Thinking Out Loud: The Big Bang

Look out folks, I'm back on my Stardust the Super Wizard bullshit, so this one's going to get pretty esoteric. For those who are new to this blog or just skip over everything that's not a film or television review, Stardust is the titular character from an almost-forgotten Golden Age writer, Fletcher Hanks. Think Golden Age Superman with less of an ethical framework and no real limit to his powers. Stardust has enjoyed a strange popularity in certain corners of the internet, being truly a unique character who's Public Domain and kind of like Superman if you squint hard enough. The entirety of Stardust the Super Wizard is available online if you look, and is worth reading at least a couple of issues. Fair warning, Fletcher Hanks himself was a terrible person, so if Family Violence is going to upset you, don't dig too deep into his personal history.

Most retellings of Stardust, with one notable exception, tend to make the character more heroic, which is pretty interesting, because although he certainly 'fights evil' in his own comics, it would be hard to call him a hero in the traditional sense. Stardust turns up after the damage is done (or at least after it has started) to punish the perpetrators, often lethally, sometimes fixes the damage, if he feels like it (or if Hanks left enough panels) then zooms off into space once more. Alan Moore chose, in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, to paint Stardust as a villain, defeated by Captain Universe (probably not the one you're thinking of) and imprisoned for all eternity like one of his own victims. But that's not really what I wanted to get off my chest today, I'm here to answer an important question (or, at least, important enough that I think about it way too much), just what is Stardust?

In the classic comics, Stardust is referred to as a "man", who has gained his abilities through mastery of science, but in that he may not necessarily be human. For starters, Stardust is huge, only shown to be shorter than characters referred to as "giants", and his physique is often exaggerated and vaguely inhuman; almost like something trying to look like a human but not quite getting there. Uncanny valley, if you will. In the webcomic, Super Wizard Returns, the author posits that Stardust is some kind of living solar entity and the physical body that interacts with the universe is merely some kind of projection or shell for consciousness. Well, at least I believe that's the intention? There's room for interpretation there. That idea kind of works for me, as it opens up ideas of characters like Solaris, The Tyrant Sun and even Great Old Ones and the C'Tan from Warhammer 40,000. With the reading of Stardust not being heroic so much as brutal and borderline malicious (or at least capricious), his being an alien entity impossible to comprehend makes a certain amount of sense, right?

So let's borrow some ideas from Warhammer 40,000 and Lovecraft's inheritors, and posit that Stardust is an intelligence born of a star; something so removed from human experience that we simply cannot understand each other and with a power scale nearly immeasurable. After eons of existence, the intelligence becomes aware of other life in the universe, but all attempts to make contact result in immolation and destruction. Perhaps there is a moment or two of pure awe in the mortals this being contacts, before they are killed by its very presence, and it comes to crave that devotion. After better observation, this being comes to understand something of temporal and three-dimensional existence, though its logic is flawed, and it crafts itself a suit, a skin of starmetal. With a name it has chosen for itself, Stardust, the solar being sets out to get the awe and worship it craves, but how? Well it just so happens that something new has entered human culture, the Superhero.

Stardust enters the human world in the wake left by Golden Bat, Superman and Namor, seeing the love, fear and awe that they inspire with their heroics; and he wants a piece of that action. Of course, Stardust doesn't understand any of the nuance of what he sees, so his approach to crime-fighting is direct, brutal and with little consideration for justice, it's like a child playing cops and robbers. At first the other heroes of the Golden Age admire Stardust, as he turns back tidal waves, returns gravity to the planet and deflects asteroids, but soon doubt creeps in. Stardust's violence and wholesale murder begins to escalate, actually raising tensions between nations due to his preference for the United States and drawing the globe closer to a second World War. The time has come to do something, but can even the combined power of Earth's Mightiest Heroes stop this alien monster birthed in the heart of a star?

Superhero Media: Kolchak - The Night Stalker

Oh hell yeah! I was randomly flicking through SBS On Demand one afternoon when I found that the entirety of Kolchak The Night Stalker was available to watch. I was house-sitting at the time, with a couple of older dogs, so something fun to binge whilst the elder napped on my lap was a good way to fill the afternoons. Although Kolchak is a classic cult series for a number of good reasons, I do have to warn that as it was made in the 1970s, there is plenty of sexist and homophobic material in the programme just as a matter of course; it didn't stop me from enjoying it, but I can see it being more offensive to others. Carl Kolchak is a reporter for the Independent News Service in Chicago, who has the rotten luck to keep encountering the supernatural and sublime while he's chasing stories. Despite having exactly the kind of budget you'd expect for a niche broadcast television production of the era and dealing with flying saucers, vampires and underground lizard people, Kolchak is somehow one of the most grounded and sober series about the supernatural I've ever seen.

