Valeria Richards' intellect makes quantum leaps and, as such, leads her to grow up and become Marvel Girl. Originally from Earth-616 and thought dead, she is brought back by her grieving brother’s time-travel abilities, and sent to an alternate future where she grows up under the tutelage of her father’s greatest foe, an alternate Dr. Victor von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom.
Birth, Death, and an Alternate Future
Valeria “Val” Meghan Richards is the second child of Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, and Susan Storm Richards, AKA Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. She is conceived in the Negative Zone, and just before her birth, she begins to emit bursts of deadly radiation that threaten both mother and child. Despite bringing in fellow scientists and radiation experts Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, Dr. Michael Morbius, AKA Morbius, the Living Vampire, Walter Langkowski, AKA Sasquatch, and Dr. Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus, Reed fails at saving his daughter, who is thought to be stillborn.
Though her older brother, Franklin Richards, feels a deep loss over the sister he would have had; unconsciously guided by Omniversal Guardian Roma, he secretly uses his vast psionic powers to travel back in time and save his sister, taking her from her native reality (Earth-616) and sending her “someplace else”—an alternate future (Reality-99315). Another Invisible Woman, who had married a heroic Victor von Doom after the death of her first husband, raises the child, giving her the name, Valeria von Doom.
She grows up considering Doom to be her father. Though Roma, who has her own plans for the child, keeps a watchful eye on Valeria, ensuring her well-being. As she grows up, Valeria’s friends include Alysande Stuart, AKA Caledonia, a member of Roma’s inter-dimensional Corps and of this future’s Fantastic Four, and Lancer, her father’s mutant bodyguard; her stepbrother, whom she nicknames Sparky, and who annoys their mother by using his powers to go “time-dancing.”
As she ages, her powers and adventurous streak begin to emerge, and Doom designs armor for her protection. She takes the title “Marvel Girl” and at age 12, she is formally recognized as Doom’s heir in the throne room of the Baxter Building. Not long after this, her father and her uncle Johnny Storm, AKA Human Torch, and “uncle” Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing, die saving the world. Subsequently, while visiting the Blue Area of the Moon to see Alicia Masters’ memorial statue for the fallen heroes, both Valeria and Franklin briefly communicate with a temporally displaced echo of Earth-616’s Reed, Ben and Johnny.
In a family as unique as hers, Valeria’s early years were full of adventure, from being temporarily kidnapped by the Impossible Man and Woman (who were missing their own children), to having Inhuman babysitters on the Moon. Child Welfare Services briefly considered placing Valeria and Franklin in protective foster care, feeling that constant attacks on the Baxter Building endangered them, but was soon convinced that the children would be even more at risk away from their parents’ personal protection.
Marvel Girl
Valeria is a super-genius with powers of invisibility and energy projection. Before she was two she could solve a Rubik’s cube in seconds, and by two and a half she was nearly her father’s intellectual equal, a fact she hid, calculating that revealing it would disrupt her family’s dynamic, alienating her mother and eventually driving a wedge between Reed and Franklin. At a young age, she also masters several scientific disciplines, including multidimensional and tachyon physics.
As the teenaged Marvel Girl with her intellectual prowess, Valeria turns invisible, obscuring every kind of radiation including heat, kinetic energy and bio-electrical signatures; generates force fields; and can “time dance.” Time dancing is a kind of teleportation where Valeria can teleport back in time and through space. She claims she can block Franklin’s reality manipulating powers, and is able to stun powerful super beings like the She-Hulk with a punch and send them flying.
Marvel Girl also owns a flying board that responds to verbal commands, and bulletproof armor that can be swapped for street clothes at will.
Opposing Forces
Valeria battles the Bacchäe, warrior women working for the Amazon Hippolyta, the forces of Tartarus, and faces off with The Olympian God Hades, AKA Pluto, to save the Fantastic Four from his clutches.
Family Ties and Allies
Valeria’s biological parents are Reed Richards and Susan Storm Richards, while Franklin Richards is Valeria’s biological brother, and all of them hail from Earth-616. Though she is torn asunder from their reality and raised by another Invisible Woman and Doctor Doom alongside her stepbrother “Sparky.” She eventually returns to her native reality and joins her family, including her uncle Johnny Storm, AKA Human Torch, and her “uncle” Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing.
Caledonia is a member of Roma’s inter-dimensional Corps and of the alternate future’s Fantastic Four, and Lancer, her father’s mutant bodyguard, both act as babysitters to Valeria.
Valeria has a complicated relationship with the Doctor Dooms in her life. While an alternate-reality Doctor Doom is Valeria’s adopted father and he raises her as his own, eventually her intellect surpasses his. Later in reality Earth-616, she confronts a younger version of him, Victor von Doom, AKA Doctor Doom, and he does not know her. When Valeria reverts into a baby in Sue’s womb, Doom helps with Sue’s difficult birth and names her Valeria after a former love of his. He also uses her as his familiar, placing a powerful spell over her eyes allowing him to see through them. Despite using her, the young Valeria saves his life, after she convinces him to sacrifice himself but encourages him to survive.
Valeria’s nanny, Tabitha Deneuve, takes care of her when she reverts back to a child, and is secretly an aged Sue Richards from 500 years in the future of Reality-807128. She supports her in telling her family about her powers.