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daydreamerdrew · 7 months

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Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes (1963) #1-5

These issues were published across March 1963 to November 1963, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Stan Lee and penciled by Jack Kirby. Issues #1-3 were inked by Dick Ayers and issues #4-5 were inked by George Roussos.

This book takes place during WWII and the premise behind the group is that the Howling Commandoes is a uniquely tough team that specializes in what are seemingly suicide missions. Nick Fury is a very abrasive man, which is partially an act that he lets up a bit when he’s not with his men. And when speaking to his own commanding officer, Captain “Happy Sam” Sawyer, the roles are reversed and Nick is respectful and sometimes almost meek. For example, issue #2, when he’s told that the Commandoes have been assigned a new mission right after they’ve just gotten back from one, Nick says, “The boys are pretty bushed, Cap’n! How much of a rest can they have first?” After being told none, he goes back to his men and wakes them up aggressively, acts like them needing a rest is silly and unnecessary, and insults them as he’s getting them going on their mission. In issue #5 Nick is temporarily stripped of his rank and made a private, and he expects his men to want to get back at him for how he’s been so rough on them, but instead they’re all really nice, making concessions for him and offering to trade loads. This makes him yell at them in anger and they respond with relief that he’s acting like himself and not all dejected.

The various members are not all super distinct to me. Gabriel Jones stands out, not because he’s the one Black man on the team, which is not consistently and always noticeably portrayed, but because he’s always carrying a bugle with him. This is sometimes used strategically in missions where he’ll play to pull the enemy’s attention towards him. In issue #3, as the Commandos are charging at opposing forces, he’s playing and one of the others says to him, “Hey, Gabe! Enough with that bugle, huh? They know we’re here!” Gabe’s personal thing is that he’s into jazz. When the Commandoes are taking a stop at a base in issue #3 he says, “Man, wouldn’t I like to be wailin’ with Jonah Jones back at the Embers right now!” And then, “Man, I’ve been waiting a long time for this visit to town! Hope they have a good jazz combo somewhere!”

Corporal “Dum Dum” Dugan also stands out because he has a unique hat. His personal thing is that he joined the army to get away from his wife. In issue #2, as the Commandoes are grumbling about their mission being yet another suicide mission, he says, “Well, you don’t catch me complainin’! Any kind of mission is more peaceful than going back to my wife!” Nick tells him, “Dum-Dum, I don’t think you got a wife! Who’d marry an old walrus like you??” In issue #3 Dum Dum says, referring to Nick, “Of all the crummy luck! I joined the army to get away from my battle-ax wife, and now I’m stuck with a cigar-smoking human gorilla!” In issue #5 he says, “Look alive, you deadheads! Even my ball and chain, bless her pointy little head, is a better soldier than you slobs!” And one of the others tells him, “How would you know, Dum Dum? You ain’t been home to see her in twenty years!!!” Dum Dum also has issues with his mother-in-law. In issue #3, as the Commandoes are being fired at, one of the others says, “Hey, Dum Dum! Isn’t that a field piece barkin’ at us?” And Dum Dum responds, “Either that or my mother-in-law! Naw, it’s not loud enough for her!”

In issue #4 one of the Commandoes is killed, Jonathan “Junior” Juniper, who’s character description in the first issue reads: “Fresh out of an ivy-league college, Junior is the cheerful, eager-beaver of the group! But don’t let his youthful smile fool you! He’s fast as a panther, and just as dangerous!” The scene he dies in isn’t noticeably more dangerous than the types of situations the Commandoes are in regularly. In issue #5 Nick is noticeably very upset about his death and one of the others thinks, “Never saw anything like it! Fury acts just like Junior was his own son! He’ll never forgive himself for what happened!”

Black Widow: Deadly Origin (2010) #1-4

These issues were published across November 2009 to February 2010, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Paul Cornell. The present day parts of the book were penciled by Tom Raney and inked by Scott Hanna and the flashbacks that are throughout the book were drawn by John Paul Leon.

Both writing and art-wise the flashback parts of the story were much stronger than the modern day parts. The flashbacks retold her origin and revisited various parts of her publication history in a way that impressively strung together various surprise reveals and retcons that had been made over the years to actually make them make sense together. The modern day part of the story is set into motion with the murder of Ivan Petrovitch, which leads into a plot where Natasha discovers that she was made “filthy” and infected with “microscopic biomachines” that she infected anyone she was close to with, which when activated make the loved ones of her loved ones brutally attack them, and which is revealed at the end to be the work of Ivan Petrovitch, who faked his death and turned himself into a cyborg.

Black Widow (2004) revealed/retconned that Natasha’s backstory of growing up as a ballerina and then wanting to become a spy when her husband was killed was actually false implanted memories and that she’d been raised in the Red Room and trained to be a spy since she was young. I’ve been confused since then about how Ivan would fit into that, because his role in her backstory was that he saved her life when she was an infant, and he continued to be a positive part of her life when she was an adult. According to issue #1 of this book, Ivan had to leave Natasha in someone else’s care when he was called for military service and, not wanting his “little girl” to go to an orphanage, he brings her to a comrade high in the military, who unbeknownst to Ivan takes Natasha to the Red Room. Later, when Natasha is an adult, Ivan is injured and Natasha accepts a deal, though Ivan tries to resist, for them both to take a super-soldier serum-like thing to save his life. This explains how they can both be from the time period they were originally based in and still be alive and young in modern comics. Significantly, to me, Ivan’s intended final words were: “Just you from now on… Proud of you, my little girl.”

In issue #2 Natasha is confused between her cover as a ballerina in the Bolshoi and as a Black Widow of the Red Room, which is also attributed to the serum she’d been given being unstable. This explains how she didn’t know about her real backstory until the time of Black Widow (2004). Natasha tells Ivan, “I can’t tell what’s true anymore.” After the “death” of Natasha’s husband, Alexei, she volunteers to become a spy against the west, which is what her original backstory is. She says, even though she believes herself to be an “ordinary Soviet housewife,” “For some reason I feel I have skills I can offer- women I can be!” The person she’s making the request to was not involved in the Red Room and doesn’t approve of it and says, “She’s still trying to work it all out, trying to explain all the things she is… Casting off the peaceful retirement I tried to give her, not willing to vanish into being a normal person.” Ultimately, the decision is made to “follow her wishes.” The rest of Natasha’s history largely plays out as it did, but with the timeline changed so that she spent decades as a spy for Russia. This is so that her defection can happen as it did in the 60s comics, after she’s met Tony Stark and Clint Barton, but so those events can take place more recently and not age all of those other characters considerably. In Black Widow (2004) it was also revealed/retconned that Natasha’s defection was because Nick Fury was manipulating her with pheromones and not actually because of her own principles, which seems to have been dropped here as the focus is on Natasha trying to be a “whole” person and working towards that. I appreciate that because that reveal was a horrific removal of her agency throughout her whole history. Similarly, I appreciate that Natasha, despite brainwashing, is made to be the driving force behind her work against the west.

I have more mixed feelings about the changes to Ivan Petrovitch. The explanation for his plotting against Natasha in the modern day parts of the book is that he’s obsessively in love with her and hurt by her rejection, which she attributes to the unstable serum. I had enjoyed their positive father-daughter relationship in the previous stories I read with him and Natasha. And I do think that that he was fully aware of her Red Room backstory for decades while she wasn’t is a little unideal. But ultimately the story doesn’t not work and has compelling moments. In a flashback in issue #3 to a few years ago, before this book but long after Natasha defected from Russia, Ivan tells her, “You never understood… I didn’t want to be your father. Or your guardian. Or your uncle. Or your friend. I wanted more than that.” Natasha tells him, “If I didn’t understand… It’s because I wanted the father, the guardian, the uncle and the friend.” In another flashback in issue #4 he tries to convince her to work with him again on what ends up being his big evil plot in this book. He tells her, “You’ve had your chance to be Natalia for the world. Maybe it’s time to go back to being my little Natasha.” Then he forcible kisses her and she pushes him off and says, “You must know, after all these years… I don’t think of you like that. I can’t. I can’t think of you as a-” He tells her, “You have no idea how you’ve hurt me all these years. Watching you pick favorites as the old certainties fell apart.” Later, in the modern day part of the book when he’s an evil cyborg, he tells her, “This body is fully functional, you know. Ha ha ha!” And then, “Come and sit on Uncle Ivan’s lap.”

There was also a flashback in issue #4 dated “four years ago” in which Natasha tells Yelena Belova, “Yelena, I accept you’re the latest brilliant graduate of the Red Room… But you have to see you’re being manipulated. You have to do the right thing.”

Black Widow (2010) #1-5

These issues were published across April 2010 to August 2010, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Marjorie Liu and drawn by Daniel Acuña.

In this book Natasha is being plotted against by someone who keeps leaving roses and ribbons for her to find, which are revealed to be a reference to a deeply personal and secret experience from Natasha’s youth. During WWII, when Natasha was 16, she fell in love with a fellow soldier named Nikolai. They had no way to officially get married, but he gave her a ribbon to wear as a wedding ring. Natasha got pregnant, Nikolai died, and the baby, which she named Rose, was stillborn. Natasha learns that she’s infertile because of the Red Room in Black Widow (2004), which is referenced again in Black Widow: Deadly Origin and therefore is still canon, so it was shocking to learn that Natasha had gotten pregnant before that. But it’s unfortunate timing for this to come right after a whole book about Natasha’s past, my reaction was largely that it’s just unnecessary.

Part of the villain’s plot against her is revealing that Natasha had been secretly spying on everyone with super-powers and framing that she tried to sell that information for profit. While this causes problems for her with the government, the reaction of her friends in the superhero community is largely just that that’s unsurprising and they don’t care because they trust Natasha. When Natasha is defending herself to Elektra she says, “You and I both know that any of us can be turned. How many times has it already happened? One of us, going bad? Against our will? By choice? How many friends have betrayed us, Elektra? How many times does it take, before we start arming ourselves with knowledge?” Though I believe it wasn’t just for that reason. In an earlier scene she said, “Good times don’t last forever,” and then referred to the data chip as her “plan B.”

Also, I enjoyed the depiction of Natasha and Bucky’s relationship in this book.

Black Widow (2010) #6-8 and Widowmaker (2011) #1-4

These issues were published across September 2010 to February 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. The Black Widow issues were written by Duane Swierczynski, penciled by Manuel Garcia, and inked by Lorenzo Ruggiero. Of Widowmaker, issues #1 and #3 were written by Jim McCann, while issues #2 and #4 were written by Duane Swierczynski. And issues #1 and #3 were penciled by David Lopez and inked by Alvaro Lopez, while issues #2 and #4 were penciled by Manuel Garcia, with issue #2 being inked by Lorenzo Ruggiero and Javier Bergantiño and issue #4 being inked by just Lorenzo Ruggiero.

The Black Widow (2010) issues had Natasha working to figure out the identity of someone plotting against her which did not get resolved in those issues and instead lead into Widowmaker, but that book only referenced the specific events of the Black Widow (2010) issues once when Natasha gets hit in a fight in the same place that was injured in the Black Widow (2010) issues. Honestly, I didn’t think that they were necessary, I could have just been told that Natasha was in the middle of uncovering this conspiracy against her, which I was told at the beginning of Widowmaker #1, and that alone would have been sufficient.

Widowmaker starred Natasha, Clint Barton, Bobbi Morse, and Dominic Fortune, who are all being conspired against for various reasons. In the end the person behind everything is revealed to be Alexei Shostakov, Natasha’s husband from before she defected from Russia to the United States, who’s motivation is that he’s still very dedicated to Russia but feels that his Russia no longer exists, so he’s going to take over the country to remake it. And also he hates Natasha. I was very surprised that Alexei was alive because he died in the 60s and in my readings I missed the modern story that revealed him to actually still be alive. I was also surprised that he hates Natasha as all the stories I had read that referenced him up to that point depicted her sincerely mourning him.

Note: That Alexei is alive is actually briefly portrayed for 1 page in Black Widow: Deadly Origin #4, which I missed until I was working on this round-up amidst everything else that happened in that issue. Their dynamic there is actually portrayed positively, which makes more sense to me.

In Widowmaker #4 Natasha makes a plea to Alexei that was actually intended for a young woman working for him, which works. Natasha explains this plan as: “She was like me, once. Young. Impressionable. Eager to please. But not beyond redemption. […] I know the things Alexei promises impressionable young girls. I know how it stings to hear he’s promised others the same things.” I haven’t read Alexei’s original appearances in the 60s yet, but this doesn’t really match up with how their relationship has been portrayed in the various flashbacks I’ve seen.

Also, in Widowmaker #1 Dominic Forture makes a reference to working with Yelena Belova in the team Vanguard in Marvel Comics Presents (2007) by telling Natasha, “Ran with a Black Widow once, not long ago. She was a blonde.” Natasha responds, “She was lucky. She got out of here years ago,” referring to the Red Room.

Daredevil (1998) #61-64 and #77-81

The first batch of Daredevil issues was published across June 2004 to September 2004 and then the second batch was published across September 2005 to January 2006, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Alex Maleev.

I read the first batch of issues because it was the storyline where Alexei Shostakov was revealed to still be alive and then the second batch of issues because Natasha also appeared in them. The inciting incident of the first storyline is a deal being made where the U.S. will trade Natasha to another country in exchange for one of their prisoners. Natasha is tipped off by Nick Fury and goes to hide in plain sight with Matt Murdock, her ex-boyfriend who’s having a lot of personal problems and is in the media a lot because his secret identity as Daredevil is barely a secret and is constantly publicly speculated to be Matt. When Matt asks why she’s there she tells him, “I was in London, on a crap assignment. And it was getting to me, okay? I was getting the jitters. I’ve been on the road for over a year without a break and I’m not doing well in my head.” And then, “I just wanted to crash for a day or two. Maybe get the old juices flowing again, you know. Nothing- no hidden agenda. I just needed a friend.” The plan to hide in plain sight goes awry because Natasha didn’t realize that the people who want her would accept her dead or alive and they try to have her assassinated in a way that’s disguised as a part of Matt’s ongoing problems. Then Natasha finally tells Matt the truth and says, “I am glad I’m here, Matthew- I do miss you. And I do love you. You know that. I miss us. I do. But I’m sorry, that’s not why I came.” In the very end it’s revealed that the person who made the request for Natasha is Alexei Shostakov without any explanation as to how he’s alive. It’s a little wild for me that this reveal was just dropped and then nobody did anything with Alexei until 2010. When Natasha asks him why he wanted her he says, “I don’t like you.” And then, “I don’t like to lose.”

