Justice Incorporated - "The Battle of the Bars" or "Pain Don't Hurt"

 

Back in the day I ran a session for a couple of my Champions players for their street level characters. In it, they spent a week being bouncers at a run down bar, the "kind of place where they sweep up teeth and glass eyes at night." It was called "Bronco Bills Bustin Beer hall," and if you ever saw a certain violent 80's actioner about philosophical bouncers, you can summon an image up in your manly mind...

"The Double Douche..."

Will also accept whatever that country bar in
the Blues Brothers was called.

In that session (it may have been two. I'm talking like 30 years ago) dealing with drunk bar bullies was how it started, then for the final fight some ninja's or some shit were brought in by the owners enemy to deal with the super bouncers. It was a fun rip off of one of my favorite 80's head cracking flicks. 

I did touch on the place in sessions back in the day, cleaned up and just called "Bronco Bill's" but not for fights. I recall it did pop up as a meeting place or something. I think maybe a detective character followed somebody there or something. 

Anyway, not long ago I finally saw the old John Travolta movie "Urban Cowboy." Pretty boring movie, but it did give me an idea. I was still in the low combat phase of this campaign, with the players role playing like crazy and doing character development and stuff. But I was purposefully going slow on that. I still wanted to indulge in some low-stakes chickenshit and surreal/silly sort of set ups before I started doing classic hero stuff. So I decided to sort of go 80's crazy and do a Roadhouse/Urban Cowboy mashup. 

The salad days of Vinnie Barbarino. Before Xenu
got his aliens claws on him

So I had Bronco Bills continue in success, to the point where the once run down shopping area it sat in was undergoing gentrification (and yes, I was purposefully interjecting commentary on that subject, with both good and bad coming in with it). 

The outside entrance had all this neon and a 30' tall digital screen above that constantly showed scenes from old cowboy movies, shows, and commercials...

Welcome to flavor country

Other high end business had appeared on courtyard. A multilevel Asian American restaurant, a couple of cleaned up parking structures, and another bar "Club Future."

"The Courtyard." Upper left corner is the Club Future front entrance. Bronco Bills on the upper right. Parking structures on the middle and lower left, and lower right is the big Asian restaurant. The middle of the map reprsents the center of the courtyard with a fountain, trees, benches, and a foodtruck that showed up on weekend nights.

I like this roach coach because it looks like its from 
a Mobius story in Heavy Metal magazine

Bronco Bills has been owned for a couple years or so by Shelly West, who is from a rich horse ranch family.

 Also she happens to be the aunt of Juniper "Cowgal" West from the first sessions auditions scenario. This will be important. My conceit here that Bronco Bills is very popular with the popular Urban Cowboy scene, where folk dress up in western gear and hang out drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and listening to Country Rock (it made a big comeback). 

The new bar on the corner, Club Future, caters to a sort of Future Traditionalist scene, young folk in to vintage 1980's new wave and cosplay. Geeks. It is owned by a young girl in her early 20's named Ginger Jones.

So here is the setup. Shelly West the Bronco Bill's owner is fairly unaware of it, but the Urban Cowboys had been picking on the Club Future patrons who come into the courtyard where the Urbans like to drink and smoke. Nobody put in the hospital yet or anything, but it is perhaps impacting Club Future. 

Ginger happens to be the goddaughter or Patricia Kyono. The daughter of her old college best friend. That was the "in" for the adventure. Kyono asks the group to go to Club Future for a weekend evening and act like security (which Ginger so far has woefully little of) and hamper down any violent or threatening antics from the UC's. 

When the PC's entered the scene, it was early in the day and ginger showed up to open the club. She always showed up before other staff. She showed them around. Pointed out a small back lounge to use as a green room, and as staff showed up they were introduced to the couple of servers, and also the couple of bartenders. One was sort of a celebrity DJ/Mixologist names "DJ Drinkypoo." He both spun the discs and made high end cocktails at the same time. And there was the one security guy, "Clive Alive." This guy secretly had Might 1 and regeneration, and both him and Drinkypoo and their salaries is one reason the financials for Club Future were on the margins. 

The cowboy club  also operated as a regular bar, so they opened early in the day. So by the time some Future Trads arrived to dance at Club Future, there were already some drunk UC's in the courtyard ready to bully any lingering Trads, but a couple of the characters showed up to shut it down. 

Then arriving on a loud Harley was June "Cowgal" west. The interloper who caused some chaos for clicks at the first session Auditions scenario. 

