History
Early Life
Mary MacPherran was born prematurely in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. Mary was often overlooked as the smallest of her siblings and would immerse herself in fantasy books. She grew little over the years, remaining short and scrawny compared to her peers; a popular girl at school named Vanessa Ashwood gave Mary the nickname "Skeeter" (a slang word for mosquito) because of this. Her only real friend was Marsha Rosenberg, who was similarly unpopular (in her case for being awkward and overweight). Consistently mocked and humiliated since childhood by the wealthy Vanessa and her social clique, Mary (and Marsha) had to take menial jobs to survive. Mary grew bitter over her hard life, and fantasized about something improbable in her favor such as winning the lottery. These fantasies soon turned to gaining superpowers to be admired, and to exact revenge on her tormentors.[4]
When the second Spider-Woman Julia Carpenter began to make appearances in Denver, Rosenberg remarked that her hair was the same color as Mary's. Mary falsely confided in her friend that she was secretly Spider-Woman, and when Rosenberg spread the rumor, Mary saw her popularity grow and was invited to a party by Vanessa and her clique.[4]
Secret Wars
In the midst of the party, however, their suburb of Denver was ripped from Earth and used by the alien Beyonder to create the makeshift planet Battleworld. When the real Spider-Woman arrived on the scene and saved the guests from falling debris, Vanessa and her friends realized they'd been duped and chased MacPherran and Rosenberg into the forests of Battleworld. Frightened and exhausted, the two young women were found by the villain Doctor Doom, who was looking for recruits for his army of supervillains; he offered the girls the chance of gaining superhuman powers, which they accepted Doom's offer.[5]
Doom recreated both women using highly advanced alien technologies found in the aptly named "Doombase", which were powered by immense energies from a ferocious alien storm outside. Able to use the technology entirely as he desired, Doom induced high-level metahuman abilities of a specific and particular design. While Rosenberg (now known as Volcana) received a fiery form composed of ionized plasma, MacPherran gained powers in diametric opposition to her previous incarnation - where once she had been "the scrawny one who got her face rubbed in the dirt," she was now far taller, muscular, and more buxom than average. She now had an incredibly high level of superhuman strength and durability. [5]
The changes were not only physical, but mental in nature. Where Mary MacPherran had been small and timid, the newly-named Titania - so called because she had strength like a titan - was proud and confident, perhaps to extremes. Volcana melted some machinery into a large pile of red-hot slag; Titania immediately picked it up, boldly ignoring the slight possibility of injury, and hurled it through the wall. Soon after, she challenged Carl "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man, to a fight which he refused, reasoning that he had "nothing to prove...to a dame."[5]
After gaining powers, she was introduced to the other villains that were assembled there on the planet, including the Absorbing Man. Titania began to work for Doom in earnest, battling the superheroes. She soon made an enemy out of Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, which would be the beginning of a long rivalry.[6]
When the heroes later stormed the Doombase to rescue She-Hulk after Titania and her allies had beaten her senseless, Titania tried to face up against veteran super-hero Spider-Man; despite her massive strength and durability advantages, Spider-Man's highly superior speed, agility, and long experience in fighting against more powerful foes allowed him to not only dodge her assaults, but to attack her with impunity, culminating in throwing her through an exterior wall. During this fight, Titania's attitude and newfound arrogance quickly evaporated, giving way to what Spider-Man called the "whining little wimp-ette" inside - it was clear that her arrogance could only last while Titania had the upper hand, as otherwise a reversion to her previous character would occur. Mindful of this beating, Titania would harbor a fear of Spider-Man for quite some time after.[7]
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After her run-in with Spider-Man, a previously hinted-at relationship between the Absorbing Man and Titania began; Titania seemed fairly dependent on Creel at this point. Once Owen Reece, the Molecule Man, managed to seal off the chunk of Denver and navigate it back to Earth, Creel and MacPherran revealed that they were done with Doom and his war, and simply wanted to go home.[8]
Return to Earth
Once back on Earth, Mary decided to deliver payback against Vanessa for the years of abuse, destroying the girl's mansion and making her beg for forgiveness with her head under Mary's foot however, but was talked out of going further by Creel when asked if doing all this made her feel better.
