Dart (comics)

Dart
Dart #1 (February 1996), art by Jozef Szekeres.
Publication information
Publisher	Image Comics
First appearance	The Savage Dragon #2 (monthly series)
Created by	Erik Larsen
In-story information
Alter ego	Jill August
Team affiliations	Freak Force Chicago Police Department Special Operations Strikeforce
Notable aliases	Mighty Man
Abilities	Uses variety of trick darts. Skilled martial artist and gymnast.

Dart (Jill August) is a fictional Image Comics superhero. Created by Erik Larsen, she first appeared in 1992, in Savage Dragon #2 (ongoing series).

Dart has appeared in numerous issues of Savage Dragon as a supporting character, as well as being a major character in the Freak Force series and subsequent mini-series. In February 1996, she received her own eponymous three-issue limited series, written by Julie Ditrich and Bruce Love with artwork by Jozef Szekeres.

Jill August was born on August 12, 1969, in Detroit, Michigan. She grew up timid and demoralized, witnessing her mother's constant spousal abuse at the hands of her father, and her friends' abuse at the hands of a cruel coach at school. She witnessed her father beat her mother to death, a crime for which he was sentenced to life in prison, effectively leaving Jill an orphan.

As a teenager, Jill saw a female friend being assaulted by several men in a bar in Detroit. Attempting to intervene, she fell against a dartboard hung on the barroom wall, and the men began to attack her as well. Instinctively, she used the darts to defend herself, throwing them at her attackers with astonishing accuracy, seriously injuring all of them. She subsequently decided to use this newly discovered skill to both help others and manage her feelings of helplessness (and the rage that comes with those feelings).

Jill trained herself in a number of martial arts disciplines and sharpened her already formidable dart-throwing accuracy. She designed a costume and took the name "Dart" to become a superhero in Detroit. Early in her career, she occasionally teamed up with another Detroit-based hero, the narcissistic Kill-Cat.

After spending three years as a Detroit-based costumed vigilante, Dart was contacted by the Chicago Police Department to solicit her participation in a new program wherein super-powered vigilantes would be recruited into the police department for legitimate service. She accepted and moved to Chicago where she met the Savage Dragon, Ricochet, Horridus, Barbaric and other super-powered recruits. The program was a failure, though, as most of the costumed heroes could not or would not cope with the realities of everyday police work (such as wearing a police uniform instead of a costume). These recruits quit en masse and, along with newfound friends Superpatriot and Mighty Man formed their own heroes-for-hire outfit known as Freak Force, under the nominal leadership of Dart.