Vigil

Re: CHAR: Batman I don't know. The write up seems kinda vague and sketchy, especially when it comes to skill and perks, etc., lol. Maybe those could be fleshed out more. Actually, great write up. I think it shows admirable restraint in evaluating the character, although his PD and ED seem low. I remember way way way way back when Different Worlds did a Champs write up of the X-Men (which is as close to official as Champs has come) that Wolverine had 22 PD and 15 ED so I think his PD/ED may be a bit low. I'd put Cap at about 18 PD and 15 Ed so Bats may be about 15/13 or so. I'm kinda surprised, too at the low CON (again in the article Wovie had 30 CON) and DEX (Wolvie's was 26 also so I'd probably put Bat's at 27 (same as Nightcrawler) or 28). His STR seems right, though. Great work. Speaking of Cap...let' see the write up!

Re: Marvel's Best "Bricks" Marvel's 10 best bircks...hmmm...let's see: 1) The Hulk (not a huge fan of the charcter, myself, and especially not of the recent psychbable stories but he is the archetype, Marvel wise and the strongest of all bricks..although everyone else on the list would argue that, too) 2) The Thing (I think someone here mentioned that the term"brick" must have been copped from Ben's appearance and he is the purest brick in Marvel. If you were to have to designa classic, archetyapl brick for Champs he'd proabaly look more like Ben than anyone else. A classic.) 3) Thor (Even in the Avenger's he's "in a class of his own". Probably has more raw power than any other brick, except maybe Hulk although the next guy may be able to debate that...) 4) Wonder Man (Probably my all-time fave character and he's never been used right save for in the most fleeting of moments most notably when he fought Korvac. I mean, this guy was designed to be as powerful as all the original Avengers combined (at the time he was said to have Thor's hitting power, Giant Man's STR, Cap's agility and fighting skill! (we should see more of that), transistorized jets like Shellhead ( I guess Zemo counted that) and maybe the Wasp's hair style or something (Zemo never covered that base either.) Anyway he should be the best and I kepp holding out hope that someday he'll be used properly.) 5) The Vision (Easily the coolest brick concept of them all. For years he was "the man" in the Avenger's and his powers and skill still put most bricks to shame.) 6) Sasquatch (The coolest gamma guy of all, including the Hulk. In his first appearance he stopped and lifted a DC10 at full thrust...one handed it looks like...and then threw it a couple of hundred yards. That's scary strong and I don't know why they've mauled and mangled him since. Now he's got a bit of the same underachiever complex Wondy has. But there was a time...) 7) Namor (The original Marvel brick and still one of the coolest characters around. As storng as the Hulk in water and way smarter and a much better fighter. In his book he was called Marvel's First and Mightiest Mutant...which is a complete load of crap but it sounds cool. Still the smart money is always on Namor even against guys like the Hulk and Thor..although Wondy did punch his lights out in the classic Avenger's 155!) 8) Juggernaut (The anti-Hulk and possibly the strongest brick on Earth. For purity of concept he rivals the thing, although the mystical orgin is bit wacky.) 9) Thundra (The best female brick in Marvel and much more fun than Wonder Woman. I don't know what the hell is wrong with Ben that he's isn't all over the leggy 7 footer. I mean she's practically thrown herself at him and he keeps going moping back to Alicia. I think he's gay.) Damn there's still so many good choice but I'll go with 10) Rogue (In her debut she mopped the floor with the Avengers and, for a while, she was portrayed as what she is, maybe the most powerful mutant on Earth. Another great character who's been mangled almost beyond recognition.)

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Thanks. The artist, Kelly, and I first started working together in a local fanzine about 15 years ago and we've collaborated on projects ever since. Modestly, I think he's the best artist not currently contracted in the comics industry. His stuff is amazing and just keeps getting better. Plus we have a phenomenal inker and colorist working with us, also. It's like a dream team, lol.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Thanks for the compliment, Z. I'll pass it on to the artist.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Yeah that sounds quite moronic. Not familiar with the fight myself but it sounds quite unfortunate.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever IMO, the whole move to a more cinematic telling came along with guys like Neal Adams and Jim Steranko and I do agree that, with rare exceptions, comic illustration is more technically sophisticated than it's ever been. I'm not so sure about coloring. It's nice and glossy but, IMO, it tends to be flattened and at the same value wheras the best colorists of the past (like Glynis Wein) managed to incorporate depth and subtlety into their colors. But it may not be entirely the fault of the colors. Maybe the glossy papers smears stuff a bit. Speaking of colors, I've been looking for a publisher for a comic book based on our campaign of 20 years, The Infinites. Have a look at the pages below and let me know what you think. I was contemplating approaching Steve Long with the project. Enjoy the pages. INFINITES FULL COLOR PAGES http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y300/DavidWDThomas/infinites_sample_p1_lettered.jpg http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y300/DavidWDThomas/infinites_sample_p2_lettered.jpg http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y300/DavidWDThomas/infinites_sample_p3_lettered.jpg

