Jab’s Builds! (Lawnmower Man! Samus Aran! Metroids!)

[Ares]

Yeah, the Fearsome Five...they seemed like they had the potential to be bigger, but somehow they just kind of...faded out. I think they'd largely be completely forgotten if not for their appearances in the various DC animated series starting in the late 1990s Titans cartoon. There was too much that just seemed half-assed with the team; no memorable costumes (Psimon was wearing a purple-pink robe), no particular motivations except greed and malice, little background on the individual members, a revolving door roster...yeah, they just ended up a semi-colorful jobber squad.

And talk about "New Villain Stink" wearing off quickly for a couple members-Psimon went from a team-breaking threat (albeit still a glass canon prone to playing above his league-really, taking on Brainiac and Luthor?) to getting taken out by the Joker in a fit of pique; and Neutron started out as able to actually HURT Kal-El, being almost a villainous Wildfire in terms of power, to just another background scene jerk. I mean, when he was with the Fearsome Five, the others were all scared of him, begging him to hold back, and the Titans knew he was out of their league if he really cut loose.

All my best.

The Fearsome Five honestly didn't need to be anything but what they were: a group of powerful and versatile villains who were in the criminal life solely to get rich and have fun. And since several of them were psychopaths, having fun meant hurting people. They'd be equally at home robbing banks, trying some blackmail the government with nukes, or just going on a rampage. They were a perfect group of single issue or two-part storyline villains, either to be a random menace or on the payroll of some other menace. Not jobbers per say, but perfect journeyman villains. That they fell by the wayside until Winnick is just unfortunate.

I would have toned down Psimon and Shimmer a bit, however. Just make Psimon a powerful telepath and telekinetic, and keep the stylized business suit look over the purple robe. Give Shimmer a Firestorm like limit where organic matter is more difficult to transmute than inorganic matter, so she does things to the air and ground and such rather than just turning people into objects. Or make her power a dodgeable energy blast. Mammoth and Gizmo are mostly fine as is, though I'm torn between whether to keep Gizmo a dwarf or go the "evil little kid" route.

I'm also not sure who works better as the 5th member: Jinx or Neutron. There's some overlap with Jinx and Shimmer, but also with Neutron and Mammoth. I'd lean towards Jinx, but have Neutron be a sort of favorite unofficial 6th member who the group calls on from time to time when they need some muscle. Neutron is powerful enough to be a solo journeyman/mercenary villain that appears on a lot of teams.

[Ares]

For Jinx, it seems like her toon appearance is a lot more popular, which..doesn't really surprise me at all, but wow: The design is so radically different it's really not even the same character at all. She doesn't even have the same powers! (In the cartoon she's more Scarlet Witch-y) For reference:

In much the same way the original TMNT cartoon made Baxter Stockman white to avoid the only main black character on the show being a villain, I get the feeling they made Jinx radically different to avoid any possible issues with vilifying a Middle-Eastern woman, especially since it was only 2 years after 9/11.

[Jabroniville]

Yep. There was a "DC Comics Presents" issue where Dr. Sivana attacked Metropolis in a giant robot for no apparent reason (this was back when Cap and Superman were on different Earths). After Superman predictably destroys the robot, Sivana escapes and flies to the Rock of Eternity, where his real plan begins. He's SCIENCED! up a means to temporarily put the Wizard Shazam into a slumber, though Sivana notes that this is a one-shot deal, as Shazam will know to guard against it in the future. He also notes that this will not actually prevent the Marvel Family from calling on their powers, but doesn't seem unhappy with the idea...

That'd be twelve issues and two tie ins today.

Jesus, I was reading that going "HOW MANY PAGES WAS THIS?!!?!"

But like I said with the Wolfman/Perez Titans comics... they stuffed a LOT into books back in those days. Panels were often 9 to a page and had tons of dialogue.

[Jabroniville]

Yeah, the Fearsome Five...they seemed like they had the potential to be bigger, but somehow they just kind of...faded out. I think they'd largely be completely forgotten if not for their appearances in the various DC animated series starting in the late 1990s Titans cartoon. There was too much that just seemed half-assed with the team; no memorable costumes (Psimon was wearing a purple-pink robe), no particular motivations except greed and malice, little background on the individual members, a revolving door roster...yeah, they just ended up a semi-colorful jobber squad.

