LUNA imposter

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Extradimensional (Limbo) mutate (Space Phantom)

Occupation: Agent of Immortus

Group Membership: Space Phantoms

Affiliations: Avengers (Black Widow (Romanova), Crystal, Deathcry, Giant-Man (Pym), Hawkeye, Hercules, Quicksilver, Swordsman (Jarvert), Vision), Century, Iron Man (Stark), Edwin Jarvis, Masque, Yellowjacket (Rita DeMara);
  In reality: See enemies, Elder Cotati/Swordsman imposter, Moonraker, Tuc

Enemies: Immortus (posing as Kang), Malachi, Mantis imposter, Neut, Tobias, many unidentified warriors serving Immortus
  In reality: See affiliations

Known Relatives: Space Phantoms

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Limbo

First Appearance: Avengers: The Crossing (September, 1995)

Powers/Abilities: Like all Space Phantoms it possessed the power to assume the appearance and powers of virtually any single mortal being. At the point that it assumed a being's likeness, the model was automatically shunted to Limbo until such time as the Phantom assumed its own form or that of someone else. The person dispatched to Limbo had no recollection of being in Limbo and materialized exactly where he or she was when "shunted". With Immortus help the Phantom could also assume appearance and powers of not existent beings. Through Immortus it also gained a full set of memories for each personality so that it couldn't be unveiled by telepaths because it really believed its own lies.

  As the future Luna it used a time chair to open portals from Limbo to Earth and maintain them for a few minutes. It seemingly possessed telepathic powers or technology provided by Immortus that allowed it to hide information in other peoples brain or appear to them in their subconscious.

(Avengers I#394 (fb) - BTS) - (made-up background) She was an alternate future version of Luna, the daughter of Crystal and Quicksilver.

(Avengers: The Crossing) - In an alternate future Luna watched the end of Hawkeye and Black Widow at the hands of the authorities. She also saw Yellowjacket (Rita DeMara) teleport through that timeline. Luna followed DeMara back to Earth-616 where Luna told DeMara that he (I assume she meant Stark) would kill Luna if he knew that she was here. She then asked DeMara to leave before it all began. Luna disappeared and Yellowjacket was killed by Iron Man in front of Avengers Mansion. Some time later Luna crossed onto Earth-616 again, but it didn't work 100% this time as she stayed out of synch with Earth's temporal pattern. Hercules saw her and she imparted some very important info upon Hercules. She disappeared and feared that Hercules wouldn't remember anything at all because she was never in synch with Earth's time. After the Anachronauts' attack Luna tried to cross over to Earth-616 again, but once again she was not in synch with time and just disappeared again before anyone could see her.

(Iron Man I#320) - When Tony Stark blacked out, Luna contacted him telepathically and told him that she knew that he didn't want to do what he did and she tried to warn him of what was still to come.

(Iron Man I#322) - During one of Tony's visits to his mother's grave, Luna appeared in front of him. First he thought she was his mother, but she immediately corrected him on that mistake and then told him that she was the one he needed and had never to fear. He remembered her from his recent black out and couldn't believe that she was real, but she was real. She then talked to him about what she had done and about his sanity. In the end Tony asked her for help because he didn't want to do anything bad again.

(Avengers I#392) - On her time-chair Luna teleported herself, Tobias and Malachi to Earth to capture the Elder Cotati/Swordsman imposter. She watched the battle between the Swordsmen and the twins. Later, when Vision opposed the twins she asked her younger brother Tuc not to interfere in the fight because it wasn't his time yet to act. When the twins decided to kill Vision and Swordsman (Jarvert) she told them that she couldn't maintain their portal any longer and that they had to leave Earth immediately. The twins with the Swordsman imposter then followed Luna through the portal back to Limbo where she accompanied them to the door of Mantis' room.

(Avengers I#393) - Luna teleported with Tobias and Malachi to Stark's house in Southampton to enable Iron Man, who had just been revealed to be the traitor among the Avengers, to escape to Limbo.

(Force Works#19) - Luna returned with Iron Man and the twins to Limbo and was present when Kang greeted his ally from Earth. She was afraid to look into Iron Man's eyes because he knew that she wasn't really on Kang's side.

(Iron Man I#324) - When Century teleported himself, Vision, Crystal and Moonraker back to Southampton, Luna kidnapped Moonraker fright from the teleportation corridor.

(Avengers I#394) - Luna freed Moonraker, who was tortured since being captured by her. She gave him to drink and then freed him from his shackles. The alarm went off and she was confronted by Tuc, the twins and several soldiers, but Luna attacked them with her updated time-chair and managed to jump with Moonraker on it to teleport back to Earth-616. She landed in Avengers Mansion and tried to get medical help for Moonraker. She passed out when Masque threatened her with an electrical gun. When she woke up again Jarvis brought her some tea. Neut was sent to kill her and after a hard fight against the Avengers he was successful when Luna jumped into a deadly energy blast from Neut's axe that was meant for Quicksilver. Before she died she told Crystal that she was her daughter Luna from the future and that the information the Avengers needed was in Hercules' mind.

Comments: Created by Bob Harras, Terry Kavanagh and Mike Deodato.

Although Luna wasn't seen among the Crossing characters that were revealed in Avengers Forever to have been Space Phantoms, she most likely was one and she even played an important role: Driving Tony Stark crazy! She did a good job (see right image). Tony Stark: "Mother..?!"

She hung around with the bad guys and helped the good guys. After Busiek's retcon we know that she was a bad girl all the time (inadvertently maybe) and just screwed around with the good guys the way Immortus wanted it. And then the poor thing was killed (or maybe just brought back to Limbo).

All the powers she used could be explained with technological means provided to her by Immortus.

Profile by Markus Raymond.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Luna imposter should not be confused with:

• Luna, daughter of Crystal and Quicksilver @ Fantastic Four I#240
• Luna, pet of Dr. Strange @ Dr. Strange: Sorcerer Supreme Annual#4
• Luna, of Other Earth, colony @ Fantastic Four I#273
• Luna, aka. Spike @ Fantastic Four/Fantastic Four Annual 1998
• or to any other character with a similar name

images: (without ads)
Avengers I#392, p7, pan3 (main image)