Thinking Out Loud: Big Hero Sex

So this article is about the theoretical sex lives of characters in a children's cartoon. Not because that's the kind of thing really interests me, or turns me on, but because I've had this idea in my brain for years and need to get it down to get it out to make space for something useful. Hopefully this doesn't come across as too skeevy or pornographic, as that isn't what I'm going for, a healthy sex life is an important part of personal development and given that the older members of Big Hero Six (Fred, Go-Go, Honey Lemon and Wasabi) are probably somewhere in their early-to-mid twenties, it just kind of makes sense that they're engaging in this kind of thing, even if it's never on-screen. First big bombshell, I think Fred has had sex with everyone in the group. Yes, Fred is an eternal man-child, but he's demonstrated as having an irresistible charisma and I think he's just charming enough that he does alright. Is Fred bi- or pansexual? I doubt he really knows what he is, he just follows along with what he likes and doesn't bother with much self-examination.

The other big claim I have is that Honey Lemon is trans-feminine. This one is pretty tenuous, but throughout the animated series, Honey is referred to as "Tall Girl" repeatedly, which she chafes at. It's not universal, but within the trans community, trans-femmes can use the moniker "Tall Girls" to identify, and Honey does have moments where the "girly-girl" mask slips a little, such as when she gets really into professional wrestling or finds a boy band insufferable. I don't, for a minute, think that this reading is intentional on the part of the authors, just an odd coincidence of trying to write the character similar to how she was portrayed in the film. I also tend to think that if Honey has particular feelings for any other member of the group, it's Fred; though she recognises that he has a lot of growing to do and doesn't actively pursue the relationship. This frustrates Go-Go though, who has a huge gay crush on Honey Lemon. Yeah, sporty girl is a lesbian is a pretty obvious trope to fall back on, but Go-Go really only seems to have close relationships with other women in the series (Wendy Wower) and Hiro, a child.

Probably the least subtle in the series is Wasabi No-Ginger being gay, which, again, doesn't feel so much deliberate as plainly obvious. The one time he really seems to get into someone in the series, it's a genetically "perfected" male assistant who is a great cook and ideal host. Wasabi is certainly only just figuring out his sexuality and probably edges towards being ACE, but it is there to see if you're looking for it. I think the reason this stuff has been on my mind has more to do with my wanting the characters in the media I'm watching to have a little more depth without resorting to the typical grimdark nonsense. The majority of the Big Hero 6 team are in their twenties, so naturally would be likely to be engaging in sexuality and relationships, and nothing here is intended to be overly salacious or out of reasonable possibility for the setting. What these characters would be like if they were a little more "real" is fun to consider, and I don't feel much guilt thinking about them as adults with adult relationships.

Superhero Media: Venom

Wow Venom is a bad film. Seriously, I don't see many films with such a huge budget and major studio support that are as thoroughly poor as this one. The script is bad, the direction is bad, the acting (for the most part) is bad, the CGI is terrible and even the soundtrack is uninspired. It's quite a feat. Yes, before someone has a go at me, Tom Hardy does deliver a brilliant performance and is the one good part of Venom, but he's so idiosyncratic and out of step with every other actor in the piece, that it just clashes with the other mess happening. Even before Eddie Brock encounters the Venom symbiote, Hardy plays the character with odd affectations and overlapping dialog, making him stand out starkly from the much more standard line delivery every other actor is giving. So whilst I'd agree that Tom Hardy is fun to watch in Venom, he does not, and cannot, "save" the film. 

Personally, I don't really feel that there is enough of a character to Venom to really carry his own film, let alone franchise, despite his popularity, as his best work remains in being a "dark mirror" to Spider-Man. Given that Venom is, through it's post-credits sequence, placed firmly in the "Spider-Verse" multiverse, meaning there may actually be no Spider-Man with which Venom can contrast. It's like making a film about the Joker in a world without a Batman, sure you can do it, but you're missing a huge chunk of what makes the character interesting and memorable. Speaking of memorable, I cannot recall the name of any character in Venom other than Eddie and Venom, because none of them make any impact. Wait, John Jameson is referenced in the opening with the space shuttle crash, but as he doesn't transform into the Man-Wolf or appear to have found the Moon Gem, I lost interest pretty fast. 

