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Featuring the following heroine!
Moonstone
by Sean McQuaid
Real name: Doctor Karla Sofen
AKA: Meteorite
First appearance: As Dr. Sofen, Captain America 192. As Moonstone, Incredible Hulk 228. As Meteorite, Incredible Hulk 449.
Favorite quote, Moonstone: "The moment I clutched the stone, I knew I had the power I had sought all my life!" (Incredible Hulk 229. It's the same old story: girl meets rock, girl absorbs rock, girl becomes power-mad super-villain...)
Favorite quote, Meteorite: "It's a dangerous world -- and innocent people need someone to keep them safe." (Thunderbolts 1. Crafty Karla puts on her best super-heroic face for the media as Meteorite.)
Team affiliation: Celebrated psychiatrist Karla Sofen got her criminal start as an assistant to villainous head-shrinker Doctor Faustus, and narrowly escaped capture when Captain America busted the good Doctor's gang. After using cruel and unusual psychology to steal the mysterious lunar rock that empowered one of her patients, the super-criminal Moonstone (Byron Becton), Karla bonded with the stone and used its power to become an agent of the criminal Corporation as the new Moonstone. She went freelance when the Corporation collapsed, later teaming with criminals such as Blackout and becoming a mainstay of the Masters of Evil. She has since joined several other Masters in assuming new identities as a supposedly super-heroic team called the Thunderbolts. As Meteorite, Karla is the Thunderbolts' second-in-command, just as she was in the Masters of Evil under Egghead and, later, Baron Zemo. Zemo, now the Thunderbolts' leader as Citizen V, knows better than to trust Sofen too far, though; her intelligence, raw power and persuasive skills make her an invaluable aide, but her ambition also makes her a potentially dangerous one. No matter who's in charge, Moonstone has a knack for making people see things her way.
Powers: A cunning criminal psychiatrist and master manipulator, Karla is extremely adept at influencing people's feelings and behavior to her advantage. She also has various superhuman powers thanks to the moonstone she absorbed into her body; it gives her a superhuman physique (she can press 10 tons), the power of flight, the ability to phase through solid objects, and the ability to emit light (including blinding luminescence and laser-like force beams). Her Moonstone costume is an extension of the moonstone itself, and she can manifest it in place of other clothing at will (and vice versa) via molecular acceleration, which is also the basis of her phasing power.
Favorite storyline: Moonstone was at her conniving best in her super-powered debut (Incredible Hulk 228-229), when she smoothly infiltrated Gamma Base for purposes of industrial espionage. She not only managed to evade exposure and capture, but also verbally drove General "Thunderbolt" Ross to a nervous breakdown and almost did the same to the Hulk, setting his psychotherapy back by years just for the heck of it. This story established her as the kind of villainess you love to hate. Moonstone also shone as a member of Zemo's Masters of Evil (circa Avengers 270-277), and is playing a prominent role in the promising new Thunderbolts series.
Least favorite storyline: Moonstone hasn't starred in many real turkeys yet, though I suppose getting taken down by disco queen turned reluctant adventurer Dazzler (in Dazzler 32) could be considered a career low. She also appeared in the first issue of Avengers Unplugged--a story that wasn't especially unkind to Moonstone herself, but made for a pretty lame comic regardless. Ditto for "The Superia Strategem", a Captain America storyline in which Moonstone and almost all the other Marvel villainesses were recruited to assist in a mad plot to rid the world of men. Goofy stuff, though Moonstone herself only played a very minor role in it--zapping Cap and being zapped in turn by Paladin early on.
