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: 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. 

Superhero Media: The Marvels Project

Not quite a follow-up to the seminal Marvels, The Marvels Project covers the first few years of the fledgling Marvel Universe, as told by Thomas Halloway, aka, The Angel. Even more so than Marvels, The Marvels Project bridges the continuity gaps between the pre-Marvel Timely comics and the "universe" that Stan, Jack and Steve built in the 1960s, not pulling a full "Avengers Forever" thing, but just massaging over the rough patches that you tend to get with Golden Age Comics. For example, rather than Phantom Bullet and The Ferret just dropping off enough in popularity to no longer be published, both characters are skilled by Nazi agents who later target Erskine and Steve Rogers. Clever, huh? Well, I like it. The narrative, whilst framed with Halloway's experience, is clearly focused on Captain America, which makes sense, as the series was written by Ed Brubaker, possibly the best Cap writer ever. That said, there is still plenty of Angel, Namor and Human Torch to keep the comics classicist happy. 

The clever thing about The Marvels Project is that it couches the story around the build-up to the United States entering the Second World War, which works nicely as a meta-narrative about the comics industry, as well as tying to the opening chapter of Marvels. I'm honestly shocked there isn't a Phil Sheldon cameo in there, but appearances from Black Widow (Claire Voyant), The Phantom Reporter and Electro help slide us into the next adventure on our Marvel Golden Age jaunt, The Twelve. Also of note, the story is bookended with appearances of the Two-Gun Kid, occasional Avengers member and good friend of Clint Barton. Probably the only element I'm not fond of in The Marvels Project is the Human Torch and Toro getting to fight during the Battle off Pearl Harbour, which just "feels" a little cheap to me, even if it does suit the story and mirror action happening elsewhere. The pacing is also a little off, but I tend to put this down to trying to match old comics. 

In terms of gaming inspiration, The Marvels Project is excellent, with games at both the high and low ends of the superhero power scale. The Human Torch and Toro versus Japanese aircraft would be amazing to see on the table, and a possible collaboration between supers and historical gamers that I may have to do, if I can get flaming figures in the right scale. And, as discussed in previous posts, I'm keen on some Pulp games, though a League of Adventurers is less interesting to me than a collection of caped heroes, and now I'll have to track down a suitable Angel to round out some kind of Golden Age Defenders for my games. I have also started up some new, plastic, pulpy Nazis to menace my heroes, which I'll hopefully have painted before too long. 

Superhero Media: Daredevil - Season 3

It took a while to get here, but mark another Marvel Netflix series as done. All-in, I feel that Daredevil was the strongest of the Netflix series, The Defenders notwithstanding, in that all three Seasons even out better, even if technically Jessica Jones had better individual Seasons. Rounding out the story of Kingpin, the third season sees a conclusion to long-running elements of the programme and introduces a version of Bullseye to the story. Despite all the positives to be had, I was pretty worn out on Daredevil by the end, as it was clear that the writing team actually wanted to be working on a cable crime procedural rather than a superhero series. For example, Dex (Bullseye) spends several episodes in a copy of the Daredevil costume, murdering people (taken from the comics), but at no stage does Matt don the horns again. Look, I know lots of people preferred the black burglar outfit, but he has an iconic costume and if he's not wearing it, that's just kind of stupid.

Fisk being back is a heck of a lot of fun, but his subtle menace and far reach is replaced with an unbelievable level of infiltration of the FBI and plans working so far in advance even Doctor Doom would be rolling his eyes. When the action ramps up, Daredevil shines, especially when Matt goes up against Dex and the pair use everything at hand to deal damage to each other, with the visceral and bloody combat hearkening back to the best fight scenes in the first season. A little too much time is spent on setting up and justifying Dex as a character, which is a waste as Bullseye is always better as cypher, I honestly feel that a version of the "Kingpin's Fist" idea from Ultimate Spider-Man would have made for a better story. The best part of the third season is Foggy, who insists on taking Kingpin down through the courts, almost ending up as District Attorney of New York in the process, giving him the most growth and bringing together his character beats from previous seasons nicely. 

Unlike most of the "last" Marvel Netflix series, there is no crossover episode of Daredevil, which feels like a missed opportunity, especially with a focus around the legal process, Gerry Hogarth would have made sense, if not Jessica Jones being around at some point. In terms of the season being a crime programme, Daredevil is pretty good, but I wanted superheroes when I tuned in, so all-in I found this last entry lackluster. Charlie Cox was a really good Matt Murdock, and the supporting cast was always strong, but this being where it ends makes me feel like the journey wasn't really worth my time. Of course we'll see Matt and Daredevil again as our journey with the MCU continues, but to my mind none of it really matters to the broader plot of this season, if that's what you were watching for. I think it will be a long time before I go back to the Netflix series, but there is still an appeal there.

