Jab’s Builds! (Nightmare Creatures/Circus! Lawnmower Man! Metroid!)

[MacynSnow]

Captain Britain and MI-13:
This was a quite good, doomed-to-Early-cancellation, book from 2010-ish. I mean, iit was well written and well drawn... but a CAPTAIN BRITAIN book? With Pete Wisdom, Black Knight and Spitfire as his major supporting cast?

The arcs are quite interesting, and I liked how it focused more on quick thinking and tactics over just punching. The first arc is all Secret Invasion stuff, as Brian gets all this mystical destiny stuff and offs a Super-Skrull with the combined might of all England's magic. In the second story, the team faces off against one of the monstrous demons unleashed by Wisdom in order to beat the Skrulls (he freed Satannish, and was granted one boon- apologizing to the people he couldn't resurrect, Wisdom said "No More Skrulls", saving England). The final arc is most fascinating, as it's all a tactical game of chess between Wisdom and Dracula himself, who plots the total overthrow of England. And Wisdom pulls some great stuff in that arc.

One of the only problems with the book is a lack of exposition. For example... nobody explains why Spitfire is a vampire! Or why her son wears a funny costume (it's Baron Blood's)! Or who Captain Fate is. Or who Captain Midlands (who ends every sentence with a comma and "like") is. Or why Meggan disappeared! They explain where she was, but all you see at one point is that she was missing- she's basically ignored for the entire story until it's relevant. She's the hero's WIFE. Hell, they never even explain minor stuff, like anyone's origins, or what their powers actually are. I mean- you can make fun of Claremontisms, but you understood what everyone could do! *I* know that Pete throws Hot Knives, but think of new readers!

This series is the only sole reason that i even like Pete Wisdom.Anyone that can out-think DRACULA(one of the longest lived villians Marvel has aside from Apocolypse),deserves his Creditial's in my book.

[MacynSnow]

EXCALIBUR:

-One of the later '80s Spin-Offs of The X-Men, Excalibur took advantage of another of Chris Claremont's favourite things- The U.K. Having lived there in his youth, Claremont had a tendency to have characters vacation or visit there. Having written part of Captain Britain's book in the 1970s, Chris added Brian Braddock to the book, alongside his girlfriend Meggan and three former X-Men: During the Mutant Massacre, Kitty Pryde & Nightcrawler were badly-injured, and were left in Scotland to recover. Rachel Summers (aka the second Phoenix) had left the team much earlier for her own reasons. They were thus in the vicinity of the U.K. when Warwolves and the Technet attacked, and also watched the X-Men "die" in Dallas (the start of the Australia Era). Because of this, the five grouped together to form Excalibur, and become Britain's defenders.

-Claremont joined forces with Alan Davis, a brilliant penciler who had the ultra-rare ability to DRAW WOMEN WITH DIFFERENT PHYSICAL APPEARANCES, and was also generally just very, very good. They decided to make Excalibur an exception to the Grim 'n' Gritty style of X-books, having them engage in weird and whacky adventures that often involved parallel relaties. The stories were the kind of "are they taking LSD"-type weird stuff that REALLY makes you question their sanity. While the books were brilliantly-drawn, I actually felt they were a bit too silly to enjoy. I mean, there was stuff like Galactus eating a world because "it is too silly to live". Also, they wiped out one of Braddock's love interests, then replaced her with a doppelganger (Courtney Ross & Opal-Luna Saturnyne)... then basically just appeared to drop the storyline completely, as I don't remember it ever coming up again.

-Some of the issues were pretty good- there's a neat one when Nightcrawler becomes the lover of some hot psychopathic Queen chick and Excalibur has to come save him. But for the most part, I had trouble getting into it, even though I loves me some Kitty Pryde. There's also the fact that Claremont just absolutely LOVED Rachel Summers, forcing her down the fans' throats by going on and on about how hot and super-powerful she was (Kitty is shown moping frequently about how much hotter Rachel is, and Alistair Stuart seems to agree... to say that most comic book fans think quite the opposite is an understatement). She kind of took too much of the attention, while Captain Britain himself was portrayed as a bit of a pathetic, clueless boob, frequently ignoring his girlfriend Meggan or getting into foolish situations.

