(Avengers III#32 (fb) - BTS) - The woman known only as Masque was a bio-duplicate (clone) of the paranoid Maggia leader Guiletta Nefaria, also known as Madame Masque. She was so paranoid about her own safety, she remained holed up inside her butte headquarters outside of Las Vegas, only sending out clones to do her bidding.
(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z I#14 (fb) - BTS) - All bio-duplicates were imprinted with a copy of Madame Masque's memories and emotions. However, Masque escaped the butte before her mental and physical conditioning were completed. Malleable, unstable and unsure of who she was, the shapeshifting empathic wanderer focused on Tony Stark who she dimly remembered from her creator's memories.
(Avengers III#32 (fb) - BTS) - Madame Masque sent her cyborg enforcer Benedict to locate and eliminate Masque. She managed to escape him, though in the process the only friend she ever made lost his life.
(Iron Man I#320) - Masque became aware that the crazed psionic Marianne Rodgers had escaped from a Stark Center private hospital in California and was coming for Tony Stark.
(Iron Man I#321) - Masque was on hand to save Tony when Rodgers attacked him in his private quarters. Masque defeated her opponent by shocking her her with a taser blast.
(Iron Man I#322 (fb) - BTS) - After disarming Masque, Iron Man brought her and Marianne Rodgers to his Arctic bunker where they were watched over by Machinesmith.
(Iron Man I#322) - While Rodgers was sure something was wrong with Tony, Masque appeared okay with being kept under house arrest. After all, he might have taken her guns, but he didn't try to unmask her and they were even allowed free rein of the bunker so his intentions were probably benign. Masque rethought her stance when Rodgers got knocked out when she tried to open the one locked door in the facility that was still off-limits.
(Iron Man I#323) - Rodgers and Masque were getting impatient waiting around the Arctic bunker for Stark to return. Machinesmith did what he could to placate them, offering the use of the kitchen so they could make dinner.
(Iron Man I#323 - BTS) - While they enjoyed a plate of pasta napolitana, Machinesmith went to check in with Iron Man and ask him when he'd be returning. Meanwhile, Masque revealed to Rodgers that she could change shape by briefly assuming Bethany Cabe's face before removing her mask. The women decided to switch places with Rodgers pretending to be Masque and Masque taking her face.
(Iron Man I#323) -
When Machinesmith returned to the kitchen, he immediately noticed that
Marianne Rodgers was no longer wearing her psionic dampener. He pulled a
gun on her but was unprepared for 'Rodgers' when she overpowered him
with her superior fighting skills. Before going down, Machinesmith
blasted 'Masque', taking Rodgers out of the picture. After making sure
she was merely stunned, it was time for Masque to take her leave.
Dressing for the freezing temperatures waiting outside the bunker,
Masque slowly made her way towards civilization world to warn the
Avengers.(Iron Man I#324 (fb) - BTS) - Masque made it to a Norwegian listening post on foot. There, she commandeered a C140 transport plane and, sensing where the Avengers were, flew it to Janet van Dyne's South Hampton estate.
(Avengers I#393) - By the time Masque reached the Hamptons, the plane was severely damaged. She crashed it right outside the Van Dyne estate, which alarmed the Avengers to her presence. She calmly emerged from the fiery wreckage and approached the heroes to inform them Tony Stark had to be stopped.
(Iron Man I#324) - The Avengers had a hard time believing Masque's claims, but that all changed when Force Works member Century teleported in with Black Widow and the team's recent recruit Moonraker. Force Works had learned Stark had triggered a temporal weapon hidden deep inside their headquarters. With 21 hours left until detonation, the heroes had to work fast. Thanks to Masque's intel, they learned of Stark's arctic base.
(Iron Man I#324 - BTS) - A small team consisting of Century, Moonraker, Vision and Crystal teleported to the polar region, but were unable to breach the bunker. Marianne Rodgers mentally reached out to the heroes, telling them an outside evil had been corrupting Stark for years. "There was a time when he was younger that he was free of its taint", Rodgers advised them before Century teleported them to safety. Upon arrival, they noticed Moonraker was missing.
(Avengers I#394) -
Masque was present when the Avengers contacted Black Panther to discuss
the Vision's optical recordings of Stark's arctic bunker. T'Challa
concluded that there was no way they could hope to breach it. Their
deliberations were cut short by the arrival of Luna
(actually a disguised Space Phantom) who dropped in to deliver
the seriously injured Moonraker who had been Kang's prisoner. Masque
pulled her taser on the girl, but she fainted anyway from exhaustion.
When she came to, Luna warned them that 'the family' would be looking
for them. As if on cue, the diminutive warrior Neut dropped through the
ceiling and attacked the Avengers. Masque fired her blasters at him but
was quickly knocked out.(Avengers I#394 - BTS) - The fight ended when the newly transformed Wasp emerged from her cocoon and blasted Neut in the back. By then, Luna had revealed that there was information stored in Hercules' mind that would allow them to access the mysterious temporal door in the basement of Avengers Mansion.
(Avengers I#394) - Masque operated the machine that retrieved the required information from Hercules' memory. When the Widow openly wondered what to do next, after all killing Iron Man wasn't an option, Masque suggested to go back in time to recruit a younger version of Tony Stark before he got tainted by evil.
(Iron Man I#325 (fb) - BTS) - Directly after arriving back in their present from Earth-96020, the Avengers asked Masque and Hawkeye to take young Tony Stark to his counterpart's home on the Pacific Coast to see if he could crack his personal database.
(Iron Man I#325) - Masque and Hawkeye watched in amazement as the teenager went to work in his future self's laboratory, intuitively figuring out sophisticated systems a decade ahead of anything he was used to.