Superhero Media: Marvels

Probably one of the best Marvel comics ever written, drawn and poured over, Marvels is a must-have in any comics collection, even if the Golden and Silver Ages of Marvel comics isn't typically your thing. Telling the story of the 616 Marvel Universe itself, through the eyes of photographer Phil Sheldon, who undergoes his own personal journey with what superheroes, "Marvels", as he calls them, mean to him and the broader world. Every panel of Marvels is hand-painted by Alex Ross, and could well be his best work ever, even if the subject matter is sometimes as mundane as Gwen Stacy walking down a street. Written by Kurt Buisek, Marvels can be read as just an exercise in classic Marvel trainspotting, and my version does come with a list of references at the back, but the story is more about how what came to be known as the Marvel Universe came together out of a bunch of comics written by different people over a series of years. And if Marvels was just a nostalgia trip, it wouldn't be as great as it is. 

Broken into four issues, Marvels uses specific moments of Marvel history to tell its broader narrative, The Human Torch Vs Namor, the first appearance of Galactus on Earth, the wedding of Reed and Sue and the death of Gwen Stacy. Within these larger events, other things are happening, and not just on the scale of the big superhero fights; Phil has doubts about his marriage, works too hard and finally prioritises his family above his obsession with the Marvels, often providing excellent contrast with the world-shaping events happening around him. Readers of Marvel comics "know" plenty of ordinary people, like J Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson and Willie Lumpkin, but Phil Sheldon is different, because whilst his profession often engages with the Marvels, he himself doesn't know any or really have much to do with them. Though a few small moments with Peter Parker and Danny Keltch are fun for that little twist of the fantastic.

Since appearing in Marvels, Phil has popped up here and there in broader Marvel media, from mentions in the Ultimate Alliance games through to a cameo in The Superhero Squad Show, of all things. Marvels started as an analysis and celebration of the history of the Marvel Universe, but has become an integral part of it as fans have embraced Phil Sheldon and his world and enshrined them alongside the very events he chronicles. I don't honestly expect to see Phil in the Marvel Cinematic Universe anytime soon, but once you know about him, he does pop up here and there, just keep an eye out. Various attempts have been made to recapture the brilliance of Marvels, some of which we'll go on to explore soon, but most of which don't really come close. Rather than decry these efforts though, I welcome any attempt to get back to this place, to take another swing at recapturing the unparalleled magic of Marvels.

Miniatures Finished: Twin Moons

Been a little while thanks to getting Nocturnal together, but finally finished up a few more minis. Nothing in particular, other than finally getting to my own MCP collection, just what came to hand after moving house.

The Leader: A little odd that I hadn't yet got to this iconic Hulk villain yet, especially because I go through big Silver Age patches in my painting. Orange and blue is always fun to paint though. Heroclix

Moon Knight: I wasn't happy with my old one, so I got a new Moon Knight, really happy with how the white turned out on this one, wish I could get results this good consistently. Heroclix

Paralax: It may be telling that I read comics in the '90s, as this is probably my favourite costume for Hal Jordan. It just oozes power and strength and I'd love to see it return when Hal wasn't possessed by a fear parasite. Heroclix

Moon Knight: My first MCP model, obtained when a friend wanted to split the Blade out of the box. A lot nicer than the starter box ones I did for work, but the white isn't as nice as my Heroclix version. Atomic Mass Games

Zubatman: In an alternate reality, Bruce Wayne defends Fuchsia City from Team Rocket as the Dark Knight, Zubatman! This was a joke I made once on Facebook and could never get out of my head, because it just gets better the deeper you dive. Typically used as a Daredevil stand-in for MCP. Converted Heroclix

Yamcha: Ordered this thinking it was 28mm, but turns out it was scaled for MCP, so he got done up as a proxy, usually Iron Fist or Wong for my Defenders. Fantastic model to paint and really happy with the result, big recommend for their service and STLs. damange83

Superhero Media: Infamous Iron Man

In a world were Tony Stark has sacrificed himself to save the Earth from an alien menace, who will fill the role of Iron Man? The answer is, of course, Victor Von Doom. After the events of Secret War (the other one), Doom is returned to Earth, Latveria is in ruins and he has had the epiphany that being a "villain" has not turned out they way he wanted. The natural conclusion that Doom reaches? Become the new Iron Man. As a big fan of Doom, I like seeing him in the hero role, even if the concept is a little trite. Doom 2099 was great, and I should probably read it again at some stage, but Infamous Iron Man hits all of the right notes and goes about as far as you can in the 616 continuity. Seeing Doom work through his emotional baggage, and struggle to interact like a human sometimes makes from some great quiet moments, and some exceptional character scenes when other characters interact with the "new" Doom. 

