Marian Grange

* Biography
* Threat Assessment
* Trivia and Notes
* Gallery

### Background

Lee Grange, a respected lawyer who had risen to become a mayoral aid, was introduced to Liz, Gotham City's medical examiner, through his work in law and city governance. The two were married in Atlantic City shortly after Liz discovered she was pregnant.

### Marian Grange: 1978 - 1995

Lee and Liz named their daughter after their mothers: Jolene Marian Grange. As a girl, Jolene began a fascination with the masked heroes known as Watchmen, including the Minutemen and the Crimebusters, and Gotham's own urban legends such as the Wildcat, Songbird, Sentinel, and Spectre. However, as those sorts of characters had fallen out of public approval due to the Keene Act, Jolene's father curbed her interest by reading her stories of supposedly fictional vigilantes, such as Robin Hood.

The plan worked like a charm. Jolene became obsessed with Robin Hood and quickly came to prefer her middle name of Marian, due to the character of the love interest of Robin of Locksley being Maid Marian. Even though her own family was part of the Gotham's elite by virtue of their prestigious jobs, young Marian always liked the idea of fighting for the "little guy".

Marian was fourteen when her father ran for election to the office of Gotham's District Attorney. Lee Grange was brutally killed a month before the election in what was an obvious gangland massacre. Though her father's killers were never found, Marian learned from her mother that Carmine Falcone must have ordered the hit.

Deciding to follow in her father's footsteps, Marian decided to become a lawyer. She graduated high school a year early and got a scholarship from the Thomas and Martha Wayne Foundation to attend Gotham State University.

### Marian Grange: 1995 - 2001

Marian did well in school and got into law school without much trouble. She mostly kept to herself and focused on her studies. During her last year of law school, Marian made the acquaintance of Earl Cooper, a mechanic who found her off the side of the road one day, in the rain, leaning over the engine of her car without a clue as to what she was looking at.

Earl gave her a ride to class so she wouldn't be late and agreed to have her car towed to his shop. When Marian came to pick the car up later, she found out that Earl was having some legal problems and though she wasn't a lawyer herself yet, she gave him some sound advice and the number of Harvey Dent — a good lawyer she had interned for the previous summer who owed her a favor.

A friendship grew between the two, with Earl taking a liking to Marian. He helped her out with things that her father would have helped her with if he had still been around. When Marian needed money, Earl was always willing to let her help out around his shop with phones and paperwork. When Dent was running for District Attorney, Grange worked as an unpaid summer intern for his campaign during the daylight hours and spent her nights sorting invoices and work orders in Earl's shop.

While working locking up one night, Marian was with Earl when his nephew made a surprise visit home from his work in the military. Marian had heard a lot about Earl's nephew (Earl was always a proud uncle) but she never expected someone called "Pooch" to be so... attractive. It's fair to say that Marian was smitten at once and having a good sense about these things, Earl made some excuse to leave the two alone for a while.

The two fell madly in love and on a whim decided to get married in Atlantic City at the same chapel her parents had married in the night before he was to return to service. In their quick scrambling to get married, they almost forgot to get rings. They bought some from a jewelry shop but when they went to put them on at the ceremony, neither of the rings were properly sized. Improvising, Linwood put the rings on her necklace and his dog tags instead. And so that is how Jolene Marian Grange became Mrs. Linwood "Pooch" Porteous.

### Marian Grange: 2001 - 2004

Marian missed her young husband fiercely, though she refused to use his dreadful surname in any professional capacity. Whenever Linwood was gone, Marian actually found it easy to focus on her work. Even though she had only just recently graduated law school, Marian's work for him in the past got her a fast track ticket to working in Harvey Dent's district attorney's office. Her passion and knowledge made her one of the favorites of the newly elected DA. Marian's past distaste for organized crime got her a co-counsel chair on the prosecution of Salvatore Maroni.

Marian was present for Dent's disfiguring. It shook her considerably and she spent much of the next year taking mental health vacations to meet her husband wherever he was stationed. Unable to return to work for the DA's office after failing a psychiatric evaluation due to PTSD, Marian found alternative legal work as a defense attorney, with Earl Cooper as her first client. She ran her own practice for two years out of a back room of Earl's automotive repair shop.

### Marian Grange: 2004 - 2006

By 2004, Marian had upgraded her practice — having been sponsored by the Wayne Foundation. Bruce Wayne had been a close friend to Harvey Dent and had always used Cooper to detail his personal fleet of vehicles, so when he learned that Marian was in need of work, he wrote her a check and offered her an entire floor of the Wayne Foundation Building to run her practice out of.

