March, Part Four
Our fourth stop on my Pride Month walk through a Mutants & Masterminds lens brings us to the fourth stripe of the original Pride Flag’s rainbow: Yellow. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, this is me being nerdy, queer, and it starts back here.)
March Yellow (later, Lustre)Among the colours of the original pride flag, yellow represented sunlight. In fact, among those closest to the eight people marching in the 1978 San Francisco Pride Parade who were transformed into the superhero group later known as March, many said the light that flared around them came started from Candice Mitchell, and when it receded, the glow didn’t completely fade away from around her. Instead, Mitchell, a Black paralegal who’d been walking with a group of other proud Black lesbians, found herself floating in the air a few inches off the ground, glowing and wearing a yellow masked outfit. When the initial surge of violence against the parade walkers happened, Mitchell found she could aim beams of light to either distracting or devastating effect, and she didn’t just float—she flew.
Inspired by Pauli Murray and other women like her, Mitchell had parlayed a track and field scholarship into a chance to pursue a legal education—training to be a paralegal—and finding a job with a small firm upon her graduation. She also met her first girlfriend in college, a fellow athlete, and the two helped each other navigate into the world of lesbian culture, and specifically Black lesbian culture, where for the first time Mitchell felt seen. Though her first girlfriend and her would go their separate ways after graduation, Mitchell never looked back, and her drive to excel in all things was no different when she aimed it towards activism.
Once she gained her sunlight-based powers, March Yellow was quite literally the single most visible member of March, as her powers made her shine if she used them in any way, and as one of only two of the group capable of flight, she was often at the forefront of their battles, offering air support or—if they were tangling with other flight-capable enemies—the key combatant in play. Of all the group, Mitchell was the first to apply her athletic regimen to hone her abilities the most, practicing and working to master them, and learning how to sacrifice power for accuracy (and vice-versa) and ensuring she was as difficult to hit as she was impossible not to spot.
Mitchell also knew she could parlay her position and power in March in another way, becoming one of the guest speakers at The First Black Lesbian Conference in 1980, where, as part of her speech, she officially removed her mask in the name of the conference’s theme: becoming visible. Another member’s comment on the sheer presence Mitchell had, “her incredible lustre,” soon translated to Mitchell taking that as her super-powered name, and Lustre’s light became a symbol for Black lesbians everywhere.
After the 1988 death of March Red/Zap, and the initial fracturing of March, it was Lustre who lifted the torch to keep the group as cohesive and organized as possible, and through her the group—minus March Pink/Pride—soldiered on in their fight for equality and visibility, right up to the 1998 end of the original March group.
March Yellow, 1978 (PL 8)
Identity: Candace Mitchell (At first secret, eventually public)
Cis Female, 29, Height 1.78m, Weight 60kg, Dark Brown Eyes, Black Hair
Group Affiliation: March, Base of Operations: San Francisco
Attributes: Str 2, Sta 3, Agi 2, Dex 3, Fgt 2, Int 2, Awe 3, Pre 3 (42 points)
Powers: Light Source: Array with Light Blast: Ranged Damage 8; AE: Dazzling Beam: Ranged Affliction 8 (Resisted by Dodge, Overcome by Fortitude; Visually Impaired, Visually Disabled, Visually Unaware; Cumulative, Limited to Visual), AE: Daylight: Environment 4 (Light, equivalent of full daylight) (18 points); Quick Change: Feature 1 (Transform into costume as a free action) (1 point); Solar Powered: Immunity 2 (Sleep and Starvation, Source: sunlight) (1 point); Uplifting Light: Flight 4 (8 points)
Advantages: Accurate Attack, Favored Environment (Air), Great Endurance, Move-by-Action, Power Attack, Well Informed (6 points)
Skills: Athletics 6 (+8), Expertise—Law 6 (+8), Insight 4 (+7), Persuasion 4 (+7), Ranged Combat (Light Source) 6 (+8), Vehicles 4 (+6) (15 points)
Offense:
Initiative +2
Unarmed +2 (Close, Damage 2)
Light Blast +8 (Ranged, Damage 8)
Dazzling Beam +8 (Ranged, Cumulative Affliction 8)
Defense: Dodge 11, Parry 11, Fortitude 8, Toughness 3, Will 8 (28 points)
Power Point Totals: Attributes 42 + Powers 28 + Advantages 6 + Skills 15 + Defenses 28 = 120.
Complications:
Motivation—Excellence in Everything: Even before she was empowered, March Yellow believed that being the best was a way of life, and has a very hard time accepting anything less than her own perfection. Prejudice: All the members of March are targeted as openly queer, and March Yellow also bears the reality of living in the intersections of queer hatred, misogyny, and racism. For March Yellow, this feeds into her decision to be as visible as possible, to make sure others know just what Black Lesbian Women face, as well as how much excellence they have always offered. Motivation—Justice: March Yellow knows full well the legal system routinely fails people like her, and has dedicated her non-heroic life to doing what she can as both a paralegal and an activist to overturn unfair rulings, shift laws, and to force the needle towards equality and justice one inch at a time.
