Ms. Rat's Obscure Marvel (Mostly) Muses Galore!
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ANACONDA
Name: Blanche Sitznski
Alias: Anaconda
Nicknames: Blondie
Affiliation: Serpent Society
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Roxxon modified Anaconda to be able to breathe (and speak!) underwater via gills on her neck as well as survive the extreme pressure and cold of the deep ocean. She also has superhuman strength, durability, and hyper-extendable adamantium-laced arms with which she could constrict and crush her foes. As a side effect of the mutagenic process that gave her these abilities, she has flesh-colored fins on her cheeks and flesh-colored scales over her skin. And she’s really, REALLY tall and big and BUFF.
About:
A former steelworker, Blanche somehow became a calisthenics instructor at Taskmaster’s academy where he trained supervillains. She was later recruited by Roxxon Corporation to be modified into one of their special agents for covert, criminal operations, specifically the retrieval of the Serpent Crown from under the sea---hence her abilities to survive in the cold, high-pressure depths. After her employment with Roxxon, she joined The Serpent Society is a group of mercenary supervillains who all operate under snake-based codenames, and whose organization is run much like a business, complete with the members having guaranteed pay scale, insurance, medical plans, pensions, etc. Anaconda has remained with the Serpent Society since, even forming a relationship with her co-worker Puff Adder aka Gordon “Gordo” Fraley.
A big, boisterous, brutish bully of a woman, Anaconda loves the thrill of the fight and beating her opponents to a literal pulp. She , has a tough, gruff manner, and answers every issue with her fists first. She’s got no head for math, by her own admission, but does love musicals and showtunes, especially Thoroughly Modern Mille! While she’ll help her teammates, she secretly doesn’t trust the pretty girls among them, suspecting they’re laughing at her for her looks, and in the case of a few, she has unfortunately been right.
While she is a villain and not the most pleasant person, Anaconda’s mercenary work is based purely on greed, not any sort of personal or ideological agenda against others, so it can be easy for her to socialize with non-villains and even heroes---so long as one can get by her nasty temper!
Acqueduct
Name: Peter Van Zante
Alias: Aqueduct, Water Wizard
Nicknames: Pete, Zante
Affiliation: Force of Nature
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Hydrokinesis, the ability to psychically manipulate water. He can use this from anything to making massive water constructs to killing foes by sapping the water from their bodies, instantly dehydrating them to death.
About:
Peter Van Zante was an American soldier who was badly wounded in Vietnam. A helicopter rush him to a hospital ship, as it was his only chance to receive surgery in time to save his life. His luck got even worse when a storm at sea rocked the ship too much for surgery to be performed, and the doctors had to resort to using an experimental “cells-stimulating ray” to stabilize him. During this time, ship was hit by several huge lightning bolts, overloading the ray. Somehow, this cause it to heal Van Zante, who not only made a full recovery, but realized after being discharged that he had gained the ability to control water.
Peter kept his gift hidden until it was discovered under unknown circumstances by an acquaintance called Jerry “the Mole” Moulinski. Mole was a small-time criminal, but he got big ideas when he saw Peter’s powers, and convinced Peter that using them to rob a bank was a great idea. So Peter donned a costume, called himself The Water Wizard, and tried just that. Despite his nervousness, The Water Wizard succeeded, and was subsequently offered a hit on Ghost Rider. Now confident, Peter took the job, only to find out that the Ghost Rider’s hellfire was immune to the mundane water that Peter controlled.
Peter committed a series of “normal” crimes afterwards, eventually leaving The Mole to strike out on his own in Chicago. Alas, his past caught up with him—he attacked Ghost Rider again, and this time the encounter left his psyche so deeply damaged that when the authorities found him, he was screaming and incoherent. He was placed in a psyche ward, and even after regaining his sanity, has remained deeply afraid of Ghost Rider to the point of phobia.
Having been largely unsuccessful as a solo criminal, Peter changed his codename to “Aqueduct” and joined Force of Nature, the mercenary squad employed by the eco-terrorists called Project Earth. Each member of Project Earth has abilities corresponding to one of the four classical elements, and Aqueduct’s is, of course, water. His abilities would later expand to include other types of liquid, such as oil, and to be so potent he proved able to kill people by dehydrating all the water in their bodies.
Teamwork seems to suit Peter, and has apparently stabilized him in a lot of ways. He no longer goes through the highs and lows that he used to as Water Wizard, when he could go from thinking himself a worthless washout to being confident to the point of egomania in a single issue. Nor has he suffered a resurgence of the mental trauma he gained from Ghost Rider. Perhaps this is why he’s remained with Force of Nature ever since, be it when they were in jail together or working as “superheroes” protecting the state of Oregon or stuck for weeks in the war-torn country of Trans-Sabal. Whatever the case, though, one thing is consistent—-he has the worst luck, and gets his ass kicked a LOT.
Name: Arcanna Jones
Alias: None
Nicknames:
Affiliation: Squadron Supreme (Earth 712 version)
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics (Earth 712 universe)
Powers: Arcanna is a witch who has displayed the following abilities:
-Illusion casting, including making things invisible. These spells can continue to be up even when she's gone.
Elemental magic (wind, wood, and water) For instance, she uses win to do things such as fly/levitate, to weave a wind in a protective screen, and to make a wind-cushion for a falling teammate. She can't affect unnatural substances, be they man-made, or supernatural/otherworldy in nature. Being angry also weakens her abilities.A mental link with her familiar, a cat named Crowley, that she can control and channel her power through long-distance as well as see through his eyes wherever he isFiring bolts of magical energy
About:
Arcanna is a nature witch and a member of The Squadron Supreme, the government-backed superhero organization of Earth-512. She's a lighthearted, kindly member of the team, and something of a hippie (dislikes guns, loves nature, sleeps naked, that sort of thing) Since she's been happily married so long, she's often the one that her female teammates confide in about matters of the heart, and has a strong streak of emotional intelligence. Though she rarely contributes much at meetings, she's got a definite stance on what's right and wrong, and is so devoted to being a superheroine that she served as one through her entire fourth pregnancy right up to the birth. Her children are, in order, Katrina, Drusilla, Andrew, and Benjamin, and her utterly normal human husband Phillip, who stays home to raise them.
Asp
Name: Cleopatra Nefertiti
Alias: Asp, The Temptress, and I headcanon that Cleopatra Nefertiti MUST be just a stage name for the sake of my own sanity, rather than believe that Marvel really wants us to think an actual modern Egyptian woman was born by that name
Nicknames: Cleo
Affiliation: Serpent Society
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Asp generates and projects 'venom bolts' of bioelectric energy from her hands. This energy does not affect inanimate matter, but upon striking a living being causes a rapid paralysis of the nervous system similar to the effect of the neurotoxic bite of certain venomous snakes. Her body constantly generates and stores this energy, but it can be temporarily expended after firing several "venom-bolts" in rapid succession, requiring her to recharge. Asp can accelerate the speed at which her body regenerates energy by engaging in physical activity that increases her heart rate and metabolism, such as her beloved dancing.
About:
A mutant hailing from Egypt, Asp was an exotic dancer recruited by The Serpent Society. The Serpent Society is a group of mercenary supervillains who all operate under snake-based codenames, and whose organization is run much like a business, complete with the members having guaranteed pay scale, insurance, medical plans, pensions, etc.. Asp became best friends with two of her teammates, Black Mamba and Diamondback, and at one point they left the Serpent Society to form their own group, the B.A.D girls. While Diamondback remains an independent agent, often aligning with heroes more than her former comrades, Asp and Black Mamba both have returned to the Serpent Society.
A polite, intelligent, and well-spoken young woman, Asp is a loyal friend, and has put her devotion to Black Mamba and Diamondback ahead of her own life before. One assumes she would do the same for anyone she deems a close friend, though her lifestyle likely makes forming such bonds difficult. Though mercenary work pays most of her bills, she does still dance, and is proud of her profession, defending it to Captain America once as being an art, great exercise, and “fun to see men slobber” when he accused her of degrading herself. Usually a calm, collected individual, it’s one of the few times Asp has been seen getting angry, so it’s likely a sore point for her.
Though she is technically a supervillain, Asp is purely profit-motivated, and bears no malice, spite, sadism, or other ill-will towards people, superheroes, or the world at large. She just wants to make money and has found a good way to do it, and while she will kill in her line of work, she’s also hardly the picture of evil. Definitely someone you could befriend off the job!
BLACK MAMBA
Name: Tanya Sealy
Alias: Black Mamba
Nicknames: Tanya Sweet
Affiliation: Serpent Society
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Thanks to the mutagenic process she underwent at Roxxon, Tanya possesses subtle gills that allow her to breath (and even speak) underwater as well as withstand the pressure of the ocean’s depths. She can also summon the Darkforce (a darkness energy that comes from the Darkforce dimension, which many Marvel characters with darkness powers draw on, such as Cloak, Darkstar, and Silhouette) and channel it into a “skin” or “love phantom”. This “skin” just looks like a human shadow to onlookers, but to Black Mamba’s victim, it appears to be the person they love or desire most. The love phantom then embraces them, hypnotizing them so they cannot fight back, and appears to mentally drain the target, allowing Tanya to subdue or even kill them.
About:
Originally, Tanya was an ordinary woman and a professional escort. One of her clients was Seth Voelker, who was an economics analyst at the Roxxon Corporation. When he discovered their true criminal nature, they offered him the chance to get in on the racket and become one of their superpowered agents. He took it, and extended the offer to Tanya, who also accepted it, and thus received her powers as Black Mamba.
When Seth decided to form his own supervillain organization, The Serpent Society, he again recruited Black Mamba, with whom he was continuing his relationship, and she once again accepted. The Serpent Society is a group of mercenary supervillains who all operate under snake-based codenames, and whose organization is run much like a business, complete with the members having guaranteed pay scale, insurance, medical plans, pensions, etc.. Tanya became best friends with two of her teammates, Asp and Diamondback, and at one point they left the Serpent Society to form their own group, the B.A.D girls. While Diamondback remains an independent agent, often aligning with heroes more than her former comrades, Asp and Black Mamba both have returned to the Serpent Society.
Tanya is a fun-loving free-spirit who believes herself to be an expert in romantic matters. She considers love and sex to be extremely important, and will grow to great lengths to help her friends in their love life. She’s also extremely loyal to her friends, and has risked her life for Diamondback and Asp before, even betraying the Serpent Society. That said, she’ll accept no competition, even from her closest pals, once she’s staked her claim on a lover or client.
Though she is technically a supervillain, Black Mamba is purely profit-motivated, and bears no malice, spite, sadism, or other ill-will towards people, superheroes, or the world at large. She just wants to make money and has found a good way to do it, and while she will kill in her line of work, she’s also hardly the picture of evil. Definitely someone you could befriend off the job!
CATSEYE
Name: Sharon Smith
Alias: Catseye
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Hellions
Alignment: Villain (Unwitting/Innocent)
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Catseye can transform into a gigantic purple panther the same shade as her hair, with paws that still retain prehensile jointed fingers. She can also assume a transitional ‘werecat’ state between human and feline, as well as a common domestic housecat shape. Her feline states grant her not only enhanced senses, agility, reflexes, and teeth and claws that can slash through flesh, bone, wood, stone, and some types of metal, but also the ability to walk up walls and ceilings, all while retaining her ability of human speech. While not necessarily part of her mutation, Catseye also has a genius-level intellect, and her enhanced senses let her instantly know when she is being lied to.
About:
Catseye refers to herself strictly by her codename and in the third person; she has a distinct sing-song way of speaking, and has a tendency to make up her own words and give nicknames to people (which are not always nice, even if she doesn’t realize that) Catseye believes herself to be a cat that can assume human form, not vice versa, and so the issues of mutant politics and identity are, she believes, irrelevant to her---after all, she’s not a smoothskin, mutant or otherwise, she’s a cat! And she behaves accordingly---playful, irreverent, vain and proud, convinced of her own invincibility, and constantly curious!
Exactly what happened to Catseye prior to Emma finding her can only be guessed at; Catseye certainly doesn’t remember. As far as she’s concerned, she’s always been a cat. But Emma’s best guess is that Catseye’s shapeshifting mutation manifested very young, perhaps at birth as some do, and her parents abandoned her. She was raised by a colony of feral cats that dwelled in the sewers, until as a teenager Emma located her via Mutivac, the Hellfire Club’s equivalent of Cerebro that Emma had built. Emma was able to approach her and even recruit her, teaching her to speak, dress herself, and even function (to a degree) in a school environment (The Massachusetts Academy) in a mere year through a combination of her own telepathy and Catseye’s own telepathy. It was, of course, Emma who named her, both civilian and codename. Catseye still did not see herself as human, but she did see Emma (whom she addressed as “Missy”) as her mother figure, and she was accordingly loyal to her. While Catseye did as Emma said and enjoyed living at “Happyplace” with the other Hellions, she also did not understand why she must be in conflict with the New Mutants, especially since she saw Wolfsbane as a friend and kindred spirit “furfriend”.
Sharon, along with most of her teammates, met her end at the hands of the time-traveling Trevor Fitzroy, who slaughtered the Hellions both for points in the Upstarts competition and as a personal blow against Emma, whose future self he despised for reasons still unknown. During Necrosha, Selene resurrected many mutants en masse by combining the transmode virus with sorcery. The Hellions, including Catseye, were among these, and Selene sent them after Emma for the ironic cruelty of it. When Selene's plan failed, so did Sharon's resurrected body, and she died for a second time. Sharon was revived again through Krakoa's Resurrection Protocols, along with her deceased teammates. She currently lives on Krakoa in the Akademos habitat with most of the other Hellions.
