Superskrull

Originally posted by Whitewings

And somehow, I can't really see Zodon in melee either. What sort of fighting would he use, egg fu?

Nah, that takes until puberty to learn. After all, the prehensile mustache weapon element is the core of Egg Fu.

Originally posted by Hugh Neilson

Back in or about Avengers #210, IIRC

IIRC, that was within a year or two, our time, of the Death of Phoenix story, right? Around 81-82', right? During Pym's nervous breakdown? That means it was at least 2-3 years prior in that stupid sliding timescale. Since then, Pym had psychiatric counciling, went broke, got framed for theft by Egghead, reconciled with Ultron (Mark 12), had his "son" Ultron Mark 12 killed by Ultron 11, almost commited suicide,quit being a superhero, had some amateur psychoanalysis by Firebird afterwards, became a 'scientific adventurer', dated Tigra while she two-timed him with Wonder Man, reconciled with the Wasp to the extent of him apologizing and them becoming friends to some degree, getting his personal growth/shrink powers back again, saving the Wasp's life by mutating her into a bug-chick during the Crossing story arc, being eaten by Onslaught and spit out into the hands of Leifield, slowly growing closer to Wasp again, kidnapped and impersonated by his prior self as Yellowjacket and being freed again. I'm sure I missed a few hiccups in his life, but I know he got professional help for this stuff around the time of his trialback a few decades back.

Frankly I can see why the poor slob thinks smacking his wife is water long under the bridge. Up till lately, he must have been under the impression that they'd buried the hatchet. It must suck having the mutant terrorist and the bank robber/Russian dupe look down their noses at him and pass judgement. At least the embezzler and the drunk weren't there, huh?

Originally posted by SomeAsianKid

Or what if Mr. Sinister got a hold of J'onn's DNA? I think he would stop obsessing with Cyclopse and Jean for awhile...

 

But back to the fighting. Catwoman versus Black Cat.

While my inner perv is intrigued by the sheer visual aspects of that fight, my inner fanboy wants to know if this is the skills-only BC, feline-power BC or luck-powered BC. Skills-only is pretty tough but Catwoman could still kick her around the block. The other two could turn Selina into catfood.

How about Nightwing vs Daredevil?

Two worlds enter, one world leaves!

Originally posted by Chuckg

[bOTOH, Wally /can/ move fast enough to complete a zillion actions in a heartbeat.[/b]

OTOH, Wally or one of th other speedmonkeys closes on Mimic or Superadaptoid and they become the fastest corpse on the planet. When you're in range, you're copied. doesn't matter if it's mutant hex powers, cosmic awareness, transistorized armor or Thor's frickin' hammer.

OTOH, Omega Red's death field just ate Wally

OTOH, Longshot's luck powers cause Wally to pop a tendon. Lucky break, huh?

OTOH, Mimic's already standing next to Multiple Man and is now standing next to everyone in Marvel-earth.

OTOH, even cutting off Loki's head doesn't kill him, he'll put it back on while laughing at you

OTOH, Superman can always play orbital deathray satellite!

OTOH Space Phantom just hijacked Superman, cancel Christmas!

OTOH, Dr Polaris and Magneto can explode anyone with iron-based blood!

OTOH, Ghost Rider's Penance Stare can send Spawn screamin' back to hell! -whoops, wrong universe-

Look, there are really two ways to resolve this fight. you can pick a system and dice that puppy out while slaughtering the Spandex set with unholy glee or you can script that bad boy out and watch the artist go up like a drummer for Spinal Tap trying to show the awesomeness of this knockdown-dragout Thunderdome-eque extravaganza. Either way, someone's goin' home cryin' and unhappy.

There's a reason Deus-Ex-Machina Man never got his own book. Having the trump power is always boring. Flash never beats the important bad guy in the first panel and then cuddles with Linda (or whoever) and does crosswords for the rest of the comic.

Stories have a specific order and a set of rules that needs to be followed.

Cobalt Blue

OK, since evidently several of you love the JM as much as I do, what did any of you think about Cobalt Blue? He was that guy on the flipside of the old Noble-era Justice Machine publication. I always got a kick out of the fact that he was fighting the Mechanoids from Kevin Siembieda's old RPG. The initial art was the same as the old RPG illos and everything with credit in the issue to Kevin as well. Sadly, he never seemed to be published long enough to have a story go past the inital set-up.

Re: Re: Re: Speed of Lightning, ROAR of Thunder!

Originally posted by SuperPheemy

Where's Hong Kong Phooey when you need him?

Horrifyingly enough, I've heard rumors as to the possibility of him getting the dread Hollywood makeover into a feature film. Hopefully it's be more 'They Call Me Bruce' than 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', not that I don't love wire-fu. I just think he shoud retain the same spirit of clueless idiot he always had.

Originally posted by lemming

Very silly. I like.

The music's fun too. Especial faves of mine are 'Tiny Pants', 'Magic Chicken', 'CD Repo Man', 'The Aquabats Theme Song' & 'Pizza Day', 'cause they make me laugh.

