Just doing a bit of a revamp of my submission for the Exiles version of Mimic, after carefully rereading every Exiles issue containing him and trying to incorporate every bit possible. This should cover pretty much everything, although if I’ve missed something do let me know.

Super-Hero ID: Mimic

Name: Calvin Rankin

Power Category-Random Mutant

Fighting: Excellent (20)
Agility: Excellent (20)
Strength: Good (10)/Amazing (50)
Endurance: Excellent (20)/Amazing (50)
Reason: Typical (6)
Intuition: Typical (6)
Psyche: Typical (6)

Note: Physical stats already incorporate mimicked enhancements; reduce fighting, strength, and endurance to Typical if Wolverine’s abilities are replaced/lost, reduce Agility to Typical if Northstar’s powers are replaced/lost.

Health 70/140
Karma 18
Resources Pr (4)
Popularity 15

Powers

Power Duplication: Mimic has the Unearthly ability to copy up to 5 people’s power sets at once. This allows him to use their powers at will and at the same time, but at half efficiency. Should he wish to duplicate another’s powers he must choose an existing set to abandon. When copying powers Mimic does not copy limitations at the same time, as such the most obvious benefit of this is he does not require a ruby quartz visor in order to control the optic blasts he’s mimicked off of Cyclops. This process requires roughly an hour to be fully complete although he may copy powers ‘on the fly’ if a situation is desperate enough, but they will fade within minutes and leave him with an empty slot.

Current Powers Include:

-From Colossus: Armored Form, granting remarkable Body Armor and strength and endurance boost to Amazing while transformed. While not a part of Colossus’s power template for some unexplained reason while in armored form Mimic enjoys an Unearthly strength Psi-screen against all forms of contact whether baneful or beneficial.

-From Northstar: Excellent Agility and Shift Z flight speed (although cannot fly while in armored form).

-From Cyclops: Remarkable strength optic blasts.

-From Wolverine: Enhanced Senses (hearing, smell) Remarkable. Resistance to toxins, disease, aging Amazing. Retractable Bone Claws Excellent material strength and edged attack damage, raised to Remarkable when in armored form. Tracking: Remarkable. Regeneration and Recovery: Good. Fighting: Excellent. Strength: Good. Endurance: Excellent.

-From Deadpool: Regeneration and Recovery: Unearthly. Fighting: Excellent. Strength: Good. Endurance: Good. On a power feat he can regain an area of lost tissue the size of his hand with two rounds of concentration. Due to the unique nature of Deadpool’s power it is currently impossible for Mimic to cleanse it from his power templates, as it resists his efforts to remove it. Also much like Deadpool it has a physical manifestation of long ropey scars covering him from head to toe.

-Telepathy: Typical. Mimic has residual telepathy from when he mimicked the Jean Grey of his own timeline. It appears unaffected by swapping out power templates and lingers indefinitely.

Power Detection: As a component of his ability to copy powers Mimic may analyze anyone he’s attempting to copy with Unearthly ability at a range of up to ten feet. This allows him to automatically know what powers he’s getting from a target, how powerful they are and gives him insights into how durable whoever he copies might be. This power will also alert him when he’s in the presence of someone with a powerful superhuman ability (he once made such a comment to Deadpool that he’d been able to sense his power the moment he walked into the room).

Note: Because both the Wolverine and Deadpool power templates carry regenerative abilities he effectively has Unearthly (110) rank Regeneration and Recovery. Considering both Wolverine and Deadpool have survived levels of physical damage thought to be lethal even to them and recovered it’s possible his apparent death due to being burned out by the parasite Proteus is not permanent and he may eventually regenerate and revive.

LIMITATIONS

Mimic is unable to copy power templates of individuals with similar or identical powers to a template he already possesses as his body sees it as redundant. In the most obvious example of this he was unable to swap out the Beast’s agility to copy that of Sabertooth in order to benefit from his regenerative powers due to his already having similar powers in Wolverine’s power template. As listed previously he may copy the powers of only 5 beings at a time and at half power/effectiveness.

