Comic Book Dork Monday: Deathlok the Demolisher

(Since I am on a supergaming kick, lets use the Wayback Machine to look again at 16 year old post of mine about my favorite Cyborg Assasin)


Deathlok is Luther Manning, a soldier from near-future Detroit who is turned into a combat cyborg that fights against tyranny in a decaying urban landscape.

No, wait. Deathlok is a robot sent back in time to fight Captain America, and Luther Manning is a clone who also travels back in time to stop Deathlok from doing nefarious deeds. But wait, Deathlok is still Luther Manning and the Luther Manning clone never had the mind of Luther Manning. Luther Manning clone dies and Deathlok still has the brain of Luther Manning…

No…wait. Deathlok is John Kelly, and was created by the CIA.

Um, no, wait. Deathlok is Michael Collins, African American professor who becomes a cyborg in modern times and fights in Latin America for The Roxxon Corporation.

NO...he’s Jack Truman, an agent with SHIELD. Um, scrap that, because Jack Truman’s brain is removed from the cyborg and replaced by the brain of former SHIELD agent Larry Young.

Ugh. Way to go Marvel Comics. In the true style of “The House of Ideas,” a great original character concept, a refreshing 1970’s break from the typical superhero comic, is beaten, raped, and left to die.

Marvel did all kinds of stupid Team-Ups (the most irritating being one with The Thing from Fantastic Four) with Deathlok, and several ill-conceived time travel concepts that just beat the life out of what was a great alternative character in Marvel’s Silver Age. That not being bad enough, every several years they took what was a fairly unpopular but very cool and offbeat character and tried to reinvent him in what were very banal and not very clever ways.

But those first few issues of Deathlok were the bomb. Luther Manning was a soldier who got himself blown up, but the military forces that be reanimated his body and attached a computer and cybernetic limbs to it. The look of Deathlok was way ahead of it’s time. Spider-Man once described him as a “zombie cyborg” and that is indeed the look he had. Not only that, but the human portions of his powerful body were still decaying to some degree. Despite an anti-decay liquid that flowed in his veins instead of blood, Deathlok’s friends and foes alike often commented on the rotting smell that accompanied him. Cannibal surivers in the ruined cities could smell Deathlok a mile away, and came a ‘running to munch him up as if the dinner bell had rang.

A cool laser pistol and a magnetic knife (so it would stick to his leg without a sheath) made up his arsenal. Deathlok combated military dudes, suit and tie bodyguards, mutants, post-apocalyptic gang members and bandits, cannibals, robots, and other cyborgs in his grim and gritty original adventures. In the original run, Luther Manning’s brain was supposedly taken from the Cyborg shell and place in a Luther Manning clone. A character saved? Not quite. In usual Marvel style, they would later kill the clone (in a Captain America comic no less) and state that Manning’s true brain still resided in the cyborg. Great way to continue the character, no? Big NO. Some years later Marvel just went ahead and reinvented Deathlok again and again.

When I was a kid Deathlok showed me that there was more to comics than good looking superheroes. I still have those original issues, and every few years I bust them out and have a great read of a great 70’s comic character.

Marvel RPG in Haven - The Kiwi girl and her Speedster character shake things up!

 

We left off last session with Justice Incorporated about to throw down with Safeguard, the super team sponsored by evil Corp York Industries. 

In a nutshell, last game the group saw a truck crash in the Beverly District (high end retail), and fought a "York Industries Life Model Replicant Combat Model" (Killbot) on the street. When they beat it Safeguard appeared and told them to stand down and let them take custody of the broken unit. The party refused (mostly because it appeared to have ripped the head off of one of the lab-coated technicians who were transporting it) and said they would be handing it over to the Science Police. 

Well, at the start of this session it was on. When we were ending last week, Nova had created an energy barrier around themselves. I was worried it might be strong and hold off my baddies, but I looked it up during the week and it is actually fairly weak. If an attack hits (against his Ego Defense) and does more than 10 points of damage at the level he bought the power (can be later improved), the barrier goes down. 