When Natasha is explaining the true story to Matt she says, about Nick Fury, “He told me to run. Even though it might have cost him his job to do so. That is loyalty. That is why I put my life in that man’s hands.” Nick is working to resolve the situation while Natasha is with Matt, and at the end of the story he tells the American side of the deal, “My agents aren’t for sale or trade,” and then threatens him if anything like this ever happens again. The second storyline is the chaos as Matt’s secret identity is finally revealed and he’s arrested. In the beginning Natasha tries to intervene on Matt’s behalf by going to Maria Hill, the new commander of S.H.I.E.L.D., in an awkward scene where she requests that S.H.I.E.L.D. gets the case against Matt dropped and she’s told that, “Nick Fury owes you a favor or two,” and, “Nick Fury’s business was Nick Fury’s business. What you had with him was all well and good… But he’s not here now. There is procedure and inter-departmental protocol and I’m not going to make one of my first moves as acting director of this world-wide peacekeeping task force a muscle job on the feds over something that frankly is none of our business.”

Captain America (1968) #615.1-619

These issues were published across March 2011 to June 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Ed Brubaker, except for issue #616 which was a special 94-page anniversary issue with stories written him as well as Howard Chaykin, Cullen Bunn, Mike Benson, Frank Tieri, Kyle Higgins, and Alec Siegel. Issue #615.1 was drawn by Mitchel Breitweiser. Issue #616 contained stories drawn by Mike Deodato, Ed McGuinness (with inking assistance from Dexter Vines), Howard Chaykin, Jason Latour, Paul Grist, Paul Azaceta, and Pepe Larraz. Seventeen pages of issue #617 were penciled by Butch Guice and inked by Stefano Gaudiano, 6 were drawn by Mike Deodato, and 7 were drawn by Chris Samnee. Eighteen pages of issue #618 were penciled by Butch Guice and inked by Stefano Gaudiano and 12 were drawn by Chris Samnee. And 6 pages of issue #619 were penciled by Butch Guice and inked by Stefano Gaudiano, 17 were drawn by Mitchell Breitweiser, and 7 were drawn by Chris Samnee. I was particularly impressed with the art of these final 3 issues.

Issue #615.1 was a special issue that focused on Steve Rogers when Bucky Barnes was still the focus of the main book. In it a well-meaning person tries to fill the void of the Captain America mantle, then gets captured by A.I.M. and has to be rescued by Steve on his first day. Steve tells him to stop trying to be Captain America and the guy agrees, but he also tells Steve, “But someone’s gonna have to wear it eventually… You know that, right?” Then Sharon discovers that Nick Fury was the one behind giving the well-meaning guy enhanced strength, as well as orchestrated him getting captured by A.I.M. She recognizes that Nick is trying to manipulate Steve into becoming Captain America again, and she’s not happy about it, but she agrees to not tell Steve what Nick did because she ultimately agrees with him when he says, “Somebody’s gotta carry that shield… That’s a fact. Only question is, how long it’s gonna take Steve to realize who it has to be.” I liked Sharon being willing to lie to Steve. I had found her to be a really interesting character in Captain America (2005) and so far largely haven’t been compelled by her portrayal in the comics I’ve read since then, but this felt like a return to the differences between Steve and Sharon before Dr. Faustus messed with her head.

The first story in issue #616 and the rest of these issues make up the “Gulag” storyline, which has Bucky in a Siberian prison. In the first story in issue #616, Steve says, “Listen to me, Bucky… I don’t care what I have to do. I will fix this.” This does not end up happening. Steve’s in a difficult position, considering his job, where if he does anything illegal to help Bucky he’ll cause an international incident, and trying to get Bucky released legally doesn’t work out. In the end, Natasha ends up breaking him out because he’s going to get killed there. I honestly would have liked to have seen Steve be a bit more reckless and willing to be self-destructive in order to help Bucky, thinking back to how intensely he mourned Bucky in the early issues of The Avengers (1963). It’s a disappointment to me that we didn’t end up getting a bit of that energy again. And it’s also disappointing to me that the characters have been largely living separate lives in separate books since Steve has come back, when a big part of the tragedy of Steve’s death to me was that Bucky had been avoiding him and had only briefly interacted with him once since regaining his memories.

These issues felt like bad thing after bad thing happening to Bucky. In a bit of characterization that I liked, in the story in issue #616 he thinks, “This is the trajectory of my life… Every time things are finally stable… finally good… something sudden happens… to wreck it all… and then I learn to live with that… And after a while… worse-off becomes the new normal… and then it starts all over again. I didn’t try to explain that to Steve the last time I saw him… He wouldn’t have understood.”

In issue #619, after Steve tries to defend Bucky for escaping, the president tells him, “No matter what happens, James Barnes can’t be Captain America anymore.” And then Nick Fury tells him, “Barnes is way too tarnished now to carry the shield. But he never wanted it, anyhow. He just wouldn’t let anyone else have it. And after that… He was only tryin’ to impress you.” Even though it’s true that Bucky had wanted to give up being Captain America when Steve came back and had to be pressured into continuing by Steve, this still made me feel really bad for Bucky.

Captain America (2011) #1-19

These issues were published across July 2011 to October 2012, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Ed Brubaker. Issues #1-4 were penciled by Steve McNiven and issue #5 was penciled by Steve McNiven with Giuseppe Camuncoli. Issue #1 was inked by Mark Morales, issue #2 by Jay Leisten and Dexter Vines, issues #3-4 by Jay Leisten, and issue #4 was inked by Jay Leisten and Matteo Buffagni. Issues #6-10 were penciled by Alan Davis and inked by Mark Farmer. Issues #11-14 were drawn by Patrick Zircher. Issue #15-18 were penciled by Scot Eaton and inked Rick Magyar, except for issue #16 which Rick Ketcham and Mark Pennington also worked on the inking of. And issue #19 was drawn by Steve Epting.

There was not a lot in these issues that was of interest to me. In issue #4 we see a depiction of Steve’s idealized dream-world. In it the American dream has been achieved, which looks like a fairly generic futuristic sunny utopia. Steve is long retired from being Captain America because, as he explains it, the world doesn’t need Captain America anymore. And he’s glad for that, but, though he’s modest about it, he’s also still revered and thought of as Captain America by people he meets. And in this dream-world Steve and Sharon are astronauts. As he sees it, they’ve “got a front row seat to the future.” Sharon tells him, “Our children will be born on the moons of Jupiter and populate the stars.”

Steve being an astronaut has come up in other Ed Brubaker-written comics before. In Captain America (2005) #1 he explains to Sharon that he feels bad that he was frozen in ice during the space race, saying, “I feel guilty when I think of all those men who died trying to reach the stars… That it should’ve been me taking those risks. That’s what I was built for, after all.” And Captain America (2005) #10 was a tie-in to the House of M event and explored an alternate universe in which, among other things, Steve was never frozen in ice and did actually participate in the space race and was the astronaut who took the first steps on the moon, instead of Neil Armstrong.

The emphasis on Sharon and Steve’s (presumably super-serum enhanced) children being the future read strangely to me. I don’t personally have a valorization of bloodlines and certain genetics or really just family more simply. But the idea in Captain America comics of Steve’s physical and moral superiority and how they are tied together stands out beyond that. Like the idea that he is of a different, special breed partially because he comes from the past, a better, simplier time, or because he is an American. I don’t mean that in a negative way necessarily, it’s part of what interests me about these comics. But I do think that these things generally have an innocuous intention.

In #6 Clint refers “losing Bucky” as something that Steve has gone through recently and Steve thinks, “I feel bad lying to Hawkeye… But Bucky wants the world thinking he’s dead. So it’s not my decision.” This is the only comic I read this past week that said that Bucky was believed to be dead. Where we left things off in Captain America (1968) #619, he was correctly believed to have escaped from his Siberian prison. Clint also refers to Natasha being on leave, which is presumably with the cover that she’s mourning Bucky. Where we left things off in Captain America (1968) #619, it seemed that she was going to be a wanted fugitive alongside Bucky for helping to break him out of prison.

Issue #19 was a decent conclusion to Ed Brubaker’s run writing Captain America. It went over Cap’s history and therefore Ed Brubaker’s vision of it in the format of Steve talking about himself to William Burnside. I was a little bit confused by that premise because Bucky shot him and was very confident he killed him in Captain America (1968) #605. And if Steve was aware that William Burnside was alive, I would think he would tell Bucky considering that he and Sam have an intervention for Bucky in Captain America (1968) #606 about his reckless behavior that they correctly attribute to the trauma of killing someone who looks and sounds exactly like Steve. And even if Steve only met with William after that, Captain America (1968) #605 made a point to show that Bucky intended to wait at the site until William’s body was found out (he fell into a lake after taking several bullets to the chest) of respect for him. The opening of this issue is William acting as Captain America, being confronted by Steve, and then getting hit by a car while running away, so I thought at first maybe this whole issue took place in the past before Bucky killed him, but the ending makes more sense for it to be in the modern day and his Marvel Wiki page lists him as alive. This is actually a little unfortunate to me, because when he was thought to have died I thought that at least he and Jack Monroe were both dead now, because it seemed unfair that he would get to live while Jack was tragically dead.

Captain America and Bucky (2011) #620-624

These issues were published across July 2011 to November 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. All were written by Ed Brubaker and Marc Andreyko and drawn by Chris Samnee. The artwork of these issues was also notably really great.

Issue #620 depicts Bucky’s upbringing and training and ends with him becoming Captain America’s partner, issues #621-623 depict him as Captain America’s partner, and then issue #624 is about Bucky’s time as the Winter Soldier.

In Captain America (2005) #31 it’s referred to as that, “How you talked them into letting you stay on the base while your little sister was sent away to boarding school is a mystery even to you.” But in Captain America and Bucky #620 it’s depicted that Bucky was told after his father’s funeral that that was what was going to happen, that “I would stay on the base with my dad’s old pals looking out for me,” with the reasoning given that, “That’s how Jimmy would have wanted it, kiddo.” And Bucky just accepted it, saying, “Sure, Major Samson… Whatever you say.” That phrasing of it in Captain America (2005) #31 makes sense to me as how Bucky would have misremembered that event as him having more agency in it. I still found it very striking how there were tears in Bucky’s eyes as he waved his sister goodbye, which was paired with the narration, “I used the mask Dad taught me to wear even more, then… to hide how scared and alone I really felt.” Also, Major Samson is the one who recommended Bucky for the job of Captain America’s partner and these issues made me wonder when exactly that idea was first had as it’s something that was just sprung on Bucky; he doesn’t know.

In Captain America and Bucky #621 Steve expresses some concerns about Bucky’s eagerness to get involved in the war and tells him, “Taking a life can be simple… but living with what you’ve done… that’s not so simple.” The events of this issue end up having Bucky have to kill someone for the first time and while he says, “It had to be done… so I did it… Simple as that,” he’s clearly really affected by it. This made me think of how Bucky’s role as Captain America’s partner was both to be a symbol and to do some dirty work that Captain America couldn’t, which was explained to Steve right before he first meets Bucky in Captain America (2005) #12 as, “And if he gets his hands a little dirtier than most soldiers when no one’s looking… Well, that’ll be our secret, right?” And Bucky feeling guilty about the things he did during the war was brought up when he was being manipulated in Captain America (2005) #33 and he’s told, “You were barely human. A killer of men.” Steve seems to me to feel a bit guilty after Bucky first kills someone. I’m also struck by Bucky did not have any idea that that was the role he was being prepared for throughout his whole training. He does, while reminiscing on it in retrospect, make a joke about it that I found charming in Captain America and Bucky #620: “If I’d known how valuable I was to the U.S. government, I’d have pawned myself for a profit.”

Captain America and the Secret Avengers (2011) #1

The Captain America and the Secret Avengers issue was published in March 2011, according to the Marvel Wiki. It was written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Greg Tocchini. I’m not interested in reading Secret Avengers (2010) right now, but I read this one-shot because it was focused on Natasha and Sharon Carter. But, unfortunately, the story and the portrayal of their relationship wasn’t really interesting.

Captain America & the Incredible Hulk (1981) #1 and Spider-Man & the Incredible Hulk (1981) #1-2 and Marvel Team-Up (1972) #104-105 and Captain America (1968) #257

The Captain America & the Incredible Hulk issue was a 7-11 promotional giveaway one-shot from 1981. The story, which was 11 pages, had them fighting Magneto. There was also 10 pages of Captain America or Hulk-themed games and 2 pages of advertising for Super Slurpee Superheroes t-shirts. I couldn’t find any information on who the creators of the comic were.

The Spider-Man & the Incredible Hulk issues were given out with the Dallas Times Herald in 1981 as advertising supplements for the department store chain Sanger-Harris. I could only find scans of two of them; it looks like there are 3 others that I’m missing. I couldn’t find any information on who the creators of these were, either. The stories were 15 pages, which were interspersed with a generous amount of advertisements for Sanger-Harris. The stories also both had multiple scenes, which were not very closely related to the supervillain plots, of various characters having a wonderful time shopping at Sanger-Harris. In the first issue the Sandman is framing the Hulk for his crimes by covering himself in green dye before them. Even before he discovers this, Peter knows that the Hulk is innocent. When he does discover it, he thinks, “Well, I always told Sandy he should pick on someone his own size!” Peter attacks the Sandman with his webs while he’s fleeing from the Hulk, causing the Sandman to change course and attack Peter, and the Hulk sees this and says, “Ugly man who becomes dust is chasing Web Man! Web Man tried to help Hulk! So Hulk will help Web Man!” He does this by picking up the tower that Peter is on so that he can hit the Sandman with it. As Peter floats down with a web-parachute, he says, “Thanks, Hulk- I think!” Also, in the second story Peter is searching the desert for a missing friend and thinks, when he finds the Hulk, “I forgot! The southwest is where the Hulk comes- to get away from people!”