CHEETAH
Name: Deborah Domaine
Alias: The Cheetah
Nicknames: Debbie
Affiliation: O.E.S., Kobra Cultists, Secret Society of Super-Villains
Alignment: Villain
Canon: DC Comics (Wonder Woman)
Powers: Debbie is a normal human who was put through an intense brainwashing regime by a terrorist cult. In this state, she possses manic strength, frenzied ferocity, duplicitous craftiness, and speed that surpasses that of even Wonder Woman (assuming that Wonder Woman isn’t going all out and doesn’t want to harm her), usually forcing the Amazing Amazon on the defensive. Her nails are covered by red plates of metal, which reportedly allow her to shear through steel.
About:
The wealthy young socialite Debbie was the niece of Priscilla Rich, the original Cheetah. She knew nothing of her eccentric aunt's supervillainy, and loved spending her vacations at her aunt’s estate of North Shore. During one such vacation when Debbie was fourteen, she found a sick goose that had been covered in crude oil after a tanker accident. Debbie tried to save it, but the good died overnight despite the local vet’s efforts. This prompted Debbie to become an environmentalist, dedicated to saving the Earth and its creatures from man's destructions.
Debbie joined the O.E.S. (Organization for Ecological Senita), and she often patrolled Chesapeake Bay in her yacht with other volunteers to watch for oil leaks. During one such expedition Debbie came across Wonder Woman, who was saving a burning oil tanker. Impressed, Debbie invited the oil-covered heroine to take a shower and have a hot drink on her yacht, and the two parted on friendly terms. But while they met on friendly terms the first time, they would not the next time.
Aunt Priscilla had fallen ill to cancer that had rapidly turned terminal. Always fond of her niece, she had written to Debbie asking her to visit one last time. When Debbie arrived, the barely-alive Priscilla used her dying breath to say she'd wanted to tell Debbie the truth about her past, but now Debbie had to run. Priscilla, however, died before she could tell Debbie why. In her shock, Debbie stumbled backwards and hit her head, passing out. At that moment, a man emerged, the last thing Debbie saw before losing consciousness.
The man was one of the cultists who served the supervillain Kobra. They had desired to hire the Cheetah to serve them, not realizing how sick she was. With Priscilla dead, they snatched Debbie instead, and she was put through a torturous brainwashing to become the new Cheetah. She became a mad, furious creature, bent on two things: Serving Kobra against Wonder Woman, and saving the earth just like before---but this time through far more violent means. She began attacking anything she saw as a manmade threat to nature, which drew out Wonder Woman to stop her. The two clashed, as Kobra has planned, but one of their struggles on Debbie's yacht caused her boat to against a much larger ferry, and Debbie was presumed dead in the explosion.
However, Debbie had survived, but was more insane than ever. Still brainwashed and now further traumatized, she had no idea what to do without Kobra contacting her with instructions, and lived as a vagrant on the docks closest to the site of her reported death. She killed or wounded several persons, including a group of drunks who intended to rape her, until she was contacted by Killer Frost, who was recruiting for the new version of the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Debbie agreed, and worked first for them, then was manipulated by the being named Monitor, and always sent after Wonder Woman, whom she believed her foe.
Debbie loves nature, first and foremost. She's ready to kill for Mother Earth and its creatures, yet due to her brainwashing by Kobra, seems unable to act independently without instruction from another villain leading her. Other than that, she's a formerly kind and thoughtful woman, if a little eager to chat about herself, and perhaps could be again if she were helped.
CYBELE
Name: Cybele
Alias: Rhea, Gaea/Gaia
Nicknames:
Affiliation: Eternals
Alignment: Neutral
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Cybele is one of the Eternals and as such as their standard powers; immortality, eternal youth, eye beams with a range of 125 feet that apply a maximum of 200 pounds of pressure per square inch, levitation of herself and others, flight at 600 miles per hour, psionically re-shaping objects at the molecular level, and virtually unbreakable mental control over the processes and structure of her body, even when she is asleep or unconscious. Only an injury that disperses a significant portion of her body molecules, or a force that overwhelms and breaks her mental held over her body, could cause Cybele to die. Cybele's unique power, however, is the specific way in which she influences the minds of others. Using her low-level psionic hypnotic power, she can prevent herself from being seen or heard.
About: Cybele is one of the three Eternals known as the Gaian Sisters, the others two being Daina and Tulayn. She was the consort of Zuras, ruler of the Olympian Eternals, and mother of his daughter, the Eternal superheroine Thena. However, Cybele herself had little interest in the affairs of others, be they Eternal or human. She preferred to dwell in nature, which caused ancient humans to mistake her for various earth-mother goddesses such as Rhea and Gaia. Today she lives by herself in a forest in Colorado, using her psionic powers to prevent herself from being seen by human beings unless she wants them to see her.
DARKSTAR
Name: Laynia Petrovna
Alias: Darkstar
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: The Winter Guard (Russian state-sanctioned super-squad)
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: : Laynia is a mutant who is a Darkforce user, able to channel to Darkforce as energy blasts, form it into objects such as platforms or discs which she can control, and teleport herself and up to three other people through it. She can also fly. While she is immune to the effects of the Darkforce, it has a physically chilling and mentally negative effects on others, and those unused to teleporting with her may experience this. Darkstar was put through many of the same training regimes as other Soviet soldiers. This includes weaponry, combat, and wilderness survival. That said, her fighting focuses more on evasion, rather than attack or defense, and she is unskilled in hand-to-hand. She is also greatly out of practice with weaponry, as she prefers not to use or carry any, since she does not feel connection to guns and knives the way she does to the Darkforce.
Darkstar is naturally spry and speedy, which is augmented by her athletic regimen and training.
About:
A kind soul, Laynia is constantly conflicted and perpetually pulled back and forth between her loyalty to Russia (which she has yet to really acknowledge as having been indoctrination) and her own conscience. She desires to do what is right, as well to the protect Mother Russia and its people, yet the Russian government has done wrong---against others and her---over and over. Even the story of her birth and how she came to be their. . .property. . . is a gross violation of human rights, and yet, despite knowing that logically, she can’t come around to resenting it as she should. Instead, she’s frequently flip-flopping, defecting on more than one occasion because of some new atrocity or lie she discovers, only to return. Essentially, she has Stockholm Syndrome for an entire nation.
At one point in the USSR's history, it was law that all mutants be destroyed as soon as they were detected, due to the potential danger they posed to the State. Luckily for Laynia and her twin brother Nicolai, they were born in Minsk shortly after this law changed. Unfortunately, it was changed from "be killed by the State" to "be automatic property of the State", as the Soviet government had grown worried upon seeing the superhuman forces that the USA boasted, and decided that harnessing their own mutants as living weapons would be the best course of defense. Thus, Laynia and Nicolai were taken away at birth from their parents---a woman named Marya, who died in labor, and her husband, Dr. Sergei Krylov, a nuclear physicist told that the twins died with her---by the KGB. They were delivered to Moscow, to the "Super-Soldier School" facility run by Professor Phobos, the man who had been instrumental in convincing the Soviet Union that mutants should be used rather than killed. It was here that Laynia was raised and trained to serve the State, along with other mutant children taken from throughout the USSR, with her class consisting of herself, her brother, and an older boy named Mikhail Uriokovitch Ursus.
It should be noted that Nicolai and Laynia were unaware that they were siblings. In order to avoid a family bond ever superseding their loyalty to the government, they were not told they were related, and were given different last names---Petrovna to Laynia, Krylenko to Nicolai. Laynia wielded Darkforce abilities, while Nicolai deflected/reflected energy, and Mikhail could become a bear. Thus, when Professor Phobos felt they had "graduated" at the age of sixteen years in terms of mastering their abilities, they were respectively given the codenames Darkstar, Vanguard, and Ursa Major, along with gifts from their mentor, the only father figure they had ever known. However, they were also given a goodbye from him; he told that the USSR had once again grown afraid of mutants, and was dissolving the program/school, and that they were even more afraid of him as the man who the commanded the mutants, and thus he must go into hiding. As for Laynia and her classmates, they all entered the service of the government, serving it loyally just as they had been trained to do.
While Vanguard and Ursa Major were drafted into the Army, Laynia was sent to the USA, along with other agents such as the Crimson Dynamo, to retrieve the Black Widow, who was believed to have gone rogue and defected. They succeeded in capturing Black Widow, but this lead to a battle with the American heroes known as the Champions. During the course of this mission, Laynia discovered that the Crimson Dynamo had been kidnapped as a child by the Russian government, and trained to be a zealous agent of the motherland---much like she herself, though she did not realize this. This information, along with disapproving of the immoral tactics used by her comrades during the mission, led her to a crisis of conscience. She ended up freeing the Black Widow and helped the Champions instead. Thanks to the intervention afterwards by Nick Fury , Darkstar was allowed to remain in the States by special permission of the US government, and she joined the Champions. However, she did not consider herself to have truly defected, still feeling loyalty to her country. This loyalty led her to eventually chose to return to Russia, where she serves the Winter Guard still.
Rather than being penalized for her betrayal, Laynia was rewarded by being put on a team with her old comrades Vanguard (whom she still did not know was her brother) and Ursa Major, along with the new Crimson Dynamo. The group was dubbed the Soviet Super Soldiers, and served as both "superheroes" to the public as well as special agents of the state. Due to their loyalty, they were often manipulated their homeland's government, even when they vowed against ever allowing that to happen again after each discovery that they had been misled and used. Their missions also often led them into conflict with American superheroes such as the Hulk and Iron Man, though they would also ally when their goals aligned. Eventually, one mission lead to Darkstar and her team discovering truly startling revelations about her past. She and Vanguard learned not only that the supervillain known as "The Presence" was in fact their biological father and that they had been kidnapped by the State as infants (rather than abandoned by their parents, as they were always told), but that Professor Phobos, the man who had raised them, was in fact a villain as well. He had lied about why the State had shut down his school and why he needed to go into hiding; the truth was that the government had discovered he was draining the energy of his pupils (causing the deaths of several) in order to give HIMSELF super-powers. In fact, the "gifts" that he had given Darkstar and Vanguard had been energy-sapping devices in disguise all along!
This, along with finding out later that the Soviet government was now trying to create its own super-beings to serve its interests (a failure which led to a nuclear facility threatening all of Russia), caused Darkstar to grow even more disillusioned with her loyalty to the State. She was tired of the lies, the manipulations, the careless endangerment of the Russian people in order to gain more power. Yet she and her teammates were still patriotic to Russia itself, just not her government, and they still wished to protect the civilians. Thus Laynia and the others reluctantly remained in the service of the government, hoping to make a positive change from within and to protect the innocent people whenever they were in danger. They continued to serve their county even after the fall of the USSR, no longer being called the "Soviet Super Soldiers" but instead "The Winter Guard". Her missions with the Winter Guard led to alliances with both the Avengers and X-Men, and at one point Laynia decided to join the latter. She signed up with X-Corps, and was stationed in Paris---where she unfortunately met her death. After being replaced in the Winter Guard by two subsequent Darkstars who also perished, Laynia ended up revived back to life, as mutants tend to.
FANTASMA
Name: Fantasma
Alias: None
Nicknames: The Ebon Witch
Affiliation: The Winter Guard, Dire Wraiths
Alignment: Hero when amnesiac, then villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Fantasma is a Dire Wraith sorceress whose powers are mainly focused around mentally scanning and tapping into what she calls an individual’s “bio-field”. This allows her to read emotions, detect lies/truth, induce unconsciousness, block people’s sensory perceptions (effectively able to make herself or anyone else she wants be invisible to the target), and forge telepathic links. She forged one such link permanently with her teammate Red Guardian aka Josef Petkus (not to be confused with Tania Belinsky and others who also used the codename) the first time she touched him, though the reasons how and why are still unknown. She’s also very potent at casting illusions. Being a Dire Wraith means that her true form is that of a hideous alien, and female Dire Wraiths specifically can use their sharp tongues to drill a hole into a victim's head and kill them while also taking on their memories and mimicking their forms. In other words, they kill people, shapeshift into them, and pose as them using the absorbed memories to make their masquerade more convincing. Dire Wraiths of both sexes can alos possessively infect people with their own malignant DNA, effectively killing the victim while converting them into one of their spawn. They can use this as a means of overshadowing unwilling hosts to pass off as a specific species, or physically emulate their genetic material to better aid their metamorphosis.
About:
Fantasma first appeared as a member of the Supreme Soviets, the USSR’s version of the Avengers. After the Soviet Union collapses and the squad renamed themselves The People’s Protectorate, then the Winter Guard. Sometimes her team was in conflict with the Avengers and other non-Russian teams, other times they worked together. But whatever they called themselves and whoever they battled, Fantasma remained with them, fighting by their side against any threat she was asked to face for the greater good of the Russian people. She rarely had a big part in anything she was in, but she was there. It was not until 21 years after her initial appearance that anything about her was revealed—and what a reveal!
