Lawnmower Boy

Donald Glover to Star in, Produce Spider-Man Movie Based on Villain Hypno-Hustler
 

I wouldn't buy either set, but if I had to buy one, I think this one would sicken me less. At least Homelander is prettier, and can convincingly simulate having class.

RDJ agreed to a lowball $500k up front in exchange for something like 5% of net on the back end.  Then he and Jeff Bridges went and ad-libbed the first IM which I don't think ever had a final script.
 
 
Cavill was great in Count of Monte Cristo, one of those guilty pleasure films that had no business being as good as it was.
 
 
If you look at the performances of Natalie Portman and SLJ in the prequels, there's no question it was bad direction.  (Actually as I understand it Lucas' problem was a lack of direction, like he basically just expected the actors to show up in front of the green screen and turn the lines he'd writtten into Shakespeare.)
 
 
DC's problem is, and has always been, that the suits are in charge and there's no one with a good grasp of the source material and a coherent vision.  So the DCEU has been plagued with studio interference and constant changes of direction.  WW only succeeded because studio management for once had a clue and realized they could not meaningfully contribute to a film with a strong female lead, so they left Patty Jenkins alone.  But people forget how fraught WW was to produce--it was the studio's third run at making any WW film, and Snyder's casting of Gal Gadot in JL was sharply criticized.  (Which would probably have been less intense if we'd known who the other potential casting choices were.)
 
Ironically WW benefited in a way from the grimdark DCEU, as it gave a contrasting background against which to show this lighthearted idealistic heroine.  Seriously Diana is the only thing about WW that isn't grimdark, it's literally WWI ffs.

DC knows how to follow the hot trend.
 
https://nft.dcuniverse.com/splash 

The limits of cyborgs:
 
I won't argue that the boundaries have to be exactly where I drew them. This is also, btw, relevant for the Robot/Construct category, and for the same reason: I decided to privilege the quality of "builtness" aspect over the "tech or magic" aspect. But I do see the argument the other way. In which case the two CU characters I classified as magical constructs -- Corundum and Oubliette -- become supernatural beings, while, yes, Cairngorm and Evil Eye are filed under Enchanted. The enchantments just happen to be concentrated in artificial and physically distinct bits that are at least theoretically separable.
 
(And I might have classified Tak as a magical cyborg for the Dragon Crown, except I did try to keep power origin categories down to 2 -- not counting Mastermind or Alien -- by focusing on the most important powers. And the Dragon Crown, for all its presumed importance as one of the Crowns of Krim, doesn't do more than Aid mgic that is already ridiculously powerful. And the Scepter of the Undying King is just a special effect, since it can't be taken from Tak even in principle. So I just file Tak under Supernatural Being, Sorcerer and Mastermind. YMMV.)
 
Oubliette, btw, was one of the more difficult choices for me. Corundum's entry clearly calls "her" a golem. But Oubliette, though called out as an artificial being, seems more like a spirit in many ways. Conversely, suppose Takofanes calls up a few damned souls, shreds them and melts the tatters into a new demon that will follow all the rules for demons from then on, including the potential to be Summoned? Built, in a sense, but in that case I think I'd file the character as a Supernatural Being. <shrug> Edge cases, man. Though one can sometimes generate interesting characters specifically by seeking edge cases.
 
Incidentally, cyborgs -- whether one insists on pure tech or not -- are another case where the CV books seem oddly deficient. I remember Marvel having entire teams of bionic villains; and there were quite a few pre-5th ed Champions villains to draw upon, IIRC.
 
Dean Shomshak
 
PS: Thanks for the kind wishes, my eyes feel much better now, thanks to antibiotics.

Tangent it is, then. 🚀
 
I'm wondering whether any of you have made significant modifications to the backgrounds of any of the published CU characters to fit them into your own campaign worlds; or conversely, if you modified characters from other sources to make them fit any version of the Champs Uni?
 
For my part, I've often brought characters from earlier editions of Champions into my somewhat-altered-CU games. Previously on this thread I mentioned the 4E heroes Myrmidon and Quasar, and how I made them members of official alien races. Elsewhere on the forums I've discussed adapting the Seven Horsemen, from Wrath of... , by changing the Old Ones from that adventure module to the Elder Worm. The Worm's Lovecraftian style, and the timeline of their involvement in prehistoric Earth, make them a near-perfect fit, and the various published iterations of Slug can provide just about any level of challenge you want for your PCs. And heck, Fear the leader of the Horsemen even wields a magic Worm Scepter!
 
I wanted to add specific defined lieutenants for Takofanes so that PCs could oppose his plans without having to be experienced enough to face the Archlich himself. I culled supernatural villains from various Champs sources, one example being Mordeki the Unspeakable, the undead knight who in Classic Organizations is a member of 4E DEMON's Inner Circle. It was simple to move his era of origin to the Turakian Age, and to say that the evil he pledged himself to in his grief over the death of his love, was Kal-Turak/Takofanes. Mordeki is one of the very few servants of the Ravager of Men to survive to the modern era.
 
I also made The Baron, aka Baron Jean de Lear, from The Mutant File, a lieutenant of Takofanes. I never thought that that powerful vampire fit comfortably with the anti-mutant org Genocide. However, his motivation in serving the Undying King is essentially the same: position himself in the coming war between humans and, in this case, Takofanes, so he can jump to the winning side. One change I did make was to declare the Baron's real identity is Jean de Morphant, one of only two survivors of that ancient occult lineage, along with his distant cousin Giles de Morphant, aka the Black Paladin.
 
I brought Malais the Dragon, from Champions: The New Millennium, into Takofanes' circle. I decreed him to be the brother of Brangomar the Shadow Queen, who helped her conquer her Shadow Realm in the dimension of Faerie. But Brangomar tricked and betrayed him, imprisoning him in a cave in Faerie. Takofanes found Malais and freed him, promising to help him get revenge on the Shadow Queen, in exchange for his service. (BTW Malais and Mordeki get along like peas in a pod. Neither is a stranger to dragons or undead knights.)
 
Per his 5E/6E write-up the undead that Takofanes can Summon top out at 800 CP. While thumbing through my copy of Adventurers Club #13, I noticed that the supernatural monster called Crypt is also 800 points. Crypt is described as a type of undead, but resembles no creature from any folklore known to the modern world. 💡  Crypt is a literal combat monster, but comes with some pretty severe Disadvantages/Complications that knowledgeable or observant players can use against him. So I made the creature an example of Tak's top-of-the-line conjured undead, which I named "Ravagers" in his honor.
 
Okay, enough blathering about the sorts of things I did. Any adaptation stories of your own you want to share?
 
 

"Excuse me young lady, where do you think you're going?"
 
"I'm gonna meet my friends at the mall."
 
"Not dressed like that you're not.  Put on some clothes."
 
*eyeroll*  "Mom, I have a coat."
 
"You know what I mean!  I'm an attorney, don't try to outlawyer me.  And no swords!"
 
 
(Rebellious Teenage) Daughter: Gamora
 

 
 
 
 

Black Panther: Wakanda For A Minute

The Fellow of the Ring
and it's sequel, The One Tower
 
 

Sunday afternoon: Took LGP and LBP to the InstaCare for elevated fevers and other flu-like symptoms. Both tested positive for Influenza A. (Both have also had COVID in the past month).
 
While there, LGP had an "episode": She became suddenly pale and listless and nearly fell over. We got her into a chair and the nurses took her vitals. He blood pressure was in the 80s/high 50s range. Her heart rate was ~120. We took her coat and mask off; her lips were blue. She returned to normal fairly quickly, and we still don't know exactly what happened. (One of the challenges of having a nonverbal child.) They sent LBP home with Lady P. I took LGP to the emergency room.
 
Sunday night: Checked in at the ER and waited about half an hour for a room. In time they took us back and took LGP's vitals again. Everything looked a lot better. We saw a coupe of nurses and eventually a doctor. She recommended an EKG to make sure there were no cardiovascular problems behind the episode. (At this point, the leading theory is that she got momentarily overheated; the InstaCare room was abnormally warm and LGP had been wearing a coat and mask.)
 
At length the EKG techs come in, attach all the leads, and run the diagnostic. It's clear from the conversation that one of the techs is a mentor/trainer, and the other is doing this for the first time. The test goes smoothly, they print off a couple of readouts, and they peel off all the stickers. They take the readouts to the doctor, and we don't hear from anyone for about half an hour.
 
When we do finally hear from someone, they're talking about "anomalous readings". May be an issue, may be that the leads weren't connected right. A second EKG was ordered, and in time the two techs came back and did it again. This one, we find out later, looks better. Eventually the previous doctor and the on-call cardiologist come in. The cardiologist deduces that the irregularity is minor and is most likely due to the flu. We are discharged with instructions to get LGP to her pediatrician for a follow-up appointment in the next few days.
 
Lady P and LBP come pick us up at the ER; it's about a 25-minute drive, and unknown to me, it's been snowing for the previous 3-4 hours. We avoid the freeway, which is a complete clusterflop because the plows haven't cleared it yet, and drive back home on surface streets. It takes about 45 minutes, and we have some trouble getting up the last hill leading to our house. (The minivan needs new tires.) But we get home safely, and we are all cozy in bed by about 4:30 a.m.
 
More on the rest of the week later.

I wondered which origin types are particularly popular for the Champions Universe, and what types of Powers go with them the most.
 
Why? Because
1) It might point to character concepts that are cool but have been neglected; and
2) I’m a deranged nerd.
 
So this has been my spare-time project for the last week.
 
The whole CU is very large, but not all of it is equally propmoted. So I’m restricting the domain of analysis to the three volumes of Champions Villains. 292 characters total, not counting “agent” types such as Doctor Destroyer’s robots or Necrull’s Necrullticians. Individual characters only!
 
Here are the categories I devised when I did this analysis for my own Champions settings:
 
* SUPERNATURAL BEINGS are innately magical creatures: demons, dimensional conquerors, undead, etc. Examples: Bloodrage, Takofanes, Tyrannon. Also people with supernatural ancestry, such as Frag.
 
* MUTANTS were born with super-powers in their genes. I also include MUTATES, whose origin stories specifically say that their powers are the result of genetic manipulation (such as anyone given powers by Teleios). Examples: Menton, Hurricane, King Cobra.
 
* ROBOTS AND CONSTRUCTS are artificial beings. They have powers because somebody else built them that way. Robots are of course the result of tech; but golems and similar magically-created artificial beings fit in this category as well. Examples: Mechanon (duh), Syzygy.
 
* ENCHANTED characters were given powers by magic: a curse, a spell cast upon them, a magic potion, or the like. Examples: The Basilisk, Black Fang, Harpy.
 
* WEIRD SCIENCE covers all those lab accidents, exposures to industrial waste or atomic radiation, and empowerment processes that are scientific but aren’t specifically called out as exclusively based on gene-splicing. (Though some origin stories are not clear on this point.) Examples: Durak, Bulldozer, everyone in Project Sunburst, Sunspot.
 
 
* CYBORGS started out as normal people but gained powers by having bits added to them. Usually techm but I extend the concept to magical additions (such as a magical gem permanently affixed to the character’s body) or other surgical modification. Examples: Interface, Fiacho, Cairngorm, Howler.
 
* SORCERER characters cast spells. Examples: Doctor Yin Wu, Demonologist, Talisman.
 
* INVENTOR characters build gdgets (including, but not limited to, powered armor) or otherwise do things using SCIENCE! It’s implied that they can build new tech, even if they don’t have VPPs — they aren’t limited to just one device or suite of gadgets. Examples: Doctor Destroyer, Teleios, Utility, Binder, Doctor Philippe Moreau.
 
* TRAINING: If a character’s powers come down to extraordinary skills that aren’t super-tech or sorcery, they go here. Mostly martial artists, but there might be others such as a super-thief with incredible skills but uses mundane tech, Examples: Scorpia, Green Dragon, the Cahokian.
 
* WEAPON: The character’s powers derive from a device that could be taken away, whether it’s tech, magic, or undefined. Moreover, the character lacks the skills to replace or alter the device easily. Examples: the Warlord (he didn’t build his own battlesuit), the Crowns of Krim, Lazer.
 
* MASTERMINDS would be powerful just from the people and resources they command, even if they didn’t have any other source of power. Example: Franklin Stone and Doctor Philippe Moreau are “pure” Masterminds; Doctor Destroyer, King Cobra, and the Warlord have extensive organizations in addition to their personal powers; Baron Nihil and Tyrannon rule entire populations; and the Demonologist can Summon whatever demons he wants, while the Engineer creates robots at will.
 
* ALIENS aren’t human, but aren’t specifically supernatural. Extraterrestrials such as Herculan and Firewing go here; but so does Leviathan (a Lemurian) and Ape-X (uplifted gorilla). This is often a “meta-origin,” worth noting even if not being human is not specifically the source of powers (as Herculan was artificially given powers that are not natural to his species, the Fassai).
 
* OTHER is anything so rare and weird that it doesn’t justify creating a new category, or the source of the character’s powers simply is not known. Example: Timelapse, Glacier.
 
* COMPLEX: Characters can fit within multiple categories, as the dimension lord Skarn is both a supernatural being and a sorcerer, or Cheshire Cat is both a highly trained martial artist and gained teleportation powers through weird science. But if a character fits in three or more categories, I just call it “Complex.” Example: Josiah Brimstone has one set of powers as a sorcerer, another set from the demon that’s fused to him, and a third set from magical devices. OTOH I make exceptions for Masterminds and Aliens, as these tend to be meta-origins — and I try to limit assigning categories based on what’s really important to a character. Just packing a gun or minor gadget, for instance, isn’t enough to place a character as using a Weapon.
 
Placing characters in origin categories can be iffy. Like, I don’t assign every character with martial arts on the character sheet to the Training category: Often its just an add-on and the character would function as a superbeing without it. And as the discussion of Weird Scienct and Mutate characters suggests, the line between them can be blurry. But the goal is to spot patterns, not to precisely classify every character.
 
Here’s the result:
 
Supernatural Beings: 30 characters; 10%
Mutants/Mutates: 65 characters; 22%
Robots/Constructs: 8 characters; 3%
Enchanted: 23 characters; 8%
Weird Science: 54 characters; 18%
Cyborgs: 9 characters; 3%
Sorcerers: 33 characters; 11%
Inventors: 26 characters; 9%
Training: 31 characters; 11%
Weapon: 44 characters; 15%
Mastermind: 25 characters; 9%
Alien: 17 characters; 6%
Other/Unknown: 9 characters; 3%
Complex: 3 characters; 1%
 
Further analysis available if anyone's interested.
 
Dean Shomshak

For what it is worth, I liked Prime-Ape, though I would pluralise it as a team name.
 
I like it because you have Ape-X as a team already, and you said that this group was a splinter group, so the inclusion of "prime" in the name also suggests they find rhemselves to be superior to the other group.
 
So, if you were so inclined (as I have already forgotten all the names save Harangatan (which I only remember because of the Venture Brothers character of the same name)), they could be The Prime-Apes, lead by the Prime Ape.
 
 

The thing is, if you break it down just to the core of the rules its still about 75 pages.  The reason its bigger is not because the rules became ridiculously complicated, they still run pretty much the way they did 2nd edition.  Its just that everything has been very carefully explained, with suggestions, with ideas behind how to run them and how to combine the rules.
 
But the bare basics?  Still the same.  That was the whole idea behind Champions Begins, to provide the core rules in a fun way, combined with an adventure and it was WAY less than 80 pages for the Player Book.  Building characters is more complicated, but you can still pull it off.  Its just a question of how much explanation and detail you want, and I think a Sidekick-like "here's just the fact's ma'am" book would probably be a smart intro to everything.  Put it all in there, but without the heavy detail and examples and "how modifiers work with this power" section, without the section on overall rules about how powers work, etc.  You could bang that thing out to a tenth the size of a standard Hero rule book.
 
Its not that the rules got worse, its that the effort to help people see how things interact and how to work with exceptions etc got more detailed.

Can't you just feel your superpowers starting to come into being?
 
A bizarre gamma-ray burst breaks the rules for these cosmic eruptions (sciencenews.org)

Elizabeth Whelan, sister of detainee Marine Paul Whelan, on the criticism that her brother's release could not also be arranged, from CNN:
 
 

We can still be friends!