Klara Prast (Earth-616)
From Marvel Database
Contents |
History
When Klara first started speaking to plants, her devout mother was convinced that the girl was a witch and arranged for her to be married to the much older Mr. Prast, who soon after took her to America. Prast exploited Klara, forcing her to go to work in a sweatshop by day while he himself spent her earnings on alcohol. He also forced her to have sex with him on a regular basis.
Had history proceeded as normal, Klara would have died on June 27th, 1907, when a fire broke out in the sweatshop where she worked. However, her death was averted by the sudden appearance of the Runaways, who had accidentally travelled back in time from 2008. The Runaways rescued the workers from the fire, and in the ensuing confusion, Klara escaped by creating vines to climb out a hole in the factory's wall. As she fled the factory, she was spotted by Runaway Karolina Dean.
That night, she was beaten by her husband, who was enraged at the fact that she was now unemployed and threatened to sell her if she did not find a new job the next day. This was also witnessed by Karolina, who at that moment had just dispatched a would-be rapist in the alley outside the Prasts' tenement. The next morning, Karolina brought fellow Runaway Molly Hayes with her and intercepted Klara outside her building. She intended merely to convince Klara to stand up for herself, but Molly became fixated on the idea of having Klara join the Runaways. However, Klara panicked when Karolina's fiancee Xavin transformed from a white man to a black woman during an argument, and then the two shared and intimate moment, which Klara's Christian upbringing perceived as disgusting and fled. Molly followed her and tried to get her to come back, but when Klara explained that she viewed Karolina and Xavin as "wrong", Molly called her another grownup.
However, Klara later resurfaced, her face now covered with bruises after another beating from Prast. Deciding that the prospect of kindness from people like her was more appetizing than the prospect of continued abuse at the hands of a supposedly "devout" man, Klara accompanied the Runaways when they returned to their own time.
Secret Invasion
As luck would have it, the Runaways arrived back in the present just before the Skrull fanatics invaded New York City, and only managed to eluded a group of the invaders because Xavin distracted them. Even this provided them only temporary safety, as one of the invading party was Chrell, Xavin's former instructor, who, knowing that his former pupil had a Majesdane fiancee, performed a city-wide scan for that race's bioenergy signature, and thus tracked down the Runaways, and easily captured the older Runaways in invisible force fields, but left Klara physically unharmed because he was unaware that she had any powers at all. Believing that her death was imminent, Klara began crying and said, "Make it go away." This managed to cause a large tree to spring up beneath Chrell, causing him to lose his concentration. The Runaways were freed and soon joined by their sometime allies, the Young Avengers. Just before the battle started up again, Speed carried Molly and Klara off to Mt. Rushmore, where Klara communed with the plants while Molly devised plans for avenging herself upon Speed for taking her away from the battle.
Scattered in Malibu
Soon after, the Runaways returned to California, setting up in the Steins' old vacation house in Malibu. Almost immediately after, they were attacked by the Light Brigade, a Majesdane military unit consisting of Gen. vaDrann, Lt. deHalle, Sgt. vaRikk, and vaDanti, deHalle's civilian brother. These four, some of the last surviving native Majesdanes, sought to arrest Karolina to serve time for her father's betrayal of Majesdane. Hoping to avoid a big destructive fight, team leader Nico used a spell to scatter the Brigadiers, sending them to different corners of the globe, but the spell had the unintended side-effect of rendering the Runaways incapable of cooperating with each other. During this time, Klara and Molly wandered off to try and build a fort in preparation for the Light Brigade's return.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Klara is able to talk to plants, allowing her to command them with incredible ease. She has a particularly strong connection with roses, which apparently talk back to her.Abilities
Klara is fluent in English and German. She has also proven surprisingly adept at videogames.Strength level
Human childWeaknesses
Completely unfamiliar with the modern world, Klara is timid and has no combat skills to speak of. When she is panicked or upset, her control over her abilities suffers greatly, and this can result in her plants attacking anyone that approaches her, including her own friends.[1] She is also unable to swim.[2]
Trivia
- Klara Prast's name is a play on the word Chloroplast.
- Highly superstitious, Klara still believes that her powers are a form of witchcraft, rather than the result of a mutation.
Links
- Appearances of Klara Prast (Earth-616)
- Character Gallery: Klara Prast (Earth-616)
- Images that feature Klara Prast (Earth-616)
- Fan-Art Gallery: Klara Prast (Earth-616)
- Quotations by Klara Prast (Earth-616)
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