It turned out that all along, Fantasma had been a Dire Wraith, an evil and human-hating shapeshifting species of alien whose females are skilled in magic. She had served Russia as a hero not out of deliberate deceit, but because she had amnesia, and did not really know what she was. She thought herself a foundling, and had never had a sense of belonging or understanding in the world as she knew it, which confused her, even when she thought herself a human. When she recovered her memories, she at last understood why she’d always felt so out of place, and abandoned her old allegiances in favor of her fellow Dire Wraiths, seeking out a pack of eggs that she remembered had been left during a previous invasion, and becoming a surrogate mother to them. To this end, she teamed up with the Russian supervillain known as The Presence —who may also have been mentally influencing her—and attempted to turn the world into a breeding/feeding ground for a new generation of her kind. After all, she said, her children would need someplace to live!
However, her former teammates stopped her, and she was very literally tossed into Limbo.She dragged Starlight, one of the Winter Guard, in with her as she went. As it happens, Starlight is also the former (unwilling) paramour of the Presence, and I like to think that after some natural hashing it out in Limbo, these two ladies eventually come together over how shitty he is. Like, come on Starlight, Dire Wraith traitor or not, you need to warn Fanny how bad this guy is!
Fantasma had a cool, calm, aloof personality, and though her bluntness often rubbed others the wrong way, she was rarely actually rude in any way (indeed, she was often quite polite despite said bluntness, rather like a robot) except once when she was in pained distress. The only two things ever shown to upset her was when her empathy/telepathy was assaulted by the pain of others, and when she was in confined space, suggestion she had a degree of claustrophobia. She expressed that she found codenames to be childish, and no other name for her besides “Fantasma” is ever revealed for her, so presumably this is the only name that she had, at least when she believed herself to be human. She also, when she thought herself human, felt she never fit in to the human world.
While she was never the friendliest person, and not well-liked by at least two of her female teammates, she still was a superhero for twenty years up until her memories recovered, suggesting Dire Wraiths may not be inherently evil by nature as is commonly thought. And one really can’t blame her for siding with her own kind in the end, particularly since those kind, being eggs, would be the equivalent of children in her species.
HYPERION
Name: Hyperion
Alias: Marcus Milton, Zhib-Ran
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Squadron Supreme
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel’s “Avengers Assemble” animated television series
Powers: Hyperion possesses superhuman strength/speed/durability/senses, a healing factor, immortality, flight, eye beams, and freezing breath that can also create a vortex. His abilities are solar-powered, as his body collects yellow sun radiation and operates in a process similar to nuclear fusion.
About:
Hyperion was born on another world, one where he became the leader of a superhero group called The Squadron Supreme. Unfortunately, Hyperion's arrogance, need for adoration, and extremist views of right and wrong led him to take over that world. It became a dystopia led by him and his cohorts, one breaking the law was punishable by immediate death. . . even when the crime was as minor as jaywalking or being late. Despite the threat of the Squadron, the people of this world rebelled, refusing to accept Hyperion's rule. In response, he used his power to destroy his own planet, then began seeking a new planet that he could "save"---he settled on Earth.
Hyperion arrived on Earth conveniently just as it was threatened by a giant meteor (likely the remains of Hyperion's planet) and he arrived in the nick of time to destroy the Hyperion destroyed the largest piece, an "earth-killer", making him the day's hero. Soon after, the Avengers invited him into their number, but they also soon began to question having him there. For all his jovial surface, he was revealed to be far too harsh at dealing with those who stepped out of line, and he was hostile when his teammates tried to stop him. With his true colors and draconian mentality revealed, Hyperion and the Avengers turned on each other. Though he was a colossally powerful foe, Hyperion was eventually defeated and imprisoned on the Tri-Carrier in a cell specialized for his containment. He was later freed by the Red Skull and his Cabal, and has rejoined with The Squadron Supreme to bedevil the Avengers on numerous occasions.
While charming and affable on the surface so long as things are going his way, Hyperion is actually egotistical, childish, and demands admiration and obedience. He thinks he is a hero and that people need his lethal enforcement of the law, and that showing mercy to the populace does more damager to it in the long run. He has a simplistic, black and white view of the world, and the power enforce it---which he will try to do at every turn.
LADY VERMIN
Name: Lady Vermin
Alias: None
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Knights of Wundagore
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: She’s rat with human intelligence who can speak, specifically in English. She also wears special harness which contains both a rocket pack to let her fly and a small gun mounted on her back which can fire concussive blasts. She can, naturally, talk to other rats, and they treat her with great respect, often obeying her requests.
About: The Knights of Wundagore are New Men, animals that were “uplifted” by the High Evolutionary. In most cases, the “uplifted” animals become anthropomorphic. In the case of Lady Vermin, however, her physical form did not change, but she gained human intelligence and the ability to speak. And speak she does, with great eloquence! In addition to being unusually intelligent and articulate even by human standards, she's also a courageous fighter, with her tiny size belying mass amounts of bravery and chutzpah
MEGGAN PUCEANU
Name: Meggan Puceanu
Alias: None
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Excalibur
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics (Excalibur)
Powers: Meggan is an empathic environmental metamorph, able to control the elements and effect the environment, shapeshift, and even assume the superpowers of others. But her empathic abilities also make her mentally reflect the moods, perceptions, desires, or fears of others, and her physical form will follow that. Meggan’s body also reacts to the environment she’s in—such as growing gills in the water, or changing to resemble whatever person is closest to her at the moment like a chameleon blending in. Her shapeshifting is not strictly involuntary, she can also do so at will, such as assuming a super-muscular form to battle the Juggernaut. Her body is also stronger and more durable than that of a human.
She is an elemental as well, mentally linked to the energies of nature and able to control earth, fire, water, air and even ether(energy). By "speaking" to the elements, Meggan can command the environment around her, and her emotional state can affect the local ecosystems. She can extinguish forest fires with a thought, summon gale force winds or part the waters of a lake with wave of her hand, or even cause earthquakes in a flash of anger. She can also fly, possibly as a separate power, possibly by levitating herself with wind.
Finally, Meggan is deeply attuned to magical energies. This can be a power, allowing her to manipulate magical energies, such as deflecting spells, but also makes her extremely susceptible to being influenced by magical energy as well, such as when she willingly becoming the "Goblyn Princess" during Inferno because the demonic energy permeated her mind and desires. Her magical nature also gives her some resistance to the reality-warping powers powers of others. For instance, she was able to break free of the power of Jamie Braddock, and was one of the few to remember the effects of the Jaspers Warp.
About:
My Meggan is set in the 80s-era Excalibur, well before her Gloriana stage or marriage to Brian (though she is devoted to/dependent on him) and I will be RPing her at this stage.
Meggan Puceanu may have won the lottery in terms of mutant powers, but at quite a heavy price growing up. She was born to a family of Romanichal, also known as British Travellers, in their camper trailer near Fenborough Station. She had the misfortunate to be born during a blizzard, and as a response her mutation immediately gave her a thick coat of fur to cope with the cold. Her family kept her hidden in their camper trailer, but rumor spread around the Traveller camp of the “wolf baby” and as the stories grew about how monstrous Meggan must be, Meggan’s body grew more monstrous to reflect those fears and beliefs. She had no idea that she had any control over it, nor that she had any other powers. Due to being locked in the trailer her whole life, she was raised on television, and was mostly illiterate.
During the Jasper’s Warp, reality shifted into a world that was putting superhumans, including herself, into concentration camps. While she was in the camps, Captain Britain was a legend as a liberator and freedom fighter who was fighting back against the regime for the sake of people like her. And when reality returned to normal, Meggan was one of the few people who remembered that it had ever changed; she remembered the camps, and she remembered Captain Britain. Even though she’d never even seen him at that point, she clung to him as her one hope. Then the real Captain Britain found her when she was homeless and living in an abandoned warehouse, and he let her live with him in his mansion. She idolized him, and they eventually began a romance—though not until after she’d found out that she could indeed change her form at all, and began using the appearance of a beautiful blonde woman with elfin ears as her standard form, partly out of a longing to be beautiful, partly because Brian found it attractive.
Due to the way that not only but her mind mirrors the fears, desires, and expectations of others, Meggan has a genuinely horrifying identity crisis going on, never knowing if she has a “real” self at all or if she's just a "mirror girl". At this point in her life, she doesn't even know what she actually looks like. She's insecure, clinging, always seeking approval, and can be shockingly selfish in her obsession with Brian and her unhealthily devoted dependence on him. That said, she has a good heart and a wonderful spirit, she's just finding her way right now.
MELISSA TARLETON
Name: Melissa Tarleton
Alias: None
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Independent, Tarleton family
Alignment: Tarleton family
Canon: Marvel’s “M.O.D.O.K” series on Hulu
Powers: Superior intellect, robotics knowledge, and a death ray that fires from the jewel in her hoverchair. Also a talented ice skater. However, her real talent is picking out people's emotional and social securities, and picking on them relentlessly.
About: The teenage daughter of Georgie Tarleton (aka M.O.D.O.K) and his wife Jodie, Melissa is in many ways a stereotypical bratty teenager. Despite inheriting her father's mutated physiology (she's basically a huge head with a tiny body and requires a hoverchair to get around) she's managed to dominate the social hierarchy at her school, and is a relentless Mean Girl who ruins the lives of peers on a whim. Yet beneath her adolescent cruelty, she does genuinely care about her family, especially her far more innocent little brother Lou.
MONDO
Name: Malosi Palepoi (my own headcanon, his birth name has never been given)
Alias: Mondo
Nicknames: Mondo
Affiliation: Generation X/New Mutants
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Mondo takes on the qualities of whatever matter he touches, such as becoming made of stone or water, or tough bark like a tree, etc.About:
A gentle, laidback soul, Mondo prefers to take it easy, go with the flow, and not worry. That said, he has hardened up considerably due to his experiences since leaving his native Samoa, and while still an easygoing guy, he will no longer accept those who manipulate and trifle with him either. He also has a complicated history, and half the time we see him in canon, it's actually a doppelganger.
When we first meet Mondo, he is indeed the real Mondo. He’s a teenage Samoan mutant who is hanging out with Cordelia (the younger sister of Emma Frost, traveling the world on a trust fund) on a tropical paradise in the South Pacific. She dives from a waterfall, splashing him, and the narrative boxes inform us that he has only two settings—calm and calmer—as well as that he has never taken a step of this island.
But it looks like he does have a setting other than “calm” after all, because when Cordelia doesn’t resurface, he dives in after her. He doesn’t find her, but he does find something else—what though, we don’t know, as the scene ends with the sound “BRZAKT” and an expression of surprise from Mondo.
The next time we see him, poor Mondo is hanging upside down and unconscious in a stasis chamber, being presented to Shinobi Shaw by Cordelia Frost, who hopes to use him as a bribe/offering in order to gain entrance to the Hellfire Club, and take the now-vacant White Queen position left by her sister. Cordelia claims Mondo has great power, that he could take out the X-Men, Hellfire Club, and Brotherhood all at once without breaking a sweat. Shinobi, however, isn’t interested, and doesn’t care when a group of armed agents (sent by someone whose hologram Shinobi addresses familiarly as “Barrington”) break in and kidnap him.
They take Mondo on a boat to the Boston harbor, intending to transport him to this ominous Barrington. But before they reach their destination, Mondo breaks lose, and we get a look at what his mutant abilities are—he can take on the nature of whatever he is in contact with. In this case, the seawater surrounding them. Rather than attacking his kidnappers, he asks them if they’ve seen Cordelia. They respond by opening fire on him, but as he is water, their shots go through him and at each other. Nude and far from home, Mondo resumes his human form, determined to find his friend. At least though, he gets to see “what the rest of the world looks like”.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much time for sight-seeing. No sooner has he made it to the Boston Harbor and stolen himself some clothing from the Quincy Market (which he feels bad for), than Barrington’s agents attack again. Mondo, despite being shot at, still does not use his powers to attack, instead asking that they “stay cool” and “we can work this out” even though he doesn’t know what “this” even is about.
Just when things look grim for the peaceful Mondo, Generation X appears—with Cordelia in tow! She was so determined to find Mondo (though not for generous reasons) that she contacted her sister Emma Frost (currently the teacher of Gen X) for help, despite the animosity between them.
Generation X (with some help from Mondo, who at last fights back) defeats the agents, who are teleported away by the still-mysterious Barrington from afar, using some kind of remote technology.
Cordelia chooses to leave Generation X, and Mondo (despite her initial plans for him) behind after receiving a warning from Emma, who knew she was up to something, to stay away. Mondo, however, remained at the school, but not before sharing a goodbye-hug with Cordelia, whom he still believed to be his friend.
Mondo remained with Generation X as an easygoing and optimistic member of the team, as well as a fish-out-of-water due to his isolated island upbringing. He was happy to have newfound friends, and never used his powers for combat.
…and then one day, he secretly met with the villain Black Tom Cassidy, the evil tree-controlling cousin of Banshee, to say that he was tired of waiting and wanted to attack. An issue later, Black Tom granted him his wish, ordering him to capture his teammates. But when he went after Jubilee, he learned the lesson that there was always a bigger fish; in this case, Bastion, the cyborg Sentinel, who killed Mondo on the spot and kidnapped Jubilee himself.
Except, that wasn’t really Mondo at all. The “Mondo” that had been with Generation X all along wasn’t the real Mondo. He was a clone created by Black Tom in order to infiltrate and betray them so that Tom could get vengeance on Banshee.
