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: Bumblebee

So this is what a good Transformers film looks like! I hope we get more, given that Bumblebee was kind of intended as a last gasp to see if there was anything left in the franchise. Isn't that the way sometimes, that the one the producers don't care about ends up being the best one? I mean, I'll still defend the first live-action Transformers as a guilty pleasure, but the rest of the series has been mostly terrible. Stripping everything down to just a handful of Transformers, Bumblebee focuses on the relationship between the titular Autobot and Charlie (Hailee Stienfeld), a young woman with mechanical skill and desperate need of a father figure. The film is a by-the-numbers, coming of age, alien friend film, but it works and this isn't a franchise that really needs to reinvent the wheel or anything. The big story of the day, of course, is a return to more traditional (G1) Transformers designs for the Cybertron sequences and battles on Earth, and look, I'm not a huge Transformers fan at the end of the day, but seeing Ravage jump out of Soundwave's chest was pretty awesome. 

When I get asked by friends how I would adapt a given franchise, my usual response is "start with a good cast and script", which is something Bumblebee does long before G1 Optimus Prime appears. Sure, there is nothing overly deep about the film, or any of the characters, but this is Transformers, not Citizen Kane, the basics are enough. We hit a lot of John Hughes style '80s movie tropes and notes on the journey, but rather than a dance or a skateboarding contest, the film ends with a giant robot fight, which, honestly, probably would have improved Sixteen Candles. What I probably enjoyed best about Bumblebee was that it didn't "feel" embarrassed to be a Transformers film, embracing the silliness and childish joy of the franchise, be it in the form of getting to hear Stan Bush's "The Touch" play in one scene or having John Cena point out that the bad guys are called "Decepticons", and doesn't that sound just a little sus? In many ways, watching Bumblebee feels like watching SHAZAM! after sitting through all the drab and serious DCEU films that came out before it. 

So where to from here? Well, personally, as much as I enjoyed Bumblebee, I think it needs a rest before we get a spate of new films, I know I'm a little sick of them, and the box office returns on this one would indicate that the feeling is common. With a few years grace, a new Transformers series, separated from the old one, could be a big hit if it sticks closer to Bumblebee in execution, by which I mean have a good cast and solid script more so than using G1 designs, but there's nothing wrong with both. I mean, it's not like there aren't several nostalgic animated Transformers series around to tide fans over in lieu of a major motion picture, and you can always play some Bot War. I'm not sure how I feel about the proposed "Hasbro Cinematic Universe", as there will likely be some good ideas in there, but I really don't want to have to cover a My Little Pony film here just so my eventual review of the Revolution film. Also I kind of want Rom to be in the MCU instead, just as a fanboy thing.

Terrain Finished - More Street Scatter

Had these sitting partially-done for quite a while, but rolling pandemic lockdowns have delayed the getting of the right parts, glues and paints. Given how long my table takes to set up (around 45 minutes), I can probably stop adding smaller elements to it, but at this stage it's about incremental improvements more than the big stuff.

Another Porsche, I've had this one since childhood and it's technically a collectable, but I could never seem to sell it online, so it got the wheels glued and will now grace my gaming table.

Knights of Dice street food stands, with some decoration from toys and other kits. I'm considering adding some soft drink bottles or similar, but they're done for now.

Personalised pizzas for the hungry heroes of my gaming table.

Donuts made from craft beads and some MRE containers for take-home mixed Dozens.

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.

Superhero Media: Teen Titans GO! To the Movies

For those yet to get in on Teen Titans GO! as a series, you're missing out on one of the best DC films ever in Teen Titans GO! To the Movies; no, really. When the Teen Titans fail to defeat Balloon Man because they're rapping and dancing, the Justice League chastises them for being silly and lets slip that they're on the way to a film premiere. Tagging along uninvited, the Titans discover that not only is Batman getting another film, but Alfred, the Batmobile and the Utility Belt are all getting their own films before Robin. Embarking on a mission, the Titans try to get Robin a movie deal whilst working against the machinations of Slade, played here by Will Arnett. The plot may be basic, but the pace of Teen Titans GO! To the Movies is unrelenting, with scenes and ideas firing as rapidly as the jokes so that even if something doesn't land, the next bit is already here to enjoy. The humor ranges from literal fart jokes through to meta-comentary on the Superhero film industry, so there's something in there for pretty much everyone, including a Stan Lee cameo. Actually, one of the best Stan Lee cameos ever done. 

