Katrina was from a country in Eastern Europe. And she was destined to become a number one Olympic skier. On her very first Winter Olympic appearance, she challenged a man named Karl Lubbings because he thought (and had said) women weren't good for anything and certainly not for sports. During the race which took place at night Karl tried to cut her off. This  resulted in an accident that killed Karl and crippled Katrina. Crippled her, ruined her. Torn apart by anger and driven by hate against men Katrina eventually started a long process of rehabilitation. The costs of this process were paid by the AIM , an organization that had interests in a hard-line feminists group. Van Horn so became a member of this group and her code name was Man-Killer. To improve her strength and fighting capabilities a super strong harness, a so called exo-skeleton was build for her.
Her life from that point on would always be connected with terrorism, hostile actions, a unbreakable faith in feminism and ongoing fights against anti-feminism. Her exo-skeleton or suit of armor if you like evaluated through the years and she even in the end developed superhuman strength without exo-skeleton. Famous enemies and allies of her were Spiderman, The Cat, Daredevil, the Black Widow, Justin Hammer, Iron Man and Jennifer Walters alias She-Hulk