To begin at the beginning: Black Orchid was created by writer Sheldon Mayer and artist Tony DeZuniga, and debuted in Adventure Comics #428 (July, 1973), during the early days of the Bronze Age. After three try-out issues of Adventure Comics, she became the regular back-up feature in The Phantom Stranger for the next few years.
Black Orchid is a master of disguise, and many of her adventures involve her going undercover in the criminal organisation she is investigating. She can also do more standard superheroics; she has a purple superhero outfit and can fly, has Super-Strength, and is Immune to Bullets. The stories never showed her when she wasn't in some disguise, nor revealed her real name or the origin of her powers (although one story arc gave an apparent reveal, which then turned out to be part of a Costume Copycat plot).
There apparently wasn't enough demand for Black Orchid to get her own series, and when the 1970s version of The Phantom Stranger ended its run, she slipped into obscurity for a decade.
She began reappearing in the late 1980s, as some of the children who had read her adventures became comic book writers themselves. She appeared in an issue of Blue Devil where various mystic themed characters gave conflicting origin stories for her that parodied some of the more famous Marvel origin stories. She made a string of appearances with John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, putting her mastery of disguise to good use. And then in 1988 came Neil Gaiman's Black Orchid miniseries.
The miniseries, one of the pioneering titles that influenced the later Vertigo Comics imprint, starts in the familiar way, with Black Orchid impersonating a secretary to get the goods on another criminal organization. Then it turns out the secretary's boss knows who she really is — and instead of ranting at her, sticking her in a death trap, or locking her in a storeroom until the Big Bad arrives, he shoots her in the head. Then, having empirically verified that she really is Immune to Bullets, he burns down the building with her still inside.
It turns out that the real protagonist of the mini is Black Orchid's sister, who is left to deal with the fallout of her death and sort out the messy history of their family, in the process finally revealing who she was and whence her powers. (It's complicated, and involves cameos by just about every plant-themed hero or villain on DC's roster, from Poison Ivy to the Swamp Thing.) At the end of the mini, the sister takes up the mantle and becomes the new Black Orchid.
There was a 22-issue Black Orchid ongoing series featuring the new Black Orchid, not written by Neil Gaiman. The Vertigo Black Orchid made occasional cameo appearances from time to time in titles such as Birds of Prey.
A Black Orchid resembling the original, classic version is now a member of the Justice League Dark in DC's rebooted New 52 continuity. The fate of the Gaiman version of the character has yet to be confirmed.
She appears in Justice League Dark, voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey.
Not to be confused with the Black Orchid in Killer Instinct. Or Hong Kong 1965 movie series Black Rose, about a costumed cat burglar vigilante.
Black Orchid provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The woman who became the template for Black Orchid was frequently beaten by her father as a child, and after he caught her kissing her boyfriend, he is strongly implied to have raped her.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Occurs after Flora prevents Black Annis from killing a baby to activate a portal and reconnect with her point of origin. Annis spells it out for Flora that she was attempting to recombine with the mythical Anna, the point at which she and several other mythical figures such as Athena were born from, because Annis has been slowly dying away thanks to being forgotten by the modern world. Flora looks clearly horrified when she's forced to see things from Annis's point of view, up until Annis finally shatters into nothing. The issue ends with Flora consecrating the portal for her seeds and doing an offering in Annis's memory.
- All Crimes Are Equal: Those who seek the Harbors of Absolution are judged the same no matter what crime they might've committed, whether it be planetary genocide or not donating to small charities. Suzy later learns the people who go to the Harbors are forced to consider any and all potential consequences for their actions, so even a small offense is treated as having genocidal consequences. She promptly calls this mindset stupid.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: On the Abode of the Bemused, everyone finds themselves easily distracted by just about everything. Suzy encounters a couple of people who exclaim a certain kind of fruit is the best fruit ever, only for her to find the fruit's rather bland. The people of the Isle are being plagued by a creature who keeps eating them... and is absolutely amazed when it turns out Suzy won't just let him eat her too. That said, the monster's more rational when it says it's tired of eating people who don't try to fight back.
