Blankman is a fun, if not flawed, superhero comedy from the 90's. You can read my review of it here. If you've never seen the movie and live in the states, you can stream it for free on PlutoTV here. You can see my updated 5e stats for the protagonists below.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Slap Me Around And Call Me Susan
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Don't Call Him Black Stone
Y'all know I love the Suicide Squad, so for today's post I wanted to do a character from that team. Pebbles has one of the most unfortunate codenames. Interestingly enough he hated his original code name even more. Instead of going into his backstory, I'll just share the panel that talks about him.
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Flight of the Bumblebee
While Nubia appeared three years earlier, DC's Bumblebee is often considered DC's first black superheroine. Her secret identity, Karen Beecher, was introduced 7 months prior to her taking up the mantle of Bumblebee. She's a scientist and dated Teen Titans member, Herald. She wanted to make him look good in front of the team so she created the Bumblebee identity and attacked the Titans. After escaping, she revealed her ruse to the Titans. Instead of being angry, the team was impressed and asked to join the team. Later Herald and Bumblebee got married, retired, and started working for S.T.A.R. Labs.
Her powers were originally all based on her suit. Helping to prevent a crisis she and several heroes were trapped in a rift, which caused her to shrink to six inches tall. Later she would later be shrunken and her powers became innate.
To my knowledge, there has never been a live action version of Bumblebee. She has appeared in most Titans animated series and films though. I like Bumblebee. As a Titan and younger hero fan, I liked Bumblebee and Herald. I also like that, much like Dick Grayson there were allowed to grow up.
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Monday, February 3, 2025
Take A Stand
For today's Black History Month supers post I thought I'd update my Meteor Man stats and talk about his continued adventures in the 616 after the film.
Issue #1 quickly recaps the movie. Then we learned that a part of the meteor that powered Jeff is in Arizona. He and his friend Mike (Eddie Griffin's character from the movie) head the facility it's been held. Jeff uses what remains of his powers to get in and evade security. The pair have been followed by an ominous main with nefarious goals. While all that's happening two new villains, the high tech Malefactor and the occult themed Ghost Strike, take out some Guardsmen in Washington DC to capture Simon Kane, the movie's villain, is being experimented on by an evil corporation, Skyyventures Inc. The issue ends with Mike getting shot and Jeff reaching the meteor.
In Issue #2 Jeff saves Mike and while the pair seek to get back to DC they are attacked by Malefactor and Ghost Strike. We are introduced to Armand Skyy, CEO of Skyyventures Inc., who sends a newly repowered Simon to take out Meteor Man. In the confrontation between Meteor Man and Simon, Jeff seemingly kills the villain.
At the beginning of Issue #3 Jeff has vowed to never be Meteor Man again. Peter Parker and MJ are in DC, as MJ is part of a Meteor Man movie. Armand Skyy has a clanedestine meeting with a man named Solomon Mingh, who's contracted him to get Meteor Man. Jeff deals with how gang violence has affected his neighborhood, but does use his powers again until it spills over into filming. Jeff stops the gang, the DC Players. He and Spidey team up and end up taking on Malefactor and Ghost Strike. After a heart to heart with Spider-Man who tells him his secret "with great power comes great responsibility." In the end he decides he and the community needs Meteor Man.
Issue #4 sees Night Thrasher of the New Warriors make his way to DC after fighting some DC Players in NYC. He is tracking down their leader Third Power aka Solomon Mingh. Jeff finds his personal life in shambles, but after his talk with Spidey finds his resolve to protect his community reignited. Of course Meteor Man and Night Thrasher have an initial misunderstanding but team up to take down the Players and their benefactor. The issue ends with Third Power, who can make two even stronger copies of himself, fighting the pair of heroes.
A lot happens in Issue #5. Night Thrasher kills Third Power (Jeff says his heart is barely beating but later a portion of a newspaper implies Meteor Man killed him). Simon Kane reappears in Arizona. We learn that Armand Skyy isn't from Earth (which has been hinted at). Skyy then sends Malefactor, Ghost Strike, and two knew villains (Warhammer and Exocet), Exocet has some sort of flight powers and Warhammer is Thor without the lightning. He also might be a Neo-Nazi. He has a stylized H and eagle tattoo. It's not like any fascist tat I've seen, but it looks similar to one. Meteor Man takes out some of the villains but the issue ends with his shocking realization that Simon is alive and ready for a fight.
Even more happens in Issue #6... Simon and Meteor Man team up to take on Warhammer and Exocet. The pair then continue their conflict with one another. Meteor Man berates Simon for the way he's hurt his community and people and just as Simon seems repentant he's taken out by Armand Skyy. Meteor Man seemingly gives Skyy the power he wants, but his body can't handle it and he explodes. In the aftermath, the new CEO and Skyyventers Inc. and Meteor Man come up with a deal. He doesn't expose the shady companies previous dealings if they help pay for rebuilding his neighborhood and fund programs. In the end Jefferson vows to his community that he will always be their Meteor Man.
While Meteor Man has not made any appearances since the series ended, the Golden Lords appeared in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #5.
The Meteor Man miniseries was fun. It wasn't epic, but as a continuation of the movie and way to add Meteor Man to the 616 it's great. There's some fun moments and references to the movie. In Issue #3 for example a Meteor Man movie is being filmed and the director talks about how he should have got Snipes, Denzel, or Townsend (the star of the film). There are a few jokes like this that made me chuckle. Some of the humor fell a flat though. In Issue #1 Mike gets hit in the back of the head and makes a Rodney King joke. Something that had me chuckling is that Meteor Man was constantly getting his costume blown off. This didn't happen to Robert Townsend in the film, but I'm guessing that had something to do with him not having the superheroic physique of his comic book counterpart. Like the film the story also deals with gang violence and community and handles those respectfully.
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Music Monday - Neighbor Like Me
Check out intro theme for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man performed by The Math Club and featuring Relaye and Melo Makes Music. It's a great track with elements of the classic theme.
If a person uses woke as a pejorative I immediately want to disassociate with them and the creative projects they are involved with. It shows a lack of empathy. However, I also understand that many other folks were involved with creating the show so I decided to give it a shot anyway.
I find Thames anti-woke comment funny, because of the main cast, only a few folks are white. Harry and Norman Osborne are now African-American. The same is true for Dr. Connors, who has also been genders-swapped and is now Dr. Carla Connors. Peter's closest friends are Nico Minoru, Lonnie Lincoln, and Pearl Pangan. Additionally at his Oscorp internship Peter meets Amadeus Cho and a Wakanda teen.
The series definitely deviates from existing versions of Spider-Man, but that's what the Multiverse is for. I'm really looking forward to seeing where it's going to go.
Sunday, February 2, 2025
An Extreme X-Man (Who Wasn't In X-Treme X-Men)
Though I didn't like it as much as X-Men/X-Men 97, X-Men: Evolution was a fun animated series and reimagining of the franchise. One of my favorite characters was Spyke. Spyke, born Evan Daniels, was Storm's nephew and a native of NYC. He originally had the ability to fire spikes from his body (much like Marrow). He was recruited by his aunt when his powers manifested and was a X-Men until he lost the ability to control is powers. Soon after he joined the Morlocks. In his last appearance he had a permanent exoskeleton on his upper body and could ignite his spikes.
Spyke was a fun character. He was originally reluctant to be a hero, but grew as the series went on. He was also a skateboarder, which in 2000 meant he was the coolest. Strangely the only comic Spyke appeared in outside X-Men: Evolution was X-Babies Stars Reborn. In the main 616 continuity Storm has a cousin named David Munroe, that is loosely based on Spyke.
Did you watch X-Men: Evolution and if so did you like Spyke too?
Saturday, February 1, 2025
Let The Lady Go!
While looking for something earlier I stumbled upon this awesome art that combining a couple of underrated superhero flicks from the 90's. Meteor Man and Blank Man will both get stat updates later this month.
John Henry Was A Steel Drivin' Man
This morning I decided I wanted to stat out some African American supers characters in honor of Black History Month. Some of the posts will be new 5e stat blocks, whole others will be updates to some that I've already done.
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John Henry Irons was one of the four new Supermen released during DC's Reign of the Supermen storyline post Death of Superman/Funeral For A Friend. John was a brilliant engineer buried in rubble during Doomsday's attack on Metropolis. With Superman dead, John used his strength and brilliance to build a suit of armor and fight the weapons dealers and criminals causing chaos in his neighborhood. After Superman returned he took on the name Steel (coined by Superman) and continued to be his ally. He's been a member of the Justice League and and briefly served on the Suicide Squad. Steel is a respected member of the superhero community. His niece, Natasha, has also taken up the mantle of Steel.
Steel has appeared in other DC media several times. Michael Dorn and Phil LeMarr voiced him in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited. In addition to several DC animated movies, he's been a supporting character in Young Justice and My Adventures with Superman. An alternate universe version of him appeared in Superman & Lois. His most notable live action appearance was in the Steel movie, starring Shaq. While the movie used elements of his background from the comics, he had no connections to Superman (other than a tattoo) and the flick just wasn't good.
Conner Kent was my favorite character to come from Reign of the Supermen, but Steel was a close second. I just think he is an interesting character. You can probably guess, but he was loosely based on and inspired by the folk tale of John Henry, the steel driving man. He also has a lot in common with Tony Stark. The obvious comparison is that they both use powered armor. Additionally John was a brilliant weapons engineer prior to becoming a hero. However, unlike Stark he became disgusted with the business without having a traumatic experience. I'd say one of the biggest differences is John is well liked by other heroes and Tony has a (deserved) reputation of being an arrogant bastard.
Planeshifted Patreon
Planeshifted is a Patreon that creates fantastic content for D&D 5e (both the original and the updated version). While there are paid tiers of support, the homebrew game content is available to all.
The creator makes high quality pdfs featuring D&D conversions of Magic: The Gathering's planes. While a few guides are a bit more focused, in most you will find new races/species, subclasses, magic items, spells, and monsters. If you want to know the specific planes discussed, go here.