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Sasha Bordeaux
Sasha Bordeaux. Art by Lee Bermejo.
Publisher DC Comics First appearance Detective Comics #751 (December 2000) Created by Greg Rucka Shawn Martinbrough
Characteristics Alter ego Sasha Bordeaux Affiliations Checkmate Notable aliases Black Queen, Black Bishop Abilities An OMAC cyborg independent of Brother Eye

Sasha Bordeaux is a fictional character in the DC Universe. She was at first primarily associated with Batman, and has subsequently evolved an association with Checkmate in two of its incarnations. She was created by Greg Rucka and Shawn Martinbrough, and first appeared in Detective Comics #751.

Contents 1 Character history 1.1 Bodyguard, superhero 1.2 Framed 1.3 Checkmate 1.3.1 Cyborg 1.3.2 Infinite Crisis 1.3.3 One Year Later

Sasha Bordeaux was originally Bruce Wayne's bodyguard, assigned by Lucius Fox against Wayne's wishes. Wayne at first tried to avoid her, but she kept doing her job. She eventually became suspicious and did some searching, where she discovered that Bruce was secretly Batman.

Knowing he couldn't fire her because she knew his secret identity, Batman trained her to be his apprentice. After weeks of training, she was fit enough to go out with him on patrol in a suit, though he still treated her as a total stranger both as Batman and as Bruce Wayne. During this time, she fell in love with him, even as he insisted on having her around while he dated other women.

One night, while Batman and Bordeaux were out on patrol, the assassin David Cain lured Wayne's girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild, to Wayne Manor and murdered her, framing Wayne for the crime. Both Wayne and Bordeaux were charged with murder, as she refused to reveal where they had been at the time of the murder in fear of revealing Wayne's secret identity. They were arraigned, and the two were held without bail awaiting trial. After a while, Batman escaped to leave his alter ago behind, leaving Bordeaux inside Blackgate prison. Batman eventually confronted those who framed him, and both were cleared of all charges.

While in prison custody, Bordeaux got in a fight with another prisoner and was left severely wounded. She would have died had the government agency Checkmate not given her medical treatment. They offered to fake her death and give her a new name and identity (complete with plastic surgery) if she would work for them. With no other options, she agreed.

After he had been cleared of the murder charges, Batman went out in search of Bordeaux, whom he refused to believe had died in prison. In order to find her, he sabotaged all the Checkmate operations in Gotham City until they fixed him a meeting with her. There, he admitted that he loved her, but she told him to let her go.

Bordeaux rose through the ranks of Checkmate to become right hand to Maxwell Lord, the group's leader.

Maxwell Lord hijacked the Brother I satellite that Batman had created to monitor all superhuman activity (which had recently become sentient due to the actions of Alexander Luthor, Jr., as a part of his plans for the Infinite Crisis). He also created an army of cyborgs known as OMACs (who were originally human, transformed by a virus) programmed to hunt and kill all superhumans. Lord killed anyone who opposed him, and the Brother I satellite watched everyone for signs of rebellion. Bordeaux feigned loyalty to Lord to remain safe, but when he killed Blue Beetle and gave Bordeaux the job of cleaning it up, she was able to secretly send a message to Batman saying that he was no longer in control of Brother I, along with Beetle's broken goggles to show that he had been killed.

Lord became suspicious. When the satellite confirmed that Bordeaux had sent the message, he used the satellite to find out where she was. He discovered her running into Batman in an abandoned warehouse. After some confusion, Bordeaux and the Dark Knight reunited and kissed. A furious Lord sent out several OMACs to kidnap her and kill Batman. While Batman escaped, the OMACs were successful in kidnapping Bordeaux. When Lord attempted to interrogate her, he discover his powers of mind-control were unable to get anything out of her. Frustrated, he sent out a brainwashed Superman to kill Batman. Lord was ultimately stopped when Wonder Woman snapped his neck to free Superman from his control.

With the help of another imprisoned agent, Midnight (who had attempted to assassinate Lord earlier), Bordeaux escaped and headed out to kill Lord, unaware he was already dead. As they were on their way out, an OMAC attacked the two, and impaled Bordeaux. This attack somehow activated her programming, turning her into an OMAC cyborg. She retained most of her human features, although her skin now resembled a metallic coating and one of her eyes was empty. She also discovered that she retained her free will; unlike the other OMACs, she was not under Brother I's control.

Brother I, with Lord's death, rechristened itself "Brother Eye" and activated all the remaining OMACs to kill Earth's superhumans. Bordeaux contacted the other various factions of Checkmate who had left when Lord took over, apologizing for Lord's behavior when he took over and asking them to rejoin Checkmate.

She then created a computer virus and hooked herself up to the Brother Eye satellite; the virus, along with a massive EMP blast that the various superheroes created, disabled the majority of the OMACs before Brother I broke the connection and took the remaining 200,000 OMACs away.

She later reunited with Batman, who comforted her when she told him she was now a machine.

Eventually, with the aid of the new Blue Beetle, Batman located Brother Eye. He then gathered a team, including Bordeaux, to attempt to destroy it. The attack sent Brother I crashing to Earth, but the satellite's central memory remained intact. With the various superheroes needed elsewhere, Batman tasked Bordeaux with destroying Brother Eye once and for all. However, she could feel the remains of the satellite trying to seize control of her. By the time she reached the crash site in Saudi Arabia, she could no longer resist Brother Eye's pull, and the satellite summoned her to the central memory. There it was revealed that her transformation had been solely down to Brother Eye, who had intended for her to act as a backup in order to ensure its own survival. It attempted to merge with her, but she regained control long enough to detonate the explosives. The remains of the satellite were completely destroyed yet, miraculously, she survived; Her nanobot shell protected her before falling away (leaving only a small area covering her left eye, and some of her right arm), making her a normal human being once more.

One year after Infinite Crisis, Bordeaux is the "Black Queen" of the Checkmate organization. In the first issue of the new Checkmate comic series, she leads a group of operatives into a Kobra stronghold. In the new series, Bordeaux is depicted as a cold-blooded killer; it remains to be seen whether this is an after effect of her conversion to cyborg, or due to events of the previous year. Her "the ends justify the means" attitude towards the success of Checkmate missions has put her into conflict with Alan Scott. She is also in conflict with several of her Checkmate colleagues, particularly Fire and Mister Terrific, with whom she is romantically involved.

In the most recent issue of Manhunter (#27, January 2007), Sasha is seen watching the trial of Wonder Woman (for murdering Maxwell Lord) on television. She contacts a colleague and says she wants to head to the trial immediately, presumably with intentions to aid Wonder Woman. The story is ongoing.