Character Profile: Mike Donovan
Mike Donovan travels to the
hotspots and pressure points of the world. He searches for
the heart of the action where problems are being
faced head on. His experiences took him through Laos,
Cambodia, and Vietnam during the final months of the war in
Southeast Asia. He was there when Saigon fell and was on
one of the last helicopters fleeing the city. Donovan
watched refugees struggle to find any handhold they could
grasp to carry themselves to freedom. His gripping
photos of the helpless and the stranded encapsulated the
desperation of the final hours and made the world stop and
look as a society collapsed and was overwhelmed from
without.
Donovan was in Iran during the final days of the Shah.
And then in Nicaragua. The journalist slain by a
checkpoint guard in the last days of the Samoza regime was a
friend of his. But Donovan wasn't there to see it
happen--he was in the jungle covering the rebels. This is
where he met Ham Tyler, who, financed by Samoza, was
among the mercenaries brought in to undermine the
revolution. Donovan interviewed Tyler but he failed to
separate his emotions from his job and deliberately showed
the worst side of the mercenary soldier. When Samoza
fled, Tyler disappeared into the jungle to reappear in
El Salvador--on the side of the U.S. supported
nation. Donovan tracked him there, more than just a
journalist. His reports put pressure on the U.S. government
and Tyler was released from his contract. He
immediately switched sides to the rebels, who started making
greater advances against El Salvador with the information
Tyler supplied on the Army and the death squads. But he
remembers that it was Donovan who forced him out.
It was while Donovan was with the rebels in El
Salvador that he came under attack from a government
helicopter. While fleeing and photographing his pursuer, he
saw the first of the mile wide Visitor
motherships.
Then the world changed.
The Visitors promised
peace and prosperity for all, but Donovan had been in
too many revolutions to buy that line. When the
strange "conspiracy" of scientists was revealed, Donovan
spotted the familiar pattern.
Although he could
have investigated the Visitors anywhere in the world,
he chose Los Angeles where his son lived. His son
generally stayed with the boy's grandmother as Donovan's
wife perished in an accident -while Donovan was overseas on assignment.
By the time the message reached him and he emerged
from the jungle, the funeral was over. When he
returned, it was to a shattered family and a son who didn't
understand why his father failed to be there when he was
needed. When his son is kidnapped by the Visitors,
brainwashing is made easier by this emotional
conflict.
Donovan feels that the world resides on his shoulders and
that it is his job to travel it and report wrongs. To
right them if possible. He fails to meet his debt to
his own family while he is off on his quest. Until it
is too late, somehow personal relations take a back
seat to world events.
Using the skills gained
travelling with revolutionaries the world over, Donovan
infiltrates the Visitors and accomplishes the impossible--he
sneaks aboard a mothership. There he sees that the
aliens are only disguised as humans, and that they eat
their food live. He also finds that kidnapped humans
are in storage as food reserves to be defrosted like
TV dinners.
Donovan helps the LA resistance
and leads them to victory against the Visitors, but
the world is still held in thrall and the battle
continues.