WILD THING
WILD THING
Real Name: Nikki Doyle
Identity/Class: Extratemporal (Earth-8410, @ 2020 A.D.) human mutant (?)
Occupation: Cyber-trooper;
former Virtual Reality black marketeer
Group Membership: The Arcade, "Wild Angels"
Affiliations: Burners, Carlyle,
Dark Angel of Earth-616, Death Duty, Donal Ban of
Guildern, Finns, Gyle, Liddel, Tristrum of Guildern, Trout;
She was monitored by Janet Richart and S.H.I.E.L.D.
formerly Crane, Effy, Gabe Steiner;
possibly the
Super
Soldiers of Earth-616
Enemies: Crane, Effy and his agent, Mendes of Guildern, Mysterio, Lt. Pyke, Dorian Trask, Trasktech, Virtual Ghosts
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: New York City, Earth-8410, @ 2020 A.D.
First Appearance: Wild Thing I#1 (April, 1993)
Powers/Abilities: Nikki's primary ability is to
access/enter virtual reality games and even cyberspace itself; she can
interact/synchronize with these environments, altering their programs, and she
can alter her own archetype, granting it certain abilities to overcome various
assaults. She can also access and utilize loopholes in the game or its
programming. Her cyberspace archetype wore wrist blasters.
Injuries occurring to her archetype in cyberspace were
mirrored on her real body back on Earth.
She was usually assisted by computer expert Liddel, who used
a "tether" to anchor her to reality, so that he could pull her out if she got in
over her head.
History: Nikki Doyle is native to the Earth-8410 reality, in which the modern age of heroes occurred (and ended) in the 1980's, after which the world was taken over by mega-corporations.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - In the late 1990's, virtual reality (VR) became popular as a game system; instead of a screen, the system wrapped itself around the user's head, giving them 3-D thrills and stereo sound, all in a package no bigger than a Walkman™. For most kids it was only a game, but for others it became their life; school, work, family...nothing mattered as much as the bright new worlds served up in VR. After trying all the programs they could buy legally, they'd go after the black market programs. A whole new crime culture grew up around supplying these electronic addicts. While many of these black market programs were just modified copies of old program, somewhere/someone was supplying new programs. These programs did something to the brain of the user, making the programs more real, more intense,...and potentially fatal.
(Wild Thing I#4 (fb) - BTS) - By 2020 A.D., only the very
powerful were in orbit. The five major global corporations all had orbital
platforms, serving as administration centers and R & D workshops. The higher
orbits were designated "science zones," staging posts for terraforming
expeditions to Mars; in Zero-G labs, bio-engineers sought to create
microorganisms capable of transforming dead environments into new homes for
humanity.
Some platforms, such as SHIELD's, were concerned with more
Earthly matters.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki Doyle was a VR black marketeer and games addict. Unlike many other addicts, she only wanted to play the games. It was said that she would have sold her own mother to get enough to play.
(Wild Thing I#3 (fb)) - Nikki was a partner of Gabe Steiner, whose specialty was adapting mainstream games, adapting twists to their scenarios. Nikki met him after she had started dealing in black market programs. She would bring him the latest bootlegs and he would improve upon them.
(Wild Thing I#3 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki was delivering one of Gabe's improvements when she was arrested for the first time. By the time she got out, Gabe had taken off. "Things went bad pretty quickly after that."
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki, by now emaciated because she didn't want to waste her money on food, spent a week begging to earn enough to play VR games.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki came to Effy's den to play, but even after a week's effort, she still didn't have enough. She begged Effy to let her play, then kicked and screamed when he refused. Effy easily tossed out the frail Nikki.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki was arrested by the cops for dealing in hot VR, the authorities
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki was going crazy in prison, cut off from her special relationship with VR.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Trout, an agent of the group the Arcade, discovered Nikki's ability to jump into and manipulate VR games. He offered her a chance to do it again, but only by working for the Arcade. Her sentence was commuted in exchange for her agreement to work with them to save the lives of other VR addicts.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki built herself into excellent physical condition while training.
(Wild Thing I#1 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki was trained to access VR via her password, "Wild Thing."