They'd have been PERFECT for a recurring "Wrecking Crew"-like role, if not for Psimon's incredible power level. If they'd have scaled him back a notch, they would have been a great Job Squad for any number of teams... but DC's base power level was much higher than Marvel's back in the '90s, so they would probably have been under-powered for some teams. In the '80s, though, they'd have been a VERY tough challenge for the Justice League(s) (often full of utter jobbers and rookies), Infinity Inc. and other teams. They really had a broad spectrum of threats to offer- Transmutation, Blasts, Environment Control, Strength and Psionics.

Yeah, certain applications of Affliction really do not work as well in game as they do in comics; though likewise this is the case with any NPC pulling off the kind of Deception successes Terra had against the Titans. I suppose this is where a bit of GM creativity (and arbitrary Fiat, resulting in Hero Points) comes in. Linking a "Dazzle" Affliction with a Weaken Fort, or basing the Resistance/Recovery off a different trait entirely.
All my best.

Like Mind Control, Bluffing and more, it seems to be a genre convention that's too hard to replicate into an RPG and be "fair".

[Ken]

Identity Crisis- Doctor Rape:
-Identity Crisis would change the character utterly, as crime novelist Brad Meltzer wanted a "Whodunnit?", and was given a lot of leeway with old-school characters. The story controversially features a retcon in which Doctor Light invaded the JLA's satellite, found Ralph Dibny's wife Sue, and brutally RAPED HER, pretty much shocking everyone. I remember my roommate at the time going "I don't want to read comics about THAT!" Light was immediately brutalized by the League, with Ralph smashing him in the head with Hawkman's mace. Light is then BRAINWASHED by the League, with retcons pointing out that this has happened before- usually to get villains to forget the secret identities of the heroes. In this case, however, they alter his mind to make him no longer a threat; THIS is explained as the reasoning why a former serious threat later became "a moron", easily beaten by children.

The more time has gone on, the more I realize how much I hate Identity Crisis. To me, it was the start of DC's downhill slide towards the worst aspects of Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Final Crisis, Flashpoint and the Nu-52. It doesn't help that the story doesn't really work as a mystery, but the whole thing involving Dr. Light is a pointless red herring designed to make the heroes mistrust each other, make Batman extra paranoid, have the heroes doing unheroic things, and set up both Dr. Light and Deathstroke as A-List Team Beaters.

It was the second step on the downhill slide. The first step was Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day (11/2003). Identity Crisis didn't start until 9/2004. You're absolutely right, otherwise, but the Superman Robot killing Donna and Lilith... first step.

Dr. Light was a A-List Team Beater. He started as an A-List team beater, and despite some solo forays he remained one. From Justice League of America #149 (12/1977):


This was after Dr. Light fought the Teen Titans (#44 11/76) and helped them reform. It was like Marv and George had some sort of beef with him. Just because the Atom beat him one-on-one once. Ray Palmer's a scientific genius, with a costume that let's him shrink and control mass. Somehow, that's dismissable. It was a battle between two gimmicky science-geniuses. That does not make Doctor Light a joke. He was a respected villain, until Marv and George made him otherwise. That was annoying enough, but then Didio and Meltzer decide to unjokeify Doctor Light... (Meltzer's only two years younger than me, he might have actually remember when Light wasn't a joke) ... and, damn, if they didn't go too far in the other direction.

And the Superman & Batman impersonation each other... That really was a thing that happened from time-to-time in their team-ups in World's Finest back in that era. Dr. Light's plan really was an effective one. I have to wonder if Gardner Fox knew, when he started the story in JLA #12, that would be the solution to Dr. Light's trap, or if he designed the trap first, and the solution second.

I respected the Fearsome Five as villains almost immediately because they were led by Doctor Light. But then again, I was already a JLA fan, and didn't share in Wolfman's biases against tiny heroes.

[Jabroniville]

Here's a good Wolfman interview, including bits where he talks about hating some of the old Titans and disliking the pointless killings of characters (funny given he literally DID kill some characters in the Crisis because he hated them):

http://www.titanstower.com/comics-journ ... interview/

WOLFMAN: You don’t want to kill off everyone. I think killing off everybody is stupid, and it becomes “who are you going to kill off next?” I don’t want the big Titans epic to be “Who in the Titans is going to die?” I would like it to be based on something else.

