DEEP DISH THEMES:
BY THE SLICE:

ORIGIN: Ms America Chavez is a tough, no nonsense super heroine, yet one with a genuine desire to help others and do good. She is from an alt reality, the Utopian Parallel, an idealistic reality that once faced destruction. It was America's two mothers sacrifice that stabilized that reality and saved its inhabitants, thought it would leave America with no family and angry with loss. Seeking to follow the noble sacrifice of her parents, she would dimension jump, seeking to find other less than ideal realities in order to help its inhabitants and be a hero.

Ms America is a super-heroine loosely inspired by the original Miss America of whom she actually has very little knowledge of. Miss América Chávez worked as a part of the Teen Brigade alongside Ultimate Nullifier, Barnell Bohusk, Angel Salvadore, and the In-Betweener in the third incarnation of the group. Essentially a teen hero group using hi tech communication gear to undergo important missions, often aiding under heroes, in a somewhat covert manner. The group of teens were jaded by the blurring of lines between heroes and villains and the complacency afforded by some established traditional heroes and their actions. She was also considered co leader of the team. America had a somewhat cynical attitude even at one stage mocking the idea of ever being an Avenger, ironically after some manipulation by Loki she would in fact become a member of the Young Avengers. Eventually America would reminisce on her past at a party set for the youthful heroes and sidekicks of Earth.

Observing Billy Kaplan in the present she would recall her youth in which her home dimension which was near its end and that her two mothers had saved it. It was also a reality that Billy had created in his Demiurge persona in the future, young Miss America was a huge fan of Demiurge, or Wiccan, even going as far to pretend to be him. Miss America would inform that her mothers had saved their dimension, a surreal bright vibrant almost perfect dimension. The young Miss America would jump into a final void despite adults of her home world warning her of the consequences. Miss America wanted to leave her dimension, it was too perfect with no one for her to help and she had heroes like her mothers and Wiccan to aspire to being like. Thus setting up her journey.



PROS: For 95 points you get a solid figure, with solid stats, and solid standard powers. I would happily pay 95 points for what she can do, and I'm not even addressing her trait yet. She starts out with a decent nine movement with Charge (Giving her an effective five square reach), Super Strength (Possibly adding to her damage with objects and now with Knockback as an option), 18 defense with Invulnerability, and a whopping FOUR damage to start out with. Get a heavy object in your hand and she is capable of one-shot KO'ing quite a few pieces in modern age play when she clobbers them for SIX damage! Mid-dial she slows down a bit and "Downgrades" to Sidestep but now has Close Combat Expert. At the back end of her dial, she picks up the pace immensely when she picks up Hypersonic Speed. Now lets talk about her trait...certainly not the only reason to play her, but definitely one of the BEST reasons to. It's called: THE LAWS OF PHYSICS CAN KISS MY... and it says: When Miss America makes a close attack targeting an opposing character and actions resolve, you may place a Space Portal marker into an unoccupied square adjacent to her and the target. Before a friendly character is given a close combat action, it may be placed adjacent to the Space Portal but may only attack the same target this turn. At the end of your turn, remove the Space Portal. This allows her to go in for an attack, do whatever it is SHE'S going to be able to do, and then you can teleport in one of your allies to more than likely bat cleanup. Assuming that Miss America is going to be able to deal at least 4-6 damage against somebody, it should only take a tiny, tiny tap to finish off most opponents. It's great for positioning, it's great for a hell of a one-two punch, and it's a BARGAIN at only 95 points.

CONS: There aren't many of them. For a piece that weighs in under 100 points she has tricks up her sleeves to back up her overall solid dial. I wish she could open up the portal and not have to be next to the target to do so, though. The Hypersonic Speed at the end of her dial would be so much more useful then. She could run up, hit somebody, drop the portal, and then get out of there. Since she's at the end of her dial, you want this trick to remain an option, and you might be sacrificing her in order to do it. I know if I were to see an opponent using her to call teammates all over the board I wouldn't want her to still be around and would focus on her.

