Jab’s Builds! (Sword of Sodan! Nightmare Creatures/Circus! Lawnmower Man!)

[Jabroniville]

SNOT (Real Name Unknown)
Created By: Jason Aaron & Nick Bradshaw

*facepalm*

Maybe he can team up with Eric Larsen's creations like Backfire, Heavy Flo and Dung.

Yes, those are real characters. Google them at your own risk.

I mean, at least these are SUPPOSED to be dumb characters. Snot in particular is just a minor background goof turned into a thuggish goof. In a comic that reveled in the weirdness of comics without shying away from it.

[Jabroniville]

MUDBUG (Real Name Unknown)
Created By: Jason Aaron & Steve Sanders
First Appearance: Wolverine and the X-Men #20 (Jan. 2013)
Role: Backgrounder
Group Affiliations: The Masters of Evil, The Hellfire Academy

-Also from Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, Mudbug is a crayfish-looking character who gained mutant powers once that became a thing again. Living in a doghouse under orders from his horrified family of Alabama hillbillies, he was recruited by Kade Kilgore for his new "Hellfire Academy", a dark counterpart to Logan's school. He doesn't get up to much, and later appears as a backgrounder on the Shadow Council's Masters team.

-Mudbug has some degree of durability, extra limbs, and probably super-strength, given how animal powers normally work, but he's way too much of a backgrounder to elaborate upon.

[brothersale]

MUDBUG (Real Name Unknown)

How on earth is he wearing clothes like that, the lobster section appears to run down his back but the clothes are on on him like a normal human, it just looks a mess

[drkrash]

Enchantress was used (poorly) in the War of the Realms.

It's remarkable how Marvel could have an event about this massive war between the Nine Realms, and everything I saw about it filled me with so little "give a shit" that I didn't bother with it.

Yeah it wasn't great. There were some moments that kind of worked, but overall, meh.

I also thought it was odd that Amora would join up with the villains in that. I mean i know she is a villainess, but generally when big events like that happened she usually stood with Asgard.

And she mattered so little in the story, she might as well have not been part of Malekith's armies.

As an "event," it highlighted the way comic book writing has changed in the modern age compared to the bronze and silver ages. The first chapter ends with a massive fantasy army invading Earth. I would have like this to be the beginning of a series of issues of interesting combat match-ups between heroes and villains. Instead, all the fighting was resolved in single panel splash pages and the rest of the writing was character moments with characters that were not our heroes (e.g., Freyja and Odin getting back together) or pushes so we know which characters Marvel wants us to think are awesome (i.e., Captain Marvel), while ignoring legitimate big names like Cap and Iron Man. The story ends with Thor getting Mjolnir back (which is itself almost unrecognizable, now that it's some sort of sentient being)...only for them to give Jane Foster an even more flexible weapon AND take Thor's hammer away a few months later.

As for Enchantress specifically, a few heroes *talked* about how dangerous she was, but in the actual confrontation, it was resolved in a page with little fanfare.

[Shock]

What the hell is this armor? Thighs, arms and clavicle left bare?

[squirrelly-sama]

What the hell is this armor? Thighs, arms and clavicle left bare?

It's plot armor, where the plot makes sure nothing lands on the unarmored parts since that would end the story. The more skin you show the more effective the armor. Sadly she is a fool for wearing a helmet, those things are practically a death sentence.

[Goldar]

MUDBUG (Real Name Unknown)
Created By: Jason Aaron & Steve Sanders
First Appearance: Wolverine and the X-Men #20 (Jan. 2013)
Role: Backgrounderb]Group Affiliations:[/b] The Masters of Evil, The Hellfire Academy

-Also from Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, Mudbug is a crayfish-looking character who gained mutant powers once that became a thing again. Living in a doghouse under orders from his horrified family of Alabama hillbillies, he was recruited by Kade Kilgore for his new "Hellfire Academy", a dark counterpart to Logan's school. He doesn't get up to much, and later appears as a backgrounder on the Shadow Council's Masters team.
-Mudbug has some degree of durability, extra limbs, and probably super-strength, given how animal powers normally work, but he's way too much of a backgrounder to elaborate upon.

Many people eat Mudbugs. They even "suck the heads".

But be careful---Lettie Mae ate 2 bucketsful, including "sucking the heads" and got awful sick!!

