Name: Phalanx (real name: Layla Penn)
Age: The current Phalanx is only 32, but the name has existed for some 1,500 years.
Gender: Female
Appearance: Personality: Phalanx is a horribly-misguided warrior who strives for a better world, no matter the cost. Even if the means conflict greatly with the end, Phalanx will intimidate, rob, and kill as many people as she has to in order to reach the light at the end of a very dark path. The villains she once vowed to destroy have become her greatest allies, and the heroes who she used to fight alongside have become her greatest obstacle.
She'll still stop smaller crimes, but when it comes time to perform another major deed of villainy, rest assured you can probably find Phalanx among the evildoers. If asked, she'll absolutely say she'd rather not do as villains do, but if the only way to destroy evil is by overthrowing the world with evil, she'll rob banks and kidnap leaders with no hesitation.
She treats her White Knights well enough, personally overseeing their training and only bringing the ones who volunteer when it comes time to do something wicked. She is known to have very high standards about recruitment, though, and refuses to let her fellow ARROW villains command them.
Skills: Exceptional combat skills
Abilities: Superhuman AttributesWhile her individual attributes can't be compared to other heroes (i.e. she isn't as strong or fast as most heroes), Phalanx's strength, speed, toughness, and agility certainly exceed that of a normal human. Add to her skills in combat, and she can hold her own against other superpowered humans.
Phantom PhalanxThe ability Phalanx was named for, Layla draws a tremendous amount of her own blood, converting it into a team of four knights. The knights are every bit as powerful as she is, but the sheer amount of blood this takes up typically leaves Phalanx unable to fight for much longer before losing consciousness, and they don't last for very long. The current Phalanx has been noted to be far more tenacious than her predecessors, and even she struggles to fight after using this power. Because of both this and the serious wear it causes on her mental health, she almost never uses this ability, saving it for only the most dire scenarios.
Equipment: The armor, sword, and shield Phalanx is depicted with.
Brief Backstory: The superheroine known as Phalanx first appeared in Britain shortly after the reign of King Arthur, and many believe she was a daughter of his. When the first Phalanx got old, she trained her daughter who had the same powers, and that daughter became Phalanx. This tradition continued down through the centuries, leading right up to Layla Penn. By extension of the belief that the first Phalanx was King Arthur's daughter, it's speculated that Layla may also be a descendant of the legendary king.
Whether she's of royal blood or not, Layla's sense of justice was keen and bright; deemed superior to every Phalanx before her for quite some time. At the ripe age of 18, she officially took the name of Phanalx and began to fight crime just as her family had for centuries. Her arch-nemesis was the notorious and vicious necromancer, Blackskull, whom she battled on many occasions over her years of heroism. Eight years ago, she was captured by Blackskull in an ambush, and was given a long talk about such concepts as justice or morality.
It probably had to do with the fact that she'd utilized the Phantom Phalanx ability of hers during the ambush, but Blackskull managed to convince her to the dark side. The logic behind it was "If one person were to rule the world, they could destroy evil in a second." For a year, Phalanx and Blackskull became a villainous duo the likes of which had seldom been seen before, with the goal of world domination. Their alliance ended violently when Phalanx announced that it would be her who became the ruler of this world, and in the erupting fight, Blackskull was slain.
For a few years after that, Phalanx became a lone-wolf villain, until she started to get a following of others who shared her beliefs. Her "knights" were all trained by Phalanx herself in combat, and by the time she and her men joined with ARROW two years ago, she had a total of fifty loyal soldiers who were not only willing to throw their lives down for Phalanx, but were capable of fighting her as though they were equals. The White Knights have joined ARROW as her subordinates, and led by Phalanx, they strive to create a new world order...no matter how much evil they need to commit in order to do it.