Other Players' Comments/Reviews: Using the Inline dial system, just click on the word bubble next to the character's name and it will take you to the units section comments!

KEYWORD THEMES: (Named Keywords are in bold)

Cosmic: The concept for this team is pretty simple. It's a bunch of young women that are out for a good time. Girls just wanna have fun, after all. Pouring over the young women that have the cosmic keyword, this group (Though crossing universes) seem like they would have a blast together. They'd be pretty fun to play together as well. Mantis would make sure that they kick names and take ass!

Force Build 9060011 0
Set	#	Name	Team	Pts	Value
WKM	M17-009	Miss America		95	SELL
JLTW	022	Stargirl		95	SELL
WW	002	Starfire		75	SELL
WKM	M17-012	Blink		75	SELL
GOTG2M	003	Mantis		55	SELL
Force Total:				395	$0.00

Ultimates: This team is a lot trickier to make. Miss America is the first figure in over a decade (Not counting the "Classics" line) to have the Ultimates keyword so you're just going to have to concede to the fact that you'll have to dust off some figures if you want to use this keyword. That being said, you'll still find a lot of those characters still have some tricks left up their sleeves and some value on a team. They're certainly not the meta pieces they once were, but having at least been considered meta at some point, they can still pull some weight in modern games. The trick is to have Miss America and Thor do the heavy lifting. You might actually be able to make a go of this team, but unfortunately due to the age, the higher you go with your points the more likely it's going to buckle under it's own weight...and some of those old Ultimates pieces have a LOT of weight...

Force Build 9060011 1
Set	#	Name	Team	Pts	Value
WKM	M17-009	Miss America		95	SELL
UL	096	Thor		186	$16.98
AV	002	Iron Man		154	$0.50
UL	212	Clint Barton		75	$1.88
UL	065	Captain America		89	$1.61
Force Total:				599	$20.97

Young Avengers: This is my favorite keyword to play her with (Until we get an A-Force keyword, that is) because it's the most accurate named keyword she has. I'm also a big Young Avengers fan, and I tend to try to fit everybody possible on the team when building it (Even if they have only made one version of Speed ever and it was from 5+ years ago). I know I could go the route of including the "Runaways" from the What If set since they were the Young Avengers of that reality, but it just doesn't seem thematic enough when I do that. There are some good dials to be had there, and if I were trying to build something a little more competitive, I would for sure, but I rarely build with competitive play in mind. You'll have 20 points left over to use objects, maps, or whatever your weapon of choice where point-filler is concerned lies.

Force Build 9060011 2
Set	#	Name	Team	Pts	Value
WKM	M17-009	Miss America		95	SELL
WKM	M17-008	Kate Bishop		70	SELL
CWSOP	003	Vision		80	SELL
CWSOP	021	Patriot		60	SELL
CWSOP	027	Hulkling		90	SELL
CWSOP	031	Wiccan		90	SELL
CWSOP	041	Stature		80	SELL
CW	021	Speed		55	$0.49
TMT	050	Loki, Agent of Asgard		60	SELL
Force Total:				680	$0.49

NON-KEYWORD THEMES:

A-Force
Avengers West Coast
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Teen Brigade

DEEP DISH DO-IT-YOURSELF:

In this section, I share with you my own homemade dials for these poor characters that have only ever had one or two versions of themselves realized. I'll try not to get too fanboyish with them, but I'm not making any promises! I also invite any of you who like to make fan dials to please share your versions of these characters as well by using the DIAL GENERATOR in the units section on HCRealms.