It was quite a while between viewings of Teen Titans GO! To the Movies for me, so I had forgotten just how great a film it was, from the cast (Nic Cage as Superman), the songs and especially some of the jokes. From low-hanging fruit like the "Martha" scene in Dawn of Justice, some of the jokes are almost transcendent, like Cyborg tricking Superman by pretending to be Lois and claiming "I'm being held prisoner by Gene Hackman's real estate scheme". References to the series, including waffles and a thorough disdain for windows, are pretty thick, but even if you've never seen an episode of Teen Titans GO!, there is plenty to enjoy. Part of what makes Teen Titans GO! To the Movies so good is the voice cast, because although the focus is on Robin (Scott Menville), the rest of the voice actors, including Tara Strong, Greg Cipes, Hynden Walch and Khary Payton, have been working as a team for years, hitting the same kind of cohesion like the Futurama team. Some of the best scenes almost come across as ad-libbed sketches with each member of the team having a space to riff. 

So why hasn't Robin been in many DC films? Well, a certain subset of the Batman fandom hates the character, or anything fun in comics, and probably their own lives, and they never shut up, so the industry thinks they represent more than just a few sad shut-ins. So take back the genre, watch Teen Titans GO! To the Movies instead of Joker or The Dark Knight again, it's fucking hilarious. The soundtrack is even pretty great if you just want to check that out, several of the songs are on my work playlist. Personally, I also enjoy the juxtaposition of crazy nonsense and deep lore that is Teen Titans GO!, but I understand why it can be off-putting, leaving this film as an excellent compromise for when I need to convince a date to let me watch more of the programme when it pops up on Netflix. I wish the DCU films were as good as Teen Titans GO! To the Movies, in that they're not often as cleverly written as the dumb cartoon with the fart jokes, and the deeply clever meta comedy.

Miniatures Finished: Ninja

As I continue to build up and complete teams of henchmen, I have gotten together a small group of Ninja for a variety of games. Just the five so far as I want them to be a more "elite" group and it is a base unit for Warlords of Erehwon.

TMNT Heroclix with some arm and weapon swaps from Warlord Games Samurai sprues.

Superhero Media: Night Watch

Once upon a time, every "cool" nerd owned a copy of Night Watch on DVD, waxing lyrical about it as we drank cheap vodka because we were too cool for beer and playing Vampire The Masquerade because we were too cool for D&D. Not only did Night Watch suit our aesthetic perfectly, with its mix of low-fantasy, horror and art-house tones, plus it was a foreign film, so we could be all superior about people who watched the English dub and missed out on the awesome custom subtitles. A few years later, when the sequel, Day Watch came out, and was generally regarded as a pretty poor follow-up, we all put our DVDs away and I honestly hadn't heard anything about Night Watch again until I found my copy whilst sorting out my collection. Now, I've said before that I wasn't the greatest person in the world in my late teens and early twenties, but watching this film again brought some stuff up, not just about me personally, but how the manner in which films has changed and the importance of critical reflection. The opening of Night Watch sets up the main conflict for the film, "Others", supernatural creatures of human birth, are divided into two camps, Light and Dark, who have reached a truce after centuries of combat, with the Day Watch policing the Light Others and the Night Watch policing the Dark Others. 

Ok, that's a reasonable enough set-up for the film, with clear divisions of sides and there's a prophecy of a chosen one that gives a narrative to cling to; although this is all pretty basic, that turns out to be a good choice, as Night Watch at no other times plays by any rules. The younger me claimed to "get" everything going on in Night Watch, because he needed to feel clever, but so much of what is happening just doesn't make sense, which is actually the point. Why and how is Olga an owl? Who knows? All the Vampires are Dark Others, but every Other gets to choose their side so why aren't there good Vampires? Doesn't matter. What is the Gloom? Meh? How does Zavulon predict the future with a Playstation 2? I don't know, but when he pulls a sword out of his spine, it's pretty neat. Night Watch is a triumph of style over substance, which is actually perfectly fine, as that's what it's going for and it gets there brilliantly. Like many a good roleplaying game, the final battle for the fate of the world comes down to a couple of guys in trench-coats wrestling on a roof somewhere, but at least this time, the coats make sense; it's cold in Russia. 

