I’m on Excalibur #43 in my chronological read-through, and I wanted to take a little time to talk about Meggan. I touched on her when I posted about the original Excalibur team,…

I’m on Excalibur #43 in my chronological read-through, and I wanted to take a little time to talk about Meggan. I touched on her when I posted about the original Excalibur team, but there is a lot more to her than I covered there. Especially her history, her relationship with Brian Braddock, and the attraction between her and Nightcrawler. I’m keeping this to where I’m at in the reading. I’m not jumping ahead to tell you how any of it turns out. Meggan’s history goes back before Excalibur, into the Captain Britain stories. She grew up in a travelling family, and her powers were affecting her life before she could understand them. When she was born in the cold, her body grew fur to protect her. People saw something frightening, started imagining what else might be wrong with her, and her powers responded to those fears. The more they expected a monster, the more her appearance reflected that. Think about growing up with that. Other people decide what you are before you have any real chance to figure it out yourself. With Meggan, their expectations can actually change what she looks like. She spent much of her childhood hidden away, watching television, with very little opportunity to experience the world everyone else took for granted. That is a pretty rough starting point for someone who eventually has to figure out relationships, confidence, and where she fits into a team. Alison Double is important to that earlier history. She recognizes something in Meggan that Meggan cannot yet recognize in herself, and tries to help her understand that the appearance she has lived with does not have to be permanent. During the trouble with the Warpie children, that understanding finally starts to click. Meggan begins realizing she can change. Then you have Brian. Captain Britain was someone she admired, and becoming part of his life gave that admiration a much more personal connection. Their relationship was already established before Excalibur brought everyone else into the picture. They have history together, and that matters when you look at what is happening around them now. But sharing a life with someone and suddenly sharing your home with an entire superhero team are two different situations. The lighthouse becomes crowded, other personalities get involved, and things that might have stayed between Brian and Meggan are happening with everyone around. Brian can be territorial, and Meggan’s dependence on him creates pressure of its own. Add his old connection with Courtney Ross, and there is already plenty to complicate things before you even get to Kurt. And then, yeah, you get to Kurt. The attraction between Meggan and Nightcrawler is there. Her empathy and tendency to mirror others are part of what makes this more complicated than simply deciding she likes another guy. Other people’s feelings can affect her, including how she presents herself. That leaves a question hanging over their interactions: how much is coming from Meggan herself, and how much is her responding to what someone else feels or wants? I don’t think you can answer that by dismissing every feeling she has as her powers doing something. She still has feelings. She still matters as a person. But you also cannot ignore how those powers complicate her ability to work out what she wants. Calling it a love triangle gets the basic idea across, but it leaves a lot out. Brian is her partner, with everything they have already been through. Kurt is a friend and teammate, and there is an attraction that makes that friendship more complicated. All three are trying to live and work around one another. You can see why that becomes uncomfortable without turning it into a claim that Meggan and Kurt are secretly having an affair. What I want to keep looking at as I read is Meggan herself. It would be easy to spend the whole discussion deciding which man makes the better choice and barely talk about what she needs. Her history gives that question more weight. She has spent so much of her life responding to what other people think she should be. Having room to understand herself matters just as much as what happens with either relationship. That’s the part I wanted to give more attention to. The team introduction only had room for a little of it, and there is a whole character here worth talking about beyond listing her powers or who she’s dating.