Masters of Evil
The pair did not settle down to the quiet life, instead joining Baron Zemo and his latest incarnation of the Masters of Evil. Their first assignment was to recruit the powerful Moonstone into the group.[9] Later on, Zemo kept them at large to field new recruits, which prevented them from joining the main group in the assault on Avengers Mansion.[10] To kill time, Titania robbed a jewelry store, only to come to the attention of Spider-Man; too afraid to fight, she ran from combat, only to encounter the hero again in LaGuardia Airport. There, once more Titania tried not to fight, having Creel do so on her behalf; yet the sight of his near-defeat at Spider-Man's hands was enough for Titania to temporarily overcome her arachnophobia, charging into combat. It was a moot point, though, since Creel ended the fight by threatening to destroy a plane full of innocents if Spider-Man refused to leave the scene, which he reluctantly did.[11]
The villainous couple received another assignment from the Masters: this time, they were to kill the Avenger Hercules, who had been gravely injured previously by the Masters, and was in a coma in hospital. Hercules was saved by a guard of only the diminutive heroes Ant-Man and The Wasp; Creel was stung by the Wasp as he switched from liquid to human form, and Titania was shrunk to the size of an insect and then blasted through a wall by Wasp. The villains were easily subdued, with Titania taken to the Vault, a superhuman penitentiary.[12]
The Vault
Titania's stay in the Vault was not to last long, however. When Tony Stark, Iron Man, began the Armor Wars - the battle to destroy or disable all enhanced armor types based on stolen Iron Man designs - this inevitably led him to the Guardsmen, the Vault's wardens. The ensuing conflict, while successful from his point of view, created a power failure, allowing Titania and Mister Hyde to escape. While Captain America, then known as The Captain, managed to subdue and capture Mister Hyde, his colleague Demolition Man was humiliated when he tried to apprehend the far stronger Titania; when allowed the opportunity for a rematch later, a scared Demolition Man simply let the villainess escape.[13]
Using her newfound freedom, Titania traveled to Washington D.C; losing a succession of battles with She-Hulk, Titania promised to never attack her again, and to return to jail.[14]
Frightful Four
Broken out yet again, Titania joined with the Wizard, Klaw, and Hydro-Man, to become the new Frightful Four. Battling the Fantastic Four, the team only won due to help from Dragon Man, Professor Gregson Gilbert's creation, and Aron, a renegade Watcher; in the rematch, the Fantastic Four prevailed, only to have both Fours imprisoned by Aron in suspended animation, using clones of the Fantastic Four to act out adventures he wished to witness. When both teams were freed, Aron chose to witness the dreams of his clones instead, transporting the Frightful Four back to the Vault as a service to the Fantastic Four.[15]
Acts of Vengeance
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However, this stay in The Vault was as permanent as earlier ones - a conspiracy between Loki and the Wizard, among other villains, saw Titania free once more, as part of Loki's Acts of Vengeance plan. Teaming supervillains to fight enemies not usually their own, Titania was dismayed when Doctor Doom, her partner, told her she would face not She-Hulk, but Spider-Man. Doom managed to stoke Titania's pride and anger, allowing her to overcome her fear and engage Spider-Man; unfortunately, Spider-Man had temporarily bonded with the Uni-Power, making him Captain Universe. This granted him the power to render Titania unconscious in one massive energy discharge; the only benefit of the situation was that Titania had lost her fear of Spider-Man.[16]
This time, Titania did not even make it back to the Vault; she was freed by Graviton, who also collected the Trapster and the Brothers Grimm, all of whom had been humiliated by Spider-Man in his Captain Universe guise. Along with Chameleon and Goliath, they attempted to take revenge, only to fail; Titania was humiliatingly defeated by a collision with a speeding bus.[17]
Reunion With the Absorbing Man
Escaping the Vault once again, Titania, ever the team player, joined Superia's all-female army the Femizons, as foes of Captain America and Paladin;[18] this did not work out, however, and so Titania resolved to track down her old flame - the Absorbing Man. She interfered with a battle between him and Eric Masterson, who was Thor at the time; when she appeared injured by a blow from Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Creel admitted his love for her, which she gladly reciprocated. Seeing this, Thor allowed them to leave.[19]
