Within the context of the Extremis storyline, Maya is a scientist who developed the Extremis virus alongside Aldrich Killian. When Killian steals a sample of the virus and sells it to domestic terrorists, she calls up her old friend Tony Stark to help recover it. After Tony is severely beaten by Mallen, a terrorist who had been injected with the virus, he convinces Maya to inject him with Extremis too. Tony defeats and apprehends Mallen, but he discovers that Killian could not have acted alone in selling Extremis. Tony confronts Maya, who confesses to assisting in the crime as she knew it would force defense contractors to renew their funding. She is subsequently taken into custody. Later, Tony believes Extremis is altering his brain functions so he gets her out of jail to help him. She is placed under his custody. When Sal Kennedy is killed, Maya feels she could have saved him if she had been allowed to continue her research on Extremis. She is unknowingly tricked into giving the Mandarin samples of the virus. Following the events of the Secret Invasion storyline, Maya Hansen disappeared from the series and was not seen again until the relaunch of the Iron Man series during the Marvel NOW! event. It was revealed that she was kidnapped by A.I.M. to recreate the Extremis serum for them and succeeded. Though she was killed while trying to escape, she accomplishes her failsafe plan by sending a prerecorded message she made to Tony to warn him that the Extremis virus is on the loose again.
Powers and abilities
Maya Hansen has genius-level intellect.
In other media
Film
Maya Hansen appears in the 2013 film Iron Man 3, where she is portrayed by actress Rebecca Hall. In the film, Maya is a scientist and one of Tony Stark's one-night stands; in a flashback to 1999, she reveals to him the prototype to the virus known as Extremis and is upset when he leaves her after their night together and forgoes aiding her research. Maya reunites with Tony during the film to warn him about the Mandarin and is saved by Pepper Potts from the destruction of Stark's home. She is later revealed to be working with Aldrich Killian to improve on Extremis and use the Mandarin to cover up the deaths of the virus' test subjects. To convince Tony to help fix Extremis, Maya tricks Pepper while in hiding and tells Killian where to find them, resulting in Pepper being taken captive. Confronted by Tony and realizing the extent of Killian's agenda, Maya has a change of heart and tries to back out of Killian's plan by holding a vial of potent Extremis to her neck and threatening to kill them all in the resulting explosion unless he frees Tony and Pepper. Instead, Killian decides she is no longer necessary to his plans and shoots Maya himself.