 

Mastodon of Safeguard pulled a laser pistol out and blasted it. Extra fun was since he had grown to 25 feet tall, the gun was way bigger since all his items grew with him (but no extra damage). Mastodon is from an ancient race of Mastodon men who live in a high-tech city in the Antarctic. Igneous, being a Titan spawn and thousands of years old, had kind of heard of them. Anyway, besides Grow power, Mighty 3, Sturdy 2, and some hand-to-hand skill (he also gets an Edge on attacks because his trunk counts as a limb), he has some high-tech stuff on his utility belt and the pistol. FYI Mastodon is only working for York since he was sent out into the world to research modern man and cannot exactly walk among humanity easily. At normal size he is 7 feet tall.

With Nova's barrier down, the fight was on. Blackwolf, the Alaskan man who can turn into a big black grizzly bear sized wolf, went right for Paladin.

The armored leader Aegis was clearly communicating into ear receivers of his group, because Mastodon was heard by Paladin to reply to Aegis that "he was not part of the group to kill people," clearly indicating Aegis (who is secretly corporate head Boliver York jr)was telling them to finish anyone they defeated. And also, that not all of his group were down with murder, even during a fight. Blackwolf was up for killing though, and in a random rooftop encounter some sessions ago, he briefly attacked Paladin who was on patrol. At that time there was no kill order, and the big bad wolf took off from that encounter after a couple of attempts to bite the hero. 

But in this case, there would be no retreat. Did not matter, because with his fighting skills Paladin is hard to hit. And Paladin was able to lay a couple of high damage hits on the wolf by use of his chain attacks ability. Blackwolf already had a little damage on him from a Nova energy blast, so the shape changer went down like a big sack of coal. 

Igneous went at Mastodon. The pachyderm man had grown to 25 feet, but for some reason Iggy remained in normal size. For his size and bulk Mastodon was nimble on his feet. Nova fired an energy blast at him and missed, and Iggy used his flying rocks attack on Mastodon that also missed. 

Mastodon swung at Iggy. I count his trunk as an extra limb so he had an edge on the attack (Edge lets you reroll the lowest die). His high roll indicated a Fantastic Success, which meant not just double damage but the attacks special affect came into play. Since it was a blunt attack, that would be knocking him prone. But per the rules someone with Mighty can choose to do knockback instead of the affect. So, he did that and sent Iggy flying down the street and into a car. Still awake, but just a few bit of health left, Iggy described him having some cracks in his face and torso where you could see red flesh. 

I like that. In these modern games where wounds don't tend to be a thing, Iggy's player described battle damage on him. Cool. Good player (I poached Will from the first few games I played MMrpg early last year, my first experience with it, and as far as voices on the internet go, I consider him a friend). 

Meanwhile Nova was mixing it up with Wind Sorceress who came flying from between nearby building with her crescent wind blade attack. 

Paladin was going in for an attack on Mastodon, but Safeguard leader Aegis dropped down from a bridge above and took a swing on him. Aegis had a decent Edge on his attack, but Paladin always seems to have his own Edges due to his combat abilities, so was as usual ducking fists with ease.

OK, so by that second round of turns, Samantha's character Skyler, or "Blink," was speeding in from the nearby multiplex where she saw a late-night movie with her school chum "Moon."

Name that early 2000's singer
songwriter I used for the Moon image

OK, so Sky's background is she is the offspring of a Greek God and a human. The god probably being Mercury. Sam loaded her up with lots of "getting around" abilities and powers. She took "Speed Run" 1 and 2. Also "Speed Flying." to top it off she has the "Blink" power which is a short rang teleport. Phasing to go through walls, and two attacks. Both are phasing through people. One is just neurological affect that stuns the target for a round. She can also do a version that does actual damage. 

 

A few sessions ago only the Paladin and Seraph players were available one night, and it was the first time Sam could play on Friday night (like almost everybody she is also in my Sat night DnD). So we had a short session that besides the characters doing some personal life stuff, I had them introduced to Skyler by the British swinging 60's vampire and supernatural investigator "Count Carl." If you have been reading these Haven posts then you know he pops up now and again. 

I was actually wondering aloud a few sessions ago that I use a variety of images, some more real, some cartoony like the Count Carl image I have been using (I like it because it reminds me of the art in the cartoon band Gorillaz). Amber took the image and AI'd it and made this awesome real-life version of Carl.   