What else is there to say about Venom? It exists, isn't good and Tom Hardy is fun to watch flail around. How about Upgrade being a better version of the same concept, or the post-credits tease just being a five minute segment of Into the Spider-Verse like the studio knew that was the winner all along? Before the huge boom in superhero cinema, this would have been the end of it, like Spawn or Green Lantern before him, Venom had a bad film and it would have gone away. However, because of a rabid internet fanbase and the fact everyone actually paid money to see this for some reason, we now have a whole Venom "series" to enjoy for years to come. Plenty more of this drab and uninspired take on an, at best, semi-interesting character rolling our way soon, like a turd in the wind. Because that was such a great line apparently.

Fantasy Football IV

I do enjoy doing these, as it lets me bring attention to characters I really like but who may not be as well known as others, or to take a character out of their existing context to try something new with. The reason these are so long between versions is that I'm not actively looking for characters, but rather, they occur to me as I'm watching or otherwise working on other articles for this blog, and they go on a list until I have the five I like to do for each. Rules remain the same as previous entries, I'm considering recruits for a theoretical superhero team to battle evil. The team needs balance, and a range of abilities, but also the personalities can only clash so much, too much of the wrong kind of ego will throw off the balance.

Adam Warlock (from the Jim Starlin run)

Although I'm rarely big on high power-level characters, but there is something charming about the classic Adam Warlock and his all-powerful Soul Gem. Warlock can perform amazing feats, but fear of his own power, and possibly becoming an evil god, keep him in check and force him to fight rather than simply obliterate all before him. Warlock has an unbending will that dives him as well, which would lead to his downfall if he didn't surround himself with dissenting opinions and people who looked at the world a lot less seriously than he does. With his cosmic status, Warlock is also able to see the "big picture" in a way many can't, which can make his actions inscrutable, but always for a higher good.

Batman (as played by Adam West)

No, I swear this isn't a troll, I've been thinking a great deal about which Batman I would want on any theoretical team, and it's this one. Yes, The Animated Series still has the 'best' version of Batman, but the Adam West incarnation has something that most others lack, a focus on intellect and problem-solving over karate chopping mentally ill people in Halloween masks. Sure, sometimes the programme takes an odd tack at this, but Batman's role with the police is that of an advisor, very much a precursor to the concept of The Mentalist or Psych. Despite the mythology that has been built around the character, Batman is just a man who's pretty decent in a fight, his true greatest asset is his mind, especially when surrounded by strictly more 'powerful' heroes, so why not have the version of the character most focused on their mental acumen?


Rando Yaguchi (from Shin Godzilla)

What's this, a politician? What good is he going to be in a fight? Well, here I'm linking more of Henry Gyrich from the old Avengers comics, as the official liaison between a super-team and the government, and, well, good fictional politicians are few and far between. Yaguchi is competent, humble and not so far ingrained in the system that he is inflexible, which is the strength by which he comes to be defined. When confronted by the impossible, in the shape of Godzilla, Yaguchi risks his political career by being flexible enough to embrace unorthodox solutions from iconoclasts and outsiders. That sounds like exactly the guy I'd want advocating for the team of people with random powers who have a history of punching the problem away whilst wearing spandex. Sure we could just nuke it from orbit, but Yaguchi is just asking for one chance with the costuming wearing weirdos.


Red Guardian (from the MCU)

I love him and want to see him get his own solo series on Disney+ at some stage. Red Guardian has always been one of those characters who is better in concept than in execution, that is, until David Harbour put the costume on. From the "Karl Marx" tattoos across his knuckles to the absolute insistence that he fought, and beat, Captain America once, Red Guardian almost stole the entire film along with my heart. In a team, Red Guardian fills the Flash/Hawkeye role of technically being actually useful, but mostly needed for the levity they bring to the dynamic and general humanity that helps ground the aliens and gods around them. Whilst not the strongest fighter, Red Guardian can hold his own against foes like Taskmaster and never gives up, even when coughing up his own blood on the floor and in a giant flying base falling from the sky. Fight on, comrade!


Princess Star Butterfly (like, three episodes before the end of the series, I guess?)

She's a little weird and a little wild, but this extra-dimensional Princess is a powerhouse to be reckoned with. From Narwhal Blasts to Warnicorn Stampedes, Star's magical abilities are more combat-oriented than most comic wizards, but she does show a grasp of magic as a discipline that is deeper than one would think of a teen possessing. Star is a fighter from a long lineage of warrior princesses, not psychically overly strong, but an accomplished brawler who can mix magic with punches better than most. It also bares mentioning that Star is capable of great compassion, as when she attempts to make peace with the monsters in her world, and great sacrifice, as when she is willing to never see Marco again to save the multiverse from magic gone awry. A great hero and a valuable addition to any team. 