TALENTS

Leadership; History (Superhero/villain-related); Martial Arts A, B;

CONTACTS

Exiles (Thunderbird, Nocturne, Magnus, Blink, Sunfire, Beak); X-men (those of his reality only or those confusing him with their reality's Mimic);

ENEMIES

Anyone he’s forced to oppose to set a timeline right.

PERSONALITY

Having overcome a harsh life and a brief stint into villainy early on in his life Mimic has fully embraced the ideals of Professor X’s dreams of human and mutant co-existence and the heroic ideal and proven one of the greatest forces in guiding his world to one of the best when it comes to human/mutant relations. He seems to have a preference for powers that are simple in nature, either always operating (Wolverine’s healing factor and enhanced senses) or simply on/off in nature (Colossus’s armored form) rather than those requiring practice like Magneto’s magnetic powers, Blink’s teleportation powers, or Sunfire’s fire-related abilities. After having been forced to kill several alternate-reality versions of heroes he’s known (including a version of Prince Namor) he swore off killing which eventually lead to his apparent death when he hesitated in battle with Proteus when killing him was the only solution and became just another host instead until he was burned out.

It can be said he does copy limitations, if they're of the same source as the powers. Cyke's inability to control his optic blasts is due to physical trauma (brain damage), not the same x-factor which gives him his ability; if he hadn't cracked his head when he'd been pushed out of the plane as a kid he'd have full control over his blasts.

> -From Deadpool: Regeneration and Recovery:
> Unearthly. Fighting: Excellent. Strength: Good.
> Endurance: Good. On a power feat he can regain an
> area of lost tissue the size of his hand with two
> rounds of concentration. Due to the unique nature
> of Deadpool’s power it is currently impossible
> for Mimic to cleanse it from his power templates,
> as it resists his efforts to remove it. Also much
> like Deadpool it has a physical manifestation of
> long ropey scars covering him from head to toe.

Is there a version of Deadpool that has Shift-Y Regeneration and Recovery? The one on this site is listed as Unearthly, which is how I remembered it. So shouldn't Mimic have Amazing rank in those powers? Half of Deadpool's Unearthly rank.

Deadpool's generally been shown (once they introduced the idea he had powers) to have a regenerative factor that put Wolverine's to shame, at least before the power creep got too severe. So I think Deadpool's around the same level as Madcap when it comes to regenerating, particularly given the speed with which we see Mimic regenerate once he has time to copy Deadpool's power. Consider though that I'm thinking in terms of UPB for the regeneration, from what I've seen they use the Health/Turn version of Regeneration for Deadpool so that he recovers 10health/turn rather than recovering health 100 times faster than normal.

Excellent explanation. Never had a doubt that you had it well considered, but rather I wanted to understand where you were coming from with the choices you made for his ranks. Thanks for clearing that up.

Also on Ben's site it say that the residual Telepathy is from Xavier. Is that your mistake or his?

Here's the link: [www.angelfire.com]

Actually that's my mistake he copied after I posted the original write-up last year. I'd misremembered the source of that residual telepathy until I went through and reread all the original issues from number 1 until his apparent death due to Proteus. That's where I had to correct both the source of the residual telepathy and the mind-shields he gets while in armored form (while they didn't seem to exist in the beginning it's not unrealistic to think that virtually no amount of shielding would have kept Phoenix from reading his mind while he was armored so little point to mention them at that point). In looking back in the very first issue Mimic ascribes the residual telepathy to Jean Grey and not Xavier (Nocturne supposedly also has some residual Telepathy).

Okay, one more thing:

While I don't remember the exact details of it, I do recall there being some issue about that he could not copy the Hulk (and the like), and I think even be around him. Like he has some kind of Energy Allergy, or just general Weakness to, Gamma type radiation. I'm certain about Mimic (Earth-616) having an issue like this, but was pretty sure the Mimic (Earth - 12) had the same kind of issue.

In any case I've mentioned it to help you with your write-up, which I obviously I dig enough to keep looking at.

