Jab’s Builds! (Lawnmower Man! Samus Aran! Metroids!)

[Jabroniville]

Truly the most awesome of nemeses.

THE LIVING TOTEM
Created By: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
First Appearance: The Rawhide Kid #22 (June 1961)
Role: Odd Alien
Group Affiliations: None
PL 8 (76)
STRENGTH 8 STAMINA 8 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Expertise (Spacefaring) 5 (+8)
Intimidation 4 (+6, +10 Size)
Perception 2 (+4)
Technology 5 (+8)

Advantages:
Fast Grab, Ranged Attack 4

Powers:
"Natural Size" Growth 8 (Str & Sta +8, +8 Mass, +4 Intimidation, -4 Dodge/Parry, +1 Speed, -8 Stealth) -- (30 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) [17]
Protection 2 [2]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +10, Fortitude +8, Will +4

Complications:
Prejudice (Alien)
Motivation (Destruction)- Having crash-landed, the Living Totem seems to wish to do nothing but destroy.

Total: Abilities: 30 / Skills: 16--8 / Advantages: 5 / Powers: 19 / Defenses: 14 (76)

-The Living Totem is an odd example of pre-Marvel Age Marvel, as it's a Stan & Jack Tale, but based off of their Western stuff, before their heroes hit it big again. And then it turns out this is an ALIEN crash-landed on Earth in the Wild West era- it's a cross-genre tale, from two guys who definitely chafed under the Western gimmick! The Totem's ship crashed on Earth, but he was sealed underground by a Medicine Man from a local tribe. Years later, he was released when miners blasted a mine shaft, in search of silver. Encountering the Rawhide Kid, he attempted to kill the cowboy hero- the Kid's gunshots came out so fast, they blinded the alien, allowing the Totem to be pushed off a cliff and into a canyon.

-Many, MANY years later, a West Coast Avengers tale sees some Avengers tossed back in time, where the Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid and Phantom Rider battle the Iron Mask, who unleashes the Living Totem as his "secret weapon". The heroes finally defeat him, with Mockingbird tripping the Totem and Iron Man burying him under a pile of rubble. His last appearance is as a trophy in the vault of a wealthy collector.

-The Totem is powerful enough to challenge a few superheroes at once, but typically he's beaten by dumping him down things or burying him.

[KorokoMystia]

Weirdly enough, not only did Iron Mask have his own "Circus of Crime", but there was ANOTHER Old West Circus of Crime, which was unrelated to him or the more well-known group, but they were ALSO Kid Colt enemies: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix2/circ ... mecolt.htm

[Jabroniville]

I dunno, it still seems like the origins were rooted enough in "looking very young and cute" to me ("Moe", in and of itself, is also highly focused towards young looks and behavior). Plus, it's a JAPANESE fashion subculture (in a society that worships youth), and the notes for it got so bad on TV Tropes that they had to nuke the page .

TVTropes is rather notriously terrible for information, while Wikipedia isn't that good of a source TVTropes is often heavily filled with bias with the only real checks against such entries being others with the opposite bias stumbling onto it and editing it the opposite way. While it is about looking young and cute the specifics of it mostly have it's aesthetics isn't about looking like a child so much as having a doll like appearances. Japans odd obsession with cuteness sort of resulted in things seen as "Childish" in the west to not be perceived as such to them, so while childish things my be cute cuteness isn't in itself something childish. At the very least Lolita and Gothic Lolita pre-dated the beginnings of the "lolicon" which fetishized it and grew naturally out of the nations fashion trends rather than starting out as fetish wear that just became popular outside of it.

Oh yeah, I remember a lot of shenanigans on TV Tropes (one guy wouldn't stop deleting my Downton Abbey notes, even though they came straight from the show's creator & only writer!).

Lolicon, though... *shudder*

The endless references to it got some pages nuked on TV Tropes, for fear of the wrong ad companies getting involved, and others quitting. Wayyyyyyyyy too many weirdos posting up their favorite characters.