#075 Limited Edition Miss America
Real Name: America Chavez
Team: Avengers
Range: 0
Points: 100
Keywords: A-Force, Cosmic, Ultimates, Young Avengers

8 11 17 4

8 10 17 3

9 10 17 3

9 10 16 3

8 9 16 3

8 9 16 3

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

A Step Ahead: Charge, Sidestep
Combat Prowess: Combat Reflexes, Toughness
Portals in Space: Close Combat Expert. When Miss America uses it to give herself a +2 to damage and hits, after resolutions, put a portal marker adjacent to her target. Friendly characters that begin their turn adjacent to one of her portal markers may be given a free action to roll a D6. Place them that many squares away from their currrent location

This wraps it up for this installment of Deep Dish Themes: By the Slice. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to read it! Feel free to post what you think about the article and just like regular Deep Dish Themes, feel free to nominate a character for an upcoming edition of Deep Dish Themes: By the Slice! Join me on 8/22 when it's TIME for Deep Dish Themes: By the Slice: Clock King!

Man I love this figure so much. Paired her with Mistress Death once to deal 12 clicks of damage in one attack with a Heavy. My opponent was running a two man team, charged Death, missed. Death attacked back, hit, gave the Touch token... Miss America swooped in. My opponent was shocked.

As far as I can tell, you could Hypersonic 1 square away from adjacency and then place the portal between her and the opponent. If you arrange it like this:

XXOX
XPXX
XXMX

where M is Miss America, O is the opponent, P is the portal and X marks unoccupied squares, then you can teleport a friend in to block line of fire from the opponent to Miss America. That would keep her somewhat safe. Like this, where F is the friend:

XXOX
XPFX
XXMX

I don't like the character, but I do like the Clix version. It's basically a solid, low-point Wonder Woman dial, and I like that kind of dial.

Just curious, are there particular comics that shaped your ill opinion of the character?

That's fair, but it's still too close for comfort for me

Love this piece. She plays great on Cosmic teams, and in the Young Avengers keyword she's a great mobility aid for Chase Stein and Molly Hayes from What If.

My only "problem" with her is that she hits so hard, she's likely to KO the target herself, and the character she attacks has to survive until actions resolve in order for her to place the portal (otherwise said portal can't be adjacent to said target, because the target is gone from the board).

On the other hand, what this means in practice is that you're sending her after your opponent's strongest fig, the one best able to take four or six to the face--and that's some tasty character-accuracy there. Always dig when a character's dial encourages thematic play like that.

She is good for soaking up about two attack's worth of damage. Vulnerable to Outwit, she will get shot from range and might not even last long enough to get to her intended target. If her HSS and charge were switched she might have a chance but as it is, she is just an okay secondary attacker for picking off strays. Only has a chance if she can be TKd out into the middle of the battle or your opponent ignores her until she is already upon them.

100% agree with you on this. Terrible character, good clix.

Putting her on a Young Avengers team helps alleviate some of these concerns. Karolina Dean can give her ESD when they are adjacent to help out with the ranged attacks. Add Nico Minoru to give her that TK toss that she needs to get in there. Get Gertrude Yorkes and Old Lace to join the team so you can teleport Old Lace in for a good bit of additional damage. All 4 can play together at a tidy 295 points. Gives you room for an ID or give Miss America Harley's Hammer to give her giant reach to avoid those adjacency issues that were brought up in an earlier response. As for being vulnerable to Outwit, can't think of anything to help you out there. Though most characters are vulnerable to Outwit so I don't think that is a fair argument to say she is not a good figure.

That image at the top makes me envision Gloria Estefan as a super heroine.

Am I the only person who got her specifically to run with his old Ultimates figures?

I like running the Gillen Young Avengers Roster at 500. LE Loki lets you use the Protector ID card, and Prodigy is also an ID, so you can keep theme. Run the newest Hulkling and Wiccan, and you can use Any Kate Bishop you want, but the LE leaves you around 30 points to spend. It's fun stuff!

I got her because she's awesome...and because I'm a completist

I love giving her the Ball and Chain for even more schanigans. I use her on a team with Maestro and watch figures drop.