Flare is the flagship heroine of Heroic Publishing, an independent comic book publisher in the United States. Her comics were published irregularly from 1988 to 1994, and from 2004 to 2007. Billed as "Comics' Glittering Goddess of Light", Flare is also the glamorous fashion model Teresa Feran. She makes no attempt at a secret identity.
According to her Back Story, Flare is the daughter of a valkyrie who fought on the wrong side in World War II. Her allies include Donnah Hannah, alias Lady Arcane, and J.K. Clark, alias the Galloping Galooper. Flare's official site
features a gallery of covers and pin-up art. She later had a Sunday-only comic strip, distributed by Creators Syndicate.
Tropes:
- Air-Vent Passageway: Raven Gold the party crasher uses one to sneak into Max Krueger's office toward the bottom of this page.
- Author Appeal: Teresa spends a lot of time nearly naked.
- Big Eater: Flare has complained at least once of not getting a big enough meal at a restaurant.
- Body Surf: The Tigress claims to have done this periodically over thousands of years. Her latest victim is prison psychiatrist Katherine Kaat.
- Circling Birdies: A variation with Arcanna. The Dash runs over her while he's trapped in her magical containment sphere, leaving her with circling bats.
- Crossover Cosmology: The comic pages online in early June 2008 (pages 260ff.) take place on Mount Olympus.Terri: Our adventure with the Champions may seem like a dream, but you know perfectly well that it actually happened. (Clue from Ed.: See League of Champions #1-3.)Donnah: Aphrodite is real, and so are Pan and Zeus, and all the other surviving Olympians.
- Flare herself is the daughter of a Norse Valkyrie and has been identified with the Greek goddess Eos.
- In January 2013, Tigress' Bast persona [an Egyptian goddess] forcibly switched bodies with Flare's Eos persona.
- Dark Is Not Evil: In the "Adventures" in Olympus arc, Aphrodite tells Pan that "Nyx is not evil. But she does hate Eos."
- Devolution Device: In the story arc "The Secret Invasion of the Gorillas from Outer Space", King Oook uses a "devolutionary ray" to transform Teresa into a female gorilla.Oook: Mate with me, Earth woman! Let our union and the offspring that will come of it be a symbol of the joining of our two worlds together!
Gorilla!Teresa: Well, of course I'll have to think about it. - Do You Want to Copulate?: Part of the characterization of Flare's younger sister Sparkplug. Having been reared in comparative isolation by Nazi exiles, she's shown to be pretty blunt at times about hitting on men not so much out of any particular desire for a relationship as simply for their "superior" genes. (Since like her sister she's still one of the good guys and thus tries it mainly on superheroes who have their own ideas about that sort of thing, it's mostly played for laughs.)
- Droste Image: The first page of the story "Cat-Fight!" has one in the second panel.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Flare did this in the "Duel" story, which was a crossover with Eternity Smith.
- Exposition of Immortality: Tigress claims to have been worshiped in ancient Egypt as the goddess Bast.
- Eye Color Change: When Tigress hijacks Flare's body in hope of learning about Teresa's mother, Teresa's eyes change from blue to green.
- Fantastic Drug: Darkdust, which appears to turn people into Eldritch Abominations.
- Gender Bender: One of Teresa's peers Philip, has the ability to shapeshift. At one point, to punish him for his part in an attempt to steal her clothes, she forces him to take a female form.
- Gratuitous German: Being the daughter of a Valkyrie who fought on the side of Germany in World War II, Flare's speech is often peppered with German.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Teresa often ends up scantly clad without intending to be. One of the short comics sees Lady Arcane give her a ring so that she can instantly summon a costume, but she still ends up naked because she tries to use the ring before they've had a chance to bond it to a costume.
