Who is DC's Emerald Empress? Comic origin explored ahead of potential Young Justice appearance

DC's Young Justice: Phantoms' recent episode had an interesting catch for fans. Eagle-eyed viewers spotted an Easter egg in the episode "Forbidden Secrets of Civilizations Past." It was a glowing eyeball of Emerald Eye of Ekron, and as comic book fans know, it's the weapon of DC's supervillain, Emerald Empress.

Young Justice is a team of sidekicks looking forward to establishing themselves as the new superheroes. The franchise has brought four seasons to date.

The fourth season, Young Justice: Phantoms, has 26 episodes that have been divided into two volumes. The first volume consisted of 13 episodes that ran from October 16 to December 30, 2021, on HBO Max. Later, the story picked up from Episode 14 to Episode 26 and had a successful run on the same streaming platform from May 16, and is set to air its finale on June 9.

In this article, we'll explore the Emerald Empress' origin in detail. If you feel the urge to learn more about the wielder of Ekron's Emerald Eye, then keep on reading until the end.

---

Exploring the origins of DC's Emerald Empress

Jim Shooter and Curt Swan's Emerald Empress was first seen in Adventure Comics #352 in 1967. She is a supervillain from the 30th century who is a part of the Legion of Supervillains, which makes her a constant enemy of the Legion of Superheroes.

Emerald Empress wield the Emerald Eye of Ekron (Image via DC)

Partnering with some of the most powerful and sadistic criminals, including Mano, Validus, Persuader, and Tharok, she easily fulfills all her criminal deeds.

Apart from that, the Emerald Eye of Ekron adds up extra value to the Empress' powers. That's because the mystical eye follows all her mental commands. For instance, it can fly and attack opponents by releasing energy blasts. Using the eye, Empress also gets the ability to fly or survive unharmed in space.

She doesn't have any superpowers of her own, but by wielding the vast powered Eye of Ekron, she can do anything. While she can attack and knock out someone as vulnerable as Superboy, the powerful eye can even protect her from any attack by creating a shield around her that's almost impenetrable.

Besides this, she occasionally uses the eye to grow like a giant. Hence, she is one of the most dangerous supervillains ever seen in DC comics.

However, she wasn't like this from the very beginning. In fact, DC's Emerald Empress was once a woman named Sarya from the 30th century who hailed from Venegar, a long-dead Ekron Civilization.

Ekron's eye acted as a source of power for the Emerald Empress (Image via DC)

One day, she came across Ekron's Eye in the hidden Crypt of the Eye. Soon, she realized that it wasn't just an eyeball but had great powers. Hence, she thought of fulfilling her wildest dream to conquer the entire world using the eye. Since then, she has been recognized as the Emerald Empress.

After taking the identity of the Emerald Empress, she was recruited by the Legion of Superheroes who were looking for some of the most powerful supervillains to capture the sun-eater to protect the Galaxy.

At the time, Emerald worked with them and the other supervillains for the same purpose. However, she later decided to gather all the supervillains and create a team of their own. That's when the Legion of Supvillain group came into existence and she became the leader. After that, there were times when the group clashed with their direct enemy, Legion of Superheroes.