For those seeking a superhero connection for all of this, Kolchak isn't all that far removed in concept from comic characters like Doctor 13 or even Constantine, or if we're prepared to go wide, I can see shades of Carl Kolchak in Spider Jerusalem. I think what makes Kolchak so enduring and engaging even now is how smart it manages to be at times, such as in an episode where an alien is killing people, the alien is invisible to human eyes, so all interactions are filmed with clever staging and light-play to create the impression that something is lingering just out of sight. It honestly works great, much better than a rubber suit would ever have. Of course, there are plenty of rubber suits and dodgy masks, but some great direction and interesting locations make the finished product greater than the sum of its parts. As a fan of classic Doctor Who, I have a high tolerance for cheap pre-CGI effects, but things like the Magma Dragon in The Caves of Androzani still really disappoint, so I was pleasantly surprised as how restrained Kolchak allowed itself to be.

For most of your games, Kolchak probably won't be providing a great deal of inspiration, but I do recommend watching it for just the sheer joy and interest of the series. Although comparisons can be readily made to later programmes like Supernatural, The X Files and Project Blue Book, the wry humor and 1970s cynicism make Kolchak a pretty unique entity in the history of television. Yes, it's dated and there are a few "yikes" moments to the modern sensibility, but the quality is solid and the acting is perfectly on-tone for what's being presented. Also, there's a few guest spots by actors famous for M*A*S*H, which is pretty cool. Naturally I'm now considering a Kolchak-style character in my vampire skirmish game, but who knows when I'll be able to get that off the ground in any serious way, so don't bother expecting any of that happening in the near future. Seriously, this is a great series and well worth your time to track down and watch.

Dream Match - Round I

A while back, I wrote an article ("Deaf Rattles") about the 'Versus' culture in comics and nerd media and the YouTube series Death Battle and the various issues I end up having with the concept. In that article I recall an old issue of Dragon magazine that proposed and worked through a battle between Raistlin and Elminster and how that may go down and how much I enjoyed the concept then. Of course, my article hardly set the internet on fire and the whole Versus culture continues unabated.

Rather than complain though (well, maybe a little), I've decided to be the change I want to see in the fandom and start doing my own version of versus battles here in my tiny and quiet corner of the internet. Hopefully my regular readers will enjoy what I'm trying to do here and we have a bit of fun along the way. Unlike the big sites, I'll be trying to focus on indy and lesser-known characters where I can, and trying to stay within how they're represented and written in their source material. First up, let's do some Anime and Indy Comics.

Ogre Vs Luther Strode

One is the Strongest Creature on Earth, Yuujirou Hanma, The Ogre, the other is an urban legend, the greatest Disciple of Cain, Luther Strode. Both men bathe in combat and violence to a level that has made them living myths, virtual bogeymen who leave nothing but death in their wakes. Both are unarmed combatants par excellence, having pushed their bodies and minds to superhuman levels, conventional weapons are basically useless against them and there are few in the world who could hope to challenge their might. What would happen if these two masters of violence came to blows? Let's find out!

Yuujirou Hanma
Known as Ogre, Yuujirou Hanma is the Strongest Creature on Earth, a veteran of countless wars, master of many martial arts techniques and never defeated in battle. Due to the nature of how strength and fighting prowess are represented in the Baki series, quantifying just how strong Ogre is is pretty tricky. Whilst some of his feats, including punching an elephant the size of a house to death with one blow and being so fast on his feet that people can't see his movements, boarder on the superhuman, within his own setting, he represents the limits of human potential, rather than being a genuine superman. That said, as well as astounding physical feats, Yuujirou can manipulate his aura to terrify or enrage people around him and can assess the strength of his foes with sight and scent. Also frustrating for quantifying Ogre's abilities is the fact that he rarely actually fights anyone in the series, dispatching most of his opponents in one or two strikes. His fight with Baki is probably the only time we get a good idea of his limits, and even then, he's not fighting at full strength for most of the battle.