There is a game in here somewhere that isn't in the World of Darkness, as the Night Watch themselves do have a team vibe going, with Anton having psychic/empathic powers, Olga being a strategy expert and the two shapeshifters being the beatsticks of the team (one is a Werebear the other a Weretiger). More supernatural based superhero teams, like the Croatonans or Night Stalkers, are certainly a thing, and not what I've seen most players do in miniatures or RPGs. Night Watch isn't the avant-garde, ocean-deep, genre-bending indy masterpiece I thought it was back in 2005 when I first saw it, but there is a lot there to enjoy now that I understand film better, even if it's almost just a show-reel for some interesting tableau. As far as potential Russian heroes for my Ultimate Alliance games, Night Watch is a more grounded alternative to Guardians, with the Night Watch likely running around in their Power Grid uniforms after the Guardians have wrecked another tower or two in a big flashy fight, cleaning up the real mess of cyborg henchmen left behind.

Miniatures Finished: Big Green Threats

Sometimes I finish a really big, or just awkwardly sized miniature and have to wait until I have something that can fit in the same frame, but still show just how big it is. To that end, here is Hulk and the Kree Supreme Intelligence.

Marvel Crisis Protocol Hulk (Atomic Mass Games/Fantasy Flight) and the Supreme Intelligence (Heroclix)

I wanted a Hulk a little bigger and nastier than my existing ones, to represent Devil Hulk/Immortal Hulk. I copied the comics as best I could when painting as well.

The detail on this piece is pretty good, especially for Heroclix. I would have done a wash on the face if I could have, but it looks good enough for the table.

I did paint in a few extra details (those green sections glow) as well as changing the base on The Supreme Intelligence. I'm still not keen on Marvel Crisis Protocol, but I reckon the Supreme Intelligence would work well for that game as well as 28mm games.

Superhero Media: Dragon Ball Z - Bardock The Father of Goku

A true hero is only as good as their origin, and as Goku is just an obvious rip-off of Superman, more information was needed to distance the two, so Bardock The Father of Goku was birthed from the minds of the series writers for Dragon Ball Z. So Bardock, as an expanded character with his own mythos that crosses film and video games, is pretty unnecessary, not really adding anything to the broader franchise, but that doesn't make Bardock The Father of Goku much less entertaining. The narrative needs to do some major calisthenics to get anything happening, I mean, Bardock gets the gift of prophecy just so that he can see clips of Dragon Ball and DBZ and react to them, that's some convenient writing right there. This happens, of course, because the only real story to tell is in the contrast between father and son, with the brutal Sayian warrior who kills without a thought eventually becoming proud of the hero his son will grow up to be. 

Interestingly, much of the narrative of Bardock The Father of Goku takes place over a few hours, perhaps a couple of days, whilst this fits with other DBZ films, which mostly cover a single fight, it doesn't give us much time to get to know Bardock as a person. True, he's even less deep that Goku, who has all the personality of a Golden Age video game character (essentially none), but Bardock does go on a journey of sorts, coming around to a different point of view, even if it does take major spoilers for DBZ to do it. Although it's always good to see Sayain Great Apes again, most of the fights in Bardock The Father of Goku aren't all that interesting, as the power level needs to be carefully managed; the one peak is when Bardock takes out several Freiza Elites by fighting smart, but it's over all too quick. Of course Bardock can't fight the actual antagonist of the film, Freiza, because we already know how powerful he is and the anticlimax would be disappointing. 

As much as I find Bardock Father of Goku middling at best, I kind of wish there were more DBZ films like it, in that they could explore more of the setting outside of the Z Fighters and Earth. Yes, the series has, and continues to visit new worlds and places, but they are only seen through the eyes of Goku and friends. Stories of the Great Drought on Namek or the rise of the Frost dynasty are waiting to be told and may allow aspiring writers to try out new things without impinging upon the existing setting all that much. There's a whole universe out there to explore, and sometimes the less known corners can hide the best narrative gems. The games and Anime have introduced a multiverse of possibilities, and I'd like to see it filled out more in the future.

Spider-Man Mini Campaign - Planning

As I am still somehow struggling to get some decent superhero cards up and running, and it has been quite a while since my last "Rulebook" article, I thought I could show people how it is I get a game (or in this case, campaign) up and running. Hopefully it's instructive and you can start planning your own games based on how mine go.

The Death of Spider-Man
Years ago, with my original "Champions of the Omniverse" TSR Marvel Superheroes RPG, one character, Spider-Strike had a fun little background that stuck with me, being an "Edgy 90s" version of Spider-Man that took over for a while after Spidey's death, ala The Death of Superman. It was a fun joke that sat in the back of my head for years, and was slowly added to as new ideas occurred to me. Coincidentally, I also really got into converting Heroclix to make unavailable characters and home-brewed ones, expanding my options greatly and offering opportunities for unique characters still in the mold of existing settings.

