Minoru Nico (briefly known as Sister Grimm), is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created in 2003 by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona, the character debuted in Runaways #1 (July 2003).[1] Like every member of the original Runaways, Nico is the daughter of the super-powered villains calling themselves "the Pride"; in her case, she is the daughter of dark wizards. Upon finding out, Nico runs away with the rest of the runaways but later discovers that she inherited her parents' magical aptitude. Whenever Nico bleeds, a powerful staff emerges from her chest, called the Staff of One, allowing Nico to bend magic.
After the Runaways are betrayed by one of their own in volume one, Nico reluctantly becomes the de facto leader of her unofficial and nameless superhero team, making her one of the few Japanese-American superheroine team leaders. Nico's trademark is her elaborate and ornate Gothic wardrobe. Nico is a sorceress like her parents and great-grandmother before her and can cast nearly any spell imaginable with her staff. Nico uses her talents to make up for her parents' villainous actions and to prevent anyone from assuming the Pride's place at the top of Los Angeles organized crime.
In the Marvel Universe, she was featured in Avengers Arena and its sequel, Avengers Undercover, which follows the survivors of the thirty day-long deathmatch in MurderWorld. Nico is traumatized by those events and temporarily walked away from the Runaways. She later joined Marvel's first all-female Avengers team, A-Force.
Nico's Staff of One responds to verbal commands, but can only respond to any given spell once. If she attempts to cast the same spell twice, the results have unforeseen consequences. To summon the Staff itself, Nico must bleed—as all magic comes with a cost. After working with the Witchbreaker, Nico develops the ability to cast spells without the Staff and upgrades her own abilities. In the wake of her resurrection in Murderworld, Nico jumps up to another power level and even receives a magical arm replacement that can channel supernatural energies more powerful than the Staff. By the relaunch of Runaways vol. 5, Nico's Staff and powers are reverted to its original condition and her magical arm replaced with a normal arm for reasons unknown yet.
Since her debut, Nico has been described as one of Marvel's most notable and powerful LGBT female heroes.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
Nico Minoru was portrayed by Lyrica Okano in the Hulu streaming television series Runaways, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). She reprised the role in the 2022 tactical role-playing game Marvel's Midnight Suns.