Hmmmm, can't believe I left that off, I was sure I'd updated to include that unless it's a note I had to add on the first posting in the old forums. Yes Exiles Mimic is very much subject to the problem that his power automatically drains gamma radiation from the Hulk resulting in radiation poisoning and possible death if the exposure goes on for too long. This is an inconsistent weakness that the writers had problems remembering to accurately portray in the comic as there were two instances of Exiles Mimic encountering other-dimensional versions of the Hulk (Hulk where the Skrulls conquered earth in the 1800s and the female version that was on the Weapon X team, I believe the Hulk where they first battled Hyperion was already dead and Mimic didn't get close enough to be hurt by his corpse). Whether he had that problem with other gamma-spawned types like the Leader isn't a certainty but would make sense that he'd be at risk of death being around any gamma-spawned characters. The only reason he'd be possible safe now is his possession of the Deadpool power template to repair him faster than the gamma rays damage him (provided they decide someday to raise him due to his having that template and Wolverine's).

I'm glad I mentioned it then, since I'm sure you wanted this write-up to be comprehensive. Now that you mention it, I do remember this weakness being poorly remembered by the writers, but definitely real danger to him none the less.

So we are saying that duplicating the Hulk's power set would injure him badly, and maybe kill him?

He CAN'T duplicate the Hulk's power set, his power automatically focuses on drawing off raw gamma energy into his cells. He doesn't seem capable of adapting his cells to acquire the power template of the Hulk like he can others. About the only time a Mimic's seen pulling that off it was a short storyarc featuring Wolverine and the original-616 Mimic and he'd somehow copied the powers of Hulk and Wolverine sometime after his second or third death. But since Marvel's awful about leaving people dead particularly people in the X-titles even if they were only on the team 5 minutes they just handwaved his death and brought him back without the weakness and briefly the powers of Wolverine and his appearance. They've tweaked Earth-616 Mimic enough times and tossed away his past history that he's now pretty much like the Exiles Mimic without the half-power limit, he gets things at full power but rather than copying everyone within range he's now limited to just five templates.

Gotcha. It would be cool sometime if we had both write-ups, complete, for both the Earth-12 and Earth-616 versions of Mimic. Just because I think there is sometimes confusion about which one can do what, when, and for how long. As you said, they have changed Mimic-616 enough times that he is now like the Exiles version, save a couple small differences. But having those changes charted out in a write-up could be helpful.

In any case, I'm glad I brought up the Hulk thing, if for no other reason for my own education.

Given some of the appearances that have happened with Earth-616 Mimic that I've missed and how extensive his have been compared to Exiles Mimic afraid I can't chart all the changes that have happened to him and have to go by broader strokes. He's probaby had a dozen changes easy over the decades unlike the Exiles Mimic who other than the changes in what powers he copied had no changes occur with his base power. The closest the Exiles Mimic's had come to having his powers change was when the Brood egg started hatching and his limitations on how many he can copy went away so he was stacking somewhere around a dozen heroes at once. Ironically the thing was too stupid to just eliminate the Healing Factor of Wolverine from its power templates so it would have automatically been able to take over without resistance.

During the Brood Egg moment he was copying the following: Colossus, Wolverine, Cyclops, Northstar, Beast, Sunfire, Morph, Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Sasquatch, Nocturne, and the Human Torch. If more had shown up he'd have copied them as well and kept on going.

If I remember correctly, 616 Mimic can now copy at least 10 templetes. When he fought Excalibur, he keep the powers of the original X-Men and then copied 5 other power templetes at the same time. I didnot read the issues, but I did read about it online.

Nightmask,

Here's an interesting thing:

[classicmarvelrpg.com]

This write-up has two things different from yours:

1) Stats: Calvin’s original stats are all rated at Ty/6 with a health of 24. Should Calvin duplicate a stat that is better than one he possesses it will take the originals place, with an increase in Health but not Karma.

2) Limitation: May only Duplicate another mutants powers, runs the risk of permanent duplication if duplicating non-mutants.

Thoughts?