And now I'm reminded of visiting Akihabara in Japan, with the store devoted to the girl group "AK48", forty-eight teenage girl singers. Wandering in, I was horrified to note that, at 34 years of age, I was the youngest guy in there by at least ten years.

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the bosses usually have laser beams or other projectiles and stuff, since they tend to be monsters or demons, and most of the bosses have Winged Flight too. (Azazel in particuarly is a huge-ass dragon-looking dude who can drop boulders on you or summon a swarm of crystal scarabs to attack you, as well as the usual lasers and a stun move) There's also NANCY, the giant robot sub-boss that has the usual stuff like gatling guns, rocket fists, ect. Alisa Bosconovitch can do some funky stuff since she's an android with stuff like jet boosters, chainsaws, rocket fists, and can take off her own head to use as a bomb. There's also Gigas, who is a really buff cyborg dude that might be even stronger than the Jacks, strength-wise.

And while it's not really something that's impossible in reality, Kazumi Mishima has the ability to summon her tiger to attack during a match.
There's also Eliza, who is a vampire that has the usual "Vampiric Drain" attack, plus a Dragon Punch and Blast that seem ripped from Morrison, and there's Yoshimitsu's ecosteric ninja moves as mentioned earlier.

It's kinda funny since you've got guest characters like Akuma and Geese Howard around (and even Noctis from Final Fantasy 15 for some reason), who of course still have their own special moves that they can use as usual. As a note, Kazuya in his Devil form can throw down with Akuma and not die (but not really win, either, just stalemate him)

And yeah, Tekken has a LOT of dudes that were either moveset clones or share the same fighting style, though some diverged over time. This is particularly noticable in the "Everyone Gets In" games. So yeah, templating should be perfectly fine, especially considering how many damn characters there are. I hope it's not too much of a slog..

Tekken is a pretty odd set. It'd be PERFECT for Templates, except the cast is just so huge, with TINY differences here and there, yet very long descriptions necessary, that actually laying them out individually is a better bet. Otherwise, you'd have single posts with 17 characters on it, each with HUGE paragraph-long descriptions. It'd just be overwhelming.

As practice, and testing the waters, I made up Templates for four Strength levels (1, 2, 3 & 4), and focused on the female names, figure most of them are ST 1. What I noticed is that there's a bit of Mental Ability variance, a few different "tiers" of talent, etc.- I found it easier just to paste the same Template over and over again rather than keep trying to do quick math on the tiny variables ("okay, _____ was possessing INT 2, with the baseline Skill level being ____, that means my final total is..."). Less jumping around.

[KorokoMystia]

Tekken is a pretty odd set. It'd be PERFECT for Templates, except the cast is just so huge, with TINY differences here and there, yet very long descriptions necessary, that actually laying them out individually is a better bet. Otherwise, you'd have single posts with 17 characters on it, each with HUGE paragraph-long descriptions. It'd just be overwhelming.

As practice, and testing the waters, I made up Templates for four Strength levels (1, 2, 3 & 4), and focused on the female names, figure most of them are ST 1. What I noticed is that there's a bit of Mental Ability variance, a few different "tiers" of talent, etc.- I found it easier just to paste the same Template over and over again rather than keep trying to do quick math on the tiny variables ("okay, _____ was possessing INT 2, with the baseline Skill level being ____, that means my final total is..."). Less jumping around.

Yeah, that makes sense. It is one of my favourite Fighting Game series, so I am looking forward to the set, for sure. It's such a goofy series sometimes, despite its attempts to be serious. (Fighting bears, kangaroos, velociraptors, devils, wolf spirits, robots, ect., and some weird guest characters like Gon the tiny fireball-spewing, farting dinosaur. Heck, as bad as the animated movie was, it had INVISIBLE DINOSAURS! That's just awesome.) I'd also be interested in seeing the Templates, too.