Marian's work transformed entirely during her time at the Wayne Foundation. Using the funds of her generous benefactor, Marian had no worries about taking cases pro bono. She could take on any case, regardless of financial consideration. In fact, she continually had particular charity cases recommended to her by Mr. Wayne himself. These clients often were those who had some encounter with Batman and their stories of the caped crusader restored Marian's childhood spark concerning the Watchmen.

### Marian Grange: 2006 - 2009

Marian received startling news while she was working on the Wayne Foundation's purchase of the Old Gotham Clocktower. She was pregnant — with twins. She called her husband and informed him of the news and he promised her he would take a leave of absence so he could be present for the birth of their children. But two months later, Marian received even more news...

Marian was visited by an individual who called her Jolene Porteous. The only persons who called her that were her husband and his military friends. Immediately, Marian was unsettled. The man, who identified himself as Wade LaFarge, broke the news to her that her husband had committed murder and treason. Marian fainted upon hearing this disturbing news.

When she woke up in the hospital, Marian was restricted to bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. The most frustrating part of her restriction was how it limited her ability to investigate the claims made against her husband and his unit. Marian had heard her husband speak of Wade LaFarge before and so she decided to investigate him with what resources she could. Upon discovering that LaFarge had left the military and was now working for a private military contractor, Marian thought it odd that he would be sent to break the news to her. She also found evidence that Wade had went through her home office while waiting for the ambulance to pick her up after she had fainted weeks before.

At the birth of her daughters, Marian received an interesting visitor. Showing up in hospital scrubs and disposable surgical gear to hide his face from the cameras, Linwood did not miss his girls' births. Linwood also assured his wife that he had not done what he was accused of and to his surprise, Marian believed him. She told him about Wade visiting her and her suspicions that he had searched her office. Linwood tried his best to get her to promise not to get dragged into this, but Marian was not one easily defeated in arguments. So, Linwood simply settled for giving her a cheap gift shop teddy bear and a kiss.

Shortly after Linwood left the hospital, Marian's sleep was abruptly ended by the sounds of exchanged gunfire and explosions nearby. From her hospital window she saw five men hijack a hospital helicopter and fly away, only to be blown out of the sky by a rocket launcher a minute later as it flew over Gotham Harbor. Marian screamed as the flaming wreckage hit the water.

Spending well over the next year filing petitions for military records and classified documents, Marian demanded to know who had killed her husband and demanded for the Pentagon to release his recovered body. Most of her work made little progress as it was blocked by bureaucrats and lawyers at every turn. Then, she had a breakthrough. Marian convinced the Pentagon to release her husband's dog tags from evidence. When she received them, his wedding band was missing. As the chain's latch had been fused shut, Marian suspected that her husband had removed the ring before discarding the dog tags to feign his death. But shortly after this discovery, Marian suddenly hit a wall... No, she hit *The* Wall — Amanda Waller herself stepped in to shut down Marian's investigation.

### Marian Grange: 2009 - Present

Though Amanda Waller was now working for ARGUS — a UN sanctioned intelligence agency, the Wall claimed to have been working with a special task force during her time with the DEO which had connections to interests involving Linwood's military unit. Marian did not buy that, but that did not stop some weird jurisdictional exchange arranged by Waller in which ARGUS's Division of Security took over the case concerning Marian's husband.

That's when Marian realized her husband might still be alive. Why else would ARGUS decide to take over jurisdiction for a case concerning five dead soldiers? Marian did her research on Waller and deduced that Waller might be using the Division of Security to resurrect Task Force X — the little covert operation she had been running while in the DEO which had resulted in Senate hearings.

Once Marian came to this conclusion, she suspected that Waller might use meta-criminals to hunt down Linwood. She made a list of criminals in Gotham which Waller was likely to recruit. Three were housed in Arkham at the time so she infiltrated Arkham under the premise of being their lawyer.

In the visiting room at Arkham, Marian received her own unexpected visitor: Amanda Waller. Waller admitted to liking Marian. She complimented her initiative and said she had some real moxie. Marian did not return the courtesy. After some verbal back-and-forth, Waller told Marian that her husband was alive and Waller even said that she believed him and his unit to be innocent. Marian rightfully deduced there was a catch, and that's when Waller asked her to run for District Attorney. Before she agreed to do it, Marian wanted to know why Waller wanted her as the DA but Waller only replied by walking out of the door. Before closing the door behind her, Waller mentioned Marian should check the stuffed bear her husband had given her that night in the hospital.