The concept behind my "Death of Spider-Man" mini-campaign is pretty straightforward, really, as the entire process is an obvious pastiche of The Death of Superman, so my framework is already done, and I just need to plug in the Spider-Man related details. Let's start with the easy part, who will replace the main players in the original story?

Well, Spider-Man is our obvious Superman stand-in, here the 616 Peter Parker version (more on that later) because he's almost as iconic as Kal-El, and that lets us spin this out to alternate Spider-Men and Spider-People when we get to the big blow-out at the end. Next, we pretty much have to consider Doomsday, a lame character to be sure, but necessary for the narrative. Where I've settled is "Venogoblin" (pictured above, 3rd from the right), a version of Norman Osborn who thought it would be a great idea to mix the Goblin Formula with some Simbiote he had lying around, turning himself into a rampaging monster that Spidey dies trying to stop. We'll be running into a "Reign of the Spider-Men" story, so we'll also be needing Eradicator, Superboy, Steel and Cyborg Superman analogs; enter Spider-Strike (or is Spider-Stryk more '90s?), Octo-Spider, Spider-Slayer and, um, Cyborg Spider-Man. Look, I opened him in a booster, ok?

More on these characters later, but yeah, Spider-Strike is an edgy, '90s take on Spider-Man, with too many pouches and combat pants, he also probably uses an awkward slang phrase too much. Octo-Spider is actually intended to be Flash Thompson, using an experimental mobility harness made by Otto Octavius that he has stolen and weaponised. As usual, this Flash went to war and was injured, and is a huge Spidey fan, so his death would encourage him to get out and try and take his place. Steel Spider would probably be a better idea here, but as Heroclix haven't made one, I decided to make something up myself. Finally, yes, that's meant to be J Jonah Jameson inside the Spider-Slayer, affected enough by the death of Spider-Man, and the revelation that it was Peter Parker, a close confidant for years, he has broken his Slayer out of storage and is doing the best to undo the damage his papers have caused over the years.

Naturally, some of my Spidey villains will be playing a part as well, either as "dressing" in some scenarios, or for the various "Spider-Men" to fight in some games. You'll notice a lack of some famous faces here, but that's deliberate, and we'll get onto it in a later entry.

I've also long been a fan of the idea of Spider-Man side characters getting to do their own thing as a team, like the Slingers or Silver Sable's Wild Pack, the latter being my inspiration for the above, work-in-progress team.

So far the plan is to run say, 4-6 games, mostly small ones, but maybe a big blow-out at the end with a kind of Spider-Verse deal happening, if I can get enough Spider-people ready. At this stage, the end of the campaign is pretty far away, so I'm comfortable with it being a little vague right now. By the time I get going, things should be worked out, but right now I don't need every detail covered, and getting bogged down is just going to delay things further. Next time, we'll break down the scenarios and how I plan to link them together.

Superhero Media: Spider-Man Far From Home

I remember that a few of my friends that are more casual in their approach to the Marvel Cinematic Universe elected to not see Spider-Man Far From Home promptly, not because they weren't interested in the film, but because they didn't want an ending to "Wave 3" that wasn't Avengers Endgame. Whilst I get this kind of thinking, I personally found that Far From Home was exactly what I needed after the series of emotional spikes that was Endgame. Although there is an arc to Far From Home and Peter does grow as a character, the stakes aren't world-ending and most of the film is just fun to watch. This is Spider-Man we're talking about after all, not Thor or Captain Marvel. In fact, that Peter has been anointed by Tony Stark to be his successor, but lacks the experience and maturity needed to so much as want the role, is a major narrative theme of the film, and works really well as a bookend to the events of Infinity War and Endgame. For all the "great power" stuff that Spider-Man is about, it can be easy to forget that he is a teenager and sometimes he just wants to be a kid for a little while, rather than fighting aliens or a moron in an animal-themed costume. 

