Sersi

Real name/other ones: Mesmer, Sylvia Sersi, Circe
First Appearance: Strange Tales Vol. 1 #109
Base of Operations: New York City, New York
Occupation: Adventuress
Place of Birth: Olympia, Greece
Classification: Eternal
Marital Status: Single
Membership Status: Inactive
Affiliations: Avengers, Eternals, Heroes for Hire, New Breed

Powers:
Sersi possesses the conventional attributes of the Eternal race as well as certain special abilities developed through rigorous discipline. Like that of all Eternals, her life force is augmented by cosmic energy and she has total mental control of her physical form and bodily processes even when she is asleep or unconscious. As a result she is virtually immortal, immune to disease and aging, and invulnerable to conventional forms of injury. Should Sersi be injured somehow, she can regenerate any injured or missing tissue. An Eternal can only die through an injury that disperses a significant portion of her bodily molecules, or if she is fatally injured after her mental control is somehow broken. Cosmic energy bolsters Sersi's metabolism so that she does not tire from any physical exertion. She can resist temperature extremes through mental concentration.

Although all Eternals can psionically manipulate atoms and molecules, Sersi's ability to do so, developed through centuries of rigorous training and maintained at top level through continual practice, is far greater than than that of any other Eternal. Sersi can not only psionically rearrange atoms and molecules so as to transform an object's shape, but she can also transmute substances by rearranging subatomic particles as well. She can rearrange the atoms and molecules of another living being without ill effects to her subject's health, as when she transforms a person into a pig and back. In a manner not yet understood, Sersi's psionic powers prevent energy from escaping when she transmutes or rearranges matter. The transformations that Sersi induces are permanent unless she herself, another person, or a device that can rearrange or transmute matter undoes them. The limit to the amount of matter she can transform at one time is unknown (she has, for example, transformed the clothing of dozens of people at one of her parties simultaneously), as is the length of time she can use this power continually. Apparently Sersi can create non-sentient living beings from inanimate matter, as when she seemingly created a scorpion (possibly she only teleported it from a known location). However, Sersi cannot use her powers to create a sentient living being capable of independent thought. Humanoid beings which she has seemingly created out of air are actually automatons created from nearby materials and given a semblance of life through her powers, and controlled by Sersi psionically.

Sersi is the only fifth-level adept among the Eternals in the five-level discipline of matter rearrangement, the fifth level being the highest.

Sersi is also a mistress of mentally creating illusions. She can disguise her own appearance by mentally projecting an illusion into the minds of those about her. She can also disguise her own appearance and that of others by rearranging their own atoms and molecules, so as to transform her own shape and those of the others, or by rearranging the atoms and molecules in the air about them so that they reflected light differently, distorting the way the individuals look of others. By projecting illusions into another person's mind telepathically, she can make her subject think his entire surroundings have changed, as when she once caused a person at a Manhattan party with her to believe they were alone together in an ancient Greek temple. It should be pointed out that in many cases a witness to one of Sersi's feats cannot be certain if she has merely created an illusion that she has transformed an object, or of she has actually used her matter-rearranging powers to transform it. Sersi's illusions can affect all five senses, so that the illusion, for example, can feel real as well as look real.

Sersi has limited telepathic abilities which enable her to engage in simple short-range telepathic communication with other persons and higher animals, and to scan the surface thoughts of the mind of any Eternal or ordinary human being who is less telepathically adept than she. She cannot read the minds of Deviants, but she can psionically control the minds of Deviants whose wills are inferior in strength to her own.

Sersi can teleport herself or other individuals psionically, but, like all Eternals, finds the Eternal method of teleportation physically unpleasant. The limit of her teleportational range is unknown: she has teleported herself from Manhattan to Olympia in Greece without any apparent ill effects.

History:
Born to Helios and Perse, Sersi is a third or fourth-generation member of the Eternals, evolutionary offshoots of humanity who possess indefinite life spans and superhuman powers. Although she is at least 4,000 years old, Sersi is still considered a young woman by her fellow Eternals.

