Megan Burns can't reveal her true superhero identity, but she insists you'll recognize her if you find yourself hanging around the Plaza on Sunday.

Danger is coming at 1 p.m., she said.

But don't be scared by what you see there, and please don't try to talk to her, she added.

Burns, who's goal is to fight evil, plans to have her hands full protecting the forces of good in a monster battle between werewolves, vampires, zombies and probably a few explorers from the early 1900s, she said.

"You know how superheroes are — if somebody's doing bad deeds, we have to go get them," Burns said. "And you might not think it, but those explorers, I bet they're going to be trouble. They have very good technology, and I'm sure they do bad things like stomp on plants and stuff."

Burns and her other superhero friends have uncovered a plot, she said.

The details are still a bit sketchy, but it seems a host of monsters from all walks of — er — death plan to descend on the Plaza and battle each other.

Of course, one of the organizers of this battle, Vince Kadlubek of the Santa Fe artist group Meow Wolf, claims participants in the event will actually just be somewhere between 20 and 100 real people dressed up as monsters.

He, for example, plans to lead a team of werewolves.

"I hope to recruit more, come up with an attack strategy and maybe get some coordinated costumes," Kadlubek said, adding all monsters are welcome to just show up and join in the fun.

Burns, however, says she isn't fooled by Kadlubek's innocent facade. She knows the monsters coming to invade the Plaza are real. And she plans to stop them from pursuing evil.

Although she is puzzled by a couple things, she said. "The fight is happening during the day," Burns said. "If these are vampires and werewolves, shouldn't they be sleeping during the day? Shouldn't the werewolves be normal until the full moon?"

That might explain one problem Kadlubek has been having, he said. "We're really lacking in vampires, and I'm not sure why that is," Kadlubek said.

Even if the sun is keeping the vampires away, though, Kadlubek said the battle will still be fought with plenty of day-walkers. Other groups planning to turn out include robots, Vikings and ninjas.

"OK, so some of these groups aren't technically monsters," Kadlubek admitted. "The explorers, for instance, they're sort of like a group of Indiana Joneses."

Members of Meow Wolf will also be on hand to keep track of the mischievous goings-on, said Quinn Tincher, who plans to take pictures of the fight and add them to the group's Myspace page at www.myspace.com/sfmonsterbattle. "It will be totally documented on the Internet," Tincher said.

The goal isn't to wreak havoc, but to spread a little fun to the younger generations in Santa Fe, Kadlubek said.

"We got the idea from zombie walks, which is this trend of younger kids, like high-school kids," said Kadlubek, who is in his 20s. "About 30 or 40 people will dress as zombies, walk around downtown and pretend to attack people. So what we wanted to do was something like that with even more people."

The battle will continue, he added, for as long as people want to fight. And the goal is to make this an annual event held every June 1.

There is, however, one group Kadlubek hopes won't take the battle too seriously. That group is the Santa Fe Police Department since the monster participants don't really have a permit or anything, he said.

"The Plaza is a public park, and downtown is a public area," Kadlubek said. "We want to do this to have local and young fun, and to be part of our city. It would be a pretty funny story, though, if the cops became one of the factions."

Burns said there will be no need for police or bystanders to be concerned, though. Her fellow superheroes plan to keep everything well under control, although she added she could probably use more help. "I'm sending out the call for the legion of superheroes," Burns said.

And while the battle might be rough, it will also be a great way to welcome summer in New Mexico — even if it technically doesn't start until June 20, she said.

"June 1 feels like the first day of summer," Burns said. "We need to do something fun to celebrate that, like kill each other."

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.