Juniper West honestly grew up on a horse ranch, and after her teens started streaming videos of her riding but also popular for modeling and makeup tips. Rich to begin with, her modeling and streaming got her a decent following. And in more recent times she fully adopted the Urban Cowboy scene and is very popular in that. 

As Bronco Bill's owners favorite niece, Cowgal is big in that scene, and when she shows up and finds out that some of these people from the Justice Inc auditions were around, she went out in the courtyard and caused a fuss. "you're threatening my people!"

In tow was "Glen." an Urban Cowboy wanna be tough guy (as Rank 2, he could actually give a normal person a hard time, but any of the characters would flatten him unless he got lucky shots in). Glen fancied himself as dating Cowgal, but he is basically just a simp. He gets in Paladins face "why you wearing a mask, coward?" Paladin decided not to thump the dude. Honestly, I keep giving the characters opportunity for violence, but they often just stay chill. 

He's also Glen in the movie Urban Cowboy. BTW
played by the guy who was FBI director on Xfiles.

But more significantly was the presence of Wyatt Winchester. Now in his 50's, he was one of the first members of the old Justice Incorporated as "The Marshall" two decades before. I decided that for a few years he was involved with bar owner Shelly West and had given her niece Cowgal training in fighting and other performative cowboy skills in recent years. Even though he was also a bouncer manager at his girlfriend's Western club, he was only mildly aware of the bullying going on in the courtyards, so he backed up Cowgal and was even ready to throw some hands. 

this is probably not the last time I
will dip into the old characters of 
people I never see again

Cowgal and company huffed away, but she immediately got on the horn. That Ginger lady is bringing in these metahuman types to threaten her people? Fuck that. She made a call to Yuri "Heisenbrain" Heisen whom she met with some of the rejects in the parking lot after the auditions sessions. Heisenbrain had already gotten them together during the week to form a group called The Redeemers, and coming toot sweet to help Juniper West's aunt and the Urban Cowboys on this evening. 

So Heisen middle left, above him is Schnoz, to his right is Count Carl. Below him is 
Savio Totalpackage, down again is Sally Strong, and her left is Ragdoll. 

Later that night, it happened fast. Heisenbrain, a workshop scientist inventor who has different portable tech in each appearance. Here he brought shield projector belt for some protection, a collapsable concussive force rifle, a device that deadens electricity and disrupts wireless enough not to turn down the lights of music, but to scramble cameras and handheld devices. The main item he wanted to try in the field was his Enhancement ray pistol, where he can give somebody with normal strength and stamina a good enough boost to add 30 to their health and give Mighty 1 and Sturdy 1 to them. His plan with that was to enhance the normals Ragdoll and Savio when the time was right. 

Both Ragdoll and Count Carl had gotten into Club Future without any trouble. Ragdoll was on the dance floor and Count Carl was at the main bar, floating a couple feet off the ground, enjoying a cocktail.  

While Ragdoll was just sort of a Harley Quinn clone, Count Carl was a little more interesting. When I was creating NPC's to practice the system a year ago, I was calling him "Carl Cleric" for some reason. By now he was count. Originally from the 1960's, he was a vampire who hunted other vampires and monsters and such. Armed mostly with a mallet and stakes, he had Mighty 1 and could fly and phase through walls as well as other things. I originally was going to have him be German, but for some reason I started talking as him with a cockney accent. That maybe goes with his swinging 60's look I guess. 

This was around the time we knocked off for the night, and continue this the following week. Amber did not make the first part of the session, so when we started again I had her flying in the neighborhood sort of spying for incoming trouble. She did see someone over the club area. Her old nemesis from the very first session, the young inventor Blimpkrieg. 

Though he was updated a bit during the week by Heisenbrain, he was not really a match for Seraph as she flew into and through him and got a high damage number, knocking him out. He floated unconscious as she swooped down to the clubs. 

Unseen during the entire encounter was Schnozz, the street tough with a giant nose and Mighty 1, he was watching the back door. 

Heisenbrain used his enhancement ray to boost up both Ragdoll and Savio a bit. It did not matter much... even with her agility and martial arts skill Paladin smacked Ragdoll away, realizing even with Mighty 1 now, she was still no match for him. He was basically all about melee skills. He hits hard and is hard to hit. Regenerator as well, though that would not really enter into things until a bloodbath a couple sessions later. 