The artwork, by Alex Maleev, has an impressionistic look, which suits the theme of Doom's disassociation from his former self, but the action scenes are pretty ugly and hard to follow as a result. And that's when the art doesn't cop-out by cutting away, or just not really showing the climatic fight, a magical battle between Doom and Mephisto with Doctor Strange helping out Doom. That could have been really visually interesting in the hands of a better artist, but really lets down the epic conclusion of the mini-series. Of course, it doesn't help that Brian Michael Bendis barely writes a finale, but I'm willing to cut him a little more slack given how many comics Marvel has him writing every month. Again, the smaller moments, like Doom talking to Ben Grimm or exchanges with Ironheart, are where Infamous Iron Man is strongest, as Doom is one of the smartest people on the planet, making excellent points, while all anyone can remember is the several times he nearly destroyed the planet and/or killed a bunch of people. 

Although this is just a mini-series, Victor Von Doom, the Iron Man, continues on in some Avengers comics, but all things being as they are in comics, by the time you're reading this, Doom has likely long-since returned to his old ways. As much as retcons and reboots are something comics fans like to complain about, returns to the status quo are how we get fun little diversions like Infamous Iron Man. Of course Stark will return to the suit at some point, but the comics where Doctor Doom is a hero and everyone is blindsided will sit on my shelves for years to come. Currently there isn't a Heroclix version of the character, but as soon as one isn't a silly price on the secondary market, I'll be sure to be grabbing one for my collection of Dooms. Also certainly a consideration for my "AvengerZ" articles down the track, if I ever get back to them.

Superhero Media: Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer

Ok, so this one took so long because my DVD copy of Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer was corrupted and I wanted to finish up some other stuff on Disney+ before I forced myself through this again. Much like the previous film, Rise of the Silver Surfer has an excellent cast, now expanded with Doug Jones, Laurence Fishburne and Andre Braugher, but fails to do anything interesting with the embarrassment of riches available. Unlike the later, and much worse, Fant4stic, the crew of Rise of the Silver Surfer seem to have at least read some FF comics, as elements like the Fantasticar are present, as well as lines lifted directly from classic and newer comics. I don't believe that the cast and crew didn't care about the material, or not want to make a good film, I just think it fell apart with a few poor choices, and no, not just making Galactus a cloud for some reason. 

Actually, Galactus being a cloud is not my major bugbear with Rise of the Silver Surfer; I'll admit that it's dumb, but I can see how a studio ended up there by not wanting to have the giant purple guy on-screen. My take has always been that the cloud is just hiding Galactus' ship, and we get a glimpse in the climax, rather than the cloud actually being Galactus, but that's me. Doom is back, and up to his tricks in attempting to steal the power of the Silver Surfer, one of his more memorable Silver Age jaunts, but most of the story is sidelined for Reed and Sue having wedding jitters, because that's less expensive to film. If the adaptation of Fantastic Four was a television series rather than a motion picture, this approach to the family drama would actually be pretty good, especially with the smaller moments like Ben and Johnny talking about how they want to ride out the end of the world, but here it just reads as padding for the most part. 

All in, Rise of the Silver Surfer was a fun watch, in the same way the Ang Lee Hulk is fun; it's not the best, but there's enough there for me to enjoy that I don't feel my time has been wasted. Sometimes a crummy but fun film is just what you want for a slow afternoon, and, for all its flaws, Rise of the Silver Surfer is at least competently acted and reasonably funny. Doctor Doom may be a pale imitation of the real thing, but he still does Doom things and chews the scenery like a pro. Until we get the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the Fantastic Four, this is likely to be the second best live action film featuring the characters, so my advice is to enjoy it for what it is, rather than waste time pointlessly wishing it was something else. Hell, pop this in halfway through your latest Brooklyn 99 re-watch for a bit of a laugh if that's what it takes. And maybe just bite on a belt or something when the Galactus cloud is on the screen?

Danton - Part VI

At last! The final installment of this nonsense! I promise that I won't be revisiting any of my ideas from high school again soon, even the "good" ones that still exist in my broader Equalisers setting somewhere. Honestly, I only really wanted to preserve this for some kind of posterity and this blog is just obscure enough to suit my purposes there. So here we go, Danton, for the last time anywhere.

