Polymorph Girl!
"I am the shocking armored hatpin of naughtiness!" -- Polymorph Girl*"Well, *duh*...." -- Pervert Boy
Polymorph Girl has always wanted to be a superhero. (None of this "heroine" business for her -- being mistaken, by semiliterates, for an extremely strong opium derivative, does not seem advantageous.) But until she was 21, she never could figure out what her distinguishing powers were, what would make her stand out from all the other beings who wish to do something extraordinary in this universe.
But then, one day in the fall of 1994, the woman not yet known as Polymorph Girl and her best friend were goofing off, getting familiar with the Internet, back at a time when the alt.sex* groups were almost readable and the Web was an unfamiliar concept. And, logged into their school Unix accounts from a home computer, discovered that they could transform themselves into other beings by traveling through the phone lines and dedicated cables which make up the Internet. Their usual personalities were sucked into the computer, but something entirely different could come out at the destination unless they concentrated really hard on staying themselves. And if one were to concentrate on visualizing a different persona than the one that went into the machine, it was possible to be someone or something else.
This is not a unique discovery. Many, many Internet users have happened upon it. But only two people have made use of this characteristic to become superheroes! These two mild-mannered college students became...
Polymorph Girl
andPervert Boy!
![[PG's question-mark-with-crossbar symbol]](images/pmgbull.gif)
Roaming the worlds,
online and off, fighting the evils done by the sex-negative and the
anti-freedom activists of the universe, Polymorph Girl and Pervert
Boy standardized the forms they used in their superhero work so that
they would be recognizable, and Pervert Boy developed the symbol
which identified the duo to the world. (Unsurprisingly, Pervert Boy is
a great fan of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince.)
Polymorph Girl is brunette, five foot three, and unlike many female superheroes, small-breasted (though she has nothing but admiration for those who manage to fight evil while their chest bounces painfully during strenuous movement). She generally wears one of many long-sleeved black catsuits, each made of a different material (leather, velvet, spandex, lace, etc.; whichever is appropriate to the circumstances) and soft-soled ballet slippers. (Despite what American Maid can do with a spike heel in her crime-fighting, Polymorph Girl would rather be able to run without turning an ankle.)
Her name comes from several sources: the phrase "polymorphous perversity" in the theories of Dr. Fraud; the fact that she is polyamorous and can "morph" into different shapes; and just liking the fact that her initials also stand for "Parental Guidance." The "girl" part is merely because most of the more respectful terms for adult female humans have two syllables and so just don't have the same ring to them.
Pervert Boy is five foot ten, has light brown hair, and wears a trench coat and athletic shoes. His pockets are filled with useful things from pens to floppy disks to supplies from Blowfish.
Pervert Boy chose the name he did because his upbringing in a sex-negative culture makes him feel like a pervert for admitting to his own sexual desires. Polymorph Girl keeps trying to convince him that he is neither as weird or as alone as he thinks he is, but she's getting tired of banging her head against a brick wall. (Nancy Friday's books of people's sexual fantasies cured PG of any such delusions of abnormality at age eleven.) But Pervert Boy's low self-esteem makes him happier as a sidekick -- a great one for Polymorph Girl, to be sure.
More stories of Polymorph Girl and Pervert Boy to come as I can worm them out of the principal characters, who are too busy in their hero lives and too modest in the everyday ones to tell me, their humble chronicler, much about their adventures. Also too busy to pose for pictures, Polymorph Girl says, although I heard Pervert Boy mutter something about cameras being an instrument of evil, at least when pointed at him.
Slogan courtesy of "Making a superhero catch phrase," page 15 of The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice!, apparently edited or something by some Greg Hyland guy, and published by Boulevard Books, New York, 1997.
If you might be interested in drawing PG and PB, contact me, Segnbora.. Polymorph Girl has a just-for-hero-purposes account at polymorphgirl@yahoo.com but doesn't check it very often.
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