Luther Strode
Once a skinny teenage boy who was bullied at school, Luther's life changed when he ordered an exercise programme from a comic book and discovered The System, becoming a disciple of Cain. Luther quickly became an artisan of murder, a superhuman killer who was virtually unstoppable by conventional means. Able to resist the, now-constant, urge to kill somehow, Luther started on a crusade to end the legacy of Cain and use his powers for good. Luther is strong enough to bend steel and punch through people with his bare hands. Perfect conscious control over his body grants Luther resistance to damage up to and including small arms fire (he can "catch" bullets in his muscle fibers), accelerated healing and the ability to "switch off" pain and physical limitations. The System enables Luther to predict his opponent's moves before they happen, as well as spotting weakness and injuries. Unlike other disciples of Cain, Luther has passed beyond the primal urge to murder and has achieved an enlightened state through physical perfection, making him an equal of Cain himself.

Why We Fight
Thankfully, the narrative reasons for Ogre and Luther to fight are pretty solid and straightforward. Ogre is a mercenary and Luther is a wanted criminal with a fearsome reputation, so it's possible that he could be hired to bring Luther in or just kill him. Conversely, Ogre's abilities and reputation could conceivably lead Luther to believe he's a disciple of Cain and therefore want to hunt him down to either recruit or stop. Despite both of their lethal reputations, it's not guaranteed that the fight will be to the death, as Luther tries to avoid killing if possible and Ogre only kills when he has to or is being paid to, preferring to stun or cripple if he believes the opponent is beneath him. Luther is more likely than Ogre to try and avoid civilian casualties, but neither is going to start hurting non-combatants around them just to gain an advantage, either.

How Ogre Wins
Out of the two combatants, Yuujirou is the most likely to escalate the fight faster if he feels he has to. Luther fights reactively, only moving to lethal force to defend himself from the same, so if Ogre goes straight to his most powerful techniques, he has a decent chance of putting Luther down before he gets going. It all comes down to how fast Ogre can identify Luther as a serious threat (remembering he didn't think Baki was a threat until well into their fight). With his abilities to sense strength, it's pretty possible that Ogre will know to be serious from the outset, with the only caveat to this being that he rarely gets a serious fight, so the desire to really test himself may get the better of him. Ogre is also more willing to kill than Luther, so if he can get in a finishing blow first, he may get the better of Luther's healing. 

How Luther Wins
Luther's main advantages in this fight are his ability to sustain levels of damage that would kill most people and his history of fighting people with the same or similar abilities to him. Despite his strength, most of Ogre's attacks probably won't hurt Luther all that much and his recovery abilities will give Luther the higher level of stamina in this fight. Unless Ogre starts trying to kill, Luther will be attempting to talk him down (which won't work) or just incapacitate him as fast as possible. If Luther can withstand Ogre's attacks for long enough, he gets into a good position to win, especially once he's taking the fight seriously enough to start predicting Ogre's blows. Luther may also be able to access help from Petra and other turned Disciples, which means he has more to draw on if the fight turns against him.

Well, that's the first one of these down, I have at least two more in the pipeline, so let me know if you enjoyed this and what you think about reading more.

Superhero Media: The Subjects

A random DVD I picked up in one of my scavenging, runs through the store for new content, The Subjects bills itself as a "Superhero Horror Movie", but really is barely that. Made cheaply with a collection of Australian actors doing awkward American accents stuck inside a music studio I'm 80% sure I was in once, The Subjects isn't much really, but there are some good ideas to be had. For starters, any fan of Sean Micallef should really check this film out for the handful of scenes featuring Tosh Greenslade; no, really. The idea is that a group of people have volunteered for a drug trial, only the drug gives super-powers, until it kills you, that is. Now, this is an interesting premise, but the lack of budget really kills the concept before it can get off the ground. At barely 90 minutes, I don't get to know any of the characters enough to care about them when they die, which is a real failure for any horror film.

Again, there are clever ideas to be had in The Subjects, the whole drug trial concept would work pretty well with Cadmus, Lexcorp or Alchemex pulling the strings, almost reminding me of Rise of the Imperfects in a funny way. One of the characters, whose name I don't remember, is essentially a take on Molecule Man, though I don't think that's deliberate, but after seeing The Subjects, I get an idea of what an MCU Molecule Man could look like and be pretty interesting. Aside from that, the only interesting power that pops up is a character who can control air, including the air inside people's lungs. I can see that kind of killer, and of course the character is a killer in The Subjects, being an interesting antagonist for, say, Daredevil, The Question or even Elongated Man in the right setting. Like an evil Wind Dancer, for those who tune in for my deepest cuts?

