Merissa

Merissa is a super badass antihero lady created by Saxon Brenton and Rob Rogers.
Alter Ego:	Melissa
Aliases:	Individualized Vector clone #0057, MERIS, Devastator (alt-future version)
Primary Writer:	None
Status:	Totally has a dark villainous past, currently the best member of the LNH (Classic Team)
Usability:	Not Reserved

History

The best character in the Legion showed up in 2001, during the Birth of a Villain cascade, seemingly as just another of the variant clones of Vector, no one knowing of her true power or destiny! Merissa stepped in, boldly making a play on the Mysterious Chairman's powerbase with her Kids' Crew, but was seemingly cut down in her prime by the vigilante known as Green Eggs Hates Spham. Yet this was just a prelude!

Years later, during the voyage of the Legion of Net.Heroes Starship Jefferson, a cunning plan was enacted...

Kid Kirby installed a Mother-In-Law Box into the Starship, seemingly controlled by a temperamental intelligence known as the Master Ethernet Relay Intelligent System, or MERIS. But when Deja Dude went to try and seduce the system into doing their bidding, MERIS turned out to be Merissa in disguise, her viral nature infecting the ship. She transmatted the crew away and sent herself and Deja Dude to a world where nothing else existed and his powers didn't work, turning his brash advances back upon him in an attempt to gain a powerful ally. But when he rejected the idea of being come on to the same way he had come on to her, she summoned fictional characters to destroy him. Yet in the end, this was her undoing, ending with Merissa sealed in a bottle genie-style and ejected into the empty universe.

After a time of frustrated seething, Merissa realized that the bottle – and the empty universe itself – were just more symbols to transcend. Our heroine broke out and embraced the power and image of the goth!

Merissa wandered the Astral Plane until she encountered the Crossover Queen, who was on a quest...

The Queen was looking for the power to begin the Ultimate Crossover, in hopes of saving Usenet from a slow death. They went on a heroic journey across the Inner Net.Planes, and Merissa became the greatest general of the Queen's Beige Legion!

The Crossover Queen assigned her a great mission – to gather crossover energy from the rifts that had appeared during Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade That Will Probably Never Have an Ending! Running into the LNH and the Legion of Young.Heroes, she ended up fangirling over Lydia Devin; but when Lydia accidentally spurned her, she dropped her goth persona and ran smack into the Mega-Ultra-BIGGUN, the weapon of a hero who had disappeared from usability. She used it to battle the LYH, the Saviors of the Net, and the LNH3k in the name of the Queen and obtain the Kubrik's Kube— but through the Kube, she realized how limited she still was, and who she could truly be.

When all was said and done, Merissa became a member of the Legion. Naturally, she immediately upset the status quo, becoming the first LNHer ever to defeat Ultimate Ninja in single combat during her membership test. When Neme.sys attacked, she formed the Cool Name Band to fight it using the power of music!

And when giant monsters attacked during the plague of Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths!, she sought out her grandpa, Toony Stork, to help her become an even cooler hero!

They went on a quest and found the pieces of a giant robot – Grand Queen Merissakaiser Z – just in time to fight UltraKiwi Wondersock! And while Merissa didn't get to take down the evil space kiwi herself, she went on an even epic-er quest, descending into the underworld to bring Token Girl back from the dead! She won a battle against Ending herself... but something in the darkness of Token Girl's soul reignited an old bitterness...

Merissa has the potential to become the most powerful LNHer ever – or the great destroyer of the Beigewar! Which will it be? Find out next time, on the Legion of Net.Heroes!

In some alternate futures, she takes on the name of Devastator.

Personality

Entirely full of herself. Acts like an exaggeratedly indulgent version of the teenage girl she presents herself as.

Under the Crossover Queen, she became an exaggeration of the goth subculture. After joining the LNH, she started leaning towards a memetic badass image.

May be aromantic; in any case, doesn't really Get the crushes her peers get on each other.

Powers and Abilities

Merissa's powers have changed as her sense of identity has. In her first appearance, she telepathetically made all adults in the area clumsy and incompetent, and could transform them into red-headed teenagers under her control. As MERIS, she could infest and control computer systems; after she manifested physically, she could summon the fictional characters that she claimed to be related to. As a Goth, she could unleash the Goth in others, bringing them under her control and dressing them in black leather and jagged face paint.

Currently, she has interfaced with the Mega-Ultra-BIGGUN, an endlessly adaptable personal weapons system. She can fire nearly anything out of it, as long as it can somehow be used for offensive purposes. Perhaps surprisingly, she rarely uses lethal ordinance, preferring more creative, unique, and showoffy methods of taking out foes.

She also has access to the giant robot built by Toony Stork, Grand Queen Merissakaiser Z.

Appearance

A teenage-looking girl with red (usually) hair. Wears different outfits based on the persona she's taken; currently, she dresses in memetic badass fashion, with a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt, sunglasses, and big stompy boots, but adds a pleated black knee-length skirt and black tights with "COOL LADY" written on the legs in red.

Relationships

Merissa considers Captain LNH and the original Vector to be her moms, and Toony Stork and wReamicus Maximus to be her grandfathers. She once considered the Crossover Queen her mom, but withdrew that relationship of her own will.

Alternate-universe counterparts include Devastator of Looniverse-Avocado and Ultra-Merissa of Looniverse-Dantalion.

Awards

Naturally, as soon as she joined the side of goodness, she was awarded with the 2015 RACCie for Favorite Hero/Protagonist.

Context

Merissa started off as a parody of Star Trek fanfiction character Marissa Picard, influenced by the various "Dark Marissa" parodies. Her initial incarnation from Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade... picks up traits from Harry Potter fanfiction character Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and her post-JAC persona is a meta-commentary on Mary Sues, author avatars, and other such id-driven characters (and how they're actually fun and great).

Appearances

• First Appearance: Birth of a Villain #27
  • Some of Vector's other appearances in Birth of a Villain may actually have been Merissa.
• Beige Countdown #10-9
• Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade That Will Probably Never Have an Ending #4, 6, 9, 12-13
• Legion of Net.Heroes Volume 2 #58.5.ENDING
• System Corruptors #32
• WikiLull #8, 12-13, WikiLull After #1, EXHALE
• Another LNH Title? Really? Free Comic Book Day Special, #11
• Chicks in Space #1-2
• Cover Gallery #1002i, #1012i/#50i, 63i
• Digital JUMP! #10 (alt-future version)
• Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #6, 6pi, 20, 24-25, 37-38, 43, 46 (mentioned), 48-50, EPILOG (Side A)
• Leadership Cry.sig: Net.ropolis 2023 #7, add-on