Well for the first I suppose I could/should explicitly state that even with the listings under copied powers showing them supplying rank increases on the FASE but the second is more speculation and an overbroad interpretation of his problems trying to get rid of Deadpool's power as he could just as easily run that risk of permanent power duplication with a Random Mutant's powers as he would an Induced Mutant. There's nothing that really says he's at risk of permanently copying someone's powers just because they're an Induced Mutant it's more a result of the powers themselves. Mimic himself had speculated that Deadpool's power was such that once he copied it it resisted being erased due to it treating such attempts as an attack to ward off.

Dude, glad you came on-line.

Okay so you definitely disagree with the whole thing that he has a danger of holding on to none mutant powers then. See thats good man, because I was not so sure about that. Also, I wasn't putting together that it was Deadpool's Regeneration that he had trouble getting rid of, also I don't know much about Deadpool. A couple things:

1) Has he ever been shown having trouble getting rid of anyone else's power set?

2) What is special so about Dealpool's Regeneration, that it will hold on and resist being booted, but Wolverines would not? Just the rank being so much higher?

Exiles Mimic made it clear he'd never had problems getting rid of a power before and why Deadpool's powers were so special might be how they work and were created since at least for what I remember of his history he gained his regeneration due to experiments to cure cancer that he had. Unfortunately the byproduct of that was a hyper-developed regenerative factor that worked like cancer and covered his body in ropey scar tissue. Since it works like cancer it could be Mimic effectively has the power equivelent of a disease he assimilated and like any disease the Deadpool healing factor resists being destroyed. Wolverine's healing factor is more natural and part of an overall array of powers so doesn't work against Mimic when copying it. Mimic probably could have copied Madcap and been just fine (Madcap's insanity isn't organic or power-related it's purely a result of the trauma of surviving where everyone else he loved died and he couldn't cope with the loss) and you really have to wonder how a large database like the one the Crystal Palace has it couldn't find Madcap as someone with a suitable healing factor or no one could figure out he could copy an Eternal or other relatively unkillable type of being which would have made him dying from his injuries impossible. One of the few things that doesn't make sense for the Exiles run with him around (and perhaps one reason for finally killing him off, too many people wondering why he wasn't using the opportunity to trade up powers to be a more effective hero).

That makes sense about Deadpool's power, and actually is a pretty cool thing that they included that in the story. Just because it's interesting the way it sort of backfired.

Oh and dude, I really did wonder why he was not trading up a little more effectively, now that you mention it. The power set of an Eternal would have tied any other powers he had together beautifully. Not to mention, in game terms, the endless amount of power stunting he could do with that power set and his knowledge of powers in general. With all that experience in using a wide array of powers, he'd be like the power stunt master.

Except the Exiles Mimic was practically phobic about powers that required effort to master so would avoid anything that required power stunts (ironically his evil counterpart who rejected Xavier's offer had no problems taking power-stunt heavy mutant powers like Magneto's, Xavier's, and quickly copied and used Blink's powers even when the Exiles version refused to even try copying it after he lost his wings because he didn't want to make the effort to practice using it). He went for always active (Wolverine, Beast, Angel, Deadpool) or easy on-off powers (Cyclops, Colossus). If he'd ever copied an Eternal he'd have likely never made any attempt to learn more power stunts and stuck with the basics it offered (although that would have made him quite a bit more powerful in general), but he had the opportunity to mimic any of the Hyperions that they met and didn't even try. So basically the writers didn't play him as a very intelligent man or one willing to really stretch himself but more a lazy one taking the easy route to being a hero.

As we've seen in the other thread you started there are a variety of combinations that would have made him vastly more capable, particularly if he were to take the challenge of power sets that required practice and effort. There are even a number of possibilities that he could have gained great power without even taking practice powers but going his lazy route but seems never to have done so. His opportunity to copy Spider-man during their time on the Skrull-conquered earth for example would have been a better swap for Beast's agility and brought a number of back-up powers and enhanced strength and durability even without being in armored form. That was one of his biggest weaknesses, his normal unarmored form wasn't that much better than a normal human and only Wolverine's template really boosted it and that half-level power wasn't that great a break overall. Holding onto Beast's agility instead of taking Spider-man's entire template was a very bad tactical error all around.

