Meredith appears for the first time in Iron Man v.5 #02, where we soon find out her story, in a flashback. When she was 21 years old and a genius wonder child, she had been researching force fields for Stark Industries, trying to make them competitive enough against Iron Man’s repulsor technology. Iron Man destroys her prototype, probably not knowing it was the only one and not a test one (and it’s not clear who was in the armor back then or if Tony was drunk), making it impossible for her to continue her research. She became a laughing stock and no one took her seriously again, until Arthur appeared, wanting to create New Avalon and hire Meredith as his Merlin.
In Iron Man v.5, “Merlin” lives in this New Avalon island where certain individuals have the “Grail” (that’s how they call Extremis), in a recreation of Arthur’s knights of the round table. Still angry at Tony and needing to get her revenge, she creates for Arthur the perfect armor suit able to combine with an extremis piloting system well enough to be a match for Tony’s one.
She armors four pilots who call themselves Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain and Percival. They all have Meredith’s shield technology, better and improved enough to make it impossible for Tony to hack it. Still, Tony manages to defeat the knights, realizing that the force fields are light-permeable, thus winning, as previously decided, the Extremis serum Arthur had left. Defeated, Meredith realizes that without Extremis she can’t built other armors.
In the flashback sequence in Justice League, Steppenwolf’s Mother Boxes are divided up between the humans, Amazons and Atlanteans that helped defeat the evil New God’s invasion.
The Amazons were led by Hippolyta and some of the Olympian gods (specifically Zeus, Artemis and pre-evil Ares), and the Atlanteans were led by King Atlan (a figure in Aquaman’s backstory).
But it’s never explicitly stated whether the humans involved were anyone from the DC canon, but the design of the men burying humanity’s Mother Box appears to bare some similarities to one of the versions of Atlantis from Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers series, specifically the one where Ystin/a is from.
Admittedly Ystin/a (they’re Ystina in Morrison’s work, but in their later appearance in Paul Cornell’s Demon Knights they’re coded as trans, gender fluid, or intersexual, and go by Ystin) is from 8,000 years BCE compared to the movie’s invasion 30,000 years ago.
Indeed, the idea that Camelot is a reoccuring event (something aided by the immortal Merlin deliberately trying to rebuild it) strikes Ystin as a blow, as they had spent THOUSANDS of years wandering the Earth mourning the fall of Bronze Age Camelot when could have hung around in the British Isles and seen it born again in the early Middle Ages.
Anyways, if those dudes are meant to be the DCEU version of the Knights of the Round Table (one of the early, early Morrison versions rather than the Medieval ones), it’ll be… curious if Ystin shows up in the movies at some point. I wouldn’t say no, they’re awesome!
Morrison tried to play the Knights of the “Broken Table“ as a form of proto-superhero team which… kind of works. Most of the knights had odd powers back in the old stories, heck, even Guinevere had magic powers (and an evil identical sister) at some point.
This kind of plays into Morrison’s meta arc about superhero stories within the DCU are Explicitly Superhero Stories. Running on what the Discworld novel’s called “Narrative Casuality“, but without the internal resistance Pratchett’s characters felt to being made to fill certain expected roles or follow expected plots.
Everything’s archetypes, no one is aware enough to realise they’re in a story. Which is ironic, as Grant has actually written himself into his own works, such as Animal Man, several times.
The Knights totally had superpowers. I mean, LOOK AT THIS!
Arthur, King of Time and Space’s Roman War, part six, hurry up and wait
When I asked for suggestions for Arthur, King of Time and Space episodes
to collect here, the Roman war
was asked for. That was less a multi-day episodic story than a half-year
temporary primary premise. I’ve selected some highlights to post across
several entries.
These are mostly from the fairy tale/baseline timezone and the space
opera timezone, but the contemporary timezone plays catch-up a little.
In this entry Arthur’s forces reach Rome and everyone just kind of marks time until the Christmas coronation of Arthur as emperor, idle and bored enough to break the fourth wall at the slightest error by the cartoonist.
Adam P. Knave, D.J. Kirkbride (A/CA) Nick Brokenshire
It’s out with the old myths and in with the new as a nineteen-year-old chess prodigy pulls Excalibur from the stone and becomes queen. Now magic, romance, Fae, Merlin, and more await her! Lend her your axe as the creators of Amelia Cole start a new age of adventure! Collects issues #1-#5.
“Fun, upbeat and wonderfully diverse, this modern twist on the legend of King Arthur looks set to be a massive hit.”-Big Comic Page
“Brokenshire, Kirkbride and Knave immerse readers in the duality of fantasy and everyday life with a thoughtful tone.” -Multiversity Comics
Adam P. Knave, D.J. Kirkbride (A/CA) Nick Brokenshire
Arthurian Legends 