Contributed by Mike McDermott
Ja Kyee–called “Jackie” by her friends–is a survivor of one of the many worlds that was destroyed during the invasion of the powerful alien race called The Builders. The Galactic Alliance that opposed the Builders settled many of the refugees on the planet Torga. Jackie became the Chief Engineer and Defense Minister of Torga, although she prefers the titles of ‘warlord’ and ‘goddess’. Her resources for both of those fields were extremely limited, with Torfa having almost no functional spacecraft.
After a few months on Torga some of the settlers started to fall ill. King J’Son of the planet Spartax, one of the worlds of the Galactic Alliance, ordered that the settlers be evacuated to another planet. The settlers refused to evacuate since the ill could not be taken with them, and they would not abandon them to die. The settlers wanted to stay and continue to work to discover what about the planet was poisoning them and try to find a cure. The Spartax refused to allow that and threatened to evacuate the settlement by force if necessary.
One of Jackie’s friends, a teenage girl named Tic, enlisted the help of Captain Marvel of the Avengers to try and assist them. Although some of the Torga settlers were suspicious of Captain Marvel due to the Avengers’ connections to the Galactic Alliance, she and Jackie bonded quickly and became friends.
With Captain Marvel’s help, Jackie and her friends discovered the true reason that their people were getting sick, and why J’Son wanted them off the planet–there was supply of the rare metal Vibranium on Torga and the rushed mining techniques being used to secretly extract it were causing byproducts to leak into the surrounding environment, which caused the locals to develop Vibranium Sickness. J’Son didn’t want to risk the settlers learning about the Vibranium and trying to stake a claim, so he intended to remove them by force as quickly as possible.
Using two small fighter ships, Jackie and her friend Gil held off the Spartax fleet while Captain Marvel destroyed the Vibranium mine, burying the metal so deep that it would be of no use to J’Son. With his plot exposed, J’Son was forced to withdraw his fleet and leave Torga to the settlers in peace.
Several weeks later, Jackie appeared again when Captain Marvel contacted her to ask for information about the local area to help her catch some space pirates she was pursuing.
Ja Kyee is a member of an alien race with prehensile tentacles in place of hair–she can use these tentacles as extra limbs to hold tools, grab things, etc. She is frequently playing music because she loves to dance, whether that be regular dancing or piloting her ship ‘dancing’ through a space battle. Jackie is involved in a relationship with another woman named Pud, who is also a member of her species.
Ja Kyee first appeared in Captain Marvel #1 (2014) and was outed in Captain Marvel #6 (2014).
Created by Kelly Sue DeConnick and David Lopez. Art by Lopez and Lee Loughridge from Captain Marvel #6.
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