Medusa

Medusa was a monster in Greek mythology, a reptilian woman whose gaze could turn people to stone. In the most famous story, she was slain by the hero Perseus. (PROSE: Mythical Monsters) Accounts differed as to the reality behind the myths, presenting Medusa as either a human woman (PROSE: Mythical Monsters) or a nymph transformed by the gods, (TV: Eye of the Gorgon) or as an alien who found her way to ancient Greece but was a member of an entire reptilian species, known either as Gorgons (TV: Eye of the Gorgon) or Medusas; in the latter version, Zeus and the authorities hunting this Medusa referred to her simply as Horror. (COMIC: Gaze of the Medusa)

Origins
According to one account, Gorgons were alien beings from the planet Gorgos. Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa came to Earth circa 1000 BC. Their true form was an incorporeal mass of snakes usually described as their "hair", who possessed human hosts. The three Gorgons passed into myth. A book Maria Jackson read at Lavender Lawns Rest Home described three Gorgons as the "hideous" daughters of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, though Sarah Jane Smith recalled tellings of the story where Medusa was not born ugly but a nymph with beautiful golden hair that was transformed into a Gorgon by Athena out of jealousy after Poseidon fell in love with Medusa. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon)

In another account, the creature that inspired the myth was a lone criminal from a species known as the Medusas. She was captured by a group of spacefaring beings, led by Zeus, who referred to her as Horror. The Medusa had telepathic abilities, enabling her to dominate the spaceship's Scryclops crew and crash-land it in ancient Greece; however, a limitation field keyed to her biological signature prevented her from straying far from the ship. It was eventually buried, confining the Medusa to a cave network, where she used her gaze quantum-locked any humans who entered and fed on their life force over centuries. (COMIC: Gaze of the Medusa)

According to another account, Medusa was originally a human woman who was very proud of her beautiful hair. She gave offence to an Immortal, Athene, who transformed her into a hideous Gorgon — a woman with a face that turned everyone she looked at to stone, and snakes for hair — as punishment. (PROSE: Mythical Monsters)

Death
In the Lavender Lawns book, Medusa was killed by the Greek hero Perseus. Sister Helena, who was part of a sisterhood that protected the Gorgons for centuries, mentioned one of the three Gorgons was killed "during ancient days when our sisterhood served Demeter". (TV: Eye of the Gorgon) Perseus avoided being petrified by never looking at Medusa directly, instead using his shield as a mirror. He beheaded her. Her blood had supernatural capabilities; a winged horse, Pegasus, sprang from it, and the blood which trickled from her left side was a powerful poison while the blood which trickled from her right side could raise the dead. (PROSE: Mythical Monsters)

According to another account, the alien Medusa remained trapped underground until around 500 BC, when she came into contact with Emily Carstairs, a Victorian English woman using a time-travel device, the Lamp of Chronos, in an attempt to resurrect her children. Carstairs began providing the Medusa with victims; however, the Medusa was manipulating her, and finally transferred its consciousness into her so as to escape the limitation field. Detecting that she would escape, the spaceship self-destructed, burying her. Around 2400 years later, the cave was excavated and the petrified bodies brought to England; the head of Emily Carstairs had been broken from her body, but her eye still glimmered with the Medusa's consciousness. (COMIC: Gaze of the Medusa)

Legacy
Medusa passed into legend. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon, PROSE: Mythical Monsters) Thorsuun's smile was thought by Martin Kerbe to be the kind which he "used to read about in stories of the Medusa turning her victims to stone". (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)

The Second Doctor and Zoe encountered Medusa in the Land of Fiction. This was a fictional construct based on the legends surrounding the real Medusa. (TV: The Mind Robber)

Logan compared the Cyrene's appearance to a Medusa. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-a-Boom!)

A woman resembling Medusa was one of the attractions at the Ancient Worlds theme park on Dewyn. She came under the control of a Chiffala and was used to attack guests attending the park. (COMIC: Minor Trouble / Inhuman Sacrifice / Crimes and Punishment)

Alternate timelines
In Andrea Yates' World, where the Trickster manipulated events so that Sarah Jane Smith died in 1964, the Gorgons never came to Earth. As the Trickster explained to Sarah Jane while she was in limbo, he had turned away all the foes she would have defeated, his intention being for her absence to allow Earth to be destroyed by the meteorite K67. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

Behind the scenes
Medusa was played by Jemima Rooper in the BBC series Atlantis.