What's this "Secret Crisis" thing in Champions? [Archive]

GamePhil

Jul 31st, '03, 10:52 AM

It's an homage to (or perhaps a poke at) the 80's comic book series, "Secret Wars", by Marvel, and "Crisis on Infinite Earths", by DC. Both featured most of the major (and in the case of Crisis, many minor) characters of the day for their respective companies. Crisis changed the DC universe radically, while Secret Wars became part of the continuing story of the Marvel Universe without changing its underlying structure.

zarglif69

Jul 31st, '03, 10:56 AM

Ah yes, thank you. I remember now.

steriaca

Jul 31st, '03, 11:04 AM

Well, I do beleve the "secret crises" is a poke at thoes two 'events'. While there was a good reasion for Crises On Infident Earths to warent it, in my opinion, Secret Wars (and Secret Wars 2) was a marketing ploy by Marvel to sell more comics durring the summer.

By the way, I did enjoy all three series. Which goes to show you that not all marketing gimics are bad (unlike, say the "Death" of Superman).

Ben Seeman

Jul 31st, '03, 11:16 AM

I only read Marvel growing up. I thought SW1 was great, but SW2 was like any sequel... not as good as the first.

GrayPumpkin

Jul 31st, '03, 11:24 AM

...While there was a good reasion for Crises On Infident Earths to warent it...

Well they had a reason anyway. Me I still miss earth-2 and all that silver age goodness they did away with.

Lord Liaden

Jul 31st, '03, 11:31 AM

Unadulterated personal opinion: the Beyonder (from Secret Wars II) was the most tedious comic-book character I've ever encountered. The concept is inherently self-defeating: a being with the power to literally do anything has no limitations to strive against, hence is essentially static and boring. There's only so long you can listen to him whine about wishing he had limits before getting sick of him. He is impossible to oppose through force, which is one of the defining elements of the superheroic genre; and his very presence introduces a "deus ex machina" element to any scenario.

I shuddered when I saw Hero recast the Beyonder as "the Infinite Man" in Alien Enemies. At least that character had the potential to turn into a true world-threatening villain. :rolleyes:

Agent Escafarc

Jul 31st, '03, 02:40 PM

Crisis on Infinite Earths was just a dream and one day DC will believe it's time to activate the "Dallas" Protocols:
Carrol Ferris-Jordan wakes up one morning and hears the shower running, goes into the bathroom and finds Hal in the shower. She then goes on to tell him about the strangest dream about red skies and purple lightning...

We could then just write off everything since Crisis as a case of too much "Queen Special Recipe" chilli. Extra spicy of course. :D of course with Grant M. coming back to DC maybe we will get the long awaited Crisis in Hypertime and things will be set aright.

GamePhil

Jul 31st, '03, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
Crisis on Infinite Earths was just a dream and one day DC will believe it's time to activate the "Dallas" Protocols:
Carrol Ferris-Jordan wakes up one morning and hears the shower running, goes into the bathroom and finds Hal in the shower. She then goes on to tell him about the strangest dream about red skies and purple lightning...

What, you want to flush 20 full years of continuity and not call in John Byrne?

Tempuswolf

Jul 31st, '03, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by GamePhil
What, you want to flush 20 full years of continuity and not call in John Byrne?

I could live with it, if there was enough revision backwash to effect the Marvel universe as well and make Jean Grey and Phoenix a single entity again.

Agent Escafarc

Jul 31st, '03, 03:04 PM

Originally posted by GamePhil
What, you want to flush 20 full years of continuity and not call in John Byrne?
What continuity? The DCU is more screwed up(not as bad as Marvel's post-Onslaught) now then it ever was before Crisis the only ones who couldn't keep track of all the different Earths were the Marvel Zombies;) ;)
All kidding aside I wouldn't flush it all, I would just move those things Earth II back to Earth II, etc. etc.
As for Byrne, it's just my opinion but the words over-rated and hack come to mind.

GamePhil

Jul 31st, '03, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
As for Byrne, it's just my opinion but the words over-rated and hack come to mind.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but in his day he was well known for doing precisely this: characters that had been "continuity reset" (made back into what they were, even many years before) were sent to the "Byrne Ward".