Marvel Team-Up #104 was published in January 1981, according to the Marvel Wiki, and was written by Roger McKenzie, penciled by Jerry Bingham, and inked by Mike Esposito. It was a team-up between the Hulk and Ka-Zar, Master of the Savage Land. The Hulk’s part of the issue starts in media res with him on top of the Golden Gate Bridge with a young girl. One police officer goes up alone try to convince the Hulk to give him the child, but the Hulk says that the girl is his friend and accuses, “Banner sent you, didn’t he? Banner always torments Hulk!” But the girl protests, “Hulk, no! If you’re my friend don’t hurt him! Please… I want to go with him!” The Hulk acquiesces, then he becomes concerned that the police officer is going to slip and fall while trying to climb down with the girl, so he tries to take the girl back so that he can get her down himself. The Hulk explains his intentions, but the police officers down below can’t hear him, and so in a classic Hulk comic misunderstanding, they fire at the Hulk thinking that he’s attacking. Later, when the Hulk is alone and away from the chaos, the narration describes him in a roundabout way, saying, “Their lives are filled with darkness and pain and little else. No wonder they clutch with child-like desperation- to whatever shred of comfort they can fine.” And the Hulk thinks, “It is quiet here. Hulk likes quiet. Hulk would bring friend here… if Hulk had friend.”

Marvel Team-Up #105 was published in February 1981, according to the Marvel Wiki, and was written by Mike W. Barr, penciled by Carmine Infantino, and penciled by Mike Esposito. It was a team-up between the Hulk and the Heroes for Hire, Power Man and Iron Fist. At one point the Hulk sees a man slap his young daughter and goes to smash him, so to save the man’s life Luke runs over and punches him and says, “I hit ‘im for you, Hulk- He can’t hurt nobody now!”

Captain America #257 was published in February 1981, according to the Marvel Wiki, and was written by Mike W. Barr, penciled by Lee Elias, and inked by “Many Hands.” In this issue Steve and Bruce are both kidnapped by a villain group that is made up of Baron Zemo’s old henchmen. Specifically, Steve is kidnapped because they know that he visits the same cliff side spot overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in England on the same day every year, which turns out to be the anniversary of Bucky’s “death.” The villains used their study of Bruce’s body to perfect a weapon which they want to then use on Steve in order to avenge Zemo’s death. Bruce gets excited and turns into the Hulk during the escape attempt and Steve then tricks the Hulk into helping him by telling him that the villains are working for Bruce. When the Hulk gets stuck in Zemo’s Adhesive X, Steve tries to help get him loose, which the Hulk reacts to with fairly calm confusion, saying, “Huh? Why does Star-Man hit Hulk with plate? Hulk doesn’t like it!” I thought that this was cute. Later, when Steve has set the villains’ base to explode, he works hard and persistently to get the Hulk out with him even though the Hulk is making it difficult, which I also enjoyed.

Timely Publications:

the Jimmy Jupiter stories in Marvel Mystery Comics (1939) #28-35

In this batch of 8 Jimmy Jupiter stories I went from February 1942 to September 1942, according to the issue cover dates. The first 3 stories were 6 pages and then the rest were 7 pages. All were signed as by Eddie Robbins. His Who’s Who page says that he was just the penciler, and not the writer.

I started reading through Jimmy’s Golden Age stories because I was so emotionally effected by his role in the first arc of Captain America (2011). In issue #2 of that book his powers were explained as having the (possibly mutant) ability to enter what he called the Land of Nowhere, which was a surreal place he could shape with his imagination and take things out of, which is depicted as happening through portals. And he could also connect to other people’s dreams, so he was recruited to take a group of soldiers into the Land of Nowhere, connect to the dream of a Hydra agent, and then let the soldiers out so that they could raid a Hydra base that the Allies didn’t know the location of. Unfortunately for Jimmy, a Hydra spy hits him over the head with a heavy object to mess up the plan, which leaves him in a coma for 65 years (and also traps the soldiers in his dream-world for that length of time). He has limited brain function when he does wake up, and then he gets shot and killed having missed out on so much of his life.

I was struck by the thought while reading these stories that Jimmy is such a kid, he never really stood a chance. It’s hard to imagine him growing up. He’s very much well-suited for the adventures he goes on in the Land of Nowhere. He’s a sweet kid and doesn’t get into unnecessary trouble by being rude to the magical beings he meets, he can realistically get scared at times, but he’s also able to handle himself there and is really just having a lot of fun. I liked seeing in his second story how, when he was trapped with a rabbit companion in a magical circle by witches and needed a lucky charm to get out of it, he picked up his rabbit friend and rubbed his left foot three times to escape. Then, when lost in the witches’ complex castle with many doors, he just closed his eyes and spun around really fast and dizzily chose whatever door was in front of him. And then, when fighting a witch, he popped her by stabbing her with a pin he stole from one of her Sunday hats.

Throughout his stories there are times where it seems as though Jimmy is in real danger, but he largely doesn’t need anyone to tell him what to do. An exception to this is in the story in issue #34 when Jimmy is tempted by man named Temptation and another character, Werjil, tries to get Jimmy away from him. He accepts candy from Temptation despite Werjil’s protests, he refuses cigarettes on his own, then he goes on a merry-go-ride with Temptation which Werjil says he can only go on once or he’ll be trapped there forever. As Temptation is trying to get Jimmy to stand on the ride longer, a big muscular man named Will Power suddenly appears and beats up Temptation. So it seems that whatever happens, Jimmy can’t really be harmed in his dream-world.

The first time Jimmy visits the Land of Nowhere, in his first story, he falls out of a plane because he was too excited to buckle his seat belt and then seemingly lands in a cloud. And then end of the story a dragon is crying on Jimmy, getting him all wet, and then he wakes up to find that he apparently fainted while falling, but his parachute opened and saved him, and then the pilot poured a bucket of water over his head to wake him up. This kind of pattern continues to play out over the course of Jimmy’s stories in this batch, though in more mundane circumstances, where he often is somewhere where he could conceivably fall asleep, seemingly doesn’t and instead is whisked away on an adventure, and then wakes up at the end back in that mundane setting, with his fantasy adventure turning a little weird right before that. But the way that Jimmy falls asleep so often outside of his bed may be a part of his powers: the story across issues #31-32 seemingly takes place while he’s asleep on a roller coaster.

Jimmy has yet to take anything out of his dreams. He collects a handful of moonbeam in the story in issue #30 but then has to use it later when fighting gnomes that ride on bats. And he picks golden rods for his mother in the story in issue #35 but has to get rid of them because his dragon friend is allergic to them. I’m not expecting Jimmy to actually connect to anyone else’s dreams or to take anyone else into his own dreams in these Golden Age stories; I’m assume that that that’s something that Ed Brubaker made up. But Jimmy does believe that the adventure that he goes on are real, though nobody else does. In the story in issue #30 his mother tells him, “Jimmy, if you don’t stop telling these impossible stories, you will be punished!” And the opening narration of the story in issue #31 reads, “Hoping that the Land of Nowhere will be erased from Jimmy’s mind, his mother sends him to an amusement park.”

#comics read this past week #my posts

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purple-vixen · 3 years

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Batfamily & Games - Headcanon

A/N: Brace yourselves, this headcanon is HUGE (about 1.5k words). I’ve been playing a lot of games during quarantine and that’s what inspired me to write this. I mostly play on ps4, if you want to add me on psn, my ID is Vixtr0yer_ - Vix

• Ok, hear me out.

• Tim is definitely a JRPG guy.

• Used to play a lot of Final Fantasy back when he was a kid.

• And he still does.

• Tim is a completionist. He does every sidequest, maxes the skill tree and the characters' level, unlocks every weapon and collects EVERY. SINGLE. TROPHY.

• Another thing that he enjoys about JRPGs is analyzing his items, weapons and characters' abilities and stats to build the best strategy during battles, especially if the battles are turn-based.

• Although Final Fantasy holds a special place in his heart, Tim's favorite game is Persona 5.

• He went crazy over that game. After getting Persona 5, Tim locked himself in his room and would spend the entire day (and night, if he's not patrolling) playing Persona 5, only going outside to open the kitchen's fridge and bring a pack of Red Bull to his bedroom.

• After he beat Persona 5 and unlocked every ending, Tim went through an identity crisis.

• But then Persona 5 Royal was released and the cycle started all over again.

• Steph also enjoys RPGs, but she prefers action RPGs. Unlike Tim, Steph pays no mind to the numbers and statuses in items and weapons, she just equips the stuff that gives more damage and beats the crap out of the enemies until they die.

• Depending on the game, Steph can be very competitive, she lost count on the controllers she broke in a fit of rage after dying in Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

• Her favorite game is Skyrim because she loves using the funny mods.

• I have the feeling Cass is a retro-gamer. She doesn't lean to a specific game genre, she enjoys retro games in general.

• But if Cass had to pick a few favorite ones, they would be Earthbound and Kirby's Adventure.

• Cass also builds some AMAZING constructions in Minecraft.

• Barbara likes MOBA and MMO.

• She wouldn't consider herself addicted but she's been playing World of Warcraft since its release.

• If Barbara happens to be in a bad mood and sees some players being assholes, she goes there and hack their accounts.

• She also likes watching esports.

• Screw the Olympics, esports tournaments are her thing.

• Babs makes a big deal about League of Legends World Championship. LoLWC is like the event of the year for her.

• Her ritual is buying a family-size bag of nachos and soda to watch it on her TV every year.

• Barbara and Dick are the type of couple that has a 2 person gaming setup so that they can play together.

• Talking about Dick Grayson.

• He has two types of favorite videogames.

• One being story-driven games. Dick gets all invested in the plot to the point he feels catharsis.

• He cried playing Life is Strange.

• He always tries to get the happy ending and be nice to all the characters.

• If he ends up being accidentally rude or getting an ending he doesn't like, he reloads his save and picks another option or starts the game all over again.

• And don't get me started on his Stardew Valley playthrough.

• But when it comes to The Sims, Dick is a real psycho. He takes the ladder off the pool, locks the sims in a cubicle and stuff, has the extreme violence mod installed.

• After playing God of War, Dick started calling Damian by "Boy" with an extremely deep voice.

• In the beginning Damian shrugged it off but after one week he got fed up and started chasing after Dick with a sword and threatened to cut him to pieces if he called him "Boy" one more time.

• His other type of favorite games are games where he can goof around.

• He causes massive chaos in Goat Simulator and the Goose Game.

• Because of the Goose Game, Dick tried to convince Damian to convince Bruce to buy them a goose.

• It didn't work.

• Back when Jason was Robin, Bruce paid a lot of attention to the age ratings. If Jason asked Bruce to buy him a new game, Bruce would google the title of said game and based on Jason's age and the game's age rating, he would decide to buy it or not.

• "I said we're not buying Ratchet & Clank, Jason." Bruce says as he looks at the ESRB website through the batcomputer.

• "But it's rated 10!" A 13-year-old Jason protests.

• "Do you really think I'm going to allow you owning a game that has 'Quest for Booty' as its subtitle?"

• Still, that didn't stop Jason from playing the games he wanted to.

• Jason would save up money from his allowance and head to the arcade or secretly buy a new game and play it whenever Bruce wasn't at the Manor.

• Jason would mostly play FPS games. His favorite franchise ended up being Doom.

• Jason often trains while listening to the Doom soundtrack.

• Because the Doom soundtrack makes all of us Jason feel things. He also listens to the songs before patrolling because they hype him up to punch people.

• Don't lie to me, I know you feel the same way when you listen to the Doom soundtrack. Everyone does.

• There was that one time Jason ended up in a fist-fight over the last copy of Doom Eternal on the release date.

• Jason managed to get the last copy but ended up getting banned from GameStop.

• Also some guy recorded the GameStop fight and uploaded on Youtube an edit with one of those "When Doom music kicks in" memes that has "The Only Thing They Fear is You" playing in the background.

• The video got over 2 million views.

• Having kids does tire you out. By the time Bruce had Damian, he stopped caring about videogames' age rating and stuff.

• But still, Grand Theft Auto is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN in Wayne Manor.

• One person ends up getting away from this rule.

• Not because he's allowed to play it, he just doesn't care about that rule.

• And that person is… *drum roll*

• Alfred.

• Alfred had beat GTA V twice and he whoops other people's asses on GTA Online.

• Alfred is also an evil mastermind in Among Us. When he gets to be the impostor, Alfred always wins.

• Damian plays a lot of Fortnite.

• But not because he likes Fortnite, he thinks it's too ridiculous for his liking, especially the dances.

• Damian doesn't like playing Fortnite, but he likes playing Fortnite with Jon. It's Jon's favorite game and Jon gets very happy whenever he gets to play it with Damian. Damian, although not being a fan of Fortnite, ends up having fun too.

• Fun fact: When Damian found out Batman, Catwoman and even Joker and Ivy had their Fortnite skins, he got mad because they didn't make a Robin skin. He then started emailing Epic asking for one and saying that Robin deserved his own Fortnite skin.

• But Damian's favorite game turns out to be:

• Animal Crossing New Horizons.

• Because living on a paradise island full of animals is like his dream come true.

• Also Damian's favorite villager is Ozzie.

• He follows the "Can You Pet The Dog?" twitter account.

• The batkids tried to organize a family videogames night. But in literally E-V-E-R-Y family videogames night something wrong happened and at least one person ended up in the med bay.

• Dance Dance Revolution night: Duke slipped and sprained his ankle.

• Overcooked night: instead of helping to do the dishes right, Jason kept on being chaotic, he'd block the passages, put unnecessary ingredients on the countertop, slap the other cooks, anything he could do to troll them. They only got 1 star on a level and Steph threw a controller on Jason's head.

• Mario Kart night: Damian, first place. Tim, blue shell. That's all I have to say.

• Among Us: Everyone, literally EVERYONE started fighting and without any exception they all ended up in med bay. After that one, family videogames night was officially canceled. And Bruce had to organize a group therapy session for them.

• "They say I'm supposed to open up to people, but how the fuck am I supposed to open up to people when every time I trust someone they fucking STAB ME IN THE BACK?"

• "Jason, I was the impostor, I was supposed to stab people in the back."

• "I TRUSTED YOU, DICK, AND I WON'T EVER TRUST YOU AGAIN. YOU'RE NOT MY BROTHER ANYMORE, BITCH."

