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

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
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drkrash
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Tiger! Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!!!)

Post by drkrash »

I read a description like this and start to think to myself, "Wait a minute...am I the Rob Liefeld of supers GMing?..."
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Tiger! Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!!!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Liefeld is a skilled artist – yes, I said it – but he’s not a skilled writer… and I suspect he has too much ego to let a writer take the reins. Rob wants to work on projects that are artist first, writer secondary. That makes for flashy projects that do well the day they hit the stands, but it doesn’t make classics that people are going to be reading decades later.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Tiger! Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!!!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 4:01 pm Liefeld is a skilled artist – yes, I said it – but he’s not a skilled writer… and I suspect he has too much ego to let a writer take the reins. Rob wants to work on projects that are artist first, writer secondary. That makes for flashy projects that do well the day they hit the stands, but it doesn’t make classics that people are going to be reading decades later.
Rob's biggest problems with art are... well I detailed them in my bio on him when I statted up all the Image characters:

ROB'S ARTISTIC QUIRKS & FLAWS:
-"Rob Liefeld is a bad artist" and "Rob can't draw feet" get mentioned so many times as to be cliche, but I feel the need to actually list ALL of the disparate ways in which he is a bad artist. The vast majority of these are do to a combination of laziness and not being able to catch mistakes before it's too late. As an artist, I can empathize with the last one- the notion that a pose doesn't quite "work" from that angle, or that you drew a body part too big or too small, can be devastating when you're almost done and you realize that. But a true professional will of course try and edit things out, start over, or work with it. Rob? Rob just forges ahead, because he's lazy and he wants to start on the next page.

Rob's Quirks:
-Less offensive, these are more due to things that befall all artists- overusing the same design elements repeatedly (even George Perez did this).

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* THOSE DAMN '90s EYEPATCHES: A huge portion of Rob's characters have "patches" over their eyes- in a single calendar year, he introduced Wildside and Reaper of the M.L.F., and Domino & Deadpool, every one of whom had big rounded "eyepatches", either on their faces or on masks. That these were all characters from the same book made it really stand out. When he got to Image, Vogue and Cabbot Stone, major characters, also had them, but now they were tiny and ended in points on the bottom.

* People with huge flared gloves or boots.

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* MASSIVE shoulder-pads, beating anything short of Warhammer 40K.

* Giant Guns.

* Oddly skinny or broad swords. Frequently, guys use Katanas that are an inch or two wide at most, or knives that are a foot wide.

* Endless Pouches: one of his most infamous quirks, made particularly notable by the fact that his characters rarely used gadgets of any kind, making their pouches meaningless. What gear they actually DID carry was always too big to fit into the pouches anyways!

* Inconsistent costumes: There's an issue of X-Force in which Cable is wearing head-to-toe body armor and it's never explained. His default outfit changes repeatedly without mention. Domino in the same book would have a helmet sometimes, full armor sometimes, and a Combat Skinsuit the next.

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* Armor in Random Places: Some guys will have armor, but only on their arms (Gideon), cock & inner thighs (Battlestone), and more.

* Character with ponytails- giant flowing ones for the girls; tiny ones for the guys.

* Everyone grimacing. The sexy women? Angrily grimacing. The angry guys? FURIOUS grimacing. Every Rob Liefeld character looked like they were taking an enormous shit.

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* Oddly pursed lips. Okay, I ADORED Rob's art when I was twelve. But even then the way that even male characters pursed their lips when they talked irked me. Everyone just sticking their lips out when speaking so their teeth were clenched (GRITTED TEETH ARE RAD!). It was unnatural and strange.

Rob's Flaws:
-*deep breath*

* Inconsistent Sizes: large characters are frequently drawn either as a "big dude" in one panel, and a literal giant the next.

* Inconsistent Hair: Rob loves to add lines and details to certain things, especially if its hair, which is more free and fun to draw. Except characters never have the same haircut from panel to panel- he'll draw a giant bouffant hairdo for a male character in one panel, and in the next it'll be cut almost military short. Ponytails? JESUS CHRIST- it can be six feet long one minute, and 6 inches long the next. It flies about even when the character is immobile, and it even changes position! Yes, Rob is so bad that he would draw the part where the ponytail touched the head... without realizing it needed to be BEHIND the person's head! Instead, the standard ponytail would randomly be a side-ponytail or come from the neck or whatever!

* No Backgrounds: this got worse with time- Marvel would insist upon backgrounds, though Rob could half-ass them (guys often stood in a "field of lines" or with "Random Gear" behind them). Eventually, everyone was just floating in nothing. This isn't just lazy, it's problematic- the action is never "centered", and characters have no frame of reference to them, drawing the fans "out of the story". This is part of the reason for his stuff being strangely-sized from panel to panel.

* A Lack of Sketching It Out First: As an artist, I can tell this one right away. Guys holding swords or guns that were clearly drawn after he'd drawn the hands, so it doesn't look right- their hands are clasped too tightly to actually have anything in them, and the weapons aren't even sprouting straight from the grip- they're kind of angled funny off to the side, or bent backwards. Weapons "tilt" or bend in the middle because he drew too much, too fast and didn't realize it didn't fit until it was too late.

This is common when he draws characters beside each other and you realize they can't be standing on the same plane. I've done this before, and was embarrassed to not catch it, but I'm not a professional illustrator. And I at least BS'd a platform or something. Though Rob did once draw Cable awkwardly "sitting" on a flying jetbike because he'd clearly drawn him crouching, but too high off of a dock to be there. EASIER THAN REDRAWING IT!

* NO FEET: Rob's infamous issues with feet are probably his most notorious flaw as an artist. To be fair, many/most artist struggle with feet, and the only people who draw GREAT ones are probably foot fetishists- but most people just suck it up and draw them. While you can get away with it in most comics panels (drawing big figures means you often can't see everything in a panel), Rob would go so far out of his way that it became incredibly obvious- people standing behind boxes. Smoke clouding the floor. People standing awkwardly so you can't see them. Rob would even stretch poses out so that a leaping person would only have their upper legs visible- the lower legs (and feet) "disappearing" behind them due to "foreshortening", which was done so consistently that it was clearly a cheat.

And of course, Rob WOULD draw feet when forced to thanks to the aforementioned "No Sketching" problem. If he couldn't avoid it, he'd... draw a strange blocky structure. Or itty-bitty lil' triangles.

