The Justice League is possibly one of the most well known superhero groups in comic books, and they have an extremely famous television series to their name as well. They also have quite a lot of extremely interesting villains with many diverse and fascinating backstories. They usually face villains in one among a specific members’ rogues gallery.
However, all rules have exceptions, and one of those exceptions is the Royal Flush Gang. This villainous group is actually a gang of criminals with a deck of cards theme, and their large number of members makes them a formidable rival to the Justice League. Specific members of both sides can face off, making the Gang competitive but not too challenging.
The Royal Flush Gang, like other comic book ensembles, has gone through several lineups. Ace is a member of this formidable gang. Ace was by far the most dangerous member of the Royal Flush Gang’s first and second versions. She has been the smallest of the bunch and acted childishly and had a childlike demeanor. Ace seldom talked and instead gazed into space.
Ace’s Tragic Backstory
Like many other supervillains, Ace had a pretty tragic backstory. Most of her unusual and unique behavior was due to the trauma she had experienced when she was a young child. She had the wonderful innate ability to send out waves of thought which she could use to manipulate people, change their minds and alter their perceptions. She could drive people to insanity just using eye contact. Ace inadvertently left both her parents in a comatose state when she was a newborn. A few years after this incident, she was seized by the state in an older version of Cadmus, with the intention of studying and taking advantage of her gift. They were able to suppress her strength by using a headband, which rendered her harmless and manageable.
Ace was examined and tested throughout her youth until the Joker took her in and enlisted her into the notorious Royal Flush Gang. Joker planned to use her as a transmitting signal to drive large numbers of people to insanity. This strategy would have succeeded if Batman hadn’t revealed that the Joker had been wearing a power-dampening headband the entire time. Ace turned on her “rescuer,” carrying out sweet revenge by making him much crazier than he was already, and quietly walked away. Cadmus eventually reclaimed Ace and continued her previous training.
Ace plays a major role in Justice League 2001 in Season two episodes 21 and 22 “Wild Cards” which aired on December 6, 2003. The episode starts when Green Lantern, as well as Hawkgirl, are attempting to hack into financial data in the Watchtower. The Joker set a time bomb someplace else on the Strip, but only the members of the Justice League can deactivate it before it explodes.
The device is slated to detonate in less than twenty-three minutes. Joker also placed several cameras across the city, enabling him and the viewers to monitor the League’s every action. Superman uses his x-ray vision to swiftly pinpoint the device, but the League is ambushed by the Joker’s formidable Royal Flush Gang.
As they fight the League, Joker describes their origins: a group of five children born with superpowers was seized from their family and detained by the state as teens to be groomed as human weaponry, until Joker arrived and released them. While the rest of the Justice League is fighting, Batman defuses the device only to discover it is not real. With just about fourteen minutes remaining, Superman surveys the Strip and discovers twenty-five explosives. There’s really no way to know which are counterfeits and which are genuine until he goes through all of them.
The League divides into groups to disarm their adversaries, with the Gang constantly interfering. Superman uncovered another explosive at the replica of the Statue of Liberty. Back near the screen where a live feed plays, the Joker as well as Ace are watching the League feverishly searching for the bombs when they hear Green Lantern and Hawkgirl arguing and sense the romantic chemistry between them. However, the Joker detonates the bomb, forcing Hawkgirl and Green Lantern to escape. Batman successfully shoots down a chopper transporting Harley Quinn. Batman leverages her jealousy by hinting Joker’s apparent fondness for Ace, the Gang’s final member. This prompts Harley to attack him, knocking him unconscious.
With just a few minutes left, there’s only one explosive remaining, which the League managed to defuse. The Joker commends the League’s achievement before revealing the full extent of the evil of his plan: Ace has a basilisk stare, and the ability to drive people to insanity just by staring at them, whether in person or on Television; a power so lethal that the authorities took her away as a kid. The entire bomb plot was a scheme to maximize program’s audience — by Joker’s estimation, sixty to seventy million individuals are now viewing – and they can’t stop looking, as Ace has them hooked. Their minds will be annihilated in a matter of minutes.
