WESTON MINKOVITCH

Real Name: Weston Minkovitch

Identity/Class: Human mutant (? - see comments)

Occupation: College student

Group Membership: His college's intramural Ultimate Frisbee team

Affiliations: Jeremy Briggs, Giant-Man (Hank Pym), Ken Mack

Enemies: Norman Osborn

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

First Appearance: Avengers Academy I#14.1 (August, 2011)

Powers/Abilities: Weston Minkovitch uncontrollably transformed into a monster-like form with superhuman strength (sufficient enough to break through chains). When he transformed, his skeleton grew in size, causing him intense pain.

Minkovitch later kept his transformations at bay by taking a daily pill to block the brain receptors that triggered his transformations.

Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Light brown

History: (Avengers Academy I#14.1 (fb) - BTS) - The mousy Weston Minkovitch was captured and experimented on by Norman Osborn during Osborn's tenure as head of the  Initiative program. His cell near that of the metallic Ken Mack, Weston would quote entire scenes from the movie Monty Python's Life of Brian in an effort to cheer Mack up. Periodically, Weston's own powers would surface, painfully transforming him into a monstrous form, and Weston never knew what might trigger his transformations. Following Weston's release from captivity, he was essentially cured of his transformations using an idea to block the transformative brain receptors devised by the heroic Giant-Man a day after the two met and another day later, young billionaire and fellow Osborn captive Jeremy Briggs synthesized Giant-Man's idea into a pill form.

(Avengers Academy I#14.1) - Hoping to live a normal life, Weston Minkovitch became a freshman college student, soon joining his school's intramural Ultimate Frisbee team and maintaining a B grade average. Despite his best efforts, Weston still suffered from severe post traumatic stress disorder and when school records indicated that Weston had become depressed and had begun drinking excessively, Jeremy Briggs began secretly paying students to befriend Weston, even going as far as to pay a girl to date Weston. While later showing the Avengers Academy students what had become of some of the other captives of Norman Osborn, Jeremy Briggs traveled to Boston, Massachusetts with Avengers Academy students Mettle (Weston's former friend Ken Mack) and Hazmat. While there, the trio witnessed Weston playing Ultimate Frisbee and Briggs praised Weston's progress, explaining how Weston was essentially cured as long as he took his daily pill and the trio witnessed Weston speaking with a girl he was dating before departing Boston. When Briggs later tried to recruit the Avengers Academy students to his company, Academy student Finesse revealed that she had hacked into Weston's school records to learn of his severe depression and traced Briggs' money to reveal Briggs' paying off of students to befriend Weston. Briggs claimed that he was paying people to befriend Weston not to impress the Avengers Academy students, but to help Weston.

Comments: Created by Christos Gage, Sean Chen and Scott Hanna.

It was not clear how Weston Minkovitch acquired his superhuman powers. It seems somewhat likely that he might've been a mutant, born with the powers, but it is equally possible he was mutated at some point and it seems a sure bet that Osborn only intensified Minkovitch's powers by experimenting on him.

Weston was only seen through a car window (and in flashback in monster form) and he was always seen squinting, which prevented his eye color from being shown. He was also never shown next to a character whose height and weight had been officially given so it was impossible to approximate his physical stats.

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Weston Minkovitch has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Avengers Academy I#14.1, p7, pan2 (Weston Minkovitch, main image)
Avengers Academy I#14.1, p8, pan5 (Weston and his date)
Avengers Academy I#14.1, p7, pan1 (Weston's monster form)

Appearances:
Avengers Academy I#14.1 (August, 2011) - Christos Gage (writer), Sean Chen (pencils), Scott Hanna (inks), Bill Rosemann (editor)

First Posted: 02/09/2019
Last updated: 02/09/2019

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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