Danton - Lord of the Ring

After establishing democracy in France, Doctor Strange has retired and Schama has retreated to his empire in Russia. One day, Zorro comes to Doctor Strange and presents him with the One Ring. Doctor Strange realises what it is and collects a group of warriors to take it to Mount Vesuvius and destroy it. Zorro, Link, Dr Colossus, Mister Staypuff and Dobbie depart from Paris among much fanfare and travel for days before remembering that they could just used the Chronosphere. Returning to Paris, the fellowship find that the Chronosphere compound is occupied by a team of all-star terrorists from Canada known as "The Furious Maple Leaf".


...and that's where it all ends, mid-adventure. I'm not sure when and why I left off, but I have to guess I was either too busy or just got sick of the whole enterprise. In retrospect, it was all pretty stupid and whilst I remember having fun with it, the fact that I never really did anything with it was probably for the best. Hopefully, this has been at least a fun diversion for a few entries and we can get back to our normal nonsense.

Danton - Part IV

You know, when I started writing these up again, I really had no idea just how much of it there was. I mean, I wrote this all in a few dull History lessons in 2004, that's long enough ago that it's pretty fuzzy for me, so I guess I suspected I didn't do all that much of this? And we're only halfway, well halfway-ish, so I hope you're not as sick of this as I'm getting.


Danton 4: Napoleon Ball Z

While Danton and company were defeating Robespierre in Otherworld, France was conquered by Napoleon, through an alliance with Chewbacca and his army of lawyers. Napoleon became Emperor by finding the Lance of Longinus and forging a series of rings. Now he seeks to become immortal by finding the Dragon Balls; to achieve this he dispatches Inspector Clouseau. Meanwhile Blanka/Danton returns from Otherworld, when he sees what has happened to France, he travels to Paris and challenges Napoleon to single combat, be prize being leadership of France. With the powers of the Lance of Longinus and the One Ring, Napoleon could easily defeat Blanka/Danton, but instead prolongs the combat, making a fool of Blanka/Danton before blasting him to Russia with the Kamehameha technique.

Burning for revenge, Blanka/Danton seeks out allies to fight Napoleon; he stumbles upon Simon Schama, who has led the Mongolians to victory across Asia, forging a massive empire. After striking a deal, Schama dispatches Sniper Wolf to assassinate Clouseau; he fails miserably and is killed by Link. Schama's army marches across Europe, making allies against France. In fear, Napoleon visits a coven of witches, who tell him that "No man of a woman born" can kill him. Now over-confident, Napoleon leaves his army to its own devices, awaiting the final battle in his Volcano Death Fortress.

Without their leader, the French army is quickly defeated by Schama's hardened veterans. Blanka/Danton and Schama confront Napoleon, unfortunately Clouseau has returned with all of the Dragon Balls. Napoleon wishes himself immortal and proceeds to brutally kill Blanka/Danton. Despite his advanced battle-armour, Schama looks doomed, until, at the last minute, Doctor Strange returns from the Hell Dimension in which he was trapped. Strange opens a Dead Zone into which Napoleon is drawn and sealed forever. Schama and Doctor Strange establish democratic rule in France.

Danton - Part III

That's right! We're not done with this nonsense yet. In fact, this marks the halfway point of the Danton saga, a mostly nonsense story I wrote in my final year of High School and found when moving house. Whilst this story is pretty poor by my current standards, I like to think I can see shades of Ultimate Alliance and other projects in how I went about this all those years ago.

Robespierre: Master of Otherworld

Simon Schama's army of Battletoads has splintered after their defeat at the hands of Danton and Doctor Strange. The new French army, led by Chewbacca and make up entirely of Lawyers, has confined the undead army of Zombie Jesus to the area of Brittany. Dracula, Doctor Strange and the Last Ninja have disappeared off the face of the Earth. Unbeknownst to everyone else, our heroes have been transported to Otherworld by the ghost of Danton in the hopes that they can help defeat Robespierre and restore balance to the multiverse. Robespierre gathers his greatest warriors for the Mortal Kombat tournament; Blanka, Pope John Paul II and evil mutant Toad.

