Cars I would like (On the table)

One of the elements of my superhero table I think that really works is my collection of die cast cars and other vehicles. They're pretty cheap, add some colour and can be thrown around in games for a fun time. However, pretty much my entire collection is just things I happened to find when out and about, I've even had to get rid of a few here and there, because my eye was off in the shop and they were just too small on the table. Now that 3D printing is a far more viable option, I have been tempted to expand my motor pool, as it were, though I know they just won't look right next to all my die cast, so I'm leaving it for the moment.

Honestly, I really don't need more vehicles, barring a few things that would be nice, like a bus and a couple of matching Police cars, but that doesn't mean I don't grab something suitable when I see it, especially if it's not black or silver, the most common colours in my collection. That doesn't mean, of course, that there aren't things I would like to find; certain vehicles that tickle my fancy or I just kind of vibe with that I'd love to have sitting on the table as a nice little "Easter Egg" of my own personal tastes and preferences. So here's a list of a few cars that I like for various reasons, though I'm not a car guy, so expect some odd choices.


Honda City AA

I honestly cannot explain my love for the Honda City, but there's just something endlessly charming about it. Maybe it's the fold-up motorcycle, maybe it's the cute rear-view mirrors that make it look like a bug, but the whole effect is just delightful. Despite being a budget option for the young professional when released, the AA is now something of a collector's piece, especially if the motorcycle is still intact and functional, so I'll never own a real one. At the very least, having one on the gaming table would be an interesting talking piece for my big display games, whenever I get back to doing them.


Police WRX

Look, fuck the police, defund them into irrelevance and replace them with something actually humane and effective, but until that happens, they're a part of superhero games. In the early 2000s, Victoria Police trialed the Subaru Impreza WRX as a pursuit car, which I remember being a different colour from above, but this is the image I could find. As I was into the World Rally Championship at the time, I thought that was pretty cool. Really I would just like 3-6 cop cars of the same design for my games and this is a car I really liked at one stage, so it would be a good compromise.

Concept Cars

Is it just me, or would a line of die cast "Concept Cars" be just awesome for tabletop wargames? I'm more thinking of Cyberpunk games here, but for supers as well they'd be perfect for Wakanda, alien planets and space stations. They're sleek, but often goofy, reconisable but a little uncanny, and really seem like they'd sit well on the table just long enough to become another weapon to be thrown and wielded.

A Decent Bus

Why is it so hard to find a good bus in 28mm scale? Seriously, I've been looking for over a decade and the best I found was a tour bus that wasn't anything like a public transport vehicle. Pictured here is the current (at the time) Melbourne bus, but anything suitably mundane and workaday would be fine, if I could ever find one. What's more baffling is that I can think of at least four companies making lasercut bus stops and shelters, so where is the damn vehicle to sit there? Bleh.

Superhero Media: The Punisher (1989)

Despite continuing adaptations of Frank Castle to the screen, there remains something of a cult following for this 1989 entry starring Dolph Lundgren and featuring very few elements of the character, lacking even so much as the iconic skull shirt. I would say that the appeal for devotees would be down to The Punisher being something of one of the last of the "classic" style of 1980s action films, complete with lack of character depth, a European superhuman of dubious acting ability and some unfortunate Japanaphobia and queer-coding. That's not to say that The Punisher is bad, but it's not exactly "good" either, being more in the "fun trash" mould of Demolition Man than an instant classic like Predator. Frank Castle is a former police officer, thought dead by most people, living in the sewers and methodically murdering his way through the local mobsters responsible for his family's deaths. Frank's former partner, Jake is trying to prove he's still alive and behind the actions of the vigilante the media has dubbed "The Punisher". 

Because just watching Frank murder wave after wave of mobsters with increasingly elaborate firearms is too obvious, the plot follows an attempted Yakuza takeover of the New York (I think? The actual location is pretty nebulous and unclear) and the last of the great Italian families trying to keep them at bay. Although this is a great concept to throw the Punisher into, the unfortunate '80's tropes of "everyone from Japan is a ninja" and Japanese corporate takeovers and doesn't really have anything to say about the Eastern Economic Juggernaut of the 1980s. Also the Yakuza lead is a woman and heavily queer-coded, which is pretty unique, but there's nothing much there aside from the neat idea. Again, all of this is good fodder for a Punisher story, but here is really nothing more than a reason to keep the plot churning over. The one notable addition to the story is "Shake", a failed Shakespearean actor turned homeless alcoholic who has befriended Frank and helps out on occasion for comic relief. 

