Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
greycrusader
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Re: Hellcat

Post by greycrusader »

Shock wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 1:26 pm
Jabroniville wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:58 pm Most recently, Marvel's big "Diversity/Female Character" push led to a very indie-style, humorous Patsy-related book, showing her starting a job agency for super-powered folk. It's VERY emblematic of "this era" of Marvel's comics, in that it's designed to be non-superheroic, non-costumed, non-serious and non-interesting to most fans of the genre. I mean, I'm all for new ideas, but come on- a HELLCAT comic book? I get that Lumberjanes and stuff is successful small-press stuff, but taking a D-League character and putting them in a goofy, comedic "Webcomic" art style is just not gonna cut it.
I'm a big fan of Hellcat but I found that most recent comic just unreadable. Mainly it's the god-awful art.

Patsy works well as a supporting character but she can also carry a mini-series. The main thing holding her back is she doesn't have much in the way of a supporting cast. In both of her "recent" mini-series, she was more or less on her own. But given that she has ties to just about every corner of the marvel universe, I think it would be easy to get her into just about any book, either in a guest role or as a supporting character, sort of like they did in She-Hulk. I bet somebody clever could make her an interesting addition to Doctor Strange's cast.
Yeah, the artwork on way too many Marvel "niche" books in the last decade have just made them basically anathema to me; heck, I love She-Hulk as a semi-humorous, fun-loving character (but who can also be a kick-butt heroine), but I didn't even attempt to read the first half of her last series. The art wasn't at ALL suited for an American comic book superhero book. And Marvel KEEPS DOING THIS-giving books that would have a tough enough time getting market share over to indie or overseas artists whose styles are incompatible with the genre. WHY? Do they work THAT much cheaper?

<SIGH> Rant Over.

BTW: When did Patsy Walker/Hellcat get super-strength inside or outside the costume, to the level she is above Captain America (Steve Rogers)? or Felicia Hardy for that matter? Granted, I haven't followed either character's appearances in recent years (and the Spider-Man supporting cast has mostly been figuratively butchered in all sorts of ways), but I wasn't aware Hellcat was any stronger than a female weightlifter when suited up, though her agility was definitely mildly superhuman. Tigra I was aware has a vaguely defined (but minor) level of super-strength, like most "feral" heroes and villains.

All my best.
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Goldar
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Goldar »

Hey, greycrusader buddy! Glad to "see" you here! :)

I am uncertain when Patsy got super-strong. Is it because of the suit?

I know Tigra got almost a double increase in strength when Greer put on her suit that Patsy had been wearing and then changed into Tigra, transforming even more fully than before.
Shock
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Shock »

Patsy probably got a bit of a powerup during her time "dead" as she spent most of the time fighting in the pits of some hell or another. I think it was Mephisto's domain but I'd have to go back and look. I don't remember her being super strong but "peak human" seems to be the minimum for heroes these days but it probably depends on the writer more than anything else. In my comic world, she would be comparable to Daredevil physically.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Geez, I dunno about her Strength- the bios I have just say "Enhanced Strength", leaving me to come up with the level. I assumed it wasn't high, but when I see the word "Enhanced" I automatically go superhuman. I have nowhere near the number of Patsy appearances to make an accurate guess as to her strength level, but since she never seemed to be that great a fighter, Tigra-ish Strength seemed to fit.

Felicia at least seemed strong enough to do reasonable damage to Spider-Man and the Vulture in combat- she WHUPPED Adrian Toomes, for example.

Nearest thing I could find was a mention of "near-superhuman strength" for Patsy, so I figured I'd drop her down to ST/STA 5, making her "nearly superhuman".
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Ares
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Ares »

Regarding Hellcat, she did get some bonafide mystical powers when she was brought back to life, so the idea of her having mild superhuman stats doesn't seem that weird to me. Tigra's super strength seems to fluctuate all of the time, from her being roughly on Spider-Man's level to sometimes only barely superhuman at all.