So, where’s the real Mondo? What happened to him? Well, he was working for Black Tom too. It seems that while the fake clone Mondo was infiltrating Gen-X, Black Tom (who was in fact “Barrington” all along) had taken the real one under his wing, mentoring him and making him into someone who, as he put it to Generation X, had “no qualms about beating you into a coma.” Generation X was hesitant to fight him, and tried to talk him down, saying how they used to be friends, but he informed them he’d never met them before in his life. And it’s true—the real Mondo indeed was never a part of Generation X, only the clone.
The real Mondo, along with his master Black Tom (who referred to Mondo as “my son” now) and the Juggernaut ( a frequent ally and friend of Black Tom), tracked down Cordelia Frost with the intent to kill her for how she’d betrayed Mondo. Cordelia ran to Generation X and Emma for help, and Mondo fought them until he was knocked unconscious. When he awoke, he was ready to continue, but Black Tom ordered a retreat. Mondo was not seen for a long time since, until he appeared on Krakoa and joined the New Mutants, apparently reformed from his brainwashed villainy.
MONICA RAPPACCINI
Name: Monica Rappaccini
Alias: None
Nicknames: Nic, Nikki
Affiliation: A.I.M, H.A.M.M.E.R, J.A.N.U.S
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Monica is a genius who specializes in biochemistry, in particular toxins, poisons, and bioengineering involving them. She also has expertise in robotics, cybernetics, engineering, and physics. She has no powers, but frequently carries advanced weaponry and wears a belt that allows her to teleport short distances.
About: Note, I have thus far not read all of Monica's issues, only those that pertain to her daughter Scorpion, so I am still getting a feel for her personality.
A brilliant biochemistry student who studied at the University of Padua, Monica had an affair with Dr. Bruce Banner and used the relationship to plagiarize his work, which ended up winning her a Nobel Prize. But as corrupt and wicked of her as this was, Monica still had noble dreams. She wanted to use her intellect to cure the world using science, but she became disillusioned with the callous decadence and cruelty of Western civilization. She would cure SOME of the world, she decided---but make the rest suffer. To this end, she joined Advanced Idea Mechanics, a terrorist think tank, where her her prior work on stopping toxins made her the leading mind on the causation of poisons and stopping of antibodies. She instrumented the creation of the Wakers, children who would be born to and raised by undercover A.I.M. agents in normal lives, until their sixteenth birthday upon which they would "awaken" (hence the name) with chemically programmed loyalty to serve A.I.M. One of these was her daughter, to whom she gave the name Thasanee---a deliberately "ethnically ambiguous" name, as Monica put it, that she made up herself to show that the Wakers were true "citizens of the world" with no single national allegiance---but who was raised as a normal girl named Carmilla by undercover agents Tim and Julia Black. Carmilla's father is unknown---she may not even have one---but it has implied that her father may be Bruce Banner, which would explain the girl's green hair. Monica would not see her daughter again for nineteen years after giving the infant up, until the girl, now an agent of SHIELD, returned to infiltrate AIM and lead them to her estranged mother.
In those nineteen years, Monica went far in the terrorist cabal, succeeding her rival and former lover M.O.D.OK. as the Scientist Supreme . She made several attempts to seize yet more power and enhance the size of her A.I.M. cell, but each time she was stopped, She was later recruited by Norman Osborn to be part of his new incarnation of H.A.M.M.E.R. after breaking out of prison, converting him into a Super-Adaptoid at his own request. After Roberto Da Costa aka Sunspot of the X-Men bought A.I.M., he enlisted her help to clean the organization of evil scientists, but in the end she betrayed him. In current canon, she has joined the secret organization J.A.N.U.S. and taken control of the Ravencroft Institute, a maximum-security prison for superhuman criminals. However, I mostly play her as still being an A.I.M. member.
MINDMELD
Name: Unknown; besides her codename, she has no other known identity.
Alias: Mindmeld, various fake names
Nicknames: Mel
Affiliation: None, former bodyguard to Shinobi Shaw
Alignment: Independent, Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Mindmeld is a mutant with striking silvery-white skin and the ability to move people’s minds into other bodies. For instance, she mentally moves Domino’s mind into Caliban’s body, so that both Caliban and Domino are occupying it, leaving Domino’s body empty and comatose. She does the same to Meltdown and Sunspot, and later moves her own mind into the body of her turncoat co-bodyguard, Clearcut, leaving her own body helpless.
About:
Mindmeld was Shinobi Shaw’s bodyguard, possibly more, and fought X-Force on his behalf when they invaded his base to rescue Karma's younger siblings, whom he had kidnapped as test subjects for a device he was funding that would depower other mutants. The fight went badly for her, and she was unconscious when X-Force blew up the base. She has not been seen since, and it is likely she died. I play her as having revived and living on Krakoa.
Mindmeld comes off as having a pessimistic and jaded view of the world, and it’s not hard to imagine she might have had bad experiences that caused this, being non-passing as both a mutant and a trans woman. She enjoys taunting X-Force, and sneers at their dreams of peace and harmony being possible with humans. Yet she seems to have some sense of camaraderie, as she’s shocked when Shinobi betrays her, apparently having expected better even from him.
NATURE GIRL
Name: Lin Li
Alias: Nature Girl
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: X-Men student body
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics (X-Men)
Powers: Lin can potentially control and bond with every living species of animal on Earth save for human beings and their variants (other mutants, Inhumans, etc) as well as plants. This allows her to communicate with both plants and animals as well as command them to attack. She can also bond with some feral beings not native to this plane, such as Bamfs. control and affect the weather in a certain area, manipulate the elements to a degree, fly for a limited time, and purify/heal the health of nature itself.
About: Lin debuts as a student at The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, where she was given the codename "Nature Girl" by her teammate Eye-Boy. When Kitty Pryde relocated the X-Men to Central Park and the school was renamed to the Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach, Lin Li decided to join in. She became part of Jubilee's team, which consisted of Nathaniel Carver, Quentin Quire, Benjamin Deeds, Bling! and Eye-Boy. When the nation of Krakoa formed, Lin Li moved there. There were adventures along the way in all of this, of course, but that's the quick summary.
Lin is a quiet girl, and it's hard to get a read on her. We also know nothing about her backstory, so my headcanon is she comes from a Chinese-Australian family on Christmas Island (the Australian territory, not the Nova Scotia one). Two things were obviously different about her from birth: she had a cleft palate, better known as a harelip, and two warts on her head. Her parents got her immediate surgery for the cleft lip and had the warts removed, but the latter came back. So they had them removed again. The third time, an X-ray was done, and her parents found out they weren't warts. They were horn growths, antlers actually. Meaning that they would keep growing back.
So now her parents knew two things. First, they could not afford repeated removal on such a frequent basis. Second, she was going to be a girl with antlers. An obvious mutant. The considered putting her up for adoption, not because they didn't love her, but because didn't know what to do, they didn't think they could give her the care a mutant might need, but ultimately they decided against it, After all, if they didn't know what to do, how would anyone else? After all, every mutation was unique, it wasn't an established mental disorder or physical disease some other family could be better equipped to deal with. And who would adopt her like that anyway? It'd be cruel.
So instead, they moved to a rural area. And that turned out to be a good move, because there were lots of animals around to be her friend when she got older and her animal communication abilities developed. But as she became a teenager, her family faced facts that one day she'd be an adult, and have to deal with the world, antlers and all. They knew they couldn't teach her the skills for that. So they sent her to the Jean Grey School, in hopes the mutant teachers could there.
The following is also my headcanon. Outwardly stern and taciturn, but opening up by her own deliberate effort. Because talking to people before attending Xavier's was so risky for her---you never knew who would turn out to hate mutants---she used to only speak to people when she really had something to say to them. This has become something of a habit, even when she's around fellow mutants she knows are safe. When she first arrived, some of the kids even thought she was mute. However, she's been trying to get better at talking to others, since she wants to have friends and build a group to belong to; like many creatures, she has a longing for a herd or a pack to call her own, even while also wanting to just be left alone with her animals. She considers herself to be confused, conflicted, and torn between two worlds...but in reality, she's just going through the ordinary teenage stage of wanting to be both unique and part of a group at the same time. She just has some additional factors going on due to her mutation, is all. It's normal, but to her right now, it's a big deal. Besides, animals still see her as human, not as one of them, just like humans see her as a mutant. Other mutants though...they'll see her as one of them. She hopes, anyway. Why would they not?
Lin loves animals and connects with them, but she wonders if that's just because of her powers. After all, isn't it an awful big coincidence that she'd love animals so much and have the powers she does? Maybe she only loves them because of those powers. and if that's the case, does she really love them at all? Do they love her? Or is she just making them? She feels like she's cheating somehow, like people perceive her as some amazing animal tamer but she doesn't have to work at it or be patient and loving like regular people who are good with animals, they just like her because it's her power. And she likes them , she really does but she wonders if she'd like them so much if she didn't have to rely on them for her only friends for so long.
The reason animals were her only friends for so long is because Lin can't "cheat" with people like animals. She can't automatically empathize with them. And the fact she has to work at connecting with them makes her more inclined to just give up and hang out with animals. For years, she did exactly that. But more and more, she desires human friends, other teens, so she's trying harder and harder to get more popular and well-liked. She doesn't want to let on that this is her goal though---for all that people say that friendship is important, they'll say in the same breath that people who care about popularity are shallow. And shallow is bad. People won't like her if they think she's shallow. So she tries to make friends without seeming that she's trying. It's...a process. For one thing, she's pretty blunt and doesn't beat around the bush on sensitive matters (like pointing out someone has a crush) but also might just not mention things she probably should (like that someone snuck out last night) if she doesn't see its relevance to what's going on right now. She can also be callous or unempathetic, often finding herself disinterested or even disdaining of the problems that other people have. She knows that's not nice, and she tries to change, and will even try to ACT like she cares if she can, but honestly sometimes she just doesn't care. She can also get impatient or frustrated with others easily, especially in arguments. She's not used to arguing with animals like that. They might not want to do what she says sometimes but they don't say things she finds stupid or irritating.
Also, she's the proverbial "smart kid with bad grades"
NOCTURNA
Name: Natalia Knight
Alias: Nocturna
Nicknames: N/A
Affiliation: Independent
Alignment: Villain
Canon: DC Comics (New Earth Batman)
Powers: None, but she carries an array of weaponry disguises as night-themed jewelry (hollow pearls filled with sleeping gas that explode when she throws them, a belt made of metal crescents with sharp edges, star-shaped shuriken earrings, etc) and travels in a hot air balloon
About:
Natalia began life as an orphan on the streets, dodging police and social services by day while foraging for food, clothes, and shelter under cover of night. She came to love the night, seeing it as the embodiment of safety and beauty while others saw only danger in the darkness. She was taken in at the age of twelve by a wealthy man, Charles Knight, and grew to also love the luxury he provided her with.
It was only after his death that the police informed her that the source of his wealth---and cause of his death---was crime. Charles Knight had been a well-known gangster. He had also been a biological father as well as an adoptive one; Natalia met his son Anton at the funeral. Anton also enjoyed the finer things in life, and he made her an offer: Join him, and continue his father’s legacy of crime in order to continue their luxurious lifestyle.
Initially, Natalia refused, and instead pursued a career in astronomy. She took a position at the Gotham Astronomical Observatory, where she performed an experiment with lasers. There was an accident, which caused the pigment in her skin to deteriorate, and she became extremely sensitive to sunlight as a result. Since the observatory was funded by The Wayne Foundation, she filed for medical benefits to cover the costs of her new condition, as she had contracted it while on the job. However, they did not immediately grant it, instead taking time to review her case, which she thought was a refusal. This led her to taking Anton’s offer; he became thief known as The Nightslayer, and she called herself Nocturna. They became not just adoptive siblings and partners in crime, but lovers as well, and they preyed upon the rich, robbing extravagant penthouses and parties.
Like Catwoman and Talia Al-Ghul before her, however, Nocturna found her wicked ways at odds with her attraction to Batman. An attraction that eventually led to Anton attempting to kill him, and Nocturna shooting her lover in order to stop him. Nocturna then entered a gray area, grappling between her desire for beauty, elegance, and luxury, and her attraction to Batman. With the help of the secretly corrupt Mayor Hamilton Hill, Natalia Knight also filed for custody of Jason Todd and won, taking him from Bruce Wayne and becoming his adoptive mother. Though her aim was to get at Bruce’s fortune, she grew to genuinely care for the boy.
All of it came to an end during a final confrontation with Anton the Nightslayer against Nocturna, Batman, Robin, and Catwoman. Though Anton was defeated, he managed to stab Nocturna in the chest. As she fell unconscious from blood loss during the chaos, Robin attempted to save her by putting her into her hot air balloon. By the time the fight was finished, she had floated away, never to be seen again.
While in all likelihood Nocturna died, in this blog’s canon is that she survived, recovered, and resumed her thieving ways elsewhere. She exclusively robs the super wealthy, in particular those who are corrupt, feeling that this justifies her actions. However, she’s no Robin Hood; her stolen goods purely fuel her own greed and taste for the high life. That said, she’s got limits, and will never murder unless to save the life of a loved one.
Besides beauty, elegance, and having nice things, Nocturna is an absolute drama queen and completely obsessed with darkness and the night. She loves to wax poetic about it to the max, and enjoys speaking in flowery, over-the-top dialogue at every opportunity possible. She’s also probably high, like, all the time due to a drugged perfume she uses.