-Davis left with issue #24 (1990), and Claremont with #34, but Davis would eventually return as sole creative force, adding the characters Kylun, Cerise & Micromax to the book. Scott Lobdell would take over in 1993, and rapidly alter the book from something that felt like "just another X-Men spin-off"- Captain Britain & Meggan left, the team moved to Muir Island and they made a lot of closer associations to the X-Men... which is actually the opposite of their intentions. Phoenix also left, replaced by Douglock & Britannic (a modified Captain Britain), and Amanda Sefton. This was pretty poorly-received, and so Warren Ellis took over a year later, using his trademark dark sense of humor, and utter inability to NOT include a cigarette-smoking Self-Insert in every book, thus giving us Pete Wisdom. Naturally, he had his Self-Insert boink Kitty Pryde. Wolfsbane (late of X-Factor joined the team, as did Colossus, having quit The Acolytes, making it more X-related.

-Ellis left two years later, and sales soon badly faltered, which resulted in the book's cancellation in 1998 with Excalibur #125- Meggan and Captain Britain were married, capping off the series. Kitty, Nightcrawler & Colossus were placed back onto the X-teams, which some of them hadn't been on for more than a DECADE. We'd see a reboot in 2001 with Ben Raab, the writer of the failing years of the original- it didn't last long. In 2004, they rebooted it with Claremont at the helm, dealing with Professor Xavier & Magneto's attempts to rebuild the devastated mutant nation of Genosha. It was cancelled just over a year later, as The House of M cross-over interfered. New Excalibur, also by Claremont, came out a year later, with some of the usual suspects (Sage & Psylocke, naturally)- it lasted two years. Ironically, Captain Britain himself would have a very critically-beloved run in a NON-Excalibur format as a member of MI:13, but it was too focused on using unpopular characters to really succeed, and lack of sales killed it after three Trades.

-What's odd about this book is that to me, Kitty and Nightcrawler were ALWAYS members of Excalibur, and were never X-Men. I mean, I KNEW on a fundamental level that they were former X-Men, but since I started reading at around 1991, they were already established Excalibur members, and stayed that way for years. I'd actually started and STOPPED collecting before they re-joined the team, and when they finally re-joined the team while I was doing my "read them on the stands and never buy them" phase, it actually felt weird because I'd never associated the characters with the X-Men (while a spin-off, Excalibur almost neverdealt with the mainstream book, even avoiding the Cross-Overs that were now ubiquitous to the X-Books, involving major events in the mutant community, like X-Tinction Agenda, The X-Cutioner's Song and others).

Having been a long time Marvel Reader at this point in history,I actually liked the Goofyness of the series(as it was a good Palate-cleaner for all the EXTREEEAAAMMMMM stuff they were tossing down our throat's at the time...) as Claremont&Davis did exanded a lot on the Marvel Multiverse with this...

[Goldar]

Oh yeah, and I finally found the Alpha Flight issue where Pink Pearl debuted. Absolutely bizarre stuff, featuring Northstar easily defeated by a scrawny contortionist, and Pearl's terrorist mission that involved a year-long plot that depended on a travelling circus. Pearl only does a bit of Fighting, beating a confused, random-acting Aurora once, then stunning her with a surprising leap. Her jobbing to a single knife toss is still pretty funny. Clearly Byrne didn’t plan on much of a career for her.

Hey, you are talkin' 'bout my gal, Pink Pearl!

I told you she can make some amazing leaps! And she punches out Ms Arbenville, the circus owner, as well as holding her 140 pound body at arm's length without strain. Pearl wards off Aurora's feeble punches and smothers her in flab!

I think Pinky was surprised that she was the one harmed (stabbed by throwing knife in the upper torso) but also from the physical shock that resulted from it, knocking her out.

As for Bones, well, there are some people who are very slender yet strong. His strength is more about constriction than punching or lifting.

[M4C8]

Being English obviously Captain Britain is one of the characters I think deserves more respect. Even ignoring my patriotism Brian have been shown to have the potential to be a truly great character. He's a scientific genius, he's a a skilled enough warrior and leader that Roma offered him the leadership of the Captain Britain Corps who are responsible for protecting the entire multiverse and since his mystical resurrection he's shown some impressive power feats with even Thor stating he's one of the most powerful heroes on Earth. Steve Rogers respects Brian so much that he said he would be a the top of the list to replace Steve as Captain America with just the obvious fact that Brian is British ruling him out.
As for Brian's costumes, I've never been a fans of the knee high kinky boots look but some of his more modern costumes have been cool, the one he wore through the Revolutionary War story-line is a favourite of mine (I think he first wore it during his tenure with Pete's Wisdom's Excalibur)

[L-Space]

Thought I don't have a lot of experience with Captain Britain he always seemed like a fun hero and I've wanted to read more about it. I did read the Secret Avengers with him in it, but that was mostly other people giving him crap and talking about how he wasn't much of a hero.

[Jabroniville]

Oh good- more comments !

As I was explaining to some others on Facebook, I actually felt sorry for myself looking at my thread in Nov. 2015, just because it seemed so busy. I was posting weird Hulk losers, and yet every build was followed by like 3-5 comments about comics in general. I was like "aw, I wish my thread was still that busy." Especially since nobody commented all day on mine yesterday.

Though I think that was more a random tangent, because those same posters (minus St. Matthew) are still on my thread. Sometimes I think character obcurity is an issue. It's part of why, much as I enjoy being ultra-completist and going through The List, I needed to put important characters down at the same time. Not many comment when it's just obscure types.

given how "new" Echoes is, it still freaks me out a bit to see dwindling comments, though I'm sure it's just temporary.
I immediately get anxious, thinking "OMG the site is DYING and I'll have to go back to the old site where most of the posters refuse to go!"

Same kinda thing happens when I think of the possibility of "finishing Marvel", because... THEN what? Traipsing around DC is not nearly as fun. I can repost stuff every few years and it comes off as "new", at least (particularly since I still come up with new commentary). Hence X-Men & Spidey builds periodically showing up.

I wonder if the "4 builds a day" thing is a turn off? I do it because reposts are basically "cheating", especially for recent guys, but it might get overwhelming for a reader to see me "spam" them out like that. Nobody comments one way or the other when I ask about that, though.

[Gamebook]

I am getting far fewer views on my thread than I used to, but the rate of comments is about the same. Mine has never been a conversation thread though. I usually only get other posters when I put up something well-known such as my Gen 1 Transformers run, or when I use a particularly saucy piece of art.

The main interest of this forum activity to me though is not views but posts. What I like is reading other's builds and looking at the art they have sourced. EotM has a rate of original posting not far off what the Ronin forums had. Of the small class of heavy duty posters only kreuzritter and ArthurEld have not made the jump. If anything the transition has revived activity in a few people who had been waning. I myself feel more relaxed about posting and am willing to be a trifle more daring, so I prefer it here. The unlimited pictures per post is heaven to me with my mania for big color art.

[jcjec]

Honestly, I have to say that, while I rarely ever post to your threat, I'm always reading it as I find your insight to the characters interesting. I just rarely feel like I have a lot to add to it. Maybe look more at the incredible number of views you get (which, as far as I can tell, are the highest of the site) as your indicator. I mean, having over 63,000 views is nothing to sneeze at.

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the posting rate of builds appears unchanged, at least compared to the past few years of RA (which had fallen quite a ways from its 2007-10 peak, when the RPG market was booming and we were seeing 20 threads updated at a time). That part does make me happy. I also enjoy the freedom from over-modding/censorship here, plus the Unlimited Pics thing (which was REALLY annoying sometimes).

I noticed just recently that the original ATT has gone down a few times- I hope they manage to keep that archived online! I don't check it often, but many of my builds were only posted there (Simpsons, Disney, JLU, possibly the Teen Titans).

[proditor]

I agree with your comments about Brian's Lion suit, it looks the business. I have an absolute weakness for flag suits in general, and for some reason, a HUGE weakness for UK flag suits. Part of it may be that getting the elements of my home to gel is tricky (I mean, I love Captain America and the Shield, but some of the other flag suit costumes...) and part of it is probably that the more geometric designs of the Union Jack are timeless.

[Jack of Spades]

I'm finding myself going back to your ATT thread via your first page a lot lately, Jab, for the Archie builds. I've just introduced expys of the Archie gang as supporting cast in my campaign, and your writeups and history are invaluable.

[M4C8]

Yeah, the posting rate of builds appears unchanged, at least compared to the past few years of RA (which had fallen quite a ways from its 2007-10 peak, when the RPG market was booming and we were seeing 20 threads updated at a time). That part does make me happy. I also enjoy the freedom from over-modding/censorship here, plus the Unlimited Pics thing (which was REALLY annoying sometimes).

I noticed just recently that the original ATT has gone down a few times- I hope they manage to keep that archived online! I don't check it often, but many of my builds were only posted there (Simpsons, Disney, JLU, possibly the Teen Titans).

I wonder how many other people who visit this site are like me and have never or will never play the game, in fact I don't even know what the game is I just like reading character bios and through that somehow found the Ronin forums. After the ridiculous that went down I followed you here.

[Jabroniville]

I'm finding myself going back to your ATT thread via your first page a lot lately, Jab, for the Archie builds. I've just introduced expys of the Archie gang as supporting cast in my campaign, and your writeups and history are invaluable.

