Name: Alexa Mizuno

Alias: Moonrunner

From: The World of Junior Force

I used to be able to churn out pictures of this chick with no problem, but of late she's been a bit difficult to nail down. This is a fairly recent pic of her, with a bit of the Lita-thong effect in mind.

I got a bit more psyched about all things Junior Force a few weeks ago as I was supposed to be cleaning my room, and happened to stumble the old JF manuscripts that Neil and I wrote back in high school. Needless to say my room is still quite ransacked, as I spent the rest of the afternoon reacquainting myself with old characters, reliving old story lines, and marveling at the number of four-letter words a man could cram into one sentence. Of all of the characters in those three books, there was one that changed the entire complexion of the trilogy. That character simply called herself Alexa, the Moonrunner.

Junior Force III: If you check out the History of Junior Force, you'll see that around the time of the third book, the old regime of the Sledgehammers had been ousted by Zack and Jack Kain, and The Elite was born. Shortly after this took place, a new face appeared on the scene, that of beautiful and mysterious young woman with slight Asian features. No one was quite sure of what to make of Alexa, but it soon became apparent that she was the brains behind The Elite, and that she was quickly becoming a legitimate threat. She bore an intense, seething hatred for the members of Junior Force, which borderlined murderous intent. See, the thing that you have to understand about the Junior Force books is that while there was a lot of fighting, there never really was a time when anyone was in any sort of mortal danger. Sure, plenty of people got the crap beaten out of them (even our heroes from time to time), but it was never serious. That changed when Moonrunner came on the scene; her weapon of choice wasn't a staff or a chain, but a pair of clawed-gauntlets, and even a katana at one point. She didn't fight to hurt, she fought to kill; during the last fight of the book, she took on all four members of Junior Force, and literally left her mark on my JF incarnation, slashing me full across the chest and leaving a couple of nasty gashes. It's like Moonrunner brought up the intensity of the whole Junior Force saga, almost giving it a bit more 'credibility' with the rest of my works. Notice I said 'almost', because, well, the whole world of Junior Force is pretty silly to begin with.

Exodus: Of course after a past like that, you didn't expect her to just up and disappear. I'd always planned that she'd return in whatever sequel I produced, which kind of left her in limbo after I had problems getting Junior Force IV together. However, she's found a role in Exodus, and a pretty prominent one at that. As the heroes of Junior Force enter their senior year in high school, they are shocked by the presence of a transfer student by the name of Alexa Mizuno, their old friend from several summers ago. The strange thing is, however, is that she seems to be taking no interest in dismembering our heroes. She does keep a close eye on them and their activities, however, but it seems like she's got other things on her mind.

But Who Is She? : Questions still remain, though. Who is she really, and where did she come from? Why does she have this hatred for Junior Force? Believe it or not, I actually have a lot of this worked out, but you'll have to wait and see how things develop. I will say that there are some ties with the Lazer Universe (if you recall Lazer Man's profile, that was our comic world that actually takes place later in the Junior Force timeline). These parties are destined to meet again.

The Future: Moonrunner plays a very prominent role in Exodus, and you can be sure that she'll be around once that wraps up. This young lady has a very complex history behind her, and so you can be sure that there will be a tale or two exploring that. Besides, there will always be need for ass-kicking ninja chicks around this joint- Ms. Mizuno fits the bill quite nicely in that regard.