Champions Icons

[steriaca]

I've been thinking, which are the most iconic Villains, Heroes, and Organizations in the Champions Universe.  I came up with these individuals/groups.

 

Villains:

 

1) Doctor Destroyer. 

When you think of Champions and Villains, this guy should come to mind. He has an Island. He has a Day. He was about to blast Seeker in the cover of Champions 4ed. There are more powerful villains in the Champions Universe, but you can count them on one hand (the many forms of Tryion count as ONE, silly).

 

2) Foxbat 

If Doctor Destroyer is the poster child of "oh shit...we are doomed", then Foxbat is the poster child of "oh joy...". Ever since Enimies 3, the ping pong ball loonie has proven time and time again that there is always room for fun adventures. He is unhinged. He ran for president. And, by gum, he is fun.

 

3) Mechanon

The idea here is "who comes into your mind first when you say Champions". For some, it is our resistance Ultron. While in my mind the bad doctor has him beat, and even Foxbat is above him in icon status, others place him much further up there.

 

 

"Dishonorable" Mention) Holocaust 

Before Doctor Destroyer there was Holocaust. He was on the covers of various suppliments before the ICE Age. And because of this, he was the ultimate villain before even having a name, let alone a writeup. 

 

Heroes:

 

1) Marksman

It wasn't the rpg which made me fall in like with The Marksman. It was the Champions comic book. And when Bruce Harlik eventually became the Hero System editor in chief during the ICE Age, he brought his baby along. At least till he left.

 

2) Defender

He is the only Champions member to survive till 6ed with most of his core concept intact. That has to be saying something.

 

3) Seeker

In 4ed, there wasn't a single Champions supplement where Seeker wasn't on the cover. Sure, most of the time it is an aftermath of getting beaten up by villains. It looked like in late 4ed Seeker was on the road to being a useful warrior till...

 

Organization 

 

1) VIPER

What can I say. The boys in green and yellow are everywhere. So much that GMs take the group as a joke. Then the Supreme Serpent arrived.  Now only the SS is laughing.

 

2) DEMON

A counterpart to VIPER. An organization dedicated to evil magic. While not as used as VIPER, when they are used they prove they are no joke.

 

"Dishonorable" Mention) VOICE

I have never owned "VOICE of Doom", where the team comes from, but everyone vouches for them. I'm waiting for the 6ed writeup myself. 

[Opal]

All guys?

 

OK, the leader of Viper is implied, so there's a mega-villain.

 

I'd like to nominate Icicle (the original example of the EC) and Flare (even if she is the stereotypical fashion plate, like the Sliver-Age Wasp).  

 

On the villain side, for whatever reasons, I found Gremlin and Sabra particularly memorable.

 

And, not really, but I'll mention in passing (since that's all it ever got) WITCH before moving on to....

 

UNTIL, is a pretty iconic CU organization, "they always wait UNTIL it's all over."

 

Gargoyle for another iconic hero.

 

And, between Destroyer and Foxbat there were some villains who could be taken seriously, you felt good about beating, but were decidedly beat-able by even starting characters.  Ogre, I think, is the standout in that crowd, Bulldozer was similar.  

 

Finally, back to mega-villains, Mechanon was around longer than Destroyer, and the way he keeps coming back makes him the ultimate recurring villain.  He also seemed to make his way into a lot of origin stories.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

For Organization #2, DEMON. Nearly as venerable as VIPER, and under 5E was developed as the snakes' supernatural counterpart.

 

I agree with Opal that you need to add Mechanon to the iconic villains list. He's (it's?) been there since the first edition of Champions, even before Dr. Destroyer, and in the core rulebook through Fourth Edition. Also UNTIL for organizations, unless you were confining your list to villainous orgs.

 

It's hard to settle on "iconic Champions heroes." Defender is really the only one who's had any staying power. Marksman got a comic-book write-up but has never been statted in any edition of the RPG. However, I will nominate Seeker both for his infamy, and for having been the central character in Watchers of the Dragon.

 

I also have to take a little exception to your "dishonorable mention" category. There's an implication of subjectivity there that won't necessarily be shared by other Champsfiles. I for example am very fond of VOICE.

[steriaca]

 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

I also have to take a little exception to your "dishonorable mention" category. There's an implication of subjectivity there that won't necessarily be shared by other Champsfiles. I for example am very fond of VOICE.

Please take "dishonorable" as "honorable mentions" for villains.  I use the term only to designate heroic subjects from villainous subjects.

 

Heroes get honorable, villains get "dishonorable", but in this list it is all the same.

