NUDGE

Real Name: Mi-Sun Kwon

Class: Human mutant

Occupation: Superhero

Group Affiliation: Doom Patrol, formerly Tenth Circle

Known Relatives: Gary (brother), Kwon (mother), Kwon (father, deceased), unnamed uncle

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Oolong Island,  formerly Harbor City, Oregon, Key Mordaz, Florida

First Appearance: JLA #94 (May, 2004)

Powers: Nudge was a telepath capable of limited mind control and telekineis. The full range of her abilities has yet to be demonstrated.

History: (Doom Patrol IV #10, 11, 16 (fb)) - Nudge started demonstrating her telepathic powers in high school. He agreed to meet her friend Garrett, who’d gotten a hold of a supply of Boot pills, and when her father tried to stop her she inadvertently used her power to give him a heart attack. She met her friends, and the pills expanded their minds, destroying everyone’ mind except Nudge, whose mutant power were amplified by the drug. She didn’t know it, but her friend mind were joined with hers and submerged, and her friend Matt Butcher was spying on them, and his mind became linked to Nudge’s and was altered in just the way Boot dealer Rhonda Lorre hoped. Nudge woke up in the hospital, and after her father yelled at her he told him to stop, causing another heart attack, and this one was fatal. Her brother knew about her power, and blamed her for their fathers demise.

(Doom Patrol IV #9 (fb)) - <six month ago> Nudge ran away from home and discovered Gambol’s Circus, where he met the ape-like Grunt, who was formerly her friend Matt Butcher. Her presence calmed him, so Hank Gambol hired her to work with Grunt in a show. The Doom Patrol purchased Grunt for scientific research, and Nudge used her powers to convince them to take her along.

(JLA #94--99) - Nudge didn’t like Grunt being caged like an animal, and decided to leave the DP. With Chief’s old enemies the Tenth Circle making a bid to return to Earth he sent Nudge and Grunt out as bait, knowing Crucifer was collecting metahumans for his vampiric lords to possess. Nudge and Grunt were sick of the DP, and since they were leaving anyway Chief placed trackers on them. Crucifer mentally dominated them, and they were forced to do the Circle’s bidding, abducting other young metahumans. When Superman intervened Nudge mindcontrolled him, and Crucifer bit him, bringing him under control. Nudge and Grunt escaped Castle Crucifer with the help of fellow abductee Vortex, and they returned to DP’s Key Mordaz hq, and Nudge encountered a ghost from the civil war era. Nudge and Grunt warned the DP about the Circle, and they teamed up with the JLA to destroy the vampire lord. Nudge and Grunt were welcomed back to the DP.

(Doom Patrol IV #1, 2) - Nudge and the Doom Patrol responded to a disturbance at the abandoned penitentiary where the Chief kept old DP villains. Wormhole had freed Barrage, Megalith, and Snake, and they allowed themselves to be possessed by vampire masters of the Tenth Circle. Nudge and Faith teamed up to expel the vampires from their host bodies, exposing them to sunlight and destroying them.

(Doom Patrol IV #3, 4) - Chief sent the DP to the Soames Lake Project in the South Pole, but left Nudge behind to finish her training. She threw a hissy fit because she was missing out on the action, and didn’t like the costumes Rita made for the P. She practiced using her powers with Faith, and demonstrated a telekinetic ability. Nudge had another vision of the dead civil war soldier. She found Chief’s AV room, with surveillance covering a number of subjects around the world.

(Doom Patrol IV #5, 6) - Nudge found a broadcast of an underground fight club using robots with human brains, and Chief sent her, Rita and Cliff undercover to infiltrate it. Faith said goodbye to Nudge, telling her she’d taught her as much as she could and reminding her that her teammates respected her abilities. At the fight club Nudge convinced the operators that they were legit, and entered Cliff into battle against a number of robots, including including Slice and Dice. Dr. Verdalian, who ran the club, recognized Cliff as the Chief’s handiwork and tried to kill him, Rita and Nudge. The battle went against him, so he detonated explosives through the club and fled, seemingly dying himself in an explosion. After Negative Man encountered a dinosaur and Chief heard of worldwide dinosaur attacks, the DP had their next mission.