(Wild Thing I#6 (fb)) - Liddel explained to Nikki how she was able to tune into the underlying code of VR programs, which allowed her to modify the "game."
(Wild Thing I#1) - Six months
after being imprisoned, Nikki was sent into the VR den of her former associate Effy, who taunted her with their last shared
experience. Not trusting her after hearing of her arrest, Effy had his agent
hold her at gunpoint, but she got the drop on both of them, long enough for the
S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons And Tactics) team to invade the building and arrest
Effy and his agent. Arcade trainee Liddel then eased the VR addicts out of the
games and back to reality so they wouldn't be killed by the sudden shock.
Nikki slapped Trout for making her betray her old "friends,"
telling him to never make her do that again, but he reminded that this was
exactly what she would be doing, as per their agreement. Liddel then had Nikki
enter the VR game itself to save the life of one of the addicts, who was trapped
within it. The warped logic of the VR program swiftly snapped her virtual
tether, but she was able to synchronize with the program and save herself.
However, she was then confronted by a VR versions of Venom; when she fired an
energy blast into its head, it divided into two beings, Venom and Carnage.
At the same time, other VR dealers, seeking to protect their
turf, began firing upon the SWAT and Arcade agents. Without a connection to
Nikki, they were unable to warn her of what was going, and they were forced to
consider leaving her behind, within the game.
(Wild Thing I#2) - A virtual Spider-Man joined Venom and
Carnage in attacking Nikki within the VR game environment. She blasted Venom and
Spider-Man simultaneously, causing the pair to merge, and then she kicked their
combined form, causing it fall off into the surrounding void. As the remaining
attacker, VR Carnage, slashed her face, Trout, Liddel, and the SWAT team
continued to fight the losing battle against the VR dealers; the dealers blasted
a helicopter carrying back-up as it approached the combat zone. VR Carnage
continued its assault, but Nikki the felt a trapdoor/loophole in the rules of
the game and she accessed it, transporting her to another portion of the VR
environment. A VR Sabretooth threatened to destroy her, but the addict himself,
recognizing her as not being part of the game, saved her. He explained how he
had become trapped in the game after his archetype was slain in battle, and the
two were then confronted by the Virtual Ghosts, who tried to force them both to
become permanent cyberspace inhabitants like themselves.
The addict was wounded by the Virtual Ghosts and then
incinerated by the same flaming demon that had slain him before. Nikki accessed
the "trapdoor" again, and she was transported to a deeper level of the program,
a field of possibility, where she again found the addict. Correctly figuring
that he somehow shared some of her VR manipulating abilities, she brought him
back to reality with her, hoping to trade him to Trout in exchange for her
freedom.
Just then one of the dealers launched a missile at Effy's
warehouse, blowing it up.
(Wild Thing I#3) - Nikki, Trout, Liddel, the addict, and the
other survivors were rescued by Carlyle, an agent of Death Duty (a secret group
of five agents affiliated with SHIELD). Later, she met with Lt. Pyke, who
drafted her to work against Gabe Steiner. The Arcade's agents had opened a
receiving channel in Steiner's VR unit, and Trout coerced Nikki into sending
herself through that channel. Hidden within the VR unit, Nikki spied on Steiner,
but as soon as Pyke learned the location of Steiner's base, he transmitted a
"kill signal." This signal was detected by Steiner's associate, Yukio, who
assumed Steiner had betrayed him, and he shot Steiner in the chest. Nikki felt
the pain of the gunshot wound, and Gabe's archetype briefly appeared in front of
her, asking if she had done this to him, before fading from existence.
As Nikki exited the program, Pyke told her that this had been
a test of her, testing her loyalty to the Arcade against her old loyalty to the
street. As an Arcade rapid response team closed on Yukio and his boys, the
enraged Nikki punched Pyke, who then told her she was going back to prison,
where she would never touch VR again.
(Wild Thing I#4 (fb) - BTS) - Unwilling to return to prison
where she felt she might die of withdrawal, Nikki stole direct interface
electrodes and decided to hide out in VR until her body died of starvation. She
jacked into a blank program and set up an incredibly complex web of security
protocols.
Liddel tried unsuccessfully for over 15 days to contact
Nikki.