Sketchpad

Jul 31st, '03, 04:10 PM

DC has kind of thrown the Crisis out the window with Hypertime ... which, IMHO, is a good thing, considering alternate Earths were always fun ;)

I was also a fan of the SW ... but only the first. For that matter, I also liked Infinity Gauntlet ... just IG, none of the poop that followed. Personally, I'd like to see someone blow-up the Marvel Universe and reconstruct it from the bottom up. The Ultimate books don't do much for me ... too bad they didn't keep the Heroes Reborn universe around, I loved some of the stuff they were doing there :) But then ... that's a whole other rant ;)

As for creators ... Byrne's art is great ... his storytelling is okay. As long as Claremont has nothing to do with it, we'd be all good ;)

Klytus

Jul 31st, '03, 04:22 PM

I think DC really screwed the pooch with Hypertime. After all that troublwe they went through with Crisis to clean up the continuity and endless parallel orlds - they went and recreated the same mess. Eleseworlds is the perfect vehicle for telling stories of the DC characters in alternate settings without touching the "true" continutiy or timeline.

Agent Escafarc

Jul 31st, '03, 04:26 PM

Originally posted by Sketchpad
DC has kind of thrown the Crisis out the window with Hypertime ... which, IMHO, is a good thing, considering alternate Earths were always fun ;)
:D Here's hoping the rumors are true with Grant coming back to DC:D

As for creators ... Byrne's art is great ... his storytelling is okay. As long as Claremont has nothing to do with it, we'd be all good ;)
Gods! I know what you mean. I'm really not looking forward to these two teaming up on a up-coming 6-part JLA story arc :(

Ben Seeman

Jul 31st, '03, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by Lord Liaden
...the Beyonder (from Secret Wars II) was the most tedious comic-book character I've ever encountered.
Amen to that. And here's something that made no sense to me.

Kurse... whatever the hell he was (I didn't care enough about him to investigate) crossed over into my favorite book, Power Pack. He was storming down the streets of New York looking for Thor (cuz, after all, Thor lives in New York, right?) when he smashed Power Pack's mom through a storefront window. So the the Be-YAWN-er shows up and being the good samaritan that he is, takes Mr.s Power to the hospital.

WTF?! Why not heal her on the spot? ARGH! Although having their mother critically injured did lead to a few good stories (a pretty good New Mutants crossover where Valkyrie fights off the spirit that showed up to take Mrs. Power away) they could have done it without Kurse or the Beyonder.

Sketchpad

Jul 31st, '03, 04:56 PM

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc

Gods! I know what you mean. I'm really not looking forward to these two teaming up on a up-coming 6-part JLA story arc :(

No kidding! I'm ready for Superman to become Darth Vader, Batman to find out he's a Mutant, Wonder Woman to become evil, Flash to change his costume and Green Lantern to start wearing battle armor ... and none of it make any sense buy the time the story's over ... Good ole Chris, master of the dangling plotline ;)

Sketchpad

Jul 31st, '03, 05:06 PM

GamePhil

Jul 31st, '03, 06:07 PM

Kurse... whatever the hell he was (I didn't care enough about him to investigate) crossed over into my favorite book, Power Pack. He was storming down the streets of New York looking for Thor (cuz, after all, Thor lives in New York, right?) when he smashed Power Pack's mom through a storefront window. So the the Be-YAWN-er shows up and being the good samaritan that he is, takes Mr.s Power to the hospital.

Makes perfect sense, just not within the story. Someone in Authority (the position, not the *shudder* comic) called down from On High and said unto the writer: Put the Beyonder in your story! And payment shall be continued!

So they inserted him into a fairly innocuous place in the story they were going to do, anyway. Annoying when marketing interferes with art rather than enhancing it, but there you go.

Of course, I'm likely stating the painfully obvious and it doesn't help, but what can you do? Send points to GamePhil so he can buy off some of his Psych Lims.

