leader. She also reunited with Rick, now the net.hero Boy Redundant Lad, reigniting a stormy friendship. But she soon discovered she was pregnant. Her mother was horrified (influenced in part by her own past experiences) and insisted she abort, but Carolyn refused. Vixen provided her support and took her to Lamaze classes. During this period she also built a new, more powerful version of her mother's armor. The birth itself was difficult due to Carolyn's immortality, but a strangely familiar incarnation of Death himself intervened to help her give birth to Samuel Terrence Forge.
Death
Not long afterwards, Death came to her rescue...
The second Boss Supreme had put out a bounty on Sammy's head. The same incarnation of Death came to help, and revealed himself as Terrence, who had been transformed into Death as punishment for his future crimes. The Time Crapper then intervened to ensure his own existence. His goal was to sacrifice Sammy, the final catalyst which would turn Terrence into the Crapper. But Terrence's love for Carolyn helped him triumph over the Time Crapper, and Sammy was saved.
The Time Crapper, convinced this was the last time Terrence would see her, had given her memories of the identity of her true parents. At last she reunited with her real mother – and they were confronted by her real father. Teenfactor defeated Dr. Killfile with the aid of Easily-Discovered Man and Easily-Discovered Man Lite, and Carolyn helped set her mother up with a new life.
Anger
Soon after, Carolyn met the woman she could have been...
...when Electra arrived in the Looniverse to join the team. Carolyn instantly hated and distrusted her; Electra knew how to push all her other self's buttons, and made no bones about being attracted to Terrence herself. Pregnant with twins, Carolyn took a leave of absence from Teenfactor, during which Electra attempted to rape Terrence; when Carolyn discovered this, she came to hate Electra even more.
Carolyn then attempted to use her immortal blood develop a cure for all diseases and death. This was particularly urgent because Malingerer Lad was HIV-positive. He turned down the cure, feeling he didn't deserve it after cheating on Vixen and lying to her, and left the team. Carolyn destroyed the cure because the government was refusing to give it to people they considered unworthy.
Dark God
Before long, Carolyn gave birth...
...to her twins, Jack and Elaine, with the same problems as before. This time it was the sorceress Janis Kult who intervened, delivering the twins and then kidnapping them. Carolyn enlisted the aid of The Drizzt to save them. He revealed that Kult had taken them to an future timeline ruled by an omnipotent Dark God, and only she could destroy it. She found her children, now her own age, who had become net.heroes called Methyl-Cyanocrylate Lad and I'm-Melting-I'm-Melting-Oh-What-A-World-All-My-Beautiful-Wickedness Lass, part of a resistance movement against the Dark God. Carolyn discovered to her horror that the Dark God was her own future self, bitter from the grief of losing her children, who wanted to punish the world for all she had suffered. Carolyn dared the Dark God to kill her, but she could not and killed herself instead. Carolyn then returned to her own world with her children. During this battle her armor was destroyed, and she took the name Escapade Girl.
An Ending
But tragedy was not far behind...
Before long, Janis Kult, seeking revenge on Voidmaster, destroyed the Teenfactor headquarters, killing the rest of the team, including Jack and Elaine. Terrence and Carolyn joined together with many of the surviving former members and Pearly White to fight them both. After this, Teenfactor was truly over. Terrence proposed to Carolyn and she accepted, and Teenfactor ended with Terrence taking her over the threshhold. Now at last she could have the happy family life that had long been denied her.
Or so she thought.
The Killfile Wars
Continuity Note:
[I'm uncertain how to handle this material, since Amabel Holland Elsewhirled Jesse Willey's stories with her characters because she disliked Jesse's use of Electra in Adventures Beyond Comprehension, but other authors have referred to elements of the Killfile Wars. At any rate, Amabel did approve of Jesse's tarnishing and then killing Terrence, so we can probably assume that he is dead.]
A New Killfile
Carolyn was not seen for some time. (She may or may not have joined with the other surviving members of Teenfactor to battle the zombie Gerald Ford.)
When the East Coast Brotherhood of Net.Villains formed...
One of their members was a new version of Doctor Killfile, who was rumored to be a version of Carolyn from one of those Evil LNH universes.
This Killfile unleashed the sabertooth virus on the world, precipitating a war between the East Coast Brotherhood and their West Coast counterparts. When Captain Continuity confronted her during the battle, his continuity-vision revealed the truth – that the new Doctor Killfile was, in fact, the mainline Looniverse-A version of Carolyn! Having come out the other side of her deepest despair, she became, not the Dark God the world tried to force her to be, but her own villain, taking for herself the legacy that had tormented her! [1]
When UltraKiwi Wondersock tried to use her virus for his own plots, she took him down hard and moved on, ready for new adventures. She became a reserve member of Mistake's Uprising of Net.Villains.
New Teenfactor
In the abandoned New Teenfactor revamp...
Carolyn was a teenage super-genius recruited by the government with no indication of any traumatic past. (Or of being ¼ elf and ¼ cat.) Amabel Holland had come to regret making Carolyn Dr. Killfile's daughter, seeing it as a cheap retcon.
However, since Carolyn was released to general use, later writers have used the original version of her backstory, expanding it beyond the original shock factor of the retcon into deeper thematic territory, and also held onto the whole cat thing precisely because it is extremely silly.
Personality
Initially, Carolyn was shy, sweet and introverted. She grew in confidence over the course of her time in Teenfactor, eventually becoming the team leader. She was kind, considerate and highly compassionate. However, she also showed self-righteousness (especially in interactions with Rick and her destruction of the "Cure") and fierce anger (especially when interacting with her "sister" Electra), displaying affinity with both her mother and her father.
Now that she has returned as Doctor Killfile, Carolyn is ruthless, focused and dangerous. The powerful will that let her survive repeated shocks of pain and loss has become a force that will smash thru anything to achieve her goals.
In a number of alternate timelines, Carolyn broke under the weight of all she suffered. The Drizzt said that there were many timelines where the grief from the loss of her twins turned her to evil. But this Carolyn is not broken. In her own eyes, she is stronger than ever.
See also How To Write Aero Lass for a snapshot of how Amabel saw her in 1997.
Powers and Abilities
Carolyn Forge is an immortal super-genius scientist and inventor. Initially, she wore a suit of powered armor designed by her mother; later she improved on the suit so it runs on her immortal bioelectricity. She has stopped aging at 15 years old.
As Doctor Killfile, she has many powerful and destructive inventions, a number of which use Killfile Energy to achieve their effects.
Appearance
A slim young woman with dark brown hair and wide blue eyes, who seems physically unimposing, but whose posture exudes power and command. She wears impressive techno-gauntlets.
As Dr. Killfile, wears a silver labcoat over royal blue medical scrubs, a featureless silver mask that shows only her eyes, and a silver necklace with an amulet shaped like a fist crushing a piece of paper.
Relationships
Oh, tons.
She considers both Miss Calico and Caron Forge her mothers, but has disowned Milton Fyle; it's not known what she thinks of other members of the Killfile Dynasty.
Terrence Coffee was her husband and love, and she had three children with him; Samuel, Jack, and Elaine.
Her alternate-universe counterparts include Electra.
Appearances
- ↑ Since Carolyn took personal credit for bringing Obscure Trivia Lad back from the dead, her assumption of the identity of Doctor Killfile would have happened before 2011, probably shortly after Beige Midnight when her father was still active in that role. And yes, the Kube business happened a while after OTL's resurrection, but considering they're tied to the fundamental nature of the Looniverse, their existence is temporally flexible. OK, phew.
