| European country. When competing in the Winter Olympics for the first time, Van Horn overheard a male rival, Karl Lubbings, denigrate women athletes. Van Horn challenged Lubbings to a race that night, but in the course of the competition Lubbings abruptly cut Van Horn off as they skied down the mountain. In the resultant fall, Lubbings was killed and Van Horn was crippled. |
| Van Horn was driven nearly insane by bitterness and anger, and her plight was soon discovered by agents of the subversive scientific organization called Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM). Operating covertly, AIM financed a militant feminist group that recruited Van Horn, and the organization also secretly funded her lengthy rehabilitation process. Moreover, Van Horn, who adopted the code name ‘Man-Killer’, was outfitted with a powerful exoskeleton that granted her superhuman strength. |