Twilight

Jul 31st, '03, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
Amen to that. And here's something that made no sense to me.

Kurse... whatever the hell he was (I didn't care enough about him to investigate) crossed over into my favorite book, Power Pack. He was storming down the streets of New York looking for Thor (cuz, after all, Thor lives in New York, right?) when he smashed Power Pack's mom through a storefront window. So the the Be-YAWN-er shows up and being the good samaritan that he is, takes Mr.s Power to the hospital.

WTF?! Why not heal her on the spot? ARGH! Although having their mother critically injured did lead to a few good stories (a pretty good New Mutants crossover where Valkyrie fights off the spirit that showed up to take Mrs. Power away) they could have done it without Kurse or the Beyonder.

On the other hand, it was sort of made up for when Beta Ray Bill and Thor had to channel the power of thier respective hammers into Katie Power in order to defeat Kurse.

I mean really the big bad cosmic heroes have to rely on a six year old girl in order to defeat the big bad guy. Too bad that didn't serve as a lesson in humility for old Goldilocks though, if it did we might not have this ridiculous Asgard storyline going on at the moment.

ChaosDrgn

Jul 31st, '03, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by Klytus
I think DC really screwed the pooch with Hypertime. After all that troublwe they went through with Crisis to clean up the continuity and endless parallel orlds - they went and recreated the same mess. Eleseworlds is the perfect vehicle for telling stories of the DC characters in alternate settings without touching the "true" continutiy or timeline.

Since the advent of Hypertime thiere is not longer a true continuity or timeline

Agent X

Jul 31st, '03, 11:28 PM

Originally posted by Klytus
I think DC really screwed the pooch with Hypertime. After all that troublwe they went through with Crisis to clean up the continuity and endless parallel orlds - they went and recreated the same mess. Eleseworlds is the perfect vehicle for telling stories of the DC characters in alternate settings without touching the "true" continutiy or timeline. Ummm, what about the horror that is/was Hawkman/Hawkgod in the backwash of the Crisis? The Crisis didn't clean up a mess. It created one.

Agent X

Jul 31st, '03, 11:30 PM

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
:D Here's hoping the rumors are true with Grant coming back to DC:D

Gods! I know what you mean. I'm really not looking forward to these two teaming up on a up-coming 6-part JLA story arc :( A team-up between Byrne and Claremont might not be so bad if they bring in Jim Shooter to ride roughshod over them like he did when they were on the Uncanny X-Men.

Sketchpad

Aug 1st, '03, 05:19 AM

You know ... I really hope that Morrison never touches another super-hero book again. Give the JLA to Ron Marz or Mark Waid :) They write better stories IMHO :) Or have Jeph Loeb take it on for a bit ...

Bazza

Aug 1st, '03, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by Twilight
Too bad that didn't serve as a lesson in humility for old Goldilocks though, if it did we might not have this ridiculous Asgard storyline going on at the moment. Amen to that. I'm about 6 issues behind reading Thor, funny that, eh?

Klytus

Aug 1st, '03, 06:42 AM

Originally posted by ChaosDrgn
Since the advent of Hypertime thiere is no longer a true continuity or timeline
Exactly! God that pisses me off.

Darren Watts

Aug 1st, '03, 08:52 AM

To get back to the original post, the Secret Crisis really did happen in my Golden Age campaign, allowing the players to spend a few sessions playing characters from throughout history (it was actually a sequel to an earlier story, where the heroes traveled forwards in time and met their descendants in the Silver Age, who went on to become the Fabulous Five and the Sentinels in current continuity.) Among the characters who appeared in that story as time-lost "superheroes" were Godzilla, Steve Austin, Dr. Who, the Lensmen, Kwai Chang Caine, Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger, several Phantoms and the various superpowered members of KISS. dw

Sketchpad

Aug 1st, '03, 08:59 AM

Originally posted by Darren Watts
To get back to the original post, the Secret Crisis really did happen in my Golden Age campaign, allowing the players to spend a few sessions playing characters from throughout history (it was actually a sequel to an earlier story, where the heroes traveled forwards in time and met their descendants in the Silver Age, who went on to become the Fabulous Five and the Sentinels in current continuity.) Among the characters who appeared in that story as time-lost "superheroes" were Godzilla, Steve Austin, Dr. Who, the Lensmen, Kwai Chang Caine, Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger, several Phantoms and the various superpowered members of KISS. dw
That sounds really cool Darren! Any chance we could see some of the stats you used for these guys? ;)

Twilight

Aug 1st, '03, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by Bazza
Amen to that. I'm about 6 issues behind reading Thor, funny that, eh?

