Silk Spectre

Silk Spectre's History

Sally pushed her daughter into the "family business" of crimefighting. Laurie Juspeczyk never held much interest in becoming her mother's successor, but went along with Sally's wishes anyway; growing up, the brunette Laurie knew Laurence Schexnayder was not her real father, and she always believed, incorrectly, that her real father was Hooded Justice. Laurie Juspeczyk is liberal-thinking and a "modern" woman. She is vocal in her feminist and humanitarian concerns and is quite a conditioned fighter, and at the start of the story is shown to have a strained relationship with her mother. Driven by the memories of her own experience, Sally tried to keep Laurie from knowing some of the harsher realities of the crimefighting life; for example, she didn't allow her to read Hollis Mason (Nite-Owl I)'s autobiography Under the Hood (which included the Comedian's sexual assault on Sally, something Laurie knew nothing of). Sally acted like an agent for her daughter, picking out her revealing costume, bringing her to the meeting of the ill-fated "Crimebusters" in a limousine and waiting outside for her to finish. After the meeting broke up, Laurie met the Comedian outside, who commented and complimented her for being the spitting image of her mother, but their conversation was broken up quickly by an angry Sally Jupiter. Laurie noted that the Comedian looked sad as he watched them drive away, and she felt sorry for him. The following car ride home was when Sally told her daughter of her history with the Comedian (but did not tell her that the Comedian was her father). Disgusted and deeply saddened for her mother's pain, Laurie never forgave the Comedian for his actions, though it seems that as time passed, and in a complicated way, Sally was able to come to terms with it, even to the point that she was willing to defend the Comedian from Laurie's derogatory remarks after he was murdered. Shortly after the meeting of the Crimebusters, Laurie met and became involved with Doctor Manhattan, something her mother did not approve of, likening Laurie's relationship with Manhattan to being the equivalent of sleeping with an H-bomb. Drawn to him from the moment she first saw him, Laurie worked with Doctor Manhattan in some of his various domestic assignments, including the suppression of riots during the police strike of 1977. Never exactly happy being a vigilante and not happy with the government taking advantage with her relationship with the superhuman Manhattan, Laurie was more than pleased to quit being a superhero when the Keene Act of 1977 forced all but government-sponsored superheroes to retire.