Also, while I generally love comics, I have to admit that the way technology works there can create some weird effects.

Like, the Black Cat's costume apparently giving her some degree of superhuman strength/enhanced agility. That's just WEIRD to me, since it's a skintight costume that she doesn't even keep zipped up all the way. It begs the question of why all street level types don't use some kind of stat-enhancing suit. If it's that easy to give someone minor superhuman stats, the US government should be mass producing those kinds of outfits, not trying to replicate the super soldier serum.

The Iron Spider armor is even weirder, being basically skintight suits that let the wearer perfectly replicate all of Spider-Man's powers.

Generally, I'm of the mind that if someone has a suit that gives them powers, unless it's some very rare bleeding edge technology, magical or somehow works off of the wearer's own powers, at best it needs to be about as bulky as a suit of Iron Man armor. Otherwise it just makes the Power Armor guys look weird.
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Jabroniville
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Huntara

Post by Jabroniville »

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HUNTARA (Tara Richards)
Created By:
Tom DeFalco & Paul Ryan
First Appearance: The Fantastic Four #391 (Aug. 1994)
Role: Forgotten Character
Group Affiliation: Fantastic Force
PL 10 (126)
STRENGTH
3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 6
FIGHTING 12 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Acrobatics 5 (+11)
Athletics 5 (+8)
Deception 4 (+5)
Expertise (Time) 9 (+11)
Intimidation 3 (+4)
Perception 4 (+6)
Technology 2 (+4)

Advantages:
Benefit (Guardian of the Timestreams), Improved Critical (Scythe), Improved Initiative, Ranged Attack 2, Startle

Powers:
"Psionic Scythe Construct"
Movement 3 (Dimensional Travel 3, Time Travel 3) (Extras: Portal +2) (24) -- [26]
  • AE: "Attacks The Mind" Damage 8 (Feats: Reach) (Extras: Will Damage) (17)
  • AE: "Attacks The Body" Strength-Damage +4 (Feats: Reach) (5)
Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Scythe Attack +12 (+8 Will/Toughness Damage, DC 23)
Initiative +10

Defenses:
Dodge +12 (DC 22), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +4, Fortitude +6, Will +6

Complications:
Responsibility (Protecting Time)- Huntara is a chosen defender of the various timestreams, and takes her role very seriously.
Relationship (Nathaniel Richards- Father)- Huntara has even chosen to oppose her father, since he keeps interfering with time.

Total: Abilities: 66 / Skills: 32--16 / Advantages: 6 / Powers: 26 / Defenses: 12 (126)

-Huntara (who I could have SWORN I'd already built) is one of Nathaniel Richards' other children, cast across the various timelines, making her the half-sister of Reed Richards. She was trained by some Warlord dude and given a Psionic Scythe (because you can't be a '90s character without either Psionic Powers OR a bladed weapon!). Devoted to keeping order in the timestreams, she once attempted to kill the Fantastic Four because they prevented her OWN timestream from dying, teaming up with The Frightful Four to do so, but ended up joining them and Psi-Lord (an aged-to-adulthood Franklin Richards).
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue May 24, 2022 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:32 pm Regarding Hellcat, she did get some bonafide mystical powers when she was brought back to life, so the idea of her having mild superhuman stats doesn't seem that weird to me. Tigra's super strength seems to fluctuate all of the time, from her being roughly on Spider-Man's level to sometimes only barely superhuman at all.

Also, while I generally love comics, I have to admit that the way technology works there can create some weird effects.

Like, the Black Cat's costume apparently giving her some degree of superhuman strength/enhanced agility. That's just WEIRD to me, since it's a skintight costume that she doesn't even keep zipped up all the way. It begs the question of why all street level types don't use some kind of stat-enhancing suit. If it's that easy to give someone minor superhuman stats, the US government should be mass producing those kinds of outfits, not trying to replicate the super soldier serum.

