"Raven" is being considered as a potential replacement for Vancouver-lensed "Smallville", which will wind up after completing its tenth and final season in 2011.
Created by writer Marv Wolfman and illustrator George PĂ©rez for DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980), 'Raven' is a half-human, half-demon, that arrived in the 'mortal' world at the age of 16, taking the name 'Rachel Roth'.
She became a member of the superhero team the "Teen Titans", clad in a purple hood, with the ability to mentally project and teleport her soul away from her body as well as make use of empathic powers to read other beings' minds.
The daughter of human mother 'Arella' and the interdimensional entity 'Trigon', Raven grew up in an alternate dimension called 'Azarath', with pacifistic inhabitants whose spiritual leader was the mystic 'Azar'.
In her homeland, she was taught to control her emotions by Azar, in order to suppress her inherited demonic powers. Essentially, it was feared that if Raven was allowed to feel any strong emotion, she could become a demon like her father.
Upon Azar's death, Arella began the task of raising and teaching Raven, with her demonic heritage revealed, meeting her father face to face for the first time. Raven reformed the superhero team, the "Titans" as the "New Teen Titans" to fight her father.
Raven has the psionic ability of empathy, enabling her to feel the feelings of others. She can also use her empathy to steal emotions, can absorb the pain of injured people to ease their suffering and induce rapid healing.
She also has the ability to heal herself, absorb another person's knowledge with a touch and the ability to force outside emotions into other people, consciously or otherwise.
Manifesting her 'soul-self' through a form of astral projection, Raven can take the form of either her human shape or a giant raven, teleporting herself and others over vast distances, while generating shadows and darkness.
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