Klatteja

The year is 2015. A cultural phenomenon has blazed across America, sweeping nearly the whole nation into a frenzied demand for more, more, MORE superhero-related entertainment! New film companies have sprung up overnight by the dozens, quickly building into industry giants, and still the demand far outstrips the supply! Studio heads hire writers by the hundreds, and the call for superhuman characters to build film franchises around rings out without ceasing.

Okay, yeah, the threshold for believability has stretched and broken, but just go with it.

With filmmakers under the gun, they're desperate for stories, any stories; so much so that they're willing to give the creator of a property (that's you!) final say in all matters: script, final edit, and even casting.

Now that I've stated the premise, here's the question for you:

Which movie star, male or female as appropriate, selected from the past or the present (death is no barrier, thanks to CGI advances), would you select to play the role of your main hero or villain? You can also choose an actor/actress of today, but specify that they'll appear as they did in any given point in their lives (example: Clint Eastwood from his Dirty Harry days, or Elizabeth Taylor as she appeared in Cleopatra).

And your choice isn't limited to the character you consider your main. If you have other characters that you feel would be perfectly represented by an actor/actress as stated above, tell us that too!

I'll post my own choices later, after I've had some time to think about this myself. I thought I'd get the ball rolling now, though, as I believe this will prove to be mighty interesting!

One note that rang jarringly false for me was when Orwell, in her mask, came face-to-face with (who we're led to believe is) her father. Here's this woman who has constructed this secret persona with the purpose of opposing everything Fleming is, going to a bit of trouble to do so, and yet almost telegraphs who she is right to Fleming's face. I think Fleming even made the comment that she'd been reading the wrong blogs, or somesuch, recognizing perhaps that she was quoting the Orwell Party Line. Then she retreats (possibly because she was >< that close to revealing herself), but only as far as to stand behind the guy she'd just been standing in front of.

Now, this scene can be interpreted more than one way, I'll allow, and I probably took the "She Couldn't Be That Stupid...Could She?" route. Fleming's statement was likely to show he was just blowing her off. Orwell, for her part, may not have been face-to-face with her supposed father for a span of time likely measured in years. Thus, she kinda lost her cool, and control of her tongue, momentarily. And in a crowded train car, there ain't a whole lot of places to go.

I'm okay with the way the show is going, and will keep watching, but it's rather lightweight to me. Still, I try to judge every new show by the ST: NG yardstick--that show was far less than stellar many times during its first season. Thus, I cutteth the slacketh. I do agree that the camp makes it a bit unique.

From that SNL short cartoon (TV Fun House?):

"Do you know who my father is?"

Yes, Dora. Yes, we do. Now, we all do.

This means Ash is a deadbeat dad?

All servers went down a short while ago for an emergency two-hour "maintenance" period. Speculation is they're trying to fix the Winter Event bug(s).

"When Wolverine Met Mariko"

"The Usual Wolverines"

"Wolverine, Interrupted"

"My Fair Wolverine"

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Wolverine"

"Wolverines On A Plane"

"Gone With The Wolverine"

Man, this is fun! I could do this all day...

Haven't read through the whole thread, so this may have been asked and answered already. My understanding is that BABs was Lead Animator. With him gone, who's now in that position? Or was the position eliminated (wouldn't think so)?

I don't honestly know how cancer gets started, but I was thinking here contagious as in catching it like a cold. Maybe not quite that easy, but along that avenue.

It's been, what, three generations now since The Age of the Superhero began to dominate comics? Can you honestly see superhero comics continuing to maintain the status quo for another 70 years? Longer? I'm not proposing that superheroes themselves must go. And I certainly recognize that continuity as a concept, as elastic as it is sometimes in different writers' hands, is here to stay.

What I'm suggesting is an intellectual exercise for us, in the name of fun. The premise? All established superheroes must go, giving way to another generation once and for all. For instance, we can retain a Superman (or Superwoman), but Clark Kent should fade into the background. Bruce passes on the mantle for good. Peter hangs up his webs. The Fantastic Four (some or all of them) don't make it back from their latest cosmic adventure. The idea is to just turn all the old established names out to pasture. Sure, this will never happen in the real world (I believe superheroes will eventually just fade away from the public consciousness, but it won't happen for a really loooooong time), but we're playing a game here.