The Iron Spider armor is even weirder, being basically skintight suits that let the wearer perfectly replicate all of Spider-Man's powers.

Generally, I'm of the mind that if someone has a suit that gives them powers, unless it's some very rare bleeding edge technology, magical or somehow works off of the wearer's own powers, at best it needs to be about as bulky as a suit of Iron Man armor. Otherwise it just makes the Power Armor guys look weird.
Yeah, I really hate the "Superhuman-Stat-Boosted-Suit" that's just skintight and replicates their physique entirely. There's a handful of other suits out there like that, but the most iconic ones are on chesty female types. Like you, I think that's kind of a weird thing- a "Stat-Enhanced Suit", to me, should be VERY bulky by comparison to most other costumes, or else be super-futuristic technology.

I mean, if FELICIA HARDY can afford one, why can't anyone else?
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:43 pm
Ares wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:32 pm Regarding Hellcat, she did get some bonafide mystical powers when she was brought back to life, so the idea of her having mild superhuman stats doesn't seem that weird to me. Tigra's super strength seems to fluctuate all of the time, from her being roughly on Spider-Man's level to sometimes only barely superhuman at all.

Also, while I generally love comics, I have to admit that the way technology works there can create some weird effects.

Like, the Black Cat's costume apparently giving her some degree of superhuman strength/enhanced agility. That's just WEIRD to me, since it's a skintight costume that she doesn't even keep zipped up all the way. It begs the question of why all street level types don't use some kind of stat-enhancing suit. If it's that easy to give someone minor superhuman stats, the US government should be mass producing those kinds of outfits, not trying to replicate the super soldier serum.

The Iron Spider armor is even weirder, being basically skintight suits that let the wearer perfectly replicate all of Spider-Man's powers.

Generally, I'm of the mind that if someone has a suit that gives them powers, unless it's some very rare bleeding edge technology, magical or somehow works off of the wearer's own powers, at best it needs to be about as bulky as a suit of Iron Man armor. Otherwise it just makes the Power Armor guys look weird.
Yeah, I really hate the "Superhuman-Stat-Boosted-Suit" that's just skintight and replicates their physique entirely. There's a handful of other suits out there like that, but the most iconic ones are on chesty female types. Like you, I think that's kind of a weird thing- a "Stat-Enhanced Suit", to me, should be VERY bulky by comparison to most other costumes, or else be super-futuristic technology.

I mean, if FELICIA HARDY can afford one, why can't anyone else?
At least in the case of Hellcat, the suit is magical so that one's easier to explain as unique. Wasn't the Kingpin involved in Black Cat developing her luck powers? Did she become enhanced physically at the same time? I never thought her suit was anything special.
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Tattooedman
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Tattooedman »

As I recall Black Cat got her luck powers thanks to the Kingpin, when they "faded away" she hired the Tinkerer to make "new" suit that gave her claws, enhanced her vision & increased her agility.

Hellcat's suit, on the other hand, increased all her physical abilities to near Olympic levels. Then, I think, after resurrection from hell, had low end superhuman abilities (which were never really defined).
Jabroniville wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:45 pm
LOl- "The Tattooed Man"? What kind of ABSOLUTE DILDO would refer to himself as "The Tattooed Man" :P!?!
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L-Space
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by L-Space »

I really liked the Hood initially, but he got way over-pushed early on and they messed up a good opportunity. Him going around and organizing the jobber's was a great idea that fit the Hood's shown practicality and could have made an interesting book on it's own. The problem, like you mentioned Jab, was that whenever they went up against the heroes they brought the entire organization to fight! It would have made more sense if they brought smaller (maybe chosen to target the heroes weaknesses) groups to the fray. That way there would still be dynamic fights and it wouldn't have belittled the individual jobbers or the Hood's organization.
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Jabroniville
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Havok

Post by Jabroniville »

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HAVOK (Alex Summers)
Created By:
Arnold Drake, Don Heck & Neal Adams
First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men #54 (March 1969)
Role: The Lesser Brother, The Second-Leader
Group Affiliations: The X-Men, The Starjammers, X-Factor, The Genoshan Magistrates, The Six (Mutant-X Universe), The Brotherhood of Mutants
PL 11 (158)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+5)
Deception 3 (+6)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 5 (+8)
Expertise (Science) 4 (+6)
Expertise (Science) 4 (+10) -- Flaws: Limited to Earth Sciences
Expertise (Tactics) 4 (+6)
Perception 4 (+6)
Persuasion 3 (+6)
Ranged Combat (Plasma Blasts) 4 (+9)
Technology 4 (+6)
Vehicles 3 (+6)

Advantages: 
All-Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Equipment (X-Men Uniform), Inspire, Leadership, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 2, Set-Up, Startle, Teamwork

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Cosmic Blasts" 
"Omnidirectional Burst" Damage 11 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Burst +2, Penetrating) (44) -- [47]
  • AE: "Cosmic Stream" Damage 11 (Extras: Area- 60ft. Line +2, Penetrating) (44)
  • AE: "Cosmic Blast" Blast 13 (Extras: Penetrating) (39)
  • AE: Dazzle Visuals 10 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Burst) (Flaws: Touch Range) (20)
"Summers Brother" Immunity 2 (His Own & Cyclops' Powers) [2]
"Cosmic Sponge" Immunity 10 (Heat Damage, Radiation Damage) [10]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Cosmic Burst & Stream +11 Area (+11 Damage, DC 26)
Blast +9 (+13 Ranged Damage, DC 28)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +11 (DC 21), Parry +10 (DC 20), Toughness +3 (+4 D.Roll, +5 Uniform), Fortitude +6, Will +8

Complications:
Rivalry (With Cyclops)- Alex always feels like he's in Scott's shadow, despite the two having a pretty good relationship. That ended when Cyclops went off the deep end and started taking extreme measures to protect mutant-kind.
Responsibility (Summers Family Tree)- *deep breath*... Alex Summers' family includes an Eye-Blasting forgotten-brother, a Space Pirate father, a dead mother, a dead telepathic sister-in-law who was also a Cosmic Being (but not really), a demon-worshipping clone of said sister-in-law who later died (then came back, and hooked up with Alex in an Alternate Timeline), a Future mercenary cyborg telepath for a nephew, a telepathic Cosmic Being for a neice (but only in an alternate future), a telepathic super-powerhouse for a sort-of nephew (but only in an alternate timeline), a Space Emperor half-brother, a half-alien super-'90s half-brother (but not anymore), a Mutant Messiah adopted-grandneice, and possibly more. I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody.
Enemy (Living Pharaoh)- The Pharaoh has repeatedly tried to steal Alex's powers.
Relationshiop (Lorna Dane, Nurse Annie, Others)- Alex has a few ladies in his life, but Polaris is the by far the most important. They were together during the '60s run, much of Claremont's, and all of X-Factor. He's recently been seen hooking up with The Wasp.

Total: Abilities: 54 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 59 / Defenses: 18 (158)

Havok- Up In The Air:
-Havok's place in X-history depends on the era in which you find yourself. To me, he'll always be "the low-rent X-leader" who was leading X-Factor while his brother was in charge of the X-Men. In the late 1960s, he was a "Long Lost Sibling" introduced out of nowhere, playing a slightly immature kid. He was out of the picture for YEARS before Chris Claremont suddenly decided he was gonna do something with this dead concept in the late '80s, and made him kind of Wolverine's badass little buddy. By the '90s, he'd been lost again once Claremont lost interest, but Peter David picked him up. Then he got his own solo project in Mutant X! Then... well, he basically disappeared as a major thing.