Oh, Vampire the Masquerade players may also want to check this out for a great representation of the Obfuscation power "Vanish from the Mind's Eye" and a fun way clever players may be able to get around it. Especially any True Brujha that your ST was silly enough to let you play. So should you bother with The Subjects? Well, if you like cheap horror, sure. Maybe not so much if you're a superhero fan though, as there isn't much there there in that regard. If you were looking for an interesting way to start a "grounded" supers campaign perhaps, but honestly, you could just watch the trailer and save yourself quite a bit of time to get the gist of the idea. If Marvel Studios or even HBO or Netflix took another swing at this idea with a series and more of a narrative, I'd probably be keen, but I doubt I'll bother to watch this again anytime soon.

Miniatures Finished: 12/07/2023

Just a few things off the painting table, mostly bits and pieces that I was working on between other projects.

The Raven: A little kitbash I threw together for this Frew Comics character that I've come to enjoy quite a bit. Converted Heroclix.

Alan Moore: Yes, I did find a 28mm Alan Moore after a little searching, so now this Anarchist Wizard can join in on some of my games. Smog.

Miss Marvel: Whilst I'm personally not a huge fan of this character (more that I can take or leave her than an active dislike), Miss Marvel has become such a big part of the Marvel Universe that I had to include her somewhere. Heroclix.

Viper: Given the price, I really feel that some Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures are fairly low quality. Viper here has very shallow detail on her face and hands, which is disappointing. AMG.

Sin: In contrast, Sin here, who came in the same box as Viper, is really nice and was a joy to paint. The detail is crisp and the model looks great done. AMG. 

Krillin: Whilst my quest to get more Dragon Ball characters in 28mm has stalled, there are plenty of options for them in Marvel Crisis Protocol scale. Damange 83

Superhero Media: Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II

So here's the thing about Godzilla films of this era I've been covering lately; they're ok. Very few fans tend to consider the 1990s to be a great time for the King of the Monsters, even if the worst offerings tend more towards the dull than the outright terrible. Drawing upon the successes of Mecha Anime and Super Sentai, Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II pits a team of scientists against Godzilla in their mehca with jet attachment. So yeah, this is one of those Godzilla outings that is human-focused. Godzilla is around, and doing stuff, but the mood is closer to a high-budget Power Rangers series than Shin Godzilla. Or, I'm guessing Super Sentai, but I haven't seen any Sentai, so Power Rangers was my touchstone. There's even a cute monster who helps there heroes, Minilla (or Baby Godzilla, depending on your translation), and the puppetry on the suit, especially the eyes, is fantastic, so whilst the character is silly, it always looks good on-screen.

Rhodan is also in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, but he almost seems an after-thought, intended to provide a tenuous link for a Pterodactyl-obsessed engineer to join the team. There's even that whole "international" team element for the Mechagodzilla crew common to Sentai and Power Rangers, though the justification here is that they are provided and trained by the UN's Anti-Godzilla Taskforce. What? Of course the UN has an Anti-Godzilla Taskforce in the Godzilla universe, that's just common sense. And they must be backed pretty well, because Mechagodzilla looks pretty damn expensive, even with the Apple 2Es in the control banks. Sadly, the action scenes of Godzilla fighting Mechagodzilla aren't all that great, even if Mechagodzilla looks awesome, it just can't seem to move very much and ends up being swung around on wires blasting beams of light at everything. Comparing it to Godzilla Vs Kong is unfair, but even the robots in [Japanese] Spiderman have more movement.

Again, I'm not the kind of fan who gets down on Kaiju films that focus on human characters, as Shin Godzilla and Gamera: Revenge of Iris are some of the best in the genre and do that same thing with their characters. The team of scientists aren't super deep or anything, but seeing normal people react to the continued presence of Kaiju in their world is pretty interesting; again, the UN having an anti-Godzilla taskforce is silly, but not within the setting. It tends to be subtext in the Godzilla films, but for the most part, the characters, and thereby Japan as a nation, are accustomed to life with Kaiju, to an extent. The destruction and death related to continued monster attacks are still tragic, but it's not a surprise and people are working to fix the problem as best they can. When you remember that Godzilla is very much a metaphor for the threat and destruction of nuclear power, this lends a credence and depth to the series that isn't obvious with all the rubber suits and atomic breath.