(Iron Man I#325 - BTS) - After a while, Tony learned that Stark was still holed up in his arctic bunker. Hawkeye informed Captain America and the other Avengers back in New York that they were moving against him, but before the team could depart they were stopped by Henry Gyrich and a contingent of Mandroids.
(Iron Man I#325) - Arriving in the North Pole aboard a Force Works hexship, Tony Stark easily accessed the heavily fortified bunker because its systems recognized him. He opened the doors by giving the correct password: 'Mallory', which surprised the bunker's major domo Machinesmith who came out with guns blazing. The stunned Stark was saved by Masque who took the robot out by short-circuiting his wiring with her taser. Hawkeye then blew up the hexship to distract the bunker's defense systems, allowing the trio to access the facility.
(Iron Man I#325 - BTS) - While Hawkeye and teen Tony searched the bunker, Masque went to look for Marianne Rodgers. Once she found her, she freed Rodgers from her psionic inhibitor, thereby restoring her full psi potential.
(Iron Man I#325) - Masque and Marianne reunited with Hawkeye and Tony in time to stop the adult Tony Stark from ambushing them. Masque, Rodgers and Hawkeye bought the teenager enough time to don one of the many armors stored there. Even as the Avengers arrived to join the fight, the ultimate confrontation was between the two Starks. Iron Man easily overpowered his inexperienced counterpart, but couldn't stop teen Tony from using his repulsors to destroy the bunker's defense systems. Masque and the Avengers then watched in horror as Stark used his armor's strength to cause massive injuries to his counterpart's chest before getting teleported away by Immortus (posing as Kang) who appeared in the bunker with his forces (disguised Space Phantoms) for their final battle against the Avengers.
(Avengers I#395) - Masque focused on fighting Kang's forces while the others tried to take down 'Kang' who was hiding behind a seemingly impenetrable forcefield. The day was won when the adult Tony Stark returned to his bunker to sacrifice his life to stop 'Kang' and his forces. Masque and the others watch the dying Stark offer up schematics for his own life saving chestplate so his young counterpart might survive.
(Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man I#1 - BTS) - Hastily returning to New York with the Avengers and the mortally wounded Tony Stark, Masque watched as Hank Pym worked round the clock to construct and install the cardiovascular chestplate. Though Tony was young and strong, his wounds were serious and new infections kept cropping up as quickly as Pym and his staff could combat them.
(Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man I#1) - With the chestplate installed and Tony out of the critical phase, the time had come to wait when and if he'd wake up. People took turns visiting him, including Masque. She made it a point to use her shapeshifting abilities to assume the form of some of the women from his older counterpart's past including Janice Cord, Gretl Anders, Su Yin, Whitney Frost and finally Bethany Cabe. When this failed to rouse the lad, Masque put her faceplate back on and told him "You've disappointed all of us in your time, but you have a second chance now... Don't dare do it again." (see comments).
(Avengers III#32 (fb) - BTS) - Masque was granted honorary Avengers status.
(JLA/Avengers I#4 (fb) ) - When the mad Oan scientist Krona, native to a Divergent Continuum, weakened the barriers between Earth-616 and his home reality, the Avengers and the Justice League of America decided to team up to restore order to this new actuality. During the heroes' final assault on Krona's power base, the unpredictable reality warping energies brought in dozens of heroes associated with the team, including Masque. She joined the fight against the numerous villains Krona had summoned to defend him. Masque joined up with Rocket Red and Jocasta, but was no match against the Melter and Captain Cold.
(Avengers
I#397) - Masque joined the search for Thor who went missing after a
recent fight against the Hulk ended with the US government detonating
a nuclear device. The search led them to the former site of Freehold,
where they ran into the gamma irradiated Hotshot and Jailbait who
immediately tried to escape. The re-emergence of Thor halted them in
their tracks. Hotshot explained to the Avengers that their leader
Omnibus had acted alone in initiating the recent terrorist attacks,
and that the people of Freehold would ensure that justice was served.
They also revealed that Omnibus' final bomb was set to detonate in St.
Louis. Masque and the Avengers rushed to defuse it, which they managed
to do even after Hotshot was suddenly taken over by one of the
Leader's humanoid robots. The Avengers returned home for a
celebration, which Masque attended.
(Avengers I#398 -
BTS) - Romanoff didn't mince words: she did not trust Masque at all,
especially after the mansion's highly sophisticated tracking device
had been mysteriously destroyed. She blamed Masque because she'd found
the residual races of a taser blast identical to Masque's weapons of
choice. Hawkeye still felt this was no reason to outright distrust
her. Widow was convinced Masque would one day turn on them. They then
witnessed the intangible, unconscious form of Thor sink through the
floor (caused by Benedict). Black Widow was certain this was
Masque's doing and got determined to end it now.
(Avengers III#32) -
Even after months of captivity, Masque was still accused by her
paranoid creator of trying to betray her to the Avengers. Masque,
surrounded by her misshapen, mutated "sisters", tried to convince
Frost that she only sought out the Avengers because she remembered
Stark's love for her. And more importantly: as an empath, she sensed
Stark's feelings for her were genuine.
The Avengers had no shortage of strong female
associates in the early 90s. Masque fits right in with Deathcry,
Marilla and Magdalene. It's interesting how Masque and Magdalene were
both active with the Avengers around the same time, yet they never
appeared on panel together. Guess the story hit its quota for tough,
mysterious warrior women. It's even more interesting that Magdalene
plays no active role whatsoever in the whole Crossing/TimeSlide crossover.
You'd think someone with a dimension hopping lance would come in
handy... Maybe a little too handy.