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

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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M4C8
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by M4C8 »

Teen Abomination turned out to be the previously unknown son of Happy Hogan who didn't even know the kid existed before he died, it was all very random.
'A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it'
Jabroniville
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Glenn Talbot

Post by Jabroniville »

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GENERAL GLENN TALBOT
Created By:
Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
First Appearance: Tales to Astonish #61 (Nov. 1964)
Role: Rival Love Interest
PL 6 (85)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Expertise (Military) 10 (+12)
Insight 2 (+5)
Investigation 2 (+5)
Perception 2 (+5)
Persuasion 1 (+4)
Stealth 2 (+5)
Technology 3 (+5)
Vehicles 4 (+8)

Advantages:
Benefit 3 (General), Equipment 4 (Guns & Stuff), Ranged Attack 4

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Guns +8 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +6

Complications:
Responsibility (America)- Talbot is a born patriot.
Relationship (Betty Ross)- Talbot loved Betty desperately, and the two were even married for a time.

Total: Abilities: 52 / Skills: 26--13 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 9 (85)

-Glenn Talbot is a guy I've pretty much never heard or nor seen until doing Hulk-related builds, at which point he pops up a few times. He's as old-school as it gets, debuting in Stan 'n' Steve Hulk stories in the 1960s- he's a close compatriot to "Thunderbolt" Ross and a potential love interest for Bruce Banner's girlfriend Betty (Ross of course supports this, rejecting Banner). Talbot was the man who revealed Banner's transformations into the Hulk to the army, and consistently attempted to kill the monster, but was always treated fairly by the creators- he was brave, upstanding, loyal and patriotic. Eventually, Betty rejected Bruce, and settled down and married Talbot. However, things would soon become strained- he would be catatonic for a time, and Betty would later confess to always loving Bruce.

-Eventually, Glenn & Betty divorced- Talbot would then undergo some major-league character assassination, as he would try to have Banner court-martialed, then was revealed to have been the one who exiled the Hulk to the subatomic world where he met Jarella. Soon, Congress cut support for Talbot's "Gamma Base", and he made the grudge personal, trying to kill the Hulk directly- he was killed in the battle. He would never reappear- though a Life Model Decoy was briefly seen in a modern Intelligencia plot to enact a coup d'etat in the United States. It was also later revealed that Glenn used to beat his brother, who would become a member of Gamma Corps. So Marvel REALLY did a number on this guy- he used to seem like a Reasonable Love Interest- a well-rounded, somewhat sympathetic character who was believably antagonistic towards the protagonist. A pretty unique concept, actually. Only later writers turned him into an out-and-out jerk and villain, and now he exists as "Betty's Evil Ex-Husband".

-Glenn is a reasonably skilled Army Man, but is not match for most costumed characters- his threat to the Hulk is more personal.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
RUSCHE
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by RUSCHE »

I know the Hulk is not a personal favorite of yours but thank you for you write-ups. Plus your are so thorough you did the Glob for Pete sakes. Thanks again. Is Mastro on the do list?
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by Jabroniville »

RUSCHE wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:06 pm I know the Hulk is not a personal favorite of yours but thank you for you write-ups. Plus your are so thorough you did the Glob for Pete sakes. Thanks again. Is Mastro on the do list?
Yup- he'll be the final build in the set, actually :).
brothersale
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by brothersale »

Ah Talbot, in fairness the character suffered from constant losses to the Hulk which after a while just made the character a bit of a joke, especially when most writers tended to wheel out Old Thunderbolt Ross to do the big stuff. That said there was a nice recon story in World War Hulks #1 "Nobody Dies Forever" which did make the effort redeem the character slightly as a soldier by making Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier (at the time of the story Captain America) respect him from his one encounter with him (heck Barnes "interrogates" him for fifteen days, and he is the one who ends up getting his brain washing broken by Talbot).