Nightmask Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Except the Exiles Mimic was practically phobic
> about powers that required effort to master so
> would avoid anything that required power stunts
> (ironically his evil counterpart who rejected
> Xavier's offer had no problems taking power-stunt
> heavy mutant powers like Magneto's, Xavier's, and
> quickly copied and used Blink's powers even when
> the Exiles version refused to even try copying it
> after he lost his wings because he didn't want to
> make the effort to practice using it). He went
> for always active (Wolverine, Beast, Angel,
> Deadpool) or easy on-off powers (Cyclops,
> Colossus). If he'd ever copied an Eternal he'd
> have likely never made any attempt to learn more
> power stunts and stuck with the basics it offered
> (although that would have made him quite a bit
> more powerful in general), but he had the
> opportunity to mimic any of the Hyperions that
> they met and didn't even try. So basically the
> writers didn't play him as a very intelligent man
> or one willing to really stretch himself but more
> a lazy one taking the easy route to being a hero.

I'm familiar with that aspect of his personality, but did they ever say why he was that way? It seems that over time he would eventually want to play a bit with his powers. While I agree that during the Exiles was not a great time, it could happen during some kind of down time or something. Curious.

> As we've seen in the other thread you started
> there are a variety of combinations that would
> have made him vastly more capable, particularly if
> he were to take the challenge of power sets that
> required practice and effort. There are even a
> number of possibilities that he could have gained
> great power without even taking practice powers
> but going his lazy route but seems never to have
> done so. His opportunity to copy Spider-man
> during their time on the Skrull-conquered earth
> for example would have been a better swap for
> Beast's agility and brought a number of back-up
> powers and enhanced strength and durability even
> without being in armored form. That was one of
> his biggest weaknesses, his normal unarmored form
> wasn't that much better than a normal human and
> only Wolverine's template really boosted it and
> that half-level power wasn't that great a break
> overall. Holding onto Beast's agility instead of
> taking Spider-man's entire template was a very bad
> tactical error all around.

Agreed, on all accounts. I'm a fan of his for sure, but sometimes I did wonder what the heck he was thinking not copying Hyperion. Even half of that guy is pretty sweet, plus the fact that you get four other templates with it to round out your overall power set. Man, that would have been sweet.

I'm really enjoying that other thread, even though I have not posted my Mimic yet. Sometimes the conversations that are sparked in such subjects are as interesting or more so than the actual topic.

Why are any of us the way we are? Mimic stated he didn't consider things like teleportation or fire generation as areas to play in (even though the people BORN with those powers had to learn how to control and safely use them as well) so presumably he either had an accident early on that left him phobic of such powers or saw it happen with someone else and was left afraid of trying powers that required practice. Given he could select whatever powers he wanted instead of being stuck with a particular set of powers he likely said to himself that he could easily find other powers that'd work for what he wanted and wouldn't require risky practice (like Angel's wings and later Northstar's flight) and went that route.

The only reason (other than writer plot hole) I can see for Mimic not trying to copy Hyperion would be that he couldn't, that something about him was incompatible with Mimic's power. Since Hyperion was in fact able to regenerate from scraps it's not unreasonable to think him close enough to an energy being to reject being copied.

Hmmmm, so why haven't you posted your idea of what would make for Ultimate Mimic? Been revising it after seeing the various ideas provided by others and seeing someone you'd forgotten about and just having trouble settling on a particular set? The conversations do get quite good though and reveal some interesting thoughts on the topics and perspectives one might have missed originally.

Nightmask Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why are any of us the way we are? Mimic stated he
> didn't consider things like teleportation or fire
> generation as areas to play in (even though the
> people BORN with those powers had to learn how to
> control and safely use them as well) so presumably
> he either had an accident early on that left him
> phobic of such powers or saw it happen with
> someone else and was left afraid of trying powers
> that required practice. Given he could select
> whatever powers he wanted instead of being stuck
> with a particular set of powers he likely said to
> himself that he could easily find other powers
> that'd work for what he wanted and wouldn't
> require risky practice (like Angel's wings and
> later Northstar's flight) and went that route.