In the very first session of the campaign, I was calling her "Raggedy Ann.
But realized I didn't need another reference that aged me. So Now its Ragdoll.

Count Carl was not really into the fight, but he went ahead and took out his mallet and attacked Paladin. The man in black punched him hard and knocked him for a loop. 

Meanwhile, Igneous was taking on the muscle woman Sally Strong in the lobby. 

Both Sally and Iggy have Mighty 2 and some Sturdy 1 and 2 respectively. Also, Savio got hit with the enhancement ray ("hit me with the juice, old man!") but when he say Iggy was manhandling Sally, putting a crushing bear hug on her, Savio, who is smarter than he acts, went to the club bouncer Clive Alive, who was coming out of being knocked out by some kind of device from Heisenbrain, and asked if he could bum a cigarette. Savio stood out the rest of the encounter having a smoke.

Seraph showed up in the courtyard and saw both Cowboy bar owner Shelly and her boyfriend Wyatt Winchester, and asked them why they were victimizing Club Future. Shelly and Wyatt had no idea about the Redeemers coming in to cause trouble. They grabbed Cowgal and marched her into Club Future to put an end to the fight, and she did, yelling at Heisenbrain to call it off. 

The aggressors were told to leave (Cowgal promising they would get paid), and Cowgal made to apologize to owner Ginger. Going so far as to have Paladin escort Ginger into Bronco Bill's so Shelly could introduce her to the crowd, and to tell them they should be grateful for other businesses coming in to the area and to stop bothering patrons in the courtyard. 

Just as an aside, but I had an image I used for portrait a of Juniper West that her auntie had put up in the bar. It showed Juniper as a teen, in pre Cowgal days, actually working her families horse ranch. I wanted to humanize her a bit, because you can bet I will keep having her show up to stir the shit.

Before Cowgal, there was just Juniper West

The Redeemers were not much of a threat for the characters, Sally Strong maybe being the most effective of them besides Heisenbrain. And Yuri Heisen is not a villain really. He just liked chances to field test his inventions. But really, this group of kind of losers was just a taste of group combat for the characters. Bigger challenges were upcoming. 

But this was a couple of nice sessions to get the taste of the "neurodivergent situation" of the previous session out of my mouth.  Doing something a bit outside the typical comic book stuff such as the Bar Fight scenario was sort of fascinating the players. I mean, you come into a superhero game you expect to be right out in the streets slugging it out with real villains. That would be coming soon, but no rush. I like the chill speed things are going. But for sure these guys would need bigger challenges. It's going to come. 

Next time, the characters get places to live outside the office, and head towards their first big public fight. Stay tooned. 

Cheers

Superman, Fantastic Four, Etc. movie thoughts.

 

Having grown up a comic book wonk I always have thoughts on what is going on with comic book movies, especially these upcoming ones. When I was a lot younger comic book movies seemed designed to break a fans heart. The 1970's Superman was a stand out, and of course the Tim Burtons first Batman gave us a serious take. Though not perfect. Batman not being able to move his head but still win in a fight was the least of its issues. To me Batman Returns was a quick downturn. It was OK to me at the time, But I for sure did not like a Penguin that staggers around the sewer in long underwear that has a 3 foot shit stain up the back. There was nothing about the character that would suggest a strength or charisma that would get well dressed poodle trainers and circus clowns to be happy living in a sewer. OK, it's a comic book. But looking back on it now in modern day it seems like some kind of gritty emo transgender Cirque Du Soliel. 

Batman Forever had its good points. But I could feel things heading in a spiral. I liked Kilmers Bats, and Jim Carrey was the usual tour de farce playing the Riddler, one that seemed very much like my favorite Riddler Frank Gorshin. But the neon Tokyo themed Gotham kind of confused me. Was this set in Hong Kong or the future? A Robin who was pushing 30 years old? Ugh. A Two Face whose aging actor seemed to be trying to emulate The Joker, and probably a dose of desperately trying to compete with the zany Carrey. But what the hell it was fun and cool to look at. 

Later Batman and Robin brought back the full heartbreak. If only they had based things, Mr. Freeze, Bane, and Poison Ivy on the 90's animated series, along with a bit more serious tone, and it could really have been great. But geez, the suck.

Snipes Blade and Raimi's Spider Man got us back on track with good stuff. Though their part 3's were dog shit. 

