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?

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.

Thinking Out Loud: The Hero of Time

Hey there! This is another one of those entries that's not even tangentially about superheroes, just something that's been on my mind that I had to get down somewhere. So sorry, come back next time for something involving capes and tights.

I'm of the age that I owned a Nintendo 64 at the time it was the current generation of console, and would occasionally get games as gifts or whathaveyou. Like many of that age, I fell in love with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, finishing it many times over; it was actually my first Zelda game, and even to this day the series doesn't feel "right" to me in the classic 2D-style. Sadly, I couldn't afford to do more than borrow a copy of Majora's Mask back in the day, but I made up for it with the 3DS version as an adult. Even now, if I'm sick, or even on holiday, running through Ocarina and Majora is a good way to spend my time.

Oddly, these games have actually gotten better as I've gotten older. I mean, I don't think there was stuff there that only came to light later, more that, having done degrees in English Literature and Film Studies, my critical faculties have greatly increased and I can see more in the narratives than I could when I was a literal child. Themes like loss of childhood, inevitability and the need to find closure permeate Ocarina of Time, which is part of the reason it still resonates with players decades on.

Majora's Mask is about trauma and grief, right? I don't know if it was a deliberate choice by the makers of the game (given general Japanese cultural attitudes towards Mental Health, I doubt it), but every element of the game is steeped in loss and the pain it brings. The antagonist has been so hurt by the world that he lashes out in an apocalyptic manner as soon as he has the power to do so, the cartoon fantasy equivalent of a school shooter. The game even starts with the bullying victim bullying the next person down the chain (Link, yes that was a pun) because it's the only power dynamic Skull Kid can relate to. Ah, but I hear you say, aren't the majority of school shooters racially motivated? Well, what does Skull Kid do to Link after stealing his horse for a joy ride? He forces a new, "lesser" racial identity on Link, which causes the people of Clock Town to vilify him, refuse him service in shops and basically treat him as a second-class citizen. With the Business Scrubs and the fact that only the local Banker is keen to talk to Deku Link, there's probably an allegorical reading of the European Jewish experience to be had, but we'll leave it at that.

And what of Link? Well, he starts the game running. From what? Here the "nebulous" nature of Zelda cannon can be easy to trip up on, but I tend to see Majora's Mask as the direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. At the end of Ocarina, Link is forced to return to childhood, despite having spent a not-insignificant amount of time as an adult, putting his life on the line to defeat a mad wizard whose evil has literally twisted his childhood home into a place of nightmares. Of course, the world where Ganon has been defeated has no need for Link, and Zelda seems to be working from a framework of compassion in sending him back, but Link has been forever changed and cannot go back to his life of the most bullied Kokuri. How do the Ocarina credits end? With Link running into Zelda's courtyard as a child once more. Whilst there is a perfectly fair romantic reading of Link and Zelda's relationship, I tend to feel that the connection they share through the Triforce is probably deeper than that, given that the three are continually reincarnated to act out the same struggle throughout history. Naturally, the child Zelda is unable to relate to the Link who has been an adult, seen the future and felt the blood of evil men on his hands, so he has lost even that connection and flees Hyrule entirely, searching, perhaps unconsciously, for someone who can relate to his experience.

Meanwhile, back in Termina, Link is stuck in a "Groundhog Day" three-day loop where he can watch those around him go from disbelief to panic to horrific fiery death knowing that he will survive and have to do it all again. And how does Link combat the end of the world? By putting on masks that literally change him into someone equipped to fix the problem, a process that is clearly painful and traumatic, but which Link puts himself through repeatedly to save others. There's probably a D-I-D reading there, but that's way above my Psychotherapist pay grade. Depending on how familiar with Majora's Mask you are, it may take quite a few runs through the last three days of the world for you, though Link, to save it, so just how many times does this poor child who has seen and lived through way too much already see the world end because he failed? Once all the titans are awakened, Link can prevent the moon from hitting Termina and save the world, pretty standard fantasy stuff, really. However, is this allegorical? Is Link really accessing an inner strength, or perhaps building his Maslow's Pyramid? Link leaves Termina at the end of the game, his belongings restored, but how is he psychologically? Is he stronger for what he has gone through, or has this adventure broken him even more?

