Once he was Arthur Douglas, a so-so jazz musician, as I recall. He ended up dying next to a burning car in the desert between Vegas and Reno. He was my father. I was with him that time, also. But Death wasn't the end for dad, just the terrible beginning. There was this cosmic entity named Kronos who needed a champion to keep Thanos in line. He grabbed my dad's soul and used it to animate his hero. So pop became the lumbering behemoth known as Drax the Destroyer. I guess even back then part of me still loved the guy. Didn't stop me, though, from killing him a second time. 
- —Moondragon[src]
History
Early life
Heather Douglas was the daughter of Arthur Douglas, whose reanimated corpse was made into Drax the Destroyer. When Heather was still a girl, her father was driving her and her mother through the desert when they accidentally happened to see the spaceship of Thanos land; the space villain didn't want any witnesses, so he blew their car up. Heather was thrown clear off and survived, but her parents were killed. She was found by Thanos' father, Mentor, who took her to his home world, Titan, to be raised by the Titanian Shao-Lorn monks in their monastery. While there, Heather studied the Titans' ways and disciplines to unlock her latent psychic potential and gained her mental and physical powers. However, she came under the influence of a powerful entity called The Dragon of the Moon; she believed she had resisted it, which filled her with pride, and she took the name Moondragon as a result.[7]
Sometime later, Thanos attacked Titan, destroying the monastery and the Shao-Lom monks. Moondragon escaped in her spaceship and fled to Earth.
Avengers
She first returned to Earth under the guise of "Madam MacEvil" for the purpose of developing means to combat Thanos; this led to the creations of some villains, like Angar the Screamer. She forced Iron Man to battle Namor in order to study them.[8] She then revealed her true identity and helped the Avengers in their first confrontation with Thanos, as well as becoming an applicant for membership for a time. Moondragon was one of the three candidates to be the "Celestial Madonna" who was prophesied to give birth to a universal savior, but she lost to Mantis. While with the Avengers, she met Patricia Walker who became the heroine Hellcat.[9] Even though Walker wanted to join the Avengers, Moondragon convinced her to accompany her to Titan so she could train her.[10]
Moondragon was present when the Avengers confronted Korvac; her powers allowed her to see into his mind while they fought, and she decided that his goal of saving the universe by ruling it was noble; she stayed out of the battle until Korvac, dejected, committed suicide.[11]
New Defenders
Moondragon left Earth with her father (who was now Drax) and found a planet immersed in war, so she decided to take mental control of all its inhabitants to force them to live in peace. This caused her to believe herself to be like a goddess. When Drax confronted her, she killed him with her mental powers. The Avengers intervened, and Thor took her before a real god -- his father, Odin, to be judged.[6] Odin perceived within Moondragon a stalwart but tainted spirit. He condemned her to wear a magical headband that would reduce her mental powers until she had overcome her arrogance. He also assigned The Valkyrie to be her guardian.[12]
When Valkyrie rejoined the Defenders, Moondragon was forced to come along. She soon discovered that the Dragon of the Moon had been influencing her all along. She managed to reject it fully, and for the first time, started to gain friends in the team; eventually, the headband came loose by itself. Unfortunately, soon after she was infected with mutated spores and started to die; the Dragon appeared again and told her it could save her life, but only if she agreed to be its host. She accepted, and, now an evil being, battled the Defenders, until four of them sacrificed themselves to kill both her and the Dragon.[13]
Resurrection
Heather's soul managed to survive, and, now free from the Dragon again, contacted a cousin of hers; through her, she was able to obtain a new body for herself, a clone created on Titan. For a while, she and her cousin, who became the heroine Sundragon, adventured together in space.[14]
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H.D. Steckley
After Quasar was appointed Protector of the Universe, Moondragon insinuated herself into his life. She was convinced that in time, Quasar would realize they were eminently qualified to be the universe's most cosmic coupling. Quasar, however, asserted that qualifications have nothing to do with feelings and rebuffed her. She eventually got the message and lost interest in him.[15]