• Bruce strongly denies that he plays videogames. He says he's too old and he doesn't have time for that.

• Remember that aunt of yours who is already on level 900 in Candy Crush?

• Bruce is that aunt.

• He secretly has Candy Crush installed on his phone and whenever he's at Wayne Enterprises feeling bored, Bruce unlocks his phone and starts playing Candy Crush.

• There was that one time the bank called Bruce because they thought his credit card was cloned after a $200 purchase in App Store.

• But guess what?

• Yep, it was just Bruce fucking Wayne playing Candy Crush.

• He also managed to beat minesweeper more than once by the way.

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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One last one for the moment; top five superheroes who definitely AREN'T Pulp Heroes, but could be with a little tweaking?

Oof, that's a hard one. It's a hard one because, again, there ultimately isn't that much separation between the two to the point there's enough of a hard line in there to work with, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now that I've staked claims on there being differences between them.

Okay so, not counting superheroes who are deliberately modeled after actual pulp heroes, so no Tom Strong or Night Raven here. I'm sticking mainly with comic book superheroes (barring one oddball exception) since the medium separation is important), who I think could become pulp heroes with some tweaking.

5: Captain America

Sort of cheating because I already covered it here, but I definitely have to include Captain America in here, especially in the stories they actively go for a "pulp" vibe as well as the earliest ones.

Fun fact about Marvel: As Timely, they actually began life as pulp publishers. Not just pulp publishers, but specializing in some of the sleaziest, ghastliest magazines of the era, and you can bet this carried over to their superheroes. Where as DC's superheroes took inspiration from the big pulp heroes such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, Timely's superheroes seemed instead much more inspired by Weird Tales stories and Poverty Row horror films, and even in the 60s, Marvel never really abandoned their horror roots, the trick was just using them as a baseline to create superheroes. In DC, the world's first contact with superheroes begins with the world looking in wonder at a friendly strongman. In Marvel, it began with the world looking in panicked horror at a flaming monster rampaging through the streets desperately trying to not burn everything it touches. It should come to little surprise then that the majority of characters I'm including in this list are Marvel characters.

People think Captain America's first comics largely consisted of him fighting Nazis left and right, but they were actually much more often based around him encountering monsters and creatures of horror, like the above panel where it looks like Cap's staring down the beginning of Berserk's Eclipse (RIP Miura).

The early Captain America comics pretty much consisted of Kirby dipping his toe into the monster comics he'd make in the 50s which would later bleed into the 60s Marvel entourage. They even tried repackaging Captain America into a horror anthology in the 50s titled "Captain America's Weird Tales", just imagine how different the character would be today if that somehow stuck.

Imagine a world where Steve Rogers never became leader of The Avengers, never got to become the shining beacon of heroism of an entire universe, and instead, when he was unfrosted, he woke up to find a world running rampant with crawling nightmares and Nazi tyranny, and he has no idea what's become of his former sidekick. That definitely sounds like the start of a promising pulp adventure.

4: Namor

Another Timely creation. In Namor's case, he didn't so much encounter horrors from beyond imagination, as much as HE was the terrifying thing beyond us ready to rampage upon mankind, whose first on-screen act consists of the calculated slaughter of a ship full of innocents. The first true villain protagonist of comic books. Not just an anti-hero, a villain intent on wiping out the human race.

And not just a cardboard supervillain, but the beautiful prince of a race of ugly fish monsters, a momma's boy who's doing what he thinks is right by warring with surface dwellers. While Namor's become largely defined by his gargantuan arrogance, here, he's almost childlike, despite being much more brutal and villainous here, spurred on by the whims of his mother, who even acknowledges that Namor had no real reason to kill the divers but did so anyway, and now encourages him to genocide. His mom even tells him "Go now, to the land of white people!", and the very last panel of the story even states he's on a "crusade against white men".

The massacre of explorers at the hands of something beyond their understanding. A monster born of an interracial coupling. A race of fish monsters with bulging eyes, antagonistic towards humanity but are shown to have positive traits just the same. A dash of racism. There is no mistaking The Sub-Mariner's pulp horror influence.

A non-white superhuman warrior born from a Lovecraftian horror story, who gradually moves away from his villainous crusade into becoming more of an anti-hero, never truly putting aside his hatred for humanity, remaining a temperamental, unpredictable outcast, with a strong, palpable undercurrent of anger in his stories. I could very easily buy Namor as having crawled out of a Weird Tales story and I can't think of other superheroes whose origins are as steeped deeply in pulp horror.

3: Doctor Fate

Technically we already have a pulp hero version of Doctor Fate in Doc Fate, and I'll get to him separately, but even besides him, the earliest Doctor Fate stories in particular feel very much like he's a character steeped in the worlds of pulp and pulp horror who decided to put on a superhero costume and show up in comic.

He's got a similar set-up to The Shadow, from the pulp Shadow in the sense that he's a mysterious, eerie crimefighter who dwells as a presence more often than an active character and who kills criminals without remorse, always watching and waiting for the right time to strike as a a wrathful old-testament force of vengeance, and from the radio Shadow due to him using superpowers to fight crime while being accompanied by a smart, fierce love interest.

Originally, Fate was not a sorcerer, but instead a scientist who discovered a way to manipulate atomic structure, of his and other things, thus making it appear that he can do magic (although we never see his face, and he's implied to be thousands of years old, before they settled on the Nabu origin). And going back to Lovecraft, a lot of it appears in the earliest Fate stories. Fate was given powers not by a sorcerer, but an alien worshipped as a god. He barely encounters traditional monsters, but instead contends with hidden races, zombie slaves, abandoned alien monoliths, and half man and half fish creatures. Fate may have actually been the very first pastiche of Lovecraft in pop culture.

And of course we can't forget the gloriousness of Doc Fate pulling an Indiana Jones on us.

2: Wolverine

I don't even think you'd have to tweak Wolverine at all. You'd just have to get him out of the costume and Avengers/X-Men associations (although the X-Men have a substantial background in pulp sci-fi stories like Slan and Odd John, so they aren't really at odds here), maybe tone down his powers a bit and, that's it. Logan's already the kind of character who has such a varied sandbox history, whose powers can lead to so many different scenarios, that it's not a stretch at all to picture Wolverine in the usual pulp hero scenarios.

You can have half-naked Wolverine running around in the jungle with animals Tarzan-style, take him to Savage Land if you wanna throw dinosaurs in there. He's already Marvel's foremost "wandering samurai/cowboy" character which was one of the stock and trade types of the pulps. Western? Done. Samurai? Done. Wuxia? Just put him in China and add a couple extra fantasy elements. Wanna make a sword and sorcery story with him? He already comes with a bunch of knives and savagery and ability to survive grisly injuries. Horror? The MCU is crawling with them, or alternatively, tell a story from the perspective of someone who's being hunted down by Wolverine. Wanna tell a detective/noir/post-apocalypse story? Logan's right there.

Wanna have him crossover with pulp heroes? He's lived through the 1800s and 1900s and traveled all over the world, you could feasibly have him meet up with just about any of them. Logan may actually be the purest example of your question, because he's very much not a Pulp Hero, and yet, he definitely feels like a character who could have been one, at just about any point in the history of pulp magazines. He's perfect for it.

1: Wario

WAAA-okay, look, bear with me for a second here, I'm not just picking Wario because I love oddball choices and he's one of my favorite characters, I got some logic to this.

Okay so, the first question here: is Mario a superhero? While I'm usually adverse to calling characters prominent outside of comic books superheroes (hence why I'm definitely not interested in debating whether Harry Potter or Goku or Link or Frodo are superheroes), I do think it's a pretty shut case that, yes, Mario is a superhero. Superheroes don't just come in the form of skintight crimefighters, right from the start comic books have had varied types of superheroes appearing in comics and comic strips. For example, the "funny animal" superheroes are a type older than superhero comics, and they were arguably not only the most successful type of superhero of the 40s-50s era, but arguably defined trends dominating nonfunny animal superheroes, traits that predated or influenced Captain Marvel as well as Otto Binder's reshaping of Superman that defined much of superhero convention as we know it. It's part of why the question of "Is Sonic a superhero" has a very clear Yes as an answer.

So upon establishing that, yes, funny cartoon characters can be and are superheroes too, is Mario one? Well, I'd say yes. He's got an iconic uniform, he's got superpowers, he goes on fantastical adventures, he is both a nebulously general do-gooder as well as having a clear mission as protector of the Mushroom Kingdom. His adventures span multiple storytelling formats, he's got catchphrases, he even dresses up in Superman's colors and has a Super prefix iconically associated with him. Not a superhero the way we usually think of, but a superhero nonetheless.

And Wario? Well, putting aside Wario-Man who's more of a running gag than anything, Wario does just about everything Mario does. He's got all the traits that define Mario as a superhero short of a Super prefix and the selfless mission (which isn't exactly a rule). He goes around and gets into crazy adventures, he picks up items, beats bad guys, conquers the odds, and gets some kind of prize for it. He's got Mario's physical traits, and Mario's costume, and just about the same name short of a single letter. The caveat being, of course, that he's Wario, and so everything Mario is or does has to be exaggerated to gross extreme.

Mario is paunchy and strong, Wario's round and built like a powerlifter. Mario's got a friendly face and a fluffy mustache, Wario's got a massive horrible grin and jagged razors for a stache. Mario is a bit of an overeater, Wario can and will eat anything in front of him. Mario gets around with acrobatics and magic power-ups, Wario brute forces his way through everything and just rolls with whatever injuries he picks up along the way.

Mario gets fire powers by consuming magic flowers. Wario sets himself on fire and barrels around destroying everything in his path. Mario harnesses the elements or abilities of beings around him to clear obstacles and solve puzzles, Wario gets turned into a zombie, a vampire or a drunk to get the same things done. Mario befriends and rides dinosaurs who raised him from infancy, Wario piledrives dinosaurs and then uses their bodies to beat up more dinosaurs. Mario pals around with fellow heroes, princesses and friendly fantasy creatures, Wario pals around with aliens, witches, mad scientists, cab drivers, and lanky weirdos. Mario always ends his adventures joyfully leaping to the next one, Wario usually ends up either cackling in a pile of treasure or completely broke.

Mario races through plains to rescue princesses, Wario invades pyramids to hunt for treasure. Mario jumps through planets with baby stars guiding his path, Wario crashes into the Amazon jungle and fistfights the devil. You can see where I'm going with this.

If you were to take one of Nintendo's heroes to make them into pulp heroes, Wario, specifically the Wario Land Wario, may be the only one who really could do it, because in essence, he's the videogame equivalent of Professor Challenger. He's Bluto moonlighting as Indiana Jones, the weird brute adventurer for weird brute adventures where everything's off limits and you can trust our intrepid hero, who really shouldn't be a hero on all accounts, to deliver us a good time, give or take a couple deaths, scams, shams and oh-damns to complete said mad treasure hunts.

#replies tag #not pulp heroes #comic books #dr fate #wolverine #captain america #namor #wario

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

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10 tattoos/piercing, Danbrey, sfw, please!

Here you go! I based Dani's design on an arowana because I liked the color.

“Remember, non-scented soap, nice to meet you, byeee!” Aubrey waves to her client as they head down the boardwalk. She has thirty minutes until her next appointment, so it’s time to stretch her legs and check the little ‘doggy cam” she set up on Dr. Harris Bonkers cage to make sure the giant rabbit hasn’t finally managed to chew his way through the bars.

“Hi doctor” She coos into the phone. One white ear pivots towards the camera, but the bunny remains otherwise unmoved.

She leans on the railing, Pacfic sparkling like a postcard before her.

“Excuse me?”

“YEEEEP!” She jumps back, not expecting a woman to pop out of the water, let alone pop out and talk to her.

“Oops, sorry.” The other woman smiles, golden hair fanning out around her. There are two types of blondes in Long Beach; the ones hoping to be the next influencer sensation and the kind who are excited to tell you about GOOP and crystals.

Whichever kind this woman is, she’s the most gorgeous girl Aubrey’s ever seen.

“Um, can I help you?”

“Yeah! Can you tattoo me? A piercing would be okay too, but I really like how pretty the tattoos are.”

“Thanks. Um, you’re gonna need an appointment.” She pulls out her phone again, since it’s synced to the calendar Joseph makes them all keep, “lemme see....I have a big slot of time on Friday afternoon.”

The girl cocks her head, “That’s two days from now, right?”

“Yep.We can start at one if that works for you?”

“Sure, see you then!” She waves and then disappears under the water. A few moments later, a shimmering golden tail breaks the swell, seeming to wave once before submerging. Aubrey blinks, switches back to the bun cam.

“How do I tell Joseph I have to move my stuff outside to tattoo a mermaid?”

Dr. Harris Bonkers snuffles, but offers no further commentary.

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

“Joseph, for the last time, you are not gonna hang around just to ask my client questions while I’m trying to work.”

“I don’t plan to, but we need to make sure everything, and I mean everything, is as sterile as we can manage. Doing this outside gives me hives as it is.” Joseph finishes setting up the pop-tent, the kind sun-phobic families take to the beach.

“C’mon, people gave each other traditional tattoos out in the open for centuries. It should be fine.”

Joseph makes an unsure noise, but leaves her in peace all the same. Before long a golden tail flashes out of the water as the mermaid swims towards the beach, the closest spot to the pier where they could actually set the tent and generator up. It’s right on the tide line, Duck having used his almanac to tell them whether Aubrey would be chasing the tide or fleeing from it if the appointment turns out to be long.

“Um, hi again.” She waves.

“Hello!” The mermaid slides up into the surf. When she sits up, Aubrey turns pink.

“Uh, do you, uh, want a swimsuit or something?” Her voice is embarrassingly high.

The mermaid looks down, then at Aubrey studiously looking elsewhere, and laughs, “Oh, right, I forgot humans don’t like it when we’re bare-chested.”

“I mean it’s not that we don’t like it-” Aubrey mumbles.

“Be right back.” She pushes back into the sea, returning a minute later wearing a bright green bikini top, “is that better?”

“Yep!” She replies too quickly, “Sorry, I, um, I’ve never worked on a mermaid before, kinda figured you guys wore seashells or sea stars or something?”

“You...you realize where that would put the seastar mouths, right?” The mermaid scoots up onto the beach, tail in the water and back on the inflatable recliner they borrowed from Kirbys apartment.

“Ooohouch, you’re right, fuck, sorry.” She grabs her flash binder, brought in case the mermaid didn’t have a design in mind.

The mermaid glances over her shoulder, smiling, “You’re cute when you blush.”

She maintains her professionalism, but only just, as the mermaid chooses her preferred design; a brightly colored swirl of planets and stars. For a newbie, she barely seems to register the needle, focused instead on studying Aubrey’s face and hands as she works. She learns that her name is Dani, that she’s one of several merfolk living near the pier, and that she’s observed Aubrey and her handiwork courtesy of a rock and a pair of salvaged binoculars.

“Oooh” Dani wiggles her tail happily when she sees the finished product, “it’s perfect, thank you so much Aubrey.”

“Glad you like it-oh, okay.” She stiffens as Dani rubs their cheeks together twice before pulling back.

“I’m supposed to keep it clean right?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure how well saran wrap will hold up to sea water.”

A formerly empty Rose bottle thunks onto the sand. Dani grabs it, popping the make-shift cork off with her teeth.

“Ooh, Indrid sent me a special covering to keep it safe. And these must be for you.” She holds out two pearls.”

“Thanks” She’s more interested in watching the kissable lips covering razor sharp than the gems the mermaid gives her.

“Can I see you again?” Dani is halfway back in the water.

“Whenever you want. You’re a great client; you, um, you’re really nice to touch. Wait, um, I mean you take it really welllARGH, um, yes please come back.” Aubrey replies, tucking the second most valuable thing on the beach into her pocket and continuing to blush well after Dani has returned to the waves.

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

“AHFUCK!”

“Sorry!” Dani gives a sheepish wave to Duck before turning to Aubrey, who got used to her popping out of the water five times ago, “are you free tomorrow?”

“Sure” even if she isn’t, she’ll happily reschedule another client for Dani’s sake, “do want to pick something from my flash?”

“Nope, this time Indrid designed something. It’s about the same size as this” she holds up the watercolor hermit crab on her right arm, “see you then?”

“Of course.” Aubrey waves goodbye, blows a kiss when Dani is out of sight.

She forgot Duck was still here.

“You got it bad, Lady Flame.”

“Shush, I saw you chatting to Indrid by the coffee shop yesterday.”

“....you can’t prove anythin.”

She holds up her phone, smirking, “Oh yes I can.”

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

“Aubrey!”

She looks up, wondering who’s calling her name on the deserted beach. She brings Dr. Harris Bonkers down here on a leash late at night for enrichment for him and a break from the summer heat for her.

“Aubrey, over here!” Dani leaps through the surf until she;s only able to slide, “I thought it was you. Ohhhhhh” she squeals, “this must be Dr. Harris Bonkers. Hello cutie pie, aren’t you just so lovelyOH, oh he feels like an otter.” She rubs the rabbits head, causing him to creep towards the water, “you’re the second cutest thing on this beach, doctor.” She winks at Aubrey, then sits up, “can I introduce him to Ferdinand?”

Aubrey nods, excited to finally meet Dani’s pet; she only his name, but she’s expecting a seal, or maybe a crab.

What she gets is an octopus. The cephalopod winds a tentacle around her arm, investigating her.

“Aww, he likes you.” Dani sets the octopus down in shallow water, where it proceeds to stretch multiple limbs out to poke Dr. Harris Bonkers.

“Guess they’re having a playdate?” Dani scoots closer, resting her head on Aubrey’s shoulder.

Aubrey sets a hand on her tail, running her fingers up and down the scales as the mermaid sighs happily.

“As long as he doesn’t carry Dr. Harris Bonkers into the tidepools, they can hang out as long as you like.”

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

“Dani? How many tattoos are you planning to get?” Aubrey looks up from where she’s outlining an octopus on Dani’s side.

“I haven’t decided yet. It’s really common for mers to have lots of piercings and tattoos. That’s why Indrid can leave Duck so many expensive tokens; he’s the most in-demand tattoo artist on the coast.”

“Neat! Wait-” she sits up, shutting off the gun, “your friend is a tattoo artist, but you kept coming here?”

“Yes.” Dani is still, save for the end of her tail, which vibrates nervously.

“Why?”

“Um, well, I, I really liked your style. Then I really liked you, and I wanted to keep seeing you…”

“Holy crap, do you keep getting tattoos because you think that’s the only way you’re able to see me?”

“Uhhuh.” Dani is bright pink from her cheeks to her waist as Aubrey scrambles to sit in front of her, “I mean, when you want to date someone, you’re only allowed to see them at their work until they say they want to date you too. Even us meeting on the beach a few weeks ago was pushing it, and I didn’t want you thinking I was pushy.”

“....Huh?”

“Do humans not have that rule?” Dani’s honey-colored eyes widen.

“Nope. It’s actually kinda rude to ask people out at work, because they can’t get away BUT” she hurriedly sets the gun aside, “but I make exceptions for super cute wonderful mermaids.”

“Oh. In that case-” Dani knocks her backwards with her tail and climbs atop her, kissing her so hard she wonders if you can die from a really good make-out session. When the salty kiss ends the mermaid continues peppering her face with kisses and flicking her tongue along her neck.

“Dani I, I’m loving all of this but if you mess up my ink I’m gonna be as annoyed as I can possibly be with a gorgeous mermaid feeling me up.”

“Crap, you’re right.” Dani sits back up, glancing at the half-done tattoo, "I really don't want to ruin your work. Desperate need to see you aside, I do love your style." She folds her hands back into her lap and readjusts onto the inflatable chair.

Aubrey crawls forward, kissing her sweetly, "Once we're done and you're all wrapped up, wanna join me on the beach for a little, um, late night picnic."

A teasing kiss, first to her nose and then to her lips, "I'd love to."

#danbrey #aubrey little/dani #taz amnesty #mermay #mermay fills

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savannahsdrabbles · 4 years

Text

Ocean Song - Part One

rating: PG summary: Marine biology student April O’Neil makes a startling discovery.

notes: An AU originally based off of the 2012 TMNT universe, but can be compatible with most versions of the characters. <3 2.7k words. A03 link can be found here. Also special thanks to @cloakedrabbit and @starfiretheninja for beta-reading!

Looking back on the past couple of days’ events, April should have realized that kidnapping an endangered creature was a bad idea.

Well, scratch that.

Maybe attempting to break into a high security laboratory was where she went wrong. Or –

“This is totally wicked!” Casey Jones hollered from the driver’s seat as they took another sharp turn, tires spinning and spitting gravel up into the windshield wipers that were already working overtime. The creature in the backseat squawked and flailed as he skidded across the torn upholstery, desperately trying to sink his claws into something to keep from being thrown about like a rag doll.

“Slow down – and calm down!” The red-head snapped first towards the driver, and then over her shoulder at their passenger as she rapidly typed away on her laptop. A large jolt suddenly rocked the Jeep to one side and then the other, and April threw her arms out as a scream escaped her mouth. “CASEY! BRIDGE!”

Okay. So there were a lot of things that went wrong.

***

“Here we are!” A voice called loudly, causing April to jerk her head up and nearly lose an earbud in the process. “Now I know you’ve told me before, but remind me – what class is this project for? I don’t recall having to do anything like this until I’d reached graduate school.”

April smiled as she rose from her seat and shouldered an air tank onto her back. She carefully pulled the earbuds from her ears and tucked them into the bag of dry clothes she’d brought, then paused to looked out across the ocean. The sky was overcast that afternoon, leaving glare so minimal that even as the boat chugged to a stop beneath them, she was almost certain she could spy movement in the water below. “It’s for a dual-credit course. My science instructor knows that Dad is stationed here and that I study under him, so he said that I could use some of my research work as a science credit.”

“My word,” The fourty-something Japanese man at the stern shook his head in amusement as he pulled a lever to lower the anchor. The ship responded with a groan, lurching slightly at the movement, and the air was soon filled with a steady clack-clack-clack as chains were steadily released into the depths. “I swear, April – you work more than most kids your age. It’s a wonder you even have time to consider college courses. And you’re only – what – sixteen?”

“Seventeen as of last month,” April shrugged lightly and fought back an amused eyeroll as she continued to adjust her gear and flippers. Once she was certain they were secure, the girl reached for her camera and looped the strap over her wrist. She’d known Miles for a few months at this point and was pretty sure that they’d had this exact conversation every time they spoke. Her dad joked that his memory retention was about as long as that of the goldfishthat he studied. “Thankfully most of the college stuff is online, so I don’t have to worry about dealing with all of the paperwork from moving between schools. So it’s not too bad.”

“Ah. Well then, I won’t keep you from your schoolwork any longer.” Miles tapped his wrist and jerked his chin towards the cloudy sky before moving towards the stairs that led below deck. Typically the rule was to never dive alone, but… “Remember, one hour tops, and then I have to check the boat back in for the evening – no exceptions.”

“I know, I know – see you in a bit!” Positioning herself on the side of the boat, April fitted the mouthpiece from her tank into place, flashed an okay sign, and then pushed herself backwards into the rolling waves.

***

No matter how many times she dove, April could never not be amazed by the sheer beauty of the sea.She often wondered if she’d feel the same had her dad chosen a different line of work, but she ultimately pushed those thoughts aside and chose to simply be grateful that she’d always had the opportunity to live near open water. It was, after all, one of the only consistent things in her life.

She couldn’t even begin to count the amount of times that she had moved in her short life. Once or twice a year, her dad was reassigned to a new zoo or university and that meant uprooting everything and moving to the next body of water. Everywhere from Florida to Quebec to now Osaka – a large port city in Japan – had served as a temporary place of residence to April, her father, and the rest of the research team.

“Don’t worry, Pumpkin,” Kirby O’Neil had smiled at April over his mug of hot chocolate – a relocation announcement tradition in the O’Neil household. April remembered scowling into her own mug in response. “I spoke to the Board, and they’re willing to keep us in Osaka at least until you’ve graduated from high school. That way you can finish out your diploma in one place!”.

Five months later and the Board – a maniacal creature seemingly dedicated to repositioning its prisoners at random – had remained true to its word. April had quickly settled into the Japanese immersion class at her high school and was actually doing quite well in the school environment – enough so that the headmaster had paired her with another immersion student to help tutor him in math.

Casey Jones was an up-and-coming hockey player, the oldest child of the English Foreign Language teacher, and a big pain in the butt. Even though he was scheduled to graduate later that year, Casey seemed bound and determined to fail all of his classes – meaning that he and April spent more than the intended amount of time studying and hanging out together.

“It’s just you and me against Japan, Red,” Casey often joked as he would flash her a gap-toothed grin. “Us immigrants gotta stick together.”

If not for his cocky attitude and constant flirting, April might have thought that he was cute.

Might.

April gave a few kicks as she allowed thoughts of school to drift away and happily rolled in the cool water. Several silver fish darted out of her way as she sank lazily past, raising her camera in time to capture a couple of photos. Her blue eyes widened in awe as a class of clownfish and several jellyfish followed, and she rapidly snapped several pictures before they could float out of range. The water grew rapidly colder and darker with every few feet, aided by the clouds that were constantly drifting in front of the sun. Minutes slowly ticked away as her distance from the bobbing boat lengthened until it was no more than a misshapen shadow on the surface of the water above.

Thick, twisted chunks of orange and pink coral and a forest of seaweed eventually began to rise up around her, and she paused in the shadow of a particularly large structure to glance at the time on her camera screen – only twenty minutes left before she had to head for the surface. Yikes – that didn’t leave very long to get more decent shots.

She furrowed her brow in thought – maybe she could convince Miles or another research assistant to bring her out again tomorrow -?

Suddenly, a burst of movement out of the corner of her eye grabbed April’s attention and sent her reeling backwards against the coral. Hundreds of tiny fish blew past her in a frantic, unorganized mass, the undertow tearing at the surrounding seaweed and adding to the chaos and confusion. Before she could right herself, a much larger form shot after the fish, closely followed by another of similar size. The masses cut through the water without a glance in her direction, clearly intent on their prey and unaware that they had been seen.

April gasped as she righted herself and stared at the large, rapidly moving shapes that were quickly disappearing into the distance – what the heck had she just seen? For a moment she wanted to brush it off as simply two seals hunting dinner, but something made her hesitate. Something was off.

Heart pounding, she slowly peeled herself off of the coral wall and ducked into the thick seaweed. Once she was sure that she wouldn’t be spotted, April raised her camera and aimed it at the creatures. By now they were far enough away that the camera wouldn’t focus, but this confirmed what she’d thought she’d seen. Those were not the usual side to side movements that most fish travelled by, or even an up and down motion like dolphins or seals would use – these things had arms and legs that they were kicking like human beings.

Still not acknowledging April’s presence, the two creatures suddenly split up and each silently moved to one side of the school of fish. They then began to duck and weave, almost dancing with each other as they continued to direct the fish into a tighter and more condensed mass.

The numbers on April’s camera screen blinked a warning, reminding her that she only had a few more minutes before she needed to head to the surface, but she shoved the thought aside. She had to get closer.

With one hand firmly clutching her camera, April pushed off of the coral and began to propel herself through the clinging seaweed. The creatures had already put several dozen yards between herself and them, but appeared to be slowing as they closed in on their prey.

Moving through the dense seaweed was more difficult than her targets had made it look, however. The girl grimaced as her limbs repeatedly got tangled in thick pieces of the plant, slowing her motion until she tore them loose. She was almost to the edge of the seaweed when the bigger of the two let out a sharp clicking noise, causing April to freeze in place.

Before she could determine what was happening, a net appeared between the two beings and they cast it across the fish. The smaller creature then reached for a long strand of seaweed that had been wrapped around his forearm and tied the bag shut, thoroughly trapping their dinner. He squealed and clicked in pride, sounding like a dolphin that had just performed a trick and was now expecting a treat. The larger creature chirped in response and reached out to pat the smaller one on the head.

April kicked forward, mind reeling as she struggled to comprehend what she was witnessing, when a thick piece of seaweed tangled itself around her thigh and brought her chase to a stop. The sudden change in momentum caught her off guard, and April flailed her arms around in surprise – only for her camera to slip from her grasp. The small device, now free of anything weighing it down, rocketed towards the surface as the girl let out an exasperated string of curses that were only just masked by her mouthpiece.

Eyes straining to not lose the creatures amidst the bubbles that had stirred up around her, April violently jerked her leg to snap the seaweed. When the clinging inhibitor only seemed to tighten in response, she let out a huff of frustration and reached down to quickly untangle her leg. What met her fingertips, however, was not part of the slimy plants that surrounded her.

The girl let out a muffled stream of bubbles as she twisted around and gasped sharply. The dark tentacle around her leg tightened in response, and several more shot out from the shifting forest to pull at her arms and hair. April instinctively reached for the emergency knife on her belt, but the massive squid let out a fierce grumble as its tentacles tightened around her arms and pinned them to her sides. April’s heart pounded loudly in her ears as she struggled fruitlessly and let out a garbled yell of panic.

Had she been diving with a team, the others would have stepped in at this moment to help her get away. But now here she was, alone and trapped with her only hope nearly twenty minutes away from even beginning to question where she was.

Am I going to die down here?

Just as another tentacle snaked forward to tug at her airline, the water around her erupted into bubbles and April felt herself being violently thrown back and forth. The tentacles remained firmly wrapped around her body, but she felt their grip slacken ever so slightly as two blurs rammed into the squid’s head with claws outstretched. Blood filled the water as the squid flailed beneath its attackers, scaly skin tearing underneath their claws.

April screamed again as one of the creatures suddenly turned on her, eyes wide and ghostly white, and then began to violently attack the limbs holding her tight.

Even as she was being tossed back and forth, April could tell that the creature fighting for her freedom was like nothing she had ever seen in her research. Shape-wise, the creature appeared to be a mix between a human and a turtle, roughly several inches shorter than she was. The terrapin was a pale olive color, covered from head to toe with splotches of purple scales. Thick claws protruded from large, rounded limbs and with each swipe it was clear that they were sharp enough to cut through flesh without much effort. A ramshackle string of lavender stones hung from one of the terrapin’s upper arms, somehow not getting cut or knocked off during the fight, and a quick glance told April that the other creature bore similar decorations on its own body.

When the thrashing tentacles finally began to loosen, the turtle nearest to her grabbed April beneath the armpits and quickly jerked her out of their confinement while the other continued to distract the squid. The turtle’s claws dug into her sides painfully as it held her to its plastron and began to swim awayupwards, causing April to cry out and kick her legs in panic. A series of sharp clicks echoed in April’s ears as she fought, and then several things happened all at once.

The water erupted with even more noise and movement – though April hardly believed it possible – and then the arms around her slackened and fell away, almost immediately to be replaced by several pairs of hands that she could recognize as being human. The next few minutes happened as a blur – she vaguely remembered several decompression stops as they ascended, each accompanied by hands gently patting her body and checking for injury – but before she knew it, they were breaking the surface of the water. There her world continued to move in a confusing blur of shapes and colors as more hands hooked under her arms and heaved her on deck, where her diving equipment was quickly stripped away and replaced with warm towels and gentle touches.

April blinked rapidly, her eyes stinging as they adjusted to the sudden brightness. “What – ”

“We’ve got you, Little One,” A female biologist that April recognized from her father’s crew came into view amongst the blur of movement and blankets being piled on her shoulders, her face creased in maternal concern. “Delta Team was out patrolling and pulled up right alongside Miles just as your camera surfaced – we were afraid something terrible had happened to you! And – oh, you’re bleeding!”

“I –”

Miles’ voice suddenly broke through the chaos. “Give us a hand – we’ve got something big!”

Rina’s head jerked around to look at something out of April’s line of sight, and then she wrapped her arms around the girl and turned her away from the ruckus occurring on the other boat. The woman muttered something softly in Japanese, her eyes widening as she pulled April tighter against her body. “Oh my word…”

“What’s going on?” April turned against the arms holding her right as a full net thudded onto the deck she’d been on less than an hour ago. The large mass inside of it was curled inward and bleeding slightly, but one limp arm was clearly visible, bearing a bracelet of string and lavender stones.

Next Chapter

#savannah drabbles #rottmnt #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #tmnt au #sea turtles au

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super-famicom-star-inactive · 3 years

Text

Friday Special #5

December 18th, 2020

Welcome back to another Friday Special!

For this week, we’ll be looking into the history of cheat codes and what happened to them.

So what exactly are cheat codes? What qualifies as a cheat code?

In the most basic definition, cheat codes are usually a set of numbers, words, or phrases that, if a video game allowed them, would allow certain abilities or rewards to happen based on the code entered. For example, rewards could be something like infinite lives or all weapons/costumes/etc. unlocked.

According to history, the first recorded instance of a video game cheat code was in the video game Computer Space alllllll the way back in 1971. It was installed into the software and could only be accessed while holding the two buttons to the left while the machine was booting up to make your score start at 14. This tidbit of information however is difficult to prove as it only worked on a handful of machines.

Cheat codes were not always about given more “freedom” to players.

Did you know that they originally started out as developer tools?

Other early examples of cheat codes were ones like Colossal Cave Adventure, a text-based adventure game where if you inputted XYZZY, it would teleport the player between two places, or for a game like Manic Miner where if the player inputted the number code 6031769 (sources vary between some saying it was creator Matt Smith’s phone number and others say the last few numbers of his driver’s license) into the title card and press enter, it would allow the player to shift between the six levels of the game.

The original purpose of cheat codes were meant for developers to quickly move from one section of the game to another as well as video game reviewers to properly see through the different parts of a game to review and score it properly in gaming magazines.

Cheat codes at the time were pretty simple and not given much thought.

Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked when the Konami Code was first introduced.

Just about everyone and their mother knows about the legendary Konami Code, but just in case you don’t, it was a special code combination first introduced in 1986 for the game Gradius as a way to test the game during the early stages. The code is:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start

It was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto (he passed away back in February of this year, rest in peace) and although it didn’t gain popularity then, a little game called Contra was where the Konami Code really started to send shockwaves all across the Western gaming world.

In the original Contra, if the Konami Code was used, your three lives were boosted to thirty, making the impossible game more manageable to play. The code became so widespread with immense popularity that Hashimoto insisted that from then on that every single Konami game would input the cheat code in its programming.

This kickstarted what would become a more modern definition of what cheat codes would be.

The Konami Code would be so famous it even found its way into non-Konami titles such as Bioshock Infinite, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, and even Fortnite Battle Royale. Several famous Konami IPs that feature the code include the likes of Castlevania, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, and even DDR (Dance Dance Revolution).

So what are some other famous types of cheat codes?

Sometimes the cheat code in question can provide some content that has been hidden away. Take the debug mode in the first Sonic the Hedgehog game for instance. The way to access the debug mode was to input the following code:

Press ↑ C Button, ↓ C Button ← C Button → C Button on Title Screen

A ring chime can be heard

Hold then A Button down and press start button

The game begins with Debug Mode

The debug menu became a rather popular feature for SEGA Genesis players, mainly for the chaos that ensued where you could alter parts of the game without bricking your cartridge and console.

Now to the more controversial stuff.

When Mortal Kombat was first released in arcades back in 1992, it was immediately hounded by enraged parents and politicians alike for its graphic violence and abundance of blood for the famous “Fatality” scenes, thus paving the way for the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rating system for video games. When the game started to get ported to various consoles, Nintendo of America, being the same stickler for family-friendly content, censored the blood in the SNES port. SEGA, on the other hand, decided to use the cheat code route, and while the blood is censored upon boot-up, you enact the cheat code to bring back the blood. The code below:

ABACABB

This code famously became known as the Blood Code and this along with other factors made the SEGA Genesis version of Mortal Kombat so popular.

Wait! What if a game can do cheats but not just by using button combinations?

This is where cheat code devices come in.

The first recorded instance of a cheat device was in the form of the ‘Multiface’, which found its home on the likes of consoles like the ZX Spectrum. There were different variants over the years that added better and better quality to the device itself. Due to its success, similar devices made their way to the market like the ‘Freezer’ for the Commodore systems and the ‘Darth Vader’ unit (yes, it was actually called that) for the Atari 2600.

If you owned an NES/SNES/Game Boy/Mega Drive at the time, you would’ve heard about the Game Genie, which was the next major cheat device to be created. The player would put the game in the Game Genie slot and then insert the device into the console itself. You could then up your game depending on what game you had. Although they are a by-gone relic of gaming history, it still paved the way for similar devices.

When you think of the name Action Replay, those who had an original DS or a DSi probably had one of these devices, however the device is actually much older than that, dating back to its original release back in the late 1980s with its first appearance on the Commodore systems. It has since release on consoles like Nintendo DS, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, Playstation Portable, and even the Xbox 360 and Playstation 2!

If you were a kid in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, you would’ve had the Game Shark. This cheat device was primarily known for its appearance on the Nintendo 64, but it was also widely used for the original Playstation and Playstation 2 as well as the original Xbox and Game Boy/Game Boy Color. You could even bypass the region-locked security using it, which can allow you to play any game from any region.

So what happened to cheat codes, and why don’t we see them anymore?

Well, they didn’t go away completely, as they can sometimes be found in some video games, rather they just fell out of style. See, as we approach to today’s gaming culture, cheat codes are nowadays hidden behind higher-level programming and it is no longer able to be manipulated by average players. This was done as video games became bigger and more complex, going past just some programming and the developer tools were now locked away so that the game doesn’t get altered so much it crashes. This started to become more prevalent in the mid-2000s and onward. As mentioned before, cheat codes originally started as a way for developers to go across different levels in order to fix coding or bugs. They are still being used, they’re just not for open use like they used to be.

Cheat codes have changed the gaming world and are still remembered fondly by players even to this day with the rise in retro gaming in recent years. Here’s to hoping they can come back someday.

Thoughts From The Head

Cheat codes have always been a part of my gaming experience growing up for as long as I can remember. I remember the Book Fairs that my elementary school hosted every year and I remember getting some cheat code books for games. They have unfortunately been lost to time but i do miss them fondly.

I also have memories of cheat devices, the Action Replay for the original DS for example. I used that sucker to use the ‘Complete Pokedex’ cheat for Pokemon Pearl as well as ‘Infinite Health’ cheat in Kirby Super Star Ultra. That was later unfortunately lost as my dad tossed it out, saying “it wasn’t good for anything”. Jokes on him, that device alone is easily $30-40 online, and higher in some cases.

Thanks dad.

I do have a cheat device in my possession for my original Playstation and it’s the original Game Shark. I received it for free at my local video game store since they had no real use for it and it was “Flashed” which meant that it was slightly different and was capable of playing burned and imported games (which I had). I have not had a chance to test it yet because I do not have a game to really test it on yet (plus the text is kinda odd, see photos). I will try to give it a shot this weekend and see if I can come up with anything.

#Sorry didn't realize that the schedule wasn't set right #Tumblr scheduling on desktop is odd sometimes #my voice!#friday special #retro gaming #gaming #irl #cheat codes

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rockingcockatiel · 3 years

Text

Game Portfolio

Introduction

This was the concept of a game I came up with wish I was unable to finish due to being unable to run the software for developing the game

This was the portfolio I made for the game to explain the idea I had for it and other games I took inspiration from

Basic concepts

Game Identity

2D pixel art platformer about a young adventurer trying to find treasure

Genre

The main genre of my game is a platformer and metroidvania combination the sub genres of it are puzzle, exploration, hack and slash, adventure and 2D.

Audience

The target audience of my game is teens and young children as it has a cute pixel art style along with simple mechanics that allow anyone to learn and play.

Similar games already in the market

Game that are like the one I'm planning on making are Celeste, The momodora series, Cave story and Katana Zero.

Concept Explained

Visual Style

The visual style of my game will be pixel art similar to how cave story + and momodora 3 are designed the reason for this is due to it being a simple style create and make a design for and as a solo developer; both of the developers of cave story and momodroa 3 worked independently on the game developer's, Another thing to note is that sprite based art is easier to animate as all you need to do is make a character sheet of all the characters and enemies and their different animations while this may look daunting at first as you working with the same characters and the graphics won't be overly detailed it allows for you to make all the animations just by changing a few minor aspects of the art; this also has the advantage of making the levels layout design be easier as you can reuse the same base art for it. An example of this would be if you're making a small valley for one area of the game but wanted to add a little add a hill you could take one of the other tiles use rotate it and edit it a bit so that it can appear as a hill. Another to note is the style appeals more to children than some sort of gritty gears of war style game while these games don’t have a bright colour palette when compared to other sprite-based platformers it still appeals to children by having cute characters and art style.

Gameplay Elements

The main element of the game would be its jumping and combat mechanics while the combat portion of the game is easy to understand as you get better weapons and higher levels you can learn combos for weapons which can allow you to deal more damage or even activate special attacks with unique animations; Another thing to note is that they can be combined together for example one of weapons allows for a combo that makes you tiny and can be activated in mid-air so if you were to turn tiny while jumping the player could jump off a wall into a tiny gap that allows them to get hidden treasure; The game will even encouraging doing this by having areas you can't have access to without certain items or weapons. Other games have done this while the games that inspire this one doesn’t use these mechanic as they mainly encourage the play to push forward and only come back to areas if they wish to buy items from shop keepers. One core platforming element of the game will be the double jump and wall jump features as it can allow the player to get to different areas if they know how to use it correctly while this feature isn't unique to the game I'm creating celeste does have its own feature in which the player is able to dash which can allow them to reach areas they couldn’t without dashing this is a core mechanic of the game as most areas can't even be beaten without dashing; A smaller mechanic of the dash feature is that the characters hair will turn blue after dashing.

Genre

The games genre is a combination of mainly platformer and metroidvania elements a metroidvania type game is encourages the play to backtrack, has map in which a majority of its areas are connected in one way or another with ways to teleport back to previous areas the reason I'm making my game like this is to encourage the player to invest more time into instead of completing it in one run, The game will also encourage the player to back track by having certain items or treasures being locked behind areas which require items you acquire later on in the game. The other main genre is platforming as the main aspect of the game is for the player to hunt for treasure and gear hidden throughout the games map; the reason I choose its sub genres, are because it will have certain features of those genres but it, they wouldn’t be the focus of the game an example would be the puzzle mechanic certain dungeons would require the player to activate certain buttons in specific places to unlock the vault door that leads to treasure. Momodora 3 and Cave Story+ are both games of the same main genre being Metroidvania and Platformer.