The cast, once again, is brilliant, the kids are great and I can't wait to see what they do with the rest of their acting careers, but Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio may be some of the best casting the MCU has done since everyone in Black Panther. For all the crap he's got as an actor, Gyllenhaal has decent chops, and does a great borderline prima donna when his plan starts to unravel. As someone who has been reading Spider-Man comics as long as he can remember, as much as I want to see most of the classic villains on the big screen, the long-form stories that made them great in the first place don't always translate well to a three-act film structure, like Chameleon taking months to reveal himself or Mysterio posing as Peter's therapist to drive him insane. Far From Home does one the better jobs in memory of adapting a character with a huge backstory and changing it enough to fit a new narrative, but keeping enough of what worked in the comics. Although straining the CGI at times, the "madness corridor" sequence in Berlin is pure vintage Mysterio adapted for the MCU. 

Possibly best of all, JK Simmons is back as J Jonah Jameson, even if it's only for a few minutes. Ok, that's a little hyperbolic, but it was exactly the fan punch that Far From Home needed with the passing of Stan Lee. Like it or not, it's the younger stars that will lead the MCU forward into Wave 4 and beyond and Spider-Man will likely be at the forefront for a little while to come. Personally, I'm hoping Peter can take over Stark Industries after his solo films are done and become something of a mentor figure to even younger heroes we haven't seen yet, only breaking out the tights for the crossovers. That would allow Tom Holland to do other things and still keep a toe in, like Thor sticking around because Chris Hemsworth doesn't seem to get too many good roles for some reason. As of the time of writing (September 2020), this catches me up with all of the released MCU films, with no release date for Black Widow in sight. Going back over these films, even the ones I don't like all that much, has been a great experience and I think I'll be doing it more often. Certainly I need to get more watches of Thor Ragnarok and Ant-Man and The Wasp in.

The Pitch: The Legend of Zelda - Hero of Time

Ok, so last time we covered just why two Legend of Zelda games from the 2000s are still on my mind way too often more than twenty years later, now let's get to the real meat of what I wanted to say. Up until Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda titles really didn't have direct sequels to speak of, so although I've wanted a third installment for the Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask series, I've never dared to hope much and kept my ideas for how I would write such a game pretty private. Even though I've had a title in mind for almost all that time.

The Legend of Zelda: Hero of Time

Ok, first things first, this is pretty much pure fantasy, even more so than my usual "The Pitch" articles. As a published author, it's not inconceivable that something I write one day will get big and I end up doing more professional writing, which could include film work. It's really fucking unlikely, I'll admit, but not utterly impossible. Writing a major Nintendo release however? Yeah, good luck. I'm not here to cirticise Nintendo's fan-management, but given that I'm not a Japanese games developer already, let's just say they're not interested in anything I have to say, or ever will. Which is fine, I doubt too many hardcore Zelda fans will like my take on this anyway.

As my background is in prose and not really interactive media, I'm working with a three-act structure for Hero of Time, because, honestly, it's a good way to build a story, for almost every medium. For the fans in the gods, this will be a direct sequel to Majora's Mask, with the Link featured being the very same, though now-adult (or late teens, really), and having essentially continued running for the intervening years. This Link is still haunted by his past, but not to the "brutal and damaged" state, this is a Legend of Zelda game, we're keeping things PG. We'll break it down more below, but the three acts are essentially, 'The Journey Home', 'Saving Hyrule' and 'The Dark World'. Although, being a video game, players can wander back and forth pretty much at will, the idea is to delineate each act visually as well as geographically.

I actually like a good opening cinematic, so we'll be going all-out for Hero of Time, with a voice-over from Zelda explaining the history of Link, how he traveled through time to save Hyrule, but couldn't just be a child again and left, saving Termina on his way out into the world. But the evil didn't stay sealed, leaking into the land slowly as the years crept by, the Sages not even noticing until it was too late. Queen Zelda took it upon herself to battle the darkness, but was lost in the wastes West of Hyrule. In desperation, the remaining sages sent out the fairy, Navi, to seek the long-lost Hero of Time. Opening credits.

The game begins in a small coastal village, deliberately reminiscent of Windwaker but not specifically anywhere from the game, as we're not tying directly into anything other Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Navi finds a now-adult link wandering the shore and has to convince him to return to Hyrule to help Zelda, which he is reluctant to do at first, trauma being like that and all. Of course Link agrees in the end and the reunited companions have to head back to Hyrule. As this version of Link is by now a seasoned adventurer, he'll actually be starting out with some equipment, rather than having to gather it as he normally does. Nothing special, just a sword, shield, bow and bomb bag, everything else will come over the course of the adventure. The first part of the game is a mountain range that Link has to cross, basically it's a chance to learn the controls, try out the equipment and gather a few Heart Containers, but it will also discourage players from wandering back to the first town, as there's not all that much there to see.