Infinity Watch
When Adam Warlock sought people to help him safeguard the Infinity Gems, he chose Moondragon to keep the Mind Gem -- but only after erecting safeguards so Moondragon could not exploit the gem's full power. Still, she agreed to join his team, the Infinity Watch.[16] She eventually lost the gem when it was stolen by Rune.[17]
Lesbian Relationship
Moondragon later became an associate of Genis (the third Captain Marvel), determined to help him control his cosmic awareness. During this time, she fell in love with Marlo Chandler, the wife of Rick Jones (whom Captain Marvel was bonded to). The two eloped on a lesbian relationship to the reluctant understanding of Rick. Sometime later, Marlo got over her feelings for Moondragon and decided to return to Rick. Moondragon told her she must have accidentally prodded her telepathically into the relationship, but this was a lie to make the break-up easier. In truth, Moondragon was heartbroken; she left shortly after with Phyla-Vell.[18]
Annihilation
During the Annihilation War, Moondragon and Phyla-Vell returned, visiting the graves of Mar-Vell and Genis-Vell. At that time though, Thanos appeared, and kidnapped Moondragon, using her as a hostage to draw out Drax the Destroyer for an unknown purpose. He also used her to read Annihilus' mind and upon learning that the Lord of the Negative Zone intended to use the captive Galactus to destroy all life in both their universe and the Negative Zone, chose to turn against Annihilus. But before Thanos could free Galactus, Drax arrived and killed Thanos by tearing out his heart. Thankfully, Drax was able to coerce the Silver Surfer into releasing his master. The Devourer of Worlds then teleported to safety as he destroyed a great portion of the Annihilation Wave.[19]
Quasar and Heather in her dragon form
Surviving the Annihilation Wave, Heather and Phyla (now Quasar) were traveling to assist the Kree outworlds when Phyla began receiving telepathic messages saying she had "the savior". The two took on the mission to find the savior to free the Kree Empire from the Phalanx. During the adventure, Heather transformed into the 'Dragon of the Moon'. Despite the fact that she would never be able to return to human form, Phyla remained by her lover's side. Their time together was ultimately short as the leader of the Phalanx, Ultron, killed her by plunging his arm into her chest. Heather died in Phyla's arms.[20]
Guardians of the Galaxy
As before, Douglas was able to return to the living and returned to her human form.[21] She has since joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and continues to adventure with them. With Phyla's death at the hands of Adam Magus, Moondragon took it upon herself to become a field agent for the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, she became host to an alien parasite originating in a parallel universe across the Fault, a time-space tear created by Black Bolt's Terrigen Bomb. Worse, she was biometrically cuffed by Cynosure, leader of the Luminals, who intended to have the creature tried for killing one of her fellow Luminals. To make things worse, members of the Church of Universal Truth kidnapped Moondragon and Cynosure, seeing the parasite as a god, whom they intended to birth. Luckily, the Guardians and Luminals mounted a joint rescue attempt and extracted the two. With the help of Knowhere's medical staff, they were able to remove the organism from Moondragon. During these experiences, Moondragon had visions of a cocoon and Phyla being alive.[22] Sadly, Phyla was killed by a resurrected Thanos, which caused Heather to lash out at him before Star-Lord subdued the Mad Titan with the Cosmic Cube.[23]
Attributes
 |
Powers
Psionics: Heather Douglas was one of the most powerful human born telepaths ever. Douglas has repeatedly demonstrated mental psionic energy usage far in advance of all human and human mutants including that of the world-renowned telepaths such as Professor Charles Xavier, Emma Frost and Jean Grey (without the enhancement of the Phoenix Force).
Douglas' most notable psychic actions were the complete mental enslavement of an entire warring planet of people,[24] psionically stalemating the sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange for an extended period of time, and mentally killing a clone of Thanos endowed with psionic powers greater than Professor X,[25] as well as being able to pierce the mental barriers of Galactus and even enabling Thanos to almost overwhelm the devourer's mind when channeling her powers.[26] All feats beyond that of Xavier and most other noted human and human mutant psychics.