[HalloweenJack]

It's remarkable how Marvel could have an event about this massive war between the Nine Realms, and everything I saw about it filled me with so little "give a shit" that I didn't bother with it.

Yeah it wasn't great. There were some moments that kind of worked, but overall, meh.

I also thought it was odd that Amora would join up with the villains in that. I mean i know she is a villainess, but generally when big events like that happened she usually stood with Asgard.

And she mattered so little in the story, she might as well have not been part of Malekith's armies.

As an "event," it highlighted the way comic book writing has changed in the modern age compared to the bronze and silver ages. The first chapter ends with a massive fantasy army invading Earth. I would have like this to be the beginning of a series of issues of interesting combat match-ups between heroes and villains. Instead, all the fighting was resolved in single panel splash pages and the rest of the writing was character moments with characters that were not our heroes (e.g., Freyja and Odin getting back together) or pushes so we know which characters Marvel wants us to think are awesome (i.e., Captain Marvel), while ignoring legitimate big names like Cap and Iron Man. The story ends with Thor getting Mjolnir back (which is itself almost unrecognizable, now that it's some sort of sentient being)...only for them to give Jane Foster an even more flexible weapon AND take Thor's hammer away a few months later.

As for Enchantress specifically, a few heroes *talked* about how dangerous she was, but in the actual confrontation, it was resolved in a page with little fanfare.

Was it even a page?

I honestly don't remember (which isn't a good thing for an event comic). I remember seeing her among the head villains at one point, then they had a map of the locations each villain had control over, and then she's beaten. I don't even remember her fighting.

[drkrash]

She was defeated in Captain Marvel's comic, with a team-up between Carol Danvers, Black Widow, and Dr. Strange. Except Dr. Strange and Carol swapped bodies and there was all this talk about how powerful Carol's body was. Amora was too powerful to face head on, so there was a Macguffin hunt and then she was basically one-paged.

[Jabroniville]

MUDBUG (Real Name Unknown)

How on earth is he wearing clothes like that, the lobster section appears to run down his back but the clothes are on on him like a normal human, it just looks a mess

His crawfish bits look like they grew "around" this clothes, but he was first seen in probably whatever he was wearing when his powers manifested and they just kept it:

[Jabroniville]

It's remarkable how Marvel could have an event about this massive war between the Nine Realms, and everything I saw about it filled me with so little "give a shit" that I didn't bother with it.

Yeah it wasn't great. There were some moments that kind of worked, but overall, meh.

I also thought it was odd that Amora would join up with the villains in that. I mean i know she is a villainess, but generally when big events like that happened she usually stood with Asgard.

And she mattered so little in the story, she might as well have not been part of Malekith's armies.

As an "event," it highlighted the way comic book writing has changed in the modern age compared to the bronze and silver ages. The first chapter ends with a massive fantasy army invading Earth. I would have like this to be the beginning of a series of issues of interesting combat match-ups between heroes and villains. Instead, all the fighting was resolved in single panel splash pages and the rest of the writing was character moments with characters that were not our heroes (e.g., Freyja and Odin getting back together) or pushes so we know which characters Marvel wants us to think are awesome (i.e., Captain Marvel), while ignoring legitimate big names like Cap and Iron Man. The story ends with Thor getting Mjolnir back (which is itself almost unrecognizable, now that it's some sort of sentient being)...only for them to give Jane Foster an even more flexible weapon AND take Thor's hammer away a few months later.

As for Enchantress specifically, a few heroes *talked* about how dangerous she was, but in the actual confrontation, it was resolved in a page with little fanfare.

The Captain Marvel issues surrounding it had her & Doctor Strange "Freaky Friday'd" into each other's bodies, creating a lot of them bitching at each other while the Black Widow raged about how annoying both of them were- that was pretty funny. The Enchantress carried out this part, but they managed to chase her off when they figured out how each others' powers worked. (Edit: Oh, Drkrash mentioned this one, too)

The Fantastic Four issue was more of a one-off, with Yancy Street gathering together to fight off a horde. I dunno about the rest of the event, however.

[Jabroniville]

And so the Young Masters are done- equal parts Joke Characters and "Random Backgrounders For Villain Groups", little about them makes sense, but they're supposed to be pretty stupid (I mean, Black Knight has her shorts exposed and is playing on her phone despite wearing METAL GLOVES).