We just figured that since Carl was a supernatural investigator (and vampire hunter, per the mallet he carries), he had found Sky and was trying to get her recruited by Justice Inc, since his own group "The Redeemers" were sort of losers. 

It was around then that a flyer with 4 Science Police agents landed down the street.  

They fired a flashing, siren wailing device out unto the street to get the attention of the combatants. One loudspeaker they told them to stand down and the fighting stopped. Aegis informed them that the Robotic combat unit that Just Inc took down in the last session was York Industries software and hardware, and they need to take the propriety unit back to York labs. Paladin argued that it needed to go to Sci Pol custody while the nights events were investigated. Agent Salvatori, whom the party met at the end of Manx McAllisters disastrous birthday party some weeks back 

Old fave, meta human hating police captain Louie Bannon and regular cops showed up, with Louie ready to read hell to the supers. But Salvatori said that due to the technology involved in the events, the Sci Pol were in charge of the investigation and told him to focus on securing the street. Salvatori agreed with Paladin and decided to take custody of the Killbot. He told the two corporate supported groups that their company attorneys and reps will be contacted, but for now to clear the streets. Aegis and Safeguard took off in their combat vehicle, The Golden Mammoth.

Paladin, who in their last encounter with her told Skylar that their work is too dangerous for a 19-year-old girl, but after this encounter he was actually offering her a job! She had proven herself effective. 

So, regarding Samantha. She is a 28-year-old New Zealander. She has played in the DnD campaign but has been wanting to run this character for months in the Haven campaign. Sam is actually fun and comes off in games as enthusiastic. And she admitted last week that this character was based a lot on younger her. A pretty party girl. And on Halloween Sam posted a pic on the Discord of her in a Hannah Montana outfit. And yeah, she looks a lot like the images she has used for Skylar. She was a bundle of fun in this session, reveling in her characters ability to pretty much dash around the map and show up anywhere she wants on her move turn. On the street, on a rooftop, or just flying around. And attacks on her have Trouble due to her "Blur" ability (she is just that damn fast). She obviously had a blast, and I hope she can make it more. Our Friday night is her Saturday mid-day, so being a young Kiwi, she often seems to have things to do during the day. But fingers crossed that we see much more of this character in action scenes and otherwise. Her bubbly character will shake things up a bit. 

But there you go. The big knock down drag out (more or less) I have been working towards. 

Cheers

Obligatory Halloween Session - "Attack of the (Obligatory) Killbot"

 

OK, not really Halloween. So that title is kind of clickbait, I guess. But the Marvel RPG in Haven campaign is on Fridays (last night), so I would count it. Because its Hween the Saturday night DnD was cancelled, so any game on that weekend can be considered a Halloween game, right?

That little girl's parents let her wear
too much makeup, even for a witch

Just as an aside I know in my past I ran many a session on actual Halloween over the decades. The only one I really remember was at about 17 years old. We played during the day. My girlfriend (first serious one, who I was naive enough at the time I thought I would one day marry, but of course I was the lonely mayor of "Dumpsville" a few months later) had done herself up as her MU Drow character. Silky dress and scarves, and she actually painted her face and arms pitch black. That was fun when we all went to Westwood Village to see a Mad Max marathon that night. 

Anyway, I had said I would run the Friday night thing if we had three. Amber and Samantha the Kiwi could not make it, but three of the others showed up on my Discord voice, and we went for it. 

Once again, it was mostly an encounter I threw together pretty quick. With greater ramifications. You see, York Industries is this evil super corporation I have long used in the Haven setting. Haven is sort of a technocracy, so there are always corporate shenanigans. 

York has this superhero team it sponsors, in fact, Bolivar York jr. is secretly the armored "hero" and leader known as Aegis. And the team is called "Safeguard." I have been wanting to find a way to get them fighting with Justice Inc. But the couple of little encounters have not led to full on fighting. But that is something I want; an extended knock down drag out between the groups. Safeguard are all Rank 4 npc's compared to the Rank 3 player characters. Mathematically that should be a tough fighter for them. It's the kind of challenge I want to throw at the group. Whether they win or lose, that can be the catalyst that gets them to Rank 4. 