I suspect that there must have been something dramatic happen to him in the early use of his powers that made him the way he is about copying powers that require more detailed practice. Hopefully someday the Marvel staff will give us some kind of explanation for that.

> The only reason (other than writer plot hole) I
> can see for Mimic not trying to copy Hyperion
> would be that he couldn't, that something about
> him was incompatible with Mimic's power. Since
> Hyperion was in fact able to regenerate from
> scraps it's not unreasonable to think him close
> enough to an energy being to reject being copied.

It's definitely possible, and a more reasonable explanation than that he just didn't think of it. Was the Hyperion he came across the version that is Eternal in heritage? For some reason I can't remember if they covered that in the story.

> Hmmmm, so why haven't you posted your idea of what
> would make for Ultimate Mimic? Been revising it
> after seeing the various ideas provided by others
> and seeing someone you'd forgotten about and just
> having trouble settling on a particular set? The
> conversations do get quite good though and reveal
> some interesting thoughts on the topics and
> perspectives one might have missed originally.

Originally I wanted to do a full write-up for my Mimic, but I just have not had the time. So I'll post something short soon.

I doubt we'll ever learn that about the Exiles Mimic unless someone decides to revive him from the dead and explore his past more, I just know his evil counterpart had zero problems copying people who's powers required practice (he copied Blink the moment he could, so either he never had any traumas or was so confident in his abilities he had no fears he could master it with ease).

They never explored too much of the background on the Evil Hyperion but I doubt he was of Eternal heritage, while he had similar powers and appearance to the ones we first met (identical until they decided to have him inexplicably be bald perhaps to make it easier to differentiate between him and the good ones to come along but it had no sense to it otherwise) it didn't happen to require him to be an Eternal. Similar to how we see the recent version of Wolverine introduced in New Exiles, while he's clearly Wolverine's counterpart he's also obviously of very different origin (similar to The Beast With No Name from the Kitty's Fairy Tale reality).

Ahhhh, okay, will be interesting to see the full write-up on him as you see his counterpart becoming, since there are so many good mix-and-match options for Mimic. My Energy master version (with some padding to better adapt to all problems) is just one of many powerful combinations one could put together.

My obsession with Mimic is way out of hand, I'll be honest. But I've got another question.

In your opinion:

If Mimic was to duplicate the powers of Superman...would he also duplicate his weakness to Kryptonite?

Some say yes some say no, would depend on how he's copying the powers. If he's developing a Kryptonian physiology he'd have the weakness since it's inherent in the physiology if he's just replicating the powers wholesale he wouldn't have that weakness nor the solar energy dependency Superman has.

this has been a most informative read mask and blade, the only issue i see is should not his speed flight be unearthly as that is his limit not shift Z. over all you hit his half power to a tee.

did blade ever finish his version of mimic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2012 07:47PM by GILGAMESH.

GILGAMESH Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> this has been a most informative read mask and
> blade, the only issue i see is should not his
> speed flight be unearthly as that is his limit not
> shift Z. over all you hit his half power to a tee.

No Mimic's speed should be Shift Z, his power was not shown to have any such cap on it. The power rank is for things like testing against someone's ability (if any) to resist Power Copying, such as when he went against Dark Phoenix and she shut him off while he was in the middle of copying her power.

> did blade ever finish his version of mimic.

No idea, ever since he cut all ties with here after some spat he had and went off to set up an exclusive 'we're better than you' game site there's been no contact with him at all.

Hmmmmm, you know I wonder if Exiles Mimic should have a higher base stat for at least Fighting than Typical. He's quite the highly experienced and trained fighter by the time we see him and survived gladiatorial combat for weeks (months? ) while a prisoner of the Skrulls on the alternate Earth where superhumans were used as entertainment for the Skrull Masses after Earth was conquered in the 1800s. Even holding back not using his Cyclops derived powers he proved so capable with half-power abilities of Wolverine, Colossus and Beast that he quickly reached the point that they were setting him up against their elite super-champion (the divergent version of Captain America). Given what it likely would take to last that long seems like he's more likely closer to Remarkable rank for his base Fighting ability (or minimum Excellent Fighting even without Wolverine's contribution).