Game Design

Music

The games music is going to vary between areas for example a desert like area would mainly use Arabic or Egyptian instruments, an area based of a castle or kingdom would use an orchestra, mountainous or snowy areas would have slow calm music with certain areas of the music being focused on like a drum solo. Some examples of this are Crosscode’s Bergen Village which has wind instruments being the main orchestra of the song to match the location being a mountain, Super Smash Bros (fire emblem castle siege) which is a remix of the original fire emblem theme made to match the more faster paced action of a super smash bros match , Kirby Air Ride - Sky Sands or Kirby Air Ride – Sand which uses fastest paced drumming and string instruments to make an arabic sounding beat for a racing game; Bosses in the game would also have unique themes exclusive to them. I would save my best designed music for each of the bosses. Some examples of hard video game bosses with well-designed music are Jevil from Deltarune which sounds like music that you would hear in a circus it conveys a feeling that you're going against a madman and should be prepared to expect him to throw anything at you, Cynthia in Pokémon Diamond & Pearl which instantlys goes into action instead of being a slow build up it features a mixture of drum and bass along with pianos it tells the player that this fight will be over fight if you don’t try your hardest; and Godcat's theme from Epic Battle Fantasy 4 which is an has church orchestras along with a choir singing mixed with electro synthwave giving off the feel that you are fighting an entity that you have no chance against; These are some of my favourite video game boss theme and one of the main reason I would choose to replay a game myself is to hear the themes certain bosses or areas have a game with good or amazing music will be much more appealing than a game with bland or boring music.

Design Pillars

The main emotions or feelings I want the player to experience when playing my game are joy, excitement and calmness from the the simplicity of the game and it not being overly difficult.

Miscellaneous

Target Audience

The reason I chose the target audience as children and teens is that my game will feature and mechanics, story and gameplay elements that appeal to them; for children it will feature bright colours and a cute or more child friendly design style; for teens the story will be one that appeals to them from having the hero’s journey so that they feel like they made the character grow along with having the main protagonists of the game being the same age as them, It will also have gameplay elements that will challenge them to get better at the game so they can show off their friends or even play it with a younger sibling so they can bound over it.

Target Platform

The platform I plan to release this game on is pc as to release it on a console would require a devkit for said console which would be out of budget as well as me not knowing how to develop any games. Another thing to note that there a multiple retailers' platforms on pc when compared to console which only has three being Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, while pc has multiple which are looking to host smaller developer's games on their platform

We were also tasked with making a pitch for the game which we presented to other students

In the end I had to change a lot about the game due to the time constraints and the lack of resources I had from being a 16-bit metroidvania into a generic 2d platformer While I'm stilling working on art for the game due to being able to run unity properly I'm not fully able to develop that much of the game so it’s currently on hiatus; In the meantime I'm learning to use a simpler engine known as RPG maker Mv which I'm making a short game in I currently have no plans for what it's about other than the characters in it are based off of my friends personalities and how they act which I find easier to use to make a characters on.

Game Pitch

We were also tasked with making a pitch for a game in which we presented to other students to save on image space I'll give a rundown of what was on each slide

Details Of the game

Platform: PC

Engine: Unity

Genre: 2D Platformer, Metroidvania

Classification: Casual Game

Single player

Dimensions: 2D

The target audience of my game

Gender: Male

Secondary: Female

Age: Young Teenagers

Psychographics: Is a fan of 2d pixel art games, likes platformers or hack n slash games, Likes cute or pixel art style

The synopsis of the game

A young adventurer is sent on a quest after receiving a letter

They go out exploring legendary treasure

There's an evil organisation planning on dominating the solar system

The adventurer is being deceived

A superweapon is revealed

Adventurer must destroy it

The genre of the game

Main Genres

Metroidvania

2D Platformer

Sub – Genres

Hack n Slash

Puzzle

Adventure

The sound design of the game

16- Bit

Variety of Instruments

Foley sound effects

Main Style: Nintendocore

Secondary Styles: Chiptune, Synthwave

Visual Style of the game

Anime- Styled

Pastel-Neon hybrid Colour Palette

Futuristic/Medival Era

Cute Styled Art

Minimalistic character and level design

How to meet the audience’s needs

Appeal to them with content they like

Have the advertised content appear in the game

Focus on appealing to main target audience

Know what my target audience likes and wants in games

Similar Games in the market

Momodora 3

Kirby Super Star Ultra

Cave Story+

Orange Island

Celeste

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mikeo56 · 4 years

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Today’s internet is built on, with, and through an unruly sea of lies, deceptions, and distortions, as well as a few certainties, cables, and algorithms.

This week’s viral-wonder—the crisis of “fake news” in the wake of the 2016 presidential election—is a logical and necessary outgrowth of the web’s sordid infrastructure, prurient daily pleasures, and neoliberal political economy.

Today’s saccharine hand-wringing and the too-late fixes erupting from the mouthpieces for the corporate, media, and political interests responsible for this mess are as bogus as Lonelygirl15.

Today’s media consumer cannot trust the internet, its news, or networks—fake or otherwise. Given the wretched state of today’s internet, skeptical, self-aware interaction with digital data is the critical foundation upon which democracy may be maintained.

Fake News: A Media Literacy Reading List

“Triumph of the Will”: Document or Artifice?, by David B. Hinton What struck me about the way that Trump supporters view Trump is how similar it is to the ways in which Hitler was also viewed. Leni Riefenstahl was instrumental in creating the spectacle and artifice around Hitler and the Nazi party, and the ways that Trump has uses fake news mirrors some of that (even beyond the similarities of some of his proposed policies). Recommended by Jennifer Jee Cho, MA Candidate, Cinema & Media Studies, USC

The Meme of Memes: Information as Objects, by Antonio López This article addresses the ideas of memes. It looks at how we can classify them, how they function, and why they insidiously find their way into our collective psyches. It is interesting re: the figure of Pepe, its dissemination, and what the corporate media then took as its meaning. Recommended by Amalia Charles, M.A. Candidate, Cinema & Media Studies, USC

From Home to Public Forum: Media Events and the Public Sphere, by Barbie Zelizer I think that consideration of the media as a whole is important when considering the rise you are claiming of the fake news. It is important to consider not just the role of the viewer in relation to spectatorship of the news but also to track the decline of certain types of viewership of the news, and how viewership of “fake news” diverges from an older form of spectatorship. Recommended by Alia Haddad, PhD student in Cinema and Media Studies, USC

Talking Race and Cyberspace: An Interview with Lisa Nakamura, by Lisa Nakamura and Geert Lovink I think the opening speaks to its utility: “Nakamura’s work shows how the Internet, despite all its claims to the alternative, remains a part of dominant visual culture.” Recommended by Harry Gilbert, M.A. Student, Bryan Singer Division of Cinema and Media Studies, USC

Protocol, Control, and Networks, by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker Via Deleuze, Galloway and Thacker map our meaningful counter-protocols of current networked life. Recommended by Harry Gilbert

On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge, by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun Recommended by Harry Gilbert

Race Racing: Four Theses on Race and Intensity, by Amit Rai Amit Rai considers speed, media, and race: “If what I have argued is a sensible shift in the politics and theorization of race toward the common notion of race racing as a diagram of speeds and slownesses, intensive rates and gradients internal to manifold assemblages of technology and perception, then these theses should perform an experimentation on race itself. This experimentation would continuously mutate, never resembling itself, changing the metric of its own measure through a resonance that moves beyond its term.” Recommended by Harry Gilbert

Framing the Internet in the Arab Revolutions: Myth Meets Modernity, by Miriyam Aouragh The attached article supports the idea of needing a more critical citizen engagement with the internet. Something else that this article does in a very understated way is point out that the relationship between the internet and produced fakeness/realness changes based on where/when we are in the world. Your op-ed points out that, in a Western/American context, the internet is our source for producing, consuming, and sharing fake content. But it’s just as important to note that the internet can become a place of very real Western (re)configurations of non-Western narratives, cultures, and social and political structures, effectively acting as a tool for the production of neocolonialism and its real effects. Recommended by Mary Michael

After Politics/After Television: Veep, Digimodernism, and the Running Gag of Government, by Joe Conway Joe Conway makes reference to Alan Kirby and his dystopian concept of “digimodernism”, where the “apparently real” is the dominant aesthetic, “one where the knowing pastiches and parodies of postmodernism cease to register because they require a broad foundation of past cultural knowedge that has been leveled into non-meaning”. Some of his descriptions of digimodernism are helpful to think about fake news and how fake have lost its subversive potential. Recommended by Emilia Yang, Ph.D. Student in Media Arts and Practice

The Quantum Paradox of Truthiness: Satire, Activism, and the Postmodern Condition, by James E. Caron Caron cites Geoffrey Baym’s concept of “discursive integration,” a concept he offers as a way of speaking about, understanding, and acting within the world defined by the permeability of form and the fluidity of content. “Discourses of news, politics, entertainment, and marketing have grown deeply inseparable; the languages and practices of each have lost their distinctiveness and are being melded into previously unimagined combinations.”Both of these authors are part of a Special Issue of the Studies in American Humor: American Satire and the Postmodern Condition. I see the problem of fake news as a historical trend where on one side news has accommodated to feed what sells and what people want to read (click bait), and on the other side as Alex mentions, we are not aware of the complexity of the Internet, its politics and interests. I also recommend Evgeny Morozov’s critiques like The Internet,” Recommended by EmiliaYang, PhD Student in Media Arts and Practice

In Transit, by Claudia Rankine While I teach in a cinema school, my doctoral degree is from an English Department, and poetry wields a particular language that has spoken its own truths to me across the years. This fall, I have found myself turning to poetry again and again, searching for words that might ground meaning beyond the swirls of information that were scrolling across my many screens. Although this piece by Claudia Rankine was published nearly twenty-five years ago, it speaks powerfully to our present. Recommended by Tara McPherson, Professor, Department of Cinema, University of Southern California

#fake news #media literacy

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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The Weird History of Friday the 13th Comics

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Friday the 13th boasts some of the strangest movie tie-in comics ever made. We hit the bloody highs and lows. Mostly lows.

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Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees has been part of pop-culture for decades. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s had his share of comic book adventures, what with him essentially being a supervillain in a story with no superheroes. Granted, he’s a one-dimensional supervillain with an incredibly vague origin story, but he’s been memorable enough to land him a dozen movie appearances. Many have told his tale in comic form and since the early '90s, he’s been represented by three different publishers.

The surprising thing to me is that the earliest Jason comic is only in the early 90s. For comparison, the RoboCop comics all stretched across the franchise’s entire existence. They were around for all four movies as well as the stretch where he was just about nostalgia. Jason Voorhees didn’t get the same treatment. For the most part, they missed the boat.

Topps Comics first picked up the license and Jason’s comic book debut came in July of 1993. Two comics came out this month with Jason in them, so it’s hard to say what was his very first appearance. One of the two comics was Satan’s Six #4 by Tony Isabella and John Cleary. We’re already bonkers out the gate here. Satan’s Six was part of the Secret City Saga, where Topps created a big story using a bunch of leftover Jack Kirby ideas that he never did anything with in the form of several miniseries that intertwined (think Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers). It didn’t last long enough to finish and with Satan’s Six, it’s no wonder.

The comic is a comedy about the demonic Odious Kamodious, who has his own team of agents out to create chaos in his name, only they always screw up. In the very beginning of this issue, Kamodious gets in an argument with one of his demons Frightful and threatens to replace him. He summons Jason Voorhees, who proceeds to talk like Rorschach and try to kill anything nearby.

Anyone else find randomly and casually tossing Jason into a superhero universe’s continuity really weird?

Frightful and teammate Bluedragon go after Jason, but he responds by throwing them a couple times and saying, “HRMM,” a lot. Despite only appearing for a couple of pages, Jason says that six times. Kamodious summons him back where he found him and starts making a blatant reference about Jason going to Hell. The angelic Pristine interrupts and calls out how this was a pointless cameo to justify advertising Jason on the cover, which came at the cost of continuing their very story. And at that point, readers stopped caring.

As Kamodious referenced, Jason was at the time starring in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, otherwise known as Friday the 13th Part IX. Based on the screenplay, the comic is written by Andy Mangels and drawn by Cynthia Martin.

That’s how far down the pipeline we are. By this point, the movie franchise was in dire straits. By the time any comic company thinks of doing anything with Friday the 13th, we’re already at the ninth movie, which was the last Jason movie for eight years. The really bizarre one.

If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember, Jason Goes to Hell is the movie where the FBI finally decides to do something about Jason and blows him to kingdom come in the first few minutes, onlit turns out that he can’t be killed unless stabbed in the heart by another Voorhees (though the comic keeps spelling it “Vorhees”). So Jason’s heart hypnotizes the coroner into eating it and he goes around vomiting the heart into people’s throats to change hosts until he can find and kill the rest of his bloodline.

read more - Friday the 13th: A Celebration of Roy Burns

It’s an example of knowing that you have to do something new and fresh, yet still driving way off the road. Also, if you’re all about drawings of bare asses, this is the comic for you!

But really, all anyone remembers Jason Goes to Hell for is that cameo at the end when Freddy Krueger pulls down Jason’s mask and cackles. That was the original “Nick Fury asks Tony Stark to join the Avengers” moment. It just, you know, took ten years, is all.

Topps didn’t want to wait to give us a big slasher icon crossover and while they didn’t get the rights to Freddy, they got the next best thing. Okay, they didn’t get Michael Meyers, but the next best thing after that. No, they didn’t get Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, but—Listen, they got Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, okay? More specifically, we got Jason vs. Leatherface, a three-part series by Nancy Collins, David Imhoff, and Jeff Butler.