Hmm, offhand, I'd say Red Enigma is at least capable of lifting other people's house rules, and he's reasonably invulnerable so he's probably be ok if they fell on him. After all, he possesses metaphoric strength and a casual disregard for reality. OTOH, he's not currently allowed in any of my circle's games. Too darned annoying, I'd suspect.

Originally posted by Agent X

Ummm, Trojan Man? I think that's just a disembodied voice. Now Kool-Aid Man, he's real!

Nah, the Trojan Man is 'real', or at least he's a disembodied latex-covered hand according to some commercials. so he exists in some form with debatable/questionable use.

Personally, I wanna summon the barbarian chick off those old vodka ads. She even had a riding bear!

Hmm, to be honest, while I love the Aquabats and all, it never crossed my mind to write them up.

Just out of curiosity, are you going for characters based on the liner notes & performer names or are you also adapting things from the music such as the "Aquabats Theme Song" and such? After all, the music says "the Professor took us in, and that's when the experiments begin! He gave us superpowers from chemicals. He gave us instruments so we could rock & roll!"

Originally posted by Champsguy

Yep. Him and guys like... umm... that big dude that hangs out with R'as Al Ghul.

The big bald guy is Ubu.

Originally posted by FenrisUlf

In disguise? As what, a poodle or coyote? Sorry if I seem nasty here, but I have a hard time seeing how someone/thing as unusual as an anthropomorphic wolf could disguise himself.

Ah, the Man-Beast! Corruptor of Counter-Earth! Satan to Adam Warlock's Jesus routine. Master of Hyper Kung Fu? Apparently he knew some awesome degree of pseudo-martial arts that let him spar with Thor without getting splattered. He was one of the first evolved animals and walking hate on two legs. Spent his time peeing in the High Evolutionary's cereal, in a metaphorical sense.

Anyway, in order to have a matching set of Knights, The High Evolutionary whipped up another evolved wolf. Man-Beast, of course, killed him and dressed in his armor to disguise himself.

Sort of a wolf-in-wolf's-clothing kinda thing.

Originally posted by Allandrel

That was the "Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge" story arc, in which Moon Knight's old sidekick, left for dead, was rebuilt as a cyborg by the Secret Empire. The Empire didn't hire the whole Wrecking Crew, just Thunderball, and they hired him for his technical expertise, not muscle.

 

And "poorly conceived" is being generous. The only good thing about that story was Mark Bagley's art.

 

Patrick J McGraw

The sad thing is that I've actually reread those issues to stat out the Seekers just to satisfy my geek quota. I was always a sucker for Secret Empire stories.

Originally posted by Champsguy

Has anybody seen any evidence that Cap does age? I've never seen a story, alternate universe or not, that had an aging Captain America, except maybe Earth X. Even then, I couldn't tell if he was really old or had just taken six too many shots to the face. And Earth X is so far out there on the fringes of continuity that it's sitting somewhere alongside Twisted Toyfair Theater.

He did age in at least two of the original What If series. One had him & Bucky not ride the bomb. Cap gets older, retires and takes up directing SHIELD, Bucky bacomes Cap II and gets killed fighting Red Skull. Cap and Skull die locked in battle.

The other had Cap rescue Sharon Carter from the Grand Director's deathtrapped clothing she was wearing. They get married have kids and grow old. Then Red Skull shows up with his new son, Red Skull Jr. Cap has to rely on his fading skills and athletic abilities (and a toughened-up costume) but still wins.

As to Earth X, I'd say that was actually farther out there than Toyfare Theater. They decided that Belasco was Nightcrawler, Colossus was Mr Sinister and Wolverine was the descendant of Moon Boy and thus the last true human on the planet. Reading issues of that dreck is like poking myself in the groin with a red hot poker. Bleagh!

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

He is?! Where? I didn't see him in the Champions Universe book itself.

 

 

FWIW I made the secret ID of the Harbinger Donald Henderson, aka the Marksman from George MacDonald's "Guardians" campaign, a bunch of old Champions book covers, and the Champions comic-book series. The Marksman came into contact with the mystic Skull Pendant (from To Serve and Protect), which warped his desire for justice to an extreme level. The Marksman officially "retired" from superheroics before HoJ appeared on the scene.

Ooh! That's a great idea! Very nice!

Re: Exiles

Originally posted by Vex

On the Juggernaut/Black Tom front, in Exiles it is very common for another dimension's character being a different sex. For instance, in the normal Marvel Universe Sunfire is a male and so is Sasquatch who is a scientist named Walter Longowski. In the Exiles universe the Sunfire character that was part of the group was a women and the Sasquatch character is Heather (can't remember last name it may be Hudson) and a black woman. In her native dimension this Heather was married to Wolverine. It is an enjoyable comic book and is a perfect front for my players to play Champions.

The Exiles Sunfire is (was) Mariko Yoshida, the counterpart to Wolvie's now dead Japanese love interest. Standard Marvel has her as the cousin of Sunfire.

Yeah, Sasquatch is Dr Heather Hudson.

