Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[Skavenger]

NEBULO
Created By: Gary Friedrich & Marie Severin
First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk Annual #1 (Oct. 1968)
Role: Invisible Man
Group Affiliations: The Inhumans, Maximus's Group
PL 7 (78)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Athletics 5 (+7)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 2 (+3)
Persuasion 2 (+3)
Stealth 3 (+6)

Advantages:
Defensive Attack, Equipment 2 (Rifle +5), Evasion, Fast Grab, Improved Defense, Ranged Attack 6, Uncanny Dodge

Powers:
"Terrigen Mist-Given Powers: Invisibility"
Concealment 2 (Vision) (Quirks: Shadow is Visible) [3]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Rifle +8 (+5 Ranged Damage, DC 20)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +3, Fortitude +5, Will +4

Complications:
Reputation (Inhuman Outcast)

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 13 / Powers: 3 / Defenses: 13 (78)

-Nebulos debuted alongside Falcona, Stallior and the others. His key thing is that he was invisible except for his shadow. He tricked the Hulk into smashing the shields guarding a Macguffin weapon, but the team were all beaten by Black Bolt when they started squabbling among themselves. He was later with Maximus fighting the Hulk again, and escaped. He hasn't appeared in years.

-Nebulo is pretty simple- just a guy based around avoiding being hit- between Limited Invisibility and his Advantages, he's pretty good at that. Kinda useless at anything else, though. He's seen holding a gun a couple of times, at least.

How...if he's invisible how...shadow...how... I mean, unless he's just infected by the Vashda Nerada and they just keep stalling on eating him, it would have to be something other than actual invisibility.

...though, now I wonder how often F4 artists accidentally draw Sue casting a shadow when she's supposed to be invisible.

[Batgirl III]

It might be a psychic effect, rather than a physical one. Instead of lighting bending around him or passing through him (standard comic book logic for invisibility) he might just be messing with everyone’s ability to notice him.

[Hoid]

It might be a psychic effect, rather than a physical one. Instead of lighting bending around him or passing through him (standard comic book logic for invisibility) he might just be messing with everyone’s ability to notice him.

Hyperfocused, low-key mind control? One command: you don’t see me.

[Goldar]

It might be a psychic effect, rather than a physical one. Instead of lighting bending around him or passing through him (standard comic book logic for invisibility) he might just be messing with everyone’s ability to notice him.

Hyperfocused, low-key mind control? One command: you don’t see me.

Exactly. Sort of like those characters that can turn invisible, but not their clothing. In this case, while his clothing is invisible, he cannot make his shadow invisible.

A very low-level, weak character especially for an Inhuman. No wonder I do not remember him!

[Skavenger]

She's developed the ability to climb outside comic book panels and control what happens "off-panel." Meaning if she needs a flashback to how Tony Stark loaned her a massive amount of money, she can do that. If she needs a flashback to the time she "borrowed" Thor's arm from Malekith while he was asleep, she can do that. She needs a quick dose of radiation poisoning? Pop off-panel and stand around Radioactive Man while he's cooking sausages on a grill. It's kind of crazy, and it doesn't give her unlimited "I win" powers since she still has to actually resolve things in the present (setting up everything in the past is fine, fighting an angry Hulk /now/ is still difficult). It's like...well, I presume everybody with good taste read the Young Avengers book that had Loki as a member, it's extremely comparable to how Loki was able to step outside the panels and manipulate them.

tl;dr = She started off wacky and kill-crazy, eventually became an adorable and earnest character who's fun to read and interacts well with other characters. How can you not love someone who forces Tony Stark and Steve Rogers to wear a giant "we will get along" t-shirt together?

Variable seems like a cheat, but yeah... sounds like Variable. Either that or a weird Time Travel or Dimensional Travel where everything happens as she sees fit.

How does the series reconcile Gwenpool's past in killing people? Does it bug her or do they mostly gloss it over because it's still comedic? Her Wiki bio was one of the more frustrating ones in terms of "This doofus doesn't know how to edit things down" I've seen.