Superhero Media: Dragon Ball - Episode of Bardock

Ok, this is gonna be a quick one, as Episode of Bardock is all of twenty minutes long, and there's not much to it. Somehow not dying along with most of his species and his planet, Bardock is flung back in time to the era of Freiza's grandparent, Chilled, somehow before the sayains or tuffles evolved? But there are some slug aliens I can't remember the name of and they have healing goo, which is somehow linked to the healing tanks the Frezia army uses? Ok, so diving into the lore and "science" of Dragon Ball is always a bad decision, but the origins of the Sayian race and how they came to work for Freiza come up often enough that it still kind of bugs me. Turning briefly to my ongoing theories on the generation of the Frost Dynasty however, I will note that Episode of Bardock supports my concept of each new generation being more powerful than the last. 

So Bardock is the first Super Sayian, huh? Well that's pretty neat, and does tie in with the idea that certain Sayian families have a monopoly on the power, at least in the main timeline. Think about it, aside from Broly, only those of the Vegeta and Bardock lineages have ever ascended to the level of Super Sayian in the main universe. Interesting, huh? I'm sure there's a fan essay to be had there for someone more committed to that sort of thing than I. In a twenty minute special, however, Bardock only gets to be Super Sayian for a few minutes, which is more than enough time to defeat Frost and hopefully not create a time paradox because I assume King Cold has already been "born"? I mean, the Time Patrol does pick Bardock up in the games, so there had to have been some kind of shenanigans along the way. 

Probably the best description of Episode of Bardock is "non-essential", there's nothing in it for any but the most die-hard fan, who plays all the games, watches all the programmes and probably even plays at least one of the card games. I myself had some "Mysterious Masked Sayian" in one of my Dragon Ball Super CCG decks back when I played, so the character is around if you look for him, but isn't currently essential to the main story. Then again, the short run-time of Episode of Bardock makes it perfect to get a little taste of DBZ in a short period of time, and at least the animation is decent, even if the story is pretty poor. As for me, it's on to bigger and better DBZ outings.

Spider-Man Mini Campaign - Building a Narrative

Sorry this keeps getting delayed, but rolling COVID lockdowns are pushing the chance to wargame further and further back. On the plus side, I do get more painting done, which kind of speeds up the game planning to a certain degree? Of course, it is a little annoying that I am completing all of these projects and don't get to do anything with them, but I'd rather be keeping my vulnerable friends safe than playing games and getting them killed, y'know?

Anyway, one of the biggest challenges with planning out a SuperSystem Ultimate Alliance game is building in the narrative, so that it doesn't just become an exercise in combat and dice rolling. Yes, the fight is a fun part of any superhero story, but there really needs to be context, otherwise it's superhero UFC and I get bored pretty quick. This is probably why I've never gotten much into the Batman Miniatures Game or Marvel Crisis Protocol, it's just a fight that never really feels organic to me. To that end, I try and build all of my supers games, especially the Ultimate Alliance ones, around something other than a straight punch-up. This doesn't always need to be a grand narrative, but something as simple as a bank robbery, hostage situation or gaol break can work.

Naturally, this being the first game of my "Death of Spider-Man" campaign, the scenario will involve the death of Peter Parker. This complicates things a little, as with any wargame, guaranteeing an outcome will be tricky. There are a few things I can do to help this along, I'm thinking of starting the game with Peter being down some Hits and just kind of stacking the whole scenario against him. What this does mean, as I'm trying to keep the full narrative of the campaign under wraps before it begins, is that I'll have to be careful about who plays which characters in the actual game. Some players are happy to bend to narrative if the game is fun, but there's always those who see dice and numbers and go for the win no matter what. No judgment, I'm playing competitively for the first time in years in a Kill Team League and loving it, but that's just not what SSUA is about.

The primary antagonist for the mission will be 'Venogoblin', a version of Norman Osborn who's hopped himself up on drug symbiote in an insane attempt to finally kill Spider-Man. So, functionally, it will be a one-on-one game, meaning I can skip things like the Initiative Step and just keep the action rolling. To facilitate the 'death' of Peter Parker, both characters will start out a little lower on health, maybe only as much as D3+1 Hits down, with the trick being that Venogoblin can Regenerate, whereas Spider-Man cannot. Add in some conflicting objectives, with Spider-Man having a focus on saving people rather than defeating Osborn, and our hero should be nicely up against it from the first turn. Again, I can't ensure that I'll have the specific outcome I'm looking for, but there's not just the mechanics to consider when I'm doing all this. Unsurprisingly, a big part of a Narrative Campaign is the narrative.

