Happy 2nd birthday, Chokecherry!

Last year.

What the hey, let's do the origin story like Eidolon and Dr. Herbert, and I'll make these bonus features for the book.

All right, so I knew that Jade-Shade had to build a team, and I knew he had to start with a main partner.

The male "Batman & Robin", thing had been done to death, and I wasn't interested in that at all.

And Frank Miller had already done the younger female thing with Carrie Kelly in "The Dark Knight Returns".

And in both cases, you've got variations on the "people will talk", factor.
Didn't wanna get slowed down by those conversations.

Then, somewhere along the way, I saw a clip of the old Adam West Batman where Catwoman was seducing Bats, and wanting to be his partner, and Bats is like "what about Robin?", and she's like "...I know! We'll kill him!".

And instantly, I was like "damn, I wish I could be watching THAT version of the show!".
But I shelved that thought for some reason.

And I'd had similar thoughts on Catwoman in this rant, but my dumb brain still wasn't making the linkup.

Then, one day, I'm thinking, and thinking, and staring at my walls, and my eyes landed on the Hyla pic of "Harry's Ex-Wife", for the quadzillionth time, and it's almost like she's looking at me in irritation that I'm not getting it, and the pieces slammed together at last.

Once those pieces assembled, I got thinking about how few husband and wife teams there have been in comics, and how often they've been broken up.

Ant-Man & Wasp, Reed & Sue Richards, Swamp Thing & Abby, Spidey & Mary Jane, and...I can't think of many more.

And that kinda pissed me off.
So, I had double motivation to make it a love interest.

Anyhoo, coming up with her name was an ordeal, I think I started with that her costume reminded me of cherry cough syrup.
Then "Cherry-Bomb", popped into my head, and that would have been fucking great, but that was a Joan Jett song, and it ended up being used in "Guardians Of The Galaxy", anyway, so...shit.
Good thing I didn't use it.
Dunno how I settled on Chokecherry, but I did, and after a week or so of bouncing ideas around.

Even harder was coming up with Jadie & Chokie's team name.
That took a solid month of trying fucking everything.

Then, "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey", popped into my head for some reason, and I remembered the bit where the Reaper raps "you might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper".
I smacked my forehead.
None of the other crap on my lists were close, and none of the thought processes that got me to the crap on my lists were close, but THAT did it.
I put some of the frustration of that process right into chapter 16.

As for how/why Chokie evolved from Harry's Ex-Wife to her mark 2 form, I already covered that here, and here.

And that's that.
Here's to her future adventures.