Irene Merryweather-Cronin
HistoryIrene Merryweather was originally from Astro City but moved away for some time. Her mother went to work for Hillman Holdaway Aircraft during the second World War. Her father was killed in the Pacific Theater and when the war was over, Irene's mother lost her job to the returning men. Bitter and depressed, she drank herself to death. After moving back to Astro City in 1960, Irene planned to have the perfect job and to get the perfect man. Irene joined the mayoral campaign for Morton and as a tireless worker. Her jockeying in the factory district, which was supposed to go to the other candidate, helped push Morton over the edge and into office. Not wanting to lose her, Mayor-elect Morton offered her job in the secretary pool. Irene politely demanded a job as an aide, pulling bluffs along the way. Morton ended up taking a chance on Irene and she ended being a "fireball in pearls," for the mayor. Within a year, she was saved for the first time by the new hero Atomicus and the two hit it off. Irene continued to help him out on cases in anyway she could. As the two became closer, and they talked about their feelings, Atomicus was worried about the dangerous life he led. If he had a woman in his life, she would have to know the dangers of doing so. Irene misread Atomicus and took it as a challenge, that she needed to prove herself to Atomicus. At the same time, Atomicus, started using a civilian identity of Adam Peterson, working alongside Irene in the Mayor's office. At first she dismissed Peterson as neophyte screw-up, until she realized that whenever Atomicus showed up, Peterson was never around. Soon, it became her mission to prove that Peterson was Atomicus, thinking that was the challenge that Atomicus had talked about. After one ruse, in which Irene found out Atomicus could make atomic duplicates, she lost it and publicly exposed Peterson as Atomicus in front of the entire mayoral staff. This was the final straw for Atomicus, revealing that it wasn't a game. He was just trying to learn how to be human and wanted to be near Irene because he liked her, but she just kept and kept going after him to the breaking point. Irene later realized that he needed someone to help him not challenge him. Atomicus burst off into space, never to be seen in this solar system again, through with humanity, if Irene was the prime example. Irene was fired, for costing the world a hero, a nigh powerful one at that and like her mother, she sank into depression and drinking. But after a while she became bored and ventured out again into politics. She found an older single gentleman Cronin (First name unknown), an alderman in the outer borough who needed help and could look past her faults, who eventually became her husband and a state senator. Her daughter is secretly the modern Flying Fox.
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