Dead Girl

Dead Girl (Moonbeam) is a fictional character, a mutant superheroine in Marvel Comics' X-Statix series. She is a mixture of ghost and zombie. Her civilian name has never been fully revealed, but she admitted after some cajoling that her first name is/was "Moonbeam." Dead Girl's mutant gene allows her to return to semi-life after dying; she is also able to become intangible and communicate with other dead people.

Publication history

Dead Girl starred in the miniseries X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl. The series ran for five issues and focuses on a vengeful dead villain, The Pitiful One, intent on gathering other residents of Hell - such as Miss America, Kraven, Mysterio, The Ancient One, and Dead Girl's previous teammate The Anarchist - to bring himself to life once more.

There has been some question as to whether the series is connected to the rest of Marvel continuity, and yet several intriguing things occur; among them is Dead Girl's pseudo-romantic involvement with Stephen Strange. She revealed in the fifth issue that her first name is Moonbeam. Eventually, she and her assembled team of heroes stop the Pitiful One.

Fictional character biography

Dead Girl has few memories of when she was still alive; she believes she was a young actress who was murdered by her co-star/lover, who then sealed her body inside a mausoleum. The dead heard her cries and lured the killer back to the crypt in which he had buried her. Dead Girl awoke and took her revenge on him. Eventually, X-Force (soon to be renamed X-Statix) hires her and invites her to join them.

Her abilities are put to good use for the team. She is able to take machine gun fire and other deadly weaponry that would kill her allies. Her first discovery of being able to read a corpse allows her to save the life of the Anarchist, with whom she would later become romantically involved.

Team Efforts

The Orphan kills team owner Spike Freeman, over the harm visited upon Lacuna, a girl for whom Orphan cares. Dead Girl is able to talk with Spike in what she claims to be Hell itself. She gives Spike a 'Bank of Hell' card in exchange for information about Mister Code, a murderous cult leader (it turns out Code had Lacuna shot on Freeman's request).

In another incident, she recites a cursed song and her skull is destroyed by the foot of her recently deceased teammate Phat. This is only a temporary condition and the real purpose for the recitation appears, another recently deceased team member called 'Henrietta' (X-Statix has a high mortality rate). Being tuned into the world of the dead, Dead Girl is able to figure out that Henrietta desires revenge on the people who temporarily killed her years ago.

During X-Statix's last mission, after a confrontation with the Avengers, Dead Girl 'properly' dies of an unknown illness. The rest of the team soon perishes in a battle with unknown gunmen.^[1]

Afterlife

While in the afterlife, she went up against a being called the Pitiful One who had a resurrection plan utilizing the denizens of the afterlife. Only Doctor Strange and Dead Girl, with the aid of her dead friends, were able to stop them. In order to combat the Pitiful One's plans, Dead Girl and Strange enlist help from dead heroes sent to Heaven, including Ant-Man II, the Phantom Rider and someone known as the Piano-Player; they also call on Mister Sensitive and U-Go Girl, two of Dead Girl's former teammates. A number of deceased Marvel characters make appearances, including Gwen Stacy, Mockingbird, and Moira MacTaggert.^[2]

Powers and abilities

Physically deceased, her mutation triggered by death, Dead Girl can command any body part severed from her and rebuild her molecular structure from virtually any physical attack, regardless of how much damage or destruction she sustains, even if reduced to a skeleton. She can safely "survive" toxic conditions deadly to anyone else. She can also become intangible and walk on air, transform her hands into claws, and otherwise alter her body to an unclear extent. She can communicate telepathically with dead spirits either using their physical remains or on the astral plane and communicate with the cells, bacteria, and disintegrating tissue of corpses, temporarily resurrect the recently deceased as zombies or ghosts, and briefly summon images of deceased people from the minds of others. She has above-average strength, speed, agility, and reflexes.

References