Jessan Hoan Reavers had been hired to attack Hoan International bank by Roche, the crime lord of Madripoor. She moved to the island of Madripoor, where she became embroiled with the criminal element and adopted the alias "Tyger Tiger", after the William Blake poem "The Tyger". Wolverine later joined Jessan's efforts against Roche. Jessan decapitated Roche after he shot Wolverine. As Tyger Tiger, Jessan became the new crime lord of Madripoor, but she refuses to deal in either drugs or slavery. She briefly wore a highly resistant suit of armor, a duplicate of the armor used by the X-Man Psylocke. Tyger is
Burning Bright was too long and too literary by the producers of the play led to the change to the shorter excerpt from the same poem: "Burning Bright". Friend Ed has been pointed out as one in a line of characters inspired by Steinbeck's best friend Ed Ricketts. At the time Steinbeck wrote "Burning Bright", Ricketts had recently been killed in a car accident, and as well as reflecting his friend's character in that of Friend Ed, it is thought that the settings of the circus and the sea may have had significance for Steinbeck: he had apparently been at the circus