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WHAT THE FRICK IS WRONG WITH HIS HANDS!?!

* Other Missing or Bizarre Anatomy: Rob often also skips out on things like arms or legs when they should be visible, in ways that make it very clear he intentionally left them out. His characters' fingers will often not be the right length, as Rob draws them increasing in size until you get to the forefinger. Thighs and calves will appear incredible bulbous on frames that are otherwise not muscular. Waists, both male and female, will be drawn far too thin for their frames.

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* Lack of Detail in Costumes: Rob was unafraid to add extraneous details to costumes- he's infamously fond of "pouches" because of this, with guys being strapped down with random bandoliers, strings of pouches, pouched shoulderpads, etc... but sometimes, he'd just go "fuck it" and the characters would have a One-Piece Swimsuit for a costume. Male and female characters alike might have a single bodysuit with absolutely zero detail to it aside from a single dividing line or two to have a different color. Thermal & Stasis of Brigade and Strobe of the M.L.F. are characters like this.

* Excessive Shading: Trained in the '90s styles, Rob is particularly bad at cross-hatching. While Jim Lee was very good at casting characters in shadows and shaking up his cross-hatching so that it varied among different parts of the anatomy (being "tighter" on small body parts and bigger around large muscles like the shoulders), Rob would instead just lazily post the same "Checkerboard of death" (actual term used in art magazines) over the entire figure. Faces are bathed in darkness almost to avoid drawing the hard bits like "facial features". Sometimes only one person or one part of their body will be cast in shadow, leaving every thing else bright.

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* Bizarre-Ass Posing: Rob appears unaware of how the body works at all. Unrealistic proportions are common in comics, but he frequently draws people as if he just bent up his action figures and drew 'em that way. The weirdest pose may be the "Tits Out, Gut Sucked In" pose... with MEN. I mean, we're used to that with women, but Rob actually draws the DUDES this way, having them puff up their chests and swing their asses back. It's almost his default "man standing there" pose.
Jabroniville
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MLF Roster

Post by Jabroniville »

The Roster:
1) Stryfe
2) Zero
3) Wildside
4) Forearm
5) Strobe
6) Tempo
7) Thumbelina
8) Reaper
9) Dragoness
10) Kamikaze
11) Sumo
12) Rusty (Brainwashed New Mutant)
13) Skids (Brainwashed New Mutant)
14) Reignfire (Future Self of Sunspot)
15) Locus
16) Danielle Moonstar (A Mole inserted by S.H.I.E.L.D. to work against them and try to... kill her friends? That's on serious under-cover mission)
17) Feral (X-Force member- betrayed Cable's team and joined Reignfire's)

Some notes on their appearances until I just threaded them into the team bio earlier, lol:


New Mutants #86-87:
-This issue also features the debut of Cable, so it's a big one. In this, the MLF debuts and invades a base, defeating a bunch of soldiers. Tempo uses her powers to stall a grenade's explosion, Wildside uses his sense-warping powers to render everyone invisible to detection, etc. and they generally look okay, if a bit generic. Ironically, Wildside's powers would be STEALTH-FOCUSED at first, when he turns out to be the MLF's chattiest and noisiest member.

New Mutants #93:
-The first time the MLF see action against the New- Kamikaze, Dragoness & Sumo and Sumo all make their debuts at once, and I realize now that it's three Asian members of the team- each sort of showcases their powers in the first scrap and then disappear, then finish the fight later. Sumo leaps onto Warlock and holds him down before Boom-Boom blasts him off, and Kamikaze stuns Cannonball with a close-range blast. Dragoness & Sunfire appear to be evenly matched, shocking Sunfire, who mentions how he's never faced anyone as powerful (despite them simply doing the "blast each other's blast" thing). In the subsequent fight, Kamikaze is punched by Cannonball, who does the usual "I'm nigh-invulnerable when ah'm blastin'!" thing, Sumo is literally flung away when Warlock becomes a trampoline to catch him and Sunspot pulls back on it and lets go, and Dragoness is blasted out the sky by Rictor, which accidentally sets a warehouse full of drugs & weapons aflame, blowing it up. The MLF survive.

Most curious here is that it's a big Stryfe vs. Cable battle, and it's ONLY a fistfight, and it consists of Cable punching Stryfe no less than three times, each one sending him away with that "wide open mouth with blood spattering around it" pose Liefeld just LOVES to draw. It's entirely one-sided and Stryfe is even seen lying down amidst debris. It's pretty amusing given how powerful Stryfe is shown in post-Liefeld issues.

X-Force #1:
-The first of the "MLF Jobs Easy" issues. Forearm grapples Cable and the hero remarks that Forearm just keeps getting stronger every time they meet... but brings up Warpath, who seems to do the same, and Warpath runs up behind Forearm and one-punches him in a dramatic two-page spread. Wildside tries to claw up Feral, talking a bunch of smack, so Feral remarks on his chattiness and grabs his jaw, snapping it and tossing him aside, then plans on killing him. Reaper, meanwhile, goes up against Shatterstar and is almost instantly maimed, his hand being sliced off. The team (including Kamikaze, who didn't do anything) immediate flee via Zero.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand that's kinda it. Until the X-Cutioner's Song issues where the MLF are demolished by the X-teams, albeit after taking out Quicksilver, Gambit, Rogue & Boom-Boom from the crossover via long-term injuries. Another 10-ish issues left and they're reborn by Reignfire, dumping most of the team.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Tiger! Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!!!)

Post by Batgirl III »

I want it noted for the record, I said he was skilled not that he was good… Perhaps I should have said talented? He has the raw artistic capacity, but not the technical capability. Like, if he’d just learn some basic first year art school anatomy and basic page layout, he’d be great.
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Jabroniville
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Stryfe

Post by Jabroniville »

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Fun test: try drawing that helmet from the side.