Force S5 - Part III

Welcome back to the secret war for humanity! Today we'll be covering a some of the core concepts of the game and a little more of the secret history of the setting. For those new to the hobby of miniature wargames, some of this will be a little bland, but stick with it and we'll be back to the fun nonsense before the bottom of the page.

Force S5 - Core Game Concepts

Miniatures Agnostic
There are no official miniatures for Force S5, you can use whatever you have to hand or build a team specially from models that take your fancy.

Dice
To play Force S5, you will need a couple of D20 dice sets (ones that include seven different dice for roleplaying games) per player and one extra D6 (six-sided die) for each member of a player's Team, with each player using a different colour of die. You will often need to roll a "D3", which is most easily achieved by rolling a D6 and count a result of 1-2 as "1", 3-4 as "2" and 5-6 as "3".

Measurement
Distances and ranges in Force S5 are made in Inches and denoted like X". Players can measure distances at any time and all distances between models are measured from edge of base to edge of base.

Dice Shifting
The mechanic of "shifting" dice is central to Force S5. For the purposes of the game, the hierarchy of dice is as follows: D3-D4-D6-D8-D10-D12-D20. A die can be shifted up (D4 to D6) and down (D12 to D10), though cannot be shifted higher than a D20. Should a die be shifted down from D3, it counts as 0, which has an important game function to be discussed later.

Activation
Force S5 does not proceed in turns where one player goes, then another, instead, one D6 per member of each Team (make sure to use different colours for each player) is placed inside an opaque bag or container and are pulled to determine play order. At the start of a turn, remove a die at random from the container, the player whose die it is rolls it as a D3, then nominates a model on their Team to take that many Actions (1-3). When the nominated model has completed their Actions, another die is pulled and the process repeated until every model on the table has Activated. Unless otherwise stated, each model may only be Activated once per turn.

Play Area and Terrain
Force S5 is intended to be played on an area no larger than 3'x3', though is best on a 2'x'2, as this speeds play. For longer games, or to include more than two players, try using larger tables. Force S5 also works well on Space Hulk or similar board sections to represent corridors or tunnels.

Success Threshold
When rolling dice in Force S5, players are looking to roll results of four and above (denoted as 4+), regardless of the size of the die. This means that a D4 has less chance of rolling a "Success" than a D20, and means that a D3 can never roll a Success.

Ok, that's enough of that for now, time for some story.

Alright, so when I was telling you that everything kicked off with the Philadelphia Experiment, that wasn't entirely true. Some species we consider to be 'alien' have been here a lot longer than that. The Reptilians for example, have been here actually longer than humans. Whilst we think of the Reptilians (aka Reptoids) as aliens, they're actually from Earth, and they're not Reptiles, they're dinosaurs. Well, they're what some dinosaurs evolved into after moving into underground caverns to survive. Some of the other stuff you may have heard about them is also true, at least in so far as they want to seize control of the surface again, masquerade as humans and enjoying drinking human blood, but that's more details for later. What's important now is that once humans started industrialising, the Reptilians really started messing with us, using manipulation and bribery to have us adopt a system they had devised to eventually have us destroy our civilisation. They called this nonsensical and destructive system "Capitalism" and sadly the plan worked and we adopted it like fools. Due to their long lives, the Reptilians are now watching their plan enter the end stages and are getting more bold about taking direct action.

And the Reptilians aren't the only "Cryptid" that's running around the planet as well. Wood Apes, aka Yeti, Sasquatch, Big Feet etc, are endemic to many heavily forested areas of the planet, keeping themselves hidden with their psychic trickery. Those poor bastards trying to hunt bigfoot for their low-budget documentary? Well they probably met one, had their minds blown, then erased. Why else would they keep going out to get zero evidence? As a species, the Wood Apes aren't truly friendly or hostile, but prefer to be left alone and work their own agendas. They will work with other groups when they feel like it, but you're never going to see a phalanx of armed Yeti marching down the California highway. There are others out there too, from epic threats like Mothman through to the more sinister Shadow People and Black Eyed Kids. What I'm saying is it's dangerous out there, so learn everything you can about these things before you try picking up a weapon and going into the darkness like some righteous avenger...

That's it for now, next time, a little more of both!