Ivan

Doc Velocity is the new Canelaser: Hilarious, enjoyable, but ultimately not useful in any kind of continuity.

Pseudonym asks "is there a supernatural side to Khazan" to throw y'all off your game. You're not ready for the Global he's creating. Also, Jay the Cactus is the modern FPL's Supercomrade

Err... sorry hoss, but that's not what I meant at all. The Shallow Guild doesn't "do" retirement, but the group operates so clandestinely at times, I can understand why it seems that way. Heh. The SG isn't interested in the Dayshift. They may, however, be interested in brokering a deal with a self-controlled Zombie, because she would be immense help in locating a certain Baron (or Queen, or whoever is holding the title these days.) As Landon's tongue-in-cheek setup suggests, there is a wide gap between the superhero/supervillain community and the supernatural community. Certain characters like Becki and Wally Wolf straddle that gap, and do the best they can. Your average Dayshift character wouldn't even blip the Guild's radar- Becki and possibly Thorn are the exceptions. Essentially, you haven't seen much of the Guild because they don't have a lot of Street Level characters in their ranks, at least not of any importance. In order to avoid the limelight, the Guild members assume the role of puppet masters: The Reach and Silver's Hammer are two examples of this. Obviously, I voted for my character, but either way the fight goes, Becki may find herself contacted down the road when the Guild wants her assistance.

Win or lose, it is certain the Shallow Guild is now aware of Becki, and may come a-calling sooner or later. I wonder how she feels about The Baron...

Step 1: Find anyone who has read a comic book ever. Step 2: Ask that person to name the members of the Fantastic Four. Step 3: Compare that list to the two teams above. The one that matches is your winner. Honestly, that second team contains four of my most hated characters in comics. They all suck. I hate every version of Venom, but Flash Thompson as a superhero just sucks at its core concept. X-23 sucked the first time in MC2 when she was called Wild Thing, she sucks even harder now. Ghost Rider is kind of the epitome of a godawful character in every incarnation- he was briefly tolerable in the Legion of Monsters, but the closer to Spawn he gets the more he sucks. Red Hulk managed to ruin like the four most pivotal characters in the Hulk mythos in one go, so yeah, he sucks. It's like they cherrypicked the stupidest characters in comics and put them on a team together. All that's missing are Daken and Gambit to make it the official worst team of all time. (current record for worst team of all time held by The Blood Syndicate)

I think, if we're talking about our daily lives, getting Martian Manhunter powers is like getting Superman powers plus a bunch of extra stuff. Sure you wouldn't be *quite* as strong or fast as you could the other way, but you're also going to be freaking strong and fast, and with no Superman to compare it to you might as well be Superman. For me, the shapeshifting/ inbisibility/ intangibility thing sells it right there, I'd take those over strength or flight, but when you throw in strength and flight and telepathy and ill-defined eyeball shooting powers... how could I not go for that? I'm not worried about abusing the powers- Manhunter loses his mojo around fire, and there's plenty of people with access to fire out there. I'd start a global breeding program as quickly as possible and all my myriad superpowered children could help keep me in check. I'd eventually retire, and keep watch over the earth from the Moon while my offspring took over.

I really like Simon Williams, you guys. I think he's the most underrated Avenger. He's basically Captain Atom meets Johnny Cage.

AIM dudes have access to weapons and equipment that will blow everyone's mind. A lightsaber is a cute toy next to a portable isometric black hole generator or a quantum transwarp hand-cannon or a phase disruption psychic death lance or whatever stuff they're packing at the moment. AIM holds off The Avengers with twenty or so dudes, armed with whatever is lying around. 100 AIM guys in a giant superweapons warehouse? We'll be lucky if they don't accidentally blow up the planet with all that firepower.

Please don't pretend to have any clue as to what the match I've always wanted is. Unless you wrote Batman and Spider Man on a slow boat to china having a taco-eating contest while reciting British Romantic poetry and listening to Dio, you've not even come CLOSE.

Two-Gun Kid. Pow!

Spider Man wins. Super Agility + Spider Sense = nothing Batman & Robin do can touch him. I mean, I could write the outcome either way, but the match poster was such a weenie about it that I HAD to vote for Spidey just to even the odds. Don't get me wrong, I would love to lecture you kids on the finer points of all things Batman- I'd take you all to SCHOOL- but that's not what this is for. Rassum Frassum kids and your pokey mans...

Sent the creator the same thing in a Personal Message. Hopefully, the message gets through. Not sure what happened to the links to the characters, I had to redo them.

Hmmm... I wonder who that could possibly be directed toward? I'm not interested in rating any matches- under the Ivan system everyone fails, always. Cool match, though.

If it were me I'd start with Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics which is the most awesome kind of primer for enjoying any sequential artwork. I'm a fan of the Fables-> Sandman-> Promethea path. It's a little cerebral, but afterward I think a person could sit down and read Swallow Me Whole and not have any questions. After that, though, most comics will be a bit of a letdown. Bone is a great way to go- and if she wants a follow up, Groo is consistently awesome, and Usagi Yojimbo has never ever had a bad issue. This will help provide a buffer so she doesn't start thinking "Comics = Superheroes" (It's a trap a lot of people fall into, and then they can't understand why some crap like Iron Man Extremis isn't considered the best comic of all time.) There's never a bad time to share Maus with someone, comic fan or not. If you specifically want to introduce her to Superhero comics, the Marvel Essentials are a decent place to start, you get plenty of Jack Kirby and all the classic stuff like "This Man This Monster" and "The Kid Who Collected Spider Man." After that I'd go for a good team book that plays up the interpersonal aspect- Astro City books are always great, but if you're looking for a Big Two comic I like Geoff Johns' runs on both Teen Titans or JSA, Grant Morrison's JLA run, or some of the more well-known Claremont/Byrne X Men arcs. I'm a huge fan of Days of Future Past, myself, although I think the Dark Phoenix saga is likely the most popular. My personal favorite superhero book was Top Ten, if that counts for anything.

I think the X Men could give it a go- you've got enough psychic defense to keep him from totally wiping the team out in one go, some melee brawn, some energy projection, and a team skilled at working together... enough variation and difference to keep him from becoming utterly dominant on any one front, plus powers like Rogue's and Psylocke's that he wouldn't intuitively know how to deal with off-hand. If they fail, the Avengers take the data from that battle and formulate their own attack strategy. A decent version of the Hulk alone could keep him distracted just long enough for someone to develop a containment strategy. Really, though, how about Despero vs Apocalypse?

Don't know what happened to it, but there was a fan theory floating around at one point, based on the then-new revelations about Iceman, that suggested that Omegas had the potential to exhibit complete control over a specific type of energy down to the subatomic level- so Iceman could theoretically manipulate molecular motion at its most basic level, which in theory should let him do everything The White Queen could do in his body PLUS have Human Torch powers and then some. To my knowledge, he's never been used that way. Virtually all of the known Omega Level mutants can potentially control matter at a subatomic level through some psionic ability- with Bobby and Elixir being the two most notable exceptions. The theory attempted to classify Iceman's abilities along those lines. The Methos theory would seem to be supported by Joseph- although he used Magneto's power at a level beyond Magneto- he failed to achieve an "energy form" as it were, because he's not Omega level. Those powers burned out his body instead.

Hey King of Kings, welcome to the FPL. You should take some time to look around at various characters in the gallery, as well as the character creation help thread over on the FPL character analysis board. Another good place to look would be these five Main Event contenders. Another good idea is to read the FPL Powers List so you don't end up claiming silly or ridiculous powers in your next character. As a new creator, you can create a Street Level character. These characters have access to Standard or Superior abilities. If you have any questions about what a Standard or Superior ability lets your character do, feel free to ask on the Character Analysis board mentioned earlier. The main criticisms against "The Brahma Bull" are twofold: 1) The character claims powers it doesn't have. Superior Strength plus Superior Berserk might temporarily give you Hulk level strength at Street Level, but conventional wisdom is that this is not a power that "has no limits." Similarly, Standard Super Speed will not let let you move at anywhere near the speed of light. In fact, you can't even achieve Bullet Time effects at Standard, especially not with Standard Agility. Additionally, a Standard level Sonic attack is about the strength of a police anti-riot speaker, it will cause discomfort but not much actual damage. It certainly cannot crack the Earth's crust. 2) The character is not very well conceived or written. There is no attention paid to the writing (which mentions Marvel and DC heroes, another big no-no.) The power descriptions are much too short, and the character doesn't seem to have any motivation to do anything. This is where you'll really get slammed in the FPL, even more than claiming powers your character doesn't have. Creating good characters is all about the art of storytelling, and you will be rewarded in the FPL if you tell a good story. Think about this: Spider Man doesn't have unlimited godlike powers, but his stories are typically some of the most fun comics to read. I hope you stick around in the FPL and that your next character shows a vast improvement!

Pseudonym and I have hammered out the details and are in the writing stage. Catch us if you can, jerks!

Your average MotU toy dwarfs a standard Warhammer figurine. He-Man and company for the win! #sizedoesmatter

Dudes nobody rated this? That's sad... I just noticed it. It's cool to see people using the old style Sportscast setups, I hope that makes a comeback in a big way.

There were also some Willow comics co-written by George Lucas and Chris Claremont at some point which I would love to get my hands on some day, but I am unfamiliar with the content. Also I was mostly joking, a person would either have to build Bavmorda in First Edition or try and convert Raistlin to Pathfinder, and I'm not sure which is a more insane prospect

Later versions of Raistlin get really stupidly powerful- at some point it's stated he could kill a god if he felt like it. Also the staff of Magius kinda balances out Shalindria's wand. My real question is, who's the rules expert who is going to figure out the bare minimum power level Bavmorda would need to pull off those kinds of stunts in D&D?

The cool thing is that we have a huuuuge backlog of Main Event characters, especially if the cutoff is 300 points. Minor question- in the future if the ME queue gets cleared out and characters that get to 300 points go straight to the Main Event, how will new creators unlock the next tier?

Can we do something about that? It doesn't seem right for those characters to be hanging about not participating in the system. If the creators want to delete 'em, that's their prerogative, but whats the point of leaving a high-level character disabled? Give them all a shot at the Main Event!

Marc Silvestri and Rob Liefeld are interchangeable. To be clear, you're allowed to vote however you want. You're also allowed to express your opinions. However, don't be surprised if you ever express an uninformed or unpopular opinion, that people will disagree with you. In this case, hating garbage created by Image founders and their buddies is a pretty safe bet.