Raven (DC)

"My mind is a battleground, whipped and ripped asunder, torn from the very fabric of reality."

- Raven

"Azarath Metrion...ZINTHOS!"

- Raven's frequent magic spell

Raven is a superheroine from DC Comics most famous for being a member of the Teen Titans and was one of the main heroes of the cartoon. Much like all of her fellow Teen Titans and her enemies, she also based of character of the same name in DC comic series named Teen Titans.

Background
Raven was originally from the world of Azarath and is the only daughter of the human Arella Roth and the extra dimensional demonic overlord, Trigon. Arella was a human who joined a church that turned out to be a cult to Trigon. When the cult summoned him she was offered to him for sexual favors. Trigon appeared in the form of an attractive young man for the purpose of wooing over his human offering easier. Soon enough Arella was pregnant and Trigon revealed his true form and motive to Arella, telling her that once she bore a child it would give him more permanent binding to the world and he would conquer Earth in an Apocalyptic arrival. Arella tried to kill herself but was found by a messenger from the extra-dimensional world Azarath who offered to extradite her there in order to keep her, her child and the planet Earth safe, an offer Arella gladly accepted. Arella eventually bore Raven on Azarath and told her of her creation and what Trigon said her destiny was.

For years Raven tried to mobilize Azarath to fight Trigon but the people of Azarath were theological pacifists who refused to resort to violence. Eventually Raven left for earth to try to marshal some form of defense for her mother's home planet. She reached-out to Zatanna but Zatanna saw her demonic nature and didn't trust Raven enough to take her word on Trigon's arrival, instead thinking it was some sort of trick by the demonic overlord. Raven reached out to the Justice League of America as well but with similar results. Finally Raven met Dick Grayson AKA Robin, who soon took up the mantle Nightwing, and allied herself with him in the new team he was putting together called the Titans. Raven had been raised on Azarath and though she did not agree with the concept of total pacifism she did consider it an admirable quality and tried to use her powers for defensive purposes instead of offense, using them to create force-fields and wards rather than unleashing outright black magics on villains. Despite her best attempts to maintain perfect control of her powers she did lose control of her emotions every once and a while, during such emotional flare-ups she became like-unto a force of nature but quickly regained control of herself.

Raven had hoped to either become strong enough to resist Trigon's fated return, train the Titans to become strong enough to prevent his return or if neither was an option to at-least make up to the world she was destined to help destroy, all of which could be best achieved by continuing to fight more and more powerful super-villains. Raven soon becomes the adoptive mother of Teether, Melvin and Timmy. Raven, along with Brittany Miller (Christina Applegate) was originally the only two females remaining between Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo and Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: Bloody Spear at Hollywood Sign, but the project was canceled.

Personality
Raven is the reserved and stoic member of the team most of the time to the point of often seeming emotionless, however quite to the contrary Raven feels a cascade of conflicting and intense emotions all day everyday. Raven always felt her inner intensity was a side-effect of her human and demon side clashing but Brother Blood and Trigon have posed different theories on her inner turmoil. Brother Blood has stated that Raven's emotional flux is the result of her true nature as a daughter of Trigon and that such feelings were both normal and beautiful and only seemed like chaos when trying to break-free of restraints like will-power or conscience.

Trigon however has told Raven that her inner turmoil is simply the spiritual imbalance that comes from attempting to deny destiny. Regardless of reason for her intense and often conflicting emotions Raven does her best to repress her emotions in order to remain lucid. Early comics have her as repressed and emotionless while later ones have her as melodramatic and depressed and still later issues have her as snide and seductive, this is likely due to a change in writing style over the years but can be written off as just Raven going through the rainbow of moods persistent in her heart.

Even Raven's romantic life has changed radically over the years as she has had steady relationships with both Garfield Logan (Beast Boy) and Joseph Wilson (Jericho) and the two are almost complete opposites. Garfield is intense fool-hearty and acts rashly in most situations but always sure of his lot in life, while Joseph is reserved, empathetic and artistic but suffers from an on again off again dementia and yet Raven has been genuinely in a relationship with both, Jericho for his sensitivity and Beast Boy for his lightheartedness.