One interseting thing is that in the latest games, Kazuya's Devil form is now a mid-battle transformation he can pull off rather than a seperate character slot.

[Jabroniville]

THE LIVING MONOLITH (Ahmet Abdol, aka "The Living Pharaoh")
Created By: Arnold Drake, Roy Thomas, Don Heck & Neal Adams
First Appearance: X-Men #54 (March 1969)
Role: Growing Guy, Energy Leech
Group Affiliations: The Cult of the Living Pharaoh
PL 14 (191)
STRENGTH 1/16 STAMINA 2/16 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Deception 4 (+7)
Expertise (Egypt) 10 (+14)
Expertise (Science) 8 (+12)
Insight 2 (+5)
Intimidation 3 (+6, +11 Size, +15 Boosted Presence)
Perception 3 (+6)
Persuasion 3 (+6)
Ranged Attack (Cosmic Energy) 3 (+10)

Advantages:
Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Absorption of Cosmic Energy"
Blast 12 (Feats: Penetrating 8) [32]

"Boosted Powers" (All Have Flaws: Must Be Empowered by Great Cosmic Power)
Growth 10 (Str & Sta +10, +10 Mass, +5 Intimidation, -5 Dodge/Parry, +1 Speed, -10 Stealth) -- (36 feet) (Feats: Innate) [11]
Enhanced Strength 5 [5]
Enhanced Stamina 3 [3]
Protection 4 [2]
"Huge Presence" Enhanced Skills 4: Intimidation 4 (+15) [1]
Immunity 11 (Life Support, Aging) [6]
Enhanced Will Save 6 [3]

Enhanced Blasts 6 (Feats: Variable 2- Heat, Vibration, Sonics) (totalling 40 points with Above) (8) -- [9]

• AE: "Energy Wave" Damage 14 (Feats: Variable 2- Heat, Vibration, Sonics) (Extras: Area- 120ft. Cone +2) (28)

"Telepathy"
Mind-Reading 8 [16]
Mind Control 5 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Burst +2) (Flaws: Touch Range -2) [20]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Living Monolith +6 (+16 Damage, DC 21)
Blasts +10 (+12-18 Ranged Damage, DC 27-33)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (+3 Monolith, DC 18-13), Parry +8 (+3 Monolith, DC 18-13), Toughness +2 (+18 Monolith), Fortitude +4 (+16 Monolith), Will +6 (+12 Monolith)

Complications:
Motivation (Power)- Abdol desires nothing more than control of anything and everything.
Enemy (Havok)- Abdol's main trade is capturing the mutant Alex Summesr and absorbing his powers to become The Living Monolith.

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 36--18 / Advantages: 6 / Powers: 108 / Defenses: 13 (191)

-Man, I last posted this guy six years & ten months ago- so long ago that my bio-style was basically "hey this guy shows up once in a while and grows big using Cosmic Power. He's tough."

-The Living Monolith is sort of like the Main Villain of Havok, oddly enough, stemming from his origins way back in the post-Stan & Jack X-Men era. His powers are themed around absorption of Cosmic Energy, meaning that he tends to capture Havok in order to boost his own power. This turns the standard Evil Scientist into a gigantic creature of terrible power- he's a high-tier threat, typically thrown out for a "HOLY CRAP!!!" kind of threat... but the character himself has no nuance or depth, meaning that the stories are meaningless being the cool feats and threat. He's... just some power-hungry douchebag.

-The Monolith started out as an Egyptian Egyptologist who discovers his own ability to absorb Cosmic Energy- he forms a cult around himself as a messiah, called The Cult of the Living Pharaoh, and of course plots ot rule the world. When he discovers that the new X-Man, Havok, possesses even greater Cosmic Energy powers than he does, Abdol kidnaps him and uses him to transform himself- the Living Pharaoh thus becomes the LIving Monolith. However, at issue's end, he is beaten and captured by Sentinels- barely escaping their grasp.