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Of course, and I agree. Much of it, of ourse depended on the style of the writer or artist and what they felt was important to show. I think that maybe titles like Iron Fist tried to be explicit with all of the action. Teen Titans maybe, too. Another device which was used more frequently back then, and is less so now, is the use of narrative captions to tie battle scenes or sequences. Just now I was looking at the classic Defenders #10 with what may well be the all-time greatest Thor vs Hulk fight ever. It's interesting to reread it, now, as so many of the big moments in the battle are conveyed through narrative captions as much as action. I'm thinking, specifically, of the ultimate moment when Thor and the Hulk grapple and it says in the narrative, essentially, that "the two titans lock into an unmoving sculpture of bridled force" and that they subsequently grapple, motionlessly, for over an hour with neither relenting until they are split apart by the arrival of their teams. It's visually very simple but accompanied by the powerful, compressed narrative it becomes one of the best fight sequences ever. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever I agree and it makes me crazy. I think JMS may be the best pure writer in the business and he's certainly a brilliant plotter so I'm not sure why he got stuck navel gazing endlessly in Supreme Powers. His work on Spidey is good and solid if not brilliant but it just seems that he can't quite capture the genius of Babylon 5 in comics. I'm not sure why that is. As to the idea of a convention, I think it may have more or less become one by default if not by editorial fiat. You see, I can think of dozens of examples of compressed storytelling and action...all my favorite books feature it but it is less common now that stories are as driven by characterization as action, if not more so. The trick comes in making character development and internal conflict as exciting as external conflict and few do that very well. As in all things, I will say that in this regard Alan Moore is still the pre-eminent genius. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever O h yeah, and I find it very pleasant also to discuss some of the theory of why stuff happens as opposed to the stuff itself. Thanks for your reply, Z.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever I think it is, more or less, a convention springing from a very real constraint...there are only so many panels and so many pages in an issue. Before our current era of storytelling so hyper-decompressed that you get the bends just reading JMS each panel counted and you had to try and maximize story and action content. So, you put the big important moments in and moved the story along on those important actions while leaving out a lot of what would be considered "character" points (as opposed to plot points) now. Things have changed considerably in recent years. Consider one of my faves, JMS, in one of my least favorite books, Supreme Powers. Incidentally, it's being cancelled. Why? Maybe because he took 21 or 22 issues and didn't even get around to assembline the team! In most Bronze Age books what he took 22 issues to do would have been done in a couple of pages or an issue tops. From there you would expand the backstory when and where you could (maybe even in a one-shot or a mini-series if it was a big deal) but there was a lot more emphasis placed on economy of storytelling and getting to the point! That's something that's more or less lost these days and I think one of the main reasons why the industry continues to implode. There's way too many pages and issue where way too little happens and all the glossy coloring and technically superb art in the world can't hide it. I think, by and large, its a sign of lazy and self-indulgent storytelling and of writers not trying hard enough to tell the story straight. I could blame Vertigo...it's tempting...but I'll restrain myself, lol. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Understanding comics is exactly the text to which I was referring. In it, SM makes the distinction between Japanese pacing and NA. As I said, until relatively recently NA comics were all about showing the big moments of a battle or an action. It was about scenes, not sequences with panels being the big or important moments of a scene...which is why we don't see Ben Grimm trudging up 40 flights of stairs to get back into the battle. That's what I was talking about when I was making the point about compression or expansion of time. Good to see you picked up on the reference. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Evidence? It's simply the convention of the NA comic book industry to not belabor every moment of an action sequence or fight. Instead you focus on the big moments. There's an innate compression of action in NA comics up until the last 8 years or so, when the Japanese moment by moment style began to become more popular and pervasive. For instance. take FF 242 where Terrax hammers Ben Grimm from the roof of the Baxter Building down through the structure of the entire building and into or even through the sub basement itself...far enough that Sue remarks that "he's gone", completely lost from sght. So let's assume 38+ stories distance between them. The Johnny attacks and is rebuffed. the Reed attacks and rebuffed. Then BEN taps Terrax on the shoulder and haymakers him through at least 2 neighbouring buildings before he vanishes from sight. Now the above actions, in their entirety took place in 7 panels. That's it! There has to be compression for the simple reason that Ben doesn't move fast enough to somehow scale 38-40 stories of distance in, what?, 2 to 4 phases max (and that's absolute max) if you literally assume that every panel is one phase? I think the evidence is overwhelming that comic fights are greatly compressed at certain points and maybe greatly expanded at others (like in certain Flash-type sequences). It's all about showing the BIG moments in a fight..not the nit-picky little ones in between. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever One thing that may be helpful...and I don't know if this has been mentioned yet...is to think of each punch/blow/exchange in a fight as representing not strictly that action but a TURN worth of actions. In other words that single panel...which compresses or expands time...represents the general action or the highlight of the action taking place during that period. Remember in NA comics, up until recently, paneling and action were thought of as being scene to scen not moment to moment to moment. So we may see the result of an action, as we often do in the multitudinous Thing vs Hulk fights but we don't see all of the set up that got to that point. That may have to be implied. That's how Kirby, etc established the action in Marvel so I think the point may have some merit, if not necessarily usefulness. So, in the Spidey vs Firelord fight, if you count up all the frames of action and assume each to be a turn then you may have a general idea of how long the fight lasted in Champs terms.

