Jab’s Builds! (Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef! Sweetums! Gonzo!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Ms. Marvel! Blue Marvel! America Chavez! Synapse!)

Post by Jabroniville »

greycrusader wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 3:21 am The Uncanny Avengers...yeah, I collected that book for quite a while, and it always seemed to be on the verge of being really good under Remender, but the execution just wasn't quite there, with tantalizing concepts ending up going nowhere, not really mattering in the end. There was too much "tell me, don't show", such as the Havok-Wasp romance/having a child OFF-PANEL; and of course that ended up being reversed anyway. And the AXIS event might have been something, if the status quo hadn't been restored relatively quickly. But the characters who didn't get "re-reversed" got written off the book and changed back by the time they popped up in other titles-again, off-panel. And did they really have to make Wanda and Pietro's backgrounds even MORE muddled?
I fear this book's legacy is going to be "Wasteful with potentially good ideas" and "So this is where they introduced THAT Retcon"- Wanda & Pietro's new origins being the sole focus of one Limited Series before a second reboot hurt the book's appearance, and doing stuff like introducing those bad-ass new "S-Men" (it still bugs me my ATT thread was stuck with them in the title for six years because I couldn't edit it anymore, lol) and then completely ignoring them and killing them in a single shot a couple years later.
And Jab-wasn't the Human Torch on Duggan's Avengers actually the original one, the android Jim Hammond? Or am I misremembering? I dropped the book a couple issues into his run, so it could definitely be the latter.

All my best.
I had to double-check because my memory has gotten ATROCIOUS with old age, but yes- it's Johnny Storm. I KNEW it, but I was like "getting that wrong all along would totally be something I'd do".
Jabroniville
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Avenger X

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
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"My name is Cressida. Ever since I was a girl, I've had this... ability to make those around me better. Faster. Stronger. I've never understood it, but..."

AVENGER X (Cressida something)
Created By:
Mark Waid & Barry Kitson
First Appearance: Avengers #1 (Jan. 2017)
Role: ANOTHER Retcon Superhero
Group Affiliations: The Avengers (sorta)
PL 16 (274)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Deception 6 (+10)
Expertise (Survival) 2 (+5)
Insight 3 (+6)
Perception 3 (+6)

Advantages:
None

Powers:
"Born With Siphoning Powers" (All Powers Linked)
"Life Siphon" Weaken Strength 12 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Burst +2) [36]
"Power Siphon" Affliction 16 (Powers; Dazed & Impaired Powers/Stunned & Disabled Powers/Transformed to Powerless & Controlled Powers) (Extras: Extra Condition, Area- 60ft. Burst +2) [64]
"Empower Herself & Others" Variable (Boosting Herself & Others) 10 (Extras: Affects Others, Area- 60ft. Burst +2, Selective) [110]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Life Siphon +12 Area (+12 Weaken, DC 22)
Power Siphon +16 Area (+16 Affliction, DC 16)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +3, Fortitude +5, Will +5

Complications:
Secret (Kills Others)- Cressida's powers only work via absorbing the life-forces of nearby people.

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 0 / Powers: 210 / Defenses: 11 (274)

Yet Another Retcon Character:
-YYYYYYYYYYYYYUP. Sure enough, despite years of the Sentry & Blue Marvel being around, and only a year before he'd co-create Voyager, Mark Waid introduced ANOTHER "Retcon Hero", this one named Cressida. He wrote a pretty-good mini-series about the "Cap's Kooky Quartet" era of The Avengers, detailing their early failed attempts to get along (they were handily defeated by the Frightful Four), and there was Cressida, who was discovered in Thailand- her very presence made the Quartet stronger and faster that they'd ever been before, but at a terrible cost- she absorbed the life-force of others to do it. Her entire village had died to empower the Avengers, but they didn't realize it, and asked her to join them. She quickly helped them fight an army of miniature Amateur Androids, which had the Mad Thinker repeating his old phrase, calling her an "X Factor" (ie. the reason why his calculations never work out properly)- Hawkeye thus dubs her "Avenger X".

