KIDNEY LADY
Real Name: Selma Blotte
Identity/Class: Human, magic user
Occupation: Would-be Kidney Protector
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Former lover of Elmer; ally of the Chair Thing and the Cleveland Clobberer
Enemies: Howard the Duck and Dakimh the Enchanter
Known Relatives: Father (unnamed)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Cleveland, Ohio
First Appearance: Howard the Duck I#2 (March, 1976)
Powers/Abilities: The Kidney Lady has at least on one occasion demonstrated magical prowess by following a spell within the text, "The Human Kidney: Seat of the Soul" to bring a chair to life. She also once demonstrated teleportation. She claims to be a sorceress, but any other abilities are unobserved.
The Kidney Lady primarily uses her walking stick to bludgeon anyone or thing she sees as a threat to her own or anyone else's kidneys. She is a large woman, but she has no apparent fighting skills.
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 241 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Gray, formerly brown
History: The Kidney Lady originally claimed to be a poor farm girl, who had her life changed by a door to door book salesman named Elmer. Elmer swept her off of her feet, bringing her to the big city, (Cleveland, naturally), where he romanced her and then ditched her, leaving her with only the hotel bill and the book she had purchased. The book, "The Human Kidney: Seat of the Soul," inspired her to defend the kidney against any possible threat, from fried food to tobacco to moral indecency.
Over the many years since that time, she rode the bus through Cleveland, back and forth, speaking out against and attacking what she believed to be the International Kidney-Poisoning Conspiracy. On one such trip, she encountered Howard the Duck, whose cigar smoking and relationship with Beverly Switzler convinced her that he was part of the Conspiracy. She attacked him on at least three separate occasions, initially as a nuisance, but finally proving to be the last straw in pushing him over the edge so that he wound up in a mental institution. The Kidney Lady was only too happy to speak out against him at his trial for his outburst on the bus.
Later, the Kidney Lady duped Beverly into renting from her boarding house. When she and Howard arrived, the Kidney Lady, assisted by the Cleveland Clobberer, a former baseball player turned kidney convert cab driver, captured them with her own creation, the Chair Thing. She then revealed to Howard that her book was actually a book of evil, and that she had deliberately sought out Howard because he was an ally of her old foe, Dakimh the Enchanter. Howard got the better of the Chair-Thing and forced the cab driver to flee. The Kidney Lady then teleported away, swearing that when next they met, she would feed his kidneys to the Hounds of Hell.
At their next meeting, however, she was back to her old ways. She attempted to smite Howard with her walking stick for exposing her to "side-stream cholesterol" (she claimed that the fatty globules from something like a cheeseburger got in the air, where they traveled down the sinuses and attack the kidneys of innocent children). Beverly dragged Howard away from a potential fight, leaving the Kidney Lady to continue her rant to the crowd that had gathered.
(Civil War: Choosing Sides#1/5) - The Kidney Lady was in line to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Howard arrived shortly thereafter, but the two apparently did not cross paths.
Comments: Created by Steve Gerber and Frank Brunner. It was Bill Mantlo who modified her into a witch.
The Kidney Lady's full first name was revealed in her entry in the All-New OHotMU Update#3.
Appearances:
Howard the Duck I#2 (March, 1976) - Steve Gerber (writer), Frank Brunner (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Marv Wolfman (editor)
Howard the Duck I#5 (September, 1976) - Steve Gerber & Marty Pasko (writer), Gene Colan (pencils), Steve Laialoha (inks), Archie Goodwin (editor)
Howard the Duck I#11-12 (April-May, 1977) - Steve Gerber (writer), Gene Colan (pencils), Steve Leialoha (inks), Steve Gerber (editor)
Howard the Duck II#1 (October, 1979) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Gene Colan (pencils), Dave Simons (inks), Rick Marshall (editor)
Spider-Man Team-Up#5 (December, 1996) - Steve Gerber (writer), James Fry (pencils), Chris Ivy (inks), Bob Harras (editor)
Civil War: Choosing Sides#1 (December, 2006) - by Ty Templeton (writer), Roger Landridge
(artist), Tom Brevoort (editor)
First Posted: 09/08/2001
Last updated: 05/12/2012
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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