MacDONALD: But isn’t it just a cop-out? If they are not really dead, why not show that they aren’t?

WOLFMAN: I thought by saying that they didn’t find her body that you’d know Komand’r wasn’t really dead. There are a lot of ways to artificially boost sales in comics today because the fans seem to want to buy everything.

GROTH: Is that why you think Marvel is doing it?

WOLFMAN: I think that’s one of the reasons.

GROTH: Which characters are you talking about specifically?

WOLFMAN: I’m thinking of all the publicity they gave Ka-Zar, and the fact that he wasn’t dead, that they were actually thinking of doing it. You can do double-sized issues as opposed to two issues of the regular comic.

And so far we’ve avoided that. We will have one double-sized issue and that’s it. And that’s issue 50. We’ve waited an awful long time. Considering that everybody in the office would love to have us do as many as we can.. they would love to have us go double-sized every month, because the Titans sells that well. But neither George nor I want to do that. And we don’t want to kill off every character. There are things you can do other than killing off characters. I resented Chris killing off Rachel Van Helsing for no apparent reason. I resented half a dozen deaths over there, for no purpose other than to kill off a character because “I didn’t like them,” whoever that “I” is. Or “we want better sales.” My view is that you can use a lot of these characters and if you can’t make them work, find other ways. But you can, indeed, kill them, when they absolutely have to be. If that’s the only place you can go.

MacDONALD: But, let’s face it, there are a lot of characters who really aren’t worth the space they take up. Although a good writer can change any character.

WOLFMAN: I think so. A lot of people seem to like what we do with Robin and The Teen Titans, who haven’t liked what’s happened to Robin in other books. Not every character can be saved. We didn’t bring back half the old Teen Titans because there was nothing we could do. But I don’t want to indiscriminately kill off everyone. I just think that’s a mistake. And I know George doesn’t either.

MacDONALD: How about those old Teen Titans? Will they just be popping up, or…?

WOLFMAN: None of the middle ground Titans will pop in and out because George and I don’t like any of them. [Laughter] We think that most of the characters are fairly silly.

GROTH: ones are you talking about?

WOLFMAN: Harlequin, and Bumblebee, and people like that.

MacDONALD: I have one old Teen Titans, from ‘72, and it’s just so embarrassing to read it. I don’t know who wrote it. It doesn’t have any credits on it, so they must have been pretty embarrassed too.

WOLFMAN: The one or two issues that I wrote have credits.

GROTH: Are these the hip, mod Teen Titans?

MacDONALD: Yeah, every other line the black guy (Mal) says “I’m black, I’m angry, get out of here you honky.”And the women all say “Get out of here you male chauvinist pig. l’m a woman.”

WOLFMAN: That’s one of the things that we were trying to avoid. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t want to have Victor say “I’m black” in every story. In fact he never has. I mean, it’s obvious he is, his background is from a scientist so he’s not very street oriented. None of the women go around parading for any specific cause or whatever. They act like those characters should act. And I think that’s more important than whipping Out machine guns and all that stuff some of the other characters do.

GROTH: You said earlier that one of the reasons the Titans were different was because of you and George. Where do your interests converge on the Titans

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand the origins of the Doctors Light:

WOLFMAN: He gets worse. The Terminator is coming back. The only ones I haven’t got planned at the moment are the Fearsome Five, and I’ll have to throw them in some issue I just have to mark time with. You wanted death. I’m thinking of killing of Dr. Light and having someone female wear his costume. Since all his powers are in his costume, anyone could wear it. Unstable molecules. It’s skintight.

Curiously, he left Arthur alive for this. Not sure why- if there's a writer in comics unafraid to do away with characters, it's Wolfman.

He mentions the origins of Terra/Geo-Force:

WOLFMAN: Terra become a member with issue #30. Strangely enough, Mike Barr and I came in with identical characters, the same day. Mike is doing a book called The Outsiders and 1 wanted a new character for the Titans, and he came up with a guy who had earth powers [Geo Force], and I came up with Terra who has earth powers. And we both came in the same day so we couldn’t say who was first, and I came up with the idea of making them brother and sister. So Mike and I have cooperated to make these characters work between the two books. And Terra will be a regular character, for how long I will nor say, because that ties in with some of the things we have in mind.

[Jabroniville]

RED PANZER I (Helmut Streicher)
Created By: Martin Pasko & Jose Delbo
First Appearance: Wonder Woman #228 (Feb. 1977)
Role: Super-Nazi
PL 10 (132)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 9 DEXTERITY 5
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Athletics 3 (+6)
Deception 4 (+7)
Expertise (Soldier) 8 (+11)
Intimidation 4 (+7)
Perception 3 (+6)

Advantages:
Benefit (Nazi High Command), Improved Critical (Hand-Cannon) 2, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4

Powers:
"Red Panzer Armour" (Flaws: Removable) [36]
"Hand Cannon" Blast 11 (Extras: Penetrating 8) (30)
"Heavy-Duty Armour" Protection 7 (Extras: Impervious) (14)
-- (44 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +9 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Hand Cannon +9 (+11 Ranged Damage, DC 26)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +4 (+11 Armour, +4 Impervious), Fortitude +6, Will +5

Complications:
Responsibility (The Nazi Party)
Hatred (Jews, Others)- Streicher believes absolutely in the idea of Aryan superiority.

Total: Abilities: 68 / Skills: 22--11 / Advantages: 8 / Powers: 36 / Defenses: 9 (132)

-Red Panzer is a one-note Wonder Woman villain (a Retcon Character from the 1970s who was a WWII-era Nazi, in what was an Earth-Two tale involving Diana accidentally being sent there) who randomly had a modern-era successor (who appeared in a one-shot focusing on Donna), then his son showed up to fight Donna Troy. It turns out the latter was fueled by a lot of self-hatred, since it turns out that Red Panzer's wife's great-great-grandmother had been a slave, and so the current Panzer was part-black. Trying to gain revenge for his father (who died fighting Wonder Woman & Troia), he was pretty incompetent, and was casually-murdered by one of the ring-leaders of Tartarus, Damien Dahrk. The next Panzer was a random nihilist H.I.V.E. mook who was basically just shoved into the outfit because "we need a Red Panzer". He actually stuck with the gimmick for a bit, showing up in a few background scenes.

-The first Red Panzer is an elite Nazi with PL 10 stats thanks to his military experience. The second was just a loser kid who was MAYBE PL 8 thanks to poor accuracy, as was the third.

[Jabroniville]

More Wolfman interview stuff, relevant to the Titans:
https://www.cbr.com/chat-transcript-marv-wolfman/

ApexPredator: When you added new characters to your Titans revamp like Starfire and Raven, can you tell us about any characters that almost made the cut?

marvw: No, new characters almost made the cut. I knew up front Aqualad would not be a full member and that Kid flash would only be in for a short while. I found their powers unwieldy for a group book.

Stephane Garrelie: When you created the Black Cat to be Spider-Man's new girl friend, was it linked to a desire to write stuff about Catwoman or was it only an homage?

marvw: I didn't plan Black Cat to be in Spidey. I created her for Spider-Woman (look at the letter column of the first B.C. story and you'll see). I then decided to leave Spider-Woman and moved her over. So, I never even thought of Catwoman when I did her. I got the idea for her from a Tex Avery cartoon, Bad Luck Blackie.

Briareos: I read on Titans Tower an interview you did (they might have just reprinted another one) that you said just before "Titans Hunt" that you were in a rut on Titans.

marvw: Yeah. I still say I should have quit the book then. The problem was I loved the characters, but I'd run out of stories.

Briareos: What was the last comic you think you did before it really became a rut and wasn't up to the others in quality

marvw: Don't remember which issue. It was ongoing.

matterconsumer: Any interest in writing Justice League? A team up with Perez could be earth shattering...

marvw: No interest in doing the JLA. Never had any interest, either.

Lex: I read that you created Starfire, Raven and Cyborg so you could explore various genres in "New Teen Titans" like magic and sci-fi. Was that intentional or just how things fell together?

marvw: The idea of exploring the various genres was deliberate. That's why one is science based, one is alien and one is dark magic.