Clockwise: Wind Sorceress, Mastodon, Spider-Max,
Blackwolf and Aegis

When we ended the session, it looked like I was going to get that fight. Here is the set-up. Its the wee small hours of the morning in the Beverly District, where we left off last sessions Furry Nightclub encounter. Characters would notice a box truck lose control and crash into a couple of other cars. Not at very high speed so no fatalities, but as they swooped down to investigate, they see a six-foot five combat replicant prototype exit the back of the truck and threaten some of the stopped cars with an arm machine gun turret. This is a York Industries truck, driven by two lab coated scientists. 

So my thinking was this; the characters would eventually take it down. Safeguard would start showing up. They would ask the characters to stand down. The party would (probably) refuse because they will want the police, maybe the Science Police, to take custody of it. And a superhero group struggle would ensue. Some comic book meat and potatoes stuff. 

By the way, the fight with the Killbot was fairly cool, and did not go on too long. It was Rank 4, and against three Rank 3's it should go down before too long. And it did but also got to display its strength by getting a couple of blows in and also using the energy Beam projector in its mouth. 

But Iggy got big and stomped it for a lot of damage. Down it went. Then Aegis flew in and told them to please stand down while they collected the 'bot, since it is "propriety product of York Industries." Mastodon and Blackwolf also showed up in their "Street Tank." 

That blue circle you might see in the image is an energy barrier Nova put up around the characters and the Killbot. They are going to stand their ground. Aegis is up on a bridge 4 stories up, telling them on loudspeaker to stand down. Mastodon (who is grower like Iggy and goes to his 25 feet size) and Blackwolf in his giant wolf form move in Menacingly. The other Safeguard members are likely on the way. 

It looks like I am going to get that big fight next time, guys. The police are down the street closing off traffic. The Science Police may or may not show up (HQ is just a few blocks away). But I think I am going to get at least a couple or three rounds of action!

Stay tuned for next week as I rub my hands together in glee! Cheers. 

Marvel RPG in Haven - "All Creatures Great and Small"

 

I was never that into beastfolk in DnD or any other media. Though I have long had a soft spot for Gnolls in my games. I mean, hyena-men with the builds of basketball players (I think listed as 7 feet in the orginal MM) is kind of a cool concept. Other than that, in my current Haven campaign there are cat-human hybrids Manx McAllister and his twin grandaughters I have been using as NPC's. But also my latest fascination with the anime Chainsmoker Cat was covered in a recent post. 

All this had me thinking more on beastfolk in recent weeks, and as of a week or two ago I decided I wanted more of this going on. So as a base for it my mind drifted to the furry community. 

I swear to god this is not a usual part of my thought processes. My deep fandom goes to hard sci fi films, comic books, rpg's, and some minor things in my orbit like certain anime. But Furry fandom was not really all that adjacent to me. I would say the closest I got to it was collecting maybe a half dozen issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer back in the day. 

That was decades ago and I am not really sure if furries existed yet and if that fandom was as sexually charged as it seems to have gotten. Nuff said I guess. But I decided that in the future setting Haven the furry community is just one of many such scenes. Much like the "Urban Cowboy" bar scene I tapped into in early sessions months ago when the character got involved in a kerfuffle between two fan scenes in two adjacent nightclubs.

Remember Juniper "Cowgal" West?

So here were my thoughts prior to introducing this stuff. Furries are a scene much as they are now, and the scene has been accepting of the "Anthro's" that are a sort of sub-culture of them. Anthro's are basically furries who go to more extreme lengths than just big floppy costumes. They tend to be heavily tattooed, very often get a certain amount of plastic surgery and/or dental work to get a bit of animal aesthetic. Then the next step are "Moreau's," who have had physical enhancements, either chemical or cybernetic, and even in some extreme cases (such as the Hyena lad "Hardee" at the top of this post) some animal DNA therapy. I will admit I am in large part inspired by an episode of Batman Beyond I saw many years ago that featured "Splicers," surgical genetic hybrids. 

I also had dreamed up that Mutants are sort of in the equation. With a large mutant community in New America City (they take up a neighborhood area they call "Xavier") many refer to it as "Mutie Town." They got political advocates and lawyers who fight for their rights.  In the decades after WW3, with the world mutant population having boomed, the Science Police have currently (in multiple countries) taken to policing the mutant communities. And we all know what more policing of a group leads to. I have not written down every possible notion about the political and sociological ins and outs (all in my head pretty much), but what I am thinking is that Anthros, the "Moreau" ones at the least, are trying to piggyback on upcoming mutant related legislation, and the mutant community is not having it.