In a Martial Arts battle greater than anyone has ever seen before or since, Dracula brutally slays Blanka using his Dragon Fist technique. After a pitched battle, Pope John Paul II banishes Doctor Strange to a Hell Dimension. Last Ninja uses his cool headband thingy attack to simultaneously defeat both Toad and Pope John Paul II. In the final battle, Robespierre destroys destroys Dracula by driving a stake through his heart. It looks as if the Last Ninja will be defeated as well, until Danton's soul enters Blanka's body and the pair utilise the "Two-fisted Monkey Style" to finally kill Robespierre. Just as Last Ninja and Blanka/Danton turn to leave Otherworld, Robespierre springs up in a dying effort and grabs the Last Ninja, dragging them both into a lava pit. A distraught Blanka/Danton returns to France.

Danton - Part II

When last we left off this juvenile screed of pop-culture miscenallia that I wrote one fateful week in the last year of high school, I was wondering why I bothered to keep these scraps of loose leaf for almost two decades. And I'm still wondering. But at least I'm getting this down and I'm finding that cathartic.

Danton 2: Stone Cold

After the events portrayed in Danton, Dracula has been able to rebuild Paris, but the rest of France has descended into chaos, leaving Paris as a city-state. Simon Schama travels back in time and raises an army of mercenaries to conquer France under his sovereign dictatorship. Robespierre returns after becoming the new evil ruler of Otherworld and incites the Parisians to rebellion against Dracula's rule.

Dracula turns to the Justice League for help, joining them for a time. The Last Ninja returns to finally avenge his brothers against Robespierre and allies himself with Dracula and the Justice League. Doctor Strange joins with a coalition of demons to resurrect Danton's soul into a robotic body, christening him "Robo-Danton". Doctor Strange and Robo-Danton travel to fight a guerilla war against Schama and his Battle-Toad bodyguards. After a pitched battle, Schama and Robo-Danton fight in single combat while Doctor Strange raises Schama's fortress to the ground. Robo-Danton realises that he cannot defeat Schama whist he wears his battle-armour, so self-destructs, destroying the armour, though Schama survives the attack.

Meanwhile, the justice League put down the rebellion, forcing Robespierre to retreat to Otherworld, only to discover that Zombie Jesus has raised an army of undead and is now conquering the West coast of France.

More 40K Superheroes (and Villain!)

Well, I thought I was done with this after the first one, but looks like I'm still going. Much like the Victorian Superheroes, I just keep coming up with ideas for 40k heroes that work too well to ignore. Unlike the Victorian stuff, however, I'm building most of these ideas when I can, because they work well with my narrative 40k games over on some other blogs I'm on. Also, I like messing with hardcore 40k-fanbois but doing stuff like female Space Marines and Ork Merchants, so this is another outlet for that, in a way.

The Avengers 40,000

When we last left our heroes, Kang the Conqueror had found himself trapped in a grim, dark future by the phenomena known as Warp Storms preventing his time travel technology from working. Unable to conquer the Galaxy on his own, rent as it was by constant war and ruled by a decaying mutant corpse, Kang chose to do what history had demonstrated to be the best course of action, assemble The Avengers! Like any era, there were heroes to be found in the wide galaxy, though they took vastly different forms to the ones with which Kang was familiar; Brunnhilde was an alien-hunting Space Marine burdened with conscience, Carol Danvers had betrayed humanity for the T'Au Empire and M'Baku fought the menace of the Orks. Gathering who he could, Kang himself led this newest incarnation of Earth's Mightiest Heroes in an attempt to free the Galaxy once more.

As time wore on, Kang would find more familiar faces haunting the strange corners of the 41st Millennium, some would be welcome recruits, but others would be revealed to be enemies, old and new. Thanks in part to Kang, the heroes have arrived, but so too, it seems, have the villains. Trapped in a time not his own, Kang and his Avengers fight the good fight against hopeless odds; because that's what heroes do.

Rogue Trader Pryde, The Daring Devil, Trooper Greyson and Carol Danvers face off against Trayzen the Collector.

Rouge Trader Pryde: Kathryn Pryde was probably meant to live a normal, mundane life on her homeworld, but she had the misfortune to fall in love with a man from the stars. Quill Spartax, also known as the Star Lord, was the youngest in a dynasty of Rogue Traders, known for being brash and making poor decisions as much as his heroism and good looks. Pryde fell in love and joined Quill in the stars, going on adventures and even befriending a young xenodragon, which she named Lockheed. In time though, Quill's dangerous lifestyle caught up with him and he died on the Galactic Fringe. With no immediate family to take over the Rogue Trader Writ, Pryde had her late husband's armour adapted to fit her and became the new Star Lord.

The Daring Devil: That Aeldari and Humans can interbreed and produce viable offspring is a closely guarded secret by both races, especially since the embarrassing incident of the first Librarian of the Ultramarines. For some, however, that secret is something more; it is a prophecy. Deep in the winding halls of the Black Library, the Solitaires whisper of the coming of their greatest warrior, born of both races, the Daring Devil. When such hybrids are born, the Solitaries whisk them away for a lifetime of rigorous training and testing, and such was the fate of Mayhew Mur'Doch, the bastard son of a human soldier and an Aeldari warrior. Mayhew was a born fighter, the most naturally talented killer ever seen in the ranks of the Solitaries, whilst being completely blind. In his iconic red uniform, the Daring Devil is a legend, striking from the shadows and mowing down foes like death itself. 

Carol Danvers: No story on this one, I was just doing a Gue'vesa Kill Team and had the parts spare. I figured I may not always want to be fielding her in the Crisis Suit.

PDF Veteran Carter Greyson: Carter never wanted to fight, he wanted to save people. Born on a reasonably peaceful Imperial world, Carter volunteered for the Planetary Defense Force to help battle fires, rescue people from disasters and dig flood trenches. When war came to his sub-sector though, Carter found a lasgun thrust into his hand and Chaos Cultists in his sights, and as much as he hated it, Carter was clearly born for the battlefield. Slogging through the mud, fighting for his life, Carter continued to save everyone he could, keeping his squad-mates alive and throwing himself into the melee first, his trusty fire axe leading the way.

Trayzen the Collector: Known by many ways and many faces over the millions of years he's lived, Tanaleer Tevan, the Collector, one of the Elders of the Universe, survives well into the 41st Millennium. The disguise of Trayzen has been useful to the Collector, drifting in and out of Necrotyr society for aeons, taking interesting finds for himself whilst manipulating those around him. When a chance encounter brought Inquisitor Kang and Trayzen face-to-face, the Elder revealed he may be in possession of a way for Kang to leave the grim and dark future in which he was trapped. The two clashed and Trayzen escaped, but Kang did not forget and has since made it one of the missions of his Avengers to track down Trayzen and uncover what he has at his disposal.

Superhero Media: Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse

So, just to recap, Sony Pictures and Tristar made one of the worst superhero films in years in Venom, then turned around and put out what may well be the best superhero film to date with Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Wow. How does that happen? Yes, very different teams worked on both films, but talk about tonal whiplash. Not having complete permission to use the Peter Parker incarnation of Spider-Man, instead the studio used every other Spider-Man they could find, and made a few more along the way. In a world where a hyper-competent and successful version of Peter Parker is a beloved Spider-Man, Miles Morales is shifting to a new Magnet School and struggling to define his own identity when he is bitten by a radioactive spider and if you don't know what that means, where have you been? Dying trying to prevent Kingpin from starting up an inter-dimensional portal machine, Peter Parker passes on the mantle of Spider-Man to Miles, who isn't even sure if he wants it; thankfully, Miles is about to get a whole lot of backup. Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man Noir and an anime girl and her Spider-Robot are about to bring together the greatest super team ever known. 

Every frame of Into the Spider-Verse is a work of art, drawing upon several art and animation traditions at all times and all soaked with dot-shading and "Kirby dots" to create a visual feast that I can't recall any other animated feature ever coming close to. If you have a decent TV, just pause the film at random and you'll see it; I'd hang frames of this on my wall. And the way animation styles blend is simply astonishing, the fight between Penny Parker (and SP//dr), Scorpion and Peter Porker (The Spectacular Spider-Ham!) ranges from Anime to Looney Tunes to video games but doesn't miss a beat. Each character from a different art style (Noir, Ham and Penny) follow their own logic (Noir can't see colours) and it should be a mess, but somehow it works better than even the tone blending of The Avengers; seriously, I would watch 22 more of these including solo films, even just to hear Nic Cage say "real biscuit boxers" again. Drop a neon noir take on Miguel O'Hara in the post-credits scene and Spider-Man 2099 looks ready to drop in for the next one. Love every minute of this. 

Oh, did I mention that Into the Spider-Verse is also a post-racial coming-of-age story with a mixed race protagonist and complex relationship with law enforcement? Also there's a middle-aged character trying to put his life back together after his extended postmodern adolescence broke up his marriage. Want more? Aunt May wants Miles to help her set up a dating profile and there's some heavy hints that she's queer, Gwen is a ballerina in a punk band and Kingpin is motivated by a broken heart. Holy shit, this film is amazing. I had a few Spider-Man (Men?) figures in my miniatures collection before Into the Spider-Verse, but now that collection is growing, because I just have to game it at one stage.