The character is now getting a bit more exposure on his own thanks to the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. tv series where he us used as the go to US general rather than Ross, so there is the possiblity he may be brought back if he draws enough momentum from fans (at his point there is not many characters marvel has not brought back to life unless they are unborn children, heck even a version of Uncle Ben has made an appearance in recent years.)
Jabroniville
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Speedfreak

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

SPEEDFREAK (Joss Shappe)
Created By:
Peter David & Dale Keown
First Appearance: The Incredible Hulk #388 (Dec. 1991)
Role: Forgotten Villain
Group Affiliations: None
PL 8 (77)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6/8/10 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS -1 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Expertise (Hitman) 4 (+4)
Intimidation 4 (+4)
Perception 4 (+3)

Advantages: 
Equipment (Holographic Imager), Ranged Attack 4

Powers:
"Snap-Given Powers"
Speed 2 (8 mph) [2]
Enhanced Advantages 2: Improved Initiative 2 [2]
Enhanced Fighting 2 [4]
Enhanced Dodge 4 [4]

"Speedfreak Suit" (Feats: Restricted To Those With Super-Speed) (Flaws: Removable) [21]
Speed 5 (250 mph) (5)
Enhanced Fighting 2 (4)
Enhanced Advantages 2: Improved Initiative 2 (2)
Protection 4 (4)
"Adamantium-Tipped Forearm Swords" Strength-Damage +4 (Extras: Penetrating 6) (10)
-- (25 points)

"Special Weapons" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [3]
Strength-Damage +3 (Feats: Reach 2) (5 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
On Snap +8 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
In Suit & On Snap +10 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Weapons +10 (+4-5 Damage, DC 19-20)
Initiative +3 (+11 On Snap, +19 In Suit)

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (+10 On Snap, DC 16-20), Parry +6 (+10 on Snap, DC 16-20), Toughness +2 (+6 Suit), Fortitude +4, Will +2

Complications:
Motivation (Drugs)- Speedfreak kills for money to feed his habit.
Addiction ("Snap")- Speedfreak is addicted to a super-speed inducing drug called Snap.

Total: Abilities: 24 / Skills: 12--6 / Advantages: 5 / Powers: 36 / Defenses: 8 (77)

-Speedfreak is an uber-'90s hitman wearing a suit of armor, trying to kill a man who'd inflicted another with AIDS. Next, he was seen grieving over his daughter, who was shot as she was leaving an abortion clinic- he attempted to gain revenge with The Hulk, but Hulk and a bystander stopped him, scarring his face with battery acid in the process. Like most of Peter David's Hulk villains, he basically vanished from comics but for later cameos, being seen during Civil War hiding out with Coldheart, Nitro & Cobalt Man... this of course being the Stamford Incident that set the whole thing OFF. The three villains with Nitro were among the two New Warriors and 600 bystanders killed.

-A pretty useless guy in terms of Abilities & Skills (I mean, he's a DRUG ADDICT. Not the best thing for proper decision-making or focus-requiring skills), Speedfreak only hits PL 8 thanks to a combination of his drug use and his Super-Suit, which allows him to become a low-end Speedster. He's also one of dozens of new, nobody characters to acquire Adamantium Weapons in the 1990s, using them against The Hulk (who generally easily-handled this guy- David's Hulk ends up against a LOT of foes with no hope of victory like that).
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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HalloweenJack
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by HalloweenJack »

I think I remember reading once that Speedfreak was supposed to be Crazy Eight's brother.

Who is Crazy Eight?

Well the first Hulk issue I ever picked up had a blurb on it that I did not see as a lad which said "Warning! The Hulk does not appear in this issue!"

I was a little angry over this at first, but after reading the book I came to genuinely dig it.

It was primarily a Doc Samson story. He was informed I think by Fury that a former patient of his was about to be executed and requested to speak to him before she went.

That patient was a superhumanly strong mercenary/assassin dubbed 'Crazy Eight' that he had treated some time earlier. She had been captured by Wonder Man at some point and Samson had done a psychiatric evaluation on her to determine whether she was fit to stand trial or not.