Not funny to me, the way they seem to be butchering Thor's character at the moment I probably wouldn't be keeping up either, if I collected it. Wouldn't it be nice if they recalled continuity and ended this storyline by having Thor and the Asgardians needing to swallow thier pride and rely on Katie Power to save thier collective behinds? :)

Lord Mhoram

Aug 1st, '03, 10:33 AM

Originally posted by Sketchpad
You know ... I really hope that Morrison never touches another super-hero book again. Give the JLA to Ron Marz or Mark Waid :) They write better stories IMHO :) Or have Jeph Loeb take it on for a bit ...

Geoff Johns. Geoff Johns. Geoff Johns.

That would be sweet.

Or now that his health is improved, give Busiek a shot.

GrayPumpkin

Aug 1st, '03, 11:05 AM

You know ... I really hope that Morrison never touches another super-hero book again. Give the JLA to Ron Marz or Mark Waid They write better stories IMHO Or have Jeph Loeb take it on for a bit ...

Thankfully your hope will go answered. :)
IMHO Grant Morrison is one of the best things to happen to comics.

Lord Mhoram

Aug 1st, '03, 11:06 AM

I and another GM did a big crossover crisis thing. We had a whole "dimensional destruction" plotline. We ran it for about 4 months. Our two champs campaigns were running concurrently (he'd do a plot, I'd do one), and the characters were fairly closes in power... not exactly but close enough. So I took some GM PCs into his world, along with some of the players doing same, and characters from his ended up in mine.
On my side of the overplot I had all sorts of dimensional problems around, and had published characters drop in. During the chat session after the game, I very carefully steered the conversation to favorite superheroes. I then wrote up who everyone's favorite superhero was, and in the next session near the end, introduced those particular heroes into my world for the adventure. I then handed out the character sheets, and said "Here you get to play these guys for a couple of sessions". Everyone was surprised, and it went over very well, and a great time was had by all. :cool:

Lord Mhoram

Aug 1st, '03, 11:08 AM

Originally posted by GrayPumpkin
Thankfully your hope will go answered. :)
IMHO Grant Morrison is one of the best things to happen to comics.

Morrison's JLA and Astro City is what got me back into comics after a decade long disust at the industry.

Dr. Confoundo

Aug 1st, '03, 04:35 PM

Originally posted by Agent X
Ummm, what about the horror that is/was Hawkman/Hawkgod in the backwash of the Crisis? The Crisis didn't clean up a mess. It created one.

<geek mode on>

It wasn't Crisis that caused the problems with Hawkman. It was when editorial decided to make the Tim Truman/John Ostrander 'Hawkworld' series happen in the present. Had they gone with what they initially intended, and had it shown Katar and Shiera's adventures on Thanagar which took place before the two of them showed up on Earth, it would have been fine. Instead, editors thought the readers would be confused by the time difference, and placed in (then) current continuity.

Unfortunately, that meant that the Hawkman and Hawkgirl in early JLA stories couldn't be the pair from Thanagar, and everything unraveled from there.

So it was actually editorial shenanigans that are to blame, not he Crisis.

<geek mode off>

assault

Aug 1st, '03, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by Dr. Confoundo
It wasn't Crisis that caused the problems with Hawkman. It was when editorial decided to make the Tim Truman/John Ostrander 'Hawkworld' series happen in the present. Had they gone with what they initially intended, and had it shown Katar and Shiera's adventures on Thanagar which took place before the two of them showed up on Earth, it would have been fine. Instead, editors thought the readers would be confused by the time difference, and placed in (then) current continuity.