Superhero Media: Once Upon a Deadpool

I haven't flown in quite a while, do they still edit down films for airlines, just so kids don't end up watching overly violent or sexual content? With those individual entertainment units that planes have now, I'm assuming no? If you can enlighten me in the comments, please do so. Anyway, Once Upon A Deadpool retells the story of Deadpool 2 cut down for content in such a way that it would have a "PG-13" rating in the United States, meaning a person at or above the age of 13 could see the film unaccompanied in most cinemas. By contrast, Deadpool 2 was rated "Hard R", limiting the audience to 18 and over, which was matched by the R18+ rating here in Australia. Interestingly, however, Once Upon A Deadpool got an Australian "M" rating, placing the age limit at 15, because my government is more sensitive to violence than America. Just thought that was a fun little fact to share. Because so much content has been cut from the original film to make Once Upon A Deadpool work, scenes have been added with Fred Savage, playing himself in an extended reference to The Princess Bride. How is this even a real film? 

I quite enjoy Once Upon A Deadpool, it hits a level of metafiction that delights the literature graduate in me no end, especially moments like Fred Savage being a huge Cable fan or that Deadpool is reading from a book titled "Deadpool 2 King James Edition". As Once Upon A Deadpool was put together during the negotiations for the Disney acquisition of Fox Studios, there are some jokes about the comparative quality of the X-Men and Marvel Cinematic Universe films that will likely date poorly, but should form as an interesting "time capsule" when Deadpool moves across to the MCU down the track. Despite some criticism that indicates Once Upon A Deadpool is predominantly recycled footage, there is actually plenty of new dialogue, some dubbed over the movement of Deadpool's mask and a reasonable amount in ADR, so there are new jokes for the diehard fans outside of the Fred Savage scenes. For those hoping that there would be any interesting commentary around censorship in Once Upon A Deadpool, sadly that opportunity is mostly missed, beyond Deadpool keeping a tally of the number of times "shit" is said. 

If neither Deadpool nor Deadpool 2 was your kind of film, Once Upon A Deadpool isn't really too different in terms of content and probably won't be deemed acceptable by those in your life who didn't like Deadpool the first time around. That said, you can maybe sneak the unicorn-bedecked DVD cover past your family and be the "cool uncle" at the next family gathering when putting something on for the kids to watch. I hope any future, feature-length, Deadpool outings don't get to quite the same levels of metafiction as Once Upon A Deadpool, as it's a little exhausting by the end, but I'd be in for Deadpool "reversions" of some MCU stuff if that becomes an option for quick content that Disney decides to exploit, so long as its not run into the ground. For now Once Upon A Deadpool remains an interesting little oddity that I certainly enjoy enough to go back to occasionally.

Danton - Part I

Whilst moving house recently, I came across some pages of loose leaf I've saved since my final year of high school. They contain a silly little story I wrote while bored in class one week and I just never seemed to throw them out for some reason. Reading over them again, I found that in these silly stories is something of the origin of some of my approach to gaming storytelling as it is nearly two decades hence. So for a little bit, I'll be writing up the story, which spins out of a synopsis of the first part of the 1983 film Danton, it's very silly and rather juvenile, and I've only edited the spelling mistakes and worst grammar, so maybe come back next week if you were hoping for anything more meaningful.


Danton

During the Terror, Robespierre and the Committee struggle to maintain control over the masses. Danton, the Great Orator, and his followers seek to overthrow the Committee and end the Terror. Robespierre seeks to imprison Danton without inciting a popular uprising. Danton allows himself to be imprisoned to further his cause. Some of Danton's followers turn against him. Robespierre decides to release the Sentinels to quell the mutant menace. The Justice League break Danton out of gaol and give him the armor of "La Dynamo Tricolore". Dracula seizes control of the Committee and reactivates Voltron, making the Marquis de Condorcet Voltron Commander. Seeking revenge, Robespierre allies himself with The Iron Paw, a coalition of werewolves. Gamera is awakening from his hibernation imposed by Doctor Strange, who has repaired Gundam Wing Zero.

When Gamera awakens, he goes on a rampage in Paris, Dracula sends Voltron to stop him. A team of Werewolf-hunting Ninja attack the Iron Paw, who are actually evil and trying to release a Storm Elemental into the world. In a pitched battle all the Werewolves and Ninja, bar a single Ninja, are killed. The last Ninja swears to hunt down and kill Robespierre, who has gone to Otherworld to fight in the Mortal Kombat tournament. A pair of Japanese fae turn Danton into a giant badger to battle Gamera and Voltron. During the battle, Voltron accidentally destroys Master Mould's holding cell and it attempts to destroy all humans in Paris. Doctor Strange arrives in Gundam Wing Zero and destroys Master Mould with his Beam Cannon. Voltron kills Badger Danton but is destroyed by Gamera, who leaves mysteriously with Doctor Strange.

