Since her inception, Marvel Comics' Titania has established herself as one of the strongest nemeses of the super-heroine She-Hulk. Confirmed to be making her live-action debut in the Disney+ She-Hulk series portrayed by Jameela Jamil, Titania has a long and complicated comic book history for the show to pull from.
While the shy Mary MacPherran may seem like a generic super-strong supervillain on the surface, Titania has gradually evolved from a B-list antagonist into a nuanced comic book character with over 30 years of Marvel Comics history behind her.
Updated on August 29th, 2022 by Amanda Bruce: Though Titania doesn’t appear in every episode of the Disney Plus She-Hulk series, she’s the first big villain for Jennifer Walters to face in the MCU. For live-action, she’s a social media influencer with a unique sense of style, while in the comics, she’s a career criminal who just wants to find her own version of a happy ending.
Titania Didn’t Want Powers As A Kid
Titania didn’t grow up in a wealthy family, and she faced a lot of hardship as a child. As a result, her biggest dream as a kid was to win the lottery. She thought access to a fortune would help her achieve any dream she had.
As Titania grew up, however, superheroes became more prevalent in her world, and the fantasy that would bring her happiness shifted. She started to want to be a superhero. Titania’s own selfish desires, however, led her down a villainous path instead.
Titania Spent Time In A Superhuman Prison
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the biggest prison for those with superpowers has been the Raft. Used to house dissenting heroes at the end of Captain America: Civil War, it sits in the middle of the ocean. Titania ends up in a different superhuman prison in the comics, the Vault.
The Vault first made its comic book debut in an Avengers book in the 1980s, and its full name was a little different than its nickname. It was really called the Maximum Security Installation for the Incarceration of Superhumans, and most often, it was run by SHIELD. It’s been used in a lot of Marvel animated properties, but hasn’t appeared in the MCU. Titania was in and out of the prison several times in the comics, but often was broken out by another villain for a team-up.
A Shark Ate Titania
Titania didn’t just spend time in the Vault in the comics. She also ended up in the Pym Experimental Prison. There, inmates were shrunk down to size with Pym particles. They were less than an inch tall so the prison itself didn’t take up as much space.
In her shrunken state, however, one storyline saw her picked up by a Skrull and thrown to a shark, which then ate her. It’s unclear how she survived, but when she reemerged in the comics, she ended up back in the Vault under the watchful eyes of Luke Cage as the warden.
Titania Was Named After A Real Marvel Employee
The comic book version of Titania's civilian name is Mary MacPherran, a name which she shares with a real-life Marvel Comics production assistant who worked in the offices during Titania's inception in 1984.
Jim Shooter, Marvel's Editor-In-Chief at the time, asked the real-life MacPherran for permission to use her name for his new villain introduced during the Secret Wars event. Shooter has gone on record in multiple interviews since extolling Mary's contributions to the bullpen and the lasting personal impact which led him to name the character in tribute.
She Wasn't The First Titania
Before MacPherran became the most notable user of the name, Marvel Comics had another character named Titania. Davida DeVito, Marvel's first Titania, was a member of a team of super-powered professional wrestlers called the Grapplers.
Led by DeVito, the team included Letha, Poundcakes, and Screaming Mimi, aka Melissa Gold, who would eventually become one of Marvel's greatest redemption stories as the Thunderbolts' Songbird. As MacPherran gained notoriety with the Titania alias, DeVito would be repackaged under the name Lascivious, which she has used in all subsequent appearances.
Titania Was A Fragile Child
As outlined in her first appearance, Mary MacPherran was born premature, growing up as a weak and sickly child. Years of bullying led her to fantasize about becoming a superpowered being, like the ones she had seen permeating the news reports of the Marvel Universe in which she lived.
When Julia Carpenter, the second Spider-Woman debuted with the same red hair color, Mary attempted to increase her popularity during her senior year of high school by claiming that she was the mysterious vigilante. This lie backfired upon her when she was invited to a sleepover with her school's popular students, during which they all witnessed the real Spider-Woman in action, exposing Mary's lies.
Titania Gained Her Powers During Marvel's First Crossover
1984's Secret Wars was the first-ever official Marvel crossover series published. The landmark story pitted the company's greatest heroes and villains against one another and was a milestone building block towards the massive Marvel crossover series' that have since become classics of modern superhero comics. As the de facto leader of Marvel's villains, Doctor Doom was willing to pull out all stops to ensure victory, including empowering previously unknown characters.
The small town in which Mary MacPherran had resided was one of many earthly terrains composited into the Beyonder's "Battleworld" during this event, and after finding the wayward teen, Doom was more than obliged to grant her desire for power. With alien technologies, Doom transformed Mary MacPherran into the supervillain Titania in the third issue of the series.
