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Background: Minerva Maxine Michelson hated her name. She was named after two maiden aunts on different sides of the family under her parent’s mistaken idea that she would inherit some money when either or both of them died. Both women died leaving most of their money to charities, and young Miss Michelson got a hard time over her name.

Minerva Maxine labored long and hard to maintain the nickname "Mickey", and as a reward for her efforts, almost no-one knew her real name by the time she made it to Junior High. It was in junior high that her life changed forever.

Mickey was on a field trip to Forbidden Caverns with her Girl Guide troop. She was accidentally pushed over a rail and fell into an underground stream. A decent swimmer, she didn’t panic, but tried to stay afloat in the rushing current. For what seemed like hours she was washed through cavern after cavern, until she came to a strange cathedral-like space that glowed. The walls gleamed with green fire, the stalactites seemed to break the glow into other colors, and the water reflected the prismatic effect back to the walls. Here, it was light enough that Mickey could swim over to the banks and pull herself out of the water. She fell into an exhausted slumber.

She awoke on the bank of a stream several miles from the mouth of the cave. She has no idea how she got there, but she was glad to be safe. She contacted the local forest ranger’s office, and her troop was notified that she was safe.

Her mother and father tried to make money off it. They tried to get her to make up a story that could be sold as a book or a TV movie. Mickey refused, and was given "the silent treatment", a "punishment" that she had grown to enjoy over the years. Her parents still managed to sell magazine articles that over dramatized their feelings during her time lost underground.

A month later, Mickey woke up with her feet against one wall of her bedroom and her head against the other. She started to rise up and bumped her head on the ceiling. Frightened, she "wished" herself small, and began to shrink. When she stopped herself, she was only around four inches tall.

Mickey’s world was full of men and women with powers and abilities far beyond those of "mortal" men, so while she was surprised, she was not frightened. Later in the day she managed to get away by herself and test her abilities. Alone in the nearby forest, she discovered that she could grow to a height of fifty feet or shrink down to only five inches without any strain. If she got taller or smaller, it would eventually tire her out. She did not know how tall she could get (she was trying to keep from being seen), but she did get up to over 100 feet once. She also discovered that due to some unknown mechanism, her clothing would change size with her. This worked best the tighter the clothing was.

Two weeks later, she was back in the city and walking home from school when she encountered a bank robbery in progress. At a height of thirty feet, she could pick up a dumpster and throw it into the getaway car, and she managed to do this without being seen. During the ensuing months Mickey did several small things, and managed to remain anonymous. She had begun to get ideas, though.

With a little money made at odd jobs and tutoring, she ordered a designer print leotard, boots, gloves, and… well… falsies. She began to fight crime in a big, and small, way, passing herself off as an adult. She did this by the simple act of only going into action with at least a foot of growth on at all times. She could maintain this growth indefinitely, even if knocked unconscious.

Minimax, as she called herself, became a hometown favorite. No job was too big, or too small.

She was not, however, totally altruistic. She did accept rewards for criminals brought to justice, but she kept only a little, donating the rest to charities. Still, a little of some of the rewards she was given amounted to quite a bit of money.

At the age of sixteen, Mickey was a successful super-heroine with three years experience. At this time she teamed up with an all-female hero group called Troubleshooters. She was asked to join the group, but turned them down. She did not explain, but did tell them that at that time she was not at liberty to join them. Wheels, the chief of the group, told her that if she ever wanted in, she would be welcome. Mickey waited another two years, and joined them.

At this point, it was necessary to tell Mickey’s parents about her double life. Her parents immediately went public with the information and signed all sorts of book and movie deals. This action also required that The Troubleshooters, along with three other hero groups, rescue the older Michelsons from three villain organizations, two diabolical masterminds, a vengeful alien dictator, and demented sea serpent, all within seventy two hours of their announcement. Wheels arranged for Mickey’s parents to get into the Witness Protection Program, to keep them alive. As of this date, they have broken custody twice to capitalize on their daughter’s fame, and have been told that there will be no third time.

Mickey, however, enjoys the fame and small fortune she has received.

Quote: "The bigger I am the harder I fall… on you!"

Power/Tactics: Minimax can change her size anywhere between 566 feet and ¼". While she can maintain a height anywhere between 4" and 56’ indefinitely, growing larger or smaller than these limits will tire her or even exhaust her. As she grows, Minimax becomes tougher than just the increase in size would dictate. The reason for this is not known.

With practice, Minimax has learned to make just one part of her body larger, such as an arm or leg. This gives her limited use of the abilities she normally has when grown. At her maximum height of 566 feet, she is quite formidable.

Being big and tough, Minimax tries to eliminate the big, tough, strong opponents first, leaving mentalists and energy projectors for her teammates. She does know several team maneuvers, and is a good team player. She took ju-jitsu in high school, and while not a master martial artist by any means, she is competent. She is attending college in a distance learning program. Science appeals to her, although so does the legal field. The problem is, since everyone knows who she is, there is little chance that she would be able to hold down a regular job.

Appearance: Mickey Michelson is 5’7" tall, which is slightly less than she was when she was "playing" adult, and weighs 121 pounds. Her hair is brown, and her eyes are a blue that shades to violet. Her angular face and high cheek bones always made her look older than she was. Her costume is a dark purple leotard with a white two-headed arrow on the front (pointing both up and down), to which she has added high topped boots and gloves. Before her parents revealed to the world who she was, Minimax wore a mask. She has dispensed with that since it is no longer necessary.

