Nimue Inwudu

* Comics
* 2019

**Nimue Inwudu**, also known as **Madame Xanadu**, is a fictional character and hero in comic books published by the American company DC Comics. She first appeared in *Doorway to Nightmare* #1 (February 1978), but her first appearance in *Swamp Thing* comics was in *Swamp Thing Annual* #3 (December 2014). She was adapted by David Michelinie, Val Mayerik and Mike Kaluta. Xanadu is portrayed by Jeryl Prescott on the 2019 TV Series.

## TV Series

Madame Xanadu is a centuries-old sorceress who finds herself reluctantly drawn into battle against the escalating supernatural forces plaguing a small Louisiana town. A blind fortune teller and magical crusader, Xanadu's heart is in the right place despite her unorthodox methods in the fight against evil.

## Comics

Nimue Inwudu was an ancient sorceress, daughter of Atheron and Staegys, two of the last survivors of Atlantis. She had two sisters, Morgaine le Fey and Vivienne the Lady of the Lake, all three powerful magic users. The destiny of the three sisters was deeply connected to the fabled realm of Camelot, and Nimue was for a time also the lover of Merlin, the court wizard. The mystic being known as the Phantom Stranger, though, tricked Nimue into believing that Merlin had been manipulating history and the fallen Camelot itself for his own personal gain, so she betrayed him and imprisoned him for centuries… but the wizard, in turn, stripped her of all her magic, as well as of her immortality. In order to stay alive, Nimue had to use potions, but her lack of powers didn’t prevent her from trying to guide history, putting what little remained of her magic (mainly fortune telling) and her wisdom to the service of powerful men and women throughout history. In the XIII Century, she traveled to the Mongol Empire, where she became the adviser of Kublai Khan; she fell so much in love with the city of Xanadu that she decided to adopt its name, becoming Madame Xanadu. Thanks to her potions she crossed centuries, and she was in Spain during the XV Century, entering in conflict with the Spanish Inquisition due to a lesbian relation she was having at the time. She was in France at the end of the XVIII Century: she even tried to advise Queen Marie Antoinette just before the French Revolution, but the queen didn’t listen to her, caused an uprising, and was executed by the rebels. Xanadu, however, gained a personal victory: while she was in Versaille, she met Death of the Endless, and challenged her to a card game. Her centuries-long experience allowed her to gain the upper hand, and she won the prize: she regained her immortality (just in time, as the Revolution in the meanwhile had become quite a brutal and bloody mess). Finally, in the 1940s, she met a powerful magician, John Zatara, with whom she started a passionate relationship with: of course, she had some plans in mind for him as well.

Madame Xanadu had foreseen the birth of the Spectre, an enormously powerful being born from the fusion of a mortal and of the angel Aztar, that she hoped to control for her own purposes; the Phantom Stranger, of course, would have meddled with the being’s birth, so Xanadu manipulated Zatara into sealing him, thus letting P.I. Jim Corrigan become the host of Aztar. Her following visions, though, showed to her that she had unleashed a terrible threat on the world, as the Spectre was impossible to control, and he would have brought catastrophic destruction over all the planes of reality. In order to try and atone to her (many) past sins, Madame Xanadu opened a fortune parlor in Greenwich Village, where she offered her assistance to anybody having troubles with the supernatural. She couldn’t intervene directly in the matters (either because she couldn’t, or because she didn’t want to, or else because some other force prevented her to), but she gave precious advises to solve whatever problem her clients had, and when the mystic being causing trouble was properly defeated and caught, she imprisoned it in one of her jars, keeping it locked in her parlor. In the meanwhile, the Spectre did what she had foreseen, and went into a rampage… but was destroyed by the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. For the first time, Madame Xanadu used the magic relics she kept in her parlor to bring the Spectre back to existence, but this time she didn’t want to use his power for herself: she acted as an adviser to his human part, Jim Corrigan, eventually falling in love with him. Using her unique influence over Corrigan, Xanadu stopped many rampages of the Spectre, eventually managing to save Jim’s soul, always one step behind his own redemption, protecting him even from the seduction of a demon such as Neron. After helping the Spectre, Madame Xanadu became a reference point for the superhuman community: the Suicide Squad, John Constantine, Deadman, Mary Marvel, Zatanna, Dr. Mist… eventually, everybody who ever dealt with the supernatural came to her, and she was always happy to lend a hand.

Nimue Inwudu is a wise and highly intelligent woman, characterized by a sarcastic and mean nature that she can’t hide even behind the (honest) intention to help others in order to redeem her soul. As Madame Xanadu, she’s a powerful sorceress, but after Merlin’s curse she has access only to a fraction of her original powers: she can see the future, which she interprets with tarots, she can teleport and move things with her mind, she can levitate, and she’s immortal and invulnerable, unkillable by any means; she possesses a number of mystic relics and magic books, as well as weird imprisoned creatures and demons, that she can use to perform more powerful spells. Blind, yet all-seeing, Madame Xanadu is the witness of human history, a homo magi who crossed centuries and who’s ready to share her knowledge with whoever needs it… all this to amend the fact that she put all reality in jeopardy because of her lust for power.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Elemental Magic**
	+ **Decelerated Aging**
	+ **Animal Transmutation**
	+ **Eldritch Blast**
	+ **Electrokinesis**
	+ **Hydrokinesis**
	+ **Energy Construct Creation**
	+ **Magic Shield Creation**
	+ **Precognition**
	+ **Telekinesis**
* **Driving**
* **Multilingualism**
* **Occultism**
* **Tarot Card Reading**

## In other media

*Main article: Madame Xanadu In other media*

## Notes/Trivia

She is based on Nimue, the sorceress from Arthurian mythology made popular by Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.