As a child, Sersi accompanied Utnapishtim, hoping to learn if he was an Eternal. She had a brief encounter with the hero Captain America, who had time-travelled to the past, and her fellow Eternal, the Forgotten One, at this time.

Even though Sersi has always loved the pursuit of pleasure, and she has been known for giving unforgettable parties since the days of ancient Greece, she has always been equally dedicated to her work. Having spent centuries developing her talents for psionically rearranging and transmuting matter, Sersi has gained greater mastery over this discipline than any other Eternal. She had already perfected her psionic abilities by the time of her meeting with Odysseus (the legendary hero known to the Romans as Ulysses) in the 13th Century B.C.

Returning from the Trojan War, Odysseus and his crew landed on the Mediterranean island where Sersi lived. Some of the crew went ashore to explore, and Sersi was pleased to have them as dinner guests. The ravenous sailors gorged themselves with little regard for manners. Becoming drunk, they menaced the beautiful Eternal and her servants. Disgusted, Sersi transformed the sailors into pigs. Her anger having passed, Sersi took a liking to Odysseus when he came to see about his missing men. She turned the pigs back into sailors at his request, and bid them welcome once again. Though initially reluctant, Odysseus and his crew ended up spending an entire year feasting and celebrating at Sersi's villa.

Sersi also visited Camelot during the reign of King Arthur Pendragon. While there, she helped to expose the mutant Maha Yogi, who was at the time impersonating the then-missing sorcerer Merlin. She also visited France during the French Revolution, and witnessed the use of the guillotine. She met the poet Thomas Chatterton at some point, and gave him some pointers in forging his supposed antiquarian poems.

In recent years, Sersi has been living in Manhattan. She rents a large apartment on Manhattan's West Side and a huge loft in Soho. She is famous in New York City social circles and elsewhere around the world as a hostess of lavish and bizarre parties.

When the Eternals and another evolutionary offshoot of humanity, the Deviants, decided to reveal their existence to the rest of the human race, Sersi publicly revealed herself to be an Eternal. The general public, however, tends not to believe in the existence of these hidden races of superhuman beings.

At one time Sersi had a close relationship with Professor Samuel Holden, a man who first publicly spoke out regarding the origins of how the first Deviants, Eternals, and humans were intertwined.

When the Eternals as a whole decided to leave Earth, their collective consciousness in the form of the Uni-Mind decreed that a small number of Eternals who were particularly involved with Earthly matters, including Sersi, remain behind. Although Sersi has often prefers not to involve herself with the Eternals' battles against the Deviants, when those conflicts required her participation, she joined her fellows in such adventures.

On one such occasion, Sersi joined her fellow Eternals to battle the Deviant Priest-Lord Ghaur, whose army attacked Olympia, the Eternals' mountaintop retreat and sanctuary. Ghaur acquired his army through heinous means. As part of the Deviant religion, those citizens found to be genetically unclean were consigned to die in the sacred flame pits. For countless years, Deviants walked solemnly up the temple steps to face their fate in the flame pits, all at the command of Ghaur and his priests. In actuality, however, the Priest-Lord had been taking the best of the Deviants for millennia, condemning them to death under false pretenses, and then secretly storing them in stasis coffins where their minds were slowly wiped clean. The millions of Deviants supposedly sent to the fire pits suffered absolute thralldom so that Ghaur's dreams for conquest over the Eternals might come true. Ghaur's army was defeated, however, when the machinery granting them life was sabotaged by Thena, then- leader of the Eternals on Earth, and Warlord Kro, a rebellious Deviant.

Some time later, Captain America contacted Sersi for help in a case requiring an ally with shape-changing abilities Sersi helped Captain America and began a flirtatious relationship. Later still, Sersi aided Captain America's team, the Avengers, in their struggle against the Deviants and the Elder God Set. When the Forgotton One was injured while serving as an Avenger, the Avengers came to Sersi for help, and she aided them against the otherdimensional Blastaar. Afterwards, Sersi has asked to join the Avengers, and she agreed primarily out of flirtation with Captain America.

Sersi became a dutiful and reliable member of the Avengers.

Copyright Avi Green. All rights reserved.

Homepage Introduction Profiles Extras Links