(Doom Patrol IV #7, 8) - Nudge and the DP celebrated Christmas together, but Nudge was drawn away to talk to her ghostly soldier, who told her hi name was Elihu Washburn. The party was cut short when the Chief located Harbor City, Oregon as the center of the dinosaur attack. The DP went to Oregon and fought prehistoric creatures that had been devolved from a dog and pigeons. Nudge took time to call her mother, who lived nearby, but her brother Gary interrupted the conversation and told her he had no right to contact them. The Devolutionists devolved Rita and Cliff into mindless apes, and they turned against their teammates. Nudge used her telepathy to call the JLA for help, and Martian Manhunter responded, but was also devolved, but soon shook it off. Vortex captured two Devolutionists, and Manhunter pried the location of their master from their minds. While most of the DP confronted an army of dinosaurs, Vortex and Nudge confronted the Devolutionists master. Nudge was taken out of the battle, and Vortex seemingly killed the master, afterwards claiming he’d escaped.

(Doom Patrol IV #9-12) - As a favor to Nudge, Martian Manhunter located Grunt, who was in police custody and on his way back to Gambol’s circus. Nudge dragged Vortex along and confronted Gambol. They helped Grunt escape, and Grunt revealed himself to Nudge as her high-school friend Matt Butcher. The police arrived and shot Grunt down, but his life was saved by the DP, who returned Grunt, Vortex, and Nudge to hq. Nudge explained her link with Matt Butcher/Grunt to her teammates before leaving him in the care of his parents. Chief’s old enemy T’Oombala broke into Key Mordaz, freed a number of imprisoned DP villains, and tortured the Chief. The DP and Metamorpho defeated T’Oombala’s servants, and Nudge’s ghostly friend Elihu stabbed T’Oombala, releasing his hold over the Chief.

(Doom Patrol IV #13, 14) - Chief’s robotic drones repaired his body, and Nudge detailed her history with Elihu. Her telepathic power allowed his spirit, which was buried beneath Key Mordaz, to contact her. Rita offered him a proper burial and the chance to move on to the afterlife, but he preferred to stick around to aid Nudge. Chief showed the DP an experiment that let a mouse’s mind travel back in time to inhabit its’ past body and apply its’ future learning. Cliff used this process to prevent his accident that made him Robotman and unintentionally created a series of divergent timelines. He became unstuck in time, going from timeline to timeline, and in the present day the Chief realized the damage Cliff had done. He sent Rita back in time, but tethered her to the present so he could retrieve Cliff. The Justice League of an alternate timeline helped Cliff and Rita return to their rightful timeline, and Cliff made sure he was in the accident that made him Robotman. This eliminated the new timelines, and Chief decided to destroy his time machine.

(Doom Patrol IV #15-18) - Nudge wondered why she no longer felt Cliff’ phantom pains through her telepathy, and discovered he was abusing an electric drug Dr. Verdalian’ men provided for him when the infiltrated Verdalian’ robot fight club. He visited Vortex when he was out of uniform, and the sight of hi true face shut down her mind. Vortex took her to Chief, and she seemed brain-dead, but soon revived with five separate minds possessing her body, the submerged mind she absorbed when she amplified her power with Boost. She made short work of the DP, but Vortex’ people, who’d been looking for him, arrived and took her out of action. They determined that Larry’s Negative Man was one of their own. They accidentally merged with Negative Man, causing him to grow to gigantic proportion and burst from DP hq, before going to Florida’ mainland and sapping the lifeforce of its citizens. The Devolutionist, the only member of Vortex’ people to stay behind, removed the submerged mind from Nudge’ psyche o he could better study her. The Chief defeated the Devolutionist using a device that drained chronomorphic energy. The DP then used the device to stop the Negative Man’s rampage, once again separating Vortex’ people, who returned to their own time with Vortex and Negative Man. Grunt rejoined the DP to be with Nudge, and Chief took in Nudge’s brother to train because he demonstrated mutant powers.

(Teen Titans III #32) - Nudge and the DP aided the Teen Titans and JSA in a fight against Superboy Prime, who was trying to kill Superboy and take his place. Flash Jay Garrick, Flash and Kid Flash took Prime out of action by running him into the Speed Force.

(Doom Patrol V #1) - Chief reformed the Doom Patrol, operating out of the newly sovereign nation of Oolong Island. Nudge and Grunt were placed on the team, but their teammates ignored if not disdained them. Chief's first mission for the DP was to have them fly to Buena Suerte and destroy the lab of mad scientist Botfly, who was bioengineering a monstrous army. The team succeeded, but Buena Suerte military gunned down Nudge. Grunt went berserk, and took her body into the jungle as the rest of the team flew off in a helicopter. The DP's chaplain Father Davis tried to council them, but no one seemed phased by Nudge's death.

Comments: Created by John Byrne & Chris Claremont

Nudge had a cameo in Doom Patrol V #6.

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