Note: Mickey’s parents repeatedly try to get money from her. Every other month or so they sue her for some reason or another: mental anguish, reimbursement of living expenses, physical loss, the heartbreak of psoriasis… anything. They used to sell their stories to anyone who would pay, until that was used to track them down and kidnap them. They still accept money if paid in cash, but even the tabloids have tired of the same story over and over again. Mickey’s feeling toward her parents is ambivalent: she is not sure she loves them, but she doesn’t hate them. She does feel sorry for them. "Getting mad at my parents," she says, "is like getting mad at the sun for rising."

Minimax has an interesting history. In Champions II there is a table to "roll up" characters. At this late date, I don’t remember all the permutations I came up with, but Minimax was the only one I did that ever made any sense. I gave her the costume I designed for Elasti-Girl back in the ‘60s, and never used her. Still, I’ve re-done her a few times, and usually have at least one version of her on my hard drive or stuck in a notebook at all times. I don’t remember when the bit about her disguising herself as an adult to fight crime came from, or the con-artist parents. I really wish I could play her once to see how she works, and maybe have some of her disadvantages come into play. See, what she doesn’t know is that her real father is a reformed super-villain called Singularity (based on an old Howard the Duck villain called The Black Hole).

Minimax has an odd arrangement for her powers: her growth and shrinking are in a multipower, with three slots for each basic ability. I have argued with people before about this kind of arrangement. It makes no sense to use the "max" slots for levels of size change covered by the two lower-level slots. It’s designed to make her very END efficient at lower levels of power, but give her the ability to operate at much higher levels if she needs to. It just costs her.

Minimax is based on a lot of points for a "beginning" hero. If you used this concept for a beginner, there are several things you can do. One is to remove her combat levels and her martial art, since she is supposed to have learned both of these since gaining her powers. Another is to lower the active points in her Multipower. 75 and 50 points would be good levels, and might even represent logical development of her powers. You could also remove her "Arm Grow" powers, since those, too, were things she discovered that she could do over time.

I have not included "Leg Grow" as a power. The inspiration for Minimax only used this power once that I can remember. Maybe the power should be known as "Limb Grow" to cover that, but there is no limitation on what part of the body "grows".

10 STR 0

21 DEX 33

18 CON 16

15 BODY 10

18 INT 8

18 EGO 16

15 PRE 5

14 COM 2

4/19 PD 2

4/19 ED 0

5 SPD 19

10 REC 8

40 END 2

36 STUN 7

8" RUN 0

2" SWIM 0

2" LEAP 0

Characteristics Cost: 128

Powers Cost: 337

Skills Cost: 36

Total Character Cost: 519

                    10 Vulnerability: Sonics (When Shrunk): 1 1/2 x STUN Uncommon

Disadvantage Points: 225

Base Points: 400

Experience Required: 0

Total Experience Available: 0

Experience Unspent: 0

Notes: Okay, Minimax is based on Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol. DP was one of my favorite comics when I was growing up (and I mean the Original Original Doom Patrol, not the New Original Doom Patrol that was published recently, or one of the other three Doom Patrols). It was, at the time, the most "Marvel"-ish comic DC was publishing. I like the characters, I liked the wacky stories, and I loved the beautiful Bruno Premani art. Premani should have never drawn super-heroes, his style was ‘way too static and posed, but I believe that part of the appeal of the series was this highly professional commercial-art style illustration. These characters called each other Cliff, Larry, and Rita, instead of Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl. They sometimes got on each others nerves, and bickered, and acted like a normal dysfunctional family. I came back issue after issue, at least as often as the spotty distribution let me. I designed new costumes for them, not being satisfied with the versions that Premani drew (of course I never sent them in). Then I heard in another comic: the Doom Patrol was dead! Their villains had trapped them on an island, and they were given a choice: either get blown up in an atomic blast, or the blast would instead destroy a small rural American town. Well, these were heroes, so…

Then, you find out a few years later that Robotman survived (after all, he was a human brain in a robot body, the brain was shielded from radiation and had an internal food supply). Then you find that Negative Man survived (not Larry Trainor; the negative energy being that shared his body), and it took up residence in a woman’s body producing Negative Woman. They joined with other "outcasts", and became The New Doom Patrol. Then you find out that Larry did survive, Cliff (Robotman) finds Rita’s corpse, and that the DP’s boss, The Chief, somehow managed to survive too.

Then things became all Vertigo-ish and weird.

In 2004, a "new" version of the original Doom Patrol was introduced in The Justice League. In the middle of the year, they got their own comic book. John Byrne, obviously another fan of the original group, chronicled the adventures of this "new" group, which was so familiar and yet so strange.

Local News: ACTimes 050107.htm

Statewide Report: Captain Alabama

Business: Dixie Publications

The Arts: Books on or about Azalea City

Sports: The Sports Scene

The Media: Azalea City Television and Radio

Weather: Hurricane Heather

In Times Past: Prologue

Inhuman Interest Story: Wolfwitch

Special Report: Resurrection Day

Further Reading: links