Who is Marvel Comics' Madame Masque? Exploring origin and powers of supervillain

As far as Marvel villains go, Madame Masque is quite the femme fatale and over the years has proven herself to be a formidable villain. Giuletta Nefaria's story has always been fun to experience. Appearing in Marvel comics, Masque has had a huge amount of history here and she can occasionally be a sympathetic villain too.

An occasional love interest of Iron Man as well, Madame Masque has caused many huge inplications in Marvel's 616 universe. Not only that, but she has had many run-ins with heroes like Moon Knight, Hawkeye, Kate Bishop and more. So, let's take a look at the origins of this famed supervillain from the Marvel Universe.

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How did Madame Masque become the villain she is: Origins explored

Character from the comics (Image via Marvel Comics)

Madame Masque was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan, and she first appeared in Tales of Suspense #97 back in October, 1967. She goes by the name of Giulietta Nefaria and is part of the Nefaria crime family.

Giulietta was born to Count Luchino Nefaria in Rome, Italy. Her mother passed away during childbirth and Luchino wanted Giulietta to live a better life. So, he gave her away to his employee Byron Frost and his wife Loretta Frost. The family was wealthy as well, so this solidified Luchino's decision even more.

Giulietta's name was then changed to Whitney Frost and they raised her as their own child. Whitney went on to have a really good life and was even engaged to politician Roger Vane. Following the Frosts' death, Luchino returned and revealed Whitney's true heritage as he wanted her to inherit his position as the head of the Maggia crime family.

Whitney revealed this to Roger, but he broke off the engagement as he didn't want to be associated with a criminal and hamper his political career. Heartbroken, Whitney accepted Luchino's offer and began training in criminalities. Being extremely smart, Whitney picked up the knowledge and skills quite well.

Character from the comics (Image via Marvel Comics)

After her father was imprisoned, she took over his position as the head of the Maggia family. This led to her conflict with Iron Man, who was known to have many run-ins with the Nefaria family.

Whitney led a raid on Stark Industries, but was forced to escape after things went south. She boarded a plane to escape but the plane crashed, leaving her face scarred. She was saved by the criminal Mordecai Midas, following which she started working for him.

Midas, who was obsessed with gold (quite the symbolism there), gave Whitney a mask made completely out of gold so she would be able to cover up her scarred face. This was when she adopted the identity of Madame Masque.

Character from the comics (Image via Marvel Comics)

Madame Masque then met Tony Stark and fell for him. Whitney went on to witness how Tony didn't care about her scarred face and loved her for who she was and she turned on Midas. She eventually left him because of her criminal past, but was unable to ignore her feelings. She then adopted the identity of Krissy Longfellow and became Stark's personal secretary. It's here that both came to know about their secrets and started a romance.

Their love was quite short-lived as Count Nefaria was revealed to be dying as he tried to give himself superpowers. Madame Masque asked the Ani-Men to bring her father to her, but Stark refused to help and fought the Ani-Men as Iron Man. The Count passed away during the fight and this caused Masque to go insane.

She left Tony and returned to the Nefaria family as their leader. She then resumed her personal vendetta against Iron Man.

Well, this was it for her origins. Here is hoping Madame Masque shows up soon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.