And now... another re-post from olden times: ETERNAL CHAMPIONS!!

[Jabroniville]

ETERNAL CHAMPIONS:

Eternal Champions is a now-pretty-obscure Fighting Game that debuted in 1993 for the Sega Genesis console. It was actually a Sega of America deal, making it not only one of very few American-made Fighting Games, but one of the only titles developed exclusively for a home console instead of coming out in the arcades first. Since Fighting Games, as I've gone into before, were HUGE in the early 1990s, it was a match made in heaven, and they scooped loads and loads of stuff from Mortal Kombat, then pushed it FURTHER, creating a game that was quite well-liked for the time, but has since disappeared.

As I didn't have a Genesis, I never played it, so what I mostly remember is their smug, sarcastic advertising campaign, copying the usual Sega tactics of "insult the competition". The main ad was a two-page spread featuring smart-ass remarks like "Hey Johnny Cage, afraid you'll get beat up by a girl?" as Jetta & Shadow are fighting, and the taunt "Any of these guys could kick Guile's butt". This kind of childish mud-slinging was classic Sega, though I'd imagine it couldn't have impressed Capcom & Midway.

The core plotline of Eternal Champions is actually REALLY, REALLY brilliant, though- in a genre where the plot is 90% "There's a tournament and these guys are fighting in it for stuff, and sometimes one wants money to start a restaurant", this one definitely stands out. The Story: A whole ton of people throughout time, originally destined for greatness, have suffered unjust deaths, and they have been gathered together by The Eternal Champion, a cosmic balance-checker. They will fight in a tournament, with the victor being allowed to return to life- coming back at the moment of their demise, righting the wrong, and going on to improve the world with their new lease on life. Since EVERY CHARACTER now has this amazing motivation, and some actually interesting stories going in, it really makes the game shine compared to the "I want my cooking oil company to succeed" garbage you sometimes get.

The game combines many other Fighting Games of the era together, making a mish-mash of things. It uses a Street Fighter-like "Six-Button" configuration of inceasing levels of attacks- light, medium and hard, using Punches and Kicks. The Special Moves are done in the Mortal Kombat style of pushing buttons, not using sweeping motions. Similar to Art of Fighting, characters have a "Special Attack Meter" that drains the more they use Special Moves (a Taunt move by the enemy can reduce his opponent's meter as well), meaning that you get punished for spamming FAR more than in other games. This was designed for balance, but allowed the characters with the most dynamic "regular" attacks to dominate, or people to just turtle up and build their Special Meters. Also, the computer didn't have to use a Special Meter.

In the most derivative aspect of the game, it ripped off Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, but also used Stage-Specific finishers called Overkills. And man... if you think MK is disturbing, you ain't seen NOTHING. That's all over-the-top explosions and slicing stuff up- Eternal Champions featured disturbingly-realistic death scenes that saw people being cut to ribbons, people dissolving in boiling pots only to reveal a shuddering and fleshy skeleton, people being shot and bleeding out, and more. This stuff was like freaking Faces of Death compared to the "exploding into piles of ribcages and thighbones" of MK!!

The A.I. was NOTORIOUS in this game regardless- characters routinely had picture-perfect application of moves, could spam out attacks, and were basically 100% perfect blockers who would simply turtle up and then hit you the EXACT moment the game realized your guard would be down. This game was FREAKING TOUGH, to a level that even fans of difficult fighters felt it was too rough on people. It was also one of the very few games designed for the infamous Sega Activator, a piece of crap gaming appliance that had you punching & kicking in a big circle to activate the moves on-screen. It was probably about thirty years ahead of its time, and that tends to make the results pretty ugly.

