Meggan (character)

Meggan Puceanu^[1] is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually as a supporting character in stories featuring Captain Britain, and the X-Men. A mutant empath and shapeshifting elemental, she was created by writer Alan Moore and artist Alan Davis, and first appeared in Mighty World of Marvel #7 (Dec. 1983), which was published in the United Kingdom by Marvel's British publication arm, Marvel UK.^[2] Her first appearance in an American Marvel publication was in The New Mutants Annual #2 (1986). She eventually chose the codename Gloriana, a name of victory coined by the demons of Hell.^[3]

Publication history

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2016)

Meggan first appears in

Meggan and Brian are wed, with the celebration attended by all their friends (and some enemies) in the 125th issue of Excalibur.[11]

Due to her odd upbringing, for many years, Meggan was naive in many of the aspects of culture, obsessed with television and functionally illiterate. For example, she did not know that Doctor Doom was such a horrific threat, though she soon learned when he attacked the entire team and attempted to destroy England.^[12]

Her Excalibur teammates, over the years, brought her up to speed with Earthly life and knowledge.

Later, the Scarlet Witch caused a hole in reality when she altered it to create the House of M. This set off a multidimensional tidal wave, threatening Otherworld and the other parallel realities of the Omniverse. Meggan and Captain Britain were sent to fix the hole, given only a short amount of time before Saturnyne would destroy the 616 reality to prevent it from hurting the other realities. Working with Princess Royal Elizabeth Glorianna Braddock and Rachel Summers, Meggan and Captain Britain located the hole in reality through which the tidal chaos wave was about to spread. Allowing the others to seal the gap, Meggan ventured into the void beyond and sacrificed herself to briefly slow the progress of the impacting chaotic energies to give Betsy, Rachel, and Captain Britain time to sew the reality tear.^[13]

When reality was restored, only a few remembered what had occurred during the House of M. Captain Britain and the others were among the many who didn't, having only vague memories of the ordeal and believing it to be a dream. As a result, Brian doesn't know about Meggan's sacrifice and has no idea where she is, leaving him in distress.^[14]

Plokta's Dream World

After Pete Wisdom releases the dark and evil magic to prevent the Skrull invasion in England, Plokta, a duke of Hell, tries to make a deal with Captain Britain and reveals what appears to be Meggan in his collection of otherworldly realms.^[15] Captain Britain, knowing it might be merely an illusion, states that he can't take the chance of it being real and plunges through the dimensional gate. After sealing it shut, Plokta informs his underlings that this was merely a dream world and he was delighted that Captain Britain allowed himself to be sealed within it. Within the dream world, Meggan and Captain Britain live at least several weeks believing it to be reality, though Brian expresses doubts about inconsistencies of the world. His train of thought on the subject, however, is disrupted when he and Meggan's quiet lunch in Braddock's pub is attacked by his deceased brother Jamie Braddock.^[16]

Meggan is eventually revealed to still be alive, but lost between dimensions.^[17]

Hell and back

Meggan is soon revealed to be trapped in Hell. Unlike most of its occupants, however, she is not in torment, and still senses hope reaching her from outside of Hell—a fact that disturbs the Lords of Hell greatly. During her audience with them, they trick her into using her empathy, which forces her to assume a hideous and misshapen form and trap her in it. The lords, having "judged" her, quickly exile her into another portion of Hell. However, an angry Meggan lashes out with her empathy, which causes all other lesser demons in her presence to rally behind her, having been affected by her anger. This catches the attention of Pluto, the Roman God of the Underworld (and old enemy of Hercules). They forge an alliance and he restores Meggan to her usual self.^{[volume & issue needed]}

She spends the following months leading her army of demon followers in waging a war against the Lords of Hell, very successfully since her empathy overwhelms the enemy armies, causing them to turn on their respective lords (most noticeably Blackheart). During one such battle, she feels nostalgic and reminisces about her husband Brian. This causes her army to feel happiness, something that they haven't experienced in a while—if at all. The demons name her Gloriana in honor of this feat, and idolize her further. After a while she forms a kingdom, "Elysium", to serve as a sanctuary for souls to escape torment, and gives Pluto part of her conquests in payment.^{[volume & issue needed]}

Following that, she left in hope of searching for a way home. After having wandered through a large part of Hell, she finally finds a crack through which moonlight pours through. Quickly she passes through the crack, only to be greeted by Doctor Doom on the other side, within Dracula's ship departing from the Moon.^[18]

Reunited with Brian

As Dracula begins his invasion of Britain, he is confronted with more resistance than expected, along with some of his vampires resisting him, going as far as even directly disobeying him. Doctor Doom contacts him briefly, telling him that he has left him a gift in his ship's hold. Located in the ship is Meggan, much to Dracula's confusion. However, he soon realizes that Meggan is the reason why his mental hold on the other vampires is growing weaker, since she uses her mental powers to "broadcast rebellion". Dracula attempts to kill her but is stopped by Captain Britain, who is furious at the vampire king. Meggan and Brian battle the vampires and Dracula until the ship and majority of vampires are destroyed via a spell. Once the battle is over, Meggan and Brian are happily reunited.^[19]

Meggan later joined Captain Britain in starting the Braddock Academy.^[20]

During the "Infinity" storyline, Meggan represented the Braddock Academy when Henry Pym planned a "Contest of Champions" event. She assists Henry Pym, She-Hulk and Wolverine in supervising the event.^[21]

Meggan and Brian (Captain Britain) are reunited with their Excalibur teammates as they welcome Nightcrawler back from the dead.^[22]

Powers and abilities

Meggan is a powerful superhuman, an "empathic metamorph" or "elemental megamorph",^[23] with the apparent ability to assume virtually any superhuman power in existence at will. Her abilities include empathy, an elemental link to nature and mystical energies, and shapeshifting.

Meggan's empathy enables her to sense the emotions and feelings of living creatures (from people, to animals, to plants), and including the ability to psionically perceive an object's or person's psychic, natural, and mystical energy aura.^[24] Meggan's empathy has also given her an affinity toward learning both human language and animal communication systems.

Her empathic powers used to make her sensitive to surrounding moods, making her change appearance depending on themselves, their needs, or perceptions, and make her vulnerable to certain telepathic manipulation. Primarily when she herself was either in a vulnerable emotional state, distracted, focused on the person in question or her powers were in a minor flux from lack of mystical sustenance.

She eventually overcame most of the issues of this, and rather learned to broadcast her own feelings to influence other people's emotions to the extent that she incited a rebellion in the part of hell ruled by Blackheart,^[25] and disrupted Dracula's control of his vampires by "broadcasting rebellion".^[26]

Meggan's empathy creates a psionic link to the natural forces of the Earth. By "speaking" to the elements, Meggan can command the environment around her, and her emotional state can affect the local ecosystems. Through thought alone, Meggan can extinguish forest fires, summon gale-force winds, and part the waters of a lake or cause earthquakes in a flash of anger^[