Link emerges from the mountains in northern Termina, we get a nice sweeping shot of the HD version of the landscape which, yes, will be bigger and more detailed than it was in Majora's Mask, this is a sequel, not a remake. Before he can move into Hyrule, Link has to revisit some of the important locations in Termina, find some treasures and help people out, places like the Great Bay, Clock Town and the Moon. Again, this isn't a remake, so it's not the same dungeons and quests as Majora's Mask, but we get to see the characters of the games ten or so years on like we did in Ocarina of Time. This section of the game will be substantial, with Link needing to get some items, defeat some bosses and getting his hands on the Ocarina of Time, with which (and the Song of Soaring) introduces our fast travel mechanic. If, at this stage, the player can be bothered returning on foot to the starting area, there will be a nice little bonus, like some equipment or a new mask.

What's that? Yeah, we're doing masks again. Not to a Majora's Mask extent, but some old favorites like the Bunny Hood, Deku Mask and even the Fierce Deity and Majora's Masks will pop up, but more on them later. After gathering what he needs from Termina, Link can depart to the next area of the game, and the next act, Hyrule. Much like in Ocarina of Time, Hyrule is a nightmare kingdom of darkness and monsters, with the few living survivors hiding in towns and settlements. From townsfolk and people from his past, Link uncovers information about what has happened; a new dark force came from the Desert, Zelda went to fight it and was never seen again. No one knows anything specific, but the Sages, when Link finds them, push him to get the Master Sword and go confront the evil, rescue the Queen, etc. Some of the Sages are in or near the Ocarina of Time dungeons, but the player doesn't need to clear all of them again, maybe just the good ones for fun, though with some expanded sequences.

What Link really needs to recover the Master Sword is, of course, the three Spiritual Stones, so it's off to the Great Deku Tree, Dododongo's Cavern and Zora's Domain (Jabujabu is dead from the pollution, so I'm guessing Ruto hid it in the Ice Cavern or Water Temple). Each of these locations will be reminiscent of how they appeared in Ocarina of Time, but still very different, remember, this is not a remake. There will be a dream sequence, however, after Link has found the Spiritual Stones that takes the player through a full 64-bit dungeon made up of iconic bits of Ocarina of Time, just as a nice bit of fan-service, though it dumps Link in the Temple of Time and he can finally pull the Master Sword. Also in terms of fan-service, the various songs from Ocarina of Time will mostly still work, and if the player can figure them out without Link "learning" them, they work. Like the magic spells in the old Ultima games.

Finally, Link can head into the Haunted Wasteland to confront the great evil that is destroying Hyrule. He finds that the Gerudo Fortress has been destroyed and all the Gerudo killed, probably being told this by the ghost of Nabooru, and the wasteland is now more reminiscent of the Dark World from Link to the Past, a surreal nightmare of darkness more so than a traditional landscape. In this section of the game, Link will pretty much be battling nasty monsters, finding the last few items he needs to complete the game and clearing a couple of dungeons to make his way to the final boss. This is probably where he finds things like Majora's Mask and the Gold Bracers, really building up that Link is about to take on the biggest foe he's ever faced. This section of the game should ideally be pretty difficult, at least for a Zelda game, though there's a Great Fairy's Fountain just before the Boss, so that players can go in at full health, and probably with Nayrue's Love now in their arsenal.

Can't really go any further with this without dropping the big reveal; the villain is Princess Zelda. After ascending to the throne and having the influence to learn more about the Triforce and the whole cosmogonic cycle that she, Ganon and Link are destined to repeat for eternity. Wanting to break that cycle, Zelda used her magic to kill Gannondorf (who has been imprisoned since the end of Ocarina of Time) and steal the Triforce of Power from him. Of course, power corrupts, so it wasn't long before Zelda wanted to get her hands on the Triforce of Courage in Link as well, so she starts to destroy Hyrule to lure the Hero of Time back. In an attempt to subvert the cycle, Zelda has merely shifted her role within it, becoming Ganon while Link remains the hero and someone, probably Saria, Ruto or Nabooru, in the Triforce of Wisdom Role. To finish the game, the player, and Link, have to save Hyrule by killing Princess Zelda.

