Real Name: Marrina Smallwood
Occupation: Former adventurer, now queen of Deluvia
Identity: Although she has no dual identity, her existence is not known to the general public. She is publicly known in Deluvia.
Legal Status: Naturalized citizen of Canada, with no criminal record, citizen of Deluvia
Former Aliases: None
Place of Hatching: Newfoundland, Canada
Marital Status: Married
Known Relatives: Thomas (foster father), Gladys (foster mother), Daniel (foster parents' grandson), Namor (husband)
Group Affiliation: Former member of Gamma Flight and Beta Flight, current member of Alpha flight
Base of Operations: Deluvia, Atlantic Ocean
First Appearance: ALPHA FLIGHT #1

History: At least tens of thousands of years ago, an extraterrestrial race called the Plodex had, through overpopulation, exhausted the natural resources of their native planet. They had, moreover, completely colonized their moons and the neighboring planets. Dedicated to further expansion, the Plodex conquered thousands of worlds over the following centuries and stripped them of their resources. The Plodex devised a special method of conquest. Great numbers of colonization starships were sent to worlds whose dominant life forms were still in the early stages of their cultural development. Only one such starship would be sent to a planet. No adult Plodex traveled in these starships, which functioned entirely automatically, but each starship held millions of Plodex eggs. The colonization starship would land in the region of the planet that it determined to be the most inhospitable to the native fauna. The starship would draw elements from the planet and, over the next hundred Earth years, rebuild itself into a vast colonization complex that was rooted into the planet. Once the rebuilding was complete, the complex would send out a hypnotic signal that would induce representatives of each mobile form of life on the planet to come to the complex. The most intelligent species that survived the journey to the complex would be judged to be the planet's dominant life form. The complex would then take the specimen of that species prisoner, and dissect and thoroughly analyze its physical and genetic structure. That genetic structure would then be imprinted upon the chromosomes of the cells of each of the Plodex eggs. The virtually indestructible eggs would then be fired on ballistic paths that would emerge from the eggs would have genetic structures that were partly that of the Plodex, and partly that of the planet's dominant life form. According to Plodex biology, each egg is part of a pair, and the creatures which hatch from the pair of eggs grow up to be each other's mates. Not all of the hatchlings will survive, much less find their mates, but many out of the millions of each world will do both. Furthermore, each hatchling has been genetically programmed to conquer. As a result, the hatchlings in many cases succeed in dominating the planet.

One of these colony ships was launched 50,000 years ago. After 10,000 years in space, one of its drive units exploded, and the ship crashed in northern Asia on Earth during the Ice Age. Damaged by the crash, the starship fired off its supply of eggs before they had received their genetic programming to enable them to survive on this planet. One of the eggs landed in the ocean and drifted across its floor for 40,000 years. In order to survive, the egg became water permeable, and the adaptable creature within the egg became amphibious. The egg was finally discovered twenty years ago by fisherman Thomas Smallwood. His wife Gladys forced the egg open. The creature within the egg, still primed for genetic conditioning, instantly took on humanoid form as soon as it made contact with the cells of Gladys Smallwood's body. Thus, Gladys Smallwood saw a humanoid infant hatch from the egg. Thomas and Gladys Smallwood adopted the infant, whom they named Marrina since Thomas found her egg at sea, and raised her as their daughter. Neither the Smallwoods nor anyone else in their community suspected Marrina's alien origin, and instead believed that genetic defects were responsible for her unusual appearance. Marrina had been "damaged" in her hatching, and therefore had no conscious drive to conquer, nor was she dominated by savage instincts. Instead, she had a normal Earth girl's personality.

When Marrina seemed to reach maturity, Thomas Smallwood's grandson Daniel told James McDonald Hudson of the Canadian government's Department H about her superhuman abilities. Marrina agreed to join Gamma Flight, the entry level training team for the government's recently organized super-agent program. She worked her way into Beta Flight, the transitional training team, and became eligible for Alpha Flight, the team of active agents, just as the program lost its federal funding. She joined Alpha Flight when it became an independently operated team of adventurers. It was not until after she joined Alpha Flight that she learned of her true origin through encounters with the Master.

The man who became the Master had been captured forty thousand years ago by the Plodex starship that had come to Earth. In studying the captive, the starship's mechanisms painfully destroyed most of his body, keeping only his brain alive. The brain eventually established control over the starship's computer system and commanded the ship to construct a new, perfect human body for himself. Finally, in recent times, the Master decided to embark on world conquest. But he had become so much a part of the starship that he was unable to free himself from it.