(Wild Thing I#4 (fb)) - VR versions of villains from the age of heroes, such as Loki and Dr. Doom, "jumped into Nikki's head;" she assumed that she had picked them up from the warped program (from Wild Thing I#1), and she placed them as her security agents for the program. Brooding and angry, Nikki virtually (semi-intentional pun) forgot about the outside world.
(Wild Thing I#4 (fb) - BTS) - The addict that Nikki had rescued was rendered brain-dead while SHIELD tried to test his abilities; this made Nikki Doyle an invaluable commodity for her unique talents.
(Wild Thing I#4) - Pyke was chastised for jeopardizing
SHIELD's interests in Nikki, and his superior, Janet Richart, told him that
Nikki was no off-limits to him.
Liddel finally managed to match Nikki's program's logic curve
and access her program, but inside he was attacked by archetype's of Dr. Doom
and Loki, and then the enraged Nikki herself. She refused to listen to his
explanation about Pyke having been punished, and she fired a blast at Liddel,
destroying his archetype. Though pained by this, Liddel was relatively unharmed
in the real world, but Nikki was shocked back to her senses by her belief that
she had killed him, and she exited the program as well.
Liddel showed Nikki that he had discovered a Trasktech logo
in the warped program, and Nikki offered to invade Trasktech's files and search
their data. She entered the Global Com-Net; when confronted by Trasktech's
security Sentinels, she simply entered one of their archetypes and used it to
pass into their data files. There she uncovered evidence of Trasktech's military
VR training program which had proven fatal to those who had used it. Just as she
learned who had used the opportunity to "grab a chunk of the illegal
entertainment market by ripping off Trasktech and turning dealer," she was
discovered by one of Trasktech's Sentinels, which purged her files and attempted
to restrain her. Via Liddel's tether, Nikki escaped back out of the program, but
she was unable to retain the information she had gained.
Meanwhile, Dorian Trask, the head of Trasktech, reviewed the
circumstances of her presence in their files, and he realized that the secrets
of her abilities would be worth billions to whoever chose to exploit it.
(Wild Thing I#5 (fb)) - Trout learned that some of the cyber-punx gangs, who typically hacked the information network, had gotten into data-theft; these thieves would start a fight with rival gangs near a data-block; all of the stray energy that came off the block fuzzed the security system long enough for one of them to slip inside. Trout sent Nikki to find out who was behind this activity.
(Wild Thing I#5) - Nikki spent nearly a month of schmoozing and calling in favors from lowlifes to get hold of the access/ident code of the Burners' gang.
(Wild Thing I#5) - Nikki infiltrated a VR war between two
gangs of rival mavericks, the Burners and the Finns; she posed as one of the
Burners. She saved Gyle, one of the Finns from an assault by the security
programs. When another Finn targeted Nikki, Gyle blasted his own teammate,
destroying his teammate, destroying his archetype and repaying Nikki for her
efforts. Nikki allowed Gyle to try to restrain her with a tracer, but she simply
planted a kiss on him and then faded out of the VR environment.
Nikki met up with Gyle again in a VR world, while the Finn
Gyle had blasted before sought to learn Gyle's secrets from his access/ident
code. The Finn activated a tracer, causing Gyle to vanish, while Nikki was
confronted by the Finn, now revealed as Mysterio; he sent VR versions of the
Sinister Six (Dr. Octopus, Electro, Hobgoblin, Kraven, Sandman, Vulture) against
her while he blasted her from behind.
(Wild Thing I#6) - Mysterio's VR Six attacked Nikki, mortally
wounding her archetype, while Gyle escaped from Myterio's trap and began
navigating his VR world. Recalling her previous conversation with Liddel, Nikki
healed her injuries and, with Gyle's aid, defeated the rest of the Six, even
banishing Mysterio's archetype as well. Realizing he had revealed himself before
he had had time to amply prepare for battle, Mysterio planned to again withdraw
the shadows of the past and plan afresh. As a parting gift, he sent VR versions
of Batroc, Dark Phoenix, Dr. Doom, the Red Skull, the Rhino, the Scorpion,
Sentinels, a Skrull robot, Baron Strucker, Tarantula, Thanos, and Venom to
attack Nikki and Gyle. However, the Burners and Finns joined forces, accessed
Mysterio's VR realm, and helped Nikki and Gyle fight off their attackers.