- Ax-Crazy: Carl Thorne, to put it mildly. He killed his wife Susan after she blew the whistle on him. then killed Sylvain after Luthor refused to give him his job back, before destroying his lab work while drunk.
- Bat Family Crossover: The Gaiman miniseries is, in part, a crossover involving DC's plant-themed characters. It's primarily focused on the second Black Orchid, but Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy both play major roles in the story as well. These characters would appear in another crossover Rotworld with many others such as the Justice League.
- Bound and Gagged:
- Usually how the original Black Orchid would dispose of the people she replaced during her adventures.
- The first Orchid herself is tied up just before being executed.
- Cement Shoes: Luthor's henchmen do this to Carl Thorne in the miniseries. He's saved by the two surviving Orchids.
- Charm Person: The later two Black Orchids are able to use pheromones and scent manipulation to control people and alter their perceptions.
- Color Character: Black Orchid
- Collective Identity: One story arc among the Black Orchid stories serving as backup material in The Phantom Stranger apparently revealed that "Black Orchid" was really a team of non-superpowered women who between them gave the appearance of a single superpowered individual, but they turned out to be a group of criminals intending to set up an innocent woman as a patsy.
- Cool Old Lady: The wood dryad Tanawah from the 1993 ongoing series. She eventually declares herself "The Dryad of New York City" during her spotlight issue.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: Batman provides some assistance to "Black Orchid" so that she can talk to Poison Ivy at Arkham Asylum.
- Costume Copycat: One of the back-up stories in The Phantom Stranger had a group of criminals pretend to be a legion of women who all took on the identity of the Black Orchid simultaneously, scheming to manipulate a young woman into joining them so they can make her a patsy.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Fittingly, Lex Luthor wants to do this with the Black Orchid seeds.
- Decoy Protagonist: The first Black Orchid appears to be the main character at first in the 1988 miniseries, but she is quickly killed off, subsequently having her plant/human hybrid clones Flora Black and Suzy be the focus of the spotlight instead.
- Destination Defenestration: In the second issue of the 1993 series, Flora Black stops a pair of government agents by using her powers to make them jump through a closed window to their deaths.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Averted and subverted. Any sexiness that the other two Orchids has is usually a result of their glamour powers or imagery created by their pheromone manipulation. In their natural form, the two have noticeable beauty, but none of it is cheesecake-related.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Subverted in the 1993 series. As Flora's actions become morally ambiguous, she uses her pheromone manipulation on Elliot Weems to become his wife, and she pretty much rapes him to create more orchid seeds. This is meant to demonstrate Flora crossing the line rather than a punishment for Elliot's actions, although Elliot's standing as a Corrupt Corporate Executive makes the unfortunate implication.
- Dying to Be Replaced: The 1988 miniseries kills off the original Black Orchid to replace her with Flora Black and Suzy.
- Epigraph: The three issues of the miniseries had quotes from Omar Khayyam, Lou Reed, and E. E. Cummings on the back covers.
- Face–Heel Turn: In the 1993 series, Flora Black eventually snaps and tries to force humanity to wipe itself out.
- Fridge Horror: Applied in-universe when Suzy reaches the Harbors of Absolution. The attendants make everyone who arrive go over all the possible negative consequences of their actions. Suzy, however, has no time for such nonsense and says they can spin anything she's ever done to look like a crime and that worrying about all of the possibilities of one's actions gets them nowhere "Except granting stupid absolutions."
- Glamour: Black Orchid can change her appearance by altering the perceptions of whoever looks at her in the ongoing series that followed Neil Gaiman's miniseries.
- Greater-Scope Villain: While his time is limited in the miniseries, Lex Luthor is this in the Gaiman-penned miniseries, including prior dealings with Carl Thorne and having the original Black Orchid killed when she's discovered spying on him. Ironic, considering Gaiman's famous "skinny Kingpin" comment about Post-Crisis Lex was actually a criticism over the Corrupt Corporate Executive version first seen in The Man of Steel being similar to Wilson Fisk.