Despite being released in 1995, the chronology is very choosy, ignoring the history of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff to make sure Leatherface and his brothers Cook and Hitchhiker are both alive. As for Jason, this takes place after Part VI, where he’s chained to the bottom of Camp Crystal Lake. Some corporate types have the lake drained of all the toxic grossness and Jason goes with it. He kind of wanders around, kills a bunch of people on train, and eventually comes across Sawyerville, where Leatherface and Hitchhiker are stalking some poor soul. Jason ends up getting in a scrap with them, where he disarms Leatherface (not literally for once), kills their victim, and then – in a surprising act – hands Leatherface his chainsaw.

read more: 25 Horror Games Based on Scary Movies

There’s this feeling of acceptance between the two parties, leading to Jason being practically adopted into their family. This leads to a really awesome moment where Cook asks him his name. Since these guys need to start calling him Jason and he doesn’t actually speak, Collins goes about it in a clever way.

Through this partnership, we see the differences. While Jason is a ruthless murderer, he isn’t so much a sadist, at least not as much as the Sawyer family. He’ll kill the victims, but Hitchhiker will get on his case for doing it too quickly and not torturing anyone. Mainly, Jason gets along with them due to the way he sees his younger self in Leatherface. For once, he feels sympathy and it drives him to hate Hitchhiker for constantly being such a dick. From there, it becomes Jason vs. the three brothers, where Leatherface will protect his family, even if he does show appreciation for Jason standing up for him.

read more: The Best Modern Horror Movies

There wouldn’t be any more Jason comics for a decade until Avatar Press picked up the license in 2005. I had a lot of bad stuff to say about Avatar in the RoboCop article, but here, the ugly, mean-spirited, blood-and-chunks-covered style is a perfect home for Friday the 13th. If anything, it’s a fitting response to how most of the Friday the 13th movies were edited to oblivion by the MPAA to hide all the gore. Now we can see Jason punch a guy in the head so hard that it comes out his ass!

Avatar mostly released a bunch of one-shots, starting with Friday the 13th Special by Brian Pulido and Mike Wolfer. The Avatar Friday the 13th comics have some actual strong ideas mixed in there, but they also rely on doing the same thing over and over again...much like the movies, but in a different way. While every single comic of theirs has at least one softcore sex scene, there’s also a constant theme of the 1% screwing things up for everyone. Like in Friday the 13th Special, it’s about the children of the man who previously owned Camp Crystal Lake. The daughter, a shrewd businesswoman, insists on not letting that land go to waste despite the piles and piles of dead bodies showing why that’s a bad idea.

read more: Upcoming Horror Movies Heading Your Way

To be fair, she goes about it the right way. If Jason’s hanging around the woods, just hire a ton of military guys to take him out. That basically took care of Jason in the very beginning of the ninth movie, didn’t it? Too bad being in a comic book has caused him to go through a major power creep, and he’s now able to power through having a huge chunk of him blown off by a grenade launcher, as it just heals up in seconds. Jason’s way too overpowered and that continues on for the next year of comics.

Pulido and Wolfer would get back together to do a three-parter called Bloodbath and it’s easily the best thing to come out of the Avatar run. It has some serious dialogue issues, but the basic idea could have been the basis for a Friday the 13th movie and I would be totally okay with it. It actually comes across as a prototype for Cabin in the Woods.

It has to do with Camp Crystal Lake being opened yet again, this time with ten teen counselors brought in early to get acquainted a day or so before the campers are said to show up. Their boss is Kevin Carny, a kindly southern guy who appears to be really laid back about everything. He wants everyone to be responsible during the daytime, but at night, they’re welcome to enjoy the hot tub, an excess of beer, and each other’s naked company. The counselors all hit it off and immediately pair up with no problem. In fact, they pair up a little too easily, like they were handpicked. Discovered through some really unnatural dialogue, they all come to realize that all ten of them are orphans and have no families. Strange. It’s almost like if something were to happen to them all, nobody would really care enough to look into it.

read more: The Best Horror Movies on Netflix

Naturally, there’s more to Carny than meets the eye. Much like in Jason X, the military and corporations are very into the idea of bringing Jason in for the sake of studying his healing factor and weaponizing him. The camp is nothing more than bait. It helps that the protagonists, Violet and Rich, are actually fairly likeable and relatable compared to every other human character in Avatar’s comics. You end up getting a story of the would-be victims vs. the military vs. the unstoppable killer. It actually has a really good ending too, which will be ruined months later.

Around this time, Avatar released the Jason X Special by Pulido and Sebastian Fiumara. Yes, a Jason X comic. The movie is already a few years old at this point and I don’t think anyone cared about it enough to clamor for more Jason X in any form, but here we are. As it turns out, when Uber Jason was blasted to a lake on Earth Two at the end of the movie, he was really back on the original Earth. A woman named Kristen, one of the few remaining humans on the planet, tricked the ship into turning back to Earth for the sake of getting her hands on Uber Jason.

read more: The Best Horror Movies on HBO Go

Kristen’s boyfriend Neil is dying and she needs some Voorhees DNA to potentially cure him. Even though she is able to capture Uber Jason with some nanites, you can imagine that this is a bad idea. It becomes a big, confusing mess, where Pamela Voorhees goes from being a voice in Jason’s head to being a machine ghost able to control all the nanites, leading to lots of human-like androids being slaughtered. Uber Jason is shot into space, where he stumbles across a party-based space ship.

That leads us right into the two-parter Jason vs. Jason X by Mike Wolfer. Really? Is that even a contest? That’s like having the regular version of the Hulk fight a super-pissed off Hulk. The story of this one is more contrived than even the beginning of Jason Takes Manhattan. So there’s a piece of Jason’s skull and hockey mask from the Jason X movie that wasn’t part of the regeneration process that created Uber Jason. When that ship was blown up, the chunk of skull floated around in space until – TOTAL COINCIDENCE – it now drifts into the very party ship where Uber Jason is currently slaughtering everyone. The ship’s cloning machine builds a new body out of dead victims and Jason is reborn! Fully clothed too, which I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining about. I can live my entire life without seeing his hockey stick.

read more: The Best Horror Movies on Hulu

It takes the whole first issue for the two Jasons to meet up and the entire second issue is them fighting while anyone who crosses paths with the brawl gets chopped up. The fight brings them to Earth Two, where, big surprise, Uber Jason wins. He tears Jason’s brain out, shoves it into his own brain, and reminisces about his mother. He’s also chilling out in the woods near a lake, so even though the Jason X Special changed up the movie’s ending, this comic puts it back the way the writers found it. You know, just in case they were to ever make another Jason X movie.

The last book from Avatar is Friday the 13th: Fearbook by Mike Wolfer and Sebastian Fiumara. It’s a direct follow-up to Bloodbath and is especially pointless. It’s basically about killing off anyone who survived Bloodbath without any real drama. Sure, it makes sense to have the government people behind the events of that story taken out, but there’s no actual plot. Jason just effortlessly kills everyone for two dozen pages.

read more: 31 Best Streaming Horror Movies

Also, the art is really bad in the sequential sense. It seems to go from point A to C from panel to panel with no sensical movement. For instance, in Bloodbath, they were able to stop Jason by freezing him. The only reason he was able to escape was Violet’s doing. Makes 100% perfect sense that they’d just try that again, right?

And now Jason is able to shrug it off completely to the point that there’s no sign of him being frozen one panel later. What’s up with that?

The ending suffers from the same problem. Violet is backed up to a window and Jason is coming. She decides to take her chances and makes a leap of faith, hoping the trees will break her fall. She jumps and the perspective makes it look like she’s at least ten feet away from the window. Suddenly, Jason has her by the neck and drags her back in.

read more: The Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime

Anyway, Jason would then move on to the next publisher, Wildstorm, in 2007. Wildstorm mainly gave us a bunch of two-parters, but started it with a six-issue miniseries simply called Friday the 13th by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Archer, and Peter Guzman.

For the most part, it’s a basic, by-the-numbers Friday the 13th story in comic form, just handled competently. They’re reopening Camp Crystal Lake again. A handful of teens are brought in to clean up the cabins. Sex and drugs and beer are had. Jason shows up and starts killing people. Same old shit.

read more: The 25 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen

At least the cast of victims isn’t so bad. They aren’t great, but they at least have more personality and dimension than the characters in the Avatar Press comics, easy as that is to do. The drawback is that for the sake of conflict, they’re almost all over-the-top in terms of being assholes. Like there’s a nerdy hippy guy who looks to be potentially psychotic and everyone shits on him for zero reason. For one of the characters it makes sense, since it’s established that she’s had to put up with his company for years and she’s a terrible person, but everyone else snaps at him like he’s Donnie from Big Lebowski.

The comic plays up the supernatural aspects of Friday the 13th more than just Jason surviving taking a machete to the neck. Not only do they establish that the lake is haunted by the ghosts of a hundred murdered children, but the final issue even explains that the area is literally cursed due to some settlers murdering a Native American shaman.

Otherwise, it’s nothing special.

Marc Andreyko and Shawn Moll give us Pamela’s Tale, a two-parter where Pamela Voorhees explains her life story to a camp counselor while giving her a ride to Camp Crystal Lake. Naturally, she also murders her, but still keeps telling the story, mainly about raising Jason and how she’s been out to kill anyone she feels is responsible for his death.

read more: The Conjuring Movie Universe Timeline Explained

We also see Jason’s father depicted as a drunken wife-beater and massive dude (he had to inherit it from somewhere) who is killed because Pamela’s afraid that if she tells him she’s pregnant, he’ll beat her so badly that she’ll have a miscarriage. Oh, and she’s also whispering conversations with “Jason” much like she does at the end of the first movie.

Jason’s birth defects are explained both between his father’s treatment of his mother and the fact that Pamela is constantly in places filled with cigarette smoke. It hits comedic levels once we see the doctor smoking a cigarette while delivering the baby. That’s dark as hell but I had to laugh.

read more: 25 Hidden Horror Movie Gems

Jason Aaron and Adam Archer team up for How I Spent My Summer Vacation, another two-parter. I’m not sure if this is the best Friday the 13th comic, but it’s definitely the most fun. It’s about a little boy named Davie Falkner who is at summer camp. At Camp Crystal Lake. They opened the goddamn thing AGAIN! CRIPES! Anyway, Davie has a bone disorder that gives him a malformed head and will likely kill him in five years. While he has normal intelligence, he looks an awful lot like Jason’s young self, albeit with hair. He’s constantly teased for his looks, but that’s a picnic compared to having Jason Voorhees show up to kill everyone.

After lots of campers, councilors, and cops are killed, Jason picks up Davie and drags him away, kicking and screaming. The only other survivor is the sheriff, who was so hopped up on meth that he accidentally shot up two councilors, and then hacked them up with a machete to cover his tracks and blame it on Jason. Finding out that Davie’s still alive makes him want to make sure he can kill the last witness.

read more: The Underrated Horror Movies of the 1990s

Meanwhile, we get what is essentially a Batman and Robin origin story with Jason and Davie. It’s awesome and I wish it was longer. Jason never speaks or makes any gestures, but he keeps Davie safe out of feeling like a kindred spirit. Jason would go kill people having a picnic, wrap their food in a blanket, return to Davie, and throw it to him. Davie goes from being dragged around against his will to following his new hero.

Davie idolizes Jason for being like him, only able to not take shit from anyone who would bully him. That Jason is an even bigger bully than anyone else is lost on Davie, but it’s nice to see Jason make a connection for once in his after-life. Plus with the comedic psycho sheriff, Jason gets to actually play the role of anti-hero here. Granted, he still kills so many undeserving people, but the book is still sort of cute.

read more - 13 Reasons Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was so Lucky

Yet another two-parter comes in the form of Bad Land, which is by Ron Marz and Mike Huddleston. It’s about two different stories from different times that run parallel. One is a present-day story about a trio of hikers who come across a cabin in the middle of a huge storm and become victims of Jason. The other takes place a couple centuries earlier, where three fur trappers enter a teepee to escape a similar storm and come across a Native American woman and her baby. Horrible things happen to the woman and her child, shortly before her husband arrives. They blow his face off with a rifle shot and he runs off, only to plot his revenge.

Yep. We have the Proto-Jason. It isn’t outright said whether he’s just super pissed enough to fight through the wound or if he’s a full-on murder zombie, but considering he lacks the wound when we see his rampage, it looks like the latter.

Huh. Wonder whatever happened to that guy.

The last normal type of Jason comic released by Wildstorm is The Abuser & the Abused by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andy B. Andy B’s art makes this easily the best-looking Friday the 13th comic by a landslide. Lot of great expressions and action in there.

The issue is kind of an alternate take on How I Spent My Summer Vacation. It deals with a girl who is constantly abused. Her boyfriend beats her, her classmates make fun of her, her father and stepmother bully her, and no authority figure will help her in any way. She takes it upon herself to strike back against anyone who’s wronged her and part of her plan involves luring her boyfriend to Camp Crystal Lake (which is not open for once. Thank God). Then when Jason appears to do what Jason does best, the girl gets mad because this is her kill and the two murderers throw down. Totally worth checking out for the fantastic fight scene.

Now we get to the grand finale in the form of two six-issue miniseries. Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash started in early 2008, based on a script treatment for a sequel to the Freddy vs. Jason movie that brings the Evil Dead hero into the mix that would never come to be. The Jeff Katz screenplay is adapted by James Kuhoric with art by Jason Craig. It’s generally okay. It’s nothing especially great or especially awful. It comes up with a satisfying enough story that brings together the three horror icons, has them play off each other, and gives us a big enough body count.

Freddy is able to convince Jason to do his bidding by banging his mother. At least, that’s what Jason sees in his nightmare, where Freddy acts like his new step-father and has “Pamela” tell Jason to listen to his authority. Freddy wants him to fetch the Necronomicon and wouldn’t you know it, Ash Williams is working at a nearby hardware store for the holidays.

read more - The Weird History of Michael Myers Halloween Comics

What’s great about it is that we actually have a real protagonist to cheer for, who we know has enough plot armor to stay alive. The Freddy vs. Jason movie didn’t have anyone nearly as likeable as Ash. The main drawback is that Jason is the third wheel, mostly overshadowed by the other two co-stars. This becomes a bigger problem in the sequel, which I’ll get to in just a bit.

Sorry, I was wrong. The main drawback is that despite Jason Craig’s art starting incredibly strong, it becomes rushed to hell by the time he hits the final issue. That’s too bad, since the final battle between the two is excellent outside of that. Freddy is pumped up with power from the Necronomicon and Jason is maskless and replