Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)

Big Bertha
Name	Bertha Crawford (legally changed from Ashley Crawford)
Current Alias	Big Bertha
Aliases	Ample Amazon
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Great Lakes Avengers, Mirror Modeling Formerly Initiative
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Height	Variable
Weight	Variable
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	Auburn
Unusual Features	Variable height and mass
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Marshfield, Wisconsin
Personal Information
Identity	Secret
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Supermodel, adventurer
Base of Operations	A Stark Holdings factory, Detroit, Michigan Formerly GLA Headquarters, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Creators and Appearances
Creators	John Byrne
First	West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46 (March, 1989)
First	West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #46 (March, 1989)

History

Origin

As a young woman growing up in Wisconsin, Ashley Crawford discovered her mutant ability to completely control the distribution of her body's adipose tissue. Using this power, Ashley crafted the perfect physique and became an internationally famous supermodel. For a time, Ashley was the highest paid fashion model in the country, appearing one cover of multiple magazines. However, yearning for more Ashley responded to an ad in a local newspaper calling for men and women of action. Donning the persona of Big Bertha, Ashley Crawford joined Mr. Immortal's Great Lakes Avengers.

Ashley Crawford, the internationally famous supermodel

Great Lakes Avengers

As Big Bertha, Ashley enjoyed her being a superhero despite often being greeted with revulsion based on her appearance. Initially, the GLA used Ashley penthouse as their headquarters and her private jet as their transportation.

Ashley continued to work as a model with Mirror Modeling to continue to fund the GLA. Unfortunately, this also meant that she was largely absent from spending time with her GLA friends. Ashley was further pulled between her two worlds by repeated offers to move away from Milwaukee to pursue her career in locations such as New York City, London, Paris, Milan, or Rome. Ashley eventually decide to enjoy her life as it is instead of feeling like she was spread too thin.

Big Bertha continued to engage in superhero works with her friends and teammates including defeating both Dr. Tannenbaum's Giant Robot Snowman and Evil Living Christmas Trees, battling Thunderbolts, and facing off against A.I.M..

Along with her teammates, Big Bertha registered under the Superhuman Registration Act and became part of the Wisconsin branch of the Initiative. Sher and her teammates helped other heroes to stop the Skrull invasion of Earth including fighting their newest teammate, the Grasshopper, who was a Skrull impostor.

Deadpool's Revenge Squad

She was later recruited to a group composed of Weasle, Taskmaster, Blind Al, Sluggo, and Macho Gomez to kill Deadpool. They all shot him with guns, but failed to kill him.

The GLA in Detroit

Several years later, when Flatman got the Avengers' legal representative Connie Ferrari to reinstate the Great Lake Avengers as a permanent and official addition to the Avengers, Big Bertha was the only former member of the team together with Doorman who answered his call to bring the team together. They subsequently moved to Detroit, where the Avengers had set them up a headquarters in a factory owned by Stark Holdings. At some point before this, Bertha legally changed her name to Bertha for a more consistent personal brand.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

File:Ashley Crawford (Earth-616).jpg

Big Bertha rescuing children

Big Bertha was born a mutant with the ability to alter the physical size and mass of her body including:

• Body Transformation: Big Bertha can add hundreds of pounds of super-bulk to her frame increasing her mass, girth, and height. In both her larger and smaller forms, Big Bertha is able to completely control the distribution of adipose tissue, giving her complete control over her figure. The source of this additional size isn't known, but it is presumably extra-dimensional. To decrease her size, Big Bertha must induce vomiting to expel the excess mass. See Conservation of energy for details.
  • Superhuman Strength: With her additional super-bulk mass, Big Bertha's physical muscular and skeletal strength is increased to superhuman levels. At her peak, she is able to lift 50 tons.
    • Superhuman Leaping: Her great strength also extends into her legs, allowing her to leap great distances and heights.
  • Superhuman Durability: The additional super-bulk mass also enhances the density and durability of her body tissues making her much more resistant to conventional injury than those of a normal human. She can withstand high caliber bullets, exposure to temperature extremes, falls from great heights, and high-velocity impact forces without sustaining injury.

Abilities

Big Bertha possess the attributes of a well-conditioned athlete regardless of her transformation state. She's additionally a formidable unarmed combatant trained by Hawkeye and Mockingbird, and a skilled pilot of conventional jet aircraft. She's also a proeficient card player.

Weaknesses

Baseline Stamina: Big Bertha's physical stamina isn't heightened along with her strength and durability. While she retains the stamina of a well-conditioned athlete, she will begin to tire rapidly with her additional mass.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

• X-Men Costume (formerly)

Transportation

Big Bertha's Bumper Buggy

• Bumper Buggy
• Ashley Crawford's Private Jet (formerly)
• Quin-Jetta (formerly)

Trivia

• Ashley's modeling career provides the funding for the Great Lakes team.
• Deadpool is attracted to Ashley, but only in her larger form. This may simple be him fetishizing her.

See Also

• 39 appearance(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 7 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 6 minor appearance(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 2 mention(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 113 image(s) of Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 2 quotation(s) by or about Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)
• 1 item(s) used/owned by Ashley Crawford (Earth-616)

Links and References

• Great Lakes Avengers
• Big Bertha on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki