Sundog

The Superior. Shows both position and attitude.

The Strong Man A mysterious figure, an inventor of great ability but of whom little is known. He has taken all of air, space and sea as his domain, and goodness help those he finds despoiling them, but he also seeks out travellers and aids them in their researches and discoveries. With his "triphibious" craft, the Schreck, he can travel on land, sea or air with equal ability, and tremendous velocity. He has the greatest respect for those like the League, who choose to seek out knowledge and will not let "known" limits inhibit them.

The Eyes of God Marcel Perroux is a Catholic priest. Since he can remember, he has been struck on occasion with visions of the future, some of which have come true, and others would have if he had not acted to prevent them. Marcel believes he has been blessed by God. On the night before his raising to the position of Priest, Marcel had a long, detailed but vague vision. He saw a politician's rise on an anti-church platform, leading the people away from Christianity, and various cathedrals around Europe ablaze...culminating in the destruction of the Vatican. He has dedicated himself to ensuring this vision does not come true. He has created a nom de guerre as "The Eyes of God" and formed a small, fanatical following, as well as joining Divine Right. But he stands by the laws of God, and while he will bend them occasionally in the right cause, he will not sanction murder or other mortal sins. Recently, Marcel has begun to wonder if he correctly interpreted that vision. The blaze at Notre Dame was just as he saw it, but the politician is as yet unseen. Marcel does not get along with Gypsy Rose Leigh due to the other's dislike of the French, but they have worked together in the past on actions they both see as of benefit.

Actually, I think the one Ian's using is good. Normal troops want to stay well away from supers.

To be fair, bayonet training is nothing like sword fighting. It's actually the modern equivalent of a spear.

Spike Dmitriy Yevgenovitch Susov was a dissident and revolutionary in the USSR. He got further than most, managing to actually inflict some damage before the KGB caught up with him, and they didn't bother with a show trial, but just sent him as an expendable test subject to their super-soldier experimentation facility in central Siberia. To everyone's surprise, Susov came out of the cooking chamber not only alive but with the power to fire spikes of energy from his hands. The KGB was alarmed, and put measures in place to kill him as soon as the scientists were done examining the situation. However, a Team Amerika head heard of the events, and realised that Susov's powers were practically identical to those of Pentagon member Spur. Susov trained with his powers, and a small bomb was placed in the skin behind his neck. Unfortunately for Susov, shortly before he was to debut, Spur was killed in Silversmith's breakdown. The KGB immediately detonated the bomb. New team: The Masters of Silence. These four time-travellers have one ultimate goal: The extinction of the human race. They know of other time-travellers with other goals, and seek to kill them first, but that is only to prevent their interference. They each have their own reasons for this, and don't always see eye to eye on method, but they are all ruthless and dedicated.

Also the battle between Sydney and Kormoran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_between_HMAS_Sydney_and_German_auxiliary_cruiser_Kormoran (Sorry, on the 19th. Here, it is the 19th.)

The Piper at the Gates One of the most mysterious of the Lords, yet also one of the most merciful. He(?) has never been seen. Instead, the presence of the Piper is shown only by their music, at either dawn or dusk. The Piper simply makes polluters or despoilers think again, sit unmoving in the wilderness, then pick up their tools or garbage and go home. Nothing can convince them to return to work - they find other jobs. Only a tiny number ever throw off the effect, and it always takes months. The Piper has also been known to make security personnel and police who are trying to move or harm eco-protesters "harmless". In this case the people become dedicated pacifists. The rest of the Lords know how to summon the Piper, but have never given any information about who or what the Piper is.

Make it 4-6.

OK. The next team is The Lords of the Green. They're a group of British and French activists dedicated to keeping and restoring the wild places remaining in their nations and the people who use them against corporate interests and polluters.

Silversmith Many origins were purported for the man called Silversmith. Some claimed he gained his power as a descendent of Paul Revere (which he actually was), others that he had been blessed by the American Spirit (which was not true, and the Spirit refuted the rumour in one of his rare public appearances where he also made his distaste for the Pentagon well known), others still that he was enhanced by a government super-soldier program. The truth was that Macon Barrett Herriott-Jones was a mutant. This was also the fact his shadowy backers held over him - it would have been a terrible scandal for his high-class family to have produced a mutant, so Macon was coerced into the Pentagon around 1980. Silversmith's power was to convert objects into pure silver. Depending on how close to silver it was in the first place. he could do it at range (metals, metal salts), by touch (ceramics, stone, other hard objects) or with great concentration and difficulty (anything organic). The object invariably reverted to it's original substance in an hour or so, though organic items - such as people - did not survive the process. However, Macon's heart was never in the game. He had no desire to hurt anyone, and usually confined himself to converting guns of enemies (and then informing them that silver firing chambers were nowhere near strong enough) or weighing them down with sold silver clothing or armour. Worse, it soon became clear that using his powers had a deleterious effect on his sanity - by 1986 he was hanging on by a thread. But his "backers" wouldn't let him retire. In late 1986, Pentagon went up against a powerful psychic. The name of this person is classified for some reason, though many suspect it to be Menton. The psychic caused Silversmith to silverise his teammates Spur and Wilco...and himself. Spur and Wilco died, and Silversmith never thawed out. His "statue" is held in a government facility, monitored remotely, to this day.

