Friday, January 17, 2025

Fuccubus Friday - Dreamqueen

Dreamqueen is the child of Dr. Strange's foe Nightmare and a succubus that he forced himself on. She inherited her mother's mystic powers and memories upon death. She is the rule of a realm called Liveworld, where can can manipulate reality itself. On earth she can alter the perception of others. She is immortal (also having superhuman durability), has Cosmic Awareness, and practices dream magic. 

Her first comic book appearance saw her taking on Alpha Flight.


Thursday, January 16, 2025

Marvel’s One-Punch Man

Inspired by Tim's new Tales from the Vault series I've decided to go through my issues and trades and talk about some of the interesting stuff I have. I thought I'd start with one I'd say a lot of folks have never heard of Fight Man #1. I hadn't heard of it until I found a copy in the dollar boxes of my old comic shop.

Fight Man is a one-shot published by Marvel in 1993. It features art and writing from Evan Dorkin, with inking by Pam Eklund, and color by Su McTeigue. You might recognize Dorkin from his Milk and Cheese series.

The titular Fight-Man can fly, and has super strength, invulnerability, energy projection, and super breath. His invulnerability isn't absolute. He does get knocked out at one point, but its because has a building dropped on him, but it doesn't seem to actually hurt him. While this combined with his looks might make you think Superman, he has none of Clark's redeeming social traits. Fight-Man is childish and says things like "I can't hear you" and plugs his ears when having conversations he doesn't want to be a part of. He doesn't take anyone seriously, his actions have lead to the deaths of 15 young sidekicks, and is hated by pretty much everyone in his home of Delta City. While he's vocal and has an "I'll fight anyone" attitude, he's secretly a coward. He begs his wife and her lawyer to not sue him like a crybaby.

In the story Fight-Man is broke and lives with his parents. He has no sponsors or merch and makes a living by selling supervillain memorabilia. To top it off he is being sued by everyone in Delta City, including his ex-wife. Various teams of villains attack him, until it's finally revealed that his arch rival, the Hooded Eye (who's been missing for at least a decade) has hired Fight Man's enemies and eventually the entire city to take him out. After being captured, it is revealed that this Hooded Eye is actually his heavily scarred (and very much alive) first sidekick, Kid Fight-Man. He escapes the trap and takes out the hordes of angry citizens and villains with ease. After the fight ends, the police arrive, but it isn't to arrest the villains that attacked him, it's to arrest Fight-Man for the many times he's endangered minors.

Though published by Marvel in the early 90's this story takes place in it's own continuity. This wasn't Dorkin's original plan though. The hordes of villains coming after Fight-Man were supposed to be D-listers like Stiltman and Shocker. My guess is the editors thought it was two silly for the edgy books of the time. Surprisingly, ten years later Fight- Man would make the transition to the 616, appearing in Agent X issues 10 and 11, written by Dorkin. I've not read the issues but it takes place after Fight-Man gets out of prison.

You might have noticed that this story mirrors Batman: Under the Red Hood. Kid sidekick is killed and returns years later as a villain wearing the guise of the man that killed him. I'm sure this trope has been used before, but I thought this was a fun coincidence.

This book is goofy hero satire in the vein of something like The Tick. The art is comical and the absurdity very entertaining. Fight-Man is such a man baby that it's ridiculous. He thinks he can punch his way through life. However, he's also nominally a hero. For example he can't punch a woman because of the "hero code." He does get around this with the help of a sharpie and cognitive dissonance.

If you run a supers game, you could have a great session involving your players trying to stop Fight-Man (or a Fight-Man-esque character) from causing too much collateral damage, or at least helping citizens caught in the crossfire. If you're running a Carbide City game, the stats for Adam the First Man would be appropriate for Fight-Man.  

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

The 5e Vigilante City Kickstarter Is Live!

 The 5e Vigilante City for 5e Kickstarter launched earlier today. With this project, Bloat Games is taking the street level vigilante spirit of the SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City and rebuilding it from the ground up for 5e (both the original and 2024/2025 version). Now I know some folks think, 5e doesn't need to be everything, and I agree with that. However, there are a lot of us that really love 5e and a system and are totally down for this. The plethora of 5e supers content I've created shows this. The content is going to be released in two hardcover books, one for players and one for GM's.

Like the original game, classes will be divided into two groups: Human and MegaHuman. The human classes will be Archer, Athlete, Crime Fighter, Dark Avenger, Gadgeteer, Martial Artist, Mercenary, Protégé, and True Vigilante. The MegaHuman classes are Anthropomorph, Borg, Mutant, Mystic, Powered Armor, Psion, Speedster, and Super Soldier. Additional content will include, but won't be limited to, rules for super drugs, background/origins. new weapons/equipment/gadgets. and vehicle combat. GM's will be given tons of advice and tools, including adventure seeds, npcs, hooks, an optional setting.

