Searching...

Raven

Rachel Roth

Prime DC Comics Universe

Raven's History

Raven, or Rachel Roth, has been a prominent member of theTeen Titans. Raven is an emphatic person, she can teleport, and send out her Soul-Self, which can fight physically as well as act as Raven's eyes and ears away from her body.

A dark, moody character, Raven is the half-breed daughter of a human mother named Angela Roth (also known as Arella) and the demon overlord Emperor Trigon. She grew up in a pacifistic reality called Azarath after running away from home, which was possibly in Gotham City, and joining a cult (possibly the Church of Blood), where she was raped by Trigon. In Azarath, Raven was taught to "control her emotions" in order to suppress and control her inherited demonic powers.

Teen Titans

Eventually she learned that Trigon was planning to come to her dimension and vowed to stop him. She initially approached theJustice League, but they refused her on the advice of Zatannawho sensed her demonic parentage. In desperation, she reformed the Titans as the New Teen Titans to fight her father.

The team was eventually able to defeat Trigon and seal him in an inter-dimensional prison. However, Raven still had to fight her father's influence, as he was not completely destroyed. More than once, Raven nearly lost control in various high stress situations in her adventures and barely regained it before Trigon could reassert himself.

Trigon eventually escaped, came to Earth and took control of Raven. Azarath was destroyed in the process. The Titans came together and killed Raven. This allowed the souls of Azarath to possess her and use her as a channel to kill Trigon. Afterward, Raven was presumed dead, but she actually rose from ashes of the battle, finally purged of Trigon's evil. She vanished, and her mother went looking for her.

Free from Trigon

Raven was then captured by Brother Blood's minions to controlNightwing as part of Brother Blood's resurrection. The Titans rescued them both and prevented Brother Blood from returning. Raven donned a new white cloak to represent her being free from her father's influence.

The Titans were eventually captured by the Wildebeest Society, but were rescued by a group of heroes. The leader of the Wildebeest Society was actually their teammate, Jericho, who was inhabited by the souls of Azarath. Jericho tried to use the Titans as vessels for the souls, but in the end was killed by his father, Deathstroke the Terminator.

Dark Raven

Later, another version of Raven appeared, this time, possessed by her evil conscience. She attempted to implant seeds of Trigon's children into new bodies. She crashed the wedding of Dick Grayson and Koriand'r of Tamaran, and implanted one of the seeds into the alien princess. However, she actually implanted the seed of the good Raven, which caused Starfire to leave Earth in order to escape from the evil Raven and go on a spiritual journey. Raven then implanted seeds into several superheroes. The Titans were able to defeat her with the help ofPhantasm.

Raven returned later, still evil, in order to destroy her good self which she had implanted in Starfire. The Titans defeated her once again, for the last time. The good Raven was instilled into a new golden spirit body.

Rachel Roth

As a spirit, Raven wandered Earth, looking for her place in the world, when Brother Blood came to claim her. Her spirit was instilled into the body of a teenage girl by the Church of Blood. The Teen Titans (reformed again), discovered that the Church of Blood were worshipers of Raven's father, Trigon. They also found a prophecy which told of the marriage between Brother Blood and Raven that would result in Armageddon. The new team interrupted the wedding, and Raven forced the cult to escape. She then joined the new Teen Titans and enrolled at a high school as Rachel Roth to honor her mother.

Titans Tomorrow

The Teen Titans once traveled through time to a possible dystopian future, where Raven became the Dark Ravenand gathered Superman IV (formerly Superboy), Wonder Woman IV (formerly Wonder Girl II), Batman IV (formerlyRobin III), Animal Man II (formerly Beast Boy), and Aquawoman (formerly Aquagirl IV) to continue the heroic crusade, but using ruthless, murderous tactics.

Hell's Gates

Later, she was attacked by the villain Kestrel. When Hell's gates were broken, Brother Blood escaped along with his newly appointed mother, Lilith Clay, formerly known as Omen. Hawk and Dove, Kole, and Phantasm also returned from the grave.

Raven has recently become romantically attached to Beast Boy. Raven had been developing feelings for him since her recent rebirth.