So. Take any established superhero today and replace them. But with who? And possibly why and/or how? Maybe that hero is gone for good, for whatever reason, and doesn't get replaced (not to pick on him, but Aquaman honestly has mostly contrived reasons for leaving his kingdom, and what microscopic percentage of comics stories actually take place there anyway?). And this includes supervillains, as well. And please don't take it personally if your own particular sacred cow is gored (is that the phrase?); this is just a game of imagination. And all our "changes" are meant to stick forever; this isn't a case of change for a couple of years, then the old status quo returns.

I'll go first, with a couple of examples. Note you can of course use the heroes I'm naming, just add your particular twist instead of mine.

Superman reaches an age where his cells no longer can sustain the level of power he's always had. Kal-El still retains the same powers, but obviously, with them weakening further and further over time, he can't keep his place as the world's preeminent superhero. Finally, he decides to publicly declare his intent to retire, with three heroes standing beside him. Supergirl and Superboy retain their names, but Superman names, as his direct replacement, Superwoman--the former Power Girl, who's been getting her power levels gradually boosted over time by the shifting in the laws of magic. The new Superwoman is now more powerful than any other (currently) established hero, and her powers have been shown to be growing for some time. Add in a vulnerability to magic that doesn't leave her dying on the floor, but does keep her from always being the deus ex machina cop-out for lazy writers, and Bob's your uncle.

Bruce Banner's body, not having The Hulk's invulnerability (or levels of regeneration, or whatever he's got these days--I've been out of comics for a few years, although they'll probably never entirely leave me), finally develops cancer. However, this cancer is unlike any the world has ever seen, just as The Hulk was the most unlikely result of a gamma ray bomb explosion. Instead of merely eating its host from the inside out, this "super-cancer" multiplies by passing itself on, much like a virus. (Yes, I know, you medical-types, but this is superhero physics) The cancer is discovered early on, in fact during one of Banner's infrequent incarcerations, but what isn't known until it's too late is that this cancer is contagious. Once people start dying or mutating and then dying (this cancer doesn't create more Hulks; it merely does what cancer does, only a thousandfold), Banner is placed in isolation and an extensive quarantine is established. As Fate would of course have it, one of the attending medical staff accidentally contracts this disease, and it interacts with him/her in a billion-to-one chance, creating a new superhuman. This superhuman retains intelligence, gains Hulk-like abilities otherwise, but the mind becomes twisted, and you have a Hulk-like villain established, to replace The Abomination and The Leader once and for all. Banner dies, and the hunt is on. Not only because we can't have an evil Hulk running around (this new supervillain will have a different name), but because further medical testing reveals that the new villain, while not contagious now, has the potential to become so at any time. Give She-Hulk center stage in her own comic, having her own adventures, with the always-there plot thread of hunting down this new threat.

Okay, maybe weak examples that won't fly in the long term, but I hope you get the gist of where I'm trying to go with this. Now it's your turn, and I'm keen to see what you can come up with.

Facebook? Anyone doing a search for Twilight Facebook pages (durn sparkly wannabe vamps!) might come across Twilight Guardian as well.

Or maybe not, if there's like eleventy-billion Twilight FB pages out there...

The first reason I came into this thread was to gloat that I'd stolen the name for a future CoH character. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!

No, not Twilight Guardian! I'm talking about "Sweet Sassy Molassey." Snagged and reserved on the [redacted] server. Dunno what type of character he or she might possibly be, but I'm all set, name-wise!

Second reason to come in here was to learn more about this 'Twirly Gumption" character, or whatever the name is. My first dog was named Troy, and I lived on Hickman Boulevard at the time, in [redacted], [redacted]. Great city and state to grow up in. So I have built-in sentimental reasons to check this out.

Don't fail me, oh Falsettoed-Jabbering One!

"I am goink to enjoy vatching you die, Herr Anderso--Rogers."*

Looks good!


*Okay, so my faux German accent lacks.

People, people, people! Think it through! Marvel is working to tie its movie superheroes together; DC is years too late to follow the same path. That doesn't mean, however, that they can't get the band back together (not that the Justice League were ever "together" silver-screen-wise anyways)--there just needs to be a sufficient threat to counter.

Hello? Swamp? Threat large enough for heroes to band together? Can you say...