Then with the Robert Downey Iron Man we got a new age. A character not well known to normies, we comic fans loved the character and loved the movie. So the Marvel Cinematic Universe went into full swing. It was great, but after about a decade it had its issues IMO. Iron Man 3, with its fake out Mandarin, was mostly forgettable. And the final stages of Avengers was problematic. The "snap" of Thanos, taking out half of humanity, just made things very awkward. A world where half the planet was wiped out but came back after 5 years? In following films this should have been front and center. What happens when half the world comes back and their lives are mostly gone? Who lives in their houses? Just the squatter issues would be front page news for a decade. But it hardly gets brought up. 

Then the Woke Disneyfication. Man oh man. Trying to make a plank of wood actress, Brie Larsen, the new face of the franchises was complete dog shit. It began the age of the Marvel girl boss. Whereas classic characters who had to go through hell on their journey, the new ones barely had to strive. A great real life analogy is how for the godawful Thor Love and Thunder, Chris Hemsworth had to be in the gym everyday for 6 hours to prepare, while new female Thor Natalie Portman god muscles through special effects. The new Miss Marvel, the Indian stretchy girl, literally got her powers in the mail. 

The TV shows were mostly awful, especially compared to the Netflix series from a few years back like Daredevil. She Hulk, a character I collected back in the day, and shows like Echo, were just identity politics bullshit. Just like Disney Star Wars, the Marvel shit started bombing. And man, all the hyuka hyuka constant snarky joking around, as if left behind as a curse by Downey's Tony Snark. They lost their legacy fans in pursuit of a Rainbow Coalition audience that didn't really exist for it outside of online forums.

When the shit failed, they cried "racism" and "misogynist" and blamed white males, even though they themselves did not go out and plunk down the cash to see the stuff. 

I'm not going to count the new Captain America movie as part of the upcoming items this year. It's out now and not doing so good. This movie is a couple years late, and its budget doubled from endless reshoots. It may do better than its original versions, where I understand it was going to be yet another Donald Trump analogy that so much product, such as Amazons The Boys, where indulging in. But after seeing that half the country at least supports the new prez, they switched that analogy out a bit I understand. Was Red Hulk going to originally be Orange Hulk? 

OK, this Cap is probably going to be a popcorn fart, but what about the upcoming stuff? This is for both Marvel and DC; both of them having fallen from grace to a large degree. I actually like Batman v. Superman, and loved the Snyder cut, but by the awful Wonder Woman 1984 things went off a cliff for DC. So what about...Superman...?

Superman Legacy - I love Guardians of the Galaxy, and Peacemaker and the second Suicide Squad were pretty good. But James Gunn for Superman? I dunno. I like what I see in the trailers. Krypto the Supergod is a big gamble, a dog with a cape and all. But I love it. It seems like it is going to be a big nod to Golden Age supes. And it being an ensemble, with Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho, etc may also be a gamble. But with the other heroes being kind of corporate and working for Maxwell Lord, such as in the old Justice League international comics, I think this is going to have some kind of juxtaposition between the selfless Superman and other heroes who are in it for the money. I am very hopeful for this.

Fantastic Four - also hopeful. I dunno about the casting. I am getting sick of Pedro Pascal, and don't know that he is a good Reed Richards. Especially with the mustache. The fucking stache better not stretch. Johnny Storm looks nothing special, and Ben Grimm...I dunno. but its the ages that bother me. The Actress playing Susan Storm is pushing 40, and Pedro is like 50. Reed should be at leat 10 years older than trophy wife Sue, but she should be no older than 25. The actress is lovely and all, and looks a lot younger, so maybe it will be ok. What I do like is the retro 60's setting. It for sure reflects early FF, where it's the 60's but interstellar travel, time machines, flying cars etc exist. My guess is this is happening because the FF have not appeared in previous films, and maybe Galactus will destroy that setting and they will come to the modern MCU. That might be awkward though.. Also, I guess this is where Doctor Doom will appear. 

Doomsday and beyond - so Robert Downey jr. is Doc Doom. Speculation has it that this will be an evil version of Tony Stark, perhaps adopted by the Von Dooms. Whatevs. I just hope he is not a snarky jokey Doom. Chris Evans is set to return as well, maybe as an evil Cap America. 

Everything will be leading up I think to an entirely new Marvel Universe after Secret Wars. A reset with new actors for all the top gun characters. But it is all kind of down the road though. I'm not super excited for Superhero shit anymore. Much like I hardly ever pick up a comic these days. Great, good, or bad, I won't be waiting with bated breath anymore. Like a lot of people, I go back to older stuff rather than buy new product and consume more new product. Old shows, old movies. 