Titania Had A Phobia Of Spider-Man
After being transformed into Titania and gaining strength comparable to Marvel heroes The Thing and She-Hulk, Mary MacPherran faced off against both during the Secret Wars, surprising the veteran adventurers with her unexpected raw strength and endurance. Gaining confidence from these confrontations, MacPherran would literally and metaphorically have her legs swept from under her when she faced off against Spider-Man, who had entered the fray as one of Marvel's most experienced heroes.
While Titania's brute strength could have easily subdued the wall-crawler in hand-to-hand combat, Spider-Man's speed and cunning proved to be more than she could handle. After being delivered an embarrassing beating by the web-slinger, Titania developed a fear of the friendly neighborhood hero for years after, frequently succumbing to an anxiety-fueled panic when faced with any potential confrontation with him.
Titania Found Love With The Absorbing Man
While they both served Doctor Doom during the Secret Wars, the classic Hulk foe Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man, and the newly empowered Titania had an initially tense relationship. In fact, immediately after gaining her powers, Titania challenged Creel to spar, to which he declined, declaring he had "nothing to prove to a dame." Following the event, however, the two would become frequent partners in crime, leading to a burgeoning romance.
After partnering for years, the villains were eventually married in 1996's Avengers Unplugged #4. Their wedding was attended by a who's who of Marvel villains, leading to the ceremony being interrupted by the Avengers, who were wary of the gathering of so many of their foes. After realizing the duo had no ulterior motives, the Avengers retreated, allowing Creel and Titania to finalize their union and become one of Marvel Comics' most iconic supervillain couples.
Titania Has Been A Member Of Multiple Villain Teams
Since gaining her powers, Titania has had notable stints as a member of some of Marvel's most well-known villainous teams. Immediately following her empowerment, she joined Helmut Zemo's Masters of Evil alongside her future husband the Absorbing Man. Later, she joined the Wizard, Klaw, and Hydro-Man as a member of a reorganized version of the Frightful Four. Less notably, Titania also fought Captain America as a member of the all-female team of supervillains, the Femizons.
While she has frequently been portrayed alongside other villains in teams such as these, Titania has been notably absent during their most daring exploits, such as when her fellow Masters of Evil laid siege to the Avenger's Mansion while she and the Absorbing Man were assigned a separate mission and consequently missed out on participating in one of the all-time greatest Avengers stories.
Titania Once Possessed An Infinity Stone
Fans of the MCU are aware of the incredible power of the Infinity Stones, which, when combined, allowed Thanos to snap half of the universe's population out of existence in an instant. The six stones represent the primordial building blocks of the universe itself, including space, mind, time, reality, soul, and power.
Following multiple defeats at the hands of She-Hulk, Titania would come into possession of the Power Stone, which increased her strength to unprecedented levels. After finally defeating her longtime foe, Titania would suffer a crisis of purpose, realizing that without an enemy to motivate her she had no direction. During this fleeting moment of clarity, She-Hulk would regroup and capitalize, stealing the Power Stone from Titania and knocking her unconscious while still in her Jennifer Walters civilian form.
Titania Is A Cancer Survivor
Despite her advanced physiology, Titania would prove to be vulnerable to one of the most tragic mortal weaknesses when she was diagnosed with cancer. Lacking health insurance, and desperate to save his wife, the Absorbing Man kidnapped nurse Jane Foster, a frequent ally of the Norse Thunder God, Thor. When Thor came to rescue Nurse Foster, the resulting battle would result in a building collapse that would have cost Jane her life if not for Titania's protection; holding the falling building upon her shoulders despite her weakened state.
Years later, with her cancer in remission, Titania would encounter Jane Foster once more. By this time, Foster had become the newest enchanted hammer wielder and showed no hesitation when attacking her former captor turned savior.
Titania Was Worthy
When Cul, the long-forgotten brother of the Norse God's patriarch Odin, returned to claim the throne he believed was rightfully his, he released seven darkly enchanted hammers upon the earth, transforming a collection of earth's strongest beings into his heralds, dubbed "The Worthy." Titania was among the ranks of these newly empowered avatars, claiming her enchanted hammer to become "Skirn, Breaker of Men."
As a member of the Worthy, Titania's strength was enhanced to unprecedented levels, allowing her to go toe-to-toe with many of the heroes who had previously defeated her in combat. While the Worthy were eventually defeated by a collective of godly-empowered Avengers, Titania's tenure within their ranks would help to finally solidify her as a genuine threat after years of being seen mostly as a B-List villain.