From Panel To Play: Medusa

CP34 Medusa

Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Terragenesis. Well, canonically, it’s Terragenesis. This time in From Panel to Play, we’re taking a look at the person whose ponytail has a kick like a mule, Medusa!

Like all Inhumans, Medusa gained her incredible powers through Terragenesis. Exposure to the Terragen mists enhanced her physical strength, stamina, and reflexes, giving her extraordinary ability to her hair. Every strand of Medusa’s hair is like an appendage that she can mentally control. Minute psionic forces across her hair give it the strength to lift tons of weight, bind captives of enhanced physical strength, or lash out like a whip faster than sound.

Among the Inhumans, Medusa is royalty. She is the wife of Black Bolt and acts as his interpreter, but is herself a master of statecraft. Like her husband, Medusa looks for a way to maintain peace between humans and the Inhumans but must also fight to protect her people. Medusa has joined forces with the Avengers of Earth and even Ronan the Accuser in her never-ending crusade to keep the Inhumans safe.

Medusa is a stand-out figure on the tabletop due to her superpowered hair’s dynamic nature and volume. It literally holds her off the ground with its complex and organic curves. Her hair has a fine texture sculpted in that painters can spend time blending and highlighting to make pop, but also looks great with a simple dry brush technique.

As you might expect, on the tabletop, Medusa uses her Inhuman physiology and unusual hair to significant effect. Her basic attack pummels a target with her mighty mane, battering her foe into submission with a whirlwind of luxurious locks. Braid Bash is a Strength 5 attack with the ability to knock a damaged target reeling. Like any good headbanger, Medusa can whip her hair in a veritable cyclone, so Braid Bash also has the potential to trigger Flurry, which allows her to make a followup Braid Bash attack.

Of course, Medusa’s hair isn’t limited to just whipping people in the face. She can also use it defensively, like thousands of super-strong tendrils that knock aside enemy strikes and impede her foes’ advance. The innate power Living Strands prevents an advancing or climbing enemy from overlapping Medusa with the movement tool, and enemies cannot change or reroll their attack dice when they target her with an attack.

Medusa is more than just her hair, though, and has other powers to reflect her inhuman physiology and the authority she wields as the queen of her people, but unfortunately, we are out of time for now. Be sure to check back for our next installment, when we examine another of your favorite characters as they jump onto the table in Marvel: Crisis Protocol.

Until then, this is Atomic Mass Transmissions, signing off.