000 :: the application :: what once was
CHARACTER NAME: Gertrude “Arsenic” Yorkes (& Old Lace)
SERIES: Runaways
RESERVED: Y
WISHLIST: N
PERSONALITY:
When faced with the realization that her parents are not a pair of antique-collecting intellectuals, but rather a pair of time traveling super villains, Getrude Yorke isn’t so much surprised or shocked as sardonically pleased.
“Well, duh,” she says when the Runaways stumble across their parents’ secret lair meeting, “I’ve known our parents were evil since I was five. This perverted little gathering just confirms it.”
Cynical, intelligent, and highly-suspect of adults, the man, and authority in general, Gertrude is one part punkrock, one part librarian, and one part bleeding-heart liberal only without the bleeding heart. Out of all of the Runaways, Gertrude is the only one to readily accept the idea that their parents are evil, which she does without batting an eyelash, while delivering well-placed quip. Her cynicism stems from an incident when she was still a young girl - one in which she is convinced that her parents, merely because they found it annoying, were responsible for the “accidental disappearance” of her childhood pet - a Vietnamese pot belly pig - who “wandered” from the yard one day.
Though widely recognized as the most book-smart of the entire group, Gert’s judgment is tempered and sometimes completely clouded by her inability to trust adults - viewing them as the source of the world’s problems and that children, at least the ones who have the wherewithal to realize the realities of the world, are the solution. Or rather, not so much as the solution, as a balancing element - an echo of the Runaways’s attempt to fight crime in order to “make up” for their parents’ sins.
Unrelenting in her cynicism at first, Gert goes as so far as refusing to even answer to her name, declaring to a fellow runaway that it is her “slave name” - the one that her parents gave her, and a symbol of all of the lies that they told her throughout their life. Instead, she adopts the code name Arsenic (get it, Arsenic and Old Lace?), and impresses upon the other runaways that perhaps they should do the same. It isn’t until much later, after her sudden and surprising romance with Chase begins and she is reunited with Old Lace after being separated, that Gert reverts back to being called “Gertrude”, saying that perhaps there are some things in this world that her parents that are “worth keeping”.
Given all of her cynicism of adults, Gert has a strange relationship when faced with questions of the future. Even after being presented with the idea that she will die at the hands of a friend who will betray her - a young man by the name of Victor Mancha, who is meant to one day become her fellow Avenger, “Victorious” - Gertrude is unable to full distrust Victor in the same way some of the other runaways do. Instead, Gert puts her faith in the idea that as individuals, they are still in control of their destinies and in as much in the same way she refuses to accept that she will become Heroine (the future version of herself that travels through time to warn them), Victor can wrestle his own future free from the hands of Victorious. In a sense, Gert views children and teenagers as still fluid and malleable, still in control of the paths they will walk, though most of the time they are molded and forced into whatever shapes adults have chosen for them. Adults, however, have already walked their paths, have arrived at their respective futures and, in that sense, are already a lost cause.
BACKGROUND:
Gertrude Yorkes is the fifteen year old daughter of Dale and Stacey Yorkes - a couple of renegade time travelers from the 87th century who have been called upon by ancient mythically evil giants known as the Gibborim to modern-day Los Angeles. The Yorkes, in addition to five other couples who have been summoned along with them, are part of the Pride - a group brought together for their various archetypal qualities (which are linked to their different abilities). The Thieves (masterminds), The Travelers (time travelers), The Magicians (dark magic), The Outcasts (mutants), The Wise Men (mad scientists) and The Colonists (aliens). They are given the task to prepare the world for the coming of the Gibborim, promised seats of eternal life in the new Eden they hope to erect once they tear down the world as it stands with the Pride’s help.
Every year since birth (and for a while, pre-dating it), the families’ parents come together in an annual private “fundraiser”, which is merely a cover for the Pride to meet with one another and conduct a yearly sacrificial blood-letting to appease the Gibborim. Usually the kids entertain themselves - though not very successfully - and one year in a fit of boredom, they go about exploring through a secret passageway only to stumble across their parents’ meeting (which is conducted in full costume). At first, they assume their parents are superheroes, though they quickly change their tune to super-villains when it becomes apparent that they have just murdered a young woman in cold blood. Trying their best to cover up their discovery, the teenagers pretend it’s business as usual and return to their respective homes, only to each run away later on, rendezvousing together in an attempt to escape their parents’ influence and ultimately try to bring them to justice.
Like all of her fellow runaways, Gertrude’s “power” is linked to the unique nature of her parents. Unlike some of the others who have ‘innate’ abilities, Gertrude is more like Chase Stein (whose parents are mad scientists) in that her ‘gifts’ come from without as opposed to within. Upon sneaking around her parents’ basement with the other runaways, Gertrude stumbles across a secret room that contains within it Gertrude’s “legacy” from her parents - a small dinosaur very similar to a velociraptor, which she quickly discovers, she can control telepathically with her mind. This link, it is later revealed, is not entirely good one. Beyond telepathic it is also emphatic, meaning that any pain or injury that Old Lace suffers, Gertrude experiences as well (and vice versa).