My favorite alternate was Powerfist. He seemed to be Luke Cage with the Iron fist of Danny Rand.

Ah, yes, the Golden Age! Unfortunately, my group averages about 2 1/2 people with any interest or clue about this style.

All I'll offer here is a link to Technohol 13 a MSH RPG site with some nice Timely era & Roy Thomas retcon write-ups

http://www.technohol.com/vintage/index.asp

Re: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Originally posted by Count Zero

Okay Guys,

 

I have been hunting for about two weeks now for an image of the Four horsemen characters that were Image comic villians. I saw them in a WildCATS, Stormwatch, or some other image comics character sourcebook a while back.

Sure, I know of what you speak. That was from the Deathblow comics from Image/Wildstorm. At the end of the series Deathblow and some of his old Team 7 buddies like Dane, Grifter & Backlash fought them. I'd hit the quarter bins at yer local comics store. I believe it was the miracle child story arc or something.

Originally posted by Speedball

Elektra? I seem to recall a couple of fights between her and DD (and No, I'm not referencing the movie, for God's sake) that were draws.

 

I think he's out of the "middleweight" category, but how about The Midnighter from "The Authority?" Someone in the book (can't remember who) called him "the most dangerous person alive."

Nah. Midnighter is metahuman in physical abilities with some kind of built-in fight computer in his head, backup organs and other niftykeen off-the-cuff 'by the way' powers. Apparently he had been designed with the superpower of kicking mighty ass thanks to Weatherman of Stormwatch who cobbled together a whole team of wanna-be JLA guys. Sad how all but those two got slaughtered and wasted all those UN blackops dollars. Still, 'Use once & throw away' seemed to be the theme in some of those Ellis Stormwatch stories.

Hey, if we're going to dip into the Golden Age era, I'd nominate Atom. He's a nasty little bugger, especially in those recent flashback stories of the 90s on.

Others come to mind with not enough screen time to really judge if they squeak past the middleweight and ease into the heavyweight bracket.

DC (but secretly Charlton in disguise)

Judomaster (pre-LAW miniseries- that story killed brain cells)

Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (though he seemed to slip into the paranormal range later on)

The Question

Blue Beetle (no really!)

Marvel

The Sons of the Tiger (they were good, not Shang Chi good, but good)

Crossbones (before he got dead)

Diamondback (after her Supersoldier blood transfusion & additional training)

The Bengal (obscure revenge-motivated guy, easy handled fighting Night Thrasher & Daredevil in seperate encounters)

The Steel Serpent (Davos can put the fear into Iron Fist)

The Cat (mercenary foe of Shang Chi)

Midnight (pre-cyborg conversion by the Kree )

Zaran I & II

Ka-Zar

Independents

Grimjack

Badger

Riley Thorp

The Hodag

Demon

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the old B&W Eastman/Laird ones)

The Shredder

Cat & Mouse

and 'cause I'm a wierdo who obsessed over cruddy B&W comics

Greater Mercury/Silverwolf universe

Grips

Dark Assassin

Chance

Edge

Dragonmaster

Psycho-Path

Vengeance

I'm blanking on any Image martial artists who didn't pack superpowers or get their heads handed to them on a continual basis.

Then there's the mook contingent. Hard to figure out the difference sometimes between the rank and file of the Hand, the Chaste, the Coda, the Si-Fan, th League of Assassins or any other redshirt level fighters with those who got a cover issue and a swift beating in the pages of whatever comic they popped up in, y'know?

See! Electricity + corpses = hours of gaming fun.

Re: Re: It's not too heroic, but...

Originally posted by Brandi

Girls only, huh? Tough luck if the villain's a straight woman, a gay man, or an alien (and forget about the robots, zombies, and other asexual beings)...

Don't be so quick to dismiss them. That summon works on the set group of companions of debatable virtue and negotiable affection. After all, we have an entire Escort Service to tap and they know full well that women, men AND little fuzzy critters from Alpha Centauri have needs to meet and disposable income to burn. I'm sure the management has someone or something to accommodate activities from the feather to the full chicken.

'sides, according to the Heavy Metal movie, robots are into everything from secretaries to major appliances.

Originally posted by Chuckg

Probably put the immune party into a Hibernaculum and kept him on ice while Tom Thumb researched how to customize the B-Mod to get around the guy's defenses.

Yeah. Sounds about right.

Originally posted by JmOz

Yes the villain should eb considered either KO'ed or restrained.

 

However remember it is a 30 ACTIVE POINT limit

Hey, these girls are professionals. Restraints are part of the standard training.

Originally posted by Bazza

I agree. and I also think that the Squadron Supreme was brilliant.

 

Can you (or anyone else) remember the Squadron Supreme fought the Avengers with Captain America in the team?

Sure. The last time was the start of the Heroes Return era Avengers. Cap lead the team as they slapped the Squadders around and made fun of them for being mind controlled again. Then they teamed up, fought Morgan Champion and found a way to send the Squadron back home in time for their Prestige format One-shot.

The Squadron was best when they were on their own Earth being written by the late lamented Mark Gruenwald.