 

When I get time, I'll expand upon the list and why I rank them as I have. I might even move the subjects up and down.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Defender seems pretty iconic, since he's the only member of the Champions go make it since 4th edition

[Duke Bushido]

Giant.

 

Bear with me, here; I can explain.  

 

No; actually I can't.  But everything from his brown and yellow costume to the lack of a signture crest or logo....  I dont really have the words for it, but to someone featured in a roleplaying game of "make anything you want, how you want," I was positively in love with just how uninteresting he was.   

 

no; I really mean that.   I thiught it was just wonderful.

[Lord Liaden]

For his comic-book adaptation, I'm afraid Giant did eventually get a signature crest.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I always remember him with the G.  Still all the costumes are pretty minimalist, especially Flare.  It was more the style back then.  Super complicated, detailed costumes are slow to draw and you have to render a character scores of times in a 22 page comic.

[assault]

17 hours ago, Opal said:

All guys?

 

OK, the leader of Viper is implied, so there's a mega-villain.

 

...

 

On the villain side, for whatever reasons, I found Gremlin and Sabra particularly memorable.

 

And, not really, but I'll mention in passing (since that's all it ever got) WITCH before moving on to....

 

...

 

Gargoyle for another iconic hero.

 

In general, I deal with "representation" as being a matter for heroes, not villains.

It's like this: a bunch of teenage boys are sitting around imagining punching women. Is that our game?

 

It's OK to punch Nazis.

 

Anything else works according to that framework.

Back from that, WITCH was a male interpretation of 2nd wave feminism. Back in the day there was in fact a group called the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell. On the other hand, SCUM (the Society for Cutting Up Men) was a mix of an actual document and a male editor making up the acronym.

 

So WITCH was located in a particular time and space - that little space and time when the more confused remnants of the Sixties and Seventies radicals were engaging in the kind of activities that supervillains might engage in. That's pretty much the period in which 1e and 2e Champions was published. 3e was published at the end of it.

 

Gremlin, as she originally was published, was an opponent of Gargoyle, who was created by Mark Williams. Gargoyle was a strength build, Gremlin was a speed build. She's the closest thing to a writeup of Gargoyle that we will ever see.

Summary: supervillains are punchable. Some are curable, victims, or working for a noble cause, but in general, they shouldn't be people you wouldn't want to smack in the face.

[steriaca]

VIPER's leader depends upon the time frame and edition used.

 

It was originally whoever holds the title of VIPER 1 at the time, the top member of the Council of Thirty. When the Supreme Serpent was created, it was basically that he became the "President of VIPER", the Council of Thirty is the "Congress of VIPER", and the current VIPER 1 is the "Secretary of State of VIPER". Since the arrival of the Supreme Serpent, the statless VIPER 1 has lost the importance of the job.

[archer]

Giant was who popped in mind for me as an iconic hero. Especially since the Giant harness has been handed down to heroes over at least decades.

 

For villain organization, VOICE scared the crap out of me. And their origin is a wonderful source of all sorts of new villains and heroes.

[Opal]

6 hours ago, assault said:

Summary: supervillains are punchable. Some are curable, victims, or working for a noble cause, but in general, they shouldn't be people you wouldn't want to smack in the face.

So, villains should all be male, because it's wrong to hit the weaker sex?

 

Villains are villains, and heroes punch, energy-blast, move-through, and generally try to stop them, not because of who they are, what they look like, or where they fall in some Venn diagram of demographics, but because they're doing something wrong, generally involving immediate threat to innocents.

 

We don't need more villains in the dragonlady, femme fatale, and certainly not in the seductress mode, but female master-minds and heavy-hitters, sure, women are human beings, human beings are capable of wielding extreme power and of depths of violence and evil, as well as heights of nobility and heroism.

 

6 hours ago, assault said:

In general, I deal with "representation" as being a matter for heroes, not villains.

So.  Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes, you'd nominate?   

[assault]

12 minutes ago, Opal said:

So, villains should all be male, because it's wrong to hit the weaker sex?

 

Obviously not, but Champions is not an incel revenge fantasy support group.

 

Tone matters.

 

[Opal]

 

6 hours ago, assault said:

In general, I deal with "representation" as being a matter for heroes, not villains.

So.  Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes you'd nominate?   

[assault]

13 minutes ago, Opal said:

 

So.  Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes you'd nominate?   

 

Unfortunately my copy of Strike Force is somewhere in a pile of books.

 

The characters created by the original players have largely been mangled in the comic books.

 

The example characters from the various editions are rather meh.

 

There were a couple of interesting characters in Champions Worldwide, but the fact that I can't name them rules them out as iconic to me.

 

Can't really think of any, to be honest. No doubt someone will come to mind eventually.