-Six years later, he stole the ruby scarab of the Living Mummy's, then appears in a handful of Marvel Team-Up issues, first involving Spider-Man and Havok, and then Spidey and Thor, who was called onto the scene by the villain's tremendous might. Years later, he uses the Cheops Crystal to become the Monolith again, fighting Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Cyclops, Storm & Nightcrawler (all in a Power Man issue). He later absorbs the powers of the Fantastic Four, becoming so large that the Avengers are only able to stop him by having Thor throw him into space, where he becomes "The Living Planet", similar to Ego, in a huge Graphic Novel titled The Revenge of the Living Monolith. A woman named Akasha later used his "Staff of Horus" to gain Monolith-like powers, but Spider-Man shattered the staff.

-His origins were later tied to Apocalypse and Mister Sinister, who were manipulating him into gaining power and taking the abilities of other super-beings- his symbiotic link to Havok is due to genetic manipulations. When Bishop and Deathbird (then engaging in flirtation) discover his floating body in space, Deathbird reveals that she's been working for Apocalypse all this time, betraying Bishop in the process. This turns Abdol's body into a vessel for Apoc during that "The Twelve" story arc. In Abdol's most recent appearance, he joins several beings in a chase after the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, becoming a horrifying Monolith/Juggernaut amalgam- he's only stopped when Cain Marko makes another deal with the Elder God Cyttorak himself, becoming the Juggernaut once more.

-I have an issue of Marvel Team-Up where he basically casually walks through all of Thor's best stuff and still can't be put down, so the dude is heavily into the top tier. Almost all of his stories are the same- he gains power, becomes an overwhelming threat, and is only undone by chicanery or removing him from the field of battle.

[catsi563]

I dunno, it still seems like the origins were rooted enough in "looking very young and cute" to me ("Moe", in and of itself, is also highly focused towards young looks and behavior). Plus, it's a JAPANESE fashion subculture (in a society that worships youth), and the notes for it got so bad on TV Tropes that they had to nuke the page .

Eyeh, it is a very universal aspect of how we dress up women, an obsession with youth that gets disturbing if you look too closely. Just look at how two very common "sexy outfits" are cheerleader outfits and schoolgirl outfits. Outside of that, look at prior trends like puffy shirts with layers of crinoline, Mary-Jane shoes, or the flapper outfits involving bound breasts and short haircuts that resembled what a child might wear.

It is kind of funny how many of them are basically equipment builds. Wallflower will be a bit different, of course.

It's not that disturbing, as a species we've evolved to find young healthy people sexually attractive, like all living creatures our 'prime directive' is to reproduce and the healthier the potential partner the better the chances of reproductive success, also given the life expectancy of humans for the majority of our existence it's not at all surprising that we're instinctively attracted to young people, millennia of ingrained instinct is not going to just disappear. Don't get me wrong, I am talking about young teens, those that are obviously post pubescent, not children. The 'teenager' is a relatively recent concept in our society and there are still parts of the world where both boys and girls are married off pretty much as soon as they're physically able to reproduce.

Conversely though theres evidence that shows that Women are attracted to older men due to the fact that as we matured as a species our lifespan was perilously short. Any man that could survive past his 30s and 40s and get grey hair and scars was clearly a strong competitor who was good breeding due to his having survived all the myriad dangers. add in the experience that older men gained as oppsoed to the younger ones.

[Doc chaos]

Growing up in Far Rockaway, i loved when Thor cut loose on The Living Monolith over Jamaica Bay. It's always fun to see Thor go all out!

[KorokoMystia]

Man, there sure are a lot of guys with "Living" in their names. There's even Morbius, the Living Vampire, too..

[Thorpocalypse]

THE LIVING MONOLITH (Ahmet Abdol, aka "The Living Pharaoh")

-I have an issue of Marvel Team-Up where he basically casually walks through all of Thor's best stuff and still can't be put down, so the dude is heavily into the top tier. Almost all of his stories are the same- he gains power, becomes an overwhelming threat, and is only undone by chicanery or removing him from the field of battle.

I have that issue, too. That's when I fell in love with Havok's costume. I thought it was awesome.

[Jabroniville]

And that's it for the "L" names! Hard to believe, more that FOUR YEARS ON, that I'm so near to the end of "The List". Only four letters (D, F, M & P) are left, and then I'll basically have statted everyone worth statting in the Marvel universe! After that it'd just be re-posting, lol.

Next up- if you wanna enjoy these builds, ya gotta have BALLZ.

[Jabroniville]

BALLZ:
-Gotta love an entire game designed around being a double-entrendre. Ballz actually came about as a bit of a graphical "cheat". See, 1994 was witnessing the rise of 3D fighting games, which looked way more advanced than the 2D fighters of the era- Virtua Fighter and others were smooth-moving games that didn't leave players stuck on a flat plan, moving back and forth- you could move to the front and back of the battlefield as well! There was no way on Earth that 16-bit systems like the Super NES and Sega Genesis were going to be able to compete with those kind of polygon-based graphics, and so the guys at PF Magic decided to work on a brilliant little workaround- these systems couldn't do proper 3D graphics, but they COULD grow and shrink spherical objects with no noticeable losses in graphical output. And therefore, you could construct beings out of these spheres (or "balls"), and MIMIC the nature of a 3D fighter simply by moving the balls around in space, and growing & shrinking them as they moved closer to "the camera". The only caveat... was that the characters were hideous. I mean, they were made entirely of colored balls, so they couldn't have faces, details or anything.

And so, Ballz was released, boasting "3D" graphics on the very cover, offering home console players the chance to play Virtua Fighter-style 3D combat. Both major home consoles saw it, and a "Director's Cut" was released on the mostly-forgotten (and WAY TOO EXPENSIVE) 3DO system in 1995. The game is... not well-loved. More gimmicky than anything, it lives entirely on this pseudo-3D atmosphere and offers little in the way of depth, character design, or even PLOT- you simply fight to get a "one wish". Each character has four moves, but battles are hard to follow, and the genre was so new at the time that nobody knew quite how to handle moving in the third dimension. So it's a bit clunky and hard to control. The reviews at the time were generally positive but never outstanding, but the gimmick has not held up with time, so it's pretty readily made fun of these days.

The music and sound effects deserve special mention, because they're a unique form of hell- Divine in particular groans in pain with an orgasmic squeal that more or less echoes on repeat. There's a lot of random shouting of "OI!", and more.

I'll give it this, though- the limited character design options mean they actually got pretty creative- not many Fighting Games feature a RHINOCEROS among the cast list, much less a frickin' TYRANNOSAURUS.

THE CAST:
Boomer- Clown
Divine- Female Dancer
Yoko- Farting Monkey
Crusher- Rhinoceros
Bruiser- Powerhouse
Turbo- Superman-like Superhero
Kronk- Caveman with a Club
Tsunami- Sumo Wrestler
Zombie- Shuffling Zombie. 3DO Exclusive.

The Bosses:
* You have to beat these guys to complete the game- earning a belt with each victory. You can play them once you defeat The Jester.

Guggler- Ostrich
Bounder- Kangaroo
T-Wrecks- Huge Tyrannosaurus
Lamprey- Shapeshifter
The Jester- Final Boss

Power Levels:
-As usual, determining the PL for TERRIBLE games is much more difficult than determining it for good ones. I mean, PL 5 and PL 6 are actually a bit of a wider gulf than PL 9s & 10s, ya know? A PL 5 is a joke to even Dan Hibiki... but is that fair? Could they MAYBE be PL 6 on the regular? Ultimately, it's a one-off game with no legacy, so I went with some pretty awful stats. I stand by my choice .

