MS. MARVEL IV

 

MS. MARVEL IV

Real Name: Kamala Khan

First Appearance: Captain Marvel (Vol. 7) #14, September 2013 (Unnamed); All-New Marvel NOW! Point One (Vol. 1) #1, March 2014 (As Ms. Marvel IV)

Powers: Kamala Khan was a latent Inhuman who underwent spontaneous Terrigenesis when the mists were released over the planet by Attilan's destruction. Kamala's powers are morphogenic, making her body incredibly malleable.

A functional polymorph, Ms. Marvel can stretch, expand, and contort her body in a number of ways. She can extend her limbs to great lengths in order to increase her reach and stride. She can add or subtract mass from her body (presumably extra-dimensionally) in order to reach at least 15 feet tall or less than a few inches in height. Through disproportionate mass-shifting, she can expand her fists alone so that they strike like enlarged mallets. While Kamala cannot yet compress to a two-dimensional state like Reed Richards, she can squeeze herself through tight cracks and crevices, distorting her body with little regard to internal organs, bones, or muscle structure. The malleable nature of her body can absorb impact to some degree, but she still has a largely human vulnerability to harm.

Her powers double as a healing factor, as her polymorphic structure automatically devotes itself to resetting into her default state if she's injured. Ms. Marvel has rapidly recovered from a single gunshot wound or broken limbs in this manner. However, when her bio-energies are focused on healing, Kamala cannot use her other powers to their full extent, if at all, until the healing is done. Originally, Ms. Marvel had broader shape-changing abilities, letting her mimic the appearance of other people or transform into non-human forms like a sofa. Repeated use of her healing factor, though, has cemented her normal shape so that her morphogenic structure can no longer wildly diverge from that default form.

SHARON VENTURA

 

SHARON VENTURA

Real Name: Sharon Ventura

First Appearance: Thing (Vol. 1) #27, September 1985 (as Sharon Ventura); Thing (Vol. 1) #35, May 1986 (as Ms. Marvel II);  Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) #310 January 1988 (as She-Thing)

Powers: Sharon Ventura underwent the Power Broker process, undergoing hallucinogenic radiation treatment which left her Class 25 superhuman strength and enhanced endurance, reflexes and durability as well. Passing through a cosmic radiation storm further mutated her to an orange, rock-like hide like the Thing, one might assume by transferring some of the specific cosmic rays in Ben Grimm's system, who was with her at the time. She initially assumed the Thing's original orange hide, like lumpy oatmeal but thick like dinosaur scales. Later, her system settled into the more classic uneven orange rocks Grimm is known for, including four fingers on each hand, including thumb; four toes on each foot, no outer ear structure.

This transformation increased her superhuman strength level up to Class 100, and dramatically increased her resistance to pain and injury as well. She later grew tired of her monstrous appearance and submitted herself to Dr. Doom for testing, and he reverted her back to her previous human form and Class 15 strength. After she refused to return the favor to him a few months later and betray her Fantastic Four teammates, Doom activated a genetic fail-safe in her body which caused her to mutate uncontrollably. Sharon's strength and durability increased dramatically, but fluctuated constantly along with her appearance and mental state. Her facial features distorted considerably, her arms increased in length, her skin turned shades of green and olive, etc. Recently, her mental state seems to have returned to normal, and she has resumed her She-Thing appearance and strength.

Sharon Ventura is a highly proficient hand-to-hand combatant, skilled in various forms of martial arts, including Tae Kwon Do and American Boxing. She is also a skilled gymnast, an expert stunt-woman, scuba diver, skydiver, motorcyclist, mountain climber, skier, lion-tamer, and wrestler.

ROGUE

 

ROGUE

Real Name: Anna Marie LeBeau

First Appearance: Avengers Annual (Vol. 1) #10, October 1981

Powers: Rogue's mutant ability is to absorb the bio-essence of other people upon skin-to-skin contact, processing it to give her access to various aspects of their being. This includes special powers, knowledge, and memories. The absorption process strips a victim of some of their living essence, sending them into shock. They originally would tend to remain unconscious for the entire length of time Rogue possessed their template, and if they did awaken they would be weakened, partially amnesiac, and powerless. Rogue's power originally worked on a 1:60 time ratio: If Rogue was in contact with her victim for 1 second the transfer would be sustained for 60 seconds, 1 minute would sustain it for 60 minutes, and so on. Many factors were known to interfere with the standard operating procedure, though, such as magic, aliens, or strong emotional reactions during the transfer. This interference could take the form of Rogue maintaining active residue of her victim's minds or powers for weeks after the initial contact. During a battle with Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), this ended with Rogue permanently absorbing her, gaining a half-Kree genetic code, Class 50 superhuman strength, superhuman endurance, reflexes, and durability, increased tolerance for disease and poison, and the ability to fly at superhuman speeds. She only occasionally manifested Carol's “Seventh Sense”, allowing her to instinctively predict and move to counterattack an opponent's moves in combat.