-Fearing that they would discover her true nature, Cressida tried to sow discord among the team (warning Cap that Hawkeye could turn back to thievery, and Quicksilver that Wanda was beign seduced by fame). She framed Hawkeye for robbery and had Quicksilver injured by the Enforcers (empowering Ox to do so), but Cap decided to trust Clint's insistence that he was innocent, and tried one last shot to unite the team- they got a revenge beat-down against the Frightful Four. Cressida empowered the Sandman to ensurer an Avengers loss, but Clint lured Quicksilver (who had sat out, being a pouty bitch) back into the fray with a clever trick (pretending he was going to hurt Wanda)- the Avengers thus came together "for real" and beat the villains. Cressida was then discovered, and drained her teammates to make her getaway. The Avengers faked their deaths to lure her out in the open, and with Hank Pym immunizing them against her powers, they easily defeated her. Tossed away from the battlefield, Cressida prepared to flee, but was found by the Four, who crushed her and buried her alive.

-The purpose of the Limited Series seemed to be to make her a modern theat, as Cressida was revived in modern times when Kang did some time-stuff, but she was trapped by Iron Man & Nadia Van Dyne in the Microverse, and was thus only trouble for a single issue.

So, Huh?:
-This one is a tricky one to unpack. "Retcon Adventures" of Marvel's heroes is a pretty old-school thing, and this was a fun nostalgic look at a mostly-ignored part of Avengers history (the Quartet didn't actually last that long before the "real" Avengers returned, though all four became big-name guys on the team). Sixties throwback tales are always fun. And the characterization is solid, and I enjoyed both how the Avengers argued (it IS Marvel, after all), and how they actually 100% came together on their own in the end- like Cressida enhanced the feelings that were already there, but even her manipulations failed to work and the team united DESPITE her infestation. And despite being an "Informal Avenger" I don't think she really counts- she was just a mole the entire time, and was only there for a second. I think this wouldn't bug me if the "Retcon Teammate" thing hadn't become such a weirdly over-done cliche since the 1990s.

-That the ENTIRE THING seems designed so that she could fight the Avengers for a single issue and then get removed so easily by two heroes comes off as a complete waste, as fun as the original Mini-Series was. I have no idea what they were really going for if they were gonna write her off so quickly, though.

Cressida's Powers:
-"Avenger X" is of course in no way balanced- she can wipe out entire teams of heroes by draining their life forces AND powers, doing so simultaneously as she empowers herself. Her only losses come from heroes immune to her powers, and being surprised by the Frightful Four.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
greycrusader
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Ms. Marvel! Blue Marvel! America Chavez! Synapse!)

Post by greycrusader »

Huh, I'd never heard of Avenger X; not a bad villain, actually, though she really should have been designed to look like a 1960s/early 1970s era Avengers bad guy, in the style of the "kooky quartet's" actual foes from that period. Also, I think characters like her, the Blue Marvel, the 3-D Man and similar types are just fine, more "unrevealed/hidden history" characters than the "everything you know is WRONG!" characters like Sentry.
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Ares
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Ms. Marvel! Blue Marvel! America Chavez! Synapse!)

Post by Ares »

greycrusader wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 5:17 pm Huh, I'd never heard of Avenger X; not a bad villain, actually, though she really should have been designed to look like a 1960s/early 1970s era Avengers bad guy, in the style of the "kooky quartet's" actual foes from that period. Also, I think characters like her, the Blue Marvel, the 3-D Man and similar types are just fine, more "unrevealed/hidden history" characters than the "everything you know is WRONG!" characters like Sentry.
It's interesting how you can tell what decade a superhero was created, with a high degree of certainty, based solely on their costume design. There was a discussion about that over in that "Favorite Superhero Costume Decade" topic I'd started, with the comparison being made of the All-Star Squadron's Tarantula. Guy was a Golden Age hero with a fantastic costume that in no way, shape or form looked like a Golden Age costume. It was definitely a late 70s/early 80s outfit in a Golden Age setting.
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Jabroniville
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Voyager (Grandmaster’s Daughter)

Post by Jabroniville »

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VOYAGER II (Va Nee Gast, aka Valerie Vector)
Created By:
Mark Waid, Al Ewing, Jim Zub, Michael & Laura Allred
First Appearance: Marvel Legacy #1 (March 2018- statue seen), Avengers #675 (Nov. 2018- real debut)
Role: Villain's Beautiful Daughter
Group Affiliations: The Avengers (ally), The Elders of the Universe (sorta)

-Well this was an interesting little thing. Voyager debuted with the much-hated "Retcon Hero" story arc, saying that oh no- she was ALWAYS on the Avengers; everyone just forgot! Comics has done this like 15,000 times already, but thankfully, writer Mark Waid, who partially-responsible for the creation of DC's Triumph, who had the exact same origin story (a forgotten Justice Leaguer), remembered that and insisted the character merely falsely implant memories of herself being on the team. Given a 1960s design by the Allreds (themselves permanently living in that decade’s motif), we had our "Believable '60s Character".

