Arrowette is a superheroine that appear in American comic books published by DC Comics.
Publication history
The Bonnie King version of Arrowette appears in World's Finest Comics #113 and was created by Dave Wood and Lee Elias.
The Cissie King-Jones version of Arrowette appears in Impulse #28 and was created by Tom Peyer and Craig Rousseau.
Biography
Bonnie King
The first Arrowette (properly known as Miss Arrowette) is Bonnie King, a would-be sidekick and general nuisance to Green Arrow. She first appears in World's Finest Comics #113 (November 1960).
When Bonnie was a child, her mother Millie put her through archery training and was very controlling of her progress. She does well and ends up competing in the Olympic Games, where she wins a bronze medal. However, her mother is not pleased as she had expected Bonnie to win a gold, and harasses her daughter over Bonnie's alleged failure. This ends up driving Bonnie to abandon both her home and archery and she never speaks to her mother again.
Alone in Star City, she eventually becomes inspired by Green Arrow and Speedy and decides to use her archery skills in a way that counted. She makes a costume for herself and names herself "Miss" Arrowette. Like Green Arrow, she carries trick arrows but with a feminine slant (such as the "Powder Puff" Arrow). She attempts to aid both archers a few times, but they repeatedly rebuff her attempts. Despite her good intentions, Arrowette turns out to be too clumsy to become a hero and too vain to even wear a mask. Arrowette briefly dates the Green Arrow in his civilian identity of Oliver Queen, as shown in Justice League of America #7 (October–November 1961).
At some point, she meets a journalist named Bernell "Bowstring" Jones, who remembers her from her Olympic Games and is probably the only person to consider her a star. She nicknames him Bowstring because he is as thin as one and takes him briefly as her sidekick so he will give her publicity in his journal. Eventually, however, Green Arrow convinces Arrowette to give up superheroism.
She has to permanently give up archery due to carpal tunnel syndrome in her wrists, and also due to her job as a secretary. She talks Bowstring into marrying her and, one year later, she has a daughter they name Cissie King-Jones. When Bowstring dies five years later from fish poisoning, Hal Jordan (working as an agent for the company that holds Bowstring's life insurance policy) gives Bonnie and Cissie the policy's beneficiary check; the money enables Bonnie to train Cissie into a superhero. Cissie hardly has time to breathe between lessons of archery, judo, kick-boxing, gymnastics, ballet, and many other fields, and eventually comes to resent her mother deeply.
Bonnie's name is a parody or play on Green Arrow's civilian name, Oliver "Ollie" Queen.
Cissie King-Jones
Forced by her mother to adopt a version of her old costume, Suzanne "Cissie" King-Jones becomes the second Arrowette. Arrowette first appears in the pages of Impulse wearing a frilly costume and a bejeweled mask that apes her mother's old costume. Despite Arrowette's success as a heroine, Impulse's mentor, Max Mercury, is concerned by what he sees as Bonnie's exploitation of her daughter. Child Welfare Services gets involved, and Bonnie loses custody of her daughter, who is sent to the Elias School for Girls, a boarding school.
Arrowette next appears in Young Justice #4 wearing a more practical costume. Acting alone, she battles the villainous Harm and is injured by him with one of her own arrows. She manages to escape and contact Young Justice, later joining the team, along with the second Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) and Secret (Greta Hayes). The three quickly become close friends, although Cissie admits during a game of 'Truth or Dare' that, if put in a position where she had a choice to quit being a hero, she would ask her mother's advice and then do the opposite to establish herself as an independent person.
After her school therapist—one of the few adults whom Cissie trusted—is brutally murdered, Cissie tracks down the killers in a violent rage. She nearly kills one of them herself, but is stopped by Superboy. Cissie is so shaken by the incident that she vows never to be Arrowette again.