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever And someone mentioned the classic KK vs Nemesis Kid fight from issue 4 of the LSH relaunch. I think it's one of the top ten superfights ever and certainly one of the most poignant and heroic deaths for a major character ever. I miss those days, which to me were the apex of LSH storytelling.

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever I have to admit to disliking Marvel's huge pro-Asgardian bias myself. I love the Greek and Celtic pantheons even more not to mention the ultimately cool Egyptians and they always get short shrift. However, in Thor Annual #5 there's a reprinting of the classic first battle between Hercules and Thor. One of the interesting things about it, IMO, is that it seems to suggest that Herc is actually more powerful physically, and that it's just Thor's skill as a fighter ...and Mjolnir...that keeps him in the fight. I've always liked that fight and have always felt that outside of his first couple of mini-series and maybe the Masters of Evil storyline that Herc never got his due. Almost like Wonder Man...but don't get me started there.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever According to Tim Burton, Ed Wood is one of the greatest directors of all time. The fact that he's one of the greates bad directors of all time isn't lost on him, or anyone else. And yes, Jar Jar is a provactive character, in all the ways that character shouldn't be provocative. But all of that is to miss,or at least deliberately avoid, my point. Did the story work as a stroy? Yes. Was it an all time classic of Alan Moore-esque plotting and insight? NO. So what, it worked, it had some degree (not much admittedly) of internal logic (Firelord's choice not to reduce NY to cinders in his rage). It's not a clssic by ay stretch of the imagination and the premise is questionable at best but this argument is moronic. It's like arguing whether the sky is teal or aquamarine when we all know it's blue.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever I think the real problem is that this argument is taking place through the lens of games mechanics, not storytellers which is where it should be taking place. Obviously the stroy was effective if not powerful given the level of passion it inspired.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Reargdless, I think this is turning into contradiction, not argument. It's not going to be resolved which is in violation of Marvel's no prize rule. I think the point, according to the House of Ideas editorial board itself is to show that what happened wasn't contradictory or inconsistent. It's easy to pick out flaws and nits...if you're a nit picker at least, the trick is to show that it isn't actually inconsistent.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Or it could be an AE One Hex, maybe doubled to 2 hexes.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Wow! This thread has really dragged on but I have to agree with X for one simple reason....nothing shown in Marvel can be "inconsistent" due to one of the fundamental laws of Marvel, the "no prize" rule. Marvel actually had an editorial policy in place that aimed at showing how seemingly inconsistent events were, in fact, consistent. I wouldn't be surprised if the writer actually wrote the Spidey/Firelord scrap with that policy in mind. I think the writer may have been challenging the reader to fill in the blanks and make the story make sense. You have to remember that from the 60/s to at least the early 80's making things make sense was a running gag overat Marvel and the more implausible the better. So, in any discussion of any implausibility during that period the "no prize" rule has to stand. Now, as the seeming inconsistency of Firelord saying he'll level the city to whack Spidey then changing his mind and saying he'll limit himself to personal combat or somesuch...it's not inconsistent at all. It's awkwward writing, maybe, but it's an attempt to create a bit more depth in the character and to rpovide him with a complication that prevents him from levelling NY just to blast Spidey (and I assume we can all agree that Firelord has the power to level NY and that Spidey can't quite dive for cover that far.) The writer was trying to create a bit of internal conflict within the antagonist as a reason for the protagonsit to win. It's called creating a sympathetic villian. It may have been done clumsily but it's absolutely ridiculous to assume the writer didn't know what he was writing or didn't have a reason for it. So, hopefully this discussion can now be wrapped up and we can move on...yeah right. Vigil

Re: Favorite Marvel 'What If?' Yeah, issue 25 (if I recall correctly) was another great What If? Like I said, the first 30 issues or so were pretty much flawless.

