Radha Dastoor aka “Haven” was a minor X-Factor villain in the early 90s. She was not an “empath” in the superpower sense but she did have a sense of empathy with others so keenly developed it really almost counted for the same. At around18-20 she became pregnant, and the powerful demon known as The Adversary, a foe to the X-Men and specifically Forge, took possession of the child while it was still in her womb. I write about her A LOT on this blog.
The other night I found out about another Marvel character from the early 90s, Krista Marwan. Krista Marwan was a 19 year old Indian woman who was also an empath, though in her case that’s because she was a mutant. When the villain Death Metal (yes, really) realized his own evil, he sought to create a being that could destroy him one day, and he combined the DNA of two mutant heroes (Madison Jeffries and Vesper), chose Krista for the host, ambushed her, and injected that child into Krista’s reproductive tract against her will. So. Yeah, that’s basically. . .y e a h.
Why did an 18-20 empathic/empathetic woman of Indian heritage have her reproductive capabilities exploited by villain TWICE in Marvel at around the same time period by two different writers? Like HOW is that a thing that happened twice at more or less the same time by different writers and more importantly WHY? Because that is SO WEIRDLY SPECIFIC.
Also, unlike Haven, Krista doesn’t die, she stops Death Metal’s rampage with her kindness and tells him she’s going to raise the child not to destroy him but to help and redeem him, and Haven was a really saintly woman before being possessed (and very benevolent even while she was) so like. . .yeah they had similar personalities too it seems.
I really have no idea what to make of this but it’s so bizarre I needed to post it.