The Punisher delivers nicely on the blood and violence, with a Hot Shots! Part Deux style bullet-count and massive guns to suit Dolph's frame. This really is just a trashy '80s action film with a version of Frank Castle shoehorned in, not that that really matters or is at all a detriment, it's just how it all shakes out. Although it's not really my kind of thing, The Punisher is good enough, or at least engaging enough, to deserve its cult status, despite some uncomfortable dating in parts. This really isn't a good adaptation of The Punisher though, as Frank Castle is barely a character in it, more of an idea to hang a generic film on and a motivation for the protagonist. As we move through the film adaptations of the character, it's interesting to see just how often the comics are only passably referenced, as if Frank is merely another version of Arthur Bishop or Max Rockatanski to build a bloody revenge narrative around, rather than a distinct character within his own world with a role to play in the bigger picture. 

Fantasy Football - Epic Level

Regular readers will be well aware of how dull I find the concept of "the most powerful" superhero that the internet is somehow still fixated on. Mathing out how strong a character "really" is has no appeal to me, as I tend to enjoy narratives for being, you know, narrative, and not an exercise in statistics. That said, when people pull out the whole "well this character is strongest because X" nonsense, I do like to have something in my back pocket to shut the argument down and move on. Golden Age Superman, Stardust the Super Wizard and Doctor Manhattan are kind of your 'ad absurdam' responses there, by the way.

That said, I have thought about this at least a little, and come up with a list myself for this 'discussion' when it raises its ugly head. Naturally, I dug pretty deep and came up with some strange and niche characters because, well, that's kind of my thing, isn't it? So strap yourself in for a list of crazy characters that break narrative fiction with their outlandish powers and put any of your Gokus or Supermans Primes to shame.


Sun Wu Kong

Look, why bother with any Shonen anime protagonist, when you can just have the character they're all riffing on? Sure Goku or JoJo can teleport or run really fast, but can they jump the entire length of the universe from a standing start? Undefeated in battle, outsmarted only by the Buddha himself and so strong he can lift heaven, Sun Wu Kong, the Handsome Monkey King, puts almost every modern superhero to shame.

Fantomah

C'mon, you knew Fletcher Hanks was going to show up on this list somewhere and Stardust is really more of a villain by my standards, so that left Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle. Fantomah's powers are difficult to truly quantify as she, like many Golden Age Ubermench, can basically do anything at any time with no real justification needed. Able to fly, turn invisible, become intangible and transmute basically anything, Fantomah uses her godlike powers to inflict ironic punishments upon those who violate 'jungle law'. No returning antagonists for this superwoman, the first super-powered female in comics history, they're all dead.

Golden Bat

Forget Superman, let's talk about the world's first superhero! Now, we could argue all day about characters like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hercules or Gilgamesh perhaps being the first 'superheroes', but for my money, it all comes together with Golden Bat (or Ogon Bat in Japan), who predates Superman, The Spirit and The Phantom, first appearing in a kind of traditional Japanese street theatre, but since appearing in manga, film, anime and even video games. Golden Bat is more magic than super, with his cane and secret island lair that looks like his face, but that doesn't mean he can't fly to the moon in moments or lift up entire islands at a whim. So yeah, basically Golden Age Superman with a skull face and looking like a knock-off academy award. Awesome.

Indigo

The superhero from Robert Mayer's classic pastiche novel Super Folks, imagine an aging superman who's powers have slowly been draining away until he realises that the entire city of New York is laced with his one weakness, Cronkite. Once freed from this influence, Indigo is once again capable of astounding feats, literally punching the antagonist of the story out of the universe. Indigo is very Bronze Age comics in his presentation, but has retained all the absurd powers that symbolise the Golden Age, think post-Death of the Staceys Spider-Man in terms of neuroses with the powers of Doctor Manhattan. If you're a comics fan and you haven't read Super Folks, you really should check it out.

Tesseract

You want deep cuts? I got deep cuts. Tesseract is the greatest warrior of Halcyon, also known as The Everywhere Man and the Totality Warrior. The unique power granted to Tesseract by his magic tree mommy is that every version of him across the multiverse is connected and fight in unison. Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four was a trip. Seriously, when this guy punches you, it's actually an infinite number of him punching you, that's crazy. This guy is so obscure that it's genuinely hard to find much information on him, especially as the Cosmic Cube stole his name for the MCU, but if you have a chance to read some Ultimate Fantastic Four, try it out, it's not really good, per se, but it is very interesting.

