DC’s NEWEST Hero is More Powerful Than The Justice League

This Article Contains Spoilers For Primer

DC Comics’ Justice League boasts an impressive roster of superheroes with powers ranging from flight to super strength to incredible speed. A few also showcase more exotic abilities, like shape shifting, heat vision, super elasticity, and size-changing. However, one new DC superheroine now has access to virtually all of these powers – and more! Even more amazing, she’s not even a teenager yet!

The brainchild of Thomas Krajewski, Jennifer Muro, and Gretel Lusky, Primer introduces readers to Ashley Rayburn, a sassy young street artist with a good heart but a troubled past. When she gets her hands on some superpower-granting body paints her new foster mother invented, however, Ashley learns she can be far more than just a normal kid… by becoming the paint-splattered superhero Primer!

The idea of getting superpowers from body paints ranks as one of the more unique superhero origins, but the creative team makes it work, thanks to Krajewski and Muro’s compulsively readable script and Lusky’s gorgeously colored artwork. Much like Billy Batson’s current depiction in Shazam!, Ashley has a rebellious streak and regularly sneaks out of her group home to paint graffiti art (in a scene reminiscent of Miles Morales’ graffiti scene in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) which gets her into trouble with the law and her group home’s administrator.

Fortunately for Ashley, her new foster parents encourage her artistic impulses, with her laid-back foster dad Kitch giving her access to his garage art studio to paint her masterpieces legally. But it’s Kitch’s government scientist wife Yuka who inadvertently gives Ashley an even greater gift when Ashley discovers the superpower-granting body paints Yuka’s been developing for the military’s top secret “Project Warpaint.” Created from DNA samples found in superhero blood, sweat, and even snot (yes really), the paints can grant a variety of special abilities to anyone who first sprays themselves with an aerosol “primer.”

While Yuka destroys all records of the project after fearing what the military might do with such power, she keeps a set of the paints in a safe in her home, which Ashley discovers. After accidentally spraying herself with the primer, Ashley becomes one of only two people who can gain power from the paints. As the case contains thirty-three different colors, Ashley can grant herself a multitude of abilities – but she can only use three paints at a time or risk overloading herself. The paints also regenerate, giving her an infinite supply, but it takes time for them to replenish themselves, giving Ashley another limitation.

Even so, Ashley’s new powers basically make her a one-girl Justice League. After experimenting with them, she discovers each color gives her a different power, including super strength, flight, hyper speed, invulnerability, fire and ice manipulation, telekinesis, super-healing, teleportation, sonic blasting, shape shifting, stretching, shrinking, growing, heightened intelligence, emotion control, self-duplication, plant control, matter absorption, hyper adaptation, precognition, kinetic energy absorption, electrical powers, technopathy, force fields, mind control, intangibility, power nullification, heightened senses, and access to a pocket dimension. To top it off, the “Tan” spray paint grants her power mimicry, allowing her to gain any ability she happens to lack.

Like any good superhero through, Ashley’s appeal is measured by the strength of her personality, not the range of her powers. Krajewski and Muro handle this very well by balancing Ashley’s sassiness with her genuine kindness, keeping her from devolving into a brat or becoming too much of a goody two-shoes. Ashley sees the paints as a way to help others – and have fun in the process – but she does suffer from doubts over her ability to handle major threats.

And despite her upbeat attitude Ashley comes from a troubled past – her father is a criminal who used Ashley to try and escape capture, making her an unwitting accomplice in a murder. Now in prison, her father regularly harasses Ashley over the phone, giving her an emotional conflict to overcome. And when Ashley’s exploits attract the attention of the government and the disgruntled agent originally chosen to wield the power of the “War Paint,” she gains a formidable nemesis who can challenge her on a physical level as well.

As of now, it remains unknown whether or not Ashley belongs to the mainstream DC Universe or exists in her own separate continuity (Ashley’s world does contain superheroes, but Superman or the Flash have yet to make any guest appearances). While Ashley’s adventures would work either way, it would be interesting to see how she plays against similar young heroes, like the Shazam family or Static. For now, Primer is a self-contained graphic novel, but one with plenty of potential for exciting sequels.

About The Author

Michael Jung
(700 Articles Published)

Michael Jung is a mild-mannered freelance writer-for-hire, actor, and professional storyteller with a keen interest in pop culture, education, nonprofit organizations, and unusual side hustles. His work has been featured in Screen Rant, ASU Now, Sell Books Fast, Study.com, and Free Arts among others. A graduate of Arizona State University with a PhD in 20^th Century American Literature, Michael has written novels, short stories, stage plays, screenplays, and how-to manuals.

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Michael’s background in storytelling draws him to find the most fascinating aspects of any topic and transform them into a narrative that informs and entertains the reader. Thanks to a life spent immersed in comic books and movies, Michael is always ready to infuse his articles with offbeat bits of trivia for an extra layer of fun. In his spare time, you can find him entertaining kids as Spider-Man or Darth Vader at birthday parties or scaring the heck out of them at haunted houses.

Visit Michael Jung’s website for information on how to hire him, follow him on Twitter Michael50834213, or contact him directly: michael(at)michaeljungwriter(dot)com.

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