The Master learned that two of the Plodex who had been contained in the ship's eggs had hatched and existed at the present time: Marrina and another Plodex, who would presumably serve as her mate. The Master was determined to destroy both Marrina and the other surviving Plodex being, in order to revenge himself upon the Plodex race for the torture he had suffered, and also to thwart the Plodex plans for conquest of Earth by means of the Plodex who had survived there. The Master broadcast a hypnotic signal that unleashed Marrina's submerged savage instincts temporarily, and which forced her to come to the starship. The Master then directed the starship's mechanisms to take her prisoner and torture her. While she was his prisoner, the Master informed her of her true, alien origin. The other members of Alpha Flight came to her rescue and, as the Master had intended, destroyed so much of the starship's mechanisms that the Master was freed from the starship, and he escaped. The Master hoped that Marrina too would have been destroyed, but she survived along with the rest of Alpha Flight and their allies on the mission, the Invisible Woman and Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner.

Namor invited Marrina to accompany him to Atlantis, and the two soon became lovers. In an encounter with the alien Collector, Marrina saw inhuman-looking, savage Plodex that he had collected on other planets and kept on his starship. Marrina was disturbed to see these other Plodex.

The Master found the other surviving member of the Plodex on Earth, which had a monstrous form and was fully given over to its instincts to kill and to dominate. The Master permitted the creature to commit a series of murders in Canada as it studied human beings, Earth's dominant life form, which it was genetically programmed to imitate in appearance. The Master knew that eventually Alpha Flight, especially Marrina, would investigate the killings. Indeed, the Alpha Flight member named Puck summoned Marrina to search for the creature. As she approached the creature, she was greatly affected by chemical stimuli it gave off, which finally triggered her savage instincts once more. She returned to attack Puck, and then battled the Sub-Mariner, who had followed her to Canada. The Master captured Marrina, Namor, and Puck and took them to his submarine. There the still savage Marrina confronted the other surviving Plodex and came to believe it was her intended mate. Marrina, Namor, and Puck escaped, and the Master's submarine exploded, but Marrina allowed Namor to think she had disappeared, and perhaps been killed in the blast. She had reverted to her normal self, and was overcome with shame over her savage instincts and the way she had wanted to give in to them. Believing herself to be a monster, Marrina departed from Puck to lead a solitary life at sea.

Having overcome her savage tendencies, Marrina has married Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner and has become Queen of his new undersea kingdom Deluvia. When Deluvia failed and the Sub-Mariner returned to the surface world as an outcast, Marrina left with him. The Sub-Mariner then accepted membership with the hero team Avengers, and Marrina became an associate of the team.

Unaware of that she was pregnant, Marrina's condition triggered a transformation into a huge savage sea creature resembling the mythical Leviathan. After sinking several fleets of ships and ravaging Atlantis, the Avengers hunted her down. Ultimately, it was the Sub-Mariner who mortally wounded her with the Black Knight's Ebony Blade. Marrina, whose body had changed back into its normal form, was then buried by the Sub-Mariner with the honor fitting one who had been his mate and an associate of the Avengers.

Later, the Avengers uncovered a nest made of the remnants of the Leviathan's destruction and eggs, which had already hatched. Presumably an unknown number of offspring had fled into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

Height: 6 ft.
Weight: 200 lbs.
Eyes: Black
Hair: Green
Skin: Pale yellow
Unusual Features: Marrina has gills, large fish-like eyes, and webbed hands and feet.

Strength Level: Marrina has superhumanly strong physiology enabling her to withstand the pressure changes beneath the sea as well as granting her superhuman strength on land. The exact limit of her strength is unknown.

Known Superhuman Powers: Marrina possesses numerous superhuman traits making her totally amphibious: she can exist indefinitely on land or under the sea. She has highly efficient gills that enable her to extract oxygen from water as well as lungs which enable her to breathe in the air. Marrina's superhuman physiology enables her to withstand the freezing temperatures of the Arctic Ocean without injury or impairment.

Marrina's hydrodynamic proportions, sleek skin, webbed extremities, and superhuman strength aid her in swimming. She can travel underwater faster than one of the fastest known sea creatures, the bottle-nosed dolphin. Marrina has been timed at speeds approaching 48 miles per hour (51 knots), averaged over a period of several hours, when swimming in a conventional manner. Mardna is also capable of massive acceleration through the water for short periods of time by shedding the outer layer of her skin, revealing a strange, nearly frictionless inner layer of skin that permits her to travel through water faster than any known human-sized organism or object. The exact speed at which she can travel in this manner is not yet known. Her outer layer of skin spontaneously regenerates as soon as she slows down.

Marrina's body can change shape to some unknown degree, and it grows more inhuman-looking the longer Mardna remains dominated by her savage instincts. Whether or not Marrina can learn to alter her appearance by a conscious act of will is unknown.

Marrina's skin secretes an oil which can cause extreme constriction of the pupils of a member of another species who is exposed to it, blinding him or her temporarily.

Limitations: Although Mardna normally had a friendly human personality, thanks to her upbringing by her foster parents, her mental programming by the Plodex with a savage lust for conquest lies submerged in her consciousness.