-He was used by Peter David (with a new '90s-classic ensemble of leather jacket, big X-logos, a faceless, hair-showing mask, etc.) for his "Every character nobody freaking wants to write or read about" X-Factor, which turned him into kind of a perennially-sighing, droll leader-type trying to move all these nutjobs around. He finally got a push later in Mutant-X, a long-running "Alternate Universe" comic that ended up not mattering to anything (because it's an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE) once it was cancelled, and after a brief turn as Chuck Austen's "Canon Sue" (he thought Havok was like himself, and thus wrote him as the main character) in his X-run, and then he became the new leader of the Starjammers, flying around in space.

-To say nothing of his relationship to Polaris. They were together, then off for years, then together again, then he dumped her for Annie the Nurse (based off of Austen's wife) and she went INSANE... then she got better and he figured out he loved her after all.... Yeah, okay then. Me, I've never been a huge Havok fan, as he's obviously been "Less Than Cyclops" for his entire existence, and they've NEVER managed to completely replace him from that. The fact that they're both leader-types with Blaster-powers, and that Cyke is the more important character, kinda mean this will never change. It's like if Captain America or Spider-Man got long-lost little brothers with major character pushes. It just AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, you know? Even his run on Uncanny Avengers was merely pretty good, and failed to make him better than Scott.

Havok- Long-Lost Sibling:
-Alex debuted in the secondary title The Uncanny X-Men in 1969, when the book was getting closer to cancellation, and Arnold Drake was writing instead of Roy Thomas or Stan Lee. And he was that old trope (before superheroes had 950 of them), "The Long-Lost Sibling". He was revealed to be Alex, the younger brother of Scott "Cyclops" Summers- both boys had survived a plane crash that took their parents, and were raised in an orphanage, Alex being adopted quickly by a family who was looking to replace their dead son. After graduating college, he encountered the original X-Men, and everyone discovered everyone else's identities when he was kidnapped by The Living Pharaoh, who wished to empower himself through Alex's tremendous energy powers. He and Scott also learned that their powers could not affect each other, which was a great "little touch" of Mutant Powers I always felt was interesting, but was never really used much (only these two, and Banshee & Black Tom, possessed such traits).

-Alex was thus an "I fear my own power" kind of guy for a while, as they typically only manifested when he was near-death, and he could generate a shocking amount of it. Given a pretty strange-looking black onesie with an iconic three-pronged facemask-thingie by Larry Trask (who wanted to kill mutants), he finally joined the X-Men. He entered what would become a massively long-term relationship with Polaris, much to the consternation of Iceman, who was also interested in her, creating some good-old Teen Romantic Drama. However, this was nearing the end of the series, and so we saw little of them. Havok & Polaris were in fact with the "Original X-Men" when they were captured by Krakoa the Living Island, and rescued by the new X-Men. They were quick to quit the team, disappearing from the book for years.

-I have zero recollection of Havok being anywhere during the "Claremont/Byrne Era", or even the eras surrounding it, which is weird considering that his older brother was one of the main characters, and we saw things like Jean Grey's funeral and stuff. For the most part, the pair stayed in the background (Havok showed up in Marvel Team-Up once, being targeted by the Living Pharaoh/Monolith once more), though apparently Havok was involved in the "Muir Island Battle" against Proteus.

Havok Rejoins the X-Men:
-Sometime after I stopped collecting the Claremont-era Essential collections, Havok rejoined the X-Men once Polaris had been possessed by the evil Malice. During this period, he became romantically involved with Madelyne Pryor (who, strangely enough, was his brother's abandoned wife), since Claremont felt like Scott/Maddie being ended due to editorial edict was stupid and character-ruining (well, he was right), and wanted to keep using the character, out of a combination of pity, frustration, and spite. However, Madelyne soon killed herself after discovering that she was a clone of Jean Grey. He briefly joined up with Wolverine for a Limited Series, but ultimately it had little effect on anyone. 

-By the time I'd gotten into the X-Books, Havok had long since left the book, falling through the Siege Perilous and disappearing. Many of the other X-Men were altered by the experience, and had become very disparate (it seems to me that Claremont was looking to shake things up once again, and split the roster anew). In Havok's case, he ended up on GENOSHA, where as a Mutant, he'd have been expected to be oppressed and turned into a literal slave. However, his skills and capability had instead led him to be the highest-tier Mutant in the Genoshan Military, acting as a Magistrate. This was discovered during The X-Tinction Agenda- during a pitched battle with Cyclops (where of course they couldn't harm each other with their Blasts), his memory returned, and he delivered the killing blow to Cameron Hodge, buring him beneath his citadel.

X-Factor:
-Havok was expected to remain on Genosha and help rebuild it, but things weren't to be- Claremont seemed to want to be rid of him, but when Peter David was given a relaunched X-Factor book, he fashioned a team out of an Island of Misfit Toys concept, taking un-used X-characters and making a disparate squad led by Alex (who had never led a team before), featuring Polaris (with whom he hadn't interacted for a LONG time), Wolfsbane, Quicksilver, Strong Guy and the Multiple Man. Here, this was a government agency, with Alex as the somewhat-stoic, somewhat-sarcastic leader, living in the shadow of his much more capable brother. As X-Factor was the lowest-tier of the Big Four X-Books (behind two X-Men titles and the smash hit X-Force), they were mostly quiet, and got to play the "Jobber Role" in a lot of Cross-Overs, where he barely mattered.

-The dissolution of X-Factor struck Havok hard, as he watched Strong Guy be rendered comatose, Wolfsbane leave the team, and Jamie Madrox dying of the Legacy Virus. After a bit where he went undercover with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, he attempted to reform X-Factor, but was instead thrown through a portal by Greystone (one of his most-recent teammates), ending up far away.

Mutant X:
-In an odd circumstance that pre-dates the Exiles book, we now saw Alex Summers as a MAIN CHARACTER, appearing in Mutant X, a book set in a Parallel Universe! Alex had been thrown through to an alternate reality, where he inhabited the body of his other self, who was the leader of the original X-Men instead of Cyclops, and had married Madelyne Pryor, siring a son named Scotty. In this book, the creative team had crazy fun basically going "how can we screw with Marvel history?", popping up with all sorts of alternate X-Men (like a Storm who'd never been cured of vampirism). Havok eventually saves this world, but not before most of the super-humans die, and he's eventually tossed back to our world. Where things surely will go GREAT for him!

Chuck Austen Writes Havok:
-Well, shit. Never mind. Instead, Chuck Austen, who hadn't quite earned the reputation of "Most-hated comic book writer of all time" just yet, had decided that Alex Summers was the hero most like him, and rather than invent a new Mary Sue, instead wrote Havok as an idealized version of himself, and gave him a girlfriend he based off of his own wife. Yes, Alex enters a relationship with the nurse Annie Ghazikhanian, becoming a father-figure of sorts to her young son Carter. In doing so, he basically rebuffs the advances of Polaris, who goes INSANE because Austen was kind of a hack who wanted to "justify" his personal relationship, and then finally we learned that young Carter had telepathically caused Havok & Annie to fall in love in their dreams, and he called off their planned wedding. However, they continued to see each other, until Annie left him with Carter, feeling that the pair weren't safe at the X-Mansion (given this was the era in which approximately 9,500,772 supporting characters were slaughtered at the Mansion, I find it hard to blame her). Alex refused to go with her, feeling that he needed to be with his team.

Havok Falls To Whatever:
-Here things kind of devolve in an "I dunno, whatever" mess. Polaris dates Iceman, to Havok's frustration, but then she & Alex got back together. Until she disappeared again. They got back together and went into space, getting involved with the Shi'ar and some associates with the Abnett/Lanning space-stuff going on at the time. He and his team (including his sorta-niece Rachel, Polaris, Korvus, Ch'od & Raza) form a new breed of Starjammers after his father Corsair (who's long-since been revealed to be a Space Pirate) is killed by Vulcan (because Alex now has a half-brother who's insane). He's a minor supporting character during that stuff, but the leader of his own X-Book, but ultimately he never matters to the overall plot and disappears, with Black Bolt killing Vulcan instead. He farts around for a bit, briefly taking part in the X-Factor Investigations book.

The Uncanny Avengers:
-An odd choice, Alex is chosen to be the field leader of the "Avengers Unity Squad", formed by Captain America of Mutants and Avengers alike, meant to bridge the gap between the two after the A (vs) X fiasco. Here, he gets a Jon Casady-drawn costume that's a bit like his '60s one, and becomes a spokesman for the group, giving a long quote in front of the press about how he doesn't like the term "Mutant", refuses labels, and wishes to be seen as a PERSON and not what minority he is. In a fascinating bit, this is treated like a great statement in Uncanny, but Brian Michael Bendis took issue with it in ANOTHER book, and had Kitty Pryde give a rebuttal about how oppressed people need to see these labels as forms of strength. The fact that both points were reasonably well-argued and made sense, yet were contradictory, was a fun bit.

-UNFORTUNATELY, Rick Remember, who wrote this series, kind of lost the plot after a point. He ended up involving TIME TRAVEL and alternate realities, which is just a recipe for disaster, and then made the poor writing decision of arbitrarily deciding that HAVOK and THE WASP were a couple that was definitely "Meant To Be", and of course skipped all that "courting" nonsense with a time-skip, which had the result of the fans not buying into it AT ALL (contrast couples like Scott/Jean, Peter/MJ, or Vision/Wanda, which worked because we could see them meet, slowly fall in love, and get together), no matter how obsessive they were about being in love with each other. They had a daughter named Katie, but she is lost to the timestream during a fight with Kang the Conqueror- Immortus gives them a gift, however, pointing out the exact right moment of conception to create a NEW Katie in the modern time-stream, because that's the same, I guess.

-Unfortunately for Rick's True #1 Couple, Havok is badly maimed in battle, then turns evil during AXIS, and then DOESN'T actually turn back to good at story's end, managing to miss the re-inversion of everyone's alignments. And with that, Havok/Wasp disappears from existence. He hasn't been seen since the end of X-Men (vs) Inhumans, where he discovered the truth about Emma Frost lying about the death of Cyclops.

Havok as a Whole:
-This guy's really a mess. If there's one thing in comics that you DON'T want to be, it's a guy in X-Limbo who ALSO has to be utilized in plots as a matter of course because of who he's related to. Because Havok is the brother of one of the most important Mutants alive, HAVOK also needs to be used. But as very few X-writers ever want to touch him, he gets screwed around with a lot. So he'll get weird things like not being on the X-Men for ten years during Claremont's peak, but then getting to sniff the squad for a few years. Then he'll lead Peter David's team of rejects, but when star in his OWN BOOK... but one set in an Alternate Reality, so it doesn't "matter". Then there's the Chuck Austen mess that really just held the character in stasis for a while, then he wasted time in space doing basically nothing that actually MATTERED, and then he gets hooked into ANOTHER writer's "One True Relationship" with The Wasp... but then he turns evil and stays that way, unlike every other character in that story, because reasons, I guess.

Havok's Powers:
-Havok is a very powerful Blaster with some good Immunities, and a fairly decent leader-type as well, making him a good all-around kind of guy for any team. He's not as good as Cyclops or Storm, but he's tolerable. He's nearly a PL 11 in sheer intensity of powers (a VERY powerful Burst Cosmic Blast in addition to extreme raw power- equivalent to Cyclops in that regard, but with Bursts). Otherwise he's your typical X-dude, fairly strong & athletic, with a good smattering of Skills he rarely uses, centred around a massive power-set.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue May 24, 2022 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Goldar
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Humbug! The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood!)

Post by Goldar »

Jabroniville wrote: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:15 pm Geez, I dunno about her Strength- the bios I have just say "Enhanced Strength", leaving me to come up with the level. I assumed it wasn't high, but when I see the word "Enhanced" I automatically go superhuman. I have nowhere near the number of Patsy appearances to make an accurate guess as to her strength level, but since she never seemed to be that great a fighter, Tigra-ish Strength seemed to fit.

Felicia at least seemed strong enough to do reasonable damage to Spider-Man and the Vulture in combat- she WHUPPED Adrian Toomes, for example.

Nearest thing I could find was a mention of "near-superhuman strength" for Patsy, so I figured I'd drop her down to ST/STA 5, making her "nearly superhuman".
I think you did a perfect spot-on job with the strength numbers, Jab, and for the most part that they are correct.

If Black Widow lifts 500 pounds with strength 4, Felicia can lift 800 pounds and would be 1 level higher, so 5 is perfect. Greer herself is probably a 4-5 and as Tigra a good 6. Maybe even as high as 8. I seem to remember reading Tigra could lift 5 tons and later 10 tons. The 10 tons seems high. But 5-6 tons seems like a good level so maybe an 8 for Tigra?

Patsy's strength I am unsure of, but I think MSHRPG once stated that her suit upped all her stats, including strength, by 2 levels. So here a 2 strength would become a 4, and then higher after return from death. So 6 sounds right for her!
slade the sniper
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood! Huntara! Havok!)

Post by slade the sniper »

The first four pics of Havok...I thought it was Doctor Light.

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Ares
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood! Huntara! Havok!)

Post by Ares »

The "mutant siblings powers can't directly affect each other" bit is an interesting thing I wish would get used more often. Naturally it really only works on mutants with some kind o energy power (a superstrong mutant punching his brother should still hurt, you know), but otherwise it's pretty cool. I could see it being sort of an outgrowth of mutants generally being immune to their own abilities: their siblings energies are close enough to their own that their body metabolizes them and is thus immune to them. It's actually be kind of cool if that immunity applied to similar phenomena to a less degree. Like, Black Tom is completely immune to Banshee's sonic scream. But because of that, he'd also be resistant to most forms of sonic attack, just not completely immune to it.

As for Havok, I feel for the guy. He's a decent, high end blaster (potentially more powerful than Scott is, while Scott's eye beams potentially make him more accurate), his black outfit is fairly iconic,so much so that any major deviation from it tends to fail (I think a hybrid of this and this is probably the best he can hope for). He did actually appear in the Claremont/Byrne X-Men era, but mainly during the Proteus storyline. He was also involved Post-Byrne in a story that had the X-Men go up against Arcade. Apart from that, he didn't really get up to much during the series high point.

I was watching X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the film's take on Sunspot actually struck me as a more unique way to visually display Alex's power. Sunspot's energies would actually stream out of his torso, but he would use his hands to guide and direct the power. Something similar for Havok, where the energy emerges from that circle on his chest but he uses his arms to guide it, would be pretty cool.

I think the biggest problem for both Alex and Lorna is that they don't really have an iconic personality. The other original X-Men eventually got used enough that they developed recognizable personalities. Scott is stern, serious and a real straight arrow, but genuinely cared about his teammates. Jean is kind and friendly while having a backbone forged from adamantium. Hank is smart and witty, alternating between serious and fun-loving as is appropriate. Warren is a bit of a show-off and flirt, which he uses to cover up his insecurities about the role he's inherited. Bobby is another jokester who is secretly a hard worker (he's one of the few X-Men to actually finish college) is often frustrated by his lack of success in life.

Alex and Lorna are just . . . kind of there. For most of his career, Havok's biggest trait was that he had kind of a short temper, while Lorna was often more confused by her constant Donna Troy-esque origin retcons. As a result, every writer that used them basically re-invented them into what they needed, and rarely did anything stick, so that they're generally blank slates.
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- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Hellbent! Hellcat! The Hood! Huntara! Havok!)

Post by Spectrum »

Adamantium backbone you say?

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