Much like my mild wrestling fandom, I like the real life behind the scenes stuff more than the filmed product. Personality clashes, and big stars acting like divas. I guess you could say I do have a mild interest, but I really don't think I will every actually be eager to see whatever the finished product is. What they are doing with it, and its potential failures and losses, are kind of more interesting to me to eventually see. YMMV.

Cheers

James Gunn Superman - A hopeful Superman and now so am I

 

I love Superman unapologetically. Sure, Batman is cooler. And Spider-Man, who I collected from childhood into my early 20's, though amazingly popular (classically due to many decades of cartoons, and more modernly from a shit bunch of movies) is still second class worldwide compared to the big blue boyscout. It will always be thus.

But he gets done so dirty cinematically since the original film back in the day. Most recently by Zack Snyder. Don't get me wrong, I (mostly) love Snyder. I am one of those fanboys who loves Batman V. Superman. I was all in on "Martha" and I got what that was about. And what WB and Joke Boy Joss Whedon did to his vision when a family tragedy struck was grotesque. But the Snyder Cut (I was a release the Snyder cut enthusiast) was an amazing real life story and epic 4 hour film and we got to see his true vision and more. I loved the gritty DC films. 

But the Superman in those was not the endlessly cheery and hopeful Superman I grew up with. But he had some great moments in all these films. 

I love James Gunns work the last few years. The Guardians of The Galaxy had action and great humor Joss Whedon could only dream of. His Suicide Squad was awesome, and the Peacemaker show, though having its problems, was a great diversion. But I had my doubts about him helming Superman. I just did not think his style and humor would lend itself well. 

But I watched the new trailer and boy howdy, was I wrong. Gunn has shown he can summon up sentimentality, and I was feeling it in spades here. I almost teared up in a way I rarely do for film anymore. Like the opening moments of LOTR and Watchmen. 

So here is the trailer.

And its not just the sentimentality. They have Krypto. Mother fucking Krypto! With the cape and all. Gunn is clearly not afraid of comics' accurate corn like almost everybody else has been. I mean, he is tossing in batshit crazy comics accurate stuff like the side characters. Like Mr. Terrific..

And one of my faves from the old Justice League cartoon, HawkGirl..

Last summer was Hawk Tuah summer. Next 
summer is Hawk girl summer..

Comics accurate Guy fucking Gardner...

And...Metamorpho from Batmans Outsiders! Goddamn!

I am totally giddy for this. I was so worried about it. Even the Lex Luthor (who I thought was Tom Cruise at first) is great. I am so looking forward to this. Growing up a comic book nut, its so great when you get another bite of the tasty apple. Like this Superman, I am hopeful. 

Cheers

Richard Corben's "Den" film?

OK, though I am usually "in the know" about various fantasy and sci fi upcoming films, I have no knowledge of any plans for a "Den" film, or if there has been any plans in the past. There for sure must have been talk of it over the decades. 

I collected Heavy Metal throughout my teens, and Den was my favorite. The epic tale of a young geek who got swept from his suburban back yard, transferred into a muscular body, and taken to a grim/dark fantasy world much as his uncle had once been, is a D&D fans delight, or even just a fan of strange fantasy. I loved seeing Den in animated form in the Heavy Metal film of the 80's. 

Having heard of Corben's death from a Grognardia post, I thought about how a Den movie could be pretty cool. Yeah, they could fuck it up. And the main way they could do that is by casting the most logical and best choice as Den..

OK, I'm not a Vin Diesel hater. I liked him in Pitch Black. Though I haven't watched the films he is best know for (outside of hearing his voice in Guardians of The Galaxy), I respect his geek cred. He is an unashamed D&D gamer, and also has a great love of video games. But the casting of Vin would make the movie more about him than the heroic Den himself. 

But dang. Despite maybe being a good couple decades or so older than the young Den seems to be, he just fits the part physically, and probably in personality as well. 

I'm sure Vin will have a long and healthy life. So by the time they do a Den film he'll be too old, but will at least see it (surely Vin has seen his resemblance the character. He's a geek). And hey: Den actually encountered his buff uncle at some point in the stories, so he ain't out of the running of a film I hope I'm  around to see when its made. 

Dare to dream!