Cool! is that 2e? Because I've done 3e since then .

[L-Space]

Though I think that was more a random tangent, because those same posters (minus St. Matthew) are still on my thread. Sometimes I think character obcurity is an issue. It's part of why, much as I enjoy being ultra-completist and going through The List, I needed to put important characters down at the same time. Not many comment when it's just obscure types.

given how "new" Echoes is, it still freaks me out a bit to see dwindling comments, though I'm sure it's just temporary.
I immediately get anxious, thinking "OMG the site is DYING and I'll have to go back to the old site where most of the posters refuse to go!"

I've had the same feelings at time about Echoes, but though smaller than RA Echoes seems to be doing well and I enjoy it more.

[Jabroniville]

It was like Davis sat there and went "What's all the stuff that can make a woman look attractive, again?" and then went and made someone with ALL OF THAT. And then gave her the most unlikable personality ever.

OMNIVERSAL MAJESTRIX SATURNYNE (Opal Luna Saturnyne)
Created By: Dave Thorpe & Alan Davis
First Appearance: The Might World Of Marvel: Marvel Superheroes #381 (Jan. 1982)
Role: Obstructionist Government Agent
Group Affiliation: The Captain Britain Corps.
PL 7 (152)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 5 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 7 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Deception 8 (+11)
Expertise (History) 4 (+11)
Expertise (The Omniverse) 8 (+15)
Insight 2 (+6)
Perception 2 (+6)
Technology 6 (+13)

Advantages:
Attractive, Benefit 6 (Omniversal Majestrix), Well-Informed

Offense:
Unarmed +5 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +4, Fortitude +6, Will +8

Complications:
Responsibility (The Omniverse)- Saturnyne is entrusted by Roma & Merlyn to protect all existence. She will sacrifice anything and anyone in order to make it so.

Total: Abilities: 64 / Skills: 30--15 / Advantages: 8 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 12 (152)

-On a team book featuring Alan Davis' artwork on a leather-bodysuited dominatrix lookalike, Kitty Pryde at maximum likable cuteness, and a chick that looked like Pamela Anderson with elf ears, OPAL LUNA SATURNYNE stood out as "The Hot One". Which is all the sadder, because the character ended up being an annoying, confusing waste thanks to excessive drug use on the part of the creators. Saturnyne was from Earth-9, and was the "Omniversal Majestrix", which seems like an all-powerful position, but she was really just an agent of Roma's (who herself was subserviant to Merlyn, her father), and a pencil-pusher who moved stuff around. A classic bureaucrat, people and planets were just numbers to her, and so she thought nothing of sacrificing billions for the purpose of safety for the omniverse as a whole.

-Rather emotionless, Saturnyne was served by her assistant Dimples, who worshipped her. Her agents were The Avant Guard- a bunch of suit-wearing men with umbrellas that were actually high-powered Dimension-Traveling Devices and Blasters. Failing in her duty to protect the universe of Mad Jim Jaspers from his "Jaspers Warp", she was arrested and replaced by a man named Mandragon, who exterminated Earth-238 and its entire universe to prevent the Warp from extending into the rest of the omniverse. Thankfully, Saturnyne was able to aid Captain Britain against Earth-616's Jaspers, and she threatened Mandragon with a clone of Jaspers unless he ceded his position back to her.

-Later, she sends The Technet after Phoenix, an act which causes the formation of Excalibur in Chris Claremont's new Marvel project (this, naturally, was Roma's plan). She later resents Capt. Britain for becoming the ruler of Otherworld (she finds him unworthy). Claremont being one of the few to care about her, she shows up in the Fantastic Four arc about Abraxas, protecting Franklin & Valeria Richards. Her last acts involved the multiple Incursions during Hickman's Avengers run, though this was long after everything had spiraled out of control.

-Not a fighter at all, Saturnyne is instead a Bureaucrat of the highest order- an agent that's always manipulating things from above. She basically has access to anything she needs through her Benefit, however. Honestly, though, it's hard to find many instances where she really MATTERS- it seems more like Alan Davis wanted to draw another impossibly-beautiful woman, but nobody thought to give her much of a ROLE.



Other versions of Saturnyne are known to exist:

Sat'neen: Kylun's love on Earth-148. A Sorceress who was killed by Necrom.
Queen Mother- The Queen of England on Earth-1193, a world of magic and mystical creatures.
Courtney Ross: Brian Braddock's girlfriend on the main Earth (616). Basically just a Token Girlfriend Character, treated like an afterthought in Excalibur before she was killed by...