So I went back and read through my Gwenpool stuff. The characters she's killed from the beginning have essentially been bad guys so far (a corrupt cop, Hydra agents, a made-for-this-issue blue snake guy with four arms and swords, MODOK's best assassin who never got a name, evil alien arms dealers). One issue of her book has her meet her future evil self that she rejects ("The universe wants you to be evil, you're only popular when you're evil, bwa-ha-ha" and all that), and she winds up giving up the mercenary lifestyle. While she does have a general "you're all fake, and even if I kill you another writer will just bring you back" mentality at the start, she grows, develops, and eventually decides it's better to risk ending her own existence early by being "good" than becoming a recurring villain that continues to treat everybody as either "disposable" or "able to be retconned later."

The only character she "kills" in her most recent miniseries is Bruce Banner, but she's quick to point out "that doesn't mean much these days" and she does it right before sunset, so he comes back about 30 seconds later as the Hulk.

So...some from column A and some from column B?

[Skavenger]

It might be a psychic effect, rather than a physical one. Instead of lighting bending around him or passing through him (standard comic book logic for invisibility) he might just be messing with everyone’s ability to notice him.

Hyperfocused, low-key mind control? One command: you don’t see me.

Oh, he's the Inhuman John Cena.

[Jabroniville]

Hey, look! It's the target audience for the "Fast and the Furious" movies!

THE ALPHA PRIMITIVES
Created By: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
First Appearance: The Fantastic Four #47 (Feb. 1966)
Role: Slave Labor Force
Group Affiliations: Attilan
PL 4 (18)
STRENGTH 4 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE -3 AWARENESS -2 PRESENCE -3

Skills:
Expertise (Manual Labor) 8 (+5)

Advantages:
None

Offense:
Unarmed +4 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +4 (DC 14), Toughness +4, Fortitude +4, Will +0

Complications:
Responsibility (Toil)- With no need of leisure, and only requiring six hours of sleep, the Alpha Primitives are best-used as a labor force, working eighteen-hour days without complaint.

Total: Abilities: 8 / Skills: 8--4 / Advantages: 0 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 6 (18)

-I was hoping for more on these guys, but alas- they're basically a forgotten idea, and never really got used that much... probably because their very existence robs the Inhumans of a MASSIVE chunk of their sympathy. The Alpha Primitives were a race of cloned, primitive, mentally-deficient slaves acting as the labor force of Attilan- some scientist had created them 4,000 years ago to free the Inhumans of physical labor. The "WTF?" nature of this coming from a friggin' race of PROTAGONISTS was thankfully-averted when Black Bolt freed them after one too many controlling schemes of Maximus the Mad, who frequently made use of them. Left to their own devices in the preserve underneath Attilan, they nonetheless proved incapable of self-governance. So, you know, it was GOOD to have these slaves, as boy the only thing they were good at was WORK. This was probably written by someone unfamiliar with the historical use of this theory to keep black folks enslaved in the U.S. The Unspoken, a former Inhuman King later revealed that of course EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG, and that the Primitives are actually humans that were exposed to a Kree chemical weapon designed to protect Attilan from human invasion.

-Basically like less-intelligent Cavemen, the Primitives swarm enemies like ants when controlled, making them dangerous in numbers. Superheroes generally wade through them like ants, however, so they lack impressive fighting skills.

[MacynSnow]

You know, it's not that hard to turn an Alpha Primitive into a Hero. You got a good 132 points to mess with for a basic PL 10. Just pick an Archetype and go to town...

[Goldar]

You know, it's not that hard to turn an Alpha Primitive into a Hero. You got a good 132 points to mess with for a basic PL 10. Just pick an Archetype and go to town...

I never saw them with spittle before.

[MacynSnow]

You know, it's not that hard to turn an Alpha Primitive into a Hero. You got a good 132 points to mess with for a basic PL 10. Just pick an Archetype and go to town...

I never saw them with spittle before.

Yeah, i blame Max for showing 'em That Redhead Pic BG showed us...