NOCTURNE
Name: Angela Cairn
Alias: Nocturne
Nicknames: n/a
Affiliation: Independent, former police detective
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Nocturne has enhanced strength, speed, talon-like nails, bat-like wings, prehensile hair capable of lifting two people at once, and empathic powers. She can psionically broadcast her emotions, and can even perform mental attacks as blasts of raw, indistinct emotions stunning her targets. This ability to shoot mental beams of emotion can also be used to project thoughts. While this is not articulated language and is restricted to a single concept, it can convey complex notions. For instance she emitted a burst at Spider-Man expressing her “Angela Cairn-ness” to “tell” him who she was.
About:
Angela Cairn was a police officer of Black, Cuban, and Native American (tribe unspecified) heritage. As a lifelong victim of prejudice, she joined the police in hopes of using the law to protect others from being victimized. She is implied to have been in a romantic relationship with a fellow female officer, Jackie Kessler, and the two may have co-habited. After Jackie was murdered in the line of duty, Angela went on the trail of a serial killer who she believed was the same supervillain that killed Jackie. Following a false lead, she was lured to a warehouse where she was trapped and experimented on by one of the nameless mutates created from humans by Baron Zemo. Unlike the other monstrous mutates, this one did not seek to return to human form, and, for reasons unknown, wanted Angela to become like her.
As a result, Angela was transformed in the mute, winged, vampire-like being called Nocturne. No longer able to live in human society or even explain to others that she’s Angela, Nocturne becomes homeless and protects those who also live on the fringes of society, including a boy who is the victim of a gay-bashing.
This Nocturne is NOT the same as TJ Wagner nor as the Marvel vampire lord who share the same name.
PENGUIN
Name: Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot
Alias: The Penguin
Nicknames: Ozzy
Affiliation: Independent (Gotham Rogues)
Alignment: Villain
Canon: DC Comics (Batman)
Powers: None, but he commands a small crime empire and carries a weaponized umbrella
About:
My Penguin’s backstory is mostly based on the “Penguin: Pain & Prejudice” miniseries with additions from “Joker’s Asylum: Penguin” and includes his past with the bully-turned-mobster Sharkey from “Secret Origins Special“. My version also draws more on the “mob boss masquerading as legitimate businessman and owner of The Iceberg Lounge” Penguin than the “campy bird-themed crimes” Penguin, but still has some camp and flamboyance (and a lot of bird puns) I do NOT draw on the “Gotham” TV series version; nothing against him but I haven’t seen it. Likewise, while I like the Danny DeVito version, he’s not the one that I’m playing at all.
Characterization-wise, I basically try to blend The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, and the Batman: Arkham video game series with maybe just a touch of the original Burgess Meredith portrayal. In other words, trying to mix the modern grimdark gritty gangster mob boss with the fun, flamboyant, bird-loving aristocratic gentleman aspects.
Since Penguin's physical appearance varies so much, I should also note that mine has an unusually long and sharp "beaky" nose, is short and obese, and has a hip deformity that causes him to waddle, but does not have flipper hands or sharp teeth.
ROULETTE
Name: Jennifer Stavros
Alias: Roulette
Nicknames: Jenny
Affiliation: Hellions
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics (X-Men/New Mutants)
Powers: Roulette has the ability to influence the luck of others via psionic energy throwing disks of black “bad luck” energy or white “good luck” energy. The good luck disks would make the odds fall in the favor she desired, while the bad luck disks would often cause injury or disaster to the target, such as making something nearby fall on them or their powers go haywire.
About:
Jenny was one of the Hellions, a teenage team of mutants assembled by the then-evil Emma Frost during the 80s to serve as operatives for the Hellfire Club. Jenny was the youngest child of six and the daughter of a casino owner in Atlantic City. She fell in with a gang, and was looking at jail time until the White Queen stepped in and recruited her.
Roulette was a bully and a troublemaker, who enjoyed using her powers to cause havoc and didn’t seem to mind who got hurt. In fact, she even found it fun. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that she hit it off with her sadistic teammate Empath, and the pair of them teamed up on occasion to have their own cruel idea of fun at other’s expense. That said, Jenny seems less to be truly evil like the sadistic Manuel, and more just a high school mean girl with super powers and the typical teenage mentality of not really understanding empathy or consequences yet. It’s also quite possible a lot of her behavior stemmed from acting out due to a tumultuous home life; kids from stable environments rarely wind up in gangs, and being the youngest of six was probably tough, especially with no mother ever mentioned as being around.
Roulette sadly met her end along with most of the other Hellions at the hands of the time-traveling villain Trevor Fitzroy, who killed them both for points in the Upstarts competition as well as due to a grudge against the Emma Frost of his future. She was briefly revived as an evil zombie serving Selene during Necrosha, and has been seen living for real again on Krakoa recently with the other Hellions.
SCARLET WITCH
Name: Wanda Djanga Maximoff
Alias: The Scarlet Witch
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Avengers, formerly Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
Alignment: Hero
Powers: Wanda can fire hex bolts that can cause minor disasters of her choice, such as jamming weapons, causing people to trip, making heavy objects fall on someone, causing screws to come loose from a structure en masse, etc.
This Wanda is NOT a reality warper, something that wouldn't happen til the Bendis era, nor does she have chaos magick or any magic. Wanda didn't start practicing witchcraft until the 70s, and her powers weren't "chaos magick" until 1998. Her magic abilities also come from the evil Elder God Cthon in canon, who altered her powers at birth to prepare her as a host for his return, which is not the case for my Wanda. I'm just basically done with Marvel using demons to fuck over women's agency (Wanda, Madelyne Pryor, Radha "Haven" Dastoor, etc)
Wanda’s other talents include sewing, ice skating, horseback riding, playing the harp, singing, and falconry. Yes, falconry, she had a pet falcon in Uncanny X-Men #27. My version still has him and his name is its name is Charana, after the gigantic birds kept by the fairy/angel/fate queen Matuya in Romani folklore. She speaks Transian, Ramnian, Vlax, Balkan’s Romani, and a smattering of Eastern European/Balkans-area languages to varying degrees.
About: This Wanda is based on her 1960s-era portrayal in the comics. This means that she has not experienced nor been a part of events after the 60s, she did not cause House of M, she has never met the Vision nor has ever had children, she is not the chosen host of Cthon, etc.
The only post-60s elements of her character that I use are her Romani heritage (I hc her specifically as Kalderash given the area Transia is in) and upbringing, Magneto being her birth father (whether she knows is thread-dependent), her fashion style in the 90s when George Perez drew her, and her predisposition towards mental illness, which I will portray as most closely resembling schizoaffective disorder. Note the words "pre-disposition" and "will"---future tense. Wanda was not yet actively/overtly mentally ill in the 60s and it would only manifest decades later after she had gone through an abundance of trauma. That hasn't happened to this Wanda yet.
Given that Magneto and Lorna, also possibly/likely Pietro, struggle with mental issues, it's most likely that it is hereditary and only got bad when she was put through said traumas in combination with getting older (there are some mental illnesses that do not usually manifest until one's adult life; schizoaffective disorder typically onsets between late teens and early adulthood up to age 30) So basically, my Wanda has subtle elements sometimes of what is to come, she is not struggling on the level of, say, Bendis-era Wanda. This is not to erase her struggles---especially not as a mentally ill person myself who has coped with psychotic symptoms before--but to recognize that the severity she later developed had far more complex mitigating factors than "well Wanda is just crazy"
My Wanda is DEFINITELY NOT the MCU/WandaVision Wanda, please do not treat her as such or have character address her as such. She looks nothing like Lizzie Olsen either.
SCORPION
Name: Carmilla Black/Thasanee Rappaccini
Alias: Scorpion
Nicknames: Carm, Thas, Greenie
Affiliation: S.H.I.E.L.D, formerly A.I.M
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: A.I.M. genetically modified Carmilla’s body while she was still in an embryonic state. As a result, she is completely immune to all known toxic effects of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Her eyes spontaneously generate nictitating membranes, allowing her to see in a cloud of tear gas. Her trachea is lined with highly absorptive cilia, which filter and neutralize harmful particles such as smoke. Together, this combination is so effective that she could survive completely unharmed in an irradiated zone of nuclear fallout. She has atropine to defend against nerve gas, and amyl to overcome blood agents like cyanide. Her sweat glands excrete dimercaprol and chloramine to counteract blistering agents such as mustard gas. Her cell nuclei float in a solution of iodized salt to deflect gamma rays and other radiation. She also possesses the same electrolyte myogenic organ as an electric eel, which allows her to recover almost instantly from electric stun blasts.
In addition to absorbing toxins, she stores them in a mutated axillary lymph node located in her left armpit. This node converts the stored toxins into her own biological stun blasts which fire from her left arm---which she calls Stinger---and pack enough toxic effects to stun or kill an adult human should she wish.
Finally, Carmilla’s unique body chemistry keeps her body in peak condition. he has an increased endurance and can exert herself far longer than most because her body absorbs and converts lactic acid build ups into nutrients that she can use, making fatigue a rare thing for her to encounter. She requires less sleep than the average person, as well.
She is also trained in combat, espionage, theft, lying/acting, investigative skills, and a variety of East Asian and Southeast Asian languages.
About:
Scorpion is sarcastic, aggressive, and closed-off. She’s untrusting, and she’s untrustworthy in turn, having disobeyed orders from her superiors and acted as a lying double agent. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not for good reasons---she disobeyed orders she felt were morally wrong, as she is not blindly loyal to anyone, and she acted as a double agent to take down evil organizations such as A.I.M. and H.Y.D.R.A. from within. Carmilla wants to have a purpose, and for that purpose to be a good one, to put the powers she once saw as a curse to a positive use, and that’s why she serves S.H.I.E.L.D rather than trying to have a normal life---but she’s pretty often a jerk about it to everyone else, and frequently rubs people the wrong way upon meeting them. Beneath it, however, she has a good, if very guarded, heart.
Carmilla's biological father, if she even has one, is unknown, though there is a strong implication he's likely Bruce Banner. Her birth mother, alas, is Monica Rappaccini, an evil but brilliant biochemist in the employ of the terrorist think tank A.I.M. as their "Scientist Supreme". Carmilla, however, did not grow up knowing this, nor even knowing her birth name. She grew up in Grand Falls, Vermont, as a perfectly ordinary girl. Her parents, Tim and Julia Black, never hid that she was adopted, but told her they didn't know anything about her birth family. Carmilla believed them, and while she never felt unloved by them, she always felt like a guest in their house, like she had an obligation to pay them back somehow. But she never got a chance.
At the age of sixteen, two things happened. First, she was voted Prom Queen, and her boyfriend, Greg, was Prom King. Second, while dancing at Prom, her "stinger" activated for the first time, killing him. Fearing social and legal backlash, Carmilla ran away. She lived on the streets for a time, hardening her personality and developing skills at lies, bluffing, and thievery. She might never have come back, except that she read about the deaths of her parents in an online newspaper; they had been murdered and no one had been caught. She returned to Grand Falls to put their affairs in order and arrange their funerals, and she even began reconnecting with a high school friend, Janice---up until she was attacked by agents of AIM who were trying to kidnap her. They were interrupted by S.H.I.E.L.D, who rescued Carmilla only to kidnap her themselves.
S.H.I.E.L.D informed Carmilla who her birth mother was, and told her that A.I.M had been the ones to kill Tim and Julia in order to lure Carmilla back to Grand Falls so they could snatch her. Since Monica clearly wanted her daughter back, the plan posed to her by S.H.I.E.L.D Special Agent Khanata was that Carmilla should go to her, and thus lead SHIELD to the A.I.M ruling council so that Monica's latest evil could be stopped before it began. Carmilla agreed, and was given two things---the codename Scorpion, and a special gauntlet for her "stinger" that could contract into an ordinary bracelet and send constant video footage back to S.H.I.E.L.D of everything she encountered.
Carmilla traveled to Madripoor, the place of her birth, and began her investigation. After some adventures in which she learned more about her powers, she was contacted by a man her own age named Lars, who brought her back to the A.I.M base. Lars explained to her that she and he were both created by Monica "to populate the world to come" along with others like them, called The Wakers, whom he introduced her to. Like Carmilla, the rest of the Wakers had been given to adoptive parents to raise until it was time for them to serve A.I.M. These adoptive parents were all secretly A.I.M. agents themselves---including, Carmilla found out to her horror, Tim and Julia. The parents who had loved her and raised her were actually lying terrorists all along, and what's more, they had been killed by their own people just to draw Carmilla out. The other Wakers told Carmilla that they had been waiting for her for three years, when the rest of them had "awoken" and been compelled to seek out A.I.M and begin training. Three years ago---when Carmilla's powers had surfaced. That had not been a coincidence. While the other Wakers were chemically engineered to become mindlessly loyal to A.I.M., Carmilla's unexpected mutation to be immune to toxins had combatted this, which was why she'd been left with free will. She pretended to go along with the mission that the other Wakers were sent on, only to sabotage it from the inside. She's been serving as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D ever since.
SERSIName: Sersi
Alias: Circe, Sylvia Sersi (human identity)
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Independent, Eternals, Avengers
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Sersi is one of the Eternals. As such, she posesses near-immortality and eternal youth, super-strength, super-durability, flight, a healing factor, telepathy, telekinesis, casting illusions that effect all five senses, eye beams, and teleportation. While all Eternals can transmute/reshape matter to some degree, Sersi is the most adept among them. She especially likes to turn people into animals, and she inspired the Greek legends of Circe the witch who turned men into pigs. She is also multi-lingual, a dancer, and a champion party-thrower.