STRYFE (Nathan Summers' Clone)
Created By:
Louise Simonson & Rob Liefeld
First Appearance: The New Mutants #87 (March 1990)
Role: Big Bad, Super-Telekinetic, Monologuing Villain
Group Affiliations: The Mutant Liberation Front, The New Mutants, X-Force
PL 14 (325)
STRENGTH
4 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 7 AWARENESS 5 PRESENCE 6

Skills:
Close Combat (Unarmed) 3 (+11)
Deception 4 (+10)
Expertise (History) 8 (+15)
Expertise (Science) 4 (+11)
Expertise (Terrorist) 4 (+11)
Insight 3 (+8)
Intimidation 5 (+11)
Investigation 4 (+9)
Perception 4 (+9)
Technology 5 (+12)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Beginner's Luck, Diehard, Equipment 12 (Moonbase), Improved Aim, Improved Critical (TK Blasts) 2, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Precise Attack (Close/Concealment), Ranged Attack 12, Taunt

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Omega-Level Telekinesis & Telepathy"
"Telekinesis"
Force Field 8 (Feats: Increased Mass 2) (Extras: Affects Others, Impervious) [22]

"Nullify Powers" Affliction 14 (Fort or Power Strength; Impaired Powers/Disabled Powers/Transformed to Powerless) (Extras: Perception Range +2, Cumulative, Concentration +2) (Flaws: Distracting, Instant Recovery) (56) -- [61]
  • AE: Telekinesis 14 (Feats: Precise) (Extras: Perception Range) (43)
  • AE: Damage 14 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst, Penetrating) (42)
  • AE: Damage 14 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone, Penetrating) (42)
  • AE: TK Blast 14 (Extras: Autofire) (42)
  • AE: Deflect 14 (28)
"Telepathy"
Mind-Reading 10 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Effortless, Cumulative, Sensory Link) Linked to Mental Communication 3 (Extras: Area, Selective) (69) -- [77]
  • Dynamic AE: Mind Control 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (49)
  • Dynamic AE: "Mental Stun" Affliction 12 (Will; Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated) (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Perception Range +2, Cumulative) (49)
  • Dynamic AE: "Astral Form" Remote Sensing 15 (Visuals & Hearing) (Feats: Dynamic) (Flaws: Physical Body is Defenseless) (31)
          Dynamic AE: "Mental Blast" Damage 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Perception Range +2, Will Save) (49)
"Mental Detection" Senses 4 (Mental Awareness- Ranged, Radius, Acute) [4]

"Stryfe's Armour" (Flaws: Removable) [8]
Protection 3 (Extras: Impervious 7) (10 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Mental Effects +12 Perception (+12 Perception Affliction, DC 22)
Mental Blast +12 Perception (+12 Perception Damage, DC 27)
TK Blasts +11 (+14 Ranged Damage, DC 29)
TK Effects +14 Area (+14 Damage, DC 29)
Initiative +7

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +4 (+7 Armour, +15 Force Field), Fortitude +9, Will +12

Complications:
Secret (Genetic Clone of Cable)- Stryfe is actually the clone; Cable is the original.
Motivation (Revenge)- Stryfe is obsessed with those whom he has perceived as having wronged him. Included in this list are:
Enemy (Apocalypse)- Apocalypse took Stryfe under his wing in the future, but is responsible for the crappiness of said future.
Enemy (Cyclops & Jean Grey)- His "parents" (though Jean is not Nathan Summers' birth mother), who "abandoned" him to the future.
Enemy (Cable)- The original Nathan Summers, who has hunted and opposed Stryfe for decades of their lives.
Obsession (Monologuing)- Most major-league super-villains can be easily convinced to start Monologuing. Stryfe is not one of them. He doesn't NEED the help- he'll start doing it no matter what, going on for PAGES and PAGES of it.

Total: Abilities: 74 / Skills: 44--22 / Advantages: 34 / Powers: 172 / Defenses: 23 (325)

Stryfe- Would-Be Mega-Villain:
-Stryfe was initially just some generic Powersuited villain at the helm of the M.L.F. in the New Mutants book, even having some indignities visited upon him repeatedly (Cable smacks him and X-Factor and the MLF get into a tug of war over his whole body), but became some kind of proto Big Bad once Rob Liefeld left and the remaining writers were left with a big event to write after the Image X-odus. Their idea: The most convoluted backstory in HISTORY, featuring Cyclops' son being sent into the future, cloned by the Askani, the clone being kidnapped & raised by Apocalypse while the original was made the cybernetic Cable, and then both of them going back in time, leaving Stryfe here with a series of mental complexes, the least of which was a tendency to ramble on faux-poetically for pages and pages of whiny exposition (that part of The X-Cutioner's Song doesn't age so well).

-What's funny is that he COULD HAVE been a huge success as a villain. The only problem was, his big peak storyline was also his LAST major storyline, as he died at the end of it! Sure, he gave us the Legacy Virus (aka "How do we write off all these damn useless mutant hangers-on?" Idea #1), and big stuff came about BECAUSE of the storyline, but this was basically the last we saw of him for years. He turned up in the afterlife once, got resurrected and died once (turning good in the process of a sacrifice, according to Wikipedia), and now he's apparently back again as a villain. So except for the X-Cutioner's Song & Legacy Virus, he's got nothing.

Stryfe's Early Years:
-So Stryfe is set up very early on in Rob Liefeld's New Mutants run as the villain to watch- a menacing guy covered in body armor, he leads the Mutant Liberation Front from afar, giving orders and just hanging back at the base. It's also immediately established that Cable and the MLF are old foes, and that Cable & Stryfe know each other personally. Some of his first appearances now come off very weird, given what happens later- in the story where the New Mutants & MLF fight in Madripoor, Stryfe appears in a warehouse and is handily punched around by Cable (repeatedly doing the full "Liefeld Sell" flinging backwards with their 9,000 teeth in a grimace), then left in an exploding warehouse. In an X-Factor issue, Polaris detects his metal armor on the other side of Zero's portal, and actually latches on to him, dragging him partway through! The MLF freaks out and grabs their boss, and we get the memorable visual of a screaming, struggling Stryfe being tugged between two super-teams- ultimately, X-Factor has to give it up and he escapes. These two indignities are quickly ignored, for...

The X-Cutioner's Song:
-X-Force #1 re-debuts the team and shows some MLF goons once more, and we end the issue with Stryfe handily avoiding some of Cable's laser blasts and in the end, reveals that he SHARES CABLE'S FACE. This is discovered by Garrison Kane later on, and finally be Cable. Cable also states that his son Tyler had been killed while acting as a mercenary working for Stryfe, making it personal. It's clear there are big plans, but first Rob Liefeld quits Marvel, the writers have to scramble to pick up the pieces of the X-Books, and Weapon: P.R.I.M.E. becomes the problem of the day for X-Force. The MLF waits, until... The X-Cutioner's Song, where Professor Xavier appears in Central Park to give a speech about mutant rights before being GUNNED DOWN... by Cable!

