Thinking Out Loud: Super Mario Man

Is Super Mario a Superhero? This question has kept popping up for me as I play through Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario Odyssey during my slow periods between assignments. Part of this is a broader question about weather or not video game characters in general can be considered superheroes. Now, some video games feature characters that are already superheroes from other media, Spider-Man and Batman being perennial favourites, and plenty of games feature original superheroes as their protagonists, the inFamous and Prototype series being examples I've played. But what about other characters that tread the line? Megaman regularly fights for humanity against legions of killer robots, that sounds lot like Magnus, so is Megaman a superhero? What about Samus? We know she's a bounty hunter, but she's also responsible for repeatedly dismantling a large criminal organisation, that's pretty superheroic, like a more mercenary Iron Man. And the big question, what about the granddaddy of the medium, Super Mario?

In most games, Mario has powers and abilities far beyond the people and creatures around him, or at least certainly those we can consider to be native inhabitants (Toads, Luma, etc), which implies some inherent ability that they don't possess. In the old USA continuity, Mario was a human who traveled to the Mushroom Kingdom, providing a kind of "John Carter" explanation for the increased ability, which works and does, indeed, put Mario in that nebulous "hero" area adjacent to characters like Carter and Tarzan. Due to the debatable nature of what can be considered Mario "cannon", there is essentially no real consistency to Mario's abilities, excepting that most outside of the jumping require a kind of external power-up, be it a Mushroom or new kind of hat. Even just sticking to what can be broadly considered the main Mario games, and thereby avoiding any Karts, Parties and/or hotel management, probably the most heroic action Mario engages in is fighting the villain with plans of conquest, which almost works better as a "Knight/Princess/Knave" read than anything superheroic.

All-in, I do not tend to consider Mario a superhero in the same sense that I do characters like Spider-Man and She-Hulk; nor is he as much a superhero in my mind as other video game characters like Ratchet or Captain Falcon. Mario is, essentially, the ur-text of the "Mascot Platformer" genre, so trying to parse his existence within terms of other genres, will always be fraught. There is a reading of Mario as superhero to be had if you really want to find it, as games like Odyssey certainly open that possibility, with the globe-trotting and battling huge bosses, even giving Mario a fantastic vehicle and a sidekick, so if you really want a chubby plumber who jumps high on your team, there's not much to stop you. For myself, I'll be holding off on adding much Mario content beyond my "Melee of Champions" Super Mission Force games, as it doesn't quite gel as well as throwing Ratchet and Clank in with my Guardians of the Galaxy or Solid Snake with my SHIELD forces.

Superhero Media: X-Men Apoclaypse

There is a school of critical theory that stipulates that every film is someone's favourite, so eviscerating art for entertainment is, at the very least, poor form. I try not to lambaste media here for the purpose of entertainment, but am willing to talk about flaws and "bad films" when I come across them. I also used to have a client who insisted that X-Men Apocalypse was the "best" X-Men film, and was unfairly maligned by most. Now that I've finally seen it, I can grasp what this client was getting at, as there are a few good ideas and genuinely enjoyable moments, however, most are borrowed from previous tellings of the story. In short, X-Men Apocalypse is an unnecessary film, one that need not exist, as it brings nothing new or different into the artistic sphere, but exist it does, so I guess I need to write about it. The film begins in Ancient Egypt, where Enh Sabah Nur is undergoing a ritual that won't be explained until halfway through the film, when it is interrupted by rebels and he is sealed away for thousands of years. 

Awakened in the 1980s, because we're still flogging the retro nostalgia horse in this franchise, Enh Sabah Nur starts gathering his mutant "Horsemen" so that he can conquer the world. Meanwhile, Scott Summers is starting at the Xaiver School for Gifted Youngsters and meets a young Jean Grey, because everything old is new again. There's a fight, Apocalypse is poorly defined, but at least the costuming department is having fun because everyone looks pretty cool, especially Nightcrawler and Storm. Ok, I really need to talk about the time problem with these films, because it's so obvious and really annoying if you think about it for even a moment. First Class is set in 1962, Magneto is around 33 years old, the flashback section of Days of Future Past is mid-1970s, so Erik must be 40 or so, and Apocalypse, judging from the fashions, is peak-1980s, so probably '84 or '85, making the Master of Magnetism 50, at the youngest. Now, that doesn't quite track with the "Original Timeline", but I guess it's ok, but what about Quicksilver? Who is just here for one scene that is less clever than it wants to be. He has to be pushing 30 in Apocalypse, but is kind of just happy to live in his mother's basement, playing pinball. 

Again, the best term for Apocalypse is "unnecessary". This film did not need to happen, it has no story to tell that is worthwhile, the only interesting characters are ones we're already familiar with, and the new ones are poor versions of ones we've seen before. In an odd way we can blame the continuation of these films on the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but doing so doesn't address the quality of Apocalypse, only its presence; after all, SHAZAM! only exists because the MCU prints money, and it's awesome. As much as I've never really considered myself a fan of the X-Men, I honestly can't wait for them to come to the MCU, pretty much just so we can leave the bulk of this series behind and only remember the good ones. I don't often feel like I've wasted my time with anything that I review here, but Apocalypse comes close, as there is really nothing there that made my investment of time feel worthwhile. Thankfully, half of the remaining films in this series are pretty damn good and I can't wait to watch them.

Drokk the Law!! - Part XI

Mega City 1 action kicked off again, with an actual variety of gangs, believe it or not! This was kind of a last-minute game night, but I had a little time to prepare, so I decided to get some gangs together other than my Renegade Robots and Lone Vigilante, so as to at least get some different images. This does mean that most of my teams aren't finished, so the pictures aren't as nice this time out, sorry.

Using the club table once again, which is good to play on, but doesn't quite look right for the Megs, maybe it's a settlement in the Cursed Earth. As I was playing my Demonic Cabal and Andy was using his City-Def Squad, we decided on the "Getting Whacked" mission, where the attacker (Andy) has to kill my Grand Warlock to win. As the Grand Warlock is the only member of the Cabal who can summon the Demonic Entities which do the actual killing for the gang.

Naturally, I clustered my gang together so they could just do the ritual as easily as possible. Now that I've had a good look at the table (which runs 0-14), it looks a lot better to play than I first thought. To summon an entity, the player rolls a D10 and adds the Grand Warlock's Will and Level (a combined score of 4 for me), minus a little if the pact is Class II or III. To this, each Cultist within 2" can take a Special Action to contribute to the Ritual, adding +1 for each 4+ rolled on a D10, or -1 if below that. Each time I rolled for the Cultists, I ended with a 50/50 split, so it really came down to good rolls for the Grand Warlock.

Andy broke out some classic GW models to run his City-Def, a team with elite equipment but mediocre stats. I played them once myself ages ago and seem to remember being able to field more than four models, so I may have to take a look again sometime.

The first turn involved the City-Def moving up through the town and the Cabal attempting to summon their Class II Pact. A bad roll meant nothing happened in the first turn, but a natural 10 in the second turn resulted in a nasty winged demon turning up and basically immediately swinging the game in my favour.

I spread out the cultists and started popping off shots to keep the City-Def heads down, but really the Class II Pact did all the work for the rest of the game, killing one enemy model per turn and there was little Andy could do to compete. Whilst the Pact is pretty deadly, it doesn't have much in the way of armour, so theoretically, a high number of shots should bring it down through sheer weight of fire. I'm thinking that another gang might have more luck in dealing with the Pact, especially if they can counter the mobility. I'll paint up my Cabal and try and get more games in to test.

The second game saw Andrew (not Andy, different guy) use my Mobsters to take on Sam's Apes in a Scrawl War. I haven't had much luck with my Mobsters, though they should be fairly strong, as the majority of the gang are Heroes, with only a Blitzer and Punk for henchmen. To make up for lower numbers, my Leader can bring a 100 credit (or less) Mercenary to each game. This time, I borrowed one of Andy's models to have a Jimp, a Judge Impersonator. The Jimp can perform an Arrest Action, but has worse stats and gear than a true Judge, so is useful but not game-winning.

With the objective based mission, Andrew was at a distinct advantage, even with a gang that was less effective on-paper. Andrew plays a lot of competitive games, so has learnt to go for the win over the kill, something that, as we've discussed before, Sam struggles with. The Ape's mobility and range advantage is easy to offset once they stop actually moving, and the option to make two Shoot actions in a turn is often too tempting for inexperienced players, so more shots replace the (typically) better Move/Shoot option. Staying still became a liability for the Apes when the Blitzer got into combat and made short work of everything in reach. I'll have to find some more Cyberpunk Yakuza to round the gang out, because I do want to try them more now, seeing how they worked for Andrew.

Superhero Media: Nightbreed

I have a little joke I like to make about Superman films, in that I say any theoretical "Top 10" I'd do would have Ip Man, Captain Marvel and Krrish 3 on there somewhere; the joke being that the themes are somewhat universal and can be transferred to other characters and sometimes even done better that way. So remember when we all admired X-Men 2 as a, for its time, progressive metaphor for queer youth, but it turned out Bryan Singer was as serial sex pest using performative wokeness to entice young victims? Well, all that time, what we probably should have been watching was Nightbreed, from visionary horror author Clive Barker, a literal allegory for his own youthful struggles coming to terms with his sexuality told through blood, gore and body horror. Not as famous as the Hellraiser series, Nightbreed is more obviously allegorical for the queer journey, and a little more slapstick in places, but may well be one of the best X-Men films ever made. 

Aaron Boone is having bad dreams of a hellish place called Midian, which his psychiatrist tries to convince him is a coping strategy for all of the horrible murders he's committed in a fugue state. Fleeing from police and medical custody, Boone finds his way to Midian, where the monsters live, only to retreat from the horror and be killed by his own shrink, Dr Decker. Returning to life, Boone discovers that he is one of the monsters, the Nightbreed, and he must leave his own life behind for something more enticing and fantastic, but far more dangerous and deadly. Anyone who hasn't spotted that Barker himself came of age in a time where his sexuality was heavily persecuted and lived through the AIDS crisis (which was still happening when Nightbreed came out), is probably not going to want to expect good marks on the exam. While the allegory of Queer persons as "beautiful monsters" may not be to everyone's tastes, it endures and suits the aesthetics of many in the community. 

Of course, the peaceful idyll of Midian cannot endure, and the powers of the establishment, police, church and state violence, are brought against the Nightbreed, who are forced to fight back when they'd much rather be left alone. The fight is as brutal and gory as one would expect from Barker's work, but twinged with a tragedy as the beautiful monsters have to fight and die because the world fears them and their "dark desires". Seriously, it's not all that subtle, but if the bar is "Have you tried... not being a mutant?", then Nightbreed is practically masterful. Seriously, check this film out if you can find it, it was on Netflix for a while, but DVD copies aren't all that common, sadly. The book and graphic novel are pretty easy to get your hands on and, to my understanding at least, follow the same broad strokes of the core narrative and hit the same thematic notes. There is also a television series in development, that I hope gets up, as Nightbreed is probably the only "dark and gritty" franchise I'd be excited to see more of.

Miniatures Finished - 11/04/2021

Now that I'm running games at work regularly, I'm having to focus on Star Wars and 40k, so actually getting enough Supers done for one of these posts is pretty rare for the time being.

Kisa: I sold off my D&D Boardgames, so I needed a new panther to follow Jedda Walker around. Technically, this is also a D&D figure, but panthers are shockingly rare in 28mm. Wizkids.

Stardust: Big thanks to Attica Games for not only making this miniature, but for giving me a sweet deal on buying some. Get ready for plenty of games featuring Fletcher Hanks' most unique creation, Stardust the Super Wizard. Attica Games.

V: Replacing my own dodgy conversion, this version is alright, but the static pose makes it lose a little. Still, I'm not complaining for a couple of GBP. Minifigs.

Owlman: Not a character I was champing at the bit for, but this figure is really nice, especially for Heroclix, so now I need to work it into games. Maybe some kind of Crisis? Heroclix.

Venogoblin: Home-brew Marvel character for a Spider-Man Ultimate Alliance Mini-Campaign I'm working on and should have more details of soon. Essentially a version of Norman Osborn who mixed symbiote with his Goblin Formula and it went about as well as you'd expect. Converted Heroclix.

Spider-Slayer: Well, how else was I going to get J Jonah Jameson on my wargames table? One of those strangely iconic Spider-Man villains that never really shows up now that the Silver Age is over, I honestly wouldn't mind seeing one in a movie, with JK Simmons' face on the screen. Heroclix.

Superhero Media: Live Free or Die Hard

Anyone who is still doubting that John McClane is a superhero need look no further than Live Free or Die Hard, titled Die Hard 4.0 in some markets because evidently Australians aren't expected to know what the 4th of July is? Although Live Free or Die Hard isn't as good as any of the previous films, there is a lot that I quite like, including the fact that John is the same rank in the NYPD despite it having been 12 years since we last saw him. That's right, McClane's life has not gotten better, though he at least seems to have cut back on the booze, though he's clearly estranged from Holly and his daughter Lucy is doing her best to keep away from him. On the way home from stalking Lucy one night, McClane is called in to pick up a local hacker, Matt Farrell and drag him to DC on behalf of the FBI. When it's discovered that Thomas Gabriel and his crew have hacked the entire American security network, McClane is caught up in another massive event. 

Ok, so people I know tend to complain along the lines of how hacking doesn't work anything like it does in Live Free or Die Hard, but please shut the fuck up about how computers don't work the way they do in films. I have degrees in Literature, Film and Psychology, so every time there's so much as awkward writing or stilted dialogue, I notice it, and that's much worse than having to put up with the computer thing, believe me. What I find most interesting about Live Free or Die Hard is that it can be read as a conservative backlash against post-Matrix action cinema, as there are moments like McClane defeating both Maggie Q and Cyril Raffaelli with his flailing punches despite their superior Martial Arts and Parkour techniques, and McClane's lack of understanding of modern computing turns out to be a boon at times. As Bruce Willis himself is an avowed Republican, this isn't too shocking, but as discussed previously, Die Harder was critical of the Regan-era Iran-Contra scandal, so its an interesting contrast. 

Getting back to the point, I think we can all agree that McClane has some level of super powers at this point, right? Regeneration seems obvious, with the amount of damage he takes and manages to keep going, I think that's been pretty plain since Die Harder, but we have to talk about Probability Manipulation too. Like, McClane has to be some kind of luck-controller at this point, given how many bullets he dodges, that he can "kill a helicopter with a police car" and defeat the villain by shooting himself. There are films in which even Wolverine doesn't get away with all that shit, let alone a supposedly human police officer who can't keep his family together. Before I run out of space, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is brilliant as Lucy, especially when she starts taunting Gabriel about how her dad will kill them all, if they do make the mistake of doing more Die Hard films, maybe make her the protagonist? Hell, at least get her to do a "his name is Death" monologue like in True Grit or Waterworld. Embrace the impossibility of John McClane and just do a superhero film already.

Miniatures Finished: Space Knights

Thanks to the Superhero Tabletop Gaming Facebook group, I discovered that Heroclix versions of the Space Knights (other than Rom) exist. I've had a Rom for a few years now, so getting the rest of the team together was pretty much a must.

The full team, mostly painted with GW Contrast Paints.

Terminator, Rom and generic Spaceknight

Firefall, Javelin and Starshine

These were pretty fun to put together and now I really want to get a game of some kind in with them, maybe some Zone Raiders or Judge Dredd. Stargrave will come around in my gaming group again at some point, so I'm sure I'll get roped into a game or two. 

Superhero Media: Dragon Ball Z - Fusion Reborn

Fusion Reborn is probably my favourite Dragon Ball Z film to watch, often finding its way into the DVD player when I'm bored and want a quick fix of Super Sayian action. A distracted employee of Otherworld allows the evil being washed from dead souls to be spilled, releasing Janemba, a playful and powerful monster, into the universe to wreak havoc. Only Goku and Pikkon, the most powerful warriors of the dead, have any chance of stopping Janemba, but it gets more complicated as the gates of Hell have swung wide and the dead have returned to menace the living. Fusion Reborn is fun in a way that a lot of DBZ films just aren't, with more jokes and slapstick than most, but still having plenty of good action and one of the most visually interesting fights in the franchise's history. Also, Goten and Trunks fight Zombie Nazis, what more could you want in your entertainment? How about Gohan killing Frezia in one hit? It's a great moment that shows just how far the character has come.

Ok, a question for the "hardcore" DBZ fans that read this blog, I know there's a couple of you, I've had to delete some of your comments; is Gogeta really a completely different character from Vegito? I'm asking because I've had a few people insist that they're radically different and I really don't see any separation other than nomenclature and appearance. Not that I dislike either character, I have a Vegito deck for Retro Score DBZ CCG, I just think it's weird that this is an issue for some people. As mentioned above, the fight with Janemba, once he transforms into his red and purple form, is brilliant to watch, especially once you consider that all of Janemba's teleporting moves are hand-drawn and there isn't an instant of CGI to be seen. Seeing Goku overwhelmed is nice, as it doesn't happen all that often, but I do find it pretty disappointing that Gogeta is so powerful that Janemeba just dissolves after one hit; it's a let-down and something of an anticlimax after such a great fight and fun film. Did I mention there's a scene where Gotenks battles Hitler? 

I think, before Dragon Ball Super, a lot of fans tended to brush aside the whole afterlife and gods thing, so I'm always happy to see the gonzo, Jade Empire by the way of Looney Tunes version that Toriyama crafted. Even if it's covered by giant, evil jellybeans for most of the film. As much I actually enjoy character development and the the background of DBZ, sometimes even I just want a big fight to watch, and Fusion Reborn delivers in spades, all in a tidy package less than a hour long. The film doesn't quite fit in with the broader canon of the series, but the tone is bang on and with a title that includes the word "Reborn", it almost plays like a solid Greatest Hits album. Anime, especially the "Weekly Shonen" style of which DBZ is a part, is rarely visually brilliant, engaging yes, but often technically cheap and stilted; Fusion Reborn however, manages to be really exciting and technically excellent, which is something that not much of the series manages. If you're wavering on trying out some DBZ, this can be found on several streaming services and both the dub and sub versions are decent.

Miniatures Finished: Badman

Been painting a lot of Warhammer 40,000 figures on commission lately, which means lots of batch painting and uniforms, so superheroes have been a nice break, introducing some more colour and individuality to my process. As I don't have an event or anything to prepare for, I'm trying to group figures together on a theme where I can. This time, powerful villains.

Bizzaro: At some point I decided I needed more Superman villains for some reason I can no longer remember, but Bizzaro was on theme, so here we go. Nice simple scheme, a litter darker wash than I gave Superman for added contrast. Heroclix

Bane: I wasn't happy with how small my previous version of Bane was, but it took a while to find a version just the right size and not bigger than some of my Hulks. I really want a Bane in fatigues and gear from No Man's Land at some stage, but I may have to make it myself. Heroclix 

Titanium Man: I think I got this classic Iron Man antagonist in a grab lot of 'clix from somewhere, but I had a shortage of painted villains at that time, so he got based up despite basically just being a less iconic Crimson Dynamo. I need to do a Russian game at some stage, just for fun. Heroclix 

The Blood Brothers: Despite coming across these characters in Annihilation, the figures are closer to their Silver/Bronze Age look, so I went with a bright paint scheme. I'm not sure how the Brothers' powers (which fluctuate based on their proximity) will work in SSUA, but it should be fun to figure out. Heroclix 

Frieza: The quest for more Dragon Ball Z minis continues, this one being a vending machine toy that painted up pretty nicely, all things considered. Despite having many forms to choose from, I'll settle for this Frieza and a "Final Form" version when I can find one. Toy

General Traag: A classic TMNT baddie from a random booster, sadly the Rock Soldiers in the range are in the same pose, so this may be it for the time being. I quite like that he looks a little like a green plastic army man, sells the concept of military dictatorship well. Heroclix