Xavin

Xavin is a fictional character in the Marvel Comics award-winning series, Runaways. She is a Super-Skrull in training, created by author Brian K. Vaughan & artist Adrian Alphona, and debuted in Runaways vol. 2 #7. Xavin had first appeared to the Runaways, taking on the form of a black male, but changed into a black female just for the sake of Karolina Dean, a lesbian to which she was to marry. Regardless, Xavin is also often seen as a male, simply to be "intimidating". . Xavin, often called "Xav" for short, is known for her obnoxious and warlike personality. She had originally found it hard to fit in with the runaways because of her constant gender switching, and adapted to the group fairly slowly. She is the daughter of the famed Skrull Prince De'zean.

History
When Xavin journeys to Earth to find Karolina Dean, he reveals to Karolina that her parents had one large secret. The Deans had been exiled from their planet Majesdane for criminal activities, so they traveled to Earth, where they encountered Xavin's father, Prince De'zean of the Skrulls, who was going to rule Earth. The Deans had stopped the destruction, but gave the Skrulls the location of another, more valuable planet: Majesdane, their own home planet, which had exiled them. In order to show their willingness to prove they weren't lying, they gave Prince De'zean their daughter's hand in marriage. The Deans had, privately, believed that Xavin would die in the new Skrull/Majesdanian war. He arrives to Earth in order to marry her and hopefully, that would stop the fifteen year-long war between his and her races Xavin encounters Karolina shortly after her romantic advances are rejected by Nico Minoru. Xavin, trying to convince Karolina to be his bride, fights and pursues her. Karolina reveals that she is not attracted to men and doesn't want to live a lie, but Xavin alters his form to that of a human woman and persuades her to leave with the new female version of Xavin.

During the wedding ceremony, a fight breaks out between the two races, and Xavin and Karolina barely escape before Majesdane is destroyed. They return to Earth, where they help rescue Molly Hayes from the New Pride. Xavin impersonates Nico and takes a bullet for her, distracting Geoffrey Wilder long enough for Nico to untie Molly and escape. She survives the attack, shape-shifting the organs out of the way.

Personality
Xavin is known for her war-like, yet rash attitude, something that irritates the other runaways, particularily Victor, who she had a strong animosity towards because being an android, Victor would have been hardwired to cook and clean on her planet. Although Xavin often demonstrates a strong, General-type behaviour, there are periods when she accidently shows she barely has any more experience than the other runaways; more notably a time when she stretches herself from one building to another just to get to the other side, instead of simply creating a force-field bridge.

Secret Invasion
When the Runaways return from a trip to the past, Xavin learns she is in the most heated phase of the Skrullian Invasion. Instead of fighting, she knocks down her teammates, and attemps a peaceful settlement of the war, reasoning that the Skrulls are "religious extremists". Her attempts at peace fail, and she's furthermore informed by that the Runaways, as every other superhuman being, are targeted for execution. She urges Nico Minoru to take the rest of the team and hide, and in a last ditch effort to halt the invasion, she flees to search for Hulkling, former Skrull King and enemy of the religious extremist Skrulls' Queen, Veranke. She finds Hulkling injured, targeted for assassination by Veranke herself. By siding with Hulkling, she's branded as a traitor too.

As a fugitive
Weeks later Xavin is more well adjusted, refraining from insulting Victor and becoming close to Molly (the only teammate other than Karolina to always refer to Xavin as female). However, Xavin is still more or less an outcast to the other members. Like the other Runaways, Xavin is an orphan (he told the group when he first appeared that his parents were dead because of the aliens' war). He also calls himself a runaway when he reveals his identity to Geoffry Wilder. Xavin joins the group but has trouble adjusting to his/her new surroundings and getting along with his/her new teammates, particularly Victor, whom he/she often offends with condescending remarks about robots. Although he/she is aggressive and headstrong, Xavin is motivated to protect his/her new home by his/her love for Karolina. Xavin usually reverts to the male Skrull form when in battle insisting that it adds to a more intimidating persona, despite Karolina thinking that it is sexist, yet still spends some time in male human form as well. However durring their trip to 1907 it was revealed that when she loses control the female form was the one she would revert to when under emotional pressure, something that made Karolina very happy.

Powers and abilities
Xavin, being a Skrull, has the species' natural ability to shape-shift. Xavin was also a member of a Super-Skrull-training program to create a new generation of Skrull warriors. As such, Xavin has the powers of the Fantastic Four: Mister Fantastic's ability to stretch and contort his body into any shape imaginable, Invisible Woman's power to render herself invisible and ability to create and project invisible powerful psionic forces to create any shape imaginable, Human Torch's pyrokinesis and flight and The Thing's superhuman strength and highly resistant, orange-colored, rock-like hide. Unsurprisingly, the original Super-Skrull K'lrt is one of Xavin's idols.

As stated by Xavin, he/she is still a Super Skrull in training, and can only use one of the Fantastic Four abilities at a time. Any more would invariably make Xavin lose control of his/her powers and be a harm to his/her surroundings. An example would be when Xavin was bombarded with high frequency sounds and lost control over his/her powers resulting in an explosion that destroyed a house. However, recently, he/she has shown the ability to control two of his/her powers at once in addition to his natural shapeshifting abilities.

Question of gender
Due to Xavin often changing through his/her three main forms, (Human female, true Skrull form, and Human male) both characters within the comic and fans question the nature of his/her gender.

As a Skrull, a race of shapeshifters, Xavin stated "For us, just changing our gender is no different than changing our hair color", implying that most Skrulls change their looks often. When asked by Molly about why he/she doesn't stay in one form all the time, Xavin replied that it was simply his/her nature to do so and doesn't see a problem in it, though it causes Xavin to start questioning his/her own nature.

Karolina is fixed on the idea that Xavin is female, and that Xavin isn't pretending to be a woman, just learning to be human. Although Karolina does truly love Xavin, even so much as to deny Xavin disguised as Nico, she does become depressed when a discussion of what Xavin's true form is comes to play between her and Nico.

In Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways Xavin is noted as being almost always in male form even when he/she would normally be female in the main book (i.e. the opening in issue 1 when the group went food shopping). Most fans seem to assume that it was a writer's or editor's choice to leave that part out. In Joss Whedon's six-part version, Xavin is shown going into his Skrull form as a female, so becoming male seems almost unnecessary. When the group is in the year 1907, Xavin takes a form of an older white male (both main human forms are black) most likely due to the times. A recent Humberto Ramos design image shows Xavin in a new female Skrull form.

During an argument with Karolina, Xavin loses control and changes form into his/her female form, even more emphasizing for Karolina that Xavin is female, and when asked about it, Xavin replies that he/she didn't realize that the question of gender was in doubt.

In upcoming issues, Xavin will be a boy when with the guys, but will be a girl when with the girls.