See ol' CE had murdered a pretty affluent businessman/senator (I forget which) type and has also beaten the guy's wife when she did this. Samson comes in and interviews her, and she goes between lucid (explaining originally she wanted to be called Infinity after marking her first target with an infinity symbol, but the cops had figured she carved some sort of 'crazy eight' in it) and acting insane and doing things like putting cigarettes out on her and hitting on Samson.

Samson seems to find however that she's just faking her insanity and is actually a rational, sane individual. Despite developing something of a bond with her, its his determination that she's perfectly capable of standing trial and of course is convicted and sentenced to death. Samson meets with her, they say their goodbyes, and people are picketing and celebrating outside the prison because justice is going to be served.

Crazy Eight dies in the electric chair. Afterwards, Samson approaches the widow of the man CE killed. She's sitting there bawling her eyes out, everyone doing that because they assume they're tears over her husband. They're not and Samson sees why.

The widow is holding a high school picture of herself and CE as cheerleaders. There's even some words scribbled on it. It's one of those 'best friends forever' things from CE to the widow with a further bit that says 'if you ever need me to help you, I'll be there for you'.

Samson figures it out. Crazy Eight killed the man because he had been beating his wife, her best friend, and then took the fall for it.


Samson staggers out and some of the protesters are drunk while one, with some alcohol in hand, slurs and asks if Crazy Eight squealed when it all ended. Samson grabs the guy enraged, making him spill his alcohol all over the wall behind him, but then lets him go.

Samson walks away as the guy collects himself and repeats something Crazy Eight had always said "It never ends"

On the wall behind them the alcohol has sort of taken the shape of an infinity symbol.
Jabroniville
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Amphibion

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

AMPHIBION (Qnax)
Created By:
Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
First Appearance: Tales to Astonish #73 (Nov. 1965)
Role: Forgotten Villain
Group Affiliations: None
PL 9 (107)
STRENGTH
12 STAMINA 12 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Expertise (Space Adventurer) 4 (+6)
Expertise (Soldier) 4 (+6)
Perception 4 (+4)
Technology 4 (+6)

Advantages: 
Equipment 4 (Space Stuff), Power Attack, Ranged Attack 6

Powers:
"Amphibious"
Movement 1 (Environmental Adaptation- Aquatic) [2]
Swimming 4 [4]
Immunity 2 (Drowning, Pressure) [2]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+12 Damage, DC 27)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +12, Fortitude +12, Will +4

Complications:
Prejudice (Obvious Alien)

Total: Abilities: 70 / Skills: 16--8 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 8 / Defenses: 10 (107)

-Amphibion has a stupid name, a generic look, and only three appearances to his name (all in short arcs), but hey- he's a Stan & Jack original. He is the supreme warrior of Xantares, and sent to find the "Galaxy's Greatest Treasure" from the homeworld of The Watchers. He then fought the Hulk, who was then being controlled by the Leader to get the same Cosmic Macguffin- the Hulk won, and Amphibion was exiled by his people. He teams up with two other mooks (Torgo & Dark-Crawler) in order to find the Hulk, but he beats all three of them at once before he's convinced to ally with them against the Galaxy Master. In a third appearance, he and the Hulk team up for the same Macguffin as before, but ultimately discover that the council that exiled Amphibion was just power-hungry, and so he flies off alone- hoping to free his people from their control.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by Batgirl III »

The old patented Jabroniville Thoroughness has confirmed for me that, while I like the Hulk on a conceptual level... I'm kinda happy I've never bothered to follow the character. A friend in elementary school was a big Hulk fanboy, so I borrow-read some of his adventures during the "Professor Hulk" era and I've read a few of the bigger events in trades (e.g., Planet Hulk, World War Hulk)

But, yeah, the basic green guy just doesn't really seem like the kind of protagonist that can sustain an ongoing solo title.
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Jabroniville
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Distorter

Post by Jabroniville »

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DISTORTER (Doctor _____ Stort)
Created By:
Steve Ditko
First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes #3/4 (Fall 1990)
Role: One-Off Villain
Group Affiliations: None
PL 10 (85)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 6 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills: 
Deception 4 (+7)
Expertise (Science) 2 (+8)
Insight 2 (+5)
Perception 2 (+5)
Technology 6 (+12)