And where could this lead next? That's a question that has been floating around my brain for years, off and on. Yes, I know about the "Split Timeline" and all that, and I've played other Zelda games, but I want to know what happens to this Link, the one who defeated Ganon and then Majora before wandering off into the dark areas of the map. Well, sorry to say, all this was a lead-in to another one of these speculating on a possible final installment of a trilogy. So keep an eye out for that, sooner rather than later.

Thinking Out Loud: Serial Killer "Heroes"

After the success of serial killers as villains in 1980s and '90s comics, where was there left to go? Naturally, make some of them into heroes. Now, I'm not talking about The Punisher here, Frank is pretty much never represented as a sociopath or psychopath and his approach is pragmatic, not psychosexual in any way. What about Venom? Certainly some publications featuring the character as a protagonist lean in heavy on the murder and mayhem, but I want to go even deeper. I was actually watching the second season of Hannibal, when a man in a pneumatically-powered, cave bear-themed murder suit was jumping through a window, and my first thought was, "Wait, shouldn't this guy be fighting Spider-Man instead?" After doing some quick thinking about how to make an appropriate miniature, I went to considering the titular Hannibal's plan to create a "team" of serial killers and how that may work in comics. After a minute or two, I dismissed the idea as being pretty terrible and generally the kind of thing an adolescent would think up. 

Thankfully, I'm not one of those Psych graduates who has an intense interest in psychopaths, sociopaths and serial killers (despite The Silence of the Lambs being my favourite film), so I'm not likely to look at a murderous antihero like Kaine or Red Hood (Jason Todd) and be instantly enthralled. However, if I was the only kind of comics fan, basically the entire industry would be Invincible, Marvel NOW! Hawkeye and Atomic Robo, so maybe that's a good thing? Anyway, thanks to the "success" of the Venom film, as well as people misinterpreting why the Deadpool[s] and Logan were so good, a resurgence of the "Killer" superhero is happening in comics, television and film, leaving me sighing quite a bit as supposedly grown men get excited about Carnage being on the big screen. Hell, don't get me started on Joker, I'm actually glad that the COVID-19 pandemic canceled PAX Melbourne 2020 just so I didn't have to see 200 guys dressed like sad clowns while they complained about Captain Marvel not having a masculine narrative structure. Ok, this one's getting a bit off-topic, sorry. 

The serial killer is a fascinating bogeyman for audiences because they look so much like us but are so different in many ways. Pretty much everyone has indulged in a brief fantasy of murdering an overbearing manager, frustrating customer or significant other of our object of desire, but killing as a sexual release is utterly alien to us. Hannibal Lecter, Zodiac and Joker are fascinating and engaging villains because they are unknowable in terms of motivation (Joker less so as writers keep going back to the well of diminishing returns that is his origin). Heroes, on the other hand, even antiheroes, have pretty clear motivations, be they guilt (Spider-Man), duty (Captain America), altruism (Superman) or even revenge (Batman); but turning that to "getting my rocks off with violence" only worked in Watchmen. And Watchmen, just to reiterate for those still in denial about this, is not intended to glorify its characters. As interesting as they are to think about, Hooded Justice, The Comedian and Rorschach aren't heroes for the ages, and don't really need their own series or films to "fill out", as there's not that much there to begin with.

Thinking Out Loud: Cap/Buck

There is quite an internet following for the "shipping" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Captain America and Bucky as being in a homosexual relationship. Though "shipping" is not a part of fandom I've been particularly interested in, I must admit I've indulged here and there, and certainly see no harm in it, if that's your bag. Captain America is no stranger to the Gay Community, having been something of a Gay Icon for decades now, with many a Cap to be spotted at Pride celebrations and Mardi Gras. Again, I personally find that great and see no issue with people viewing the character that way, especially as most of Cap's romantic relationships from the comics have been forced and uninteresting. In fact, next to the MCU Steve and Peggy arc, the enduring friendship between Cap and Bucky is probably the best presented relationship for either of those characters. So, if I like the relationship, don't care about shipping and am already pro-queer, why bother writing this article? Well, I do have one niggling issue... 