-Now obviously anyone familiar with the X-books should have known where this was going, but the X-Men hadn't known of the Cable/Stryfe thing (as X-Force were outlaws at that time) and so X-Force became hunted. Stryfe had Cyclops & Jean Grey kidnapped, then brought to his base, where he spent like ELEVEN ISSUES lecturing them in this ridiculously verbose Faux-Claremont style, usually whining about how they mistreated babies or what-not. Along the way, he started showing ridiculously top-tier Telepathy & Telekinesis (enough to casually hold back Jean & Scott's powers by himself). It became pretty clear he was Scott's son Nathan, long ago sent to the future to write him out of the X-Books... except for the whole "shares Cable's face" thing, which makes it clear that Cable is the original son and Stryfe just THINKS he is. Ultimately, Cyclops figures it out, but is forced to activate a vortex in the story's finale, as Cyclops, Jean & Havok (since Peter David's X-Factor DID have to spend four issues of its run dealing with this crossover, after all) watch the two men fight to the death and be tossed through the timestream. Cable later returns- Stryfe does not.

He Just Keeps Going On & One:
-Though re-reading Stryfe's old stuff, I get the impression that Fabian Nicieza was just doing "Claremont Lite" work on him. Claremont had a wordiness to his style, but Nicieza was just rambling on and on, and unlike Claremont, didn't actually have much to say. So Stryfe's dialogue came off as shallow and pretentious- that the arc was twelve issues long only made this worse. From my X-Cutioner's Song reviews:

-Stryfe is one of the bigger "ohhhhh..." moments for me. I always wondered why he never got a big resurrection or anything, being a mega-villain in this story, setting off the Legacy Virus, and more. Well it turns out that he's pretty damn awful. His dialogue is a combination of whining and Poor Man's Claremont wordiness. He comes off like a whiny baby because he was abandoned years ago, and he's so powerful, and all he ever does is talk to Zero or insult Scott & Jean... it's tiresome. He really doesn't get to do anything regarding any of the other heroes until the very end. And all of the villains are pretty bad, too- this would be Fabian Nicieza's major failing as a writer. His heroes are pretty good, and tend to interact well... but the baddies are just prone to "Monologuing" at length for pages upon pages, and it's all "filler". They're basically the Bray Wyatt of comics, to use a wrestling comparison.

-In another comic, Stryfe beats up Apocalypse for five pages, crying the whole time about how he was an "abandoned child!", calling Poccy "Father of PAIN, son of the MORNING FIRE!" and then saying "Yes, master of the timestream, destroyer of my past AND my future- it is *I*". Reading stuff like this reminds me of when I was first reading these books, thinking Fabian Nicieza was some kind of Claremontian Wizard of Words because of how he made these guys talk... but the years have not been kind. This stuff just REEKS of late Grade School faux-philosophical ramblings, and is easily Fabe's biggest weakness as a writer. Look through his X-Force or X-Men stuff long enough, and you'll find all of his baddies talk like Neil Gaiman wannabes, or like effete rich boys.

Post-X-Cutioner's Song:
-So right at the end of the huge story, Stryfe dies but Mr. Sinister's ally opens a seemingly empty cache of his, making it look like Stryfe just reneged on his part of the "swap" with Sinister. However, it's worse than anyone suspected- Stryfe has let out a VIRUS onto Earth; one that affects only mutants. And so the mutants of Marvel get a symbol for AIDS (seen as a "gay disease" in the 1980s), as various side-characters got sick and died. It soon became clear that this was Stryfe's final insult to mutantkind, and something to remember him by- a "Legacy Virus". And for YEARS the X-Books had to deal with this, until Colossus sacrificed his life to create the cure- I mean this story ran for EIGHT YEARS before finally ending. Sure it only killed lower-tier characters (its biggest-name victim was the first: Illyana "Magik" Rasputin, shattering the hearts of New Mutants fans- the others were guys like Pyro, Infectia, and people we hadn't seen in years).

-Stryfe's history is eventually detailed in a few other stories. It turns out that when Nathan Summers was sent to the future, his life was still in grave danger, and so he was cloned as a backup plan. The boy survived (albeit with half his body appearing to be technology), and went on to be raised by Cyclops & Jean Grey (who'd been sent to the future in the bodies of other people)- the clone was abducted by Apocalypse, who thought he was the original. His plan was to adopt the boy's powerful body as his own once Apocalypse aged. Naming him "Stryfe", Apocalypse raised him to be cruel and arrogant, but Cyke, Jean & one of Apocalypse's agents (Ch'vayre, who found he could not kill the child) saved Stryfe's life during the intended transfer, and Apocalypse died. Stryfe, however, was driven insane by the revelation that he was a clone, killing Ch'vayre (his childhood guardian) and taking power as a dictator. His "Clan Chosen" faced the "New Canaanites", led by Cable, and the two grew to be bitter enemies, and even after a peace treaty was signed, Stryfe tortured and later killed Cable's wife Aliya Dayspring, and both went to the past to change the future after New Canaan was finally victorious. This explains both their enmity, and the hatred of Stryfe for Apocalypse.

-Stryfe lived in our timeline for years as a drug-smuggler and aide to other villains, and was responsible for Tyler's death and the damage that afflicted Cable's Six Pack team when he abandoned them. He formed the Mutant Liberation Front (mostly out of vicious goons) and time went on as we knew it. After The X-Cutioner's Song, Stryfe doesn't appear in major- just one-offs here and there. Once, his mind possesses Cable's body but he is convinced to leave. His spirit later battles Warpath in a bizarre one-off where Stryfe is trapped in Blackheart's realm and is told to kill Warpath to earn a return to Earth- Warpath's spirit beat him and returned. Stryfe somehow returned leading the Dark Riders again and fought Nate "X-Man" Grey- Nate was beaten, but Cable & Madelyne Pryor saved him and Stryfe was killed when his base exploded. Later, he returns from death but again dies, sacrificing himself to stop a "Bette Noir" symbiote from creating a great disaster- he apologizes to Cable, seemingly reforming. However, he's back evil again during Messiah War, making a deal with a now-evil Bishop to rule the future together- he and Bishop betray each other and Stryfe nearly kills Hope Summers and takes over her body, but he's beaten by Wolverine's X-Force and taken away by Apocalypse, tortured and experimented on for years. He eventually escapes and returns for vengeance, but is beaten.