Advantages: 
Inventor, Ranged Attack 2

Powers:
"Distorter Costume" (Flaws: Removable) [30]
"Master of Hypnosis" Mind Control 10 (Flaws: Vision-Dependent) (30)
"Survives Several Blows From The Hulk" Protection 7 (7)
-- (37 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Mind-Reading -- (+10, DC 20)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +5 (DC 15), Parry +4 (DC 14), Toughness +2 (+9 Costume), Fortitude +3, Will +3

Complications: 
Motivation (World Power)

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 16--8 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 30 / Defenses: 2 (85)

-God Steve Ditko is a weirdo. Witness Distorter, aka Dr. Stort, who was a hypnotist/psychologist at Gamma Base, where he took over the Hulk and meant to use him as an instrument for global conquest. This Silver Age story was actually written in Nineteen-Ninety. However, the Hulk grew increasingly angry during the course of the story, and pretty quickly attacked Stort and beat the hell out of him. The story is apparently a complete mess- featuring a Hulk with gray skin (called the "Jade Giant" nonetheless), four fingers and three toes! The character, obviously, has never reappeared. He's very one-note, though his costume allows him to survive not only a beating at the Hulk's hands, but falling out of a helicopter, so apparently that's one tough suit.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2017 3:29 am The old patented Jabroniville Thoroughness has confirmed for me that, while I like the Hulk on a conceptual level... I'm kinda happy I've never bothered to follow the character. A friend in elementary school was a big Hulk fanboy, so I borrow-read some of his adventures during the "Professor Hulk" era and I've read a few of the bigger events in trades (e.g., Planet Hulk, World War Hulk)

But, yeah, the basic green guy just doesn't really seem like the kind of protagonist that can sustain an ongoing solo title.
yeah, i think I've done the "holy God, ANOTHER one-off, forgettable Strong Guy Opponent?" What is also mind-blowing is just how few of these guys matter to the Marvel Universe as a whole. Character after character who have never appeared outside of the Hulk's own book. Hell, even I, who've statted and seen Ion, Quicksand, TWO Bantams, and The Grapplers have never even heard of, nor seen, Glenn Talbot, Glob, Amphibion, The Missing Link, or Mogol until this set.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by Jabroniville »

The story of THE LIST:

* okay, since we're on one of those days where I'm not posting anyone of real significance (I try hard to at LEAST rate a "Titania" or a "Madman"-level build each day with stuff like this), I figured I would share/re-share the story of how we came up with THE LIST.

See, in about 2015 or so, I got a PM from Spectrum, a regular poster who had made the odd comment here or there (I forget how commonly he was seen at the time, but I have some PMs from him going all the way back to the ATT in 2013, asking me if I had a past in journalism). He'd seen my occasional mentions of having a "List" of "Un-Statted Marvel Characters", which was rather small at the time (I was only going off of one website, finding the Unofficial Appendix to the Marvel Universe webpage a bit overly large to search through). Spectrum said he had some free time, and wanted to go through his stacks of Marvel Bio Books, trying to find characters I hadn't statted yet. I readily agreed to his idea, and was stunned when he gave me absolutely SCADS of characters within days- dozens of them at a time.

I was thankful for the opportunity to find the names, but found a few that were really insufficient enough for my thread. Now, I'll stat just about anybody- but some of these names were just "random civilian who got powers briefly" or "Kill-O-Bot #92", so I casually mentioned that some I wouldn't be doing. Spectrum quickly asked me to come up with a list of traits for "notability", allowing him to skim a little easier, and save us both time. I quickly came up with a few "rules":

