XAVIN
Created By: Brian K. Vaughan & Adrian Alphona
First Appearance: The Runaways #7 (Oct. 2005)
Role: New Character
Horrible Fate I Wish Upon This Character: Meh- Xavin isn't as bratty to established Marvel characters. She gets a reprieve.
Group Affiliations: The Runaways, The Skrull Empire
PL 8 (197)
STRENGTH 2/8
STAMINA 4/8
AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8
DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 3
AWARENESS 2
PRESENCE 0
Skills:
Deception 5 (+5)
Expertise (Skrull Soldier) 4 (+7)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 6 (+6)
Investigation 2 (+4)
Perception 4 (+6)
Persuasion 6 (+6)
Stealth 3 (+6)
Technology 4 (+7)
Vehicles 4 (+8)
Advantages:
Improved Critical (Fire Blast), Improved Disarm, Ranged Attack 4
Powers:
"Skrull Physiology"
Morph 4 (Any Form) [20]
Concealment 1 (Detect True Shape) [1]
"Fantastic Forms"
"Flame On!" Immunity 6 (Fire Damage, Heat) (6), "Fire-Assisted Flight" Flight 8 (500 mph) (16) & Flame Aura 6 (46) -- [49]
- AE: "Fantastic Stretching" Elongation 5 (250 feet) & Immunity 5 (Falling Damage) (10)
- AE: "Rocky Hide" Enhanced Strength 6 & Stamina 4, Impervious Toughness 5 (25)
- AE: "Invisible Woman/Man" Concealment (All Visual Senses) 4 (Feats: Precise) (Extras: Affects Others, Ranged) (Flaws: Affects Others is Distracting -2) (14)
"Super-Skrull In Training"
"Invisible Objects" Create 8 (Feats: Subtle 2) (Extras: Impervious 5, Movable) (31) -- [39]
- AE: "Invisible Force Ram" Blast 6 (Feats: Accurate, Subtle 2) (15)
- AE: "Invisible Lifting" Move Object 8 (Feats: Subtle 2) (18)
- AE: "Invisible Force Field" Force Field 4 (Feats: Selective, Subtle 2) (Extras: Sustained +0, Affects Others 8, Ranged 8, Impervious 7) (30)
- AE: "Fire Wave" Damage 8 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone) (16)
- AE: "Fire Stream" Damage 8 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Line) (16)
- AE: "Nova Flame!" Damage 8 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst) (16)
- AE: Fire Blast 8 (16)
- AE: "Fists Into Weapons" Strength-Damage +4 (4)
Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Thing's Strength +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Flame Aura +8 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Force Ram +10 (+6 Ranged Damage, DC 21)
Fire Blast +8 (+8 Ranged Damage, DC 23)
Area Blasts +8 Area (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +7
Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +4 (+8 Rocky Hide/Force Field, Impervious +3), Fortitude +6 (+10 Rocky Hide), Will +5
Complications:
Responsibility/Prejudice (Skrull Exile)- Xavin is a member of the Skrull race, and as such is branded a traitor for siding with Earth. Few heroes will overly-trust a Skrull, either. As a Skrull, she is naturally warlike and lashes out with violence quickly.
Relationship (Karolina Dean)- Xavin only sticks with the Runaways because of her love for Karolina.
Relationship (The Runaways)- Xavin often disrespects Victor for being mechanical, and often questions Nico's leadership decisions. She is mainly close with Molly.
Prejudice (Genderfluid)- Xavin was originally male, but switched to female form for his betrothed, Karolina. He used a male form in battle (to be more intimidating, though Karolina finds this "sexist"), but has admitted to defaulting to a female form during times of stress- making this her more "standard" form now.
Power Loss (FF Powers)- Xavin may only use one of the Fantastic Four's powers at once- she cannot use a Flame Power while super-strong like The Thing, for example.
Total: Abilities: 52 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 6 / Powers: 109 / Defenses: 10 (197)
-Xavin was introduced in this REALLY bizarre manner in
The Runaways, basically flying in out of nowhere, going "Hey Karolina Dean- we're supposed to get married!", and then, after a brief explanation and gender-swap, Karolina just GOES WITH THIS TOTAL STRANGER. I know she had finally come out to Nico Minoru, and had been rebuffed for trying to kiss her, and was thus a bit "I gotta get out of here" most-likely, but still... so weird.
-Xavin is a teenage Skrull with the same FF-like powers as Super-Skrull (just... lower-level). And it turns out that years ago, the Skrull Empire thought to raid Earth. But the elder Deans, themselves aliens hiding out on our planet, didn't want them to, and so pointed the Skrulls towards THEIR homeworld instead. As "security" against a Dean betrayal, the Skrulls had them accept that the son of a Prince, Xavin, would be married to the Dean's firstborn daughter. The Deans, figuring that "hey- they're Skrulls. They're doomed to die in battle, so why not accept?" Turns out this particular Skrull is a bit survivable.
-And for some reason, Xavin is also the NICEST SKRULL EVER, being... okay, there's about five billion "Good Skrulls" now, so that wasn't new then, and is even less unique these days. But back then it WAS a bit unusual, especially as most Skrulls had to LEARN to be nice. Xavin is immediately sympathetic to Karolina's confusion and trepidation, and helpfully-alters his gender just so that she can be more comfortable with her new betrothed. And so Xavin & Karolina (who'd been feeling a bit of ennui over her homosexuality) run off to the site of the Skrull/Majesdane War in order to marry as a peace-treaty thing. But then there's a big fight at the wedding that results in the destruction of the Majesdane homeworld (oddly, we don't actually SEE this- Karolina simply relays it to the others), and the two arrive on Earth and team up with the rest of the Runaways. Xavin helps out during the
Secret Invasion, betraying her own people, and fails to fit in properly with most of the team- Victor appears bothered by her constant gender-switching, and she makes repeated jabs about him being a robot/cyborg (sometimes accidentally). The last we saw, Xavin had knocked out Karolina to take her place while she was being arrested by some surviving Majesdanians- the character has yet to reappear. This is... honestly really weird storytelling, especially as Karolina then moved on with Julie Power, and then Nico Minoru. They just wrote out Xavin entirely and never saw the character again.
"Skrulls Change Genders Like Humans Change Hair Colors":
-When Xavin points out that "Skrulls can change genders the way humans change hair colours", it adds a new wrinkle to a race previously seen as pretty sexually-dimorphic (female Skrulls tend to be Comic Book Pretty, with tiny chin ridges; males were Ugly Green Frog-Men- even Comic Book Male Physique-having male Skrulls had giant chin-ridges and jaws, making them look monstrous). Never mind that Emperors and Empresses took different titles, their primary Gods are precisely Male and Female (Klyb'n & Sl'gurt... though Klyb'n is an Eternal, and thus can't shapeshift), and in pretty much 100% of instances, Skrulls under deep-cover (like during
Secret Invasion or while copying Alicia Masters or Wolverine long-term) will copy a person of their own sex (judging by the fact that the dead bodies- their natural forms- are the same sex). But hey- Xavin didn't say ALL Skrulls do that, and he generally uses "Male Form" as a default except around Karolina, in the early days. And hell, some Skrulls turn into COWS on the regular, so it's not any kind of outlandish.
-This produces an interesting conversation about what sex and gender mean to a race that can shapeshift into whatever they want. I mean, how WOULD they view this stuff, if they can just change at-will to whatever they want? Obviously, this wouldn't have been touched on before, say, 1999, but it's not like Skrull Culture has been elaborated upon THAT much beyond "they're warlike d-bags, and they hate The Kree." Plus, I mean, WHAT a fantasy to people who are actually transgender- no dramatic surgeries, no psychiatric evaluations or anything- you just snap your fingers and now you're a chick. Or a dude. Or whatever. I'm not sure if the differences between the Skrull sexes have ever been elaborated upon much before, however- even females like Lyja and Queen Veranke were war-like soldiers, though I recall a Skrull Princess who was fairly-peaceful in the past. Though... as a race that can be whatever they want, there really ISN'T any need for gender roles, is there? Might be like those Native cultures in North America that had "Twin Spirits" (there were reports of males who took 100% female identity, right down to wearing female clothes, taking on women's jobs in society, and in one case, even "mimicking" a pregancy and the necessary "miscarriage" that resulted), and nobody thought much about it... until the Europeans showed up.
Xavin's Powers:
-Xavin is basically a Mini-Super-Skrull, being inexperience yet versatile. One quirk is that she can only use one power at a time, essentially giving her four different "forms" to take, and an array of powers to use, but none of the Dynamic, varied forms of Kl'rt, who would wipe the floor with Xavin using The Thing's full strength COMBINED with Flames or Invisibility.