Unlike human mutants such as Xavier whose powers operate as part of their biology, all of Douglas' mental powers originate from her supreme level of mental discipline, hence her concentration and ability to focus on the accomplishment of that task. All of Douglas' mental processes are largely maintained subconsciously as the power and its effects will continue if she is rendered unconscious or falls asleep as done when her control of an entire planet's populace. But she must always consciously initiate the process for it to be done.
If Douglas is distracted or unable to focus her mind to accomplish an event, she can be rendered completely mentally powerless as shown when Rick Jones held her captive with a pair of headphones pumping heavy metal tracks.[27]
Douglas' mental psionic powers include:
Telepathy: Douglas possesses the ability to contact sentient minds both organic and mechanical based, as well as cosmic beings such as Galactus. Her telepathic abilities include mind-control, mental attacks, mental shielding, personality alteration, memory erasure, memory modification. Douglas telepathic range is virtually limitless, as she is able to contact minds scattered throughout a solar system without enhancement devices such as Xavier's Cerebro.
Telekinesis: Douglas's telekinetic range is low to moderate as she can only levitate herself and one or two others at the same time. Douglas can "push" her telekinetic ability on herself to attain flight or against another a single person as effective concussive blasts.
Dragon form: For a time, Moondragon gained the ability to assume the form of her namesake: A superhumanly strong and durable dragon, capable of faster-than-light speed travel and surviving in outer space without air. It is unknown whether or not she retains this ability.[28]
She was stated to have a "planetary" threat level by the Nova Corps.[29]Abilities
- Genius Scientist: Douglas is an expert in various advanced Titanian sciences as well as Earth human sciences. She has been able to give powers to Ramrod and Angar the Screamer,[30] and was able to give Daredevil his eyesight back.[31]
- Master Martial Artist: Douglas is a superb alien hand-to-hand combatant, trained by the Titanian monks of Shao-Lom who were veteran practitioners in martial arts. Douglas is well versed in pressure points. And she has even defeated Mantis,[32] Psylocke,[33] and Captain America[34] in hand-to-hand combat.
- Aviation: Douglas is a skilled starship pilot.[1]
- Nervous System Control: Mental and physical disciplines gave her improved control over her autonomic body functions, including those of heartbeat, bleeding, breathing, and pain reception.[35]
Weaknesses
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Weapons
Transportation
Notes
- Heather's and Marlo's lesbian relationship was rare for a mainstream comic book at the time, especially with two established characters.
- The fact that Heather, although a born human, has acquired psychic powers is of extreme importance, as it indicates that the human brain has the potential of self-evolving to the level of a mutant's brain, even without the aid of the X-gene.
Trivia
See Also
- 331 appearance(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 24 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 53 minor appearance(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 33 mention(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 17 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 181 image(s) of Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 15 quotation(s) by or about Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
- 1 item(s) used/owned by Heather Douglas (Earth-616)
Links and References
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition #9
- Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Master Edition
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Iron Man #54
- ↑ Quasar #11
- ↑ Avengers (Vol. 3) #2
- ↑ Solo Avengers #16
- ↑ Annihilation #2
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Avengers #219–220
- ↑ Defenders #138
- ↑ Iron Man #54
- ↑ Avengers #144
- ↑ Avengers #150
- ↑ Avengers #177
- ↑ Defenders #125
- ↑ Defenders #152
- ↑ Solo Avengers #20
- ↑ Quasar #11–29
- ↑ Warlock and the Infinity Watch #2
- ↑ Rune/Silver Surfer #1
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 5) #24
- ↑ Annihilation #2–6
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #3
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #11
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #19–24
- ↑ Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #25
- ↑ Avengers #220
- ↑ Infinity Abyss
- ↑ Thanos #3
- ↑ Captain Marvel (Vol. 4) #6
- ↑ Annihilation: Conquest #2
- ↑ Annihilation: The Nova Corps Files #1
- ↑ Daredevil #105
- ↑ Daredevil #106
- ↑ Fantastic Four Annual #25
- ↑ Infinity War #4
- ↑ Warlock and the Infinity Watch #27
- ↑ Defenders #143
- ↑ Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide #2
- ↑ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z Vol 1 7