About: Unlike most Eternals, who dwell in their own settlements far from human contact, Sersi loves the live among humans. She loves it so much, she's been doing it in various societies across the globe for thousands of years. Sersi loves living among humanity for the entertainment value; she's a fun-loving bon vivant who parties every century she's in. She's fabulous, fashionable, sassy, spiteful, and always a fuckin LADY---basically, she's the Emma Frost of the Eternals. And she is a TON of fun.
SILHOUETTE
Name: Roubpheap Sramol Chord
Alias: Silhouette
Nicknames: Sil
Affiliation: New Warriors
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Silhouette is a Darkforce user whose abilities specifically manifest in that she can shadowmeld, thereby becoming nearly invisible while under the cover of darkness, as well as the ability to teleport via dimension hop, using any available shadow as a portal. She could also open small portals anywhere shadows exist and use them to attack distant enemies by extending her crutches through them. She also has a slight degree of enhanced speed, strength, agility, and sensory perception. She is a capable martial artist but is not on par with her brother, and a skilled gymnast who is no less acrobatic just because she's on crutches.
About:
Silhouette’s father Andrew Chord was a soldier in the Vietnam War whose recon patrol stumbled upon a strange temple in the Cambodian jungle. The leader of the cult there, an elderly sorceress named Tai, bade them to take the women there as their brides, with whom they would have super-powered offspring and fulfill a prophecy. Andrew Chord obeyed and married Miyami, Tai’s daughter, and brought her back to the US with him. She had twins, Roubpheap Sramol and Aaron. However, she knew that her mother would want to get her hands on the twins for her own dastardly purposes, so without telling Andrew, she faked her own death and that of the children, then abandoned them to be raised by a family in Chinatown while she went into hiding.
The children developed strange powers, as prophesized. Roubpheap Sramol had the ability to manipulate shadow and teleport through it, from which she took her codename Silhouette, often called Sil for short, which is also the translation of her Khmer given name. Aaron, meanwhile, possessed enhanced strength, speed, senses, and reflexes, and began to call himself Midnight’s Fire. Together, they survived on the streets, and when they got older, they worked together to make those streets safe for others by infiltrating gangs and bringing them down from the inside.
It was during one of these undercover operations that the twins met Dwayne Taylor, and he began helping them, as well as beginning a romance with Sil. But during a sting gone wrong, Sil was shot by a police officer and paralyzed from the waist down. Later, after Dwayne had become the superhero Night Thrasher and joined The New Warriors, Silhouette joined as well. Midnight’s Fire, on the other hand, blamed Dwayne for his sister’s injuries and became his enemy, and began to lead the gangs that he had once fought so hard against.
Silhouette’s adventures with The New Warriors lead her to discovering the secrets of her past, her family, and the source of her strange Darkforce powers, as well as back into a romance with Dwayne…and out of it when his obsession with crime-fighting overpowered everything else, including their relationship. She found solace in the arms of his half-brother, Bandit, aka Donyell Taylor.
Silhouette is a brave, independent young woman. She values personal growth, even when it’s hard, and has a strong spiritual side, as evident when the being known as the Goddess picked her as an acolyte in one story. She’s seldom been given a chance to shine as brightly as the other New Warriors, and her place in the story is often simply as the girlfriend of one of the Taylor brothers, but she’s got a strong personality, moral compass, and intriguing history all her own that should definitely be made more use of! Plus she fights crime on crutches, how cool is that?!
SILVERCLAW
Name: Maria de Guadalupe Santiago
Alias: Silverclaw
Nicknames: Lupe
Affiliation: Avengers
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics (Avengers)
Powers: Silverclaw can transform into a metal-skinned wereanimal version of any creature native to her Central American homeland of Costa Verde. Examples include anaconda, monkey, jaguar, sloth, and llama. She cannot be magically bound in transformed states, such as reversing it when transformed into a salt statue
About:
Lupe (as she goes by) is the daughter of a mortal man named Jaime Santiago who is one of the Kamekeri, an indigenous Incan people of Costa Verde, and their volcano goddess, Peliali. However, they’ve long been colonized and converted to Christianity, and no one believes in Peliali anymore, including Lupe herself. People called her father crazy as she grew up for his claims about where she came from, despite the fact her shapeshifting powers were present from birth. Lupe rejected her father’s claims along with everyone else, while also enduring a lot of teasing for both his beliefs and her powers.
After her father's premature death due to illness, Lupe was taken to a Catholic orphanage, and was sponsored by Edwin Jarvis, the Avengers butler, in one of those “sponsor a child” type programs. She never met him in person but they wrote to each other and she came to regard him as an uncle figure. However, she never told him about her powers or their supposed source. When she was old enough, she applied to college at Empire University, a fictional college in the Marvel universe located in Manhattan. She came to NYC on a plane hoping to meet Jarvis at the airport, but bad guys aboard the plane threatened to kill everyone on the flight if she didn't fight the Avengers at the airport upon arrival. So, her first meeting with the heroes wasn't an ideal one. But things got straightened out, and she joined the Avengers as a reserve member.
During her adventures with them, she discovered that her father's claims were true about her, and Peliali was real, but alas Peliali, despite being a goddess, died from wounds sustained in a battle against Kulan Gath. But she got to meet her daughter and see what she had become, so she passed on in peace, leaving Lupe to become the protector of the Kamekeri people.
Lupe is a bit of an Avengers fangirl and takes her duties as a reserved member very seriously, such as reading up in advance on foes she might encounter. She calls Jarvis her “Tio” and hangs out with him a lot when she visits. She's very formal and superhero-speak when she's Silverclaw but she's just sweet and earnest and gushy as Lupe. Despite being teased for her powers in the past, she's very proud of them (if not always fully confident in her abilities), and she dislikes smugness and patronization from villains. But she also won't hear out other points of view when she's passionate about her own, and she doesn't own it when she fucks up with people. In fact, she really can be a jerk, with an often immature approach to conflict and relationships, but that's also not surprising from a teenager.
Also, she's got some serious internalized colonialism but seems to be working through that better now that she knows her mother actually was Peliali and that her people's beliefs were real all along.
SKEIN
Name: Sybil Dvorak
Alias: Skein, G---- Moth, The Sybarite
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Independent
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Skein is a telekinetic, but due to her being able to "feel" the objects her powers are manipulating, she only manipulates soft objects like fabric and fur. This has led to the belief that she's a "textile telekinetic" who only controls fabric, but she's actually a normal telekinetic who has a psychological limitation. She can only manipulate/lift up to her own weight, around 120 lbs
About:
Born and raised in the shadow of the Carpathian mountains, Sybil is of Romanian origin. She was a quiet child who didn't mix with others, but preferred to spend her days gathering flowers alone. During adolescence, her mutant power of telekinesis manifested, and she used it purely to handle soft objects, even crafting herself a pair of silken gossamer wings on which she could glide. In her late teens she met a handsome American actor named Jason Reed while he was in Romania shooting a Dracula remake. She fell in love with him, and he seemed equally taken with her, even taking her back to Hollywood to live with him. However, the glamor of her situation soon faded as Sybil began to feel like a prisoner in her own home; she couldn't go anywhere due to her citizenship papers not yet being properly processed, and her English wasn't fluent. Meanwhile, Jason was away all the time, shooting movies and attending parties, and she began to suspect he was having affairs.
One night, she donned her wings and a mask, and crashed one of the elite Hollywood parties in search of him. Deeming herself the G**** Moth (asterisks because it's an anti-Romani slur), Sybil made a habit of this, terrorizing the haunts of the rich and famous regularly. At first it was in search of Jason, but then it became purely about the thrill of it. Her criminal activities attracted the attention of Spider-Woman, who attempted to befriend her, but Sybil had no desire for a friend, and rebuffed her, becoming her enemy.
Soon after Sybil had received her American citizenship and an inclusion in Reed's will, Jason Reed mysteriously died of some ambiguous heart problem. Sybil used his wealth start a hedonistic cult of drugs and decadence that worshiped her as their queen, The Sybarite, supplying them with drugs in exchange for them stealing her massive amounts of plush fine fabric, furs, feathers, and anything else that was soft. Since she could have easily afforded such things herself without resorting to illicit activity, one can only assume Sybil enjoyed having the power over people. Spider-Woman once again intervened, and Sybil tried to have her followers murder her.
After a stint with the supervillin group known as The Night Shift, Sybil was recruited to The Masters of Evil by the Crimson Cowl, then was persuaded by Hawkeye to turn on them and join The Thunderbolts instead. She took on the codename Skein and was a loyal enough member, but left when the team reorganized. During Dark Reign, she became a member of the Women Warriors, the "superhero" group assigned to protect the state of Delaware. Since then, she's returned to her villainous ways, always after something soft.
Sybil is originally depicted as a cold, almost unfeeling---save for jealousy over Jason---woman who dresses modestly and speaks very formal English. However, by the 90s, she displays a more casual syntax, a thrill-seeking and hyper-sexual personality, and a very skimpy outfit. My headcanon is that her time as "The Sybarite" opened her up to new hedonistic pleasures and that's why she became so sexual, and spending more time in America gave her a more casual way of speaking like a native speaker would. The one consistent thing, however, is that Sybil is absolutely obsessed with soft sensations; she won't touch anything hard and rough, be it physically or psychically, and she collects all manner of suitably plush objects, often by theft. She's a seeker of pleasure and excitement in general, from exciting new sexual practices to sampling drugs to being a superhero for kicks. An amoral creature, Sybil cares little for the lives or well-being of others, but nor is she maliciously out to harm anyone---she just wants to have FUN.
SKYBREAKER
Name: Aireo
Alias: Skybreaker
Nicknames: None
Affiliation: Force of Nature
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Aireo is super-light and can fly as well as manipulate/control wind
About:
Aireo was an Inhuman whose power of flight gave him the job of being the patrolman for Attilan’s border. However, he rebelled against King Black Bolt’s rule for reasons unknown (he later described the regime of his fellow Inhumans as “regressive” but it is unknown what he was specifically referring to) What exact crime he committed as a result of this dissent is unknown, but he was tried for treason and found guilty with a number of other Inhumans. For this, he was banished to a prison dimension by Black Bolt, where Maximus (Black Bolt’s treacherous brother who desired the throne himself) appeared and recruited Aireo and the other prisoners to his side for a coup.
Aireo would go on to help Maximus in other attempts at rebellion, ultimately resulting in the exile of himself, his cohorts, and his master. However, while Maximus was allowed back into Attilan eventually, it seems Aireo never was. He was next seen having taken the codename “Skybreaker” and joined Force of Nature, a group of mercenaries who served the eco-terrorist group known as Project Earth. Each member of Force of Nature has powers that embody one of the classical four elements, and AIreo’s of course, was air—or rather, wind, as his powers had evolved from merely enabling flight to summoning and controlling wind, even allowing him to suck the breath from an opponents lungs.
Despite disliking the reign of Black Bolt and the way his fellow Inhumans did things, Skybreaker has voiced disdain for normal humans (which he counts mutants among) as well. Yet, he has stuck with Force of Nature, even after serving jailtime with his teammates as he once did his fellow Inhuman dissidents—where, true to his rebel nature, he rioted for better treatment of his teammate Terraformer the living plant!
SNOWBIRD
Name: Narya
Alias: Snowbird, Anne McKenzie
Nicknames: Annie
Affiliation: Alpha Flight
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics (Alpha Flight)
Powers: Snowbird's primary power was the ability to shift into a snow-white version of any animal native to the Canadian arctic, with her favorite form being the snowy owl from which she takes her name. Her other powers include flight, resistance to extreme cold, and the ability to sense magical energies, disturbances to the land she’s tied to, and the proximity of her teammates. If her teammates invoke the Great Spirit, she senses that and will come to their aid. She can magically/psychically compel others to help her fight the Great Beasts against their wills. Finally, Snowbird posses post-cognitive vision, being able to see what happened in the past in a place. For instance, she looked at a plane crash and was able to basically play it back before her eyes as she looks at the wreckage in order for her to figure out what caused it. It seems there’s a limit though, as in another issue she can’t do it because whatever happened was 12 hours or more ago, which she can tell by tracks, showing she has tracking skills, likely from her wildnerness upbringing by Shaman and animal-like abilities
About:
Snowbird is the daughter of a moral man, Richard Easton, and the Inua goddess Nelvanna. The Inua are the gods of the Canadian north in Marvel canon. The reason they needed a half-human child was to combat The Great Beasts, immensely powerful entities. They had been trapped thousands of years ago in a prison realm by the Inua, but in modern times the magicks holding them began to weaken. Knowing the Great Beasts would break free soon, the Inua wished to produce a champion, a demi-goddess child born of both man and god, belonging to both worlds, who could fight them on this plane.
Nelvanna successfully conceived a child with Richard, but he was driven mad by the experience of consort with the divine, and he lived out the rest of his life as a hermit until he attempted a ritual to summon one of the Great Beasts. This succeeded, but his life force was consumed in the process, and his remains settled on the bottom of the salt lake where the Great Beast called Tundra once stood. Richard’s spirit would live on as an evil entity, which Snowbird eventually faced and put to peaceful rest at last.