But the Anthro's have their resources. I came up with two attorneys who are actually themselves part of the furry community.  Not Anthros' just furry cosplayers. 

Above: Peter Pedigree and Sonny Gold. And yes, those are just masks and costume attachments. They don't go into court with those (usually). 

So here is something I had not thought about originally. But the Furry/Anthro situation could be compared to certain LGBTQ issues and situations. Was not my intention, and it's not something I will lean into. I mean, I think mutants in Marvel have long been compared to racial and gay community issues. Not leaning into that, but I will mention it in a later post if a player vocalizes on that. 

I should mention at this point that a couple of days before former president and former Science Police director (see previous post) Russel Logan got on a Zoom call to the characters, and updated them on the Manx McAllister clone situation. See this post for his origin. He has been in Science Police custody since the character took him in to them. Logan gave them the lowdown he had just found out. On day one the creature acted like a rabid cat. On day two he believed he was Manx McAllister and demanded to know why he was there and why he looked different. On day three after behavioral staff explained he was the product of a teleport accident gone awry at Manx's birthday party, he was reflective. By the next day he was asking to be referred to by his new name "Sheut Neko." Neko being Japanese for "cat," and Sheut is one of the 7 aspects of the mortal soul in Egyptian spirituality, "Sheut" representing the shadow self. See: William S. Burroughs "Seven Souls"

Anyway, Sheut Neko apparently had gained teleportation powers at birth and escaped the facility. Back to the sessions.

So I did up some maps to a Furry members only nightclub, in the more upscale parts of uptown. 

The frontage of the nightclub "Felix the Cats." The limo belongs to the Furry attorneys, and there are not other cars because only VIP parking in the front. 

The Furry bouncer
"Chubs" McGill

 The characters are out on a night patrol, and they witness mutants approaching the front of the club, and a woman with apparent water powers entraps the bouncer in a curtain of water, and they enter. 

"Cascadia"

"Quatrain" He has the four
arms, Mighty 1, and Sturdy 1

"Swift" She's fast

"Bounce" He can become a 400 lb
rubber ball with Mighty 1 and Sturdy 1

The mutant squad enter the club and head to the lawyers table. The Furry attorneys seem to be meeting with members of the Anthro community. Besides the lawyers there is also a leader in the community ( a cat guy of course), some beast girls for some reason (groupies or something, I had yet to determine where I wanted to go with that. I just like the images), a male and female hyena Moreau's (sort of security for the group), and also Sheut Neko the Manx McAllister clone, who had already found allies within the Furry community.

Sheut was incognito at first, so used a hoodied image until he revealed himself.

Hardees sister Har Har

Community leader Chris Catfield

The females were there mostly for color, and because I had already collected a ton of images. But this black beauty I have in mind to eventually hook up with Sheut Neko. Seems about right. 

"Liz" is not exactly a beauty in my mammal eyes, but I like the image. 

This ended up being a two-session arc. The characters followed the mutants into the club and basically stood by as Cascadia approached the meeting table and read them the riot act for their trying to horn in on mutant legislation being worked on (I have not thought it all through, but I imagine healthcare related. Also, I don't know yet if the more extreme surgeries, especially the genetic splicing stuff, is fully legal). Paladin and Seraph were the closest to the table, and while Cascadia was saying her piece "Bounce" in his 400 lb. rubber ball form just dribbled sort of threateningly near the PC's. 

As the session was coming to a close (two hours or so a session at times feels just right, sometimes it just flies by). As usual Seraph tried to be a voice of reason, and told them police were probably on the way and they should leave. I just decided they would do so. One of my faults is that I almost always expect characters in my games to get right in the grill of potential foes. If this was my DnD they would have. But they remained sort of distant other  than Seraph being the voice of reason. Even with some minor assault and battery on the bouncers, the characters were not going to stop them, though were watching them closely. It had been a long week and I was tired, so I just figured I would end it. 