I'm typically a bit down on massive boss fights in video games, but the Link/Zelda fight should be pretty long and cover multiple parts, just maybe let players save and quit between sections? I don't know why more games don't do that? Link will have to use everything in his arsenal to defeat Zelda, as she's still part good, so the Master Sword doesn't do the full job, and even the Fierce Deity Mask can't quite bring down an sorceress with two Triforce sections. In order to strike the killing blow, Link has only one choice; put on Majora's Mask. Link gets to throw around some serious power for a few rounds with the mask on, but what we're really building to is a sequence where Link, as Majora, has to travel to the moon, meet the Moon Children again, and, tragically, crash the moon into Zelda to kill her. With this act, as well as narratively tying up the previous two games, Link destroys Zelda, the Triforce, and himself, closing the cycle begun in the Deku Tree so many years ago and moving on to the next rotation. Although this is a sad ending, there is reference to games that happen in the "future" of the timeline and reinforcement of the Campbell-esque ideas of mythic cycles at the core of the series.

Hero of Time is a story of gods and epic destiny, but also is very human, with Link's trauma being a big driving force for the narrative as well as the whole mythology thing. In fact, with some clever writing, Link's 'silent protagonist' status could actually be played to make him seen withdrawn and reluctant, rather than just shy. The game echoes both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, but is it's own thing, think more like the 8-Bit sections and Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey than Kirby's Adventure Wii. And, well, I'm done? I'm not a video game designer, I'm a writer (and psychotherapist and some other stuff), so the above has been an exercise in storytelling, not game design. And also the main point was to get this out of my head where it's been rattling around for a couple of decades. Hope you enjoyed the ride, but it's back to superheroes next time.

Supehero Media: Deadpool 2

As much as I didn't expect the first Deadpool to be as good as it was, Deadpool 2 doesn't really have any business being as good as it is; which is somehow better than the first. It's kind of not a fair comparison, as Deadpool was a small-budget experiment that was only dragged into release by a fan backlash, whereas Deadpool 2 has all the money and backing to be as big and bold as it wants. Taking on the broader superhero film industry, but the X-Men series especially, Deadpool 2 is actually a deconstructionist parody that angry nerds on the internet claimed they wanted, but seemed all to quick to dismiss. Funny that. When Wade Wilson's freewheeling mercenary lifestyle catches up with him, Vanessa dies tragically and he attempts to kill himself over and over before being rescued by Colossus. Attempting to join the X-Men alongside Negasonic Teenage Warhead and her girlfriend, Surge, Deadpool soon goes rogue to save Firefist, a teenage mutant played brilliantly by Julian Dennison, the best thing to come out of New Zealand since my ex-girlfriend. 

Rather than focus strictly on the story, Deadpool 2 bounces around themes and set-up scenes to tell all the jokes it wants, often at the expense of narrative, even spending a reasonable proportion of the second act setting up an extended tease for an "X-Force" film that was never intended to exist. For such a goofy film, a lot of smart choices went into making Deadpool 2, from not overly expanding the cast or premise, to not repeating too many jokes and bringing us more satire. One of my favourite lines is "So dark! Are you sure you're not from the DC universe?", not just because it was funny, but because back in my younger days when superhero films were less ubiquitous, Marvel Comics were considered to be the "darker" take on superhero comics. Even contemporary film-making itself, as a process, gets a jab or two, and not just in the credits, the "Holy S*** Balls" track which plays over the score when Juggernaut attacks is a masterpiece of satire; how many vocal choir themes have played over villain entrances in films for the past decade? 

I think the genre needs more films like Deadpool 2, and no, I don't mean films with an R rating, fourth wall breaks or even Deadpool himself (though I'm hanging out for the third entry). We need more superhero films with this much thought put into them for something beyond references and franchise connective tissue. Yes, the pop culture drops flow thick and fast in Deadpool 2, but for me the takeaways are Negasonic being queer and it being a big deal to no one and not played for titillation, Colossus somehow having a more compelling arc than most characters in other X-Men films and Dopinder having his own journey of violence and death quietly in the background. Oh, I forgot to mention in both my Deadpool and Mighty Med reviews that Karan Soni has a small recurring role in Mighty Med and now I want a MCU crossover even more. Yes, I'm sick of the fans, and convention Deadpool cosplayers and all the rest that comes along with the success of these films, but I still can't help but love them all the same. The X-Men series may have only produced a half-dozen good films over two plus decades, but if that's what it took to get Logan and Deadpool 2 back-to-back, maybe it was all worth it?

Miniatures Finished: Blood in the Machine

After a while and quite a few games, I have finally finished 19 Renegade Robots for Judge Dredd Miniatures Game. As I tend to enjoy doing, I've pulled the gang from a variety of sources and, to keep it in a very 2000AD style, I've opted for a variety of colours rather than a unifying scheme.