Infinite Crisis

Due to the effects of the Spectre's destruction of magic, Raven found her own magical powers weakening and slipping out of her control, but continued on the good fight nonetheless, helping the Titans both in evacuating the shattered city of Bl�dhaven and battling Superboy-Prime.

After the events of Infinite Crisis, Raven quit the team after she and Beast Boy broke up their relationship. A recording of her told Cyborg that Beast Boy was stressed by being team leader, and even compares him withNightwing. Raven then left the Titans because she learned a secret about the new members of the team, though she let them think she was leaving because of Gar.

One Year Later

She traveled around the globe, looking for something that had been stolen from Titans Tower by one of the many members the team had seen in the previous year. She based her operations out of an apartment in Beijing, and met with Red Star briefly in Moscow to ask the Russian hero questions about their former teammates. She was able to recover a book, but this action resulted in her being chased by a squadron of armed soldiers. She eventually made her way back to the United States where she reached the Church of Brother Blood. The book that she had in her possession contained a computer disk, which housed the spirit of her old colleague, Jericho. Raven was able to withdrawal Jericho's soul from the disk and transpose it into a resurrected body.

Raven is later approached by Robin and Wonder Girl, in the hopes that she could resurrect Superboy like she did Jericho. Unfortunately, Raven declares that impossible since Superboy's soul had moved on to the afterlife, while Jericho's soul was kept on a computer disk. Without warning, the Titans are captured by the villainous Titans East and transported to the original Titans Island in New York, where Raven is placed in the 'care' of Enigma andDuela Dent, who took to torturing her psychologically. Raven manages her escape by offering Duela membership into the true Titans group. After knocking Enigma and Risk unconscious; Raven, Duela, and Cyborg get reinforcements in the form of Nightwing, Troia, Beast Boy, and Flash (Bart Allen). After beating the Titans East, she reveals hints that she still loves Gar, but he refuses to dwell on the matter, leaving their relationship uncertain at the moment.

Titans

Raven and a group of classmates are attacked by a demonic creature, sent by Raven's resurrected father Trigon. She soon joins Beast Boy, Donna Troy, Red Arrow, Starfire, Flash and Nightwing at New York's Titan's Island where Cyborg and his Teen Titans team were attacked by Deathstroke and the villainous Titans East. These events lead to the creation of the newest team of Titans, which consists of the original New Teen Titans.

Raven discovers that Trigon had more than one child, and that a trio of children devoted to her father are behind the attacks. She is affected along with many of the other Titans by these three beings, who prey on the strongest emotions present in the group at the time (such as Nightwing and Starfire giving in to long suppressed longing for one another, and Flash and Donna Troy's mild envy taken to extremes in a usually calm social interaction). For Raven and Beast Boy, the emotion used against them is their subdued rage and insecurity towards themselves and each other. Raven is attacked at one point by an incensed Garfield, but their fight is broken up by the remaining Titans when they begin to gradually recover from the attack. Raven's three half-brothers then use her and Beast Boy to act as keys to open a portal to Trigon's realm. Raven uses her own power to influence greed in others to make her half-brothers steal what little power Trigon had left. The portal is closed, and Trigon's sons, believing they have gained great power, leave the scene.

Deadly Sins

While Raven and Beast Boy go out together on a "not-a-date", she informs him that since meeting her half-brothers, she's felt herself being tempted by her father's evil power and fears she will once again turn evil. Although Beast Boy rejects the idea, Raven fear is made reality as her half-brothers later return, and provoke her demonic side, causing her to leave the Titans and join them. However the team was able to track them down and convince Raven to join the side of good once more with the help of a mystical artifact Raven gave Donna Troy should such a situation ever arise. She later provided a number of other artifacts, all capable of killing her, to the Titans as terms for her staying with the team. However, the experience plays a hand in Raven ultimately electing not to pursue a renewed relationship with Beast Boy.

Raven aided the Titans in capturing Match, who went on a rampage with Jericho trapped inside of him. Through her powers, she discovered that Jericho was actually in control of Match, not the other way around. Before she could warn the other Titans, Jericho used a device to temporarily knock out the lights. When the back-up generator kicks in, Jericho was gone, and Nightwing deduces he must have possessed one of the Titans in the confusion.