While Creel made an attempt to live a normal life, Titania went back to robbing jewelry stores; concerned, Creel attempted to "scare her straight", collaborating with Thor in a ploy involving a Guggenheim exhibit. While the appearance of Spider-Man and special police unit Code: Blue complicated matters, Titania ultimately remembered her love for Creel.[20]
Drawn to an A.I.M. convention in Boca Caliente, Titania joined with the Abomination and Gargantua to battle the Town Called Hulk;[21] once this was done, Titania came to her senses somewhat, asking Creel to marry her. The wedding was attended by many supervillains; while the Avengers interrupted the ceremony, they left the couple alone.[22] In their new life, the pair seemed not to be able to stay under the radar, assuming the guises of Thunder Girl and Lightning Bolt in order to hunt Spider-Man for the reward offered by Norman Osborn. Despite contracting severe skin burns as a result of this escapade, this was not the end of the pair's villainy; committing more robberies, Titania also clashed repeatedly with She-Hulk again.[23]
Illness & Recuperation
However, this was not a permanent state of affairs; despite her enhanced durability, Titania contracted a terminal illness: cancer. Without health insurance and no money, she was quickly forced to move from the hospital to an abandoned building.[24] Slowly weakening, but still massively strong, she fought through the illness with the help of doctors provided by Thor; as a result, the Absorbing Man repented to Thor, bowing to the new Lord of Asgard.[25]
Power Gem
However, Titania proved unable to stay away from She-Hulk, and underwent an intense physical regimen to boost her abilities. However, She-Hulk had done so more efficiently, briefly reaching levels almost approaching those of the Hulk himself. Battered and inadvertently humiliated by her, Titania was offered the chance at revenge after obtaining the Power Gem, one of the legendary Infinity Gems, from its former owner, the former Champion of the Universe, now known as the Fallen One because of his own defeat at the She-Hulk's hands. The Fallen One had agreed to cease using the Power Gem as a condition of his defeat, but was free to gain his own revenge by proxy through Titania. After an initial defeat by the newly-empowered Titania, She-Hulk tricked her into believing that she had killed her in a second battle; Titania's initial rush of triumph suddenly melted into uncertainty, as she realized that her life now had no meaning or focus without the object of her obsessive hatred. The She-Hulk then took advantage of Titania's confusion to pluck the Power Gem from the criminal's forehead, and proceeded to use the Gem's power to knock Titania out with a single punch.
Big House
Titania was later incarcerated in the Lang Memorial Penitentiary, a.k.a. the Pym Experimental Prison #2, a prison in which superhuman inmates are shrunk with Pym particles to less than an inch in height. This reduced both their chances of escape and their threat to guards and the public if they do escape, since inmates can only be returned to their full size by prison technicians or the few others who have access to Pym Particles.[26]
Civil War
Still shrunken to her diminutive form, she was reunited with her husband Creel, clashing again with She-Hulk. While shrunk, she was grabbed by Jazinda (a female Skrull) and thrown to a shark, who ate her.[27] Titania survived this somehow, as she encountered X-Factor Investigations[28] and was later at the Raft, commenting along with other female inmates on the prowess of the new warden Luke Cage.[29]
Skirn: Breaker of Men
Fear Itself
When the Serpent was freed by Skadi, he called seven hammers to Earth. Titania was transformed by one of these hammers, becoming one of the Worthy: Skirn, Breaker of Men. She then set off with the Absorbing Man to find the Hammer destined for him.[30]
Following the final battle with the Serpent, the hammer of Titania is taken from her as well as the other hammers of the other Worthy. She was then returned to the Raft where she suffered a nervous breakdown, and claimed `they` were going to take her hammer, moments before Sin's forces attacked.[31]
Illuminati
After one too many times of getting caught by the Avengers and imprisoned, Titania decided to go legit and stop her criminal career. She was released from prison on parole, and managed to convince the Absorbing Man to reluctantly promise to follow her footsteps once he got out as well. However, her past didn't help in trying to live a normal life, having trouble finding a job, and a decent lifestyle.