Proud American Gottfried Willis Oberthson was a second-generation American from Boston. He fought in WWII as a Marine, earning a Silver Star Medal on Guadalcanal and a second on Iwo Jima, and finishing the war as a Master Sergeant. He went on to serve in Korea, winning an eventual promotion to First Sergeant. Some of the backers of the initial Pentagon viewed what they were doing as requiring a solid and dependable non-com to instill an appropriate level of discipline and adherence to orders to the group. Oberthson was outfitted with the latest tech and arms the USA of 1960 could provide - gyrojet rocket guns, a strength boosting exo-frame, back-mounted concussion grenade launchers. Given the code name Proud American he was viewed as a serious asset. In the field, things didn't work out that way. Oberthson was used to working with Marine infantry as part of or leading a well-oiled team, and the Pentagon wasn't that, nor were the members willing to be put through his gruelling version of basic training. And his gear was, well, cutting edge - which meant it didn't work as advertised. The gyrojets were useless inside of ten feet, the exo-frame shorted out any time it got wet, and the grenade launchers were so inaccurate he ended up concussing himself more than once. Worse, however, was Oberthson's attitude to anyone who wasn't white. He was an out-and-out racist and white supremacist, basically unable to work with anyone he saw as "inferior" unless he was in a position of power over them. And then he made their lives hell. If he hadn't had a lot of backing from the hardline military faction supporting the Pentagon project he wold have been the first member expelled. Even so, after an ugly incident with a Civil Rights protest in '66, Proud American was sidelined. His gear (which had undergone considerable improvement) was copied, and Sergeant Oberthson was basically told to train a new, younger man recently returned from Vietnam - clearly, his replacement. Instead, Oberthson stole the gear, went AWOL, and wasn't heard from again until '72, when he emerged as the "Superhero" White Dragon, "champion" of the KKK. Two years later, A US Army Special Forces team tracked him down in Louisiana and Oberthson was killed in the attempt to arrest him.

Could be a major blood vessel, could be bone chips shattered off and gone through something vital, might even just be shock effects leading to death. There is nowhere in the human body that isn't a potentially lethal wound. As to using real guns, props don't behave the same way. A guy back in the 1970s created a gun prop that made a bang noise but projected nothing - and no one would use it because the results did not look realistic enough. Many Hollywood guns have their chambers altered so that a live round can't be inserted, but even that is rare. Directors want realistic heft and recoil and muzzle blast - which is made all the more absurd when their bullet impact events are in fact ridiculously fantastic.

I'll go with the aliens. If EVERY mythological creature existed there wouldn't be room for humans!

The Thing From UHF.

"Happy New Year" fits unpleasantly well after the end of the first season...

Holding my position. I've enjoyed some of the CW stuff. Straczynski is involved. But I rarely like remakes.

Actually, that's a modern myth. While it's true that a conventional sub can go total silence while a nuke has to be able to run it's pumps, the effective difference between a conventional and a nuke sub running silent is nothing in the real world. Ever since the development of anachoic tiling and modern quiet pumps conventional subs haven't had any real advantages.

Lettuce, tomato, pickles and cheese.

I might suggest tracking down the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, which documents the Newport Jazz Festival of 1958. It's a fantastic snapshot of where Jazz was in the middle of the Twentieth Century, and filled with great performances.

Hardball Even thieves need a strong-arm man now and again. O-Jin Hua had the build and the muscle to make threats when needed, and the skills to back them up when threats didn't suffice. He was not, however, a loose cannon - Hardball believed in the swift and precise use of force to resolve a problem, no more, no less. Hardball didn't expect to be a strong asset on the Frobisher job, it was more of a case and stealth task, so he'd probably just wind up carrying Yeggman's tools. He was the first member of the team to know something was wrong, when a stealthy police tactical team caught him on the lobby. He also didn't know that Cranham had twice attempted to have him seduced - O-Jin Hua, though seriously in the closet, is gay.

Which was foolish. We will forget, eventually it will be nothing more than another event of history.

Railman A middle aged guy in a classic train engineer's getup, Victor Mengsk uses the power of engineering to solve his difficulties. His only actual power is the ability to grow or shrink objects - thus, his pockets are stuffed with pulleys, frames and winches, and on occasion an actual railway engine. He doesn't tend to be overly useful in a fight (although being able to shrink Grond to 1:100 scale has proved handy) but he always hangs around for the cleanup work. In his school presentations, he shows kids the power of basic physics and technology, how levers, pulleys and other simple technology can make things so much easier for everyone.

Jenny Faceless Jenny d'Aventura was the team's casing expert. She would go in days or even weeks before the mission, confirm other intelligence and gather data, like floor layouts, guard patrol schemes, internal security. Occasionally she would also get small items she could smuggle out, like key cards, but that was rare. As a result, she was almost never on scene for the actual robberies. She accomplished these with a powerful capacity to disguise herself and to take on roles with basically zero prep time. Cranham got to her with her one weakness, her cocaine addiction. He replaced her usual dealer, and slowly amped up the purity of the drug she bought - until she was flying high as a kite while trying to do the Frobisher building. She missed the clues that should have sent her running, and for the first time she gave the Council bad data. Jenny was blamed by many on the Council when things went south, particularly when she got a suspended sentence in exchange for checking into drug rehab. Once clean, she disappeared, and hasn't been seen or heard of since.