Stryfe As A Whole:
-So Stryfe is in this weird position: He starts off as a throwaway villain, then he's the central cog around which an entire X-event revolves. Then he disappears for years save for what we learn of his backstory. And then he's gone for so long he doesn't mean anything when he comes back, but he appears in a bunch of convoluted stories involving time travel in the modern X-Force book and none of it really matters- like one time he REFORMS and apologizes for past misdeeds and the very next writer comes along and plucks him out of limbo to make him a villain again. And Stryfe, the clone of Cyclops & Madelyne Pryor's son, hasn't interacted with either in more than 25 years!

Stryfe's Power:
-With Stryfe, you just kinda gotta go balls-out. Overwhelming power to the extreme with this ultimate Big Bad- I'd argue he was more powerful than even Magneto. The fact is, he's basically Nate Grey but with age, experience and evil on his side. He lacks the multiple uses of Jean Grey's TK/TP array, but packs WAY more power. How ultimate is he? He wiped out the entire Dark Riders in about three seconds while joking about how useless they were, then kicked APOCALYPSE'S ass with laughable ease (granted, Apoc was weakened, but that "weakened" guy had taken out a team of X-Men easily). His Telekinetic power was so advanced that he was able to psionically restrain both Jean AND Scott's powers, FROM AFAR, while they were in another room. It took a massive free-for-all against Jean, Cyclops, Havok & Cable to even scratch him while he was distracted, and even then Cable had to activate a time vortex that nearly killed him to end Stryfe. He's a super-expensive menace, plain and simple.

-The points quickly add up with Mastermind types who also have huge amounts of power. He's strong, smart, Armoured, has a massive Nullify (Concentration Duration Affliction at Perception Range- allowing him to use Remote Senses and multiple victims, but once he drops it, they can use their powers just fine), high-powered Blasts, a Force Field, plus high-end Telepathic abilities. He's PL 14, and a VERY expensive build (325 points- 15 more than the same-powered dude in 2nd Edition).
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Re: Stryfe

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:44 am
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Gotta love the 90s.

I'm a mutant!
What's your power?
I wear shiny armor and I have a gun!
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Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Zero (MLF)

Post by Jabroniville »

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I gotta say, this is probably the best design out of the whole M.L.F. My brother was obsessed with this guy's look back in the day.

ZERO (Ambient-energy Dampening Actualization Module [ADAM]- Unit Zero)
Created By:
Louise Simonson & Rob Liefeld
First Appearance: The New Mutants #86 (Feb. 1990)
Role: Weapon Guy, The Snarky One
Group Affiliations: The Mutant Liberation Front
PL 6 (164), PL 10 (164) Nullifier
STRENGTH
6 STAMINA -- AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE -2

Skills:
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+5)
Expertise (History) 8 (+11)
Expertise (Science) 5 (+8)
Investigation 4 (+4)
Perception 6 (+6)
Technology 8 (+11)
Vehicles 4 (+4)

Advantages:
Assessment, Eidetic Memory

Powers:
"Android Body"
Immunity 40 (Fortitude, Mental Effects) [40]
Flight 5 (60 mph) [10]
Protection 6 [6]
Regeneration 5 (Feats: Regrowth) [6]
Senses 10 (Detect Powers- Acute, Analytical & Extended, Detect Energy- Acute, Analytical & Extended) [10]

Teleport 10 (Feats: Easy, Increased Mass 5) (Extras: Accurate, Extended, Portal +2) (Flaws: Extended Range Only, Limited to Locations It Has Been -1/2) (51) -- [53]
  • AE: Movement (Temporal Movement 3) (Feats: Increased Mass 4) (Extras: Accurate, Portal +2) (19)
  • AE: "Energy-Dampening" Nullify 10 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst, Broad- Energy Powers) (Flaws: Touch Range) (Quirk: Limited to Things He's Catalogued) (20)
Offense:
Unarmed +5 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Nullify +10 Area (DC 10)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness +6, Fortitude --, Will +0

Complications:
Disabled (Mute)- Zero cannot speak. Stryfe has stated that he found it's comments sarcastic, and so he disabled this ability himself.

Total: Abilities: 12 / Skills: 36--18 / Advantages: 2 / Powers: 125 / Defenses: 7 (164)

Zero- The Voiceless Teleporter:
-Zero is one of the more iconic and long-lasting M.L.F. members, owing to his unique appearance. What's funny is that it's so SIMPLE: Just a guy in a completely white suit, with two "0"s on it. But that simplisity makes him stand out in stark contrast to his goofy team-mates, with their fat bodies, Eye Circles, pouches, claws attached to gloves, spikey hair, etc. That reason has allowed him to outlast his entire team, showing up in books as different as Deadpool, Excalibur, etc., as Stryfe's former Unspeaking Android Servant who suddenly gained autonomy and sentience post-Stryfe death. He got exploded anyways, though. Turns out he was originally an android designed by Apocalypse for the Nullifying of his threats, but got reprogrammed and Muted by Stryfe, then stuff happened and he turned good, or something.

-So Zero debuted as a non-speaking teleporter working for the M.L.F.- he allows the team to engage in swift strikes and quicker escapes, making them hard to capture. He also eventually serves as the repository for loads and loads of his master's exposition, because Stryfe NEVER SHUTS UP. Page after page of extra-long pontifications are targeted as Zero, who only ever stands there, sometimes quizzically, as his boss goes Faux-Claremont. It's eventually made clear that he's an android. Zero disappeared after The X-Cutioner's Song, and ended up in the hands of Cable's son Tyler, aka "Tolliver". Zero is reactivated when the mercenaries Deadpool, Copycat, Garrison Kane and Slayback were looking for Tolliver's will, which turned out to be "the ultimate weapon": Zero itself. However, Zero ultimately becomes sentient and regains its powers of speech (which had been deactivated by Stryfe)- its original purpose was peacekeeping. It scanned its surroundings for anything that was a threat to peace on Earth... and immediately incinerated Slayback. Deadpool was nearly eliminated as well, but Wade argued that he had potential for good as well by saving Copycat's life. Zero agreed, and left.