So, ever wonder why men in pre-World War 2 films are a bit more "touchy-feely" than tends to be considered "ok" for straight guys these days? Well, you can thank the USA for that. To, grossly oversimplify, a huge cultural shift in the wake of WWII, whilst Britain and France became more socially minded (read: Left-Wing) in an atmosphere of having less and rebuilding, the Americans profited greatly from the war and drifted towards the "right". Weird how wealth makes you care less about other people, huh? Anyway, in parts of "the West" homosexuality (specifically male/male relationships) was partially tolerated, so long is it wasn't public and the cops didn't feel like beating your head in that day. Think British Public Schools or "love in foxholes" if you can't imagine it. Because there was no "Gay Panic", men touching each other was pretty normal and ok, with close friends and brothers even kissing and hugging when greeting one another. Please though, don't take my word for it, there are plenty of great articles about the loss of platonic male touch after WWII online, I first came across it in The New Yorker, because that's the kind of pretentious, elitist academic I like to think of myself as. 

So, when people look at Cap and Bucky and read their close friendship and platonic touch as homosexual, or at least homoerotic, in nature, sure, that's not harmful, but it bugs me a little that we miss something. Even in the 2020s, the fact that I hug more than a few of my male friends as a greeting, will even give a kiss on the cheek on occasion and/or advocate for platonic male touch in my mental health work, raises questions; about my sexuality, about why I choose to work with young people and what my motivations are. When I see Cap and Bucky gaze lovingly at each other, hug or even tear up when parting, I see the last vestiges of a dead era asserting itself. I see a great example of non-toxic masculinity demonstrating that touch is not forbidden and need no be sexual. I see a future where telling a close male friend that I love him without having to qualify it or risk social standing. That's why I'm not personally keen on the Cap/Bucky ship, even if it isn't at all harmful, because it obfuscates something I really care about, that I advocate personally and professionally. Please, enjoy shipping if that's your bag, but maybe also tell your best friend you love him, ok?

Excelsior!

So Stan "the Man" Lee died yesterday and it hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. I'm not typically the kind to get really upset of a celebrity death, though Prince and MCA both threw me at the time, and Lee was 95, so on an intellectual level, I knew he wouldn't be around much longer; but I still found myself close to tears for much of yesterday. It's been a bad year for me, emotionally, I lost my job  around April and didn't bother to watch out for myself afterwards. By September, I was self-harming and even had a close call with suicide. Things are better now, I start a new Student Counselling role in a couple of weeks and have been volunteering to give myself something meaningful to do. Then Stan Lee died and I kind of felt empty for the better part of a day. 

As a mental health worker, I know that everything comes back to grief and/or trauma sooner or later, but knowing that I'm experiencing grief and doing something about it are two different things. Despite my background in English Literature, I can think of few authors who have had as much influence over my life as Stan Lee and his many collaborators. Spider-Man comics where the first things I ever read, and I grew up in the boom period of Marvel Cartoons in the early 1990s. Throughout my entire life, I have read comics, and mostly Marvel Comics, and they have shaped the way I think and act. When I was a child, I wanted to be a superhero, as an adult, I advocate for social justice and try to save lives through my mental health work in suicide prevention. 

If it hadn't been for Stan Lee and the Marvel crew of the 1960s, I don't think superheroes and comics would be around in the form they are now, and certainly wouldn't have been as prevalent in my childhood. Despite taking credit for almost everything Marvel touched in the Silver and Bronze age, Stan was one of a team, but I think it gets forgotten that his being the face of the company in those halcyon days was a decision made by the management so that only Stan had to do the PR stuff that Kirby et al didn't want to do. Over time, Stan became not only the face of Marvel Comics, but the face of the genre. Batman and Superman may be the most recognisable superheroes of all time, but Stan Lee is the best known comic creator by a wide margin. 

Lee spent essentially his entire life in the comics industry, his creative efforts touching from the 1950s through to today. That's a hell of a legacy. Think of how many kids, too young to read, that run around in Spider-Man costumes, or how big the Marvel films are at the moment. It's not hyperbole to assert that without the Lee and Kirby-led boom of the Silver Age, none of this would exist. No MCU, no modern comics, no superhero film industry thanks to the success of Spider-Man, Blade and X-Men. No Lead Capes and my endless superhero miniatures project. 

Thank you, Stan Lee, I will miss you but cherish your continued presence in my life. 

 

Melee of Champions - Part I

This project was going to be a bit more "background" than most, but given the huge amount of interest I got on the Super Miniatures Gaming Facebook Group, I thought I'd get going on it now. I've had the idea for a while to run supers games at various community festivals and events which my club attends, but I wanted to make the games more engaging and accessible for people unfamiliar with miniature wargames. Though I'm not much of a video gamer, I knew about the Disney Infinity figurines and Nintendo Amiibos and thought there was some potential there, but SuperSystem just seemed a little too complex for what I wanted to do.

Thankfully, Scott P came up with Super Mission Force [SMF], a lighter, and faster-playing version of SuperSystem which would be easier for new players and young people to pick up. Thanks to my chronic under-employment, it took me a lot longer than I would have liked to get this project going, but I finally managed to get my hands on SMF and play a few games to get a feel for it. As I've said before, I'm not so much of a fan of it as a game for me, but the rules work fine and only require a couple of tweaks for the kind of game I want to get people playing at a convention or festival. Specifically, the changes I make are that all attacks do Knockback and there is no Dice Pool Cap for bonus dice, there are a couple of reasons for these changes. With the Knockback, I'm running the game on a smaller area and use "ring-outs" as a second win condition, so characters flying all around the place makes this happen a bit more often. For the Dice Pool Cap, I found with my Ultimate Alliance games, which are aimed at a convention crowd, more dice meant more fun, especially when a player got lucky and could make a huge attack.

So lets talk theme for a minute. With my SuperSystem games, I built my own "Platinum Age" setting, complete with history, teams, aliens and even alternate universes; this gives me a chance to tell my own stories and flex my creativity. For Ultimate Alliance, I wanted a game where I could combine all of the various characters I had from different publishers and continuities and do all the crazy stuff that copyright laws and corporate interests would never allow. When I came to SMF and had bought some Disney Infinity and Amiibos (ok, so I did already have some, I do own a Wii-U, 2DS and Switch), I decided to approach it from another angle. Given I was was aiming at a younger audience, my mind drifted to a favourite of mine, Super Smash Bros. 

It's a tad obvious when you think about it, take a crossover game franchise filled with popular characters and reproduce it in miniature form. Of course, being me, there's more to it than that, there's a healthy dose of Contest of Champions in there as well, which is how I'm thinking of framing it for players; "Choose your champions and battle to decide who is the greater power", kind of deal. Incidentally, if you haven't read the new Contest of Champions, pick up the two trades, they're really good. 

So now I had the rules and some figures, what next? Thankfully, the online community for SMF is pretty awesome. Through the Lead Adventure Forum, I found this site: http://smfcards.000webhostapp.com/ which has a couple of hundred stat cards for heroes already done up, plenty of Marvel and DC, but also some indy stuff and even a few anime characters. That lot only covered five of the Marvel characters I had, so being time-poor in the extreme at the moment (in the middle of an 18-day work week as I write this), I went the easy route and decided to just adapt characters that were already in the huge amount of work done above. I'm not much when it comes to image manipulation, thankfully Marc P from the Super Miniature Gaming group came to my aid and put together some great images at no expense. You can find Marc's work at the end of this article, for the originals, please support the previous link.

Some of my Disney Infinity; Thor, Nick Fury, Black Widow, Iron Man and Hulk. 

At the Whitehorse Community Festival here in Melbourne, Australia, I had my "Melee of Champions" stuff out and ready to go, intending to do my best to sell the hobby of miniatures gaming to the general public, despite the popular image of neckbeards and body odor. Whilst I had a lot of interest and even ran a few turns, what I talked about most that day was my profession, that of being a counsellor, primarily working with youth, especially those with diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder. This kind of work is just something I fell into, finding that I had a talent for it as well as the interest. Some of my best work has involved the use of board and card games to help develop a rapport with clients that may not have a great deal of interest in verbal communication. To help with this, my Counselling kit includes such exotic paraphernalia as copies of Infernal Contraption, Kill Doctor Lucky, Man Bites Dog, One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Rhino Hero.

The Incredibles, courtesy of Disney Infinity 

After this past weekend though, I'm thinking that maybe there's room for wargames in my Counsellors' toolbox. I doubt I'll ever have the audacity to hand out "Getting Started in Age of Sigmar" books at any school were I'm working, but Melee of Champions, as well as games like Tribal, Wars of Insurgency and whatever my kaiju project turns out to be all have potential for being educational and theraputic as well as fun. Games are a great way to get students involved with mathematics, estimation, strategic thinking and, for ASD and other youth that have trouble reading non-verbal ques, learning to gauge the truth of what a person is saying. Not so much teaching people to lie that may otherwise have trouble, but to better pick up on when someone else is being untruthful. Obviously, games like One Night Ultimate Werewolf are better for this than miniatures gaming, but there is an element of bluffing to wargames that I feel many overlook, especially once hidden objectives and unexpected combos come into play. 

Disney Infinity Gamora and Rocket Racoon represent the Guardians of the Galaxy I have so far. 

One of the better aspects of this project is the cost, or lack thereof. I tend to game a bit on the cheap anyway, being chronically underemployed, but I also don't mind spending money on my hobby to get the pieces I want. For example, I have a Flesh Eater Courts army for Age of Sigmar, which I really enjoy playing, but damn if it wasn't one of the more expensive armies I've put together. For the most part, the Disney Infinity figures can be found second-hand for a few dollars each, and I tend to buy the Amiibos on sale for around $9AUD each. As mentioned above, I use the Amiibos for my Nintendo hardware, so the price also includes the added play I get there. SMF is a pretty affordable book and the Stat Cards are printed on photos, around 10c each at the local office supply chain store. 

Some of the Disney Infinity really exaggerate the proportions, I'm not keen on Syndrome, but it looks good on Ahsoka Tano and Rey. 

Part of the appeal of a cheap project also helps with my public displays, where the aim isn't so much to convince people to join my particular wargames club, as it is to raise awareness of the miniature wargames hobby and how people can start playing quickly and easily. Something that's as affordable as SMF and some toys that many parents may already have too many of laying around looks a lot less daunting than Warmachine or Age of Sigmar. I've found that most children over around 10 (depending on developmental skills) can pick up SMF after only a few turns, especially with the nice cards that cover most of the Powers and skills. I struggle sometimes to not use phrases like "D6" and "Alternating Activation", after so many years of playing with wargamers, but practice makes perfect and all that. 

Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa from Disney Infinity and Captain Falcon Amiibo make for a trio of Captains. 

So this is the part where I ask for help. Not so much for anything in particular, but to start working on something we can all use. As mentioned above, the stats I have for The Incredibles, Syndrome, Rocket Racoon, Ahsoka Tano, Captain Falcon, Falco, King Dedede, Meta Knight and Bowser are simply rebranded versions of existing cards taken from the link. Not to mention needing stats for new acquisitions Rey, Barbossa and Captain Jack. Whilst Marc has expressed an interest in making up more cards, I've never actually done up the stats of a SMF character, and do need to learn, but of people out there, in the community are keen to have a go, please do. Perhaps we can build a database or wiki somewhere? I'm not great with computers, so would be willing to hand that idea off to someone. If you want to help out, comment on this post, in the the original link to this I posted in the Super Miniatures Gaming group. 

Falco, King Dedede, Meta Knight and Bowser, the Amiibos are actually really nice for the money, well sculpted and the painting is crisp. 

Thanks for sticking around til the end of this one, I have a couple more ideas for figures for this one, if Disney, Star Wars, Pixar, Marvel and Nintendo aren't enough for you. First of all DC did a line of "DC Animated Universe" style non-posable heroes called "FIGZ", which look perfect, but I can't find anywhere anymore: 

Seriosuly, if you find any of these, please let me know, I'd like to grab a few. The alternative is the Schleich versions, but at $20+AUD a pop, they're out of my range. Similar designs can be found with various Anime franchises, but I'm, again, waiting to find some in my price range, mostly Dragonball. If video games are more your thing though, you may want to take a look at the Playstation Totaku collectables, but wait until they go half-price at your local EB or Gamestop. 

Personally, I'm waiting for a Ratchet and Clank, but the Tekken stuff is tempting. Hope all of this is helpful or at least interesting for those who got this far. I'm starting a proper counselling job again next year, with a look to do more "games as teaching", so expect something more along these lines in the future. 

Thinking Out Loud: Chalk-white and rock hard

It seems to me that a great number of people spend a great deal of time thinking about the Joker's penis. I don't just mean semi-anonymous writers of bad fanfiction, but major Hollywood writers and producers are putting a great deal of effort into making the nature of Joker's love life very explicit. For me, most of this goes back to two seminal moments in Batman history; The Dark Knight Returns and the appearance of Harley Quinn in Batman the Animated Series. In a weird upshot of Frank Miller's juvenile homophobia, the version of Joker presented in DKR is heavily queer-coded with a very homoerotic fixation on Batman. That's homoEROTIC, not homoSEXUAL, an important distinction, as the Joker's obsession with Bats never seems to focus on sexuality, but rather shared history and the emotional intensity that it brings. Joker is so fixated on his old foe that he is functionally catatonic for the years in which Batman is retired. A lot of "hard-core" Batman fans aren't keen on this interpretation of the Joker, despite their love for DKR and the years overly serious Batman media that it continues to spawn. 

Bruce Timm wanted Joker to have a sidekick in BTAS, a counter-point to Robin as well as someone to talk to, so Harley Quinn was born. Harley is a great character, not only in BTAS, but in the comics that followed and whilst I hate the oversexualisation of her costume, that groundwork was laid in BTAS and I can live with it. There's one episode of BTAS in particular, where Harley, wearing her makeup and hood with a silk slip, asks Joker if he wants to "rev up your Harley". Now, I'm willing to consider the idea that Harley is sexually attracted to the Joker, but I'm more inclined to believe that her Western, hetero-normative, patriarchal upbringing has created for her the expectation that she'll fall in love, get married and have babies; then she fell in love with a psychotic clown. The fantasy scene in Suicide Squad is a good example of this conditioning and resulting fixation. What gets me confused and a bit riled is the idea that Joker is sexually motivated and has a "normal" physical realtionship with his girlfriend. 

That the Joker is Harley's abuser is rarely argued by anyone with two brain cells to rub together, but I wonder if that's strictly true. Harley is certainly Joker's VICTIM, both physically and psychologically, but family violence is complicated and the Joker/Harley dynamic doesn't quite ring true in that sense. Joker most often treats Harley as a tool for his own amusement (yes, it depends on the writer, but I'm generalising), which is his default reaction to most people (Batman being the primary exclusion); she is his beaten dog or doll with the twisted arm and burnt hair. Despite what you may have learned from Dexter or Criminal Minds, most serial killers don't use murder as a substitute for sexuality, the BTK killer had girlfriends and a wife and kids and Manson operated a harem in his compound. Joker's focus on his continued "jokes" is, and has pretty much always been (even since the '60 TV programme), for Batman. Joker is fixated on Batman in a truly unhealthy manner, but, as discussed above, that fixation is not sexual in nature. In turn, Joker holds no sexual interest in Harley because she is not Batman and, therefore, not worthy of that level of emotional intensity. In Under the Red Hood, Joker isn't even really interested in Jason Todd or the fact that he's being tortured until Batman shows up to the fight. 

What I'm getting towards is an understanding that the Joker does not function sexually at all; nothing arouses him physically, even those things that arouse him mentally or psychically. In the No Man's Land novelisation (a really good read, BTW), there is a scene where Harley inspires Joker and he kisses her as thanks, putting his tongue in her nose and licking her eyes, because he is aware of physical affection, but does not understand how it works. This is how I perceive the Joker making the most sense, not truly an "inhuman" monster, but instead a human broken almost beyond comprehension; the sexual drive being so close to universal to human experience. For me, the Joker being a human being so far gone as to perform the kinds of atrocities he has makes him a far more interesting and unnerving character than the "Avatar of Anarchy" interpretation that sees a great deal of print. At the end of the day, I don't really need to know what Joker and Harley do in private, but I sincerely doubt that it resembles any kind of romantic relationship that most will be familiar with; something more like a hostage situation or the extreme levels of family violence are far more likely than what is becoming the typical presentation in film and comics. Please stop glorifying abuse through the lens of this relationship, we're not meant to be thinking this deeply about it, just let the comics be.

Thinking Out Loud: The Prince and the Threapist

Is Vegeta Autistic? Yes, I am well aware that the preferred terminology is currently Autism Spectrum Disorder (I'm a therapist after all), but I needed that evocative opening sentence. Before we get too much further, I need to highlight that I'm not fond of the idea that people "on the spectrum" have anything wrong with them, a "disorder", from my work with clients, ASD people simply possess a different, yet equally valid, way on seeing and interacting with the world. Anyway, I've been watching Dragonball Super lately (it's pretty good, actually) and Vegeta features pretty heavily, which I also like, because I find Goku tedious at the best of times. Vegeta has undergone character developments and changes in his personality even since the end of Dragonball Z, finally admitting his own heroic side and even "settling down" to a certain extent. An interesting element comes in when Vegeta refuses to attend a martial arts tournament in order to stay for the birth of his second child with Bulma, Bra. 

It makes sense from a narrative standpoint, Vegeta has settled down and acclimatised to life on Earth, so of course he's not the same guy who tried to blow it up way back when. But I wonder if it's not also a function of the underlying patterns of his thoughts. Vegeta, much like Goku, has difficulty "fitting in", or rather, finding a way in which he can function comfortably in the society in which he finds himself living; if you are at all familiar with ASD, either as a worker or person on the spectrum, that sounds pretty damn close to home. Vegeta doesn't work. What even would he do? He can't work, not because he isn't capable in an intellectual or physical sense, but because the workplace is such an alien environment that he would be both unable to function and have little desire to do so. Vegeta is driven, not by pride, as he so often claims, but by self-actualisation; he has to get better than what he is now in order to be comfortable with himself. Not wants to, but has to. That is a very specific focus on a vary specific goal and/or idea. A possible factor of ASD so well known as to have become narrative shorthand for "intelligent and antisocial, but well-meaning". You know, the sidekick to the bland protagonist. (Oh, snap!)

Just for fun, I did a "12 Personalities" (Myers-Briggs) test answering the questions with a view to how Vegeta would answer and got the following result. I'm not going to discuss the problems with MB tests here and it doesn't necessarily fit with what I've been talking about, but it is somewhat interesting to take a look at.
ISTP-T "Virtuoso" 
Virtuosos love to explore with their hands and their eyes, touching and examining the world around them with cool rationalism and spirited curiosity. People with this personality type are natural Makers, moving from project to project, building the useful and the superfluous for the fun of it, and learning from their environment as they go. Often mechanics and engineers, Virtuosos find no greater joy than in getting their hands dirty pulling things apart and putting them back together, just a little bit better than they were before. 

Superhero Media: The Maxx (TV Series)

I recently finished watching the entire The Maxx MTV series from the early 90s; I found it on a streaming site and having only seen a couple of episodes in the mid 90s, thought I'd give it a fair run. Most episodes run about ten minutes and there are only thirteen in total, so you can mash it out in an afternoon if you're keen. Just be warned, The Maxx is not really about superheroes, it's about therapy. I'm actually glad I didn't start watching The Maxx until I started studying Counselling, so that I had a decent grounding in Psychology first. The Maxx is about dysfunctional relationships, psychological defense mechanisms and the fringes of sanity, there is one big fight scene between Maxx and Mr Gone early on, but anyone expecting big Supers action will be disappointed. 

My enthusiasm for getting a Maxx mini for Ultimate Alliance has waned. He's not really a hero, he's a crazy homeless guy trying to find his lost memory and identity, both of which are linked to Julie, his Social Worker. For those interested in postmodern interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis in a narrative format, The Maxx is probably worth a look. Points of view are demonstrated through different animation styles and shifting narrators prevent too much stagnation of, what is, a bit of a plodding story at times. 

When the Maxx or Julie are in the Outback, there are some bigger action pieces, but these are mostly about servicing the Id and breaking down defense mechanisms around painful memories. Despite the name, the Izz aren't related to the Id, but rather are manifestations of Anxiety, which is why they are devious and hidden in the real world, but stupid and easily overcome in the Outback. I had assumed, at first, that the Outback was the unconscious, but now I think it has more to to with the Superego, especially for the Maxx, as it is the place where he must be responsible for Julie, an inversion of the real world.