But back to Snowbird—obviously, the baby that Nelvanna conceived was Narya, who became Snowbird. As Nelvanna was about to give birth, she summoned Native Canadian shaman Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen to a place of power to assist her. The being she gave birth to was unstable, a transmorph, lacking real form, and Michael knew that he had to mystically bind it to Earth or else it would have never been able to possess a human form. He did so, and the baby at last assumed a human form, that of a little blonde girl with alien features who was already a year old. Having been bound to the land of Canada itself at her birth gave Snowbird her greatest weakness—-she could not leave the boundaries of Canada without weakening and, if she did not return soon enough, death.
Michael raised Narya alone in a cabin in Banff National Park, where she began to learn the customs of Earth and how to use her fantastic powers—specifically, she could shapeshift into a snow-white version of any animal native to the Canadian Arctic lands. She notably preferred to eat what she hunted in her animal form, not joining Michael or his guests, the Hudsons, at dinner. But she had stranger qualities still—at only three or four chronological years, she already looked like a young woman, albeit a strange elfen one.
After Michael explained to the Hudsons that Narya was not only a metamorph but a demigoddess, James Hudson invited them both to join Alpha Flight. They agreed, and were given the codenames Shaman and Snowbird.
While her primary goal was always to battle the Great Beasts as she had been born for, Snowbird also dutifully served the interests of Department H and the Canadian government, and to this end took on a human identity, that of Corporal Anne MacKenzie. She used her shapeshifting power to adopt a more fully human appearance, and worked at an RCMP post somewhere in the North West Territories of Canada. However, she had the ability to sense whenever one of her enemies, the Great Beasts, awakened, and would leave whatever she was doing immediately to do battle with these monsters. This ended up costing her her job, though she likely cared little. Snowbird had a cold, distant, aloof persona, almost alien, and at one of her teammates expressed that she gave him “the heebie jeebies” to which her foster father Michael said he was not alone in, suggesting that others were regularly unnerved by her.
Indeed, Narya was very much as inhuman mentally as she was physically. Alpha Flight (1983) #3 describes her as such: “Her innermost memories dwell beyond human comprehension, and she remembers the oldest snows.” While Snowbird originally hoped that once she vanquished all the Great Beasts, her time on Earth would be done and she could ascend to the paradise where the other Inua dwelled, her path changed when Doug Thompson, a colleague from when she had been Anne McKenzie, professed his love for her. Though she originally denied him, she eventually revealed her real self, Snowbird, to hi. She tried to tell him that she could not return his affections, but Doug simply grabbed and kissed her – the first kiss Narya ever received. Taken by surprise and filled with human emotions she had suppressed to this point, Snowbird could no longer deny that she was attracted to Doug too, however, she wanted him to fully know what he would get involved in and showed him her so True Fires, her godly form, a strange and terrifying sight to behold. Yet Doug loved her still, and so once all the Great Beasts were slain, she returned to him and wed him, asking him to teach her to be human. But in doing so, she bound herself to a mortal man, and thus the Inua, whom she had longed to join, cast her out for this sin.
Eventually she became pregnant, and just as she had grown up rapidly, so too did her pregnancy rapidly advance. The birth was dramatic, with Snowbird rapidly shifting out of control, displaying her True Fires in her agony. The Inua appeared and offered Snowbird one last chance to join them in Paradise; ridding herself of the stench of mortality. They warned her that after the child was born they would have nothing to do with her. Afraid and suffering unbearable pain, Narya almost agreed – except that she was afraid of losing the people she loved and who loved her back. Snowbird told her mother that she couldn’t leave what she had found on Earth and with that, the Gods left.
Narya still needed to reach sacred ground before she could give birth, just as she too had been born in a sacred place. Due to her own resentment of her father, Talisman aka Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, Michael’s daughter, tricked her. Dr. Strange had brought her to a place of power, yes, but it was a place of power because there was an ancient sorcerer buried beneath the frozen wasteland. Strange did not know this, but Talisman did—and said nothing. Soon the birth was set in motion, and almost instantly, Pestilence, spirit of the ancient sorcerer, possessed and corrupted the child. Talisman knew this would happen; her plan was to watch her father try and fail to save the day, and then step in to do so herself. Yet she found herself unable to best Pestilence either, and he beat Alpha Flight, including his own “mother”, and fled, taking his new body, that of Narya’s unnamed son, with him.
As horrible as this was, Nary considered this might be a blessing in disguise. She thought that perhaps if she abandoned her child and husband, then the Inua might reconsider rejecting her, and welcome her back into their fold. Understandably, her husband was upset by this, and angrily stormed off, vowing to find their son himself. He said he now realized that not being human, he could not expect Snowbird to know what motherly love meant. And yet, it turned out, she did—though it saved neither her nor her son.
While the rest of Alpha Flight were busy with another mission, Shaman and Snowbird located Pestilence in the mining town of Burial Butte. Once they got there, the pair learned that Douglas, Snowbird’s husband, had gotten there before, and had been infected with a fatal disease by Pestilence. Pestilence had realized that the baby’s pure spirit was slowly overcoming his influence. Only by it being killed could Pestilence could roam free and possess someone else again. To this end, he controlled Snowbird, and forced her to kill him, releasing his spirit, while the body of the child, her child, perished at the claws of its own mother. Snowbird died too, shot down by Heather Hudson in a too-late attempt to stop her from killing her “son” and releasing the sorcerer.
Pestilence escaped, but mother, father, and child were all dead. Alpha Flight laid the family to rest in beautiful glass coffins, and, at their funeral, the Inua appeared, offering the dead Snowbird one last chance to join them in their Paradise. Snowbird’s soul, however, demanded that her husband and child must be allowed to come with her as well, or she would not come at all. Though no mortal had ever been allowed in the Inua Paradise before, her divine family made an exception for the first time, and allowed her mortal one, and all their souls went to dwell there in happiness together for eternity.
As with many Marvel characters, death was not the end for Snowbird. Years later, Snowbird was discovered alive in an A.I.M. laboratory. Alpha Flight and Wolverine freed her and took her along to Department H, where excessive tests revealed her to be indeed really Snowbird. What A.I. M was doing with her and how she came back to life has yet to be revealed.
SQUIRREL GIRL
Name: Doreen Allene Green
Alias: Squirrel Girl
Nicknames: Dory
Affiliation: Independent
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Doreen has superhuman strength, speed, agility, durability, reflexes, and a healing factor, as well as the abilities of a squirrel scaled up to human size. This includes superb climbing skills, super senses, extremely strong buck teeth, enhanced peripheral vision, and a three-foot bushy brown squirrel tail that, unlike that of a normal squirrel, is prehensile. She can also communicate with squirrels, and while, contrary to popular belief, she can't actually control them, they are often inclined to do as she asks and aid her against her enemies. My portrayal of Doreen does NOT have knuckle spikes. Doreen is also a skilled computer science student, knows some ASL and finger-spelling, and has a "Squirrel-A-Gig" chopper she uses for personal transport.
About: Doreen was born with her tail and developed her other abilities quite early in childhood. She wanted to become a superhero since the age of ten, and, at fourteen, she attempted to become Iron Man's sidekick. Though she helped him against Doctor Doom, he nonetheless declined her desire. At fifteen, she assisted the Hulk, and later would join the Great Lakes Avengers, later renamed the renamed Great Lakes Champions, with which she had many adventures. She was also the nanny to Danielle Cage, the child of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.
Doreen is currently attending Empire State University, and my portrayal is based on/during her "Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" comics.
STARLIGHT
Name: Tania Belinskaya
Alias: Starlight, formerly Red Guardian
Nicknames: Tania Belinsky (spelling in the US)
Affiliation: The Winter Guard
Alignment: Hero
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Due to being exposed to cobalt radiation, she has the powers of flight, super-strength, invulnerability, and the power to shoot blasts of pure nuclear radiation. Starlight gives off low levels of nuclear radiation at all times, putting normal human beings who associate with her for any length of time at risk. She also has a gifted intellect, is skilled at neurosurgery and medicine, has a PhD in medicine, and is a highly skilled athlete with extensive experience in hand-to-hand combat.
About:
Tania Belinsky was a brilliant neurosurgeon from Russia, written back when the USSR was still in power. She grew up a devoted patriot to her country, and though she found some of what the government did to be (in her own words) repulsive, she was still dedicated to the positive Communist ideals of unity and the individual serving the many. However, when her father was exiled to Siberia for being a dissident, Tania become a costumed vigilante who fought crime, but also protected other dissidents, in hopes to reform Soviet society from within. For this reason, she was considered an enemy of the state and a wanted criminal herself by the Russian government. As a vigilante, she called herself the Red Guardian, after a previous superhero, a man who had been Russia’s answer to Captain America during the 50s. She had no superpowers, fighting purely through athletic skill, hand to hand combat, and the use of a bladed belt buckle as a weapon.
Tania came to US at the request of Dr. Stephen Strange. Strange did not know she was secretly a superhero; he merely wanted her help as a fellow neurosurgeon in performing a brain transplant. The operation was a success, but right afterwards, Strange was attacked by the supervillain Plantman. Tania revealed her secret identity as Red Guardian, and they defeated Plantman with the help of Power Man. After that, Tania stayed in the United States to serve as another member of the Defenders alongside Dr. Stranger, Power Man, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, the Hulk, and other heroes.
Alas, she only had a few adventures with the Defenders before she received a call from Russia, threatening her loved ones if she did not return. She did as commanded, and when she returned home, the KGB was waiting for her. They informed her that they knew of her secret identity, but it was not the government that they were taking her to…but instead to the most powerful man in all of Russia, the feared being known only as “Codename: Sergei”. It was he who had ordered her return and orchestrated this kidnapping. Tania fought her captors, but a mind-calming cowl was placed on her head, so that she was in a subdued state when she was brought before this man–Sergei Krylov aka “The Presence”, a mad scientific Soviet genius who had caused a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster in the “Forbidden Zone” by using cobalt radiation that had transformed him into a superhuman being. He had been monitoring Tania and her activities, and while he considered her heroic ideals to be naive and misled, he had decided she was his ideal mate.
Tania was forcibly subjected to the same radiation, and granted superhuman abilities as well—flight, super-strength, invulnerability, and the power to shoot blasts of pure nuclear radiation. However, these powers came at a terrible cost: her free will. Tania was now in mental thrall to the Presence, as little more than his zombie-like slave…though even in this state, she always begged him not to hurt others. However, the Presence was a supervillain (what a surprise) and when the pair inevitably came into conflict with Tania’s former teammates, the Defenders, Tania regained her free will when Presence was about to kill her friends. She rejected him, and when he called her the thing he loved most, she called out how his very words showed he just thought of her as a THING, and said that he didn’t really love her, he loved a fantasy he had of her, a zombie he had created.
Basically, the Presence was a gross incel before a term was invented for it, and she called him out on it.
His heart broken and ego deflated, the Presence departed. As for Tania, she was kept isolated at a Soviet research facility, til the Presence unleashed a giant radioactive amoeba on Russia. Tania was unleashed to do battle the amoeba and stop him. When she arrived on the scene, she realized he wasn’t the blame for the giant amoeba, but was fighting it himself…and failing
with their combined powers, they destroyed it…and then Presence confessed his love to her and as if that weren’t bad enough, SHE STAYED WITH HIM! And, surprise, she was later shown to be under his mental control again later! Which makes me think that his control never really left her in the first place, and that her getting away from him physically helped her stave it off, but when she got close to him again while fighting the amoeba, that re-activated it, and THAT’S why she agreed to stay with him once more.
Anyway, Presence starts going mad with power…which just means he gets more egotistical and gross. he decided he should not just be content with ONE mind-controlled consort, but should have ALL the sexiest Soviet superheroines. So he sends the mind-controlled (yet still aware enough to cry) Tania (who now goes by Starlight instead of Red Guardian) to kidnap her fellow Russian heroines, Black Widow and Darkstar. Darkstar, by the way, is the long-lost daughter of the Presence. And he knows this at this point. And yet he still wants her in his little Soviet Harem. Seriously. It’s so gross. Starlight says that this shows how he isn’t mentally well, but his “symptoms” seem to be just being egotistical and thinking he’s entitled to a bunch of hot women being under his command including his own daughter, he doesn’t seem insane so much as just disgusting to me.
In any case, Starlight once again manages to snap out of his control, but “chooses” to return to him since she believes that her love can heal him. Yeah, I don’t think that’s really her choice. I think her “love” for him is just more mind-control. And if it’s not, it’s Stockholm Syndrome.
And the tragic thing is, if she ditches him for real? She’s all alone. His radiating her didn’t just give her powers (which seem to have been simply to enable her to do his dirty work, like KIDNAPPING WOMEN) they also make her radioactive herself, so she can’t be around other people long or she’ll irradiate them, killing them or making them sick. He’s ensured that he’s the only person she can be around, it’s either him alone or total isolation. Just like a real abuser often isolates their victims through mundane means.
Anyway, yet again she “chooses” to be with him after he is defeated by the Avengers in another villainous effort. Tania begs for his life to be spared and accompanies him into custody despite the fact she did nothing against the Avengers during their conflict, only looks sad. The exposition says that Thor shakes his head at her choice, but…as I’ve said, I don’t think it’s a choice. It’s either some degree of still-active enslavement, or the “choice” of any other abused victim when they “choose” to stay with their abuser. That’s what so many people don’t get about abuse—that victims usually “choose” to stay with them, because of how much the abusers warp their mind. And that’s just in real life, where super-powered mind-control doesn’t exist.
