Go!Anna/Annie Summers: Annie is an Aboriginal Australian with very unique physiological characteristics, which she has had since birth. As noted above they include her tail, spots, flexibility and ability to leap and climb. These latter aspects became obvious almost from the time she could crawl... imagine your baby being able to crawl up the wall! At any rate this was not so much a concern for her distressed mother who gave her 'freakish' infant daughter over to a convent to be raised away from 'normal' human society.
Being a headstrong and rebellious child, Annie had a difficult time growing up at the convent. By the time she was 10 the nuns had packed her off to Greenslopes in New York - a newly opened school for the education of genetically enhanced youth - and it was there that she began to get a true sense of her full potential. Whilst at Greenslopes Annie befriended fellow Australian students Dianne Bates and Vicky Valentine and American student Freya Foster.
Annie actively pursued admittance to Magellan Justice Academy and she commenced training there as a super-agent cadet in 1992 at age 16. Despite her brilliance and skills her time at Magellan was bumpy as she had a very strong anti-authoritarian streak and clashed frequently with her trainers, especially Ken Spence. She continued her friendship with Freya and Vicky at Magellan and also fell in love with a senior cadet - Luke McDonald. McDonald's expulsion from the academy in 1997 further eroded her tolerance for the authoritarian hierarchy at Magellan. Despite having been groomed as a potential member of Force Magellan (or affiliated branch, Oz Magellan) upon her graduation in 1998 she chose to go solo in Sydney, Australia.
In 1999 she rescued a young Kaycee Jones from Al Burton, a psychopathic child killer - and quickly became a favourite with the Australian public. Shortly afterwards she teamed up with Luke McDonald who was operating as the unofficial super-agent The Wombat-Man from his underground HQ - The Burrow. Their relationship was sometimes fiery and certainly passionate - they had numerous victories fighting crime in the Sydney area. Wombat-Man's unofficial status however meant that Annie's standing amongst the law enforcement officials and Oz Magellan was frequently on shaky ground.
When out in public out of costume, Annie will frequently dress as a nun - a disguise she refers to as "Sister Anne" - as the clothing allows her to adequately conceal her physical attributes.
During an investigation into a mysterious artefact her friend Dianne Bates, a detective in the NSW Police Force was slain by a ninja attempting to take possession of the artefact. Annie has only recently broken up with Wombat-Man, following the revelation that he was having an affair with Vicky Valentine (aka Captain Victoria of Oz Magellan) she has returned to Magellan Island with Freya Foster to assist investigations into an artefact stolen by crazed occultist Master Drake.
Annie's tail: as noted above, her tail will grow back if severed - which has happened on two occasions. Whilst it feels natural for her to have a tail, the non-tailed world in which she lives presents a number of problems - especially when it comes to sitting and to clothing. In the case of seating, she prefers objects with no backing although, if forced to, she can sit on her tail placing down between her legs - whilst uncomfortable it is adequate and certainly necessary when dressed as Sister Anne. For these reasons her preferred mode of transport is a motorcycle. As regards clothing, all her pants require special modifications!
Costume: originally light brown, she changed it to green when she teamed with The Wombat-Man as his costume was a similar colour.
Goanna: the goanna is a large native Australian reptile - able to climb trees with the aid of its claws and tail. Annie's adhesive digits makes her more like a gecko than a goanna in this regard but she went with the codename 'Go!Anna' regardless. The "!" inserted into the name was intended to make the first syllable pronounced with great emphasis - although this is frequently ignored by media commentators and her peers... much to Annie's annoyance! Her insignia is the "!" with an Aboriginal goanna totem and the Magellan insignia (in the ".").
First appearance: Go!Anna - 1.10
Sister Anne first appearance: No More Games - see also What Goes Up
Tags: (I'll link these if and when these are available in the Classified pages) [Greenslopes] [Oz Magellan] [Magellan Justice Academy] [Dianne Bates] [Freya Foster] [Vicky Valentine] [Wombat-Man] [Ken Spence] [Kaycee Jones] [Al Burton] [Master Drake] [The Burrow]
xmung's notes (some ruminations on the character by the artist!): When I started writing Magellan I wanted to draw in a number of lose thread super hero story ideas that had been rolling around in my mind for many years. One of those was Wombat-Man who, in all honesty, had started life as a joke character in a few silly comic strips I'd drawn years earlier. I do a lot of walking and do a lot of 'story creation' and thinking whilst walking. I can still remember the day I was walking and thinking about how I could extend the Wombat-Man 'gag' and decided he needed a sidekick - after trying out a few native Australian species I arrived at 'Goanna', congratulated myself on my 'wit' and kept walking. A few years later, when I decided to add Wombat-Man into Magellan, I remembered 'Goanna'. I developed the concept of Annie Summers/Go!Anna and designed her look and costume and at that point chose to make her a feature character and to make both her and Wombat-Man Aboriginal. Although Wombat-Man is depicted as a bit of a loser, I wanted to move both of them away from being 'joke characters'. It is a long Australian cartooning tradition to have ridiculous super-hero characters... for some reason serious attempts have been dubious at best so most Australian cartoonists prefer to take the piss instead! My preference was to break with 'tradition' (dammit!) - I'm very happy with how both Annie and Luke have developed over what is really a few short pages.