Although Gert suffers the handicap of Old Lace refusing to attack her parents, she plays an important part in bringing down the Pride, and goes as so far as to bring a fellow runaway Chase back from death after he has been effectively drowned by one of the giants. After giving Chase mouth to mouth, he is revived, only to kiss her admitting “suddenly you’re the hottest chic I have ever seen”. This relationship - though very unexpected (Gert is the “brain” of the group, while Chase is the “jock”) - becomes integral later on to the opening up and softening of Gertrude’s character, as well as helps shade her somewhat strange opinions on death.
Later on, once the Pride has fallen, while hiding in one of their parents’ secret lairs beneath the La Brea Tar Pits, the Runaways are confronted by what clearly appears to be the Yorkes’ time traveling portico (which, up until this point had been written off - correctly - as completely broken) returning from a point in the future. A dying, costumed young woman stumbles from it with a warning and a declaration that she is in fact a future version of Gertrude (hero name, Heroine) who has returned to the past in order to have the runaways change the course of history by defeating a teenage boy who, in the future, is responsible for the death of the Avengers. Victor Mancha - a Hispanic teenager from California - is, according to Heroine, destined to one day become the costumed superhero named Victorious, who will one day betray the Avengers and go about destroying the world. She tasks the runaways to locate Victor and deal with him before he able to come to full power and thus be unstoppable. Heroine then dies in Chase’s arms, her parting words a confession that she was never able tell him just how much she always loved him.
Although the other runaways are shocked by this event and Chase is visibly emotionally shaken, Gertrude remains mostly untouched by this. Her attitude is resolutely skeptical, and even when Nico (daughter of the Magicians) casts a spell to see Heroine’s last moments in the future, thus validating what the future version of herself has said, Gert remains mostly un-phased. Her certainty lies in her belief that the future is not set, that destiny does not exist, and - in the same way they are attempting to go about changing history by finding Victor - Gert as she exists now is not necessarily the same person as Heroine is. It’s this line of thinking that allows Gert to also be the most forgiving of the runaways towards Victor when they eventually come across him and bring him into the team - viewing him not as a victim of fate, but rather as an individual in control of his life, and some that (surprisingly) she views as her intellectual equal. It is implied in Heroine’s flashback that Victor and Gert share a romantic connection in the future, something that does not sit well with Chase (who is decidedly not Gert’s intellectual equal), thus cementing an antagonistic relationship between the two boys for the duration of their time together.
Eventually the runaways are faced with a resurfacing of the Pride - in particular, the traveling back in time of one Geoffrey Wilder (father of one of the former runaways, Alex, who ended up betraying the group), who - in an attempt to seek vengeance for the future deaths of himself, his wife, and his son - plots to bring about the Gibborim’s prophecy, using what salvaged bits of the Pride’s assets can still be harvested for an advantage. One of these tricks is a magical device which reveals to the runaways in the middle of a confrontation, the fact that - in a heated moment - Nico kissed Chase. This startling discovery shocks Gertrude, who automatically turns on the both of them (though it was Nico who engaged the kiss and Chase who immediately shot her down) and, in a fit of her own anger, Old Lace goes about attacking Nico even when Gertrude tries to stop her. As a result, in the following fight, Molly (the youngest runaway) is kidnapped by Wilder to be sacrificed to the Gibborim. Gertrude quickly blames herself for allowing her own personal dramas to get in the way of protecting Molly and goes about shutting herself off emotionally from Chase (whom she blames not for the kiss, but for not telling her about it), though not before admitting to him that he isn’t surprised that he went for Nico, considering the way that she looks (canon-wise Gertrude is short and chubby, as opposed to Nico who is tall and slender). This admission is perhaps one of the few times in the entire series that Gertrude allows her hard, sniping exterior to fall away to reveal something much more vulnerable and self-conscious inside. However, that is quickly covered up again, when she tells Chase that their relationship is way beyond repair.
In the end, however, it’s for Chase that Gertrude ultimately dies. Following Wilder to his hideout, the runaways attempt to prevent the sacrifice, only to find Chase within Wilder’s clutches and about to be killed instead. At the last minute, Gert appears and only by adopting a callus exterior and by insinuating very cruel things about Chase and how his soul is “anything but innocent”, she is able to get Wilder to spare Chase the knife, only for it to be given to her instead. As she lays dying, Gert transfers her telepathic control of Old Lace over to Chase. He reassures her that she’s meant to keep on living, that Heroine is proof of that and one day she will be a superhero. “The future is a threat,” she responds, “not a promise. I’ll never become that woman.” Gert tries to tell Chase she loves him, in attempt to prove Heroine wrong in her declaration that she never told him. Ultimately, she fails, thus fulfilling that part of Heroine’s prophecy.
A note on Old Lace
Before putting in a reserve for this character, I discussed the possibility of bringing Old Lace into Edensphere as well, which Matcha and ten. have both already approved. However, in order to make it interesting, I’ve requested that Old Lace be hatched at a much later date, and be allowed to run slightly rampant through the universe - causing the occasional bit of havoc - before crossing paths with Gert and connection be discovered (in a quasi-parallel to the reveal in canon).
TIMELINE: Post-Volume 2 (immediately following Gertrude’s death)