[Goldar]

You know, it's not that hard to turn an Alpha Primitive into a Hero. You got a good 132 points to mess with for a basic PL 10. Just pick an Archetype and go to town...

I never saw them with spittle before.

Yeah, i blame Max for showing 'em That Redhead Pic BG showed us...

hehehe......

[Curbludgeon]

Gosh, y'all can post quickly! Since there have been a couple of diversions the past few days I don't feel quite as wretched for responding to some posts more slowly than is ideal.

Dial back Molecule Man’s powers from “nigh omnipotent” to just “really freakin’ powerful.” Give Volcana a bit more backbone so she can stand up to the bad influences of her super-criminal friends... And you’ve got a great foundation for a limited series. I know, because DC has already done it:

Having just got around to reading the recent Mister Miracle run and catching up on Strange Adventures, I'd say that doing something in the style of Tom King would work well. There could be an interesting throughline should he be available of how the powered approach childrearing. That said if that were to happen I wouldn't mind if Mitch Gerads tossed things up a bit and didn't include multiple pages of Marsha and Owen lounging on a sofa.

And before you ask, no- I am not building any other Ultimate versions of anyone.

I'm in no way asking, and it's been years since I've looked at any Ultimate Marvel, but while I acknowledge there are middling differences between characters (Cap carrying a handgun, for example) I wonder which characters could even warrant a note. Thor's first hammer comes to mind, as does Ben Grimm's pseudo-ionic form, and the Green Goblin is quite different, but many others would seem to differ from their 616 counterparts more in biography than mechanics.

RE: The Inhumans: I'm curious as to how many are considered alive at this point. Clearly it's intentionally left ambiguous, and there are tons of NuHumans for whom their origin is going to be downplayed. While most of Attilan's population was murdered, as was New Arctilan and the Universal Queens, I don't know if cities like Orollan were similarly affected. As for the builds, while Variable is sometimes seen as a bit of a copout I wonder if it's not a reasonable fit for someone as diverse but not especially potent as Crystal. When a build has enough DAEs on it that it'd be the same cost I reckon I'd just take power stunts off the table and describe her as Variable 7(elementy stuff), and instead list possible examples. Of course, I'm so lazy that it takes me a week to respond, so ease is a definite factor. As an example, I'd probably make someone like Eldrac the Door a headquarters feature instead of a character.

[Ian Turner]

It honestly wouldn't take much to turn Falcona from Pl 6 jobber to PL 8 Terror: Pump her Defense up a bit, giver her Summon:Avian's(Active, Controlled, Horde, Heroic, Multiple Minions, Sacrifice) and add a couple of Skills.

If she can control larger, more powerful Inhuman fauna, perhaps those birds could carry her to a high perch out of harm's way.

Want to make Falcona a real powerhouse? Send her and the other Inhuman Maximus-supporting exiles to the Savage Land.

Dinosaurs are just precursor birds, after all, and anyone who laughs at her puny power is gonna eat a facefull of angry T-rex! (While she is safe high overhead, on her command 'dactyl.)

[MacynSnow]

You know Avian's include Dinosaur's right?

[Goldar]

It honestly wouldn't take much to turn Falcona from Pl 6 jobber to PL 8 Terror: Pump her Defense up a bit, giver her Summon:Avian's(Active, Controlled, Horde, Heroic, Multiple Minions, Sacrifice) and add a couple of Skills.

If she can control larger, more powerful Inhuman fauna, perhaps those birds could carry her to a high perch out of harm's way.

Want to make Falcona a real powerhouse? Send her and the other Inhuman Maximus-supporting exiles to the Savage Land.

Dinosaurs are just precursor birds, after all, and anyone who laughs at her puny power is gonna eat a facefull of angry T-rex! (While she is safe high overhead, on her command 'dactyl.)

Great idea!

Falcona and group could easily get lost and then find themselves in the Savage Land.

I love the idea of Falcona riding high on a 'dactyl! Maybe it would be Sauron!?