Trajectory (Eliza Harmon)

After the last episode, The Flash will be in hiatus for a while, but in the promo for the show’s return we already got a glimpse of a new threat for Central City… and it’s another speedster. In Trajectory, someone will impersonate The Flash to commit super-fast robberies, and the city will obviously lose faith in its hero. The culprit, however, is a girl, Eliza Harmon, portrayed by Alison Paige. We don’t know much of her first live action portrayal, apart from the fact that she’ll be an impossibly fast thief. In the comics, however, she’s not a criminal, quite the opposite: maybe we’ll get a chance to see her reform and help the team against Zoom… but that’s unlikely, as she most probably will make a one-time appearance. Anyway, let’s see who she is in the comics.

Eliza Harmon was born in Manchester, Alabama. Since her very childhood she was fascinated by speedsters: The Flash, Kid Flash, Impulse, Jesse Quick, all the super-fast heroes became her idols, and her greatest dream was to be one of them one day. Of course, this would have normally remained just a dream… if it wasn’t for Lex Luthor, who had just started his Everyman Project, an initiative aimed to grant superpowers also to non-metahumans. Eliza finally found a way to fulfill her dream, she left everything behind and she moved to Metropolis. She enlisted among the candidates for the Project, and she got to meet Luthor in person: she begged him to be given super speed, as it had always been her dream (she didn’t mention that she wanted to become the next Kid Flash in the Teen Titans, and being Luthor the one she was talking to this proved to be a good idea). Quite unexpectedly, Eliza was granted her wish, and she entered Everyman Project. She was given the super speed she had wished for all her life, and she became a founding member of Luthor’s Infinity, Inc., his new private superhero team. Eliza was named Trajectory, and she became fast friends with the team’s leader, Natasha “Starlight” Irons, the niece of the original Steel. Her other teammates were Gerome “Nuklon” McKenna, Erik “Fury” Storn, Jacob “Skyman” Colby and Hannibal “Everyman” Bates, but she didn’t bond with any of them in particular, keeping her relationship on a personal level only with Natasha. Unfortunately, Trajectory wasn’t in good terms with Lex Luthor either, even if she had quite some reason for it: apparently, her powers had a major flaw, and she was simply unable to slow down.

Obviously, Eliza didn’t take this handicap lightly, and she snapped at Luthor directly, blaming him for her flaws, screaming to his face… not exactly the kind of behavior Mr. Luthor liked in his employees. In order to bring her body back to normal speed from time to time, Eliza started using a powerful drug, Sharp, which slowed her down for a while. When Luthor found out about this he confronted her, and she once again snapped at him, even calling him “cue ball”. Following this new fight with her boss, with her drug addiction exposed, Trajectory left the team. However, she stayed in contact with Natasha Irons, and the two friends hanged out together from time to time. It was Natasha who helped Eliza stop with Sharp, and she learnt to control her new powers even without the drug, managing to reinvent herself as the heroine she had always wanted to be. Time passed, and eventually Eliza came back to Luthor asking him to be readmitted in the team. Natasha stepped forward, and brought her case to Luthor, convincing the mogul to allow the speedster back in Infinity Inc. despite some of her teammates still had doubts on her. Determined to prove her value, Eliza donned Trajectory’s costume again, and rejoined Natasha and the others. She should have known better, however, as Luthor wasn’t exactly the forgiving type. During their first mission together, Infinity Inc. was sent to stop the third Blockbuster, a brute even stronger than his predecessors, wreaking havoc in Las Vegas. After a heated battle the team eventually managed to subdue him, but the monster broke free soon after: Trajectory rushed in to help the others contain him again, when she suddenly lost her speed. Blockbuster made quick work of her, and he killed her without the slightest effort. There was something that Lex Luthor didn’t say to the applicants of Everyman Project: he had given them their powers, and he could take them away whenever he wanted… just as he did with Trajectory.

Eliza Harmon is a lively yet impulsive girl, with a pretty rebellious attitude and a pathological lack of discipline. As Trajectory she possesses superhuman speed and reflexes, being one of the few speedsters able to move that fast without connecting to the Speed Force; unfortunately, she’s also unable to slow down to normal speed, quite a handicap that brought her to drug addiction. Fast-footed as she is fast.tongued, Trajectory has all the enthusiasm and the energy of somebody who just realized her life-long dream… even if she might have chewed more than she can eat.