Becoming A Real Boy:
-Zero apparently stuck with Tyler for a while, but left to go on a quest to gain full sentience and become "alive". Zero is responsible for the creation of "Douglock", as Zero sensed the ability to be alive in him and freed him from the Phalanx hive-mind. However, Zero became pursued by killer androids, programmed by Stryfe to eliminate Zero in the case of his death. Zero, Douglock and Excalibur fought off the androids and Zero realized the reason for why he was to be destroyed: his databanks contained all the information on the Legacy Virus. This activated a self-destruct mechanism in Zero, which was removed by Kitty Pryde, but ultimately Zero chose to sacrifice himself to save Excalibur and some innocent humans from Stryfe's base self-destructing (this was a cruel joke played by Stryfe- the base was set to self-destruct if Zero gained sentience- "Congratulations. You're human. For the next eight seconds"). Zero transferred all of its memories to Douglock in its final moments, so that the data could liv e on.

Zero's Powers:
-Zero is quite the pain to stat, since he's got very few showings (especially in combat) aside from beaming in and Teleporting guys, so I had to use Wikipedia and the "Deadpool: Rank and Foul" bio-book to stat up his various other abilities. Apparently he can Nullify any power in his vicinity, move through time & space, slowly Regenerate over time, fly, and more. His base Teleportation power is quite advanced, but limited much like Locus' was, but it DOES have a Time-based AP as well, making him a bit more useful. Plus a large application of the Portal Extra. For his Super-Senses, I used an Acute, Analytical Detect Power effect. It's actually REALLY WEIRD that M&M lacks a basic "Detect Powers" ability- considering it's got every kind of Vision, True Sight, Awareness, etc. available in comics. But they can't get EVERYTHING, I suppose, and they DO give you a standard "Detect" power, so that should work. So Zero ends up being quite expensive, and a little cheesy (Teleport AP'd to a super-powered Nullify is a MAJOR points-saver, but technically he can't do both at the same time, so I figure it's legal), but he's virtually an NPC, so I allowed it.
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Wildside

Post by Jabroniville »

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"I'm gonna cut you from CROTCH to STERNUM, Gambit!"

WILDSIDE (Richard Gill)
Created By:
Louise Simonson & Rob Liefeld
First Appearance: The New Mutants #86 (Feb. 1990)
Role: Psychopath, The Scrapper, Claw Guy
Group Affiliations: The Mutant Liberation Front
PL 8 (103)
STRENGTH
5 STAMINA 5 AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 9 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE -1

Skills:
Acrobatics 3 (+8)
Athletics 5 (+10)
Deception 2 (+1)
Intimidation 8 (+7)
Expertise (Terrorist) 4 (+4)
Perception 6 (+6)
Ranged Combat (Perception-Warping) 8 (+8)
Stealth 2 (+7)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Chokehold, Daze (Intimidation), Defensive Roll, Fast Grab, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Claws), Improved Hold, Power Attack, Startle

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Perception-Warping, Animalistic Physiology"
"Claws" Strength-Damage +2 (Feats: Split) [3]
Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]

"Warp Perceptions" Affliction 7 (Will; Dazed/Stunned/Paralyzed) (Extras: Ranged, Cumulative) (Flaws: Distracting) (14) -- [15]
  • AE: "Render Invisible" Concealment (All Visual Senses) 4 (Extras: Affects Others, Area- 30ft. Burst) (Quirk: Limited to Living Beings -2) (14)
Offense:
Unarmed +9 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Claws +9 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Perception Warping +8 (+7 Ranged Affliction, DC 17)
Initiative +5

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +5, Fortitude +7, Will +3

Complications:
Motivation (Murder and Mayhem)- Wildside is pure Chaotic Evil, killing just for the fun of it. He chafes under any kind of rules, and will torture as he pleases.
Reputation (Nuts)- Few trust Wildside overly much. He is an open sadist who often boasts about his skills (even wasting rounds of combat to do so, and being unaware of his surroundings), and will kill even helpless foes for the fun of it.
Prejudice (Obvious Mutant)- Giant Liefeldian eye-patches and sharp teeth make Wildside stand out in a crowd. He cannot ordinarily pass for human.
Enemy (Feral)- The two got into it really early on in X-Force's career, and she nearly maimed him (breaking his jaw). Their similar power-sets made them natural opponents.

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 38--19 / Advantages: 10 / Powers: 19 / Defenses: 9 (103)

Wildside- The "Player Two" Version of Feral:
-Wildside is one of the more recurring members of Stryfe's Mutant Liberation Front, in that he's reappeared for nearly every incarnation of the group. He's bizarre because he seems to be a color-swap of Rob Liefeld's version of Wolfsbane (who was also the template for later X-Force member Feral). He's got the big triangle-shaped frizzy anti-grav haircut, the claws, the same skinny physique, etc. As Rob was initially going to use Wolfsbane in his X-Force run, but swapped her out for Feral, he seems to be a ready-made counterpart to both, but of course pre-dates Feral by nearly a year. Even stranger, nobody seems to comment on the two being near-clones visually. He's even a psychotic murder like Feral is, but more in the Bullseye "enjoys murder and causing pain" sense than Feral's defensive "get them before they get you" mentality- pretty much a total 1990s-style villain. Constantly chatting, mouthing off, and trying to hurt people, Wildside is shown to be an exceptionally cruel sadist, reveling in killing others- he taunts Gambit of the X-Men with disembowelment, knocks the man unconscious, then proceeds to gloat about the impending disembowelment. Tempo in particular was disgusted by him executing a beaten guard during their attack on H.P. Gyrich's home. Wildside was distinctive enough to take part in pretty much every MLF incarnation, though his teammates eventually started getting sick of him.

-Even more '90s: Wildside is one of those guys whose mutant powers are essentially an afterthought to being a down & dirty fighter. Like Cable (minor TK powers; but mostly a Gun Guy and Cyborg), Shatterstar (Tiring Energy Blast via metals; but mostly a Sword Guy), Domino (Luck Powers; but mainly a Gun Girl)- this happened a LOT with Liefeld characters, though other 90s writers were as guilty of it. In their rush to create newer and more bad-ass martial artists & Punisher-types, creators started glossing over the very thing that made most mutants... THAT THEY WERE MUTANTS. So Wildside here was a Claw Guy like Feral, Wolverine, etc., but also had a separate mutant power- he could warp the perceptions of others' reality, leaving them stunned and out of the fight. He only ever did it a couple times (to Siryn to hold her down, and to some cyborg guy), and in his first appearance he made his team invisible to a large group of soldiers, but humorously, that aspect of his powers was never seen again. It's unsure how his claws and teeth came about- maybe he's one of the first incarnations of Secondary Mutations (a silly retcon to explain White Queen being a Powerhouse- but handy to figure out guys like Nightcrawler and his dozens of powers)?

