KARMA

 

KARMA

Real Name: Xi'an Coy Manh

First Appearance: Marvel Team Up (Vol. 1) #100, December 1980

Powers: Karma’s mutant power is the ability to impose her will over the minds of other people. Her power operates by projecting a beam of psionic energy that deadens the willpower of her victim while supplanting her own will for theirs. This places her victims into a catatonic state, incapable of thinking or acting on their own. Once in control of her victim, Karma can operate their body by remote control, willing them to do or say whatever she wishes. Though not a telepath, her power has always enabled her to control their physical actions, see through their eyes, etc., access their memories and get a sense of their personality, and compel them to divulge information that they possess. Karma's power has similar, but different, empathic aspects than telepaths, but not inherently more or less so. She gets a basic sense of a person when she first possesses them. For instance, she once possessed Spider-Man because she read the Daily Bugle newspaper and thought him to be a criminal. Almost immediately after interacting with his mind, however, she recognized him as an inherently good person.

Originally, she had difficulty maintaining control over more than one mind at a time, but is now capable of keeping focus and directing more than a dozen people at once. Xi'an still has difficulty directing multiple victims to perform various tasks simultaneously, as splitting her concentration to multi-task in that manner is taxing. Causing a large group of people to perform a single task, like compelling everyone to walk calmly towards the exits of a building, is significantly less difficult since it does not require visualizing more than one action. In recent years, Karma has learned how to possess people only partially so that they don't enter a catatonia. This allows her to exert influence over their thoughts as opposed to just their actions. She can now mentally change a person's or a group of people's memories and perceptions. Also, she has learned how to generate her psionic energy not as a beam, but as a blanket effect that surrounds her body, serving as a protective barrier that interferes with and prevents other psychic forces from reaching her. Lastly, Karma has attempted to possess someone who was already being controlled by another, and it has been demonstrated that she would either fail completely or enter a contest of wills to force out the third party and take control for herself.

Karma is fluent in Vietnamese, English, and French. She also holds a bachelor of arts degree in library studies from the University of Chicago as well as a Master of Library and Information Science degree. She also has a bionic left leg designed and built by Madison Jeffries.