This is going to be an awesome game and you should definitely check it out.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Music Monday - Curtain Call

Curtain Call is the opening theme to My Hero Academia's most recent season. It's the 13th opening theme. The theme is catchy and the video does a great job of contrasting the heroes and villains of the series.  


Sunday, January 12, 2025

The Real Reason Batman Has Never Killed The Joker…

I've shared content from The Panda Redd before. He has some insightful posts about (primarily Batman) comics. He also does some really funny skits. I really like this Under The Red Hood inspired one. 


So is the Joker a cryptid? 😜

I've posted quite a bit of Batman related game content through the years. Check out my Gotham City Knights tag if you want to check it out.

    Saturday, January 11, 2025

    Invincible Zombies

    Check out this fantastic artwork from Invincible artist Ryan Otley.

    I've not created any Invincible stats, but I do have some supers zombies content. 

    D&D 5E

    Cinematic Unisystem
    Dungeon Crawl Classics/Mutant Crawl Classics

    Friday, January 10, 2025

    The Lassos of Fate

    I really enjoy ComicPop on YouTube. Their Back Issues series is a lot of fun. It's just friends sitting on a couch talking about graphic novels and comic book storylines. Normally there are three folks on the couch, though sometimes there are four. Two of the individuals are serious comic book fans and the other two are casual ones. I've enjoyed their videos and watched a few Wonder Women-centric ones recently. That inspired by to stat out Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. To do that I had to give stats for a basic lasso. My rules for them were inspired by a few different versions I've seen online. I also learned that the most recent run of Wonder Woman has changed some of her lore and now the Lasso of Truth is one of three Lassos of Fate. The second lasso is the Lasso of Lies and was wielded by the king of America. The third has yet to be revealed.

    Lasso
    Martial Ranged Weapon 

    Lasso is a unique weapon that does no damage had is ranged (10/30). On a hit a creature (size large or smaller) becomes restrained as long as you hold the lasso. On it's turn, a restrained creature can use its action to make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics)check to free itself.  The creature chooses the ability to use.

    While a creature is restrained you can use an action to attempt to pull creature closer to you. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the creature's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. The creature chooses the ability to use. If the creature fails the check you can pull it towards you (up to a distance equal to your Strength ability modifier X 5).

    Doing 5 slashing damage to a lasso frees a creature being restrained by it and destroys the lass.

    -----------------

    The Lasso of Truth

    Weapon (lasso), unique, require attunement

    This glowing golden lasso is one of the three Lassos of Fate, which was refurbished by Haephestus and wielded Wonder Woman's aunt, Antiope. The wielder has +3 to attack with this weapon. Unlike a normal lasso, it cannot be destroyed by attacking it. 

    Empowered by the fires of Hestia, it forces anyone held by or touching it to tell the absolute truth. A creature touching the Lasso that is asked a question must make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw, or answer the question fully and truthfully. If they succeed the saving they may say nothing, but they still cannot lie. A creature that succeeds the saving throw cannot be compelled to answer questions for 24 hours.  

    Because they are "made of lies" bound by the Lasso take 14 (4d6) radiant damage at the start of their turns.

    If the wilder of the Lasso tells a lying knowingly, they are immediately unattuned to the weapon.

    -----------------

    The Lasso of Lies

    Weapon (lasso), unique, require attunement

    This otherworldly tether is one of the three Lassos of Fate, which was refurbished by Haephestus and wielded wielded by the secret king of America, the Sovereign. The wielder has +3 to attack with this weapon. Unlike a normal lasso, it cannot be destroyed by attacking it
    Empowered by the fires of Hestia, it forces anyone held by or touching it to tell the absolute truth. Any creature restrained by Lasso must make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw or believe anything spoken by the leader, even if goes against their recollections or insight. A creature that succeeds the saving throw cannot be compelled by the Lasso for another 24 hours.  

    -----------------

    There is a third unknown lasso.

    Fuccubus Friday - Spite

    Spite is a mystic being (referred to as a succubus by some) that serves Cyttorak and is an ally of the Juggernaut.




    Thursday, January 9, 2025

    A New HeroClix Quest Begins...

    My friend, Jodie aka Quest Wise, has started a new YouTube series on his channel and I wanted to give it a spotlight. He was gifted a huge collection of Heroclix that belonged to a local collector. Jodie then became the caretaker of the collection. In receiving the collection, Jodie learned more about his friend that passed on. In the series he's going to talk about learning about rediscovering his love of Heroclix,  looking into the life of the man that collected the Heroclix, and also learning about some of the more obscure superhero lore related to the characters in the game.