Monica Rappaccini

Monica Rappaccini debuted in Amazing Fantasy vol. 2 #7 (2005),[3] created by Fred Van Lente and Leonard Kirk.[4] She appeared in the 2007 Super-Villain Team-Up MODOK's 11 series.[5] She appeared in the 2017 The Unstoppable Wasp series.[6] She appeared in the 2020 Ravencroft series.[7]

Monica Rappaccini went to New Mexico's Desert State University to study and shared a brief relationship with physics student Robert Bruce Banner while enrolled as a biochemistry student at the University of Padua. She used their relationship to exploit Banner's radiation expertise for her own research. Upon attaining her doctorate, Rappaccini quickly became a world-renowned innovator of antitoxins and antidotes for various environmental poisons and nearly won a Nobel Prize.[8]

Recognizing the many environmental and political failings of Western civilization, Monica Rappaccini decided that it was too corrupt to exist. She joined a series of terrorist organizations, such as the pan-European leftist group the Black Orchestra, and then Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), where she had a brief relationship with fellow agent George Tarleton.[9] Making poisons instead of curing them, Rappaccini's expertise with toxins allowed her to rise quickly through A.I.M.'s ranks. She implanted her own daughter and several other newborn children of A.I.M. members with memetic antibodies. She released them into the world as A.I.M. Waker agents with no knowledge of their heritage. They programmed to travel instinctively to the nearest A.I.M. biohaven when their antibodies activated at age 16. Her daughter was raised in Vermont by undercover A.I.M. agents as Carmilla Black .[10]

Monica Rappaccini went underground for nearly two decades and studied potential power sources such as the sentient Uni-Power. She orchestrated attacks on capitalism, such as the dioxin-based gas attack on Hong Kong. When the A.I.M. Scientist Supreme was slain by renegade A.I.M. creation MODOK, Rappaccini became head of a splinter faction of A.I.M. that remained independent from MODOK's control. Following his numerous defeats, Rappaccini's splinter group absorbed more cells into a sizable rival faction. She was made Scientist Supreme of this "true" version of A.I.M.[11] She rarely did field work as A.I.M.'s leader, preferring to act through agents and proxies.

When she led an A.I.M. attack on the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, it was thwarted by her estranged 19-year-old daughter, who had since joined forces with S.H.I.E.L.D. and became the costumed superheroine the Scorpion II. Monica Rappaccini eluded capture and soon attempted to harness the malfunctioning Uni-Power, but her plans were thwarted by the Scorpion II and several superheroes who bonded with the Uni-Power.

Her A.I.M. faction was involved in an A.I.M. civil war against MODOK's faction that drew in several of the Marvel superheroes, prominent among them Ms. Marvel[12] and the Hulk.[13] Following Ms. Marvel's thwarting of a plan to turn MODOK into a bomb, Monica Rappaccini reunited the organization under her control.[14]

She infiltrated the supervillain group MODOK's 11 with A.I.M.'s new robot the Ultra-Adaptoid, which was impersonating the Chameleon. She attempted to prevent MODOK from obtaining a weapon called the Hypernova and using it to erase all life on Earth. She had a stated aim to stop A.I.M. from creating "inventions that turn around and try to destroy us." In the end, MODOK gained the Hypernova, and Monica gave him $1 billion dollars in exchange for it - which, unknown to her, had been MODOK's plan all along, as he had already worked out that the Hypernova would grow unstable and explode anyway. A.I.M.'s base was destroyed in the explosion and MODOK believed Monica was dead.[15]

During the "Dark Reign" storyline, it is revealed that Monica Rappaccini survived and came into conflict with Mockingbird and Ronin.[16] She also hired Deadpool to retrieve a batch of baby M.O.D.O.C.'s enhanced to warp reality from H.A.M.M.E.R. headquarters.[17]

After a failed attempt to persuade Hank Pym to join A.I.M., she and her followers were stranded on Earth-Charnel when the Wasp deactivated her facility's dimensional screen.[18]

Monica Rappaccini and A.I.M. later sided with Norman Osborn after he escaped from prison and reformed H.A.M.M.E.R.[19] Following Osborn's defeat, she and A.I.M. end up retreating.[20]

During the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, Noh-Varr located a secret A.I.M. base where Monica Rappaccini and the A.I.M. agents that escaped following Osborn's defeat were hiding out. The Avengers raided the base and arrested Monica and the other A.I.M. members that were present at the time.[21]

She then escaped from prison and fought the new Wasp. Monica Rappaccini was later seen as a member of J.A.N.U.S.[22]

Monica Rappaccini is an expert in robotics, chemistry, physics, engineering, biotoxins, and biochemistry.[23] Her inventions include the enhanced lymphatic system of the A.I.M. Waker agents that granted them total immunity to all biological, chemical and radiological weapons, memetic antibodies, synthetic microbes that attack the human psyche and trigger pre-coded memories and impulses, hallucinogenic drugs that deliver programmed hallucinations before being absorbed into the system; and many innovative weapons of mass destruction, from gas attacks to nanobacterial bombs.

Her A.I.M. uniform belt contains a phasing device that allows her to teleport.[24] She keeps many different devices at hand, varying upon her situation and opponent. When facing a captured Hank Pym, she boasts that she kept 157 methods of containing him on hand.[18]

Melody MacReady of Screen Rant called Monica Rappaccini one of the "most ruthless villains of the Marvel Universe," writing, "Monica is manipulative, prejudiced, murderous, and proud of what she does; this was best shown when she was one of the best villains in the game Marvel's Avengers."[25]

• Monica Rappaccini on Marvel Database, a Marvel Comics wiki