The complete gang, named after the Brian Merchant book, just in case anyone was wondering how I was going to work a leftist reference into another miniatures game. I can't imagine that I'll ever have a reason to put all of them on the table at once, but I like having options, you never know where a campaign is going to end up.

My demolition droids, including my usual Gang Leader, Haro-2-Goodbye. Haro is Necromunda Ambot legs and arms on a Gunpla Haro (1/12 scale) and the other is a Pacific Rim Heroclix repaint.

Combat Droids, converted Eureka Miniatures in the front, with Mantic behind, flanked by two D&D Warforged Monks. I like the idea of kung-fu robots. And the JDMG rules actually let me make that kind of character, so that's fun.

Junkers, both converted D&D miniatures. If I expand the gang, I would likely get more Junkers, as they're cheap fodder that are also surprisingly tough on the table.

Servo Droids form the backbone of the gang, being fairly affordable and almost as tough as a Judge. Mine are mostly converted Star Wars Legion models, excepting the back left, which is another D&D blind box find. I could also maybe do with another couple of these, but I'm waiting to find the right models. 

Minibots, the 'cheap filler' for the gang that can take barely any equipment and tend to get taken out fast in a fight. The other cheap option is Robodogs, which I have a few of through Necromunda, but am yet to figure out how to make the best use of them in the game.

I've also been working on some terrain specifically for JDMG, as can be seen with the garbage pile above. The tower is for Necromunda, but might work for Dredd as well, we'll see how it all pans out. I'm trying to let this project happen organically, rather than building a specific army or table like I do now; go a bit oldschool I guess, with just a collection of stuff that works together. We'll see how it goes, I think my next focus will be my Street Gang.

Superhero Media: Guardians

The trailers and hype for this film were so cool back in the day! Billed as "The Russian Avengers", Guardians turned out to be more like a 1990s superhero film, in terms of the bad writing, poor special effects and nonsense plotting. More so that being a Russian version of The Avengers, Guardians is closer to Neo-Soviet Fant4stic. Seriously, there are four heroes in Guardians, a scientist who can transform his body (Arsus), a young guy who moves fast and takes risks (Khan), a man with internal torments and rock powers (Ler) and a blonde who can turn invisible (Kseniya). Having gotten their powers during the Cold War, the Guardians, as a side effect of their powers, do not age at the normal rate, which is made a point of, as if it will play a big role in the story, but it's just a thing that sits there for no reason. If I had to guess, the Guardians being part of a Soviet-era superhero programme (nammed "Patriot") is some kind of weird hand-waving to imply the current Russian government would never do horrible human experiments, which, from an outside perspective, is pretty eye-rolling.  

Like more than a few things I've reviewed, if Guardians was just bad all the way through, then it wouldn't really be interesting; it's because there is enough going on in Guardians that I think it's worth a watch. For starters, Arsus, the Reed Richards of the team, turns into a giant bear. That's his power, "becomes bear", and later they give him a massive minigun, that's pretty cool right there. Ler is pretty forgettable, though his speech about having to watch his daughter and grandchildren get old and die before him is interesting enough, if not especially unique. Kseniya honestly just comes across as an excuse to get an attractive woman in tight clothing for most of the runtime, as her personal narrative of "amnesia" is pretty lazy and doesn't go anywhere. Khan at least has an interesting look and speedters always make for fun visuals, but aside from some mention of a dead brother, I didn't really get what he was "about" as a character; he was just there to be cool, which never works as well as the writers seem to want it to. 

If there's one element of Guardians that I'm going to bring into my own games, it's the villain, Professor August, a rogue scientist with the power to control machines with his mind. Ok, so August actually has a general "super soldier" powers package, but has cybernetically altered himself with a device that lets him control machines, but the strength and agility doesn't come up all that often. August's plan involves stealing two huge towers to make a giant antenna that will enable him to control all the world's satellites and thereby the world. That's a solid comic book villain plan and I love how gonzo it is, made even better by the fact he pulls it off for most of the film and only loses at the eleventh hour. Also his minions, a "clone army" are soldiers in balaclavas with an array of lenses poking out, which is basic, but looks really cool. If you haven't seen Guardians, I'd say it's worth at least the one watch, even if it is pretty poor overall, as there's enough fun stuff happening to get through the film, but it's not some forgotten classic or cult darling in waiting.

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.