You Are All Targets

The Maggia is a vast organized international crime syndicate. Giulietta Nefaria is the daughter of Maggia crime lord Count Luchino Nefaria, the head of the largest and oldest “family” in the organization.

After Giulietta’s mother died giving birth to her in Rome, Italy Luchino decided he wanted to protect his daughter from his enemies so he gave her to Byron Frost, a wealthy financier and an employee of Nefaria. Byron and his wife Loretta renamed Giulietta Whitney Frost and raised her as their own.
Raised in wealth and privilege Whitney became a debutante and socialite eventually becoming engaged to politician Roger Vane just out of her teens. Soon after her engagement Whitney’s parent’s died Count Nefaria approached the distraught Whitney and revealed her true origins as his daughter.
Count Nefaria told Whitney that he wanted her to take his place as leader of the Maggia family which was the most powerful in the organization.
Whitney at first refused, but when she told Roger about her father, he coldly left her, afraid that her connections to a known criminal would wreck his political career.

With nothing left of the life she knew the heartbroken Whitney finally accepted her father's offer to accept his offer. Through intense training from her father in strategy, criminal activities and combat among other skills, Whitney She proved to be a brilliant student and when her father was imprisoned, she became the new Big M, the leader of the Nefaria family of the Maggia.

As Big M, Whitney got into a conflict with Tony Stark/Iron Man when she attempted to raid his company, Stark Industries, for high tech weapons. When the raid went sour Whitney was forced to flee in a plane. During the flight something went wrong and the plane crashed and her face became horribly scarred from flaming chemicals that were stored aboard the craft.

Rescued from the crash by agents of Greek crime lord Mordecai Midas the injured Whitney was saved by Midas’ medical staff but nothing could be done to repair her facial disfigurement. Obsessed with gold Midas had a gold mask created for Whitney to wear to hide her ruined face. Dubbing herself Madame Masque Whitney became an agent for Midas.

Despite being grateful for Midas saving her life the fiercely independent Whitney chaffed under his leadership disliked having to take her orders from a man.

Through Midas’ schemes Madame Masque was once again brought face to face with Tony Stark when he was captured by Midas. Whitney was shocked when Stark actually showed concern and genuine affection for her even after seeing her disfigured face. Because of this Masque turned on Midas to save Stark’s life and then both escaped but despite her attraction to him Madam Masque left Stark because she felt her criminal past would be a burden to him.

Still Madam Masque wasn’t able to totally dismiss her feelings for Stark so she disguised herself and made up the identity of Krissy Longfellow becoming Tony Stark's personal secretary in order to remain close to him. Because of another conflict with Mordecai Midas Whitney and Tony came to know each other's secret identities and after defeating Midas once again the two star crossed lovers finally started a romantic relationship.
Unfortunately Whitney and Tony’s happiness was short-lived when Count Nefaria reappeared in Whitney’s life. Dying from rapid aging as the result of his attempt to gain superhuman powers the now enfeebled Count Nefaria was kept on life support by the Avengers while they attempted to find a cure for him.

Whitney, ever the dutiful daughter, believed the Avengers weren’t providing the proper care for her father and hired the costumed mercenary team the Ani-Men to break Count Nefaria out of Avengers custody and bring him to her.
Count Nefaria then had Tony Stark abducted and tried to force Stark into finding a cure for him. Stark, as Iron Man battled the Ani-Men during which Whitney was unable to choose between her father and her lover. Fleeing with her father to a Stark Laboratory Whitney, not wanting to hurt Stark set an experimental Jupiter landing vehicle off on a rampage hoping the runaway vehicle would keep Iron Man occupied enough for her to escape with her father.

During the battle the landing vehicle not only severed Nefaria's life-support system but also toppled atop Count Nefaria seemingly crushing him to death. Insane with grief Whitney couldn’t cope with seeing her lover kill her father and ended their relationship. Madam Masque returned to the Nefaria Maggia and as "The Director" and became its leader.

Isolating herself from in her desert base near Las Vegas Whitney became increasingly bitter and paranoid feeling everyone would eventually betray her. To protect herself Madam Masque started to create cloned copies of herself known as bio-duplicates sending them out into the world in her stead.
One duplicate allied itself with Obadiah Stane during his war on Tony Stark but was assassinated sometime after Stane committed suicide. Several more duplicates fought against Iron Man, SHIELD, Wonder Man and the Hulk during this period but each duplicate was eliminated by the original Madam Masque’s assassins and replaced when the duplicates would become increasingly independent or erratic in their behavior.

One of her bio-duplicates known as Masque rebelled against her programming and became an ally of the Avengers. Madam Masque created robotic servants known as the Inner Guard and named individually after notable historical traitors including Benedict Arnold, Brutus, Guy Fawkes and Vidkun Quisling.

Inner Guard robot Benedict hunted down and recaptured the renegade Masque duplicate from the Avengers for Whitney. Upon her return to the desert compound the duplicate tried to convince Whitney that the Avengers were benevolent and that she should reach out to Stark again because he truly loves her, but Whitney was still too paranoid and fearful to do so.

Whitney continued to be a criminal figure of importance, until her father revived as an ionic vampire who could drain or control any super humans powered by ionic energy. After rebuilding his criminal empire in Europe Count Nefaria began a vendetta against Iron Man and the Avengers in general as well as put his daughter and the entire Maggia under his control.