Superhero Media: Justice League Dark - Apokolips War

I almost enjoyed Apokolips War, the finale to the "New 52" run of DC animated features, because there are a lot of great moments and cool ideas, but the constant violence and unnecessary brutality just kills it for me. Yes, there is room in the broader cultural context for more violent superhero fare, but why, when there is no other animated version of Superman, Batman or the Justice League out there for children to enjoy, make a film where Superboy gets ripped limb from limb? It's pandering and disgusting. I really never needed to see the Teen Titans eaten alive by monsters and I'm more than a little concerned that some people enjoy that kind of thing. Big slabs of Apokolips War seem to have been thought up by a twelve year old, from the blood and gore, to "grim and gritty" versions of heroes, and right up to the "Paradooms", Parademons, but also Doomsday. Gag me. But through all the raw sewerage of the film, Apokolips War still delivers some great moments.

Having John Constantine be the point-of-view character is genius, because he is pretty human under all the magic powers and cockney bluster, though the resolution for his character arc is pretty poor, basically boiling down to "a wizard did it". Damien feeling guilty and trying to put Dick in the Lazarus Pit, King Shark valuing his friendship with Captain Boomerang and Swamp Thing cutting loose with everything are all great moments, though mostly in isolation, with the story always dragging back to the bleak world left behind after the defeat of the Justice League. Even the, rather clever finale, involving Raven and Constantine unleashing Trigon to fight Darkseid, is kind of telegraphed early on and doesn't make the intended impact by virtue of being too bleeding obvious. Hell, the entire enterprise is essentially pointless as, in the end, Wally opts to Flashpoint again and reboot the universe. DC did a reboot, take a shot.

I'm still far too young to be as tired as I am over superhero films, and the, somehow, continuing trend of making them as nasty and violent as possible. Look, I enjoyed Brightburn, Jessica Jones and every The Punisher film (to a certain extent), there is room in the genre for the harsher takes, but with the Justice League and Teen Titans? Really? Apokolips War doesn't even have the excuse of being an Elseworlds title, it was the main continuity, and it ended in torture, death and cannibalism; stay classy DC. Meanwhile, the competition his Marvel Rising and Ms Marvel for the younger crowds and Werewolf By Night and Wandavision for the grown-ups. I try to not come across as a Marvel fanboy on this blog, but damn if DC don't make it hard to like them sometimes. I hope the next go round for the DCAU is better, both in terms of quality and how they choose to treat their characters.

Superhero Media: Fantasic Four - The Animated Series (1994)

I have fond memories of watching "The Marvel Action Hour" hosted by Stan Lee himself, featuring Iron Man and Fantastic Four. Some years back, I picked up the Iron Man DVDs pretty cheap, from a supermarket of all places, and found it to be not as bad as I remembered. Fantastic Four however, is pretty much almost entirely hot garbage from the second the campy theme song finishes. Yes, I like the campy theme song and they should bring it back for the next film, like with the "Spider-Man Theme" in the Rami films. What makes Fantastic Four so bad? Mostly a lack of money, really; the animation is cheap and repetitive, the scripts are paper-thin and a lot of the acting is odd a lot of the time. There is a conflict in tone between classic Silver Age Fantastic Four comics and trying to be hip and '90s; the Four having a black-tie variety benefit at which Johnny performs a terrible rap, just for example. 

In terms of the classic comic stories though, Fantastic Four is pretty comprehensive, even managing to revisit Doom stealing the power of the Silver Surfer after the first version isn't really all that good. Most of what you'd expect is here, in the forms of Galactus, Skrulls, Mole Man, Inhumans and Kree, plus there is a hefty dose of other Marvel characters, including Hulk being voiced by Ron Perlman. Most of the "guest stars" are from the other 1990s Marvel animated series, but there is the occasional fun surprise, like Ghost Rider, who takes on Galactus with his "Penitent Stare". Of course, we get a good Hulk Vs Thing fight, with plenty of smashing and clobbering and, importantly, no decisive winner, because you want to keep the fans wanting more. 

Probably the thing Fantastic Four does best is show the titular Four in a contemporary setting, which is often considered a difficult task at the very least. Personally, as someone who's actually read a fair few FF comics, I think they work fine in any era, so long as you can maintain the idea of Reed Richards being on the bleeding edge of science and technology. Even this series tries to mess with the formula and fails, with Doom being German for the first few episodes before it shifts to Latveria and moves on. Thing is, the Fantastic Four work as they are and really don't need too much changing. Averaged out, FF was the highest selling monthly comic for the entire Bronze, Dark and Platinum ages, so these are stories we want to see, even if they're not always done well. 