Ace disables Batman as he approaches the Joker. Batman struggles to protect himself while the Joker strikes him, essentially kicking him when he’s down. As they fight, Batman takes something from Joker’s pocket: the mind-control headband Ace’s governmental handlers used to soothe her. When Ace notices this, she becomes outraged and uses her strength on Joker, knocking him out. Ace walks away, and Batman is too weary to pursue her.
Ace also makes another cameo in “Epilogue,” the 13th episode of Justice League Unlimited’s second season. Terry McGinnis, 31, begins the episode by breaking into Amanda Waller’s high-security home, where she is now a very elderly woman. He approaches her and requests an explanation. She appears unaffected by his presence and focuses on narrating the tale at her own speed.
Terry had been screened and determined to be completely suitable months ago, when Bruce Wayne, who was also now extremely elderly, was suffering from renal failure and required a tissue donation to clone and create new organs. Terry, surprised, got his DNA tested and discovered that he was Bruce’s biological son.
Terry is first enraged, assuming that Bruce orchestrated the whole incident to guarantee that he would have an heir. Terry envisions himself charging inside the Batcave and questioning Bruce, who does not refute the charge and asserts that the planet will forever need a Batman. Terry is enraged to hear that Bruce never informed him that Warren McGinnis was in fact, not his biological father. He also envisions himself splitting up with Dana Tan, whom he has been seeing throughout high school and who now knows his true identity, and withdrawal from the JLU.
To demonstrate his point about Bruce, Terry is told by Waller about a tragedy that happened before he was alive. Ace began wreaking havoc as her abilities progressed beyond generating hallucinations to the ability to change the fabric of very reality itself. She utilized her new knowledge to build an impregnable stronghold and her very own Royal Flush Gang In order to keep intruders at bay. Following their defeat by the Justice League, Waller told Batman that actually, Ace was on the brink of death due to a brain aneurysm and that the subsequent psychological rebound would lead to tremendous havoc and loss of life.
Cadmus had acquired a unique device to kill her off and avert the calamity, and because Batman and Ace were previously acquainted, he volunteered to do it. Batman entered Ace’s hideout with the inherent courage and compassion of a brave hero. When Batman approached Ace, she stated that she could read his intentions. Ace figured that Batman had never planned to use the device to kill her after she read his mind.
Ace told Batman about her resentment at being robbed of her youth in order to be researched and developed as a weapon. Batman then went on to urge Ace to undo the changes she’d made while he sympathized with her about her lost childhood. Ace knew she was about to die and urged Batman to remain with her, which he did, holding the grieving girl’s hand. She died quietly with him at her side, and the world went back to normal.
Terry learns the truth from Waller: she was the strategist, not Bruce. Following the crisis with Cadmus, Waller transitioned from becoming the Justice League’s main opponent to an ally. As the League’s Government Liaison, she got to know Batman well and developed a strong admiration for him. She also met a number of intriguing individuals, but not one of them compared to Batman, who used his mind, physique, and determination to save the day, in contrast to others with their acquired superpowers.
The encounter with Ace revealed to Waller how Batman’s finest qualities were his compassion and his steadfast unwillingness to take anyone’s life. But as time passed, Waller noticed him aging and recognized he would not be around forever, since he would have to retire someday if he wasn’t assassinated first. However, she believed that the world will always require a Batman.
Waller launched Project Batman Beyond with the help of her former Project Cadmus connections. Batman’s DNA was acquired in one of his excursions years ago. He was occasionally treated by professional medical staff, and the medical waste was easily retrieved. She discovered a newlywed couple, Mary and Warren McGinnis, who were virtually a psychiatric match for Batman’s mother and father. As Warren walked in for what he believed was a flu vaccination, nanobots overwrote his reproductive DNA with Batman’s. Terry was born a year later, the genetic offspring of Mary McGinnis as well as Batman.