...wait for it...











...the LEGION of DOOM!!!

Nolan has my number if he needs me.

Write-in vote for Samuel L. Jackson:

"I'm tired of these motherf*****' land grab fiascos by motherf*****' Lex Luthor!"

Optional: Halloween party where Clark/Jackson is dressed as a pirate, complete with...an eyepatch.

As an unrepentant Badge Wh--uh, Hunter, I have the following question:

If I get all of the new Halloween badges using my lvl 50 badge toon, who's currently a villain, do I then need to flip over to hero side and do it again, or are all the badges "double agents" (the same badge stays with you whether you're a hero or a villain)? I do notice one of the listed badges has two names, indicating to me that a hero would have that badge under one name, and the villain have it under the other name.

Having asked that, I'm off to Test!

Harley Quinn!

I'm thinking the discrepancy between catching the bullet without harm in the police station and being hurt by Bamfer-Man's shot is likely due to different calibers of bullet. A cop's gun will have "standard" rounds (whatever that actually means), which explains why the gun "borrowed" from the police armory and used in the batting cage had more-or-less the same effect as the gun snatched and fired at the police station.

It's easy to believe that Bamfer-Man's gun had illegal rounds that packed more oomph--what are they called, "cop-killers?' You know, the ones that supposedly can penetrate bullet-proof vests. At a (in essence) point-blank shot, such a bullet probably exceeded, if only by a little, Dad's invulnerability. Note that this doesn't exclude the idea that Dad has to be aware of an attack to be invulnerable--it may be that he has a base level of invulnerability, but expecting an attack makes him more invulnerable. A bit of a stretch, even for idle speculation, but I think I like the idea that Dad is only so tough and no more--weapons with greater impact are still a danger to him. This staves off the "Nothing Can Hurt Superman" syndrome, which allows for more tension/drama/suspense.

Fun Guessing is Fun!

I heard that Emperor Cole eats breakfast 300 yards from 4,000 Resistance fanatics that are trained to kill him, so don't think for a second that you can enter Praetoria, flash your veteran badge count...

...and make him nervous.

New shows are new, old shows are back, I have favorites and my TiVo is crying.

But I wait. I wait.

October 31st. Darabont. The Walking Dead.

The waiting burns within me, it burns...

Empathy/Radiation Blast Defender. If I didn't think he had the perfect name, with a pretty good look, considering the difficulty of making a character look like a monkey, topped off with a great concept...well, like many mentioned in this thread, he languishes ever dusty. I just...can't bring myself to delete him.

What's worse, it's probably not him, it's me! I solo and duo almost exclusively these days and for the past couple of years - I might have joined a team with him on maybe 4, maybe 5 occasions in all that time. And if there's a powerset that screams "GET ME ON A TEAM!!!" more than Empathy, I've yet to come across it.

Someday, Doc, someday, I'll stop being withdrawn and then you'll be the belle of the ball. Well, not the belle...beau?

*le sigh*

Well played, sirrah. <doffs ancestral cap>

Dear Steelclaw,

Yes, I know, and I know you know, what's coming in Issue 19. This will be one of those big, game-changing, uh, changes to the game. Now, if I understand the rules of your personal Tournament correctly, I believe you're dusting off your chopping block for use in the not-too-distant future. I won't try to talk you out of it; in point of fact, I admire your commitment to your own creation. I have two questions, however.

Are all of the characters you create entered into your Tournament, or only some of them?

Does knowing, at this time, that your current Tournament characters have a date with the Delete button make you disinclined to continue playing them?

Okay, I said two questions, but I just thought of a third, and for some reason, I'm not going to edit the above sentence. When an announcement is made that makes you realize the game is going to change significantly enough to start your Tournament over again from the beginning, do you look forward to said change, or groan, "Not again..."?

Sincerely,

Klatteja (which is an anagram, btw - not that there's anything wrong with that)

This is great news, and yet another step in "the devs listen to us (and probably peruse the data they have access to to back up our requests as viable) and make changes to the game that we like and want, even if it takes a while and they have to watch us blather on about it for 12-18 months or more while remaining silent." *whew*

I would have a very hard time keeping my mouth shut for that long, let alone doing it for multiple things coming down the pipe. </em raiseglass>