Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Super-Fashion Week: Miss USA

Let's start close to home with Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella. Or, as she is called on Earth-P --

ENSIGN GLORY
Click to embiggen... if you dare.

A newly commissioned officer in the United States Navy, ENS Campanella was a Signals Intelligence officer who was part of a team tasked with creating a new, undetectable method of sensing and communicating. Their efforts were only partly successful, however, for while they were able to modulate streams of light in a unique kinetic pattern, the effects were both bright and loud. The project, code-named GLORY, was soon cancelled, with the team reassigned and the only working part -- a multi-spectrum kinetic LIDAR rectenna -- was put into deep storage.

Years passed, and soon Project GLORY had been forgotten -- except by Campanella. Now a lieutenant, she continued to work on the project in her spare time, refining it in an attempt to make it feasible. She felt that her career in the Navy had been stifled by the failure of the project, and saw this as a chance at redemption.

She had her chance one night when the USS Constitution, performing its annual "turnaround cruise," was caught in a violent squall and threatened to be lost at sea with all hands -- including the civilian ride-alongs. The Navy and Coast Guard had been dispatched, but it was feared that they would not arrive in time to save America's oldest commissioned warship.




Realizing what had to be done, Campanella raced to the storage locker where the GLORY rectenna was kept, and combined it with the modifications she had made over the years while throwing together a hasty costume to disguise her identity. With some difficulty, she was able to fly out into the storm and render enough aid that by the time relief vessels arrived, neither the ship nor the crew was lost.

The opto-kinetic energy projected by the GLORY rectenna is amazingly bright. When it flies, it leaves streaks across the sky, and its energy can be focused to produce loud concussive blasts. (Think Jubilee's powers, only useful instead of sucky.) Given this and the circumstances of her origin, it is to be expected that Campanella modified the rectenna to resemble an American flag and her costume to look like a  Revolutionary War-era  U.S. Navy officer's uniform. She took the name "Ensign Glory" as an elaborate double-pun.

When asked why she dressed like that, Ensign Glory replied "You think I'd cover up legs like this? Besides, I'm putting the navel in Naval."


The oversize hat contains avionics.

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