However, genetics alone do not produce a Batman, which is why Waller dispatched a killer to murder Terry’s parents as the happy family of three were exiting a theater that was playing the film “The Grey Ghost Strikes”, assuming that the very same tragedy would elicit the same response. The assassin, however, couldn’t allow herself to murder them and instead approached Waller, since Batman would never stoop to murder as it would ruin all of his morals and principles. Waller was compelled to agree, which is why the project was essentially shelved. Terry’s parents would be saved, and his sibling would be born.
Unfortunately, nine years later, Terry’s father was assassinated in a horrible twist of fate, triggering a series of events that transformed Terry from a regular guy into Batman.
Terry is unconvinced, thinking that it didn’t matter if Waller or Bruce was the true architect, he is still “cursed,” in that his Batman image was formed before he was born. Waller indicates that she believes his father’s death was caused by supernatural intervention. Although it is unknown why Terry became Batman, she maintains that he is free to follow his own destiny in his own way. He is not Bruce’s clone, but rather his secret son.
However, nine years later, Terry’s father was assassinated in a horrible twist of fate, triggering a series of events that transformed Terry into Batman. Terry, in her opinion, is not as intellectual as the original Batman, but he is as dedicated to helping others, and he might have had poorer positive examples than Bruce Wayne, who was despite all of his ferocious exterior, profoundly compassionate and caring about other, in a way that stands out from everyone else.
She offers him some parting words of wisdom and says that if he wants to live a life that is better than the old man’s he must always take care of the people that have loved him. Even if he chooses not to, it is his choice and it is up to him.
Terry returns to Wayne Manor, taking this wisdom to heart. Terry contacts Dana to clarify their arrangements for later in the week, while also inspecting his engagement ring, suggesting he intends to propose to Dana. When the conversation finishes, Bruce comes and inquires about Terry’s whereabouts, revealing that he had “things” to attend to. Terry apologizes for troubling Bruce, but he rejects his claims, stating that he was genuinely concerned about Gotham while collecting his medication. To Bruce’s astonishment, Terry instead assists him in taking his medication and tells him that everything is in order, thereby exchanging a moment of a largely wordless reconciliation with Bruce.
When Bruce changes the topic and explains that Superman wants his assistance on a case, Terry decides to go and enjoys a fatherly connection with Bruce, discreetly referring to him as his “old man.”
Something winged glides by a police hovercraft in Gotham’s sky, prompting one of the pilots to question, “Did you see that?”
What Makes Ace So Powerful?
Ace is one of the smartest and most powerful young villains to ever exist, but she uses her powers the way she does as a result of her bitter past, which even Batman sympathizes with. Ace possesses psychic talents. Telepathy, often known as “telepathic communication,” is a phrase used to describe her capacity to control or interact with people only via the strength of her thoughts. Some individuals are born with the talent, while others must gain it over time. She also utilizes her talent to control people’s thoughts.
Despite her catatonic demeanor, Ace was able to influence people’s brains merely by staring at them, whether through direct contact or through any sort of visual technology, and push them to the edge of insanity, producing vivid and lifelike hallucinations in the brains of her victims. Her talents expanded at the end of her life, allowing her to mentally modify reality. She has the ability to bend reality itself more to her wants and desires. She is adept at altering, bending, or otherwise manipulating practically any aspect of reality, with no regard for natural laws or cosmic principles. Telekinesis is a phrase used to describe Ace’s ability to move physical stuff using mental energy. It is also known as “tactile telekinesis” or even “T.K.”
This, however, seemed just too great for her mind to grasp, and was eventually her undoing. Her brain was damaged by the constant use of such tremendous powers, resulting in fatal brain damage.
Ace may be a villain, but most of us definitely feel for the young kid who has gone through so much in her short life. Despite being insanely powerful, the way Ace is and her demeanor shows that she has been through a lot. Despite all this, she shines through and makes sure to give everyone a taste of their own medicine.
One of the most painfully beautiful moments in the DCAU is the discussion between Ace who is a member of the Royal Flush Gang with Batman in “Epilogue.” It’s also a sequence that shows spectators Batman’s incredible propensity for empathy and compassion, which other movies and other endeavors should emulate. Ace was controlled and mistreated by the government since infancy to train as a psychic weapon, finally being pulled into a life of violence.