And all this is really sad, because the 'Hawkworld' series was really, really cool. A very fine Science Fiction series.

Perhaps it might have been best left outside continuity entirely. Maybe the Hypertime idea, where continuity is "flexible" isn't so bad an idea after all.

One of these days I might build a Hawkworld series Thanagarian...

Alan

Agent X

Aug 1st, '03, 08:14 PM

Originally posted by Dr. Confoundo
<geek mode on>

It wasn't Crisis that caused the problems with Hawkman. It was when editorial decided to make the Tim Truman/John Ostrander 'Hawkworld' series happen in the present. Had they gone with what they initially intended, and had it shown Katar and Shiera's adventures on Thanagar which took place before the two of them showed up on Earth, it would have been fine. Instead, editors thought the readers would be confused by the time difference, and placed in (then) current continuity.

Unfortunately, that meant that the Hawkman and Hawkgirl in early JLA stories couldn't be the pair from Thanagar, and everything unraveled from there.

So it was actually editorial shenanigans that are to blame, not he Crisis.

<geek mode off> Cool.

I do have a question: Who was confused by multiple Earths? I had no problem with it when I was 6.

Le Schtroumpf

Aug 1st, '03, 09:04 PM

Originally posted by Agent X
A team-up between Byrne and Claremont might not be so bad if they bring in Jim Shooter to ride roughshod over them like he did when they were on the Uncanny X-Men.

Hell, bring in Shooter to do the book. Wouldn't mind seeing him run a comic company again either.

Agent Escafarc

Aug 2nd, '03, 02:59 AM

Originally posted by Le Schtroumpf
Hell, bring in Shooter to do the book. Wouldn't mind seeing him run a comic company again either.
I would love for him to take over LSH, after all he created some of the best Legionares when he was only 13 :D

ChuckB

Aug 2nd, '03, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by Sketchpad
You know ... I really hope that Morrison never touches another super-hero book again. Give the JLA to Ron Marz or Mark Waid :) They write better stories IMHO :) Or have Jeph Loeb take it on for a bit ...

Check out Morrisson's "Earth 2" , very entertaining.

zarglif69

Aug 2nd, '03, 06:36 PM

Originally posted by Lord Mhoram
Morrison's JLA and Astro City is what got me back into comics after a decade long disust at the industry.

Hey, I agree. I'm not much of a comics fan, but I love Astro City. In fact, AC is what inspired me to play Champions.

Sketchpad

Aug 2nd, '03, 09:19 PM

Originally posted by ChuckB
Check out Morrisson's "Earth 2" , very entertaining.
I have it ... and I think it's the only story that I've ever liked from Morrison

Sketchpad

Aug 2nd, '03, 09:20 PM

When did Morrison do AC? I thought that was Kurt Busiek?

Twilight

Aug 2nd, '03, 09:21 PM

Originally posted by Sketchpad
When did Morrison do AC? I thought that was Kurt Busiek?

I think what he meant was that stories by Morrison AND Kurt Busiek's Astro City where what got him back into comics again. :)

bcholmes

Aug 3rd, '03, 10:49 AM

Originally posted by Le Schtroumpf
Hell, bring in Shooter to do the book. Wouldn't mind seeing him run a comic company again either.

Shooter's run on the Avengers... especially around the whole "Trial of Henry Pym"... is probably one of my favourite periods of that book.

bcholmes

Aug 3rd, '03, 10:51 AM

Originally posted by Sketchpad
I have it ... and I think it's the only story that I've ever liked from Morrison

Wow. My mileage varies.

I thought <cite>Earth-2</cite> wasn't up to par for Morrison. But, in my mind, nothing beats his run on <cite>Animal Man</cite>.

Lord Mhoram

Aug 4th, '03, 02:50 PM

Originally posted by Twilight
I think what he meant was that stories by Morrison AND Kurt Busiek's Astro City where what got him back into comics again. :)

Thats exactly it. Morrison in the JLA were the huge massive epics that superheroes should be doing, and Astro City was all of the little characterization and color that makes comics come alive.