Greg responds...

Uh...

Well, I'll have to be imaginative, considering I've done no research on Hong Kong or the Industrial Revolution. I don't even know when the Industrial Revolution hit Hong Kong.

But let's figure she wasn't a cop. Or African-Native-American. Also her name wasn't Elisa Maza.

But let's say her father was a cop. Maybe British. Her mother was Chinese. That makes her a bit of an outcast (I think) in Hong Kong society. By necessity that has made her strong. (The alternative was to make her weak, and neither of her parents wanted that.) So for a woman of that time and place, she is atypically independent. She has not married. Her parents married for love, and they will not force either of their daughters or their son to do otherwise. And she has not met anyone who wants a mixed race girl (no matter how beautiful) who isn't anyone's definition of obedient.

Finally, her parents decide to emigrate to the U.S., hoping that there will be more tolerance in the fabled land of democracy. That hope doesn't bare much fruit, but it puts our heroine in New York -- the eventual home of the Gargoyles.

Which would be great, except that no one said that Xanatos had changed backstories. So by the time he brings Wyvern to Manhattan in 1996, our proto-Elisa would be long dead.

(Now wasn't that fun.)