1) No Kill-O-Bots. The most boring concepts ever- they're all the same, and there are HUNDREDS of them!
2) Preference for codenames over "Dave Johnson"-type civilian names. Or the kind of names Conan villains have.
3) Preference for costumes over civilian looks.
4) No Magic, since that was a nuisance to stat. Major mages are possible, but the obscure guys? They ALL have their powers listed as "Magic".
5) No "Alternate Universe" versions. I still don't understand why anyone would think that was fun- "Ooh, it's Captain America as a VAMPIRE!" I'm like "that's just the same character, but with a new Template! That's not interesting!"
6) No "Guy who is just standing around in one scene"-type things. I call these "Blind Builds", because you're essentially building the character "blind", based off of what they MIGHT BE, not what they ARE. A lot of Astro City characters are like this, if they've never received a "Focus Issue" before. Kreuzritter actually specialized this on his "Every Character Ever" thread, doing so for years- he even statted up random losers from the background panels of Empowered! This kind of thing never appealed to me, however.

With that in mind, we then contructed a MASSIVE list of names, which I alphabetized- upwards of fifty guys for letters like "M" and "S". I then started putting little bits of them out there, often in 2-week sets between more "important" ones. I was interested in researching all the new names, and build the "To-Do List" out of the names that made me most interested (I was quite disappointed to find that "Frost" was just some one-off Hulk threat).

Unfortunately... builds from The List were rarely that popular. Doing characters from a Video Game series or even friggin Monster High would draw SOME notes, but I found the comments dwindling pretty severely for characters that pretty much NOBODY had ever heard of. But then I realized that there were still plenty of characters from my OTHER "To-Do List"- guys I'd posted on the Atomic Think Tank, but had never transplanted over to Ronin Army! So I started threading THOSE guys in. Then I came up with the idea to stat out characters from each "Letter" separately. And the interest still wasn't there for the most obscure characters, BUT I was still able to draw interest with the occasional high-end or semi-important character from, say, the letter "I" or something. So my weird mental drive to stat up everything ever was sated, AND people had some interesting stuff to look at, without me statting up endless piles of characters nobody'd ever heard of.

Then came The Incident, and most of the good builders set up shop over here on Echoes of the Multiverse. And so I was able to ADD to The List, but putting some random names from the RONIN ARMY thread over onto here, to eventually (and slowly) transplant every build of mine onto this thread.

And, bringing this back to the Hulk Builds, I realized that a huge number of the characters I had to stat were actually Hulk losers. Names like "Amphibion" have literally sat on my To-Do List for over TWO YEARS because I never got around to them, swinging above me like the Sword of Damocles. Other names like Flux, John Ryker, Gestalt, Piecemeal, and more are also long-runners that are FINALLY being built! So this run, while I'd put it off for like 2-3 years ("Okay, this time I'll FINALLY stat up the Hulllllll oh wait I got an idea for a new Jem and the Holograms rant, never mind"), will finally let me clear some off of The List.
Jabroniville
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Kluh

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

KLUH:
-Kluh is a one-off... well, TWO-off... character that started off as a creation of Xemnu the Titan, meant to be superior to the Hulk. Only Red Hulk & the Hulk combined could defeat him, as they merged together and doubled their strength. Another appeared in AXIS, where he was an "inverted" Hulk who grew stronger the more depressed and sad he got. This was pretty clearly designed to be DELIBERATELY-stupid... but wasn't treated as such in-story, which made it come off rather strangely. Kluh, with New Villain Stink, is probably the same as a Savage Hulk build, but perhaps a notch stronger.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by bsdigitalq »

I imagine the name doesn't help. I mean, "Kluh." Duh, right?
Spectrum
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Rick Jones! Jarella! The Warbound! Betty Banner/Red Shulk!)

Post by Spectrum »

It was a fun project, bringing back all kinds of fond childhood memories of getting deeply into the bio books. I used to draw my parents along to the local gaming store to pick up the newest version of OhothMU or Who's Who. At the time of building the List though, quite a bit older and realizing that while it's enjoyable to sit unmoving in my chair for hours on end, not so great for the health- or for not moving my neck for the same long periods of time.

Also realizing that I was an odd kid- not so much interested in comic books as a whole, far more interested in comic books about metadata on other comic books.

But hey, mildly autistic wasn't an idea 35 years ago.
We rise from the ashes so that new legends can be born.
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