[steriaca]

55 minutes ago, Opal said:

 

So.  Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes you'd nominate?   

Lady Blue comes to mind, but I don't imedetly think of her when I think "Champions".

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

We don't need more villains in the dragonlady, femme fatale, and certainly not in the seductress mode, but female master-minds and heavy-hitters

 

Yeah, I don't care about some spreadsheet of demographics, its just more interesting to have variety.

 

Quote

Female iconic Champions! Universe heroes you'd nominate?   

 

Flare is the only one that comes to mind, and not necessarily in a good way.  That's based only on the comics that made her more and more into a tart in order to drive sales (and because its fun to draw sexy girls).  But Iconic is Iconic, even if its not necessarily a positive icon.  Power Girl's costume is iconic for the "boob window" which isn't necessarily a positive thing.

 

The story behind why she looks that way is hilarious, I cannot remember which episode of Explain This Comics Guys! its in, so you'll just have to listen to them all.

 

[assault]

13 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Lady Blue comes to mind, but I don't imedetly think of her when I think "Champions".

 

She's also a villain.

[Lord Liaden]

I think we have to make a distinction between "iconic" in terms of the history of Champions the game, and "iconic" in relation to any of the official incarnations of the setting. There are a few characters in that first category with the high profile and longevity to be considered icons, most already mentioned on this thread; but few of them are heroes, and fewer are women. OTOH there are no few villains and heroes who are very much icons within one continuity, but not across all editions of Champions. For example, Lung Hung from VOICE of Doom is a major villain in the history of the game, and one of the most notable women villains ever published for Champs; but she and her origin concept haven't been even mentioned since 4E. In the current official continuity Vanguard was the Superman analogue in power and universal respect, but he's dead. Ushas of India is an avatar of the Hindu goddess of the same name, and considered one of the most powerful heroes in the world, but she's never been written up. Black Mask is a woman and the latest in a line of masked heroes stretching back to the American Revolutionary War; but she was created for 5E Champions and has no earlier history with the game. Many other Champions characters could be considered icons depending on the standard you measure them by.

[Pariah]

I haven't seen Grond mentioned yet. I know he made a real impression on me the first time one of my characters had to fight him. 

 

 

What about iconic villain groups?

 

The first one that comes to my mind is Eurostar. Fiacho, Durak, Le Sone, Bora, and Pantera, with others added in later editions. Played properly, they are a serious threat to pretty much any hero group.

 

I also liked The Ultimates: Binder, Plasmoid, Blackstar, Charger, and Slick. Yeah, they played to role of butt-monkeys in the Champions Universe, but everyone know who they were. And they were tougher than expected if played cleverly.

 

Oh, and let's not forget about PSI: Psymon, Mind Slayer, and the rest of them. Yikes.

 

(Clearly my experiences are solidly rooted in 3rd Edition.  )

 

Just my $0.02.

[Sketchpad]

Crusader and Starburst were always iconic heroes in my book. Particularly Crusader. But then I used him in a ton of games. 

 

On the villain side of things, the Iconic Villains were the bad guys in the main books, as they also got a lot of use from me in the past. Armadillo, Cheshire Cat, Pulsar, Bluejay, Brick, Icicle, Howler, Mechanon, Dragonfly, Shrinker, Ogre, Green Dragon... they all went through a bit of redesign the more I used them, but let me tell you, when Pulsar and Ogre team up, the poop hits the fan.

[archer]

I've considered Lady Arcane and Flare to both be iconic for Champions. But I don't pay a lot of attention to edition changes and whether a character was introduced in 1e or in the comics when thinking of "iconic".

 

I can't really think of a female villain who I consider iconic. There's a lot of them that as a player I'm like "oh, crap" when they show up. But not any that really show off the brand or which automatically come to mind when you say Champions like Superman and Batman do when you mention DC.

[fdw3773]

Defender and Quantum automatically come to mind when I think of iconic heroic characters that represent Champions. Defender has endured since 4th Edition as mentioned earlier by others and Quantum was featured in a various 4th Edition source book and adventure covers, along with a new incarnation for the short-lived Champions: The New Millennium.

 

For iconic villains, Mechanon and Doctor Destroyer come to mind for me automatically, along with Grond and Foxbat since they've been around for so long. 😀

 

[assault]

Thinking about Seeker - he appeared on a lot of covers back in the day. Clearly artists liked drawing him.

 

I wonder if it was a mistake dropping him.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think Grond is a great iconic enemy, he's got this amazing look and is really interesting, plus terrifying (him and Ripper).

 

Seeker was used a lot in covers, but I think its because he had a great look but was not a particularly compelling character or personality.  He felt like two trendy notions combined: People like Australia and Ninjas, right???