Gilded Lily
| Gilded Lily | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Alpha Flight #20 |
| Created by | John Byrne |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Lillian von Loont |
| Abilities | Wide array of alchemical weaponry. Immortality. |
Gilded Lily (Lillian von Loont) is a fictional supervillain featured in the Marvel Comics series Alpha Flight.
Disambiguate: silent film of 1921 starring Mae Murray; "1935 film starring Claudette Colbert" ; also, a Shakespearean phrase, from "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily/To throw perfume on a violet" (Salisbury: Act 4, Scene 2 of "King John").
Fictional character biography
Gilded Lily was an alchemist of great talent and a student of Diablo. Lily was initially seen to be a woman in a golden mask, golden gloves, and a fur coat that covered her slender body to her feet. She had lived for an inordinate length of time, her makeup (on her mask) and hair were very much in the style of the 1920s particularly Louise Brooks.
Visited by her "nephew" Walter Langkowski (Lily was unlikely to be an actual aunt due to her age), Gilded Lily intended to turn Walter to gold. She had done this with a great many men in the past; somehow their conversion to gold allowed her to add their life energy to her own, in effect achieving immortality. As she was about to do the same to Aurora, Sasquatch intervened. Lily attempted to escape, but when Sasquatch grabbed her, Lily's fur coat came undone revealing that Lily's body had been replaced with a very basic metal frame with arms, and in place of legs she had wheels, much like a Segway HT. Lily's mask was removed in the ensuing struggle. Her mask was seemingly what was keeping her alive, on its removal, Aurora was shocked to see Lily's withered face. Soon after the mask's removal, Lily's robotic frame, along with what was left of her original body crumbled to dust.[1]
Her mansion became the base of operations for Alpha Flight, but in time it was shown that though her body had been destroyed, her spirit continued to survive, eventually merging with Maison Alpha. She came to consciousness and realized what had happened to her house,[2] using its facilities to strike back against Alpha in revenge. She could only manifest as "alchemical mists," so she used her electrical alchemy to summon Diablo from a New York penetentiary, forcing him to create a potion that would allow her to possess the body of Aurora. Aurora, however, was able to grab the potion herself and force Lily to take it, which cancelled out the potion Lily was using to sustain her own life, killing her.
References
- ↑ Alpha Flight #20-21 by John Byrne (March–April 1985)
- ↑ Alpha Flight Annual #1 by Bill Mantlo and Larry Stroman (1986)