Lancer first appeared in “Heroes Reborn:Doomsday” #1 (January, 2000). Samantha Dunbar was supposedly a normal New Yorker of Counter-Earth Franklin. She was married and have an unnamed number of relatives. She and her family were involved in a sailing race around Long Island when the Dreaming Celestial attempted one of his experiments on her planet. A tidal wave engulfed her boat and the entire city. The Atlantic coast line was decreasing in elevation for about 200 feet. She survived the flood by chance, her family were not so lucky.
She was one of the relatively few survivors of the incident.