- Green Thumb: Black Orchid, following the miniseries.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Thorne attacks Philip Sylvain by breaking a bottle on him in the 1988 miniseries.
- He Who Fights Monsters:
- Pointed out by Poison Ivy that in having locked her up, that she's not allowed sunlight, which she needs as a plant person, and she doesn't get parole for having been committed but instead has to "prove" that she is sane, and the only reason the guards don't rape her because she scares them. Though she is a hazard to Gotham, she's not being given humanitarian treatment by Gotham's civil servants.
- The second Black Orchid, Flora, becomes increasingly disillusioned with humanity as the series progresses, until she decides to try and wipe them all out. She fails, and is killed with liquid nitrogen. At the moment of her death, Suzy, the younger Orchid who used to be her companion, takes on the Black Orchid name.
- The Hero Dies: The plot of the 1988 miniseries is kicked off by the death of the original Black Orchid.
- Immune to Bullets: Black Orchid can survive getting shot. You can't suffer organ damage or blood loss if you don't have blood or organs in the first place.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: A subversion. The second and third Orchids don't actually wear clothes, but in their natural forms they lack nipples and vaginas. No one makes a point about this because, understandably, their real forms wouldn't really pass for human.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: While in England, Flora encounters the British boogeywoman Black Annis who has tried to adapt to modern times by taking on the form of a social worker. She kidnaps children by getting into their homes via telling parents she's investigating supposed claims of child abuse. The smarter parents are the ones who demand to see her identification and official documents (which she doesn't have, causing her to act like she got the address wrong), while the ones who get easily flustered and confused are the ones who let Annis in.
- In-Universe Nickname: Sherilyn usually called Flora by the name "Blackie", because she didn't know what her actual name was.
- Karma Houdini: Junkin Buckley is last seen escaping yet again and not facing any punishment for lying to Suzy or conspiring with the slaver in The Children's Crusade (Vertigo).
- Latex Perfection: Part of Black Orchid's stock-in-trade was disguising herself with very convincing masks.
- Legacy Character: The second Black Orchid, who inherits the mantle in the miniseries; and the third, to whom it passes at the end of the ongoing series.
- Lying Finger Cross:
- In the Annual issue tying in to The Children's Crusade (Vertigo), Suzy asks Junkin Buckley if he means every word of the poem he made up for her. When Junkin answers that he does, a panel shows that he's crossing his fingers behind his back.
- In the 18th issue of the 1993 series, Suzy again asks Junkin Buckley if he's telling the truth after he claims he's the last of the buccas. Again, we see his fingers crossed behind his back to indicate he's lying to Suzy.
- Master of Disguise: Black Orchid often pulls one over the criminals she faces by effectively disguising herself as people they won't suspect of turning against them.
- Meta Origin: The Gaiman miniseries toys with the idea that Black Orchid and Poison Ivy's origins are tied to "The Green" (the metaphysical energy field from which plants draw their life), just like Swamp Thing and his enemy Floronic Man. The miniseries establishes that Alec Holland (Swamp Thing), Jason Woodrue (Floronic Man), Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy), and Philip Sylvain (Black Orchid's creator) were all colleagues in the field of plant science, apparently explaining how they unlocked the power of the Green.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: In the second issue of the 1993 series, Flora Black and her companion Sherilyn get harassed by some punks who assume them to be a pair of streetwalkers. Flora Black scares them away by revealing her true form and then making herself appear to become a decaying zombie.
- Morality Chain: After the death of Sherilyn Somers, Flora Black slips into becoming more malevolent and prone to taking ethically questionable actions.
- Ms. Fanservice: Notably defied with Poison Ivy in the miniseries. She looks every bit as haggard and disheveled as you'd expect a forcibly institutionalized mental patient to be, and is far too emotionally drained by Arkham to try seducing anyone.