Thinking Out Loud: Conspiring to Have Fun

As a teen, I was a big fan of Conspiracy Theories. I was never a believer, but I enjoyed the absurdity and mental gymnastics of the process of convincing oneself that the moon landings were faked or that aliens ran the US government. Sometime in the past decade though, Conspiracy Theories have shifted to be a recruiting tool for the Alt-Right. This really put me off the whole thing and I kind of left it alone for a while, but then two things happened. The first was that I completed my masters thesis "A systematic review of extant Psychotherapeutic interventions for combating Far-Right youth radicalisation through social media and comparable digital platforms", and the second was the Netflix series Inside Job. After both of those settled in my head, I was like "you know what? Fuck the fascists, I want to start enjoying conspiracies again as dumb fun"; so I did. If you can access the free streaming service, Tubi, there are thousands of hours worth of 'documentaries' from which you can draw inspiration or just laugh at while you paint.

Superhero comics have flirted with Conspiracies for years, with characters like Sasquatch and Wendigo being straight out of cryptozoology and plenty of hidden alien research and secret government departments galore. Pretty much no established setting doesn't have some kind of secret society, be it The Court of Owls or Secret Empire, and whilst these aren't always the best handled, they have become major aspects of the genre. Anyway, I'm kind of just hedging around things to fill out word length, what I really want to talk about is the Secret Space Program. If you haven't come across the SSP, then you are in for one hell of a ride, as it combines elements of Roswell, Stargate, Starship Troopers, Warhammer 40,000 and even deals a lot with Tom Delonge of Blink 182. There's moon Nazis, cloned super soldiers, hyperspace travel and alien sex orgies, like some glorious bricolage of entertaining nonsense and the best roleplaying game the 1990s never spawned. Of course, this turns out to just be a lead-in for Q-Anon and similar diet-Nazi shit best avoided, but while you stay in the SSP space, there is a lot of fun to be had.

The obvious question is, of course, can I game the Secret Space Program somehow? Superhuman soldiers cloned from great heroes of history fighting Nazis on the moon is so bang-on my Venn diagram of interests that I can't not at least try, right? Chopping the Alt-Right shit out is actually pretty easy, once you know what to look for, and even reversing that is more than possible, just add in plenty of women, queer people and people of colour as you go. Instead of a SSP soldier being the "clone" of Beowulf or King Arthur, try Fred Hampton or Harriet Tubman, for example. A bunch of black soldiers in power armour raiding a Nazi space station would be a hell of a thing and I'm already just brimming with other ideas that actively resist the conspiracy mindset. One of the best ways we can combat this recruitment tool for the Alt-Right is to drag it into the open and look at it for the nonsense it is. So get out there and put some of this shit in your games. Alien stargates to lost human colonies and flying u-boats? How can you not want to play around with that?

Superhero Media: GANTZ (2010)

I've actually been watching a few "Live Action" Anime adaptations lately, and found myself enjoying them quite a bit, despite the conventional wisdom that they tend to be poor. I think it's down to my not really liking a lot of the general Anime tropes and genre conventions, many of which the films tend to jettison for time. In Tokoyo Ghoul, for example, a lot of the angst is compacted for the sake of the narrative, and it is more about the Ghoul community and existence than the big fights of the Anime, so I enjoyed it a lot more. Years back, I watched GANTZ: O on a whim and could not get into it, because I had no real idea what was going on and it was clearly made for people who were already fans. By contrast, GANTZ is exactly what I wanted, a good introduction to the core concepts of the series, with decent pacing and a lot of the chaff cut away. 

After dying helping save a man's life, estranged childhood friends Kato and Koruno awaken in an unfurnished apartment with several strangers and a Black Sphere containing an unconscious man. For those not yet familiar with the GANTZ franchise, people are taken at the moment of death and given a chance to free themselves by battling aliens (most often in the guise of Japanese folklore monsters), with many only dying again in brutal ways. As players kill aliens, they earn points which can be used to free themselves, resurrect dead players or upgrade weaponry. Basically, GANTZ (also the name of the sphere) is a really cool concept for a story (or roleplaying game or video game), but occasionally gets bogged down in its own lore and mythology. Really, the franchise reminds me a little of Hunter: The Reckoning, a roleplaying favourite of mine, in that the characters "chosen" are pretty diverse and tend to have little in common to begin with. 

GANTZ is a little more "heroic" than other entries in the series I've seen, with Kato even having a costume and training montage at one stage, though the brutality of the fights does strip this feeling away pretty quick. That said, the suits are cool, the weapons pretty unique and the monsters are memorable, if a little underdeveloped, so if you're intrigued, this film is worth checking out. I'm a little tempted to pull GANTZ into my broader Ultimate Alliance narrative, as a kind of failed technology running rogue, but the Japanese Government not trying too hard to shut it down, because it keeps the aliens under wraps. I may check out the Anime, if I can stream it or get it on sale, but I'm not sure how keen I really am on doing that anytime soon.