Player characters – Divide and sometimes Conquer

I’m not talking about making PC’s squabble, which in itself can be fun and rewarding for a DM. I’m talking about giving characters their own little encounters outside of the usual group encounters. I did this in the last KOTOR game. Andy’s Mandalorian bodyguards for the major NPC Solomon, who visits the Coruscant University from time to time as an alumni. So I had him attacked in a student lounge area near the massive library, by the Sith brother Phade (see last post) whom Mandalorian had ticked off in a previous encounter. Also in the same game, I had NPC Solomon have the female Jedi, Lucia, watch his back as they entered a gang bar on a rescue mission of a young lady; it ended up in a nice big fight.


This is an example of something I have long since done in all my games periodically, including D&D. Give characters a life and encounters of their own from time to time. This is especially useful when you only have a couple or three players for the night, like I did. And they are a snap to design for. If you have decent characters to work with, they will have backgrounds and previous encounters that can give you good ideas for solo fights and you can pretty much just wing it. Old enemies return for an ambush, new enemies attack when character friends are doing their own thing elsewhere, or just rescue and escort missions depending on the character. This really helps flesh them out for me, rather than just constant group experiences.


Once again I firmly blame my comic book collecting background growing up. The example is right there in members of groups like the Justice League or The Avengers; big group-related donnybrooks, but the individual heroes also have their own comics with their own headaches.

You don’t want to make other players wait too long (sometimes I miscalculate, which is the main drawback of this kind of thing – but if it happens you can promise the offended player their own beefed up solo encounter in the near future to make up for it), but if you put some thought into it the players can really dig getting their own licks in without other characters getting in the way. It really helps bring them to life.

Talisman – visiting an old friend

Last week we were short a couple of players, and even though I was willing to have a go of KOTOR with who we had, Terry had been talking up the old Talisman game a lot in the last couple of weeks for some reason, so we went ahead and played it with four of us over at Andy’s. It was me, Paul, Andy, and Terry.

I’ve known Terry for over 20 years. When I first started going to and working at California Renaissance Faires around 1989, my buddy who went with me to get a job there for the first time eventually hooked up with Terry, who worked at a costume booth and we stayed friends after the rather brutal break-up. Terry lived in a nice condo with another Faire person, Lisa, right above the Hollywood Bowl, and I used to hang out there a lot. You could go behind the condo building, hike for a couple of minutes across a field, and find yourself in a spot where you could see part of the stage, and hear whatever was going on there perfectly. That was kind of cool.

Lisa had this huge comic book collection, and the living room hallway had long shelves where she kept them. Paradise to me. I was there so much, you’d have thought I was going out with Lisa, but despite her drunken, clumsy advances one late night I had no interest in romance with the lady. What I was interested in was reading the comics, and playing the two boardgames she had copies of; Blood Bowl, and Talisman.

We all got pretty addicted to Talisman. It was the 2nd edition, and she had both the Dungeon and City expansions, so these tended to be loooooong sessions.

I got my own beat-up copy during the 90’s for a song, but really only had the chance to pull it out and play every 4-5 years. The last time was around 2003, I think. So anyway, Terry brought a copy she had picked up at some point, and it turned out to be a later version with plastic mini’s instead of the cardboard stand-ups. I thought it was all good, because Terry not having any of the expansions for that meant we had a chance of finishing it that night, which we did.

Everybody had cool rangers and barbarians and the like, but I got stuck with the one very lame characters; the Goblin Fanatic. It actually had OK abilities, but the figure was so lame. It used a wrecking ball for some reason (by this version of the game it had been remade a bit to look and fit more with the Warhammer Universe), and the mini had a hard time staying upright. Constantly falling over. Getting stuck with this mort made me feel like I got last choice at a convention D&D game preroll character or something. Ugh. Even in Talisman I like to connect with a character to some degree, but eventually I was just looking forward to the game being over. And Terry eventually won with the Ranger.

I for sure would like to use my older version, with expansions, next time, but that can often lead to a several hour game so who knows. I had some fun, but really, I kind of wish we had used the evening to do some RPG action whatever it was. I think as with a lot of things, my desire to play some Talisman that night had more to do with nostalgia for past games than for a great desire to use it as an alternative when the full group is scarce. I think Andy and Paul liked it a lot though, so I may just be playing again before too long. But if I get the Goblin Fanatic again, I’ll make sure I die quick this time.