- Innocently Insensitive: Sparkplug grew up in the same Nazi compound as Flare, and has absorbed a lot of the less politically-correct beliefs therein. This becomes especially clear when she tries to apply for a government clearance and has to deal with a Jewish government liaison.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: When she crossed over with Flare, Lana the spy posed as a maid so she could get the drop on J. Reginald Butte, who had invited Flare to his party.
- Kidnapped Scientist: In the crossover comic between Flare and Spying with Lana, the two heroines work together to rescue a Belorussian scientist from the Corrupt Corporate Executive J. Reginald Butte.
- Lumber Mill Mayhem: In the Sparkplug story "Buzz Off!", Sparkplug is lured to a sawmill where she and her reporter friend are endangered by an evil logger called the Barkmeister.
- Mrs. Hypothetical: Sparkplug ponders this after assuming her civilian identity of florist Olga Gottmann:Olga: Olga Hunter? Olga Gottmann Hunter? Mrs. Donald Gottmann-Hunter. I wonder how many children he will want.
- My Little Phony: "Dolf and the Pretty Pony", supposedly written and illustrated by Flare and her sister when they were little girls.
- Naked Freak-Out: Flare has one after Damian Pomegranate spritzes her with a green liquid that dissolves her entire costume, including her gloves, cape and boots. He mistakenly believed that her powers came from her costume; since that wasn't the case, all he achieved was to get an eyeful before Flare recovered her composure and knocked him out.
- The Nudifier: Damian Pomegranate hits Teresa with a green liquid in "Flare's Lost Costume", which leaves her stark naked.
- Pretend Prejudice: Sparkplug was raised by Nazi war criminals, and if asked will proudly declare her racial superiority, but she'll save anyone of any race, work with heroes of any race, she does nothing to promote her beliefs and actively avoids contact with Neo-Nazis and white supremacists; in fact, she feels sorry for those "not fortunate enough" to be born Aryan.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: In the earliest Flare stories, Lady Arcane comes off less like Flare's loyal friend and more like her doting girlfriend, frequently reminding Flare that she loves her and bemoaning how Flare doesn't open herself up to her.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Olga, in her Sparkplug identity, delivers one on page 653:Olga: Did it ever occur to you what it is that inspires such universal hatred among men?
Man: Why don't you tell me?
Olga: It's a failure to recognize differences between people as what they are! They are not badges of superiority or inferiority - moral or otherwise. They are merely differences! I admit that I recognize them, but you are a self-righteous hypocrite! - Secret Identity: Although Flare doesn't have a secret identity, her younger sister, Sparkplug, wears a black wig as florist Olga Guttmann. Even so, Intrepid Reporter Jimmy Dooley recognized Olga as Sparkplug the moment he first entered her flower shop, and still calls Sparkplug by her real name over her objections.
- Sexy Cat Person: Tigress, whose usual Stripperific tiger-print costume includes thigh boots and fingerless gloves. She once claimed to have been worshiped in ancient Egypt as the goddess Bast.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Nyx has been shown on the beach wearing only the lower part of a thong bikini.
- Shamu Fu: The page image for the trope depicts Flare hitting a gorilla with a shark...a gorilla in a spacesuit...while standing in a dinosaur's mouth...wearing high heels...being stared at by a robot... with UFOs and a nuclear explosion in the background.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Aphrodite in the "Adventures in Olympus" arc, notable in that the most beautiful person to exist has this combination of color, and is in fact often portrayed as a redhead in art, especially Pre-Raphaelite and Neoclassicism.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Max and Nicolette are shown doing this over four pages.
- Statuesque Stunner: Flare and Lady Arcane again, as well as the Greek goddesses. They're all very tall and beautiful.
- Stylistic Suck: The "Dolf" stories Teresa and Olga wrote and illustrated for each other as little girls. When Flare reads one of those stories to a group of children at a public library, it becomes a Fractured Fairy Tale.
- Take a Number: Flare imagines burglars doing this after she reads that a house is robbed every 15 seconds.
- Would Hit a Girl: Darkon is all too eager to attack Flare with his darkness power.
