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Medusa was the first of two children born to the Inhuman
nutritionists Quelin and Ambur. Her father Quelin was the
brother of Rynda, wife of Agon, king of the Inhumans, and as
such she has been considered part of the Royal Family.
Medusa's parents elected to expose her to the
mutagenic Terrigen Mist when she was an infant, and the
process endowed her with hair that she could animate like
added appendages. While still in adolescence she began to
make frequent visits to the isolation cell of her second
cousin, Black Bolt, and learned to communicate with him in a
special sign language. Medusa and Black Bolt developed a
special bond between them that blossomed into love when
Black Bolt was first allowed out of his cell at the age of
eighteen. |
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In the
aftermath of the first coming of the Trikon, Medusa left the
Inhumans' Great Refuge. Afflicted with amnesia sustained in
an air crash, the Inhuman wandered Europe, committing petty
thefts to get food to survive. Her animated hair
soon brought her unwanted attention, and
eventually the American criminal called the
Wizard heard rumors of her. Locating Medusa in
Paris, the Wizard brought her to America and
enlisted her in the Frightful Four, a band of
criminals he had organized. Medusa went along with the criminal
activities of the Frightful Four since she felt grateful to
the Wizard for her rescue and had nothing better to do.
The Frightful Four battled the
Fantastic Four, and all but Medusa were captured.
Medusa's public exploits enabled Black Bolt and the other
members of the Royal Family, who had been exiled from the
Great Refuge by Black Bolt's mad brother Maximus, to locate
her. Seeing them again restored her memory, and they were
all taken back to the Great Refuge by the Seeker, an agent
of Maximus. |
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When Black
Bolt regained the throne, Medusa renewed her betrothal to
him and served as his royal interpreter. She has remained at
his side as his constant companion for most of the time
since, seeing the Inhumans through one of their most
tumultuous periods in history. Although Medusa has taken
various short journeys from the Inhumans' base Attilan
without Black Bolt (once where she engaged Spiderman in
battle, another time to thwart the reunion of the Frightful
Four), she has only left his side for a period of months
twice. The first time she joined the Fantastic Four to take
the Invisible Girl's place on
the team during her estrangement from her husband. The
second time, she was taken captive by the criminal Enclave,
who sought to conquer Attilan.
Medusa has
recently wed Black Bolt, thus becoming the queen of the Inhumans, after the customary several year royal engagement
period was over. She and Black Bolt are expecting a child.
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Medusa possesses the normal
strength of a female Inhuman of her age,
height, and weight who engages in moderate
regular exercise, Due to generations of
eugenics, Inhumans are superior to humans in
strength, reaction time, stamina, resistance
to injury, and speed. Known Superhuman
Powers: Medusa possesses a long, thick head
of hair, every strand of which has greater
tensile strength, modulus of
elasticity, and shear resistance than an
iron wire of the same thickness (average
hair diameter: .045 inches), as well as the
psychokinetic ability to animate her hair
for a number of feats. Her hair,
approximately 6 feet in length while
relaxed, can elongate to almost twice its
normal length with only about a 25% loss of
overall tensile strength. One strand of
hair, 2-feet long, can support 6.4 pounds, a
list-sized lock of hair can support about
750 pounds and her whole head of hair can
lift about 3,200 pounds (1.6 tons). A
portion of her hair must be used to anchor
the rest at these greater weights, so that
more than her scalp/skull is used as a
brace. |
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Medusa can
control the movement of her hair as if it
were countless thin appendages growing from
her head. |
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A psionic field permeates her
mutagenic ally altered hair-cells, causing
mutual attraction across the gaps between
strands. These relatively
small forces operate in conjunction to develop larger
forces. Through
concentration, she can psionically move her hair in any manner
imaginable. She can snap the length of it
through the air like a whip (the tip of
which moves faster than the speed of sound),
or rotate it in a fan-like manner. She can
bind persons or objects with it as if it
were rope or use it to lift objects which
weigh more than she could lift with her
arms. (Her scalp, skull, and neck do not
support the weight of an object that she
lifts: it is held aloft by the psionic force
coursing through the hair.) Medusa can also
perform delicate manipulations with her hair
such as lock picking or threading a needle,
and such complex acts of coordination as
typing or shuffling a deck of cards.
Although she has no nerve endings in her
hair, she can "feel" sensations on all parts
of her hair by a form of mental feedback
from her psionic field. |
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