The DC Multiverse can be a darkly unforgiving place to live. One day you're a hero, the next you're a villain. Sometimes you don't even get the chance to find out what you are. Today we look at one of those unfortunate souls, Alexandra Gianopoulos.

Alexandra's story begins in Booster Gold Volume 2 #45 when Booster Gold falls into her bed. Literally.

Unfortunately for everyone, Booster is being pursued by Doomsday, who makes short work of her Coast City penthouse apartment, forcing Booster and Alexandra to flee. Booster soon deduces that he had unintentionally arrived in an alternate timeline orchestrated by Flash's archnemesis, Professor Zoom and sets out to apprehend the villain.

Alexandra liked the idea of a world where humans and metahumans weren't waging a world war against one another. Her own father had been killed in the fight against Emperor Aquaman, and worse, she was a closet metahuman herself. She was born a "parasite" with the innate ability to temporarily absorb the abilities of anyone she touches. The unexpected arrival of a time traveler made her think that maybe the world really could be changed for the better.

When Doomsday and Booster Gold resume their fight, Alexandra flies into action with Booster's powers. However, her rash intervention only results in all three of them being captured by the United State military (Booster Gold Volume 2 #46). When Doomsday proves too powerful to be tamed, Alexandra utilizes the military's mind control technology to force the monster to kill itself (Booster Gold Volume 2 #47).

As changes to the timestream began to eat away at Booster's memory, he heroically vows to Alexandra that he will tap into Flash's Speed Force, resolve the Flashpoint paradox, and take her with him to a better timeline.

Booster fails.

In an interesting quirk of history, death in the Flashpoint timeline was not intended to be the final fate of poor Alexandra Gianopoulos. You can see in the panels above that Alexandra nebulously disappears into the Speed Force, and in comics, if there is no body, there is no death.

As DC timeline rebooted itself into the New 52 Universe, we can be sure that Alexandra was to join the reformed Justice League International. She can plainly be seen as the "woman in black" in the originally solicitated cover for Justice League International Volume 3 #1. However, for reasons that remain unclear (perhaps an editorial mandate that no characters were allowed to escape the Flashpoint paradox?), when the book was released, Alexandra had been replaced by former Global Guardian Godiva.

Alexandra will make one last appearance on the released cover of Justice League International Volume 3 #5 (another editorial oversight?), but she hasn't been seen since, a lingering reminder that time definitely does not heal all wounds.

Other People in Booster Gold's Neighborhood:

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Via Twitter.com, Dan Jurgens finally has confirmed the identity of the mysterious woman we saw on the originally solicited cover to the 2012 New 52 relaunch of the Justice League International #1.

To refresh your memory, here is the originally solicited cover, with the woman in Black, on the left and the published cover, with Godiva, on the right:

Art by Aaron Lopresti

Alexandra Gianopoulos was introduced in Booster Gold #45 when Booster quite literally fell into her bed in the "Flashpoint" timeline. Her power was the ability to "borrow" the power of anyone she touched, similar to Rogue of the X-Men. Despite also appearing on the published cover of Justice League International #5, Gianopoulos has never actually made the transition from the Flashpoint timeline to mainstream DCnU continuity.

Thanks to @Cyberjaeger for asking the question that finally resolved this longstanding mystery.

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Russell Burlingame's latest "International Exchange" column ran yesterday morning on comicbook.com. Burlingame and Jurgens are really developing a rapport after all these years: this month's column is the most entertaining, most informative one yet. You know it's going to be good when Burlingame goes straight for the jugular:

International Exchange: I'll start with the hard, and obvious, question: Who's that girl on the far right side of the cover? It doesn't look like Lady Godiva.

Dan Jurgens: There's a very good answer for that.

It's a mistake. A screw up.

She shouldn't be there as she wasn't yet due to appear in the book. Given the amount of people who look at these things, I have no idea how it ever made it all the way through to print.

Note that Jurgens says the mysterious Woman in Black wasn't "yet" in the book. So when will we be discovering the true identity of this woman who is not Godiva, Wonder Woman, or Donna Troy? Inquiring minds want to know.

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The first week of the new year brings the conclusion to the battle between the JLI and Peraxxus in Justice League International #5, or so solicitations for next month's issue would have us believe. Perhaps a more pressing question is still "who is the woman in black on the cover?"

The last time we saw the woman in black on a solicited cover, she was removed from the final product. This time she remains on the final cover (as seen on DC's The Source blog). Is she a new character to the title or an editorial oversight? Buy this issue and satisfy Skeets' curiosity.

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This has been covered elsewhere (from mainstream sites like Bleeding Cool to blogs like Exploring the Time Lab to the Boosterrific Forum), but I would be remiss not to mention it here: the woman in black is back.

The mysterious lady on the right side of the advance solicitation cover for Justice League International #5 released by DC earlier this week was last seen on the solicited cover to Justice League International #1. She was removed from the cover and eventually replaced by Godiva in the published issue (as seen here).

While we still don't even know who she is, we can probably assume that it must be Godiva's evil twin, Godiva Dark! Will Justice League International #5 really be her bittersweet introduction to the JLI, or did DC fudge another solicitation image? Find out when the issue hits stands on January 4, 2012.

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