The game was actually quite popular, enough to get two spin-offs (Shadow Syndicate, a Game Gear game featuring Larcen Tyler in 1920s Chicago, and a Genesis game - X-Perts- featuring Shadow... both were utterly, utterly horrible side-scrollers beyond all reproach) and a sequel- Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side for the Sega-CD. The sequel is considered MUCH better, creating some cool new characters, many MORE horrible fatalities (including Cine-Kills, which have the opponent killed by The Dark Champion- the new boss- in some horrifying way via Full Motion Video, then the big deal in gaming), and generally improving the A.I. A sequel for the Sega Saturn was planned, but nixed by Sega of Japan of all people, who were concerned about too many fighters taking away focus from their Virtua Fighter game on the system. This ties very well into the "SoJ screwed SoA" narrative that's been quite common over the past several years, as books like The Console Wars and industry interviews point out that the bitter Japanese wing of Sega tried to hamper the more successful American wing, for mysterious reasons (generally assumed to be jealousy, desire for control, or spite).

The Roster:
Eternal Champions:
Shadow- Main Character of sorts, an assassin.
R.A.X.- Killer cyborg professional fighter.
Slash- Caveman.
Jetta- a Russian circus acrobat.
Trident- Atlantean Gladiator.
Midknight- Vampire with a soul.
Larcen Tyler- Chicago hitman from the '20s.
Johnathan Blade- Future cop.
Xavier Pendragon- Salem "witch" (actually a scientist) wrongly burned at the stake.
The Eternal Champion- Cosmic agent of balance, who will fight the winner of the Tournament for their second chance.

Eternal Champions: Challenge From The Dark Side brought:
Riptide- Lady pirate.
Ramses III- Slain Pharaoh.
Dawson- Scottish Wild West Cowboy.
The Senator- A piss-take of Joseph Lieberman, the senator who focused on destroying violent video games. His fighting style is "Dishonesty".
Raven- Voodoo Priestess.
Chin Wo- Acupuncturist warrior.
Thanatos- The Greek God of Death, who has lost his power.
Blast- Vietnam vet.
The Animals- Joke characters who are actually fighting animals- Hooter (owl), Yappy (dog), Crispy (chicken), Zuni (monkey) and Slither (snake).
The Dark Champion- An evil counterpart to The Eternal Champion.

The roster is actually quite varied and cool, though iffy Genesis graphics meant that most of them were a bit "pixelated" (think late '90s internet porn but worse), and their designs weren't really all that dynamic. Few were outright villainous, as everyone here has the chance to improve the world somehow by coming back to life. They also have the most ludicrous fighting styles imaginable, with real-world martial arts being given to people thousands of miles, and even MILLENIA, away from the creation of said fighting styles (they had capoeria in 110 BC? In ATLANTIS?). There's nineteen characters in total, plus five Joke Character Animals (who I will naturally also be statting, because Crispy the Martial Artist Chicken is awesome).

The Moves:
The "Special Attack Meter" is kind of hard to figure out in M&M terms, so I would just assume you punish some players for over-doing the Special Moves, and if they do more than 3-4 of them close together, the next time they try it, it won't work. It will regenerate naturally over time (particularly during Defensive Actions). The moves are DECIDEDLY unique for a Fighting Game, though- there's your average Blasts & Multiattack close shots, but there's a ton of Stun effects, powers that Nullify Projectiles, speed up the clock, slow down other fighters, and someone can even go INSUBSTANTIAL for a period of time! This makes Eternal Champions MUCH more fun to build than World Heroes, Mortal Kombatants or even World Warriors. Some of them require entirely new ways of thinking about certain powers! The Power Levels should average around PL 8- most characters seem more or less on the same level. This means that most Eternal Champions are about on the level of a forgettable Mortal Kombatant, any World Hero, or one of the Lee Brothers from Double Dragon.

Similar to Mortal Kombat, there are "Fatalities" called "Overkills", as well as other Fatalities based off of the different Stages- you can knock people into Lion Cages, have them shot in a Drive-By, or throw them into a cannibal's cooking pot. It's actually a bit easier to fix this into M&M terms, since pen & paper RPGs allow you to use the area of battle in a way that most Fighting Games can't approximate- why NOT just throw your opponent into a Neon Sign in a real fight?

[M4C8]

I never played the EC games but I do know the roster from the first game because I had some sort of comic book/magazine featuring them.

[FuzzyBoots]

I remember playing it with my friends. One of the options for playing removed the super-meter and which totally broke the system since Shadow had an "attack while invulnerable" super ability. We also did all of the Overkills, which required doing a particular attack at a specific location, sometimes in a very specific location. I also remember loving Larcen's "grapple hook across the stage to kick" move, although it was difficult to actually get to connect.