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.

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: X-Men Dark Phoenix

By the time Dark Phoenix was in the cinema, I had drifted away from the X-Men films that weren't Deadpool or Logan, so I only heard about it second hand for years. When I finally got around to watching Dark Phoenix, I went in expecting a garbage fire along the lines of Apocalypse, but I ended up only finding a bland and boring film that failed to capitalise on anything good it had going. Bland is the order of the day for Dark Phoenix, it doesn't take risks anywhere, even down to the one, momentary, glimpse of the aliens after the Phoenix Force, which turns out to be something more like Signs than any X-Men comic. Even as only a casual reader of X-Men, I seem to remember the aliens most associated with the team to be the Shi'ar, the Brood and the Phalanx, all of whom have a pretty striking look, but clearly no one at the studio wanted to risk being interesting for thirty seconds. Another fun element, there are no new characters in Dark Phoenix that are adaptations from the comics, despite some disposable Magneto followers being perfect for that kind of thing. 

As to the plot, well, it's another stripped-down version of The Dark Phoenix Saga, but at least it uses aliens, but no slow descent to decadence or madness, because I guess Jean Grey is still meant to be a teenager? What year is Dark Phoenix even set in? This timeline doesn't make any sense. If it's the 1990s, then Charles and Magneto should be pushing 70 and Jean should be well into her 20s, but the actors are only a few years older than they were in the last film, so none of it fits at all, no wonder Jennifer Lawrence has the good sense to get killed in the second act. Magneto turns out to be living in some kind of weird anarchist mutant reservation, which almost is a plot point for a hot second, with soldiers in anachronistic (I think? What year is it?) Bell Jet Ranger Hueys making a "we gave you this land" racist argument, but it doesn't go anywhere because we need to get to another CGI mutant fight. As most of the X-Men require some form of CGI to visualise their powers, I'm pretty used to seeing talented actors have to wave their hands around in the air like stoned performing arts students by now.

The X-Men film series is really not great, all things considered, with perhaps 6 "good" films in more than twenty total (X-Men 2, Days of Future Past, The Wolverine, Deadpool, Deadpool 2 and Logan for those keeping score at home), however it remains pretty important in terms of the history of superhero cinema. The first X-Men was part of the late 1990s "rebirth" of superhero cinema, alongside Spider-Man and Blade, and The New Mutants ended the run well after Avengers Endgame redefined the genre as a global phenomenon. X-Men is the "also ran" of the genre, whilst being a star-launching vehicle for several a-list actors over the years and pushing the genre out further where it could. As of the time of writing, The New Mutants isn't out in my country yet, because cinemas are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I will be getting onto it as soon as it drops on Disney+, because I'm not sure I want to pay actual money for it given the reviews as they stand. This has been a long journey going back over every film, but now I can hopefully branch out into some different stuff. Lots of things popping up on Netflix now.

Miniatures Finished - 01/11/21

I rarely feel like I get to paint what I want to right now, more that I'm painting little projects constantly to get them finished. That's not strictly true, but that's kind of how I'm feeling about painting. Does mean some older things are getting finished though, which I guess is nice.

Astro Boy: A character I've wanted for a while finally joins the Ultimate Alliance! I'll have to borrow the complete 1980s series off a friend again for a "Superhero Media" at some stage. 3D Print.

Kirby Robobot: Remember my other Kirby being a little big? Well this one is pretty much bang-on for scale, which is nice, but now I need to find one not in the suit. Still, this was adorable and I couldn't pass it up. Toy.

Crazy Jane: I bought up the rest of the Doom Patrol that I didn't already own and I wanted to experiment with a new technique for painting black, so this was something of a perfect storm. Heroclix.

Count Vertigo: I actually had this model partially painted for years and got so sick of looking at it, I finished him in one sitting. The sculpt is terrible and not at all fun to paint. Heroclix.

Awesome A-Bomb: I wanted this character for a specific reason, but right now I have no idea what that was. This is a really nice sculpt and was pretty fun and quick to paint. Heroclix.

Kaine: Obscure Spider-Man antagonist for my Spider-Man game series, this is actually a nice little sculpt except the face. Fun, '90s colour scheme as well. Heroclix.