Wildside's Appearances:
-Like most of the MLF, Wildside was mostly an easily-beaten jobber. Despite his early use of his powers, he doesn't use them in either of his next two appearances- in X-Force #1, he's part of a squad that assaults the heroes when they invade an MLF base, but he talks too much shit to Feral- going "WHUDDAYASAY? WHUDDAYASAY?"- she replies "I say you talk too much", grabs him by the sides of the mouth ("yak" "what's the matter- cat got your tongue? Oh yeah- she does") then snaps his jaw and tosses him aside. Cable asks if she's killed him, to which she replies "NOOOOOO- but if you give me a minute..." but Zero then intercedes, teleporting away the villains. In The X-Cutioner's Song, Wildside of all people actually gets the BEST SHOWING of all the MLF (possibly ever) when he uses his agility to evade Gambit's energized playing cards and slams the Cajun's head into the wall. This actually concusses Gambit, taking him out of the fight for the entire rest of the crossover! However, Wildside spends so much time boasting about Gambit's impending disembowelment that he's taken out immediately afterwards via Quicksilver's sneak attack- Pietro notes that if he talked less and fought more, he'd be less susceptible to such things, but is himself sneak-attacked by Reaper and disabled.

-During the Reignfire arc of the MLF, Wildside casually murders a guard during their assault on Gyrich's home, then falls in love with Locus when she uses her teleportation powers to slice a cyborg guardsman in half- "Locus, my love, that was absolutely VICIOUS- will you marry me?". Later, when X-Force comes to rescue Gyrich, Wildside actually suceeds in something- he captures Siryn by using his reality-warping powers to stun her, and promises to tear our her throat unless Shatterstar gives up fighting Reaper. Shatterstar agrees and gives Wildside his sword, but Wildside can't resist talking shit, swinging the sword around. Confused by a humming noise ("um, are you humming?") he inadvertently points the weapon at his teammate, and Shatterstar unleashes his rarely-seen mutant power, causing Wildside to BLOW A HOLE straight through Reaper! Shatterstar then KO's Wildside, joking about how the exhaustion of using his power was worth it to see the look on Wildside's face as he killed his own teammate.

Latter-Era Wildside:
-Wildside led a portion of the group during Operation: Zero Tolerance (a failed '90s arc), but attacked Locus (to whom he'd been attracted in an earlier arc) and was abandoned to be captured. He later showed up with Reaper under the Weapon-X program and sent against Cable, who rendered the pair brain-dead when he attempted to probe their minds (a fail-safe nuked them). He was listed as De-Powered Following M-Day. He reappears much, MUCH later in the "Hickman" era joining the X-Men's utopia, but proves to still be villainous, using a "Secondary Mutation" given by Emma Frost (allowing hallucinations from others to become real) as part of her goon squad. He is nonetheless easily beaten by Polaris.

Powers & Abilities:
-Wildside is a PL 8 who falls just a bit short, costing more like a PL 7. Like most of the MLF, he's a scrub, designed to go a few rounds with the more powerful X-Force or other X-Characters, but ultimately won't drop them. Feral for example EASILY defeated him in their first battle (she just grabbed him by the mouth and snapped his jaw), and she's a PL 9 at-best, being one of the lowest-calibre members of X-Force. Shatterstar later one-punched him. Despite that, he's proven dangerous a few times, having a standard Claw Guy/Scrapper build that makes him quick and able to modify a few caps (he HAS taken out Gambit one time- dodging the Card toss and giving him a concussion for the duration of The X-Cutioner's Song), and his Perception Warping power has held down Siryn before.

-Wildside at first appears to be a generic "Clawed Mutant", having short, pointed claws on his fingernails, as well as sharp, pointed teeth. He is very athletic, leaping about and attacking people in melee. However, he has a rarely-seen mutant power: the ability to "warp perceptions of reality". This manifests as energy around his hands, with someone nearby experiencing a disabling, staggering confusion. Victims are seen holding their heads, becoming uncomfortable, and being unable to attack or defend themselves. I chose to mark that up (it's usually called "Reality Warping" but it obviously only affects others' perceptions of it- it's stated as much) as a Mental Stun because of how it slows and dazes people, with an Alt-Effect for his one-time "Invisibilty" trick.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!! Stryfe!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Artists seem to love animalistic claw guys. There’s thousands of them. You’ve got Cheetah, Tigra, Wolfsbane, Feral, Wildside, Wyld Chyld, Fang (of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard), X-23, Sabertooth, Wolverine, and perhaps the grand-daddy of them all Timberwolf of the Legion… But there are thousands more, who I can’t be arsed to remember the names of.

With only a few exceptions, like Wolverine, Timberwolf, and Sabertooth, I don’t think any of them are really all that popular with fans. The best that most of them seem to manage is to be liked as “secondary character on a team book” which seems to be where Wolfsbane and Tigra will spend eternity.

But artists just seem to love them. They’re visually dynamic and let the artist do all kinds of cool poses, action sequences, and violence… But they all seem to have no real appeal with the readers.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Saojin! Lotus Master! MLF!! Stryfe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 2:22 am Artists seem to love animalistic claw guys. There’s thousands of them. You’ve got Cheetah, Tigra, Wolfsbane, Feral, Wildside, Wyld Chyld, Fang (of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard), X-23, Sabertooth, Wolverine, and perhaps the grand-daddy of them all Timberwolf of the Legion… But there are thousands more, who I can’t be arsed to remember the names of.

With only a few exceptions, like Wolverine, Timberwolf, and Sabertooth, I don’t think any of them are really all that popular with fans. The best that most of them seem to manage is to be liked as “secondary character on a team book” which seems to be where Wolfsbane and Tigra will spend eternity.

But artists just seem to love them. They’re visually dynamic and let the artist do all kinds of cool poses, action sequences, and violence… But they all seem to have no real appeal with the readers.
It's definitely a lot of "Wolverine Chasing" (funny, since Wolverine has more than a little of Timber Wolf in him), everyone thinking they were gonna get the next Wolvie.

Problem being, of course, that:

A) You can't just copy what's popular and then automatically be a success, or else Street Sharks would also be a billion-dollar franchise.

B) Everyone was just going "guy with a bad attitude and pointy claws" and not going for ANY of the nuance Logan had- no character depth, no relationships or loves, no introspection, no nothing. Just claws and a nasty attitude.