- Mugged for Disguise: Pretty much the trademark of the original Black Orchid. She'd take out and tie up some poor mook who was close to the lead villain, and then take his or her place in order to bring down the lead criminal. The real goon was usually discovered safely bound and gagged in some hidden location at the end of the story.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Parodied in the Annual issue of Blue Devil, where Madame Xanadu and the Phantom Stranger tell two incompatible origin stories for Black Orchid that spoof the origins of Marvel superheroes. Madame Xanadu's telling parodies the origin of Daredevil, while the Phantom Stranger's version lampoons the origin of Spider-Man, with the only detail in common being that both versions involve the woman who would become Black Orchid gaining her powers from coming into contact with an irradiated orchid. When the Creeper points out the inconsistencies between the two origins, this results in Madame Xanadu and the Stranger arguing over which version is the correct one.
- Not My Driver: In the fourth issue of the 1987 Suicide Squad series, Black Orchid impersonated bad guy William Heller's chauffeur. She does it not to kidnap him, however, but so she can eavesdrop on conversations between him and his advisors.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When Suzy finds herself among people who're easily impressed by everything, she learns a giant monster regularly eats one or two of them and they're too amazed to fight back. When Suzy confronts the monster, she's horrified and exhausted when she realizes the monster is just as much a ditz as the people it eats. Though thankfully, it has more common sense (for a monster) when it states how tired it is of eating people who don't fight back. Suzy directs it to a place where it can find more challenging prey.
- Plant Person: Black Orchid and her sisters, according to the miniseries, are sentient plant people.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: The younger Black Orchid Suzy initially appears as a young girl, but later takes on a more adult form near the end of the 1993 series.
- Production Foreshadowing: Batman makes a brief cameo in the Gaiman mini, represented as a mysterious shadowy figure who speaks in white writing on an irregular black speech bubble. Gaiman liked the speech effect so much he decided to recycle it for the supernatural protagonist of The Sandman (1989). And in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which also had Dave McKean art, Batman has the same white writing on black bubble.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Suzy's travels among the magical islands of the Splinterlands bring her to a place that is full of self-described sycophants who never get anything done because they're too busy hyping up the sycophants above them. The trouble is that they employ a race of underlings who're dying of starvation because the sycophants are too self-absorbed to notice they need food and water. For a while Suzy ends up in charge of the entire island when she calls all the sycophants out on being useless morons and they submit to her more forceful personality.
- Say My Name: And what saves the second Black Orchid, "Hello, Carl."
- Significant Anagram: One issue involves Flora and Tanawah the Dryad encountering three monstrous kobolds in New York City. Figuring out all three of them have names that are jumbled up versions of "New York" is necessary to free the kobolds of the corruption that's turned them into monsters.
- Slasher Smile: Carl has an unnerving grin when he kills Susan in the miniseries.
- Super-Strength: Black Orchid is incredibly strong.
- Too Dumb to Live: Carl Thorne in the miniseries, who does increasingly stupid things in his efforts to impress Lex Luthor. Being drunk while setting fire to the Orchid hybrids' greenhouse does not help. It ultimately gets him killed.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Suzy shows shades of this during the ongoing series, though it's less that she's wise and more that she's showing common sense. This is especially evident in #16 while she's travelling the Splinterlands, and just about everybody she meets has got their heads up their asses.
- Yes-Man: One of the islands of the Splinterlands is populated by a hierarchy made up of sycophants, with the lowest cast of servants slowly dying out because they aren't being properly fed. Indeed, every individual sycophant keeps exclaiming how their lord and master is the greatest person ever... and said lord goes on to say how their lord and master is the greatest ever. Suzy briefly becomes the most powerful individual on the island when she starts screaming at them to stop being useless jackasses and actually feed their servants.
- You Have Failed Me: Luthor orders Carl Thorne's elimination after he torches the greenhouse where the Orchid hybrids were being grown, eliminating the possibility of them being used for Lexcorp research.
