History
Mary Richards (named after her maternal grandmother) was in another reality the still-born child of Reed and Susan Richards who in this reality survived her birth, along with her mother. In her early toddler days, against Reed's hopes, she began to display superhuman abilities when she levitated from her crib, although he was relieved to learn that her power levels were much more subdued than Franklin's at this age.
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Mary grew up as a happy, relatively normal child who enjoyed the usual fads popular with normal girls. When she had turned fourteen, however, her life dramatically changed when a young girl's pet dog was run over by a car while she was walking by with her uncles Johnny and Ben. The dog was just barely alive, but the girl's sadness over losing her friend triggered something in Mary, and hugging the dog, she released a power which completely healed the dog of his fatal injuries.
As time went by, Mary's healing power developed to tremendous levels, enabling her to heal all life around her. She became engaged in helping the sick and suffering, to the point where she made their plight her personal concern. One day, she used her ability to treat small children at a hospital, which began to overtax her. In her determination to help them all, she released a surge of her power which instantly cured all patients inside the hospital but left her drained and comatose for a week. However, this stunt also earned her nationwide public attention.
In the following year, Mary became a philanthropic political activist fighting for the rights of the downtrodden members of American society as well as for peace and preservation of the environment. However, her actions, although peaceful despite her crusading nature, aroused the displeasure of the United States President, a corrupt and selfish individual. Fearing the pressure from large corporations and organized crime which were affected by Mary's actions, and that Mary would thus eventually topple him from his base of power, the President decided to stop her. When Mary organized a Unity Party march on Washington, the President ordered the Avengers not to participate in the rally (which made most of the active Avengers resign in disgust) and assigned Henry Gyrich to do away with Mary before her movement would get too much momentum.
At the day of the rally, while Mary was delivering a passionate speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Gyrich approached Mary disguised as Captain America and stabbed her through the stomach before the Thing could stop him. Before Secret Service agents got him to safety by apparently arresting him, Gyrich sent a signal to agitators hidden in the rally crowd to start a violent riot. Despite her critical injury and the danger it posed to her life, Mary could not bear the people tearing out each other's throats; she activated her power at unprecedented levels, levitating herself into the sky above the crowd and used it to rid the people's minds of all violence. She succeeded and stilled the fighting, but the effort almost killed her. Johnny, however, managed to catch her as she fell and transport her to the nearest hospital.
A vestige of her power kept Mary alive until she was successfully operated, and upon awakening from a two-week long coma, she was welcomed back to life by her whole family. When asking about what happened at the rally, she learned that not only had she ended the fighting, she had also rallied all of the American people to her cause: While one part of them had kept a vigil before her hospital, the rest had marched on the White House. This tremendous response was more than the President could handle, spelling the last day of his office. Upon her full recovery, Mary Richards led the American people into a peaceful revolution which established a government system truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people", ushering in an era of (as Uatu points out) "unprecedented peace".[1]