Meggan (character)

Meggan first appears in Marvel UK's Mighty World of Marvel #7 (Dec. 1983), and was created by writer Alan Moore and artist Alan Davis.

Her origin story is told in Captain Britain vol. 2 #8 (Aug. 1985), which was later reprinted in the Captain Britain trade paperback in the U.S.

Meggan's first American appearance is in The New Mutants Annual #2 (1986).

Her original family name is recorded for the first time in 2008 in Captain Britain and MI: 13 #7, and again in Captain Britain and MI: 13 Annual #1 (2009).

Born in a blizzard to a British Romanichal family near Fenborough Station in England, Meggan adapted to the cold by growing fur, to the horror of her family. Unfortunately, as an empathic metamorph, the more they saw her as a monster, the more monstrous she became, growing webbing upon her hands and feet, antennae on her head, claws, and patagia. The belief that she was some sort of monster was also affected by the fact that Meggan's birth took place near an ancient British fortress that was rumoured to be the site of dark magics. Meggan's family hid her away in their camper, where she watched television incessantly, totally immersing herself in the fantasy of the various British TV shows of the time (such as Gerry Anderson fare, Quatermass, Doctor Who and many more). Eventually, she met Captain Britain and fought him, but then befriended him.[4] She fell in love with him, joining him as an adventurer. With him, she first encountered Gatecrasher's Technet.[5] After having been told by a telepath that her inner soul looked as beautiful "as an iridescent butterfly", during combat against a commando of R.C.X.-controlled "Warpies", she stabilized her powers on an attractive form that pleased Brian (and thus pleased her).[6] Captain Britain fell in love right back, and the two began a romantic relationship. Together, they defeated Baba Yaga.[7] The two had a long and stormy courtship, marred by events both cosmic and mundane.

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. Meggan has even been observed causing electromagnetic pulses by commanding the magnetic fields around her, freezing opponents by rapidly dropping the air temperature around them, or increasing the powers of elemental mutants (such as increasing the temperature of Pete Wisdom's heat blasts). Meggan has used her elemental powers to affect man-made objects, such as making the atoms in a building's roof move apart, creating a hole in the roof that resealed itself once Meggan passed through. Meggan can also project very powerful blasts, orbs, waves and beams of elemental energy for different purpose, such as to destroy or hit objects or people with a great force, illuminate an area, etc, as well as generate energy constructions such as force fields or screens of elemental energy. She has also been observed controlling mystical energies. Meggan can also hover and fly; she once commented during a case where she was working undercover that her feet hurt, because she was unused to walking entirely, not seeing the point when she could more easily fly.

By combining her powers with Rachel Summers on an alternate Earth filled with magic, Meggan succeeded in bringing the dead back to life.[27]

Meggan can alter her form at will and can assume the form of any creature, even those who only exist in legends. Initially, she changed forms unconsciously. As a newborn infant, she instinctively adopted a fur-covered, somewhat animal-like form in response to the cold weather around her. Her empathic powers made her vulnerable to the superstitions of her people and their fear of her powers caused her to shapeshift into an increasingly hideous form. It was not until she began adventuring with Captain Britain and working with psychic Alison Double that she came to understand the extent of her powers. Currently, Meggan's usual form is a blond woman with pointed ears (some texts indicate that this form is based, subconsciously, on Captain Britain's expectations). It took several more years for Meggan to discover her natural form: taller than a normal human, with longer platinum blond hair, pointed ears, and black eyes.

Meggan can add to her mass and shed this additional mass at will. Meggan adopts the special abilities, superhuman powers, and even aspects of the internal anatomy of whatever being she uses her metamorphic powers to imitate. She once became a Godzilla-like fire-breathing dragon, and on another occasion she became a werewolf that had all of a wolf's natural abilities. Meggan can assume the form of other people as well. Her facial features and overall physical appearance often change to a degree with her mood. Although she retains better control of her form as an adult, Meggan may consciously or unconsciously alter her appearance to resemble people or even animals she is with at the time and still occasionally changes form in response to the emotions around her: becoming beautiful when she feels loved, or hideous when she feels fear or anger, or she might become considerably less attractive when deeply depressed. Usually, this happens when she is under stress or spends significant time away from the British Isles. Her elemental powers also cause Meggan to change in response to her surroundings, growing fur in extreme cold, or gills when she is submerged or swimming underwater.

She can increase the density of her muscle tissue to boost her strength and/or speed to superhuman levels, shown capable of exceeding that of Captain Britain on two separate occasions.[28] The use of this power is tied to the planet itself. During her confrontation with Galactus, she grew in stature to match the planet-eater's size, but the taller she grew, the more she was destabilizing the environment nearby.[29]

Meggan's most formidable talent is her ability to instantly mimic the powers of other superhumans, in one case turning into fully empowered duplicates of Dazzler, Rogue, Colossus, Longshot, Storm, Wolverine, Rachel Summers, and Havok in rapid succession.[30] Given sufficient magic energy in her surroundings she has even effortlessly turned into a female copy of the Silver Surfer.[31] She has also transformed herself into sentient sand or water, and attained the associated properties.

Meggan is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, trained by Captain Britain. She has no formal education and is self-taught about contemporary culture through television viewing, although her allies from Excalibur take the time to bring her 'up to speed'.

• In 2014, Entertainment Weekly ranked Meggan 90th in their "Let's rank every X-Man ever" list.[32]
• In 2018, CBR.com ranked Meggan 5th in their "20 Most Powerful Mutants From The '80s" list.[33]

On Earth-597, a world where the Nazis have won World War II, Meggan is a member of that reality's equivalent of Excalibur, Lightning Force.[34]

The world of Earth-1189 was devastated by nuclear war. After the death of her Brian Braddock, Meggan takes over the mantle of Captain Britain and becomes a member of the Corps.[35][36]

On Earth-99746, a world populated by humanoid dinosaurs,[37] the Excalibur-equivalent contains an alternate version of Meggan called Megon who helps defeat the Fantastic Five before traveling to Earth-616.[38]

Two different versions of Meggan appear in the Secret Wars storyline; one version is from the domain Higher Avalon where she is carrying Brian Braddock's baby. The other version appears as a member of A-Force in the domain Arcadia.

• 1986: Won "Favourite Supporting Character" Eagle Award.

• Meggan at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• Meggan at the International Catalogue of Superheroes
• Meggan at the Marvel Universe
• Meggan at UncannyXmen.Net
• Meggan at ComicVine.com
• illustrated biography of Meggan's discovery of her shape-shifting abilities