Karma, AKA Xi’an Coy Manh (Marvel)
Xi’an (or Shan) is one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe (closely behind bitchy Emma Frost and virtuous Kitty Pryde, who should be a librarian, btw). Besides working as a librarian (notably, the University of Chicago), she is also one of the very few out lesbians in comics. A founding member of the New Mutants, she came to the US as a Vietnamese refugee, in the process witnessing her father’s and mother’s murders and herself surviving rape. She was left alone to fight her evil twin brother and raise her younger siblings but oh-ho, dear readers, she is not alone! She is an X-Man!! As a mutant, Karma can possess people’s minds and make them do pretty much whatever she wants them to. Which pretty much rules.
She’s gone through a lot of different looks through the years. First Karma looked old:
Then she looked like she was 23 and was into beer and random ladies:
Yes, that is totally a naked lady in her bed.
After the compulsory college-lesbian stint of working at the university library and dying her hair pink, Shan came back to the X-Men and headed up the libraries at the X-Mansion. I’m not really sure how she manages multiple libraries AND goes on world-saving missions: Willing suspension of disbelief, my friends. Willing suspension of disbelief.