She-Hulk managed to get her a job at a pawnshop, which was shortly thereafter assaulted by a band of robbers. While Titania used her powers to stop the robbers, the pawnshop owner blamed her for the attack, and Titania ultimately came to blows with Luke Cage and Iron Fist, displaying new levels of powers. She was rescued by the Hood, the person who had secretly set up the robbery in the first place, and managed to convince her to return to her life of crime, and become a member of his Illuminati.[32]
Following a failed attempt at stealing Asgardian weapons,[33] the Hood helped Titania rescue Absorbing Man from a prison known as Pleasant Hill, but she remained hesitant to trust the Hood, after discovering he had secretly upgraded her powers. When Robbins tried to amass an army with the villains that had been imprisoned at Pleasant Hill, he proposed to target the families of their enemies. Titania confronted Robbins, believing that to be a line that shouldn't be crossed. During an ensuing discussion, the Hood revealed to Titania that he had set her up to lose her job. Mary forced the Hood to teleport them away from their pase, and during a fight, she defeated him and destroyed his cloak, losing reverting to her previous level of power. When the police arrived to the scene, Titania realized that it was impossible for her to live a normal life, and decided to embrace her criminal career together with the Absorbing Man.[34]
Black Bolt
Sometime later Titania was told of her husband's heroic sacrifice by the Inhuman Black Bolt and alien telepath Blinky. She mourned his death and arranged his funeral, which was attended by Captain America, Thor, and the Wrecking Crew. After the funeral, Black Bolt was attacked by Lash. Titania helped fought off the Inhuman villains, but was unable to prevent them from kidnapping Blinky.[35] Soon the Jailer possessed Blinky's mind in order to kill Black Bolt, so Lockjaw took Titania to Parkwood Cemetery where Absorbing Man suddenly emerged from his grave. Absorbing Man and Titania helped Black Bolt fight a Jailer-possessed Blinky until they managed to drive Jailer out of her.[36]Attributes
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Powers
Due to undergoing Doctor Doom's mutagenic alteration process, Titania possesses various superhuman physical attributes.[37]
Superhuman Strength: Titania possesses vast superhuman strength that has increased over the years due to intensive weight training. Titania was originally strong enough to lift about 85 tons and she can now lift about 100 tons.[37]
Superhuman Stamina: Titania's highly advanced musculature generates considerably less fatigue toxins than ordinary humans. She can physically exert herself at peak capacity for about 24 hours, before the build up of fatigue toxins in her bloodstream begins to impair her.[37]
Superhuman Durability: Titania's body is highly resistant to physical injury. She is capable of withstanding high caliber bullets, falls from great heights, tremendous impact force, and temperatures as high as 1,500 degrees Celsius and as low as -120 degrees Celsius without sustaining injury.[37]
In Fear Itself, Titania obtained a mystical hammer forged by the Asgardian god of Fear, she as a result she had enhanced powers that come with wielding a mystical weapon from Asgard until she lost it.[38]Abilities
Paraphernalia
Weapons
- Hammer of Skirn (formerly)
Notes
- Titania was impersonated by the mutant shape-shifter Copycat.[40]
- She has no connection with Titania (Davida DeVito).
- Titania showed her evil nature in a major way in Fantastic Four #548, where the Frightful Four were discussing what to do with one of their hostages, Susan Storm. It is Titania that urged that they kill her, but the Wizard refused and insisted that they keep her alive.
Trivia
- Before the mutagenic alteration provided by Doctor Doom, Mary weighed about 95 lbs and was called Skeeter by the people who knew her. After becoming Titania, she began rejecting that nickname.[4]
See Also
- 152 appearance(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 17 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 25 minor appearance(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 22 mention(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 7 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 125 image(s) of Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 5 quotation(s) by or about Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
- 2 item(s) used/owned by Mary MacPherran (Earth-616)
Links and References
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #13 (December, 1986)
References
- ↑ Heroes for Hire #17
- ↑ Weapon H #8
- ↑ Secret Wars II #7
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 She-Hulk #10
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #3
- ↑ Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #3–4
- ↑ Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8
- ↑ Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #9–12
- ↑ Avengers #270
- ↑ Avengers #273–274
- ↑ Amazing Spider-Man #283
- ↑ Avengers #275
- ↑ Captain America #340
- ↑ Solo Avengers #14
- ↑ Fantastic Four #326–329
- ↑ Web of Spider-Man #59
- ↑ Web of Spider-Man #64–65
- ↑ Captain America #389–391
- ↑ Thor #436
- ↑ Thor #447–448
- ↑ Incredible Hulk Annual #19
- ↑ Avengers: Unplugged #4
- ↑ Amazing Spider-Man #429
- ↑ Thor (Vol. 2) #25–27
- ↑ Thor (Vol. 2) #55
- ↑ She-Hulk #9–12
- ↑ She-Hulk (Vol. 2) #22–23
- ↑ X-Factor #204
- ↑ Thunderbolts #144
- ↑ Fear Itself #3–7
- ↑ Fear Itself: The Fearless #5
- ↑ Illuminati #1
- ↑ Illuminati #2 #5
- ↑ Illuminati #7
- ↑ Black Bolt #9
- ↑ Black Bolt #11–12
- ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 37.3 Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (Vol. 2) #13
- ↑ Fear Itself #3
- ↑ She-Hulk #10–11
- ↑ Deadpool #38 45
- ↑ Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide #2
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 12