Josephine

JOSEPHINE

Real Name: Josephine

Class: Demon

Occupation: Demon

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Xaphan's Furnaces, Hell

First Appearance: Swamp Thing IV #9 (January, 2005)

Powers: Like all demons Josephine was immortal and possessed magical abilities.

History: (Swamp Thing IV #9, 10) - Josephine was a demon born from the essence of 20th century genocides. Arcane lost favor in Heaven and was damned to Hell once again, and the demon Josephine was assigned to torture him. Josephine fell in love with Arcane, and demanded he prove his love for her by taking greater and greater punishments and describing his pain in exquisite detail. Years ago Swamp Thing met a lonely little Creole girl, Sallie, and grew a swamp plant for her. As an adult she was all alone, and, desiring companionship, made a golem from the swamp and placed the tuber from Swamp Thing's plant inside it. She attempted to bring it to life, but her spell reached Hell, where Arcane felt the call to Earth. He convinced his mistress to free him from Hell, and promised to summon her once he found her a body. He came alive in the golem and held down Sallie, casting a Sumerian summoning spell to allow Josephine to inhabit her body. She pulled free and ripped out the tuber, but Arcane laughed at her attempt to banish her. She fled, so Arcane's spell had to be directed at the corpse of her mother. Word got out in Hell that Josephine had freed her charge, and she was tortured for it until Arcane's spell took effect and she possessed Sallie's mother's body. They embraced, and Josephine was touched she found the one damned soul who kept his word. She thought the realm of Earthly sensations novel, and they made love as her presence corrupted the swamp and it's fauna. She told Arcane that pain was precious and subtle on Earth, and she wanted to kill everything just to hear the dying screams of every living being. They were confronted by Swamp Thing, and Arcane bragged that his enemy had provided the seed for him to form a new body, although the call from Hell came from the mud Sallie used to make her golem. It came from earth Swamp Thing killed Arcane on, although Arcane admitted he couldn't remember which death that was. Arcane saw his arch enemy no longer remembered him, and revealed his plan to manipulate Swamp Thing and take over his body, acknowledging that he'd failed before, but felt confident because Swamp Thing was in no state to defend himself. Arcane and Josephine vanished, and the opening they'd made in hell disgorged the demonic bounty hunter Brother Walker and his companion Worm.

(Swamp Thing IV #11, 12) - Walker and Worm drained his memories concerning Arcane, but Worm deemed them useless melodramatic wallowing, and after Worm sniffed out Sallie they went to find the woman who'd inadvertently cracked open Hell. Arcane planned to put Josephine inside Tefe, his grandniece who shared Swamp Thing's powers, but his body was falling apart so they hitched a ride, decapitated the driver, and Arcane took his body. Josephine said she planned on killing everyone in the world with Arcane once she had a proper body, and suggested they could finish their honeymoon by killing each other. Arcane's damage to the Green caused Tefe to hemorrhage, and she was in the hospital. Arcane broke into her ward, but was disappointed to see she no longer had powers even though she still had a connection to the Green. Swamp Thing followed the demons, bursting into the hospital, where Tefe's mother Abby Arcane was in the waiting room with her new boyfriend Jake. She blamed Swamp Thing for bringing more madness into her life, and Swamp Thing felt hurt, saying he was only trying to help safe Tefe, and slunk away. Arcane kidnapped Tefe, leaving behind a message saying he was at the local cathedral, so Abby changed her mind and asked for Swamp Thing's help. Arcane was also being pursued by the demonic bounty hunter Brother Walker, who'd brought Sallie with him, but Arcane's time in Heaven allowed him to manipulate the holy power of the church, allowing him to shrink Walker to the size of a bug. Abby and Swamp Thing arrived, and Arcane used his power to possess Swamp Thing's body, forcing his mind and soul into Josephine. He apologized for betraying her, but said that if he simply expulsed Swamp Thing's soul he would have simply grown another body from the Green. Arcane bartered with Walker, convincing him to take Josephine to Hell, and Swamp Thing with her, in exchange for unshrinking him. As Josephine / Swamp Thing was dragged to Hell Sallie sacrificed herself, being swallowed by Josephine, and allowing Swamp Thing to grow a new body from the tuber she still had on her. Swamp Thing formed his new body, and grew tendrils to thrust Arcane into the pit after Josephine. Swamp Thing said goodbye to Abby and Tefe, saying he could not stay with them, and brought Sallie's body to the swamp, where he allowed it to consume her whole. In Hell Josephine and Arcane were fused into one body and placed in a spike cage. Their punishment was being unable to escape each other, and their tormentors informed them they sensed the presence of an unborn child they had created.

Comments: Created by Joshua Dysart & Enrique Breccia.

Josephine had a cameo in Swamp Thing IV #23.