MARRINA

 

MARRINA

Real Name: Marrina Smallwood McKenzie

First Appearance: Alpha Flight (Vol. 1) #1, August 1983

Powers: Marrina is a Plodex, an extraterrestrial race whose hatchlings are genetically programmed to conquer. When the Plodex attempted to conquer Earth, their hatchlings were launched before they had received their genetic programming to enable them to survive on this planet. One of the eggs landed in the ocean and drifted across its floor for 40,000 years. In order to survive, the egg became water permeable, and the adaptable creature within the egg became amphibious. The egg was finally discovered more than 20 years ago by fisherman Thomas Smallwood. His wife Gladys forced the egg open. The creature within the egg, still primed for genetic conditioning, instantly took on humanoid form as soon as it made contact with the cells of Gladys Smallwood's body. Thus, Gladys Smallwood saw a humanoid infant hatch from the egg. Thomas and Gladys Smallwood adopted the infant, whom they named Marrina since Thomas found her egg at sea, and raised her as their daughter. Neither the Smallwoods nor anyone else in their community suspected Marrina's alien origin, and instead believed that genetic defects were responsible for her unusual appearance. Marrina had been "damaged" in her hatching, and therefore had no conscious drive to conquer, nor was she dominated by savage instincts. Instead, she had a normal Earth girl's personality.

 

She has yellow skin, green hair, webbed fingers and toes, and bulbous round eyes. She can breathe underwater indefinitely and see for great distances through murky waters. Her strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, and durability are all greater than a normal human's, allowing her to survive deep ocean pressures or freezing temperatures and move more freely through aquatic mediums than a normal person. She has innate sonar senses that probe her underwater environment, giving her a 360 degree awareness of her surroundings. She can swim at speeds exceeding 900 knots by dissolving the outermost layer of her flesh, revealing a frictionless second layer underneath. Either through some hydrokinetic ability or sheer velocity, Marrina was able to shoot out from the surface of the water and create a waterspout, with water streaming behind her in one long line as she traveled inside the waterspout through the air over land, reaching distances of at least one mile away from the edge of the water before the spout began to disperse. Marrina's Plodex heritage renders her highly adaptable to certain stimuli, and if her savage nature is somehow triggered she will mutate physically. Normally these changes are minor, including distortion of her facial features, claws, fangs, and the newfound ability to blind other people on contact thanks to a chemical oil released from her pores that constricts the pupils temporarily. On one occasion, her Plodex genes transformed her into the Leviathan, a sea creature of enormous size and strength, a serpent over a mile in length.