Lord Liaden

Book Of The Destroyer includes alternate power level character sheets for the Doctor, as well for models of his armor from his earliest days to the present, mirroring the evolution of the character from his first appearance in The Island of Dr. Destroyer to his most recent 6E version. One of those could be used as the basis for the debut of the character in whatever venue you choose, and can thus be "aged" for subsequent adventure encounters. Pursuant to my suggestion of Mechanon above, Book Of The Machine treats that character the same way. For any villains in this Champions Rises book, I'd take a cue from the core books from past editions, and make the majority of them lower power level, suitable as opposition for beginning heroes.

As far as adventures go, I believe those which appeared in Digital Hero would all be usable with Hero Games' permission. I'm pretty certain it was stipulated that anything which was published in DH belongs to Hero Games. Technically that would be the property of whoever owns Champions Online now, but nobody on the MMO side appears to pay any attention to what's happening in PnP any more. Almost all of them include full write-ups for NPCs, artwork, and maps. They'd only need game stats updated from 5E to 6E. Several of those adventures were written as convention-style games to introduce new players to Hero, so setup and power level would make any of them appropriate to include with the book being discussed here. My own suggestion would be "Unearthed Mechana" from DH #12. That would be a way to introduce Mechanon and its robotic forces as the "big bad" of a campaign, just as it was included in most past editions of the Champions core book.

In the unified Multiverse in which I like to set all my game worlds, Magic is, fundamentally, a force of Chaos, a power which can warp reality and physical laws according to the will and imagination of its user. Some creatures and races, and a few rare humans, are inherently magical, and can tap and control that force instinctively and at will, the way we walk and breathe. How such magic manifests is usually limited to a creature's nature and function, e.g. a dragon breathing fire, a ghost becoming invisible or intangible, and so on. Sapient beings can learn to consciously utilize magic, often in much more diverse ways. However, without that instinctive connection they need to find a rational approach to using magic that they can comprehend. Hence a given society or school conceives a philosophy for how magic works reflective of their own world view, a structure and style with rules they must follow to achieve the effects they want. Because magic responds to will and imagination, those rules truly become necessary to use that magic style, even though another style may have very different rules. This is the reason why there are so many diverse forms of magic, whereas science holds and seeks to further uncover one set of universal physical laws, which exist irrespective of a person's knowledge or belief. (BTW the process of magic conception I describe above is pretty much how they came to be in the real world.)

That makes for a funny line for Edna Mode, but if it was an inevitable reality in comics books Batman would be dead many times over. Out of all the laws of physics that superheroes break on a regular basis, this doesn't even rate.

I doubt either his editors or Howard himself expected people to still be reading his work a hundred years later, let alone discussing it. They were just trying to make a buck doing what they enjoyed.

At this point I'll be grateful for whatever Hero product I can get.

If it helps, I got this off the Marvel Fandom Wiki: "Unlike the Kree and Skrull Galaxies, which are identified as the Large Magellanic Cloud and Andromeda Galaxy, respectively, the Shi'ar Galaxy has yet to be associated with a real-life galaxy. Annihilation: Prologue stated the Shi'ar Empire to be located in M31; however as M31 is another designation for the Andromeda Galaxy, this is unlikely. A similarly-named galaxy such as M33 - the Triangulum Galaxy - may have been intended, but so far the error is yet to be corrected."

An error is definitely possible based on precedents from other 5E books; but there are also a number of occasions when published write-ups bend or disregard the letter of the default rules to achieve a particular desired effect. I don't have access to UV right now, so I'll ask: Is the Nuclear Space Missile intended to be manned, or is it just a guided weapon? If the latter, it's a "vehicle" per system build rules, but not in-game use. Also, is there anything about how the missile is described in terms of its function, for which N-CA/D would be necessary?

I figured that, and that's fair. But that still isn't the same as actors with international recognition and draw. And none of them command ridiculously huge salaries, or else G-1's budget would have been 'way higher.

If Trump is suffering dementia, as all professional analysis of available examples supports, he may be incapable of controlling his behavior any more. It would be ironic if his outbursts lead the court to compel him to take an actual psychological evaluation, rather than him just threatening to do it and demanding President Biden take one.

A big portion of Hollywood's investment in movies now goes to "name" actors' bloated salaries. But let's be real, nobody goes to a movie any more just because Star X is in it. They cost the moviegoer too much, and having a particular actor in a movie doesn't guarantee it will be any good. Audiences demand a total package to be worth their investment. Recently I've been watching quite a bit of old Star Trek episodes -- TOS, TNG, DS9. They remind me that many of their most compelling stories weren't about flashy special effects and action set pieces. They were dramas involving deep character interactions, and explorations of the human condition. Christopher's example, above, of Godzilla Minus One, falls well into that category. Despite the undeniable spectacle, the bulk of the movie, and the heart of the story, is about people who have suffered terrible tragedy and loss, trying to put their lives back together, and coming together as a community. Critics loved it, audiences loved it, and it gave a huge return on a relatively small financial investment. Mind you, it also had no name actors.

Beta Ray Bill was the first "extra Thor," and his background was unique enough to make a compelling story. The "Thor Corps" concept was rather much, I agree. Jim Starlin even wrote a story line in Thor's own title, about how Thor's mind was starting to break down from multiple people being given his power and taking his identity. But MCU Thor has already jumped the shark for me. His comic book incarnation is my favorite superhero, but after two Taika Waititi films and Avengers: Endgame, I don't recognize him in the movies any more. I doubt there's anything Marvel could do with him at this point to bring me back.

See if you recognize all the parodies in this one clip.

Rules for thee, not for me.

Barron turned 18 last month. It's now up to him what kind of person he becomes.

I imagine this sounds heartless, but I don't. Looking at Trump's behavior and history, I have serious doubts there are such people, at least any more. And considering his family and friends whom I've seen, if there actually are any who care, they're not the type I would feel sorry for. I'm in mind of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and what the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed Ebenezer Scrooge.

Only mention of Thugmaster and his "School for Thugs" I can recall is IIRC in The Great Supervillain Contest, in the background for one of the villains. (Obviously inspired by Marvel's Taskmaster.) You might be thinking of the Hexmaster, from an early issue of Adventurers Club. I used to confuse those two often myself.

No offense meant, Dave, but I have to admit, that last one hits a little different after the events of the last two years.

I want to emphasize that Joe Biden's condition is not remotely similar to Donald Trump's. Any perceivable decline in any of the abovementioned areas from his baseline of ten years ago is slight, and in no way indicative of dementia.

I'm not sure if you're aware that The Phantom is one of the seminal figures in the evolution of comic-book heroes, having first appeared in newspaper strips in 1936, and published almost continuously ever since. He was the first hero to wear a colorful skin-tight costume, and a mask with pupiless eyes. He had a secret jungle headquarters and animal companions. He's often considered a transitional figure between pulp-era characters like the Shadow and Tarzan, and the likes of Superman, Batman, and Captain America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom

Per Beau's breakdown above, probably the best outcome we could have hoped for under the circumstances.

I wasn't praising them. Just pointing out a fact. Below is a thorough, non-partisan analysis of Iran's response to the Israeli strike, its implications and possible outcomes. If you want a clearer understanding of the dynamics involved, it's worth investing eight minutes forty seconds.