Although I (or probably, a couple of people I rope in) will be playing these games, they won't be "complete" until I get the write-up done on this blog. So as well as planning out this first Spidey Vs Venogoblin game, I'm also doing the fiction that leads into the game and flows out from it. So lets say Spidey somehow gets the better of Venogoblin in the game, through some god-tier rolling or something, well that doesn't matter too much, as I get to write up what happens later. Peter could well defeat Osborn against the odds, yet again, but perhaps he was badly injured in the fight? Maybe Peter finally took one too many Pumpkin Bombs to the face and he just couldn't recover this time? It doesn't have to be something overly epic or special, Into the Spider-Verse had Peter killed by falling machinery and that worked just fine.

Knowing the basics of the game now, I can start to get the details sorted. I have a painted Spider-Man and Venogoblin, and the stat card for Spidey, so I just have one character to write. I have the table and most of the accessories, so what's stopping me from just running the game? Well, last time I ran a series of linked games, way back in the Dark Ages when this was all done on the Lead Adventure Forum, it would take me months to get each new game together, so the enthusiasm just petered out after two games. This time around, especially as I'm only planning 4-6 games in this Campaign, I want to have at least two ready to go at a time so I can arrange games each month or so. On to next time then, where I'll be outlining game two and maybe looking at scheduling game one.

Superhero Media: Bumblebee

So this is what a good Transformers film looks like! I hope we get more, given that Bumblebee was kind of intended as a last gasp to see if there was anything left in the franchise. Isn't that the way sometimes, that the one the producers don't care about ends up being the best one? I mean, I'll still defend the first live-action Transformers as a guilty pleasure, but the rest of the series has been mostly terrible. Stripping everything down to just a handful of Transformers, Bumblebee focuses on the relationship between the titular Autobot and Charlie (Hailee Stienfeld), a young woman with mechanical skill and desperate need of a father figure. The film is a by-the-numbers, coming of age, alien friend film, but it works and this isn't a franchise that really needs to reinvent the wheel or anything. The big story of the day, of course, is a return to more traditional (G1) Transformers designs for the Cybertron sequences and battles on Earth, and look, I'm not a huge Transformers fan at the end of the day, but seeing Ravage jump out of Soundwave's chest was pretty awesome. 

When I get asked by friends how I would adapt a given franchise, my usual response is "start with a good cast and script", which is something Bumblebee does long before G1 Optimus Prime appears. Sure, there is nothing overly deep about the film, or any of the characters, but this is Transformers, not Citizen Kane, the basics are enough. We hit a lot of John Hughes style '80s movie tropes and notes on the journey, but rather than a dance or a skateboarding contest, the film ends with a giant robot fight, which, honestly, probably would have improved Sixteen Candles. What I probably enjoyed best about Bumblebee was that it didn't "feel" embarrassed to be a Transformers film, embracing the silliness and childish joy of the franchise, be it in the form of getting to hear Stan Bush's "The Touch" play in one scene or having John Cena point out that the bad guys are called "Decepticons", and doesn't that sound just a little sus? In many ways, watching Bumblebee feels like watching SHAZAM! after sitting through all the drab and serious DCEU films that came out before it. 

So where to from here? Well, personally, as much as I enjoyed Bumblebee, I think it needs a rest before we get a spate of new films, I know I'm a little sick of them, and the box office returns on this one would indicate that the feeling is common. With a few years grace, a new Transformers series, separated from the old one, could be a big hit if it sticks closer to Bumblebee in execution, by which I mean have a good cast and solid script more so than using G1 designs, but there's nothing wrong with both. I mean, it's not like there aren't several nostalgic animated Transformers series around to tide fans over in lieu of a major motion picture, and you can always play some Bot War. I'm not sure how I feel about the proposed "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", as there will likely be some good ideas in there, but I really don't want to have to cover a My Little Pony film here just so my eventual review of the Revolution film. Also I kind of want Rom to be in the MCU instead, just as a fanboy thing.

Terrain Finished - More Street Scatter

Had these sitting partially-done for quite a while, but rolling pandemic lockdowns have delayed the getting of the right parts, glues and paints. Given how long my table takes to set up (around 45 minutes), I can probably stop adding smaller elements to it, but at this stage it's about incremental improvements more than the big stuff.

Another Porsche, I've had this one since childhood and it's technically a collectable, but I could never seem to sell it online, so it got the wheels glued and will now grace my gaming table.

Knights of Dice street food stands, with some decoration from toys and other kits. I'm considering adding some soft drink bottles or similar, but they're done for now.

Personalised pizzas for the hungry heroes of my gaming table.

Donuts made from craft beads and some MRE containers for take-home mixed Dozens.