Enslaving the Avenger Wonder Man and the ionic giant Atlas from the Thunderbolts Count Nefaria sent them and the Grim Reaper to attack Whitney’s desert base. The Avengers and Thunderbolts teamed up with Whitney who reluctantly assisted them against her power mad father but she secretly planned to betray and destroy both sides once her father was defeated since her increased paranoia made her think both sides wanted to betray and kill her once her father was destroyed. Developing an energy gun called an Ionic Lock that could disrupt the energies within an ionic being it was used on Wonder Man and Atlas breaking them free from her father’s control.

The Masque duplicate again tried unsuccessfully to convince Whitney to side with the heroes but when she refused the duplicate grabbed the Ionic Lock and joined the battle in Whitney's place and was promptly destroyed by Count Nefaria when she attempted to shoot him. Count Nefaria showed only glee at his daughter’s apparent demise while Iron Man was anguished and horrified at the loss of the woman he'd once loved. Madame Masque was shocked by her duplicate's nobility and sacrifice and Iron Man's reaction forced her to realize that her duplicate had been right about the Avengers and Iron Man in particular all along.

Whitney grabbed the Ionic Lock from her duplicate’s smoldering corpse and joined the battle played a key role in her father's defeat when her blasts caused him to begin leaking ionic energy until he exploded. Afterwards Whitney decided to renounce her criminal past, and MACH-II of the Thunderbolts offered her membership on his team, but she politely declined, saying she needed to consider her future. Before leaving, she asked MACH-II to thank everyone for her, especially Iron Man.

Madame Masque turned up later when she was hired by the Hood to take advantage of the split in the superhero community caused by the Superhuman Registration Act. Whitney became the Hood's second in command and eventually his lover helping his organization fight the New Avengers but she was defeated and taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.

After Madame Masque was taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, a group of the alien shape-shifter race the Skrulls disguised themselves as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and were trying to learn what Whitney’s true face looked like so they could replace her with a Skrull sleeper agent.
The Hood freed Whitney from the Skrulls killing all but one that she took as prisoner. In a hidden base attended by most of the Hood's army, the gang tortured the Skrull until it revealed his religious sect of Skrulls plan on taking over Earth, believing it to be rightfully theirs due to a prophecy from their ancient texts. When the Skrull agent dies from the injuries received under torture another infiltrator, in the guise of the criminal Slug, is found out moments later and killed by the rest of the Hood’s gang.

When the event known as the Secret Invasion took place, Madame Masque along with the Hood's crime syndicate joined with the rest of Earth’s superhuman community and attacked the invading Skrull forces and helped defeat the invaders.

After assassinating the Skrull Queen on live television during the final battler Norman Osborn was put in charge of SHIELD and the Avengers which he and immediately framed the former Avengers and other heroes as outlaws claiming it was their incompetence that led to the Skrull invasion.
Osborn had a bounty put on Tony Stark's head and offered massive amounts of gold to the first person in the Hood's gang to get him. Madam Masque tracked Stark to a cabin in Russia, which Pepper Potts had also done before her. While Stark was away collecting firewood, Masque captured Pepper and Tony upon his return and tortured Pepper in front of Stark before demanding he tell his true feelings to her real face.

Tony admitted that, though they have been fighting, he always loved Whitney, to which Masque admitted she felt the same. However, when faced with a direct choice between Pepper and Masque, he actually chose Pepper. When Stark escaped and made a run to Afghanistan, Pepper fought with Masque and defeated her and imprisoned her inside Tony Stark’s discarded Crimson Dynamo armor.

Disguised as Madam Masque, Pepper later reports to Osborn that she killed Pepper in combat and returns to the United States with the Rescue armor which is placed in storage with other Stark armors that Osborn had acquired. Pepper then rejoined Stark discarding her Madam Masque disguise.
Escaping the Crimson Dynamo armor Madame Masque later showed up as part of a surprise attack on the New Avengers that was a trap set up by Norman Osborn. Afterwards when the Hood attacked Doctor Strange in order to become the new Sorcerer Supreme, Madam Masque realized to her horror that the Hood was possessed by the powerful demon lord Dormammu and was quickly losing control of his powers. Whitney removed her mask and confessed her feelings for the Hood and helped him fight off his possession.

When Osborn called off the hunt for Stark, due to his being in a persistent vegetative state, Masque decided to take matters into her own hands, and hired the industrial spy/anarchist the Ghost to eliminate Stark, but Ghost failed in his task.

When Norman Osborn decided to implement the Siege of Asgard, Madam Masque and the Hood, now empowered by Loki’s mystical Norn Stones lead the Hoods gang on the raid. However, the unbalanced hero The Sentry lost control of his evil split personality The Void and started destroying Asgard. Loki retook the Norn stones from the Hood to help the Avengers and Asgardians battle the Void which they did as Masque helped the Hood slip away during the chaos and abandon their gang.

The Hood, now without any super powers knew that his former gang, most of which were captured after the siege of Asgard would sell him out and lead authorities to him. Madam Masque sought out her resurrected father she Count Nefaria for help thinking he would empower The Hood.
The New Avengers, using The Hood’s criminal cousin John King tracked them to Nefaria’s lair and after the battle all four were placed under arrest and given to SHIELD custody.

The Hood later escaped from prison and made a play to assemble the Infinity Gauntlet by gathering the infinity gems that had been given to members of the superhuman community for safe guarding. During his quest the Hood met up with an escaped Madam Masque and used the reality gem to restore her face. It is unknown if Madam Masque’s face stayed fixed after the Hood was defeated and many of the events he caused with the gems were reversed.

Madam Masque and above shown and mentioned characters are all copyright of Marvel Comics.

Special thanks to [link] for being the model for Madam Masque.