Re: Re-Imaged Hero(ines)
Somewhere, on a parallel plane containing creatures who combine human and insect characteristics there is a colony of "hornet-women". Like almost all other members of her kind, Kzzm is a feminine humanoid, with functional insect wings, antennae, and compound eyes and skin marked in yellow and black. She lives in a world of constant peril, with gigantic avian monsters that eat her kind, spiders which weave traps hundreds of yards wide and soldiers from other wasp colonies and tyrannical beehives who often make war upon her own colony. But worst of all are the ground-bound but physically powerful ant-women who hate and envy fliers.
Kzzm had the misfortune of being "rescued" from a spider-web by an ant-patrol who took her captive and turned her over to their hill's queen, who was a dedicated scientist trying to create a new breed of ant soldiers with the power of flight using a mixture of recombinant DNA. There was an accident and Kzzm couldn't quite remember what happened next, but afterward she found herself free.
Counting herself lucky she returned to her colony and went back to work. But when the time came that colony was attacked and the distress pheromone filled the air, Kzzm...changed. The yellow parts of her skin turned green, she grew in size, and in combat with the attackers she demonstrated strength exceeding that of even the strongest ant-woman. Once the battle was over, she returned to normal. She didn't dare reveal that she was the hero who had saved the day. If she did, she might be honoured, or she might be cast out of the colony as a threat, or she might even be experimented on. She might not even be believed since she would only change when she smelled distress. And so she became the unknown defender of the colony known as the Green Hornet.