After touching the telepathic Skrull Deviant known as Z'Cann, Rogue was transformed for a time into a Skrull. This altered her powers for a brief period so that touching someone not only gave her their powers, it also caused her to duplicate their appearance. Soon, the active Skrull genes faded and her features returned to normal, but now Rogue's powers fluctuated: The residual traces of her past victims were now spontaneously and unexpectedly activating themselves again, suddenly giving her powers like claws, organic metal skin, optic blasts, healing factors, and more. With the help of Sage's jump-start power, Rogue gained control and became capable of summoning up any set of powers from her past that she wished. Unfortunately, major wound trauma suffered at the hands of Vargas stretched her abilities to the limit and she burnt herself out, losing all of her power templates and her absorption power as well for a time.

Her abilities later returned, but her Ms. Marvel powers were gone permanently and her absorption power was working a bit differently. She seemed to be able to prioritize memories when she tapped them now, such as touching a pilot and maintaining his flight skills, while pushing the rest of it to the back of her mind. The effects of her power on other people seemed to be far less intense as well, as victims of a brief touch would only experience a brief dizziness instead of being knocked out for a few minutes. The 1:60 time ratio may still apply to Rogue's ability to maintain an imprint, but not for the effect on her victim. Put simply, originally it was a 1-second contact which gives Rogue their essence for 1 minute and knocking the victim unconscious for the same period of time. At this point, Rogue's victims recovered fast enough that she could absorb a fellow X-Man's powers and the two of them could use those powers together at the same time. She absorbed the powers of Sunfire permanently for a period of time, but never learned to use his abilities much beyond flame-blasting and flight.

After exposure to the viral Strain 88 courtesy of Pandemic, Rogue's power was amplified to uncontrollable levels. Her touch was now instantly fatal to other people, shutting down their minds and permanently rendering them to a vegetative state, while Rogue absorbed their entire lifetime of thoughts and memories. She almost fatally overloaded after making contact with the Hecatomb, a collective psychic entity containing thousands of minds, all of which were absorbed into Rogue's psyche. The psychic shock drove her into a coma until Hope Summers' touch somehow wiped Rogue's mind clean of all foreign presences and influences.

Briefly reduced to more manageable levels, Rogue's powers were perfected after Professor Xavier and Danger worked together to properly realign her powers and give her total control over her abilities. Rogue could now freely touch other people without absorbing from them. She can selectively use her power to absorb someone's abilities or sifting through their memories and skills as she chooses. The side-effects of her power can also be controlled, letting her render people unconscious, active but powerless, or merely momentarily weakened. Rogue can selectively manifest power imprints once she absorbs them: Touching Archangel doesn't give her his wings for a period of time, but the ability to manifest his wings for a period of time. The abilities she absorbs are optional and she can choose to access them sometime after the initial contact or not at all. They can also manifest without secondary indicators, such as when she duplicated Anole's agility and leaping ability without turning green and scaly. Rogue can also combine several absorbed abilities together into creative gestalt powers. She once combined the powers of Dust, Mercury, Rockslide, Gentle, and Armor to transform herself into super-dense shards of silicon-metal, erupting with explosive force while each piece was surrounded with impenetrable psionic force.

Becoming permanently imbued with the ionic flux of Wonder Man granted her ionically-sustained superhuman strength, limitless endurance, invulnerability to physical harm, and supersonic flight speed. A side effect was that she once again lost control of her mutant power. Rogue's powers increased after merging powers with Xandra, so her power would uncontrollably affects anyone within a general proximity.

MS. MARVEL

 

MS. MARVEL

Real Name: Carol Susan Jane Danvers

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 1) #13, March 1968 (as Carol Danvers); Ms. Marvel (Vol. 1) #1, January 1977 (as Ms. Marvel I); The Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #164, December 1982 (as Binary); Avengers (Vol. 3) #4, May 1998 (as Warbird); Avenging Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #9 September 2012 (as Captain Marvel VII)

