Anna Mercury

Origin

Very little is known about her origin. Anna Mercury's secret identity is Anna Louise Britton. She works as an agent for the British Ministry of Defense; her job is to prevent advanced weaponry from getting into the hands of more primitive worlds.

Creation

Anna Mercury was created by Warren Ellis (writer) and Facundo Percio (artist).

Major Story Arcs

The Life Of An Anchor

Orbiting Earth are nine half constructed worlds; none of which are aware of the existence of each other, or the Earth. Each world is its own Earth within its own "bubble" Universe known as the Constellation. The Americans discovered it in 1943 and the G-8 Nations have been exploring the Constellation since all of them launched stations to the other worlds. Anything from one world that has been left on a different world for more than 28 hours will return to its world of origin . When something returns, it is known as "Boomerang". However, organic life-forms can not survive the Boomerang experience; they explode and die, which is called "LOA" which stands for Loss of Anchor. Only one agent ever survived the Boomerang, although it has not been revealed who. Each anchor (agent) has a hip set that tells them how long they have till they need to be ported back to Earth. Colours on the hip set indicate how much time is left before the Boomerang occurs. Anchors can tweak the hip set to give them super human abilities but it uses up the time they can stay on that world.

The Cutter

Anna first appeared trying to save Sheol City from its rival New Ataraxia. The two cities were at war and Ataraxia had a powerful weapon known as The Cutter which could decimate the population. The Cutter was kept on Mandragon Moon, a neutral territory which Ataraxia had invaded and now ruled. Anna hypnotized a Sheol resident into helping her break into a launch site where she stowed-away on a rocket to the Moon. On the Moon, Anna located an elderly male friend who gave her information on the Cutter. However, she was discovered by an Ataraxian soldier, which resulted in a fight. After a short battle, Anna stole a jeep and drove into the Cutter. Once inside the Cutter she overrode the co-ordinates, causing it to crash. Using her hip set, Anna teleported back to Earth mere seconds before impact.

She experienced a rough landing and was incapacitated by bloody injuries and bruises. Despite her injuries, Anne still reported in to work. However, she discovered that the Cutter hadn't been destroyed in the crash. Attempting to mimic her previous tactics, Anna teleported back to Sheol, but was intercepted by soldiers in a crowded street. Captured and about to be executed, she released an Anchor Field from her hip set. It released a powerful surge of energy that completely disintegrated everything and everyone within a city block, but it also drained a massive amount of energy from her hip set. Anna once more hi-jacked a jeep and sped to the Cutter, running over and shooting every soldier who get in her way. When she found the Cutter, she entered the barrel of the ship until she could locate a weak spot and release another anchor field. However, the Cutter had begun to fire. The feedback between her Anchor Field and the Cutter caused an explosion, in which the weapon was destroyed. Anna teleported back before the Cutter blew up.

Although successful, Anna was taken to a nearby hospital. There she learned that thousands of people died in the explosion. Despite her eccentric nature, the news caused Anna to fall into a pit of grief and despair.

Powers and Abilities

Her specialized equipment allows superhuman feats, but Anna has no superhuman abilities. She is shown to be an expert acrobat who is able to swing through the city with her grappling line from her belt set and is also shown performing many ground acrobatic feats such as back flips and dodging bullets. She's an expert in hand to hand combat and armed combat. She also is good with technology and computers.

Equipment and Weapons

She caries her hip set which indicates the amount of time she is allowed in which world she is in and also grants her super human abilities like super speed, reflex, strength and she can jump multiple stories in the air. It has the ability to hypnotize people and take complete control of them, even making them waste their own life for her benefit. Its most impressive feature is the anchor field which emits a powerful EMP pulse that can take out an entire block. Using the hip set's superhuman attributes uses the anchor's time more rapidly, shortening the available time spent in any given world.

In addition to the hip set, she also carries on her belt a long grappling cable that she uses to swing from buildings and get herself around. She has a strong forked club she uses as a melee weapon, and two pistols.