-So Voyager shows up insisting she's this long-lost Avenger, and the team buys it- she was killed fighting "Victory the Electric Man" of the Squadron Sinister (a cheeky nod to DC's Triumph). However, the Vision's artificial brain cannot be so easily fooled, and he pinpoints the lie. Finally, Voyager fesses up- she is the daughter of The Grandmaster, who is playing one big game against his brother, The Challenger- an Elder whom he'd usurped millennia ago. Aiding her father, she is nonetheless so moved by the Avengers' bravery in battle that she turns on her father, saving the Earth. I found the story to be pretty good, but very drawn-out (a simple game involving three Avengers teams crossed over every book for MONTHS), and the twist was a bit clever- it was so derivative I assumed there HAD to be a catch, and thankfully, there was- and it even featured someone changing due to GOODNESS. She later helps out the team fighting Nyx, Olympian Goddess of Night.

-Voyager can create massive Space/Time portals that can bring people just about anywhere in the universe, at any point in history. She can also fly and implant memories into the minds of others.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sat Aug 06, 2022 9:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Scots Dragon
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Ms. Marvel! Blue Marvel! America Chavez! Synapse!)

Post by Scots Dragon »

I kinda dig the design.
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Jabroniville
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Alloy

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

ALLOY (Ramone Watts)
Created By:
Kelly Thompson & Leonardo Romero
First Appearance: Hawkeye #1 (Feb. 2017)
Role: Punk Rock Cyber-Girl
Group Affiliations: The West Coast Avengers

-Alloy is Ramone Watts, who is a racial minority and has cool blue hair, making her look like... well, a lot of new comic book characters. What is it with that look being so common over the past few years? I don't know that many non-white people with dyed hair! I guess it's a common thing because it can make a character immediately look "distinctive" without giving them a mask (since that's generally not a thing these days), while the dyed hair immediately marks them as "cool" or "unique" young people. She kissed her brainwashed ex-girlfriend Mikka (whom she'd hired Kate to find) to cure her. In any case, I have nothing else to add because this character lasted only a couple of years and none of the bio-sites list much biographical stuff.

-Alloy inherited abilities to absorb a special vibranium ring left by her mother- she was stuck in a permanent Vibranium bodysuit, gaining armor plates and Body Weaponry- one site lists her as having "The powers of Wolverine AND Venom!". Some images I see feature her flying around on metal wings and using a sword and shield, so she's quite versatile, at least.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Wed Jul 19, 2023 8:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Ms. Marvel! Blue Marvel! America Chavez! Synapse!)

Post by catsi563 »

I think its the anime trend I honestly believe were gonna see a lot of people with anime style hair colors becoming the mainstream over the next decade or so. not the big wonky styles mind you but the variety of colors mainly.
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Ares
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Re: Voyager (Grandmaster’s Daughter)

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 10:57 pm Image
Image

VOYAGER (Va Nee Gast, aka Valerie Vector)
Created By:
Mark Waid, Al Ewing, Jim Zub, Michael & Laura Allred
First Appearance: Marvel Legacy #1 (March 2018- statue seen), Avengers #675 (Nov. 2018- real debut)
Role: Villain's Beautiful Daughter
Group Affiliations: The Avengers (ally), The Elders of the Universe (sorta)

-Well this was an interesting little thing. Voyager debuted with the much-hated "Retcon Hero" story arc, saying that oh no- she was ALWAYS on the Avengers; everyone just forgot! Comics has done this like 15,000 times already, but thankfully, writer Mark Waid, who partially-responsible for the creation of DC's Triumph, who had the exact same origin story (a forgotten Justice Leaguer), remembered that and insisted the character merely falsely implant memories of herself being on the team. Given a 1960s design by the Allreds (themselves permanently living in that decade’s motif), we had our "Believable '60s Character".

-So Voyager shows up insisting she's this long-lost Avenger, and the team buys it- she was killed fighting "Victory the Electric Man" of the Squadron Sinister (a cheeky nod to DC's Triumph). However, the Vision's artificial brain cannot be so easily fooled, and he pinpoints the lie. Finally, Voyager fesses up- she is the daughter of The Grandmaster, who is playing one big game against his brother, The Challenger- an Elder whom he'd usurped millennia ago. Aiding her father, she is nonetheless so moved by the Avengers' bravery in battle that she turns on her father, saving the Earth. I found the story to be pretty good, but very drawn-out (a simple game involving three Avengers teams crossed over every book for MONTHS), and the twist was a bit clever- it was so derivative I assumed there HAD to be a catch, and thankfully, there was- and it even featured someone changing due to GOODNESS. She later helps out the team fighting Nyx, Olympian Goddess of Night.