Powers: Carol Danvers first gained super-powers as a result of the Psyche-Magnetron, a Kree device capable of forming any technological creation known to Kree science with a thought. As the Psyche-Magnetron exploded, the Kree Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) blocked its radiation from striking Carol. However, the radiation actually passed through Mar-Vell, endowing Carol with his traits. Her genetic code was altered to become partially Kree, she assimilated a knowledge of Kree science and battle tactics from Mar-Vell, and she even manifested a "seventh sense", a form of psychic ability possessed by Kree females. Furthermore, the Psyche-Magnetron gave her the power to manifest a costume at will, one equipped with micro-circuitry that in some ways mimicked Mar-Vell's nega bands and their ability to convert psionic energy to increase his physical powers. As a result, Carol possessed superhuman strength, endurance, durability, and the ability to fly at superhuman speeds while wearing this costume. Carol originally developed a split-personality to compensate for the stress her body and mind were placed under -- she kept the original Carol Danvers separate from a new personality (Ms. Marvel) derived from her new Kree knowledge and sensibilities. Even after a second exposure to the Psyche-Magnetron internalized all her super-powers, psychic blocks prevented Carol from accessing her super-strength, flight, etc. when as "Carol". The only power she manifested in her civilian guise was her "seventh sense", which often gave her visions of events and perils that might threaten her in the immediate future. In battle, the sense enabled her to predict her opponent's actions and reflexively counter them. Later, a dimension-traveler named Hecat'e helped Carol break down her mental barriers, and she merged her two personas and could use her powers even out of costume. Despite her mental fusion, Carol was still capable of switching between her costume and civilian clothes at will.

After being leeched by Rogue, all of Carol's super-powers were gone -- only her part-Kree genetic code remained. When she was being genetically experimented on by the Brood, Carol manifested cosmic energy powers, and became Binary. Carol could now harness the power of a white hole, the theoretical exit point for all the energy consumed by a black hole. While in her Binary state, Carol possessed Class 100 strength, near-invulnerability, the ability to fly faster-than-light and survive in the vacuum of space. Her head was aglow with a corona of stellar energy, and flame licked on the ends of her boots and gloves. Her physiology was also realigned to feed off of the energies she channeled, giving her extraordinary stamina and the ability to survive without rest or sustenance. By funneling the white hole's energies, Binary channeled stellar energy in various forms: Unfiltered discharges could virtually incinerate anything in her path. By mentally setting up filtering lenses, she could selectively summon light, heat, solar plasma, radiation, gravity, radio waves, etc., all the things being emitted by a star. She could also pull substance through her body and into the white hole, shunting things like energy or volatile radiation harmlessly out of her environment. This eventually led to the demise of her new powers.

During Operation: Galactic Storm, Binary absorbed anti-matter that was threatening Earth's sun. Sending this material to her personal white hole is apparently the reason it started to collapse, weakening her over time and eventually leaving her with half the power she normally possessed. Now, Carol no longer transforms into a Binary state, has Class 50 strength, more limited but still impressive durability, transonic instead of trans-light flight speeds, and can no longer survive totally unaided in space. She cannot filter her cosmic energy anymore, leaving her with only a single form of photonic energy blast. She can, however, absorb various forms of electromagnetic energy. Carol can be caught off-guard by energy attacks, but when prepared she can take in electromagnetic energy and use it to boost all of her superhuman powers and revitalize her natural stamina as well.

While battling the Brood and a Brood-hunter named Cru, Ms. Marvel and her opponents were caught in a devastating explosion. Cru, a techno-organic entity, was blown to pieces, and a small portion of her repair protocols became lodged in Carol's physiology. This quasi-sentient nanotechnology incorporated itself into Carol's body and began protecting her from harm. These protocols made Carol virtually invincible, dramatically increasing her durability and giving her an enormously powerful healing factor to deal with any injuries she did suffer. It even shielded her mind from outside forms of control, like the Puppet Master. Carol typically turned blue like Cru when the protocols were working. Eventually, the real Cru returned to retrieve her protocols from Ms. Marvel. During the process, the two women merged and separated some more, and Carol's own powers were left dramatically increased by the process. Able to once more achieve her Binary power levels again, Carol ultimately pushed her boosted abilities too far, and began to burn herself out from the inside. She was forced to avoid using her powers at all to keep them under control, but eventually she overloaded in battle anyway, and was killed as her body dispersed itself.

Ms. Marvel survived, but separated into a series of multi-hued energy forms. These energy Marvels were scattered across the world, and possessed many of Carol's powers such as flight and photonic blasts. With the help of the Storytellers, psychic fetuses with reality-manipulating powers, the energy Marvels were reunited into Ms. Marvel for the most part. In fact, the Storytellers created two versions of Carol Danvers: One, a warrior guided by Kree battle instincts and calling herself Ms. Marvel, and two, a writer in Los Angeles named Catherine Donovan who was living a successful, if normal, life. Due to their unique connection, Ms. Marvel's powers increased exponentially the closer she was to Catherine, making her virtually invincible and in a Class 100+ strength level. Eventually, the two women were re-merged into a single being: Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel.

Carol Danvers earned a bachelor's degree from her military intelligence training. A talented journalist excelling as a freelance writer and magazine editor, she also has extensive training in espionage and is a skilled pilot with excellent hand-to-hand combatant skills.