Cerebra's Files
Margali
Full Name: Margali Szardos
Affiliation: Shadow Hunters
Previous Affiliations: Defenders III (unofficial), Hellfire
Club, London
Aliases: Red Queen
Relatives: Jimaine (Daytripper, daughter), Stefan
(son, deceased), Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler, foster-son)
Powers: Margali is a powerful sorceress, with various spell-casting abilities,
including teleportation, shapeshifting, elemental control and so on. While her
power is based in black magic, Margali on the whole uses her powers for good.
She also runs a carnival, where her daughter Jimaine (now Amanda Sefton) and her
foster-son Kurt trained as acrobats and trapeze artists. Margali first came into
contact with the X-Men when she trapped them in a version
of Dante's Inferno to punish Kurt for killing her son Stefan (who had turned to
evil), but it was after she convinced her daughter to give her Magik's
Soulsword that things went out of control.
Margali is the Guardian of the Winding Way,
a mystical path of power that magicians follow, and which grants them periods
of power followed by periods of weakness. At one opint, Margali was powerful enough
to summon Dr. Strange's mystical Eye of Agamotto, and Strange couldn't stop her.
Using the Soulsword, Margali was able to kill all of the magicians ahead of her
on the Way, and gain back her power faster. She also gave herself a new body,
and joined the London Hellfire Club as their Red Queen. Together with Black
Air, the HC planned to release a demon trapped under London into the city,
with the resulting chaos allowing them to take over the government. Margali's
magic was essential to this plan, as was Douglock,
who was captured and unraveled by Black Air, and used as a techno-organic interface
with the demon's crypt. However, when Margali tapped into Douglock's head, she
was overwhelmed by the power and evil of the demon, and was incapacitated. When
Excalibur freed Douglock from the interface and resealed
the demon into his chamber, Margali vanished. In that moment of vulnerability,
she was captured by Belasco, Lord of Limbo
and keeper of the Soulsword. Belasco tortured Margali for a while, until Amanda
killed all of her old circus pals and with Kurt, ventured to Limbo. In reality,
however, Margali had switched bodies with her daughter, so that Amanda's mind
was trapped in the body Belasco had, and Margali was free to rescue her. When
Belasco was defeated, Margali revealed that she had not killed her circus friends,
but instead had temporarily removed their souls to complete the ruse. Everyone
was restored to their true forms, and Margali left Limbo in her daughter's hands.
Recently, in conjuction with the spirits of the deceased Destiny
and Legion, Margali had reformed the Defenders, and
was going to use her magic, and the spirits' powers and awareness to avert disasters.
She had returned to her original look, as well, complete with light blue skin
and round ram's horns, Princess Leia-style, but soon after appeared in another
new body, this one a young blonde's. How and why she made this change is unknown.
Margali was captured by the Ruined, extra-dimensional entities bent on conquering
Earth, and although their plans were defeated, she ended up in a French prison
meant to hold witches. However, when Selene made her
bid to take over the Hellfire Club, Margali was freed by the Fantastic
Four, whom she then transported to Limbo in order to train them to fight magic.
After Selene's plans were interrupted, Margali joined the new hero Mechamage as
part of the Shadow Hunters, a "team" formed to combat the evil users of magic.
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