ApexPredator: Was it an editorial nightmare to write in all of those characters...did you have to do a lot of research for "Crisis On Infinite Earths" or are you one of those creators who knew everything about the characters to begin with?

marvw: It was a nightmare to do "Crisis On Infinite Earths." A horrible one. I knew a lot, but we did a ton of research; even hired someone to read every DC book and give me notes. But it was a terrible nightmare and I went into a long writer's block after it.

The Post-Crisis Writer's Block was REALLY notable on Teen Titans around that time (it basically spun its wheels for around a year). It's good that he's self-aware enough to admit what was going on with the end of his Titans run. Him being on a different coast from the DC people makes a LOT of sense given how little the Titans had to do with the rest of DC after a point.

[Jabroniville]

Alrighty- I mostly have the next couple of months planned out, but I want to know what interests people in terms of the future. So it's time for my favorite thing- POLLS! Which of the following would you prefer to see first?

Fighting Games:
* Separating these from the non-Fighters this time around.
1) Way of the Warrior- 3DO's goonish MK knock-off.
2) Kasumi Ninja- The Jaguar's goonish MK knock-off.
3) Rise of the Robots- Pretty graphics- terrible game.
4) Power Instinct- Weird fighting game. Lots of old ladies.
5) TMNT Tournament Fighters- The Ninja Turtles in their own fighter.
6) Double Dragon V- Well, probably a re-posting of Double Dragon as a whole, plus Rage of the Dragons, a would-be sequel that had the characters swapped out.

Regular Builds:
1) Justice League Unlimited- The classic cartoon. I last statted it AGES ago, and it was one of my most popular sets ever. I really have nothing NEW to add about it, exactly, but it's fun to revisit.
2) Namor Builds- He's relevant again!
3) HBO's OZ & Rome- Again, very old builds that should be re-posted at some point.
4) Marvel's Cosmic Beings- Many of these still haven't been translated from the original ATT, actually!
5) Super Mario Builds- It's been more than five years, OMG!
6) ThunderCats- One of the last "big"-ish toylines I've yet to touch.
7) Fire Emblem- The classic tactical RPG. Well, the one I'VE played, anyhow- no way am I touching the entire series.
8) Shining Force I & II- The legendary Sega Genesis tactical RPGs! Centaurs, Elves, Werewolves and Dragons!


Well? Did you all enjoy my polls?

[FuzzyBoots]

My top three preferences, in order:

• Power Instinct - There were some really unique ideas in the game
• Namor Builds - As the first superhero to fly in the comics, deserves more credit than he gets, plus it gives you a chance to stat out his ability to emulate a pufferfish.
• Way of the Warrior - Never played it, but I have a guilty fascination with it because one of the game magazines I got as a kid had an in-depth interview about the design of the characters and yes, it basically was friends of the developers rather than anyone professional.

[Jack of Spades]

Yeah, sensory based attacks should really be more of a case of Reflexes than Fortitude, requiring you to turn your head or cover your ears in time to avoid the attack, rather than just "My Eyeballs are more resistant to dazzles" due to a high Fort save. Characters who can easily deal with such an effect should have to buy an Immunity to Sensory effects or have some feature where they can use their Fort save in place of Reflex to resist sensory effects.

Similarly, I feel that most comic book gas should probably be opposed with Reflex, since it seems that it's more of a question of whether they breath the gas in, not whether or not the gas is powerful enough to overcome their superhuman resistance. Something where you need to make your Reflex save to close your mouth in time, and if not you avoid the attack entirely. If you fail that, then your Fortitude determines how long you're effected by the gas, so having a high Fort means you shake off the effects sooner, but you still suffer the effect for one round minimum.

I may start building things like that. The problem is that Dodge saves are routinely too high as well...

[Jack of Spades]

I'm for Namor, JLU, and Marvel's cosmic scene. No real interest in fighting games.

[Ares]

My votes would be:

1) Shining Force I & II
2) ThunderCats
3) Namor
4) TMNT Tournament Fighters
5) Justice League Unlimited

[RUSCHE]

Namor and Justic League Unlimited would be my vot/suggestion and or plea.

[Ken]

Thundercats, Namor, JLU, Marvel Cosmic