I admit to having a bit of an obsession when it comes to the women of Marvel. Y’all have seen me write about them before like in the 90’s timeline prep for Captain Marvel or when I shared my thoughts on Storm’s absence from the MCU.

But there are plenty of other interesting Marvel women to explore for a number of reasons and today I want to start a conversation about Princess Ravonna Lexus Renslayer.

For those of you who recently witnessed the amazingly timebending storytelling of Loki on Disney+ a bit of this name should sound familiar.

The character of Judge Renslayer is built on Princess Ravonna, daughter of King Carelius who was a ruler of 40th Century Earth which is described as a war-ridden and violent era. Ravonna is also an assassin so perhaps that explains a little bit why Judge Renslayer had mad fighting skills in Loki come to think of it 🤔.

When Kang traveled to the 40th Century and set out to conquer it, he falls in love with Ravonna and attempts to win her hand in marriage. Ever the conqueror, he tries to prove to her that he is worthy by completely conquering her planet and time period. Ravonna is unimpressed and unmoved by Kang’s actions but in the midst of a battle she saves Kang by jumping in front of a blast intended to kill him revealing she does have feelings for him.

This is where as a kid I had all kinds of questions. A murderous bully shows up one day set on conquering your world but spares your life and your family and subjects because he wants you to be his boo and somewhere in there you develop feelings for him so strong that you sacrifice your life for his? Does this sound slightly problematic to anyone else? Sounds like a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome to me.

After she is killed, Kang places Ravonna’s body in stasis until he can find a way to revive her. He gets a chance to do this courtesy of The Grandmaster (a Celestial who can grant the ability to manipulate life and death) and he does not choose to wake Ravonna. And when Ravonna is awakened by other means she is pissed.

Now this part I can totally believe. She sacrificed herself to save Kang and he threw away a chance to bring her back? Yeah, Ravonna was ripe for a good ole case of vengeance. Eventually she and Kang face off again and in the course of that battle Kang ends up taking the full blow of Thor’s hammer to save Ravonna. She in turn places him in stasis because she didn’t want to see him die that way.

Eventually Kang comes back and starts wiling out again and ends up at war with Immortus and that’s when we discover that Ravonna has been working with Immortus who is actually an older version of Kang.

Yeah, I know. That was a lot. But trust me, it gets even weirder than that. So if this has wetted your appetite you really should think about grabbing a few of these comic books because Kang and Ravonna might be the true poster children of the relationship status “It’s Complicated”.

Next week I think I might dive into the origin story of 30th Century Kang and spin some ideas of how Jonathan Majors might bless us with his interpretation of the evolution of Kang. Let me know if there’s something you’d like me to breakdown in the comments.

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Marta is an award winning filmmaker, writer and producer committed to sharing the rich and complex stories of America’s Heartland region.  Marta wears several hats as Chief Creative-in-Charge of MartaGwyn Productions, LLC as well as the Co-Founder and Senior Grant Writer of Youngblood and Associates, LLC and Chief Operations Officer of Marta Collier Educational Systems and Services, LLC.

Marta is also the founder and editor-in-chief of TheWRITEaddiction.  An online community of writers that publish creative and inspirational works daily at www.TheWriteAddiction.com.

Marta is an alumna of The Ohio State University and Tougaloo College with degrees in Sociology and English-Journalism and resides in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband and unconventional college sweetheart of 10 years, Terrance Youngblood.