Going home, Marian dug the bear out from her kids' toy box. Looking at the bear then and it's little stitched sign reading "Don't Break My Heart", Marian realized something. She tore the bear open and found a mass in its chest cavity. It was a small burner phone which Marian found a charger for in her junk drawer. Once it had enough charge to turn on, she found one number programmed into the phone. She called that number and left a message. She called the number again and again for three weeks, leaving messages with all sorts of emotional weight but they all went unanswered.

Marian began to plan her bid for election. As soon as she did so, she received generous campaign contributions. Some were from close friends and associates, like Earl Cooper and Bruce Wayne, but others were from all sorts of companies she had never heard of and had no affiliation with.

A week into her campaign, Waller stopped by Marian's office to give her a tablet and told her she had fifteen minutes. Marian turned the tablet on and there was Linwood, alive and well, via a webcam in some tropical region of the world. I have no idea what was said here as I have still not been able to decrypt the audio of this call or the video from Marian's end, but judging by Linwood's facial expressions, the two had a heartfelt conversation.

After that, Marian was more than willing to do Waller's work as long as Waller kept her informed on her husband's well-being and allowed them to have those encrypted exchanges. Marian won her election and became one of Gotham's better district attorneys in recent memory. But interestingly, over night, Marian's view on Batman and other caped crusaders changed. She tolerated their existence, but she was constantly introducing new measures to monitor them and restrict their ability to function.

But that did not stop Bruce Wayne from supporting her. With the support of Waller, Wayne, and favorable articles in the Gazette, it seemed like Marian was so well liked that she would be a shoe-in to win election to the mayor's office in 2016 but then Lincoln March entered the race and his bold promises and endless funds threw a wrench in Grange and Waller's plans for the mayor's office.

Marian retains working as Gotham's District Attorney, though she has had an increasingly tense relationship with Waller since around 2012 with the two even butting heads often.

## Threat Assessment

### Resources

* Expert in Criminal Law
* Expert in Courtroom Procedure
* Expert Investigator
* Expert Markswoman
* Expert Martial Artist
* Expert in Military Procedure
* Law Degree

### Weaknesses

* Her Husband
* Her Daughters
* PTSD
* Secrets

### Analytics

* **Physicality:** 2 — Basic / Typical
* **Occult:** 2 — Basic / Typical
* **Weaponry:** 2 — Basic / Typical
* **Expertise:** 5 — Master / Remarkable
* **Range:** 3 — Trained / Exceptional
* **Strategy:** 4 — Expert / Enhanced
	+ **TOTAL:** 36
	+ **RANKING:** Low Threat

## Trivia and Notes

### Trivia

* Dian Belmont is her friend.
* Marian has a tendency to play with her ring on her necklace whenever she is waiting for something important. If she's playing with her necklace while in a courtroom, most of her staff know not to bother her anything trivial or she's likely to go ballistic on them.
* Marian refuses to call her husband "Pooch" and so she insists on calling him by his given name of Linwood, even though he begs her not to do so in front of his friends. Returning the favor, he calls her Jolene much to her initial irritation but now she cannot stand him to call her anything else.
* Though her daughters have no interest in sports (both being natural STEM geniuses who spent hours being babysat in the garage of "Uncle Earl"), Marian has suddenly registered them both for little league soccer.
* Her political affiliation is fiscally conservative and socially progressive.
* During 2016 election she promised reformed infrastructure, Jason Bard as GCPD Commissioner, and termination of Jeremiah Arkham as Arkham Asylum Director. Her motto was "A Vote for Grange is a Vote for Change", and she was endorsed by the Wayne Foundation, Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale.
* She would have nominated Roland Daggett as Deputy Mayor, Agatha Zorbatos as Arkham Director, and Adrian Chase as District Attorney.

### Notes

* Marian Grange is a composite character with Jolene Porteous.
* In the comics her name is spelled "Marion".
* Being African American might be a nod to the *Beware the Batman* animated series.
* Her address is a nod to her creators Alan Grant and Vince Giarrano and her first appearance: *Batman: Shadow of the Bat #47*. Number 562 is a nod to her death in *Batman #562*.

## Appears In

Law & Order Gotham City.jpgLaw & Order: Gotham CityGrange Voter Information Sheet.jpgGrange Voter Information SheetElect Grange.jpgElect GrangeMayoral Election.jpg2016 Gotham City Mayoral Election Special Issue

## Links and References

* Appearances of Marian Grange

1. ↑ NFX: Marian Grange
2. ↑ Network Files: Dian Belmont