[Jabroniville]

BOOMER
First Appearance: Ballz (1994)
Role: Fighting Clown
PL 5 (72)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 7 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Acrobatics 5 (+10)
Athletics 6 (+8)
Expertise (Circus Clown) 4 (+4)
Perception 1 (+1)

Advantages:
Close Attack, Improved Initiative, Ranged Attack 4

Fighting With Ballz: All-Out Attack, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Improved Trip (Throw)

Powers:
"Extendible Limbs" Strength-Damage +2 (Feats: Reach 2) (Inaccurate -1) (3) -- [4]

• AE: "Head Toss" Blast 4 (Reduced Defenses 2, Diminished Range -2) (2)

"Bounding Leap" Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Special Moves +6 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Head Toss +6 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +9

Defenses:
Dodge +7 (DC 17), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +3

Complications:
Prejudice (Made of Balls)

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 16--8 / Advantages: 6 + 5 / Powers: 5 / Defenses: 6 (72)

-Boomer is a faceless, brightly-colored clown who throws his own head at you like a yo-yo, leaps really far, and can stretch his limbs out.

[KorokoMystia]

BALLZ

BALLZ! One interesting thing about this game is that the graphics engine PF Magic made for Ballz was later used for the "Petz" series of games! (At least before they turned into shovelware.) (I recommend LGR's video on the first three Petz games (Dogz, Catz, and Oddballz) for those curious about that.) Also the main theme might be even more orgasmic in the 3DO version. Additionally, Zombie seems to have been meant to be made playable in the original versions, but for unknown reasons, was scrapped. (His data still exists in the Genesis version, even, but in an unfinished state.) This game is literally more than a strange oddity nowadays, but there were some neat things about it, like most of the bosses having some sort of special method you could use on them. (The Ostrich sticks their head in the ground to heal, so to defeat it you can taunt repeatedly while it's doing nothing, since taunting increases your next's attacks power, and stacks, so you can taunt enough so that you can shatter them in one blow! And you can mount the T-Rex to do damage to it. I don't recall what the spceial methods for dealing with the other two were, thoguh I know that they are all hinted at in the messages that pop up on the billboards in the background mid-fight, such as "Taunt the Ostrich" and "Yee Ha Dino", and "Genie No Blink", which I still don't understand the meaning of that last one!) I also figured out how to hack the game to make the Jester playable a day or two ago.

[Jabroniville]

YOKO
First Appearance: Ballz (1994)
Role: Fighting Monkey
PL 5 (65)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 7 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE -3 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE -2

Skills:
Acrobatics 5 (+10)
Athletics 8 (+10)
Expertise (Survival) 4 (+4)
Perception 3 (+3)

Advantages:
Improved Hold, Ranged Attack 4

Fighting With Ballz: All-Out Attack, Fast Grab (Grab), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Improved Trip (Throw)

Powers:
"Stunning Fart" Affliction 4 (Fort; Dazed/Stunned & Defenseless) (Feats: Reach) (Extras: Extra Condition) (Flaws: Limited Degree) (5) -- [7]

• AE: "Gamera Spin Attack" Strength-Damage +2 (Inaccurate -1) (2)
• AE: "Aerial Defense" Strength-Damage +2 (Feats: +2 to Hit Jumping Opponents) (Inaccurate -1) (2)

"Bounding Leap" Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]
"Animal Senses" Senses 3 (Acute & Extended Scent, Low-Light Vision) [3]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Special Moves +6 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Stunning Fart +6 (+4 Affliction, DC 14)
Initiative +5

Defenses:
Dodge +7 (DC 17), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +3

Complications:
Prejudice (Made of Balls)
Disabled (Monkey)- Monkeys cannot speak to humans.

Total: Abilities: 28 / Skills: 20--10 / Advantages: 5 + 5 / Powers: 11 / Defenses: 6 (65)

-Yoko is a tailless monkey/ape who hoots and hollers and passes wind- he can stun you with his farts, appears to swing on literally nothing (which is just... hanging in the air for a second, really), and leaps really well. He can also mimic Gamera with a spinning attack.