In the ensuing conflict, Mysterio escaped, erasing any
data-trails which might lead the authorities to him. Liddel arrived and brought
Nikki back to the real world. Gyle exited as well, subsequently reporting his
activities to his true boss, SHIELD's Janet Richart, who told him to cease his
involvement with her.
(Wild Thing I#7 (fb) - BTS) - Nikki went A.W.O.L. from the Arcade.
(Wild Thing I#7) - Nikki met up with an old friend, Crane, who
convinced her to try a new VR program with him. However, shortly after arriving
in the VR jungle, Nikki became trapped in a quagmire, and Crane vanished from
the field. As Nikki tried and failed to synchronize with the swamp and escape
it, Dorian Trask, Crane's employer, spoke to her, telling her that the swamp was
designed especially for her; it was in constant flux so that she could not
synchronize with it. He offered her free her only if she would work with him to
infiltrate the databases of the Arcade and other organizations. Nikki refused,
even when he refused to render her brain-dead by permanently sending her mind
into cyberspace via soul-dubbing.
Learning of Nikki's disappearance, Liddel and Trout tracked
her down. Liddel entered the VR program, only to walk into a trap of Trask's.
With Liddel's life on the line, Trask told Nikki that he would only survive as
long as cooperated with him.
In order to save Nikki and Liddel, Trout prepared to enter VR
for the first time in decades.
(Wild Angels) - The goat-headed Prince Donal Ban of Guildern and his comrade Tristum fled their realm after Mendes, the king's trusted councilor, killed the king, framed and swiftly killed a couple of innocent men for the crime, and staged a coup by making it appear that Donal Ban had hired the two slain patsies. However, Donal Ban and Tristrum fell through a space-time breach inadvertently created by a Mys-Tech experiment gone wrong; Donal Ban ended up in the research facility in the modern day, while Tristum somehow ends up in Nikki Doyle's virtual reality 2020. Donal Ban ended up allying with Dark Angel, and Nikki Doyle with Tristum. Nikki and her role playing party ended up in Guildern (it seems to have somehow been linked to the virtual world, perhaps due to the space-time warps, perhaps due to something I've missed in the story) and were captured. Dark Angel and Donal Ban soon arrived in Guildern, the two groups joined forces and eventually defeated Mendes, restoring the rightful ruler to the throne.
Comments: Created by Simon Jowett and Duke Mighten.
I don't think Wild Thing#8 ever came out,
but it obviously would have continued the story of Nikki being trapped in
Trask's clutches. She was also supposed to be part of the Red Mist storyline:
RED MIST 2020 - virus accidentally induced in government's super soldier program;
set to have run thru Death Duty, 'Roid Rage, Bloodrush, as well as Wild Thing#9+10 and Super Soldiers#9+10
Though Marvel UK's major comics stopped in 1994, a few of them, such as Wild Angels, saw the light of day in Marvel Italia, associated with Panini. I own a copy, purchased off of E-Bay with great effort. I sent one to Loki, who was kind enough to translate the stories.
In re-reading this series, I'm reminded of the Matrix, though it was about a decade too early, and they didn't really have the knowledge or technology to make it work like that, even on the printed page.
Profile by Snood and Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:
images:
Wild Thing I#1, p15, panel 4 (body)
panel 3
(face)
#2 cover (action)
Appearances:
Wild Thing I#1-4 (April-July, 1993) - Simon Jowett (writer), Duke Mighten (artist), Michael W. Bennett (editor)
Wild Thing I#5-6 (August-September, 1993) - Simon Jowett (writer), Duke Mighten (pencils), Antony Adhikary (inks), Michael W. Bennett (editor)
Wild Thing I#7 (October, 1993) - Simon Jowett (writer), Duke Mighten, John Moulds, Martin Griffiths & Richard Dolan (artists), Michael W. Bennett (editor)
Wild Angels (April, 1996) - Nick Vance (writer), Pino Rinaldo (artist), Paul Neary & Bambos Georgiou (editors)
First Posted: 04/22/2005
Last updated: 05/15/2005
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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