By the next morning I had regrets. I had put a good bit of work on the maps, the bar concept, and all that. But role play and my descriptions, along with the characters never really going right to the fisticuffs, sort of took the night. I sort of worried about the session being a non-starter for a couple of days. But in life one of my processes is to worry something to death until I had an epiphany, and that happened here. I would not let the encounter end. The mutants had not made it to the exit yet. So I dreamed up a continuation of the moment. 

Not that I needed more NPC's (favorite player Amber often goofs on me for using lots of NPC's, in this campaign especially). But I thought of a way to delay the exit of the mutant intruders. I decided that literal furry heroes, protectors of the community were present at the club. So when we started the following week, I had them run over and block the exit to tell the mutants they had committed battery and needed to wait for the police. I had them be a hero duo. I called them "Foxclaw and Hopper."

Though a furry without any physical alterations, Foxclaw's use of animal themed cybernetic equipment qualified her as an Anthro. I figured she was a cybernetics engineer who had created her and Hoppers equipment. Besides her Furry association, she also thought of herself as a bit of a crime fighter in general. She had her gauntlets that besides being clawed had a Mighty 1 grip strength. Her boots gave her a minor leaping ability, and her suit was micro chain that provided her a Sturdy 1. And her goggles gave her Heightened senses 1. 

Hopper already had some cosmetic mods, but Foxclaw had given her cybernetic leggings that granted her a decent leaping ability, and Mighy 1 for her kicks. Bit of armor for Sturdy 1. 

So mutant Cascadia assumed the two Furry heroes were acting on the orders of the Furry lawyers, so she sent the partially armored and 4- armed Quatrain to go and put some pressure on them, while having Bounce and Swift get Foxclaw and Hopper out of the way. The young speedster girl Swift did not have much in the way of offense but was prepared to bash somebody with a booze bottle. Meanwhile bounce, in big ball form, was blocked by Paladin and Igneous. He made some ricocheting attacks on them, bouncing off one and into the other, and back and forth. But Iggy  just grabbed the rubber ball man up in his usual grapple and dragged him outside where police where just showing up. Cascadia did some water attacks on the Furry vigilante's, while over at the Furry attorney table Nova flew over to block Quatrain from attacking. The tall mutant grappled Nova, who much like Seraph likes to do, started trying to talk the foe into just giving up on all this (way too many pacificists in this group). 

The cops were now coming in. Cascadia called off her peeps, because the plan was to not do more than basic assault and battery. They are activists, so expect to be arrested at times without sending anybody to the hospital. So the action ended fairly abruptly, like it does a lot with this group. Police Captain Lou Bannon showed up with more cops, and detained everybody in the club to figure it all out. 

Captain Louie is an old NPC from back in the day, when he was a lieutenant. He was usual comic relief, being a no-nonsense guys who was constantly irritated by meta human and their shenanigans. Older now, he is even more grumpy. I based him back then on Danny Devito's character from the old show Taxi. 

The mutants did not resist arrest, so they would be taken to the normal police station for processing, and probably not spend more than the night (as I may have mentioned the mutants have their own lawyers). But a couple of Sci Pol agents were called in to go along to the station to keep an eye on them a bit. There is a lot going on with the mutant community, and it is being watched by the Science Police, but usually there has to be major damage of harm for them to be locked up at Sci Pol headquarters. This was not considered any kind of terrorism. Basic police stuff. 

With things having calmed down, Iggy talked the bartender/owner about some stuff. Like what all this might be about. She is a normal human Furry, but dressed up like an old Marvel hero and called herself "Tigra."

He got some info on that was going on with this Anthro/Mutant stuff. And also about what Sheut Neko is doing with the Anthros. Since he has the mind of Quantum scientist Manx McAllister, he is aware of the miracles Manx had done with Teleporters, not just his recent de-aging with them, but also the fact that as a child he was combined with his pet cat in an accident, there is the possibility that Anthros would not have to go through expensive and painful procedures if that process could be duplicated. So Manx clone Sheut has brought that possibility to the community. More on that will come up later I hope. 

So another not too challenging combat situation in this session. I've decided that if I am going to rank the characters up anytime soon to Rank 4, I am going to need to pump up the challenge. I hope to do that next session with an arc that will fulfill that need. Stay tuned. Cheers.