Contributed by Michael McDermott
Thousands of years ago, when Anath-Na Mut first absorbed the energy of the Ka Stone and became the original Sphinx, he was overwhelmed by the incredible power and emerged from the temple into the desert in a dazed state. A poor, lonely outcast Egyptian woman found him lying there in the desert. She took care of him, and nursed him while he adapted to the new power and regained control of himself. The woman soon fell in love with him, but the Sphinx had no interest in her, and simply left as soon as he had recovered. The woman spent the rest of her life in unrequited love for a man whose name she never knew. She grew old alone, and eventually died.
However, that was not the end of her. She found herself reborn in the body of an Egyptian boy, with all the memories of her previous life still intact! She had absorbed some of the Ka Stone energy that had leaked from the Sphinx when she first encountered him. S/he was still obsessed with a passion for the Sphinx, and schemed of a way that they could someday be reunited. During a later life, as the wife of the Pharaoh, she arranged to have herself buried with the Sceptre of Ka, which she could someday use to focus the powers of the Ka Stone which the Sphinx wears upon his forebead.
The woman continued to be reborn through the centuries, in bodies of every gender, race and walk of life, but she always maintained her romantic obsession with the Sphinx. Her patience finally paid of when the Sphinx returned as a super-villain, and he was eventually destroyed in battle with the planet-eater Galactus. Her most recent body was once again that of an Egyptian woman, Meryet Karim. She learned of the Sphinx’ destruction at the hands of Galactus, and returned to her homeland to retrieve the Sceptre of Ka from one of her old burial sites. With it she was able to absorb the Ka energies that had been dispersed into the atmosphere when the Sphinx was destroyed.
Maryet now possessed the reality-warping powers of the Sphinx and used them to alter history creating her fanatasy world where she and the Sphinx were together. However, just like the original Sphinx, she was overwhelmed by the new power, and the false history she created led to a lot of negative changes in the timeline. Sayge, the living embodiment of truth, joined forces with the New Warriors to stop the new Sphinx and change reality back. Meryet was finally forced to admit that she could not live a lie, and restored the timeline.
Months later the original Sphinx was restored to life and hunted down Meryet to reclaim his power from her. He did not understand that she had been motivated by love for him, and thought that she merely sought to usurp his power. He violently stole back his power from her and resumed his villainous ways, again coming into conflict with Nova and the New Warriors.
Meryet assisted the Warriors in defeating the Sphinx, and eventually she managed to convince him of her love for him, and that it was possible for them to have a future together. Coming together to share their power and love, the two Sphinxes merged together into a combined being, composed of the personalities (and genders) of both. The combined Sphinx-entity re-appeared months later to prevent a major disruption to the timeline, but has not been seen since. However, the original male Sphinx has since returned, with no explanation of what became of Meryet or the merged Sphinx.
Meryet is a perpetual reincarnate, who moves from one life to the next with all of her memories and personality from previous lives intact. There does not appear to be any restrictions on her body changes; she can be either male or female and come from any racial background. As the Sphinx, she posessed incredible super strength and energy manipulation abilities. She was capable of warping reality to the point that she was actually able to alter over 1000 years of history.
Meryet Karim first appeared in New Warriors #4 9volume 1), and was outed in New Warriors #12 (volume 1).
Karim was created by Fabian Nieciza and Mark Bagley. Art by Bagley, Larry Mahlstedt, and Andy Yanchus from New Warriors #11.
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