-Voyager can create massive Space/Time portals that can bring people just about anywhere in the universe, at any point in history. She can also fly and implant memories into the minds of others.
See, I actually dig this because I think they were actually becoming self-aware about how tired people were with the constant "retcon hero" trope, so they did something that would get everyone's eyes rolling . . . and then pulled a bait and switch by it basically being a character IN UNIVERSE doing the retcon-forgotten hero thing to the heroes. And they do the classic superhero thing of goodness inspiring a change of heart. Her outfit even looks appropriately Silver Age. Overall, a nice change of pace.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Jabroniville
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Fuse

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
Image

FUSE (Johnny Watts)
Created By:
Kelly Thompson & Leonardo Romero
First Appearance: Hawkeye #2 (March 2017)
Role: Punk Rock Boyfriend, Object-Mimicker
Group Affiliations: The West Coast Avengers

-Fuse is a random guy who popped up in the new Kate Bishop-centric Hawkeye series in 2017, and like many/most new Marvel characters, is a minority- a black, bisexual dude whose lesbian sister owns a surf shop in L.A., the new haunt of Kate. Growing attracted to Kate, Johnny finds things more complicated when her arch-enemy, Madame Masque, puts her mind into a cloned body of Kate's, and takes their relationship to the physical level. Kate eventually reveals the truth, but confesses to harboring real feelings for Johnny as well. Johnny and the rest of Kate's supporting cast help Clint Barton rescue her, and when he shields her from gunfire, he reveals that he's secretly been superhuman all along! His power: Object Mimicry, like the Absorbing Man! A rare power on a superhero, and an interesting one to use. He joins her on the renewed West Coast Avengers book, but it rapidly goes nowhere and is cancelled. Along the way, he finds himself attracted to Kate's ex, the former Marvel Boy/Protector.

-Fuse is an object-mimicker with unknown potential. In a clever move, akin to the X-Men 2099 character Metalhead, he keeps metals on him at all times- his earrings are made of Vibranium, rendering him almost invulnerable to harm.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sat Aug 06, 2022 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Re: Voyager (Grandmaster’s Daughter)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 2:45 am See, I actually dig this because I think they were actually becoming self-aware about how tired people were with the constant "retcon hero" trope, so they did something that would get everyone's eyes rolling . . . and then pulled a bait and switch by it basically being a character IN UNIVERSE doing the retcon-forgotten hero thing to the heroes. And they do the classic superhero thing of goodness inspiring a change of heart. Her outfit even looks appropriately Silver Age. Overall, a nice change of pace.
Yeah, it was a far superior "twist" than the old boring junk, and very inventive, almost taking advantage of what would likely be fans getting annoyed at seeing this AGAIN. That the villain is genuinely moved by heroism is great and a VERY old-school, '60s twist, which is appropriate given her nature as a "Fake '60s Character".

And yeah- she fits the '60s milieu far better than Avenger X did, with the Allreds doing a great job with the simple outfit, the short skirt over leggings, and the belt logo.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Jeff the Baby Land Shark

Post by Jabroniville »

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AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, I WANT ONE!!!

JEFF THE BABY LAND SHARK
Created By:
Kelly Thompson & Daniele Di Nicuolo
First Appearance: West Coast Avengers #7 (March 2019)
Role: Animal Mascot
Group Affiliations: The West Coast Avengers

-The adorable Jeff the Baby Land Shark is one of many Land Sharks who were used to attack Kate Bishop's West Coast Avengers in Kelly Thompson's wacky, off-the-wall short-lived run. He was adopted by Gwenpool and made a sort of "team mascot". Figuring she wouldn't have a solo series again (hee), she left him with Deadpool.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sat Sep 03, 2022 8:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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KorokoMystia
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (America Chavez! Synapse! Avenger X! Voyager!)

Post by KorokoMystia »

Must..resist..urge..to reference..song..
Also, it's definitely a coincidence (this character predates that show by a few months), but it's pretty funny that we got Baby Yoda in the same year.
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Scots Dragon
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Re: Alloy

Post by Scots Dragon »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 12:28 am Image
Sometimes the artist doing the designing is also, evidently, Quentin Tarantino.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (America Chavez! Synapse! Avenger X! Voyager!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Maybe he was just inspired by those creepy-ass "Toe Shoes" I saw a couple years back, lol.
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