Powers and Abilities
Demonic-Azarathian Hybrid:Raven's powers are tied to emotion and feeling, and as such, she has trained herself to calm all strong feelings so as to contain her powers. She has achieved this through daily meditation, mantra and utilizing chakra. She also uses a special mirror, described as "a personal meditation tool used as a portal into the multidimensional world of mind". Total suppression of her emotions, though, can result in her powers subconsciously manifesting - as such, she constantly struggles to express herself while still maintaining control. Raven often uses the incantation Azarath Metrion Zinthos, which can cause untold havoc if uttered with no control.
 * Soul-Self:The basis of almost all of Raven's powers are derived from her soul-self. She is able to project her soul from her body into corporeal form, allowing her to use it to interact with the physical world. Her soul-self takes the form of a double of her own body or more commonly, a large black raven. She is capable of changing it's shape and size at will, and can alter her own appearance with her soul-self, like increasing her size or making her face hideous. She is able to project her soul-self into the minds of others for a devastating mental attack, to communicate, facilitate calm or to force people into submission. Though normally composed of energy that is colored black, Raven's soul-self can change color depending on her emotional state, manifesting as red or white.
 * Dimensional Travel:Raven's soul-self is able to envelop her (along with at least four other people) in order to travel to other dimensions, primarily Azarath. She can use this technique to travel vast distances on Earth.
 * Teleportation:She can teleport by momentarily displacing herself and then re-appearing in another location. At times, Raven is shown creating portals with her dark energy in order to travel, rather than utilizing her soul-self.
 * Intangibility:Using her dark powers and abilities, she melts into walls and floors, sometimes in the form of a giant black raven (which is the form her soul-self usually takes on).
 * Advanced Dark-Telekinesis:Raven can merge a small part of her soul-self into objects in order to take control of them, with the object essentially becoming an extension of her soul-self ; this may be the reason why she prefers to take control of inanimate objects rather than people. The limit to how much matter she is able to control is unknown, though it ranges well into hundreds of tons, allowing her to hurl city buses, mounds of rubble or even uprooting whole slabs of pavement. Whenever she takes control of something, it is covered in the same dark energy that composes her soul-self.
 * Levitation/Flight:Raven can levitate off the ground and fly, without visible projection of her dark energy as is shown when she utilizes telekinesis. Her power is also sufficient to enable her to counter the gravitational pull of other planets.
 * Solid Telekinetic Constructs:With her soul-self able to be molded into any shape, Raven often creates simple domes or walls that acts as barriers against attack. She can project solid bolts to be used as projectiles, or a steady stream of solid force. She has been shown making razor sharp blades to cut through obstacles, claws that can restrain foes and floating platforms to ride on.
 * Empathy:Raven can sense the emotions of others, allowing her to gain insight into their thoughts and intentions, and even experience their own feelings. This also enables her to sense the mental state of others, as she has stated that she would know if someone's mind had been tampered with. By using her empathy to guide her, she can track others with her soul-self.
 * Empathic Healing:Raven can absorb the pain of others into her own body in order to induce rapid healing for them and can heal herself by going into a trance of emotional calm.
 * Empathic Precognition:She can receive precognitive flashes of the future when exposed to extreme emotion.
 * Apathy:By using her empathic abilities, Raven can negate her own emotions so her powers won't go out of control.
 * Sensory Synchronization:By getting inside others heads, Raven can see through another person's eyes, and Raven's eyes will appear on theirs.
 * Fear Projection:Raven, when stressed, can drag an enemy into her cape and show them their darkest fears. Also, when Raven suppresses much fear, her own fears become real.
 * Half-Demon Form:When Raven is highly upset, she can transform into her half-demon self, usually with four glowing red eyes (a trait inherited from her demon father, Trigon). She has little control over her actions in this state, shown when she was attacking a terrified Dr. Light even after he was begging for mercy.
 * Tentacle Generation:When in her form, Raven sprouts black tentacles from under her cloak.

Above-Average Physical Condition:Though not the most physically talented of the fivesome, Raven is nonetheless a fairly skilled and proficient hand-to-hand fighter, having received at least some degree of physical training. She has been shown briefly overcoming the peak-human Speedy, engaging Jinx in hand-to-hand combat and also quickly delivering flying kicks to Monsieur Mallah in an attempt to protect Melvin, Timmy Tantrum, and Teether.

Multilingualism:Raven is a skilled polyglot, capable of fluently speaking English, German, Latin, Romanian, Ancient Sumerian, and Sanskrit.

Quotes
"We can't change the truth... no matter how much we dislike."

- Raven

"I've never felt comfortable around anyone. Even myself."

- Raven

"Cinderblock escaped no amount of yelling is going to change that. So stop acting like idiots and let's go home."

- Raven in the animated series

"I'm afraid but that doesn't mean I can't fight back!"

- Raven in the animated series

Trivia

 * Raven possess a small red jewel in the middle of her forehead known as a Chakra.
 * At one point, Raven had a tattoo of her namesake on the small of her back, but this has not been maintained in modern representations of the character.