Re: Best SuperHero Fights ever Let's see where to begin... So many great fights, here's a few of my faves off the top of my head, in no particular order: 1) Avengers 161/162 the Ant-Man/Ultron vs The Avengers, creation of Joacasta story. Brilliant. 2) Avengers vs the "suped" up Count Nefaria in issues 165 and 166. Had the spectacular Vision plummeting onto Nefaria at maximum mass and terminal velocity. Sheer genius. 3) The Avengers vs Korvac in Avengers #177. Probably the best superhero battle ever not only because of the action but also because of the fact that the Avenger's may have been on the wrong side. trivia fact: George Perez said it's the single issue which he most regrets not being able to draw. Just imagine if he had! 4) The all time classic! X-Men #112 and #113. The all time clasic, best ever fight between the ultimate X-Men lineup and the most powerful incarnation of Magneto. It doesn't get any better than this and, in fact, I modelled this battle as my inspiration for great combat in my early Champs GMing. 5) FF #259 and #260, the big show down between the re-empowered Terrax and the FF sans Reed and the Surfer. This was probably the last great work done by Byrne before he became the hack we know and loathe today. 6) FF #243 and #244. The attack on the FF by Terrax and their eventual defeat of Galactus! Another great moment from the best era in the business. 7) To complete the triptych, FF's #249 and 250 where they fight the disoriented Gladiator. A clasic look at "What If Superman fought the FF?" 8) The Death of Adam Warlock in Avengers Annual #7. Another great issue that blends poignant characterzations and excellent action with flawless storytelling. Maybe the best single issue of the Bronze Age ,IMO. 9) The Incredible Hulk Annual #5. Not a clasic maybe but a really issue with the Hulk fighting an army of old 1950's era Marvel monsters. 10) The Great Darkness Saga from LSH. The high water mark of the series which has never been equalled nonetheless surpassed. The only problem is the way my fave Mon-El got taken out so easily. Damn that Darkseid! I could go on but I won't. Vigil

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever IMO, the worst comic fight ever...number one with a bullet...although you wouldn't be able to see a bullet in this ridiculous piece of pap by the biggest hack to ever work in the industry...none other than John Byrne himself...took place in Alpha Flight #5 where Snowbird fought one of the Great Beasts ina raging snowstorm therby allowing Byrne to render the ebntire fight with nothing but 5 pages of completely blank panels (it's a blinding snowstorm dontcha know?), SFX and some dialogue. This had to be the biggest, most offensive sclck job by the biggest and most offensive sclckmeister to ever darken (or in this case lighten) the industry. Completely deplorable crap which he repeated 7 issues later when he callously killed of the sympbol of Canada in a trivial way. Way to go, JB. Vigil

Re: Favorite Marvel 'What If?' For me, hands down, it's What If #3, "What if the Avengers had Never Been". IMO, it's a perfect example of powerful storytelling told in a quick, economical style and it has the best Gil Kane/Klaus Janson art ever rendered to boot. I was about 13 years old when it came out and it's become one of my top 10, maybe top 5 comics since. More happened in that single issue than has in the entire runs of many modern books. Plus the characterization of Tony Stark is possibly the best I've ever read. It balanced his egocentricity and intellectual arrogance with his essential heroic ability to sacrifice himself for the good of others. The final sequence of him using the last reserve of his life support power to renergize Giant Man in order to save the others is one of the most striking examples of the pure heroic archetype ever shown in comics. To me, one of the most striking things about the first 30 or so issues of the first run if "What If?" was the fact that while the stories were one shots they were not treated as filler or as throwaways. Every one was as carefully constructed as the best issues of any other series and. at times, I think "What If" was the best thing being published in any given month. Add that to the fact that the one shot format made each story even more special and, to me at least, you have the formula for one of the best books ever published. No wonder they're reprinting them now in our current age of storytelling which has become so "decompressed" that you get the bends just reading half the books on the market. Great thread. It brings back a lot of really great memories. Vigil

Re: Professor X vs Hector Hammond I hadn't thought about the whole Z'Nox episode myself when considering this match up. Truth to tell given the structure of the whole thing I think I'd put it into the "artistic license" category and outside the standar realm of Professor X's power just as I would those rare instances when he demonstrates TK or illusion casting, etc. As for Hector Hammond, I think he's being a bit underrated here. Remember this is the guy who matches wills with, and frequently beats, Hal Jordan who is supposed to have the strongest will on Earth. I think if there's one thing that may swing the balance in Chuck X's favor it's the fact that Hammond is a cuckoo as a coconut. That kind of massive mental insatbility can't be great for focussing but it may give him bizarre tactical advantages and some good "surprise" manuevers.