Talkin' Smack to Hitler

In honor of the repellant Hugo Weaving playing the repellant Red Skull in the Captain America movie, here’s a couple of favorite scenes of mine from Super Villain Team-Up #16.

Few Marvel villains were eviler than Red Skull. He was a bad guy who was chosen to be a bad guy, and he embraced it, and the hollow promises of the Third (and Fourth, and Fifth, etc…) Reich. A bellboy whom Shicklegruber pulled from obscurity to prove to his toadies that he could create an Aryan superman practically from thin air, he exceeded all of that rat fink Adolph’s expectations.

Marvel may never have presented a splash page as truly heinous. Two hoity toity pricks enjoying a feast while prisoners starve below.

And The Skulls thinly veiled insults at the Hate Monger have a special resonance when you realize HM is Hitler himself. Few could speak to Der Farting Fuehrer in such a manner, but The Red Skull feared no man. He will very much come to life with Hugo in the wheelhouse.

Hugo Weaving and The Red Skull

Captain America wasn’t one of my favorite Marvel characters, but for a time in the 80’s and early 90’s I was a regular reader. You could not deny his importance. Captain America was the one dude in the superhero community that all the other Marvel Characters trusted to open up to. From Spider-Man bemoaning his Aunt May’s latest heart attack, to The Black Widow complaining about that not-so-fresh feeling, Captain A was your go-to guy. His inspiring words got them back up n’ at ‘em.

In continuity, Cap was really the first superhero in the Marvel Universe (if you don’t count various wild west heroes). He fought through World War 2, and up till modern times has been the pinnacle of human perfection. His sparring partner, German bellhop turned Hitlerian super soldier named The Red Skull, came to modern times with him to continue the eternal dance.

In the media Cap never got a fair shake. He had a horrible TV pilot (he was a surfer dude, if I recall) back in the day, and in 1990 he finally got the big screen treatment. Despite a great back-up cast, including Ronny “Total Recall” Cox, Ned “Squeal like a pig!” Beatty, and Darrin “Kolchak” Mcgavin, it was a real stinker. Matt Salinger as Cap was uninspired casting. Plus they made the Red Skull an Italian. Huh? Wha? Was that even necessary? Was one of the producers German or something? Chalk that up to one of the most head scratching changes in comic to film history (making the 5’2” Wolverine a skinny 6’1” guy is a close second).

Now we are getting a new Cap film, one based in the new Marvel cinematic universe. The movie trailer footage looks great, with Cap in his WW2 natural environment. Cap is in the Nazi killing business, and brother, business is a’ boomin’! Iron Man set a high bar for this new generation of movie heroes, and both Thor and the upcoming Avengers film are going to at least be feasts for fanboy eyes (but hopefully better stories and continuity than the last Wolverine and X-Men films).

Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is a no-brainer, and from the pic above you can see they are going the right direction for him. Since childhood I dreamed of comic book movies that didn’t suck and at least half-assed tried to get it right. For a fanboy of any age, this is looking like a good time to be alive if you love these iconic ink and paint characters.

Comic Dork Monday: “You…you’re a duck?!”

Howard the Duck is very dear to my heart. He was my first real non-superhero comics character that lived among superheroes. At around 12 years old or thereabouts, I had been collecting comics for a few years. It was the late 70’s, and my parents decided to take me on a San Diego vacation where they would let me hang out at the Comic Con (yes, the very same Comic Con famous today as a place for Hollywood to whore its sketchy wares). Actually, two years in a row, but I think it was that first one I really loved.

My parents went and soaked up the summer sun for two days while letting the con babysit me until around 9PM or so each night, before picking me up to head to our much cheaper hotel down the street. There were two great highlights of my young self’s odyssey. First (and probably the best) was sitting by the pool with Mel Blanc in the afternoon. Mel had spoken earlier in the day at a panel, so I knew he was the guy who did the voices in my favorite cartoons. For some reason, others did not really approach him, but I went right to his table. I sat for well over a half hour with him (although as memory fades, it could have been an hour, or it could have been ten minutes), and he did voices for me and even sang a song as Speedy Gonzales (it was about a fat Mexican lady “…wanna eat, wanna eat, wanna eat, Juanita”). I did not realize the magnitude of that encounter until years later.

Another encounter I probably took for granted at first (until I saw him on TV on a show called “Wonderama” some time later hawking comics) was with Stan Lee. I listened to a group of a dozen dudes or so in the lobby who surrounded Stan as he kicked back in one of the lounges answering questions (he was really friendly to the fans as I recall). One of the guys there asked “Whatever happened to Howard the Duck?” Stan had no answer and somebody else chimed in “he fell on some rocks and died.”

