Trained Chicken

Re: please help a newbie You've got a fabulous start, since you know exactly what kind of character you want to play, what sorts of powers you might have, and who is out to get him (very important for future characterization)! I've really got nothing to add to the previous comments, but I have a sense that you should use combat skill levels to build his ability to hit anythign at range rather than pure dexterity. This suggests he's very highly trained, rather than innately gifted. Of course, a higher than normal Dex seems appropriate, too.

Re: What was your first character like? I started with D&D (I got the old pink box kicking around here somewhere), but I always played Lawful fighters, and they were pretty much interchangeable. I didn't really fall in love with RPGs in a huge way until I got my hands on the Marvel blue box, one of my most nostalgic possessions. My first character that wasn't Wolverine was a mutant named Midget-Man, who was a Hulk-level brick with wall-crawling and blending. No, please don't ask what I was thinking.

Re: How to use the President The President makes a very good speedbump for a mountainbiking Secret Service Agent, or a good innocent bystander if one of your heroes has the Heimlich Maneuver skill and The President just happens to be eating pretzels. Also, if your characters are actually terrorists, you can use The President to make the military come after them. In addition, if one of your characters needs Social Security money to buy his super-soldier drugs, The Pesident can make that a lot easier. If one of your characters is an illegal alien, The President can help him get a job in America. If all else fails, The President is usually a tall and well-built man, perfect for use as a door stop in your Super Lair.

Re: Soccer Hero I don't see where he fakes injuries, punches refs, grows his hair out to rediculous size, or takes his shirt off after defeating a bad guy?

http://manvsclown.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-fingered-bob-kane.html I bet you didn't know this.

Re: Did anyone ever write-up the DC Impact comic characters? I don't know if this has been shared (too lazy to bump through four pages). Just in case it's new material: http://www.mightycrusaders.net/handbook/blackhood.htm Here is the whole group of characters from the Archies, and some other Golden Age nonsense.

Re: Global Guardians Campaign Opening (PBEM) vis-a-vis nationality, how would you characterize an alien being who has adopted a country other than America as its home?

Re: Costume fixation (Get your mind out of the gutter) Alex Ross' anything kicks ***.

Re: Costume fixation (Get your mind out of the gutter) It's amazing that most everything in clshing colors that was not designed by Jack Kirby looks like crap. The only costume I like featuring red and yellow prominently is Mr. Miracle (who has judicious amounts of green, too). That was part of their charm; they looked beyond the costumes (or in Vision's case, his skin) and saw each other from the inside out. Chuck Dixon, legendary Batman and Punisher scribe described Moon Knight this way (and I'm paraphrasing): "Moon Knight would have to stand up on a chair to kiss Batman's ***. He's a great costume with nobody inside." You know, flagsuits are a very good basis for a costume, since they are already iconic both by definition and because we're so used to seeing the patterns. This does not detract from the costume designing skills of those artists who use flags as their "whole cloth" (punch me now ), but it does indicate why they are so nearly universally successful. Three costumes I admire for their simplicity and strong asthetics all contain large amounts of violet and black: The old Huntress costume (don't get me started on the travesty of the new one), Marvel's Paladin costume (supremely rendered by Ron Lim in Captain America years ago as well as in other places), and the Prowler costume. More than any other work, I suspect Todd McFarlane based Spawn's costume on the Prowler's. If you can dig up his Prowler back-up story in ASM Annual 1989 (I think; it was Spidey's Totally Tiny Adventure), you will not be disappointed in the similarities. Other than that, there are some really great iconic looks. Batman, of course, is the ultimate in iconography- his silhouette is literally a bat's. Cap's shield is transcendent of it's flagsuit origin to represent everything good and just in the world. Thor's hammer, Iron Man's facemask, Cyclops' visor... GL's ring emblem. Each evokes a very specific, heroic sentiment. Furthermore, there are another group of costumes that are nearly as iconic: the serpent motif. Any villain in a serpent costume of any variety shows up, and you know he's a bad guy, and you should probably punch him before he gets too far. Serpentor, Marvel's Serpent Society, DC's Kobra, Loki's and Hela's head horns... all speak of evil and evil intent. A third group of costumes which are very strong on superheroes is the "knight in shining armor" motif. Whether carried into the present day with characters like Steel and Iron Man or kept fairly authentic like Marvel's Black Knight in his more authentic incarnations, these costumes speak of martial prowess and the power of a solitary individual to be more than a man (or woman). Even characters who are marginally medieval in motif, such as The Swordsman or Hawkeye or Green Arrow seem to have this strong, martially-adept feel to them. Though this last style of characters has a more, and forgive me for this mangling of use, "chaotic good" feel to them, and less of a law-and-order feel. What I do find interesting is that the characters I most admire or identify with are not necessarily the same ones whose costumes I like. But it sure helps.

Re: CHAR: Wonder Woman

Re: CHAR: Wonder Woman What's the big deal here? Superman has been pretty vulnerable to magic SFX for some time. Captain Marvel one-hit him, (DC version's) Shaman cut him with an obsidian dagger during a magic ritual.

Re: Most Powerful 350 in CKC I'm quite impressed by your review. It's true, most of the CU characters work better as examples then actual fighting allies/opponents. Not anything wrong with that though.

