Mariah Romanova
43 years ago - Mariah Romanova is born in St Petersburg, Russia.
37 years ago - 6-year-old Mariah Romanova attends an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland, where she begins to study fencing.
26 years ago - 17-year-old Mariah Romanova wins Olympic Silver in women's sabre.
25 years ago - 18-year-old Mariah Romanova attends Princeton, where she studies anthropology
22 years ago - 21-year-old Mariah Romanova wins Olympic Gold in women's sabre.
21 years ago - 22-year-old Mariah Romanova earns a bachelors degree in anthropology from Princeton, and begins her postgrad work in Archeology.
19 years ago - 24-year-old Mariah Romanova focuses her research on the possible history of Atlantis when Arthur Curry first reveals himself to the surface world.
16 years ago - 27-year-old Mariah Romanova earns her masters degree in archeology. She continues her research, traveling the world to track down evidence of the influence of Atlantis in her ship, the Lady J.
14 years ago - 29-year-old Mariah Romanova's work on the possible history of Atlantis is published. She earns her doctorate.
13 years ago - 30-year-old Mariah Romanova takes apart a group of artifact smugglers, handing them over to Interpol.
10 years ago - 33-year-old Mariah Romanova meets Jennifer Morgan, who is planning an expedition into the North Pole to hunt the source of the mysterious disappearance of her father Travis Morgan. She agrees to accompany her.
9 years ago - 34-year-old Mariah Romanova & Jennifer Morgan set sail for the North Pole and find an entrance into Skartaris. They are attacked and captured by Theran slavers. Jennifer is sold, but Mariah is able to escape, and finds her way to Shamballah, and tells Travis Morgan that his daughter is lost in Skartaris. Morgan, Mariah Machiste & Shakira ride off to find and save her. She does not act on her attraction to Machiste when she learns that he is engaged.
8 years ago - 35-year-old Mariah Romanova, Travis Morgan, Machiste & Shakira assist Aram al Ashir in retaking a Kaambuku outpost held by the Snake People. They are joined by the herald Aton. Machiste & Mariah become lovers.
7 years ago - 36-year-old Mariah Romanova, Travis Morgan, Machiste, Shakira & Aton find the restored castle Deimos. Aton is killed in the assault, but they breach the castle, where they confront the resurrected Deimos, whose follower Faaldren turns on him, allowing Morgan to finally, truly kill him & free Jennifer Morgan. Machiste returns to Kiro and his fiancé as Mariah begins to travel Skartaris as an adventurer, exploring the history of ancient Atlantis.
First of all, I should probably comment on the art at the top of this page... because I agree, it's a lot. Of all the gratuitously bikini-clad ladies in Skartaris, Mariah might be the MOST gratuitously bikini-clad, to the point where I don't know if that actually qualifies as a bikini. She is absolutely a major character in the story of Travis Morgan, but if I'm going to show you art of her... well... it's going to look like that, so I might as well just lean into it.
Mariah came about in Warlord, I think, from a very particular story need. Grell I'm sure knew full well that part of the appeal of his sword and sorcery comic was the way he was drawing Morgan's barbarian queen love interest, but for her to be the prize in the quest, she actually couldn't always BE there. Grell needed to add a SECOND sexy bikini warrior, and to that end gave Morgan a new sidekick who also happened to be from the surface... and got a little creative with her outfit.
Mariah came about in Warlord, I think, from a very particular story need. Grell I'm sure knew full well that part of the appeal of his sword and sorcery comic was the way he was drawing Morgan's barbarian queen love interest, but for her to be the prize in the quest, she actually couldn't always BE there. Grell needed to add a SECOND sexy bikini warrior, and to that end gave Morgan a new sidekick who also happened to be from the surface... and got a little creative with her outfit.
Mariah's Comic HistoryMorgan found himself back on the surface, briefly, in issue #6 of Warlord, and immediately bursts in on beautiful Russian archeologist, Mariah Romanova. After a brief adventure with some magical artifacts, and an encounter with some of her fellow Russians (this is 1977, remember) Mariah agrees to accompany Morgan back to Skartaris. It's not outright SAID that she's doing it because she's attracted to him, or even really implied, so much as it's just understood. Morgan quickly explains to her how things are here in Skartaris, arming her with a custom sword (we learn that, conveniently, she was Russian national saber champion), and of course, her very own ridiculously skimpy costume, which she seems perfectly fine with?
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Soon Morgan and Mariah are joined again by his old friend Machiste, and they become the core threesome of the book for a good while. Eventually, they get to Shamballah, Morgan's destination, restoring him to Tara. Suddenly Mariah seemed to be much more motivated by her crush on Morgan, because seeing him choose Tara really seemed to affect her, running off with Machiste following her.
They rejoin Morgan and Tara later, that weird moment seemingly forgotten, helping them attack Deimos's castle and attempt to save their son, but of course, Deimos's plan to make Morgan think he's killed his own son is successful, and Morgan leaves them all behind to wander the land heartbroken. This is where it gets a little odd. Grell seems to want to find something for Mariah and Machiste, Travis's two original sidekicks, to do... so he introduced a temporal portal, sending them back into "The Era of the Wizard-Kings", an age of magic in Skartaris before the coming of the Atlanteans. They have adventures here with a strange little wizard named Mongo Ironhand. The story would treat their adventures in the past as if they ran concurrently with the events in the present, and sometimes characters would cross back and forth between them, remaining an extremely weird part of the Warlord series for pretty much the duration. Mariah and Machiste would become a couple during this period, although when she finally returned to the present she almost immediately started making trouble between Morgan & Tara again. |
Our Mariah StoryWhile Mariah clearly does have a role to play in the adventures of Travis Morgan, I'm not really sure just how much of what she actually DID in those stories is necessary. As much as she's supposed to be this incredibly formidable character, her main role seemed to be to play the role of lovesick schoolgirl, fawning over Morgan even though he's never really indicated any sort of interest or availability, becoming Machiste's love interest only to quickly leave him behind to pursue Morgan again... later stories would show that she finally did, permanently, stay with Machiste, but that just brings all that time spent wavering feel even more pointless.
All the while, she's just brimming with potential if she was just allowed to exist on her own merit. She's a renowned Russian archeologist AND an Olympic champion fencer? Doesn't that just scream at you for more explanation? We did exactly that, really building up her backstory to emphasize just how cool she must be, and then making her an adventurer in her own right, fully disconnected from Travis. Instead, we brought her into Skartaris as an ally of JENNIFER, giving her her own quest to save her friend that eventually brings her into contact with the rest of the heroes, before her own desire to learn about the history of ancient Atlantis leads her to choose to stay. Of all the heroes of Skartaris, she's the one who is probably still out there, having adventures, exploring the ruins of the ancient Atlantean civilization, and not having a werewolf ex-boyfriend. Oh yea. We fully skipped that she had a werewolf ex-boyfriend from Russia who followed her into Skartaris. Mariah's story got WEIRD. |
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