Well, Howard did not die. He actually fell off of some cosmic steps in the Man Things comics, and fell to our earth to start his own series. This is where I discovered the joys of Howard.

In his first issue, a Conan send-up where Spider-Man also appeared, Howard fought “Pro Rata” the wizard accountant. Here he met Beverly Switzer, his lovely companion (and eventually sometimes girlfriend) who would be his sidekick for most of his run. Most of their adventures would take place in and around Cleveland for the majority of Howard’s 70’s popularity.

Howard was created by Steve Gerber, writer of a number of Man-Thing comics. Man-Things Florida swamp had a major cosmic nexus point in it (in addition to other fantasy goodies such as The Fountain of Youth and a wizard’s tower), and Howard was one of a small number of extra-dimensional secondary characters who encountered Man-Thing and adventured with the mindless hump of muck before getting his own comic. Gerber wrote the majority of the Howard’s first run, and often was at disagreement with others staffers about what exactly Howard was supposed to be. Gerber thought of him not as a cartoon character, but an actual talking duck from an alternate earth. Early Howard artist Frank Brunner actually left the series because he wanted Howard to be a cartoon that, like a Looney Tunes character, could be smashed and crushed and pop back unharmed. “Un uh” said Gerber, this was a living and breathing alien creature who bleeds and feels pain when hurt; by no means immortal.

In the late 70’s Howard ran for president in the comic, and I for sure remember Marvel’s heavy promotion of this, with buttons and everything. Even 7-11 got into the act with commemorative Howard cups. Yeah, he was getting fairly well known for a non-superhero character. Howard even had a newspaper strip for a couple of years. I was an eager Howard collector at the time, owning the first 20 or 30 issues (I Ebayed these a few years ago).

Towards the end of his first color comics run, Howard was plagued with a load of problems of almost biblical proportions. Gerber, who complained nonstop about other people’s approach to his creation, was removed from the series by the Marvel mucketymucks. This was about the time I had moved on from Howard, and had stopped collecting. But Howard continued for a bit longer in black and white magazine format. I do remember buying one of these, and it featured a suicidal Howard bemoaning his loneliness (girlfriend Beverly had apparently left and taken up hooking down at the docks) in a bizarre parody of It’s a Wonderful Life.

In 1978 Gerber sued Marvel over Howard, in the first such case dealing with comic creator rights. He was championed by many comic book luminaries, including Jack “King” Kirby, who along with Gerber created the hilarious Destroyer Duck to help with legal fees. Disney threw their hat into the Howard ring, stirring up shit over Howard’s similarities to Donald Duck, forcing Howard to eventually put on pants to look different from Disney’s asshole-ish foul. This itself was actually parodied in the comics, where decency groups cried out to pants poor Howard (despite his apparent lack of any kind of genitalia).

Howard popped up in the Marvelverse™ here and there, and even had another wack at this own series before the heinous abortion of a film that was thrown together by George Lucas (apparently in the workings since the making of American Graffiti). For this awesomely awful outing, Howards philosophical and existential nature was entirely removed for the sake of making him a nice, likeable guy (spew). As clueless producer Gloria Katz said "It's a film about a duck from outer space... It's not supposed to be an existential experience... We're supposed to have fun with this concept, but for some reason reviewers weren't able to get over that problem." Hollywood threw away its chance to feature a smart, adult wisecracking character in the Groucho Marx mold. Instead of the cool Howard from the comics, we got a tired, out of date Marty McFly type good guy. It did not work, and for me at least, the film was the nail in the coffin as far as Howard goes.

Howard has been fully off my radar since that movie, but like any comic character of worth he has been continued to be milked in one way or another over the years. I heard that at one point Gerber used Howard, the “real Howard,” in Image comic series such as Savage Dragon. Gerber owns this character, who in the Imageverse™ is undercover and goes by the name “Leonard” and dyed his feathers green. He even has gal pal Beverly there under a new moniker as well. Huh. Maybe she just should have kept hooking down at those docks.

Whatever goes down with Howard, nothing will ever come close to the sheer cool that this character exuded in those early days of his existential existence. Howard, you will probably never get another movie, and I think that is a good thing. Sail on, Ducky.

Comic Book Dork Monday: Deathlok the Demolisher

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.