Re: What Marvel/DC storyline have you ripped off...err been inspired by? Pretty much anything by Alan Moore is fair game for a super-rip-off. Not that I'd do such a thing myself.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Firelord would so totally toast Superman.

Re: What does a SuperTeam need? I thought the harpoon was genius when it came out. As it became an "omni-arm" gadget, I was less and less enamored by it. A harpoon has a great deal to say about its wielder, and is a wonderful bit of iconography. An omni-gadget instead of a hand is just kind of silly. The beard is handsome, but the beard and long hair didn't make much sense for a regal sea-king of a powerful nation. He ought to look more adult than that. I would have liked to see him with a trimmed beard of some length (connoting ruggedness and wisdom) with short hair on his head. The orange and green costume, in current continuity, is a prison uniform. Therefore, I like the gladiator outfit much better. I'd even go for the blue camouflage he wore in his 1986 miniseries before a prison outfit-- but this resembles too closely a "standard" skintight superhero outfit, which certainly doesn't fit the reluctant superhero type Arthur is. I think they should go back to the drawing board for his costume. Maybe just briefs, since he's in the water so much? As far as telepathy goes, it makes a lot of sense; he can talk to all kinds of sea life (including mammals). Why not humans, who are ostensibly more mentally similar to him than a lobster? Besides, J'onn's mind must get tired, lugging all of Flash's and Kyle's (the Beavis and Butt-Head of the JLA) stupid brain-dead thoughts around all the time.

Re: What does a SuperTeam need? Dude, awesome idea! You can really pull this off a lot better if you give yourself a slight amount of flexibility (such as a VPP which only allows for one power with one SFX but with any advantage/adder). In fact, Marvel's mutants started like this: Each had the market cornered on one kind of power or a single power. The best characters in Marvels' mutant gallery still function like this. It would be an interesting sort of challenge to do this sort of thing using either the X-Men or LoSH as a template. I may do this a little.

Re: Hidden Template Agreed, I just love the milkshake line. I read it the same way- you need to make more of an effort if you buy off your focus, and in certain conceptions, you just can't do it unless you're willing to fundamentally chnage who the character is.

Re: N-Ray Perception or Spatial Awareness Whew! I always played Spatial Awareness as n-ray; for instance, I have a character that has a "detect density" as a SA. I'd hate to have to add n-ray to make it work properly.

Re: What does a SuperTeam need? Yes, I specifically left ouff the X-Men and Titans as major teams, since I don't think that they are designed to work that way within their respective universes. I am also not maligning the archetype for heroes or villains, it's perfectly valid and can be at times more powerful that the biggest, baddest brick on the block. I was only noting that the big gun teams usually do without. And I need to spread some rep around before giving it to OddHat again.

Re: What does a SuperTeam need? In aid of another gedanken, I made up a list of those who are well-known Avengers or JLAers from the the recent past. I then ranked them as "tier 1" or "tier 2" (very rough gauge, I know) kind of off-the-cuff. I won't re-list the names I picked nor their rankings in my mind. Your mileage would vary, and I'm not posting here to start an argument on this sub-topic! I then went back, and looked at each character in terms of power level, versatility, uniquenes of powers, attitude, and experience. Strangely, I found that while power level contributed to being "tier 1" in my mind, the main determinent was experience. That is, experience > raw power level. That may be why we're more likely to accept Green Arrow as a JLAer than we are the Ray, or more likely to accept Cap than Warbird, for instance. Also, power versatility- having a cool power not present in the rest of the team- was big. I also noted that there are no big-gun JLAers or Avengers whose main power is mental; J'onn has telepathy and mind control abilities, but it's not his main focus. The Avengers are usually lacking in mentallists entirely (with the exception of Moondragon from time to time). From this, I conclude that the mentallist class of character is not particularly critical to a superteam. I further noted that the JLA and Avengers always, always have at least one and sometimes multiple members who are in essence highly-trained normal people or low-level supers without flashy powers. The JLA always has Batman, and sometimes adds others, such as Huntress, Black Canary and Green Arrow. The Avengers usually have Captain America, and recently have also had Triathlon and Hawkeye as regular members (all three at the same time). So raw power level does not seem to be a defining factor in who gets in and who is out. Finally, each team does always have at least 2-3 energy blasters. Among the JLA, almost every one of them has a decent distance attack (with the exception of Flash, Plastic Man and Batman) or other ways of affecting opponents at a distance. Among the Avengers, each of them (except Quicksilver, if you could him) has a good distance attack, and Firestar is almost entirely offense.

Re: Cosmic Threats Earth X should be in continuity, if it's not. It's just too perfect and beautiful a story not to be "true". I haven't heard it stated either way.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Worst comic book superfight ever.

Re: Hidden Template Yes, he put his Focus in a milkshake and drank it. I thought you weren't allowed to do that?

Re: Homages you would like to see officially If Pulsar could learn to control himself a little bit, he could make a decent "leader" type, as long as someone else is making the decisions. Stick him in a flag suit and call him something patriotic, and you've got yourself a real cool cat. As long as he keeps his mouth shut. Icicle/Frostbite is a natural for a new costume, and could you all see Foxbat as the mysterious benefactor who funds the group? Couldja?

Re: Cosmic Threats Galactus is a single being that balances the Celestials, as a race, in power level. That's actually his purpose: to check the growth of the Celestial race. Gotta put him up there with Death and Eternity IMO.