Starlight and Presence are later released from custody to fight a greater supervillain threat, Kang the conqueror, and Presence plans to use their regained freedom to do more villainy, but Starlight talks him out of it. That’s usually what she does, try to persuade him not to be a supervillain or hurt innocents. So she’s not under totally robotic control, she can have free thought like that, she just…can’t leave or disobey him. In a way, that’s almost crueler than if she was just a robotic zombie, because it means she’s aware of what’s going on.
No wonder she looks sad a lot, huh?
But then again, her “persuading” Presence not to go rogue while fighting Kang…was by threatening to him that she would leave him if he did. And he agreed. So he at least does believe she can or would leave. Maybe his control waxes and wanes. Or maybe she really is choosing to be with him, so long as he doesn’t go too far in his evil, because she thinks she can change him or because, as mentioned, she can’t be around anyone else. Of course, HE can’t be around anyone else either, so does that give her one bit of leverage too. Abuse victims do sometimes have that, and it doesn’t invalidate their victimhood or make them “not really victims/not really abused”.
Anyway, at some point offscreen, she grew able to control her radiation seepage, so that she was able to be around others again, and she left Presence. She became a superhero again, and joined the Winter Guard, the Russian superhero squad. Darkstar and Vanguard, the Presence’s long-estranged children, were on this squad…and Starlight started a romantic relationship with Vanguard. The son of the man who enslaved her and forced her to be his lover and servant. And as weird as that is…I get it, actually. Abuse victims often desire to go back to their abusers, and many do. Others have to fight themselves on it, even years after escaping. It’s quite possible, likely even, that Starlight still “needed” Presence, and thus getting with his son was a way of coping with that, a way to be with him without returning to him. So yeah it’s weird and squicky but it makes sense.
As for Presence, he took up with a Dire Wraith sorceress named Fantasma (who was a former member of the Winter Guard herself) When the Winter Guard fought them, Fantasma was thrown into Limbo…and she dragged Starlight along with her. Neither has been seen since. I write her as having returned and continuing to serve in The Winter Guard.
TOXIC DOXIE
Name: June Covington
Alias: Toxic Doxie
Nicknames:
Affiliation: Independent, Dark Avengers
Alignment: Villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Power: Dr. Covington, deemed “Toxic Doxie” by the press, is the inventor of what she calls “genetic plug-ins” that allows her to use other’s genes to improve herself, giving herself an array of powers in addition to minor improvements to her physiology. Powers she has displayed include a paralytic substance on her fingernails, the ability to exhale a toxic gas that paralyses targets as it eats away at them and eventually kills, gills that allow her to breathe even when her mouth and nose are covered, being invisible to technological detection, soften bones to diffuse impacts, dislocating her joints with painless ease, psychically track targets provided she has access to a sample of their DNA, telepathic communication, and antiseptic saliva, as well as a lack of cosmetic imperfections.
About:
Immoral, amoral, and often sadistic, Dr. Theresa June Covington has no remorse or compassion for others, seeing everyone around her merely as potential sources of genetics she can steal to improve herself. Because if anyone deserves perfection, it’s her. June believes that there are “haves and have-nots” and that the latter don’t have the same right to life as the former, people like her who “worked hard to be selected for greatness”. And that “when the have-nots accidentally enter positions of powers where they can prevent the Darwinian victors from exercising their talents, that’s just wrong.”
If that doesn’t tell you enough about what kind of person June is, maybe the fact that one of the ways she exercised her talents was by turning poor people into gourmet foodstuffs does.
While some people might expect a tragic backstory from such a person, the fact is that June simply never had a conscience, as evident by her remorselessly running over her father with a tractor when she was twelve just for the fun of it. Yet, despite such adolescent atrocities, she managed to keep her mental and behavioral problems under wraps enough to stay out of psychiatrist’s chairs and criminal asylums, and instead went on to become a brilliant geneticist. Brilliant. . .but evil.
It all started when, as a post-grad, she became infatuated with a brilliant biologist by name of Edward Wynne. Infatuated. . .and fixated on the fact that, perfect though he otherwise was, he had a single glaring flaw. He had been born with a defective left arm. It fascinated her, that he could be perfect in every way but one; she likened it to as though someone had spit on a masterpiece. June decided that if biology was malleable, it should be perfectible, and she began work to do exactly that. She started with herself, engineering ways to make herself more physically perfect in terms of appearance. When this worked, she moved on to far more extreme experimentation on other people. . .with far worse results, often deforming, lethal, or both. She disposed of quite a few corpses. But it was worth it when one year later, she presented her work to Edward.
Edward, however, was not as grateful as she’d hoped. That was when June realized that, as put it, not everyone deserved perfection, that some people were so “broken” that they would try to PREVENT perfection. People like Edward.
June had to go underground to avoid arrest, but she continued her work, finding plenty of funding from some less than savory sources who had use for her talents. Uses that, of course, she had no ethical objections to. She wasn’t like Edward. Speaking of Edward, she got her revenge. When she was on the rise thanks to her new patrons, and even able to show her face in high society again, she ran into Edward at a fundraiser. She apologized, lured him back to her lab with promises of showing him her much nicer new work, and then she scratched his hand. . . while her nails were smeared with her genetic plug-in that place him in a permanent state of utter paralysis.
Then she left him there.
She continued her work, from providing crimelords with armies of genetically engineered lizard men soldiers to making a plug-in for an eccentric billionaire who wanted his sweat to smell like parsnips, until she was finally caught when one of her projects caused eighteen people to die of cranial explosion at a prayer meeting for special needs children. She was arrested and incarcerated at the superhuman prison known as “The Raft” until Norman Osborn recruited her to be the “Scarlet Witch” of his Dark Avengers.
After the Dark Avengers were defeated, June was arrested once more. When the Thunderbolts team were missing, the committee overseeing them recruited the captive Dark Avengers – including June – for an illegal, immoral, and covert mission to the Middle Eastern country of Sharzhad. It didn’t work out as the committee had planned, and to make a long story short, June has since branched out on her own, independent of any team, dedicated only to her mission of self-perfection and cruel science
VANDAL SAVAGE
Name: Vandar Adg
Alias: Vandal Savage, Genghis Khan, Cain, Curtis Knox, Blackbeard, Sauvage, many others
Nicknames: N/A
Affiliation: Independent, Injustice Society, Legion of Doom, Secret Society of Super Villains, Council of Immortals, the Illuminati, The Light
Alignment: Villain
Canon: DC comics
Powers: Vandal's body is immortal and he instantly regenerates from injury. However, his organs periodically begin to give out, at which point he has to harvest those of his descendants and consume them to regain function in his own.
Vandal Savage's long life has allowed him to become a master of hand-to-hand combat, an expert in military tactics and a variety of weapons, and familiar with many cultures, languages, and fields of science. His choice of weaponry changes depending on the battle. Sometimes he employs swords, knives, and maces, while other times he wields advanced technology, such as energy-based weapons, a suit that allows him limited flight, or a pen-sized sonic device that can immobilize people with super-speed.
He is also extremely rich and the owner of the Abaraxas Corporation, giving him additional resources.
About: Vandal Savage, as he is presently known, began life as a caveman (whether he was Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon varies by source) called Vandar Adg. leader of the Blood Tribe. When a meteor crashed and he slept near it for warmth, it bathed him in radiation that granted him immortality as well as greatly enhancing his intellect.
Savage claims to have either been advisor to many famous historical figures, or been them himself. For instance, he claims to have been great rulers and military figures like King Cheops, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great. . .as well as legendary criminals like Blackbeard the pirate and Jack the Ripper. I interpret some of these claims to be true, and some not; for instance, he was not King Cheops, but he might well have been Khan. Especially considering that he has made it a point to sire as many descendants as he can so that he'll always have ready access to their organs when need be.
In the modern era, he calls himself Vandal Savage and is the wealthy owner of business called the Abraxas Corporation. More than that, though, he's a supervillain, frequently bedeviling heroes from Green Lantern to the Flash to Superman to Hawkman. While his momentary goals vary, as does whether he is currently aligned with a group or operating independently, he claims his overarching aim is to partially destroy the world so that the survivors will follow his leadership in hope of food, comfort, and order, so that he might reshape it in a way he believes is better.
My depiction of Savage is based on a mixture of comics I have read with him in it, and clips from the animated films "Justice League: Doom" and animated series "Young Justice". I have not been able to see either the film or the series in full, and I have not read every comic that Vandal is in, so some of my info may be off or lacking. Please don't hesitate to correct me or recommend issues. I also haven't gotten to the issues that introduced his daughter Scandal and his relationship with her, but I will definitely acknowledge her and write with her! Same for any of his other children such as Cassandra Savage, or to accept OCs as his descendants, etc.
He is NOT based on his appearances in Smallville or the Arrowverse, and while characters from these series may recognize his NAME, he will not recognize THEM as he is not the same guy.
VOLCANA
Name: Marsha Rosenberg
Alias: Volcana
Nicknames: Marshamallow (by her former boyfriend)
Affiliation: Independent, former villain
Alignment: Neutral/Hero, former villain
Canon: Marvel Comics
Powers: Volcana can transform into three different states. In one, her body becomes composed of super-heated plasma, which she can also fire as projectiles. In the second, she can become made of volcanic rock, which makes her extra strong and durable. And in the third, she can transform into volcanic ash, rather like Dust or the Sandman.
She cannot mix her states, nor make partial transformations, such as only transforming her arm. It's all or nothing, and only one at a time.
About: Marsha Rosenberg grew up with her mother and brother in a Colorado suburb. She was quite shy, and sadly ostracized by her peers for her weight and Jewish heritage. Her only friend was Mary “Skeeter” MacPherran, who was likewise bullied for her scrawniness (hence her nickname, derived from “mosquito”) and poverty.
When the Beyonder created Battleworld, he took a chunk of a Colorado suburb with it, including Marsha and Mary. They were found by Dr. Doom, and agreed to let him turn them into metahumans. While Mary become a super-strong Amazon and dubbed herself Titania, Marsha gained the ability to transform her body into super-hot plasma, which she could fire as a weapon at others. She deemed herself Volcana. Though not malicious at all, she had no problem holding up her end of the bargain for Dr. Doom by attacking the superheroes on Battleworld.
Among the other villains on Battleworld was Owen Reece, aka the Molecule Man. Though he had incredible power, he was a timid type and the others bullied him. This aroused Marsha’s maternal, protective nature, and she defended him violently against the other bad guys. The pair ended up falling in love, and moved in together after Battleworld was over. They were quite domestic, watching reruns of numerous sitcoms together and calling each other by endless pet names, and had mutually abandoned villainy. Unfortunately, the re-arrival of the Beyonder through their lives into chaos once more, ultimately ending with Owen and the Beyonder merging into a new Cosmic Cube.
Though heartbroken over the loss of her man, Marsha was determined to carry on and live a normal life, but kept falling into superpowered shenanigans by pure chance. This led her to discover she now had two additional new forms: She later discovered she had two additional forms: one of volcanic rock, and one of volcanic ash. In her rock form, she is super-strong and much more invulnerable to physical injury. In her ash form, she can shift and configure her body at will, rather like the Sandman. In his last moments, Owen had willed her a portion of his power, in order to protect her, which is what had caused this.
Speaking of Owen, he had returned to life and still loved her, but when they reunited, Volcana broke it off, as he had a new darker side to his personality that wasn’t like the sweet man she’d loved.
Marsha has a sweet, nurturing personality. She shows concern for innocents, believes killing is wrong, and has on occasion aided superheroes against other villains. She’s very much a mama bear, and can get violently overzealous against bullies who pick on the small and weak, especially someone she cares about, and she also seems a little less than bright. I’m very fond of her and always happy to see her show up! She’s also notable in being one of the few plus-size female characters, and one of even fewer who isn’t depicted as hideous for it (though other characters do make endless unkind remarks to her)
WONDER GIRL
Name: Drusilla Prince
Alias: Wonder Girl
Nicknames: Dru
Affiliation: Paradise Island
Alignment: Hero
Canon: The 1970s Wonder Woman television series with Lynda Carter
Powers: Wonder Girl has superhuman strength, stamina, and speed. Like her older sister, she wields bullet-deflecting bracelets and a magical lasso, and transforms by spinning rapidly.
About: Drusilla was the younger sister of Diana in the 1970s "Wonder Woman" TV series. She appeared in two episodes, in which she was sent by Queen Hippolyta to bring Diana back to Paradise Island, but became entangled in battling Nazis with her sister. In the process, she learned to transform herself by spinning too, and dubbed herself Wonder Girl.
Despite being over 700 years old, Drusilla behaved very much like the teen girl she appeared to be, and a naïve one at that since she knew little of man's world and its customs, often comically misunderstanding words and their meanings. She was exceptionally friendly and quite blunt, often inappropriately so, and honest to a fault, though never with ill intent. She enjoys ice cream soda and hunting stags with her crossbow. Dru has a big appetite, tells men she likes that they're pretty, and tries to dress like the other girls around her do in Man's World.
My version of Dru hasn't been back to Man's World since the 1940s (when the 70s TV series was set) so she's a bit surprised by the changes, but trying to fit in!