SHRIEK

 

SHRIEK

Real Name: Frances Louise Barrison

First Appearance: Spider-Man Unlimited (Vol. 1) #1, May 1993

Powers: Shriek is a mutant with sound-based abilities who, after being trapped into Cloak's Dark Dimension and driven mad, developed psionic abilities as some kind of an extension. Shriek is capable of generating sonic blasts of intense concussive force. Besides their offensive potential, the blasts can also be directed beneath her as thrust in order to propel her through the air for limited flight. She can also produce sonar waves which probe her environment and send back sonic imaging. This sonar is at least effective enough for her to pinpoint living beings inside a building, and distinguish superhumans with physical mutations from other people. She can also create a sonic buffer zone which acts like a skintight invisible force field, absorbing and displacing a certain level of force to protect her from harm.

Shriek also acts like a kind of "empathic echo chamber". She takes preexisting emotional energy in her presence (her own of that of nearby people) and amplifies it. Being around Carnage caused her to absorb the psionic energy in his insanity during the Maximum Carnage killing spree, broadcasting it into the environment to drive normal people all over the city into acting like a crazed mob. This is a natural and instinctive power, occurring without her conscious direction or activation. With concentration, though, she can intensify the effects on people even further. She can use her sonic blasts as a focus for her power, physically assaulting opponents while also turning their own emotions against them, such as when she assaulted Cloak with the grief and guilt he felt over Dagger's death, driving him to flee the field of battle. Inexplicably, Shriek also began demonstrating telekinetic powers after the Maximum Carnage event. She could levitate and fly through the air, or project a streamer of energy from her eye to lift other people off the ground in front of her. How these powers suddenly developed remains unclear.