C) Ripping off Logan is one thing, but with EVERY TEAM having a "Wolverine" on it, there were diminishing returns. This was old hat even by 1990.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Master Huang! Crane! Monk! Drunk Master!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Wed Feb 15, 2023 4:46 pm Byrne is one of my favorite comics scribes of all time, especially his FF run. The Matchbox Doombot was definitely a case of a writer on one book “protecting” his character from another writer… But it’s also very funny, really memorable, and incredibly in-character for Doctor Doom.

And given how often Claremont has thrown out decades of character development done by other writers because he doesn’t like the changes that they made to “his” characters… I kinda feel he earned the comeuppance.
Going back to this, I'm actually curious which times Claremont did this with character development. I mean his Rogue definitely got altered a lot from the one that Fabian Nicieza and others wrote, but of course they altered his in the first place, lol. I didn't read enough X-Treme X-Men to single out what he changed about Storm, though her dating a surfer dude mutant was pretty weird.

There's his If *I* Never Got Removed From The X-Books series, I think, but that's a different ball of wax.

Not that I'm at all a defender of post-1995 Claremont (whose writing I have bashed MANY times), but I'm curious.
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Kamikaze

Post by Jabroniville »

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Liefeldian anatomy at it's finest. I suppose he's giving equal gender treatments by making the spines bend impossibly on women AND men, so that's something...

KAMIKAZE (Haruo Tsuburaya, aka "Samurai")
Created By:
Louise Simonson & Rob Liefeld
First Appearance: The New Mutants #93 (Sept. 1990)
Role: Flying Guy, Expendable Loser
Group Affiliations: The Mutant Liberation Front
PL 9 (84)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Aerobatics 6 (+10)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 1 (+7)
Intimidation 2 (+2)
Expertise (Terrorist) 4 (+4)
Perception 2 (+2)
Stealth 4 (+8)

Advantages:
All-Out Attack, Favored Environment (Airborne), Move-By Action, Power Attack

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Flight & Explosive Blast"
Flight 7 (250 mph) [14]
"Explosion" Damage 9 (Extras: Area- 15ft. Burst +1/2) [13.5]

Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Explosion +9 Area (+9 Damage, DC 24)
Initiative +1

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +3

Complications:
Motivation (Mutant Pride)

Total: Abilities: 28 / Skills: 19--9.5 / Advantages: 4 / Powers: 27.5 / Defenses: 15 (84)

-Kamikaze was bad, even for this team, mainly by virtue of having absolutely no personality, great feats (he fought Cannonball once, showed up in X-Force #1 and wasn't even seen in the melee that followed, then died in The X-Cutioner's Song in maybe the most casual manner in comic book history), or cool, unique powers. He basically flew at people and set off an explosion on contact, being designed blatantly as a counterpart to Cannonball. He's so bad that at one point, a comic mislabeled him "Samurai", causing one of those idiotic messes on bio-sites where they just HAVE to create explanations or alterations to explain what is clearly a writer's mistake, so you'll sometimes see "Samurai" listed on sites detailing all the MLF members.

-Kamikaze, with his stereotypically Japanese name, is first seen along with the three other Asian MLF members Dragoness & Sumo- they attack the hero Sunfire and the New Mutants Cannonball, Boom-Boom & Warlock, doing pretty well in the first salvo, but in the very next, they're beaten- Kamikaze had once created a mini-explosion running into Cannonball, but next time Sam is invulnerable and knocks him out. And that's the only feat Kamikaze ever shows.

-And yeah, The X-Cutioner's Song gives Kamikaze perhaps the most ignominious death in supervillain history. Seeing a group of assembled X-Men all at once, he plots to charge Archangel from behind while he's talking- Archangel considers Forearm an "idiot" for tossing a man who can fly, but Kamikaze says "No idiot" and points out it's for his sneak attack. While he hates using such tactics, he admits he'll take his kills any way he can get them... however, he doesn't expect Warren's wings to automatically shift positions to guard him, and so Archangel KILLS HIM BY ACCIDENT, slicing off Kamikaze's head and bouncing it across the lawn until it hits Boom-Boom's leg. "oh BARF- who cut off Kamikaze's HEAD!?" she cries- Warren is horrified and realizes what's happened, but she adds "Well with a name like Kamikaze you just know he's going to bite it" "This is hardly a moment for LEVITY"- Boomer suggests she's just trying to laugh it off to make him feel better but he suggests "DON'T".

-Iceman suggests the matter isn't dropped like "we're gonna talk LATER, Warren ol' buddy", but they LITERALLY NEVER DO. There's so much shit going on in this story that one of the MLF being wiped out like this is never mentioned again. Given Kamikaze says maybe 5 things combined in his entire history as a character, this is perhaps apropos, but still. Kind of fitting, as his costume was as generic as he was- a visor mask (just like Dragoness, his teammate! Because there's NO design Liefeld won't copy, even if it's his own!) and a white unitard with a Rising Sun on it.

-Kamikaze is the cheapest member of his entire team in points, since he has the least showings and is one of the only ones to have died. He needs to be Airborne to be even half-decent (he can be tough to hit, but he tends to use All-Out Attack, negating that a bit), can set off a powerful Burst Damage effect (but at short range), and is otherwise pretty low-end across the board.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Lotus Master! Stryfe! Zero! Wildside! Kamikaze!)

Post by KorokoMystia »

The comic that called him "Samurai" couldn't even get his costume right, which makes things even more strange and confusing. (Probably just a case of bad/no communication between the artists and writers of each comic)

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Samurai actually even appeared in modern comics around 2018 onward (because writers love making strange deep cuts)
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Re: Kamikaze

Post by Batgirl III »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 6:39 am Image

Liefeldian anatomy at it's finest. I suppose he's giving equal gender treatments by making the spines bend impossibly on women AND men, so that's something...

KAMIKAZE (Haruo Tsuburaya, aka "Samurai")
Created By:
Louise Simonson & Rob Liefeld
The anatomy is your typically poor example Liefeld Disease – his biceps are greater in diameter than his skull! - but at least he isn’t doing the tits and ass facing the camera simultaneously while standing en pointe thing that most of Liefeld’s women always do.

Having said that, this is a pretty good costume. It’s a basic “national flag as costume” thing, which is an odd choice for a Japanese villain outside the Golden Age… and the helmet is a bit naff… But it would probably work well with other artists.
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