History
In her earliest known incarnation, the woman now known as Blondine was a high priestess of Dagoth in Kalumesh who carried out bloody, sacrilegious rituals in his name. When that accursed city sank, all those who had worshipped Dagoth drowned, including the high priestess. However, as the centuries or millennia passed, the soul of the priestess lived through "reincarnations without number" before being reborn as Blondine in the twentieth century.[1]
Blondine eventually came to Witch House, an old manor house near Penmallow that was feared, hated and shunned by the local villagers, where she was employed as a housekeeper by its owner, Jedediah Gordon. After Jedediah died, his nephew Henry Gordon came to Witch House seeking his inheritance. Blondine greeted him and may have tried to warn him away, but Henry suspected that she was just trying to scare him away so that she and the villagers could steal his inheritance.
Henry believed that his uncle had been interested in Kalumesh because he wanted its lost treasure and, despite his suspicions, he asked Blondine to accompany him when he went searching for it. Blondine agreed and went scuba diving with Henry in the waters off the coast of Cornwall. They eventually found sunken Kalumesh but were then confronted by Dagoth who paralyzed them as he prepared to attack. Blondine and Henry were saved by the timely arrival of Doctor Strange, who managed to trick and imprison Dagoth long enough to rescue Blondine and Henry and transport them to Witch House.
As they recovered, Strange heard the semi-conscious Blondine mutter to Shuma-Gorath that she had heard his call. Since Shuma-Gorath was the Great Old One whose awakening Strange was trying to prevent, he used the Eye of Agamotto to probe Blondine's mind, causing her to relive her ancestral memories of her long-ago incarnation as the High Priestess of Dagoth and how she had drowned in the freezing water when Kalumesh sank. Strange then allowed the exhausted woman to sleep, stating that he could sense that she alone could bring to life the evil that resided within that house, an evil that had to be destroyed before he could continue with his quest.
That night, while Strange and Henry rested, an entranced Blondine, vulnerable to Dagoth's control since her racial memories had been evoked, took the recently-discovered Starstone and, guided by her memories, activated it by placing it before the window that was the lens sacred to Shuma-Gorath. The light that beamed down from Kulthas and passed through that lens struck the Starstone and freed the shadow from within the jewel. That darkness quickly spread throughout the area, casting an ebon enchantment on the three occupants of Witch House and the residents of Penmallow that compelled them all to obey a call to walk into the sea to sunken Kalumesh where they were to offer themselves as living sacrifices to Shuma-Gorath. However, Strange's student Clea arrived in time to awaken Strange who was then able to both free all those who had fallen victim to the evil shadow and banish Dagoth to another dimension. Now freed from Dagoth's control, Blondine revealed what she knew about the Starstone just before she, Henry, Doctor Strange, Clea and Wong all entered Witch House, discovering, too late, that Witch House was now alive, having been infused with evil matter with a dark sentience that had been released from the Starstone when it had been struck by star-beams from Yaggoth.[1]
Trapped within the now-living Witch House, the quintet were attacked by the walls and the furniture and an awful slime, but Strange was able to use his magic to protect them long enough for everyone to escape. Since Witch House was possessed by an ancient, evil spirit, Strange called upon the Eternal Vishanti and the powers of good to strike and destroy the house. In response, golden lightnings that were bolts from the Powers Beyond lashed down and in a microsecond reduced Witch House to harmless shards.
In the aftermath, Henry announced that he and Blondine were going to replace Witch House with a new, simple dwelling for them both, a dwelling where no evil would ever enter.[2]Attributes
Abilities
- Once her ancestral memories were evoked by Doctor Strange, Blondine gained the knowledge that her long-dead priestess incarnation had possessed.
Weaknesses
- After her ancestral memories had been evoked, Blondine became vulnerable to Dagoth who could command her sleeping mind from afar.
Notes
- As the reincarnation of an ancient priestess of evil elder gods, whose genetic memory contributes to their return, Blondine is obviously inspired by an archetype of character from the Cthulhu Mythos, mortals tied in genealogy or reincarnation to a worshiper of eldritch entities or to a wizard.
- Although it was never stated exactly when Kalumesh sank, the fact that what are now the British Isles on modern-day Earth-616 were the mountains of western Cimmeria before the Post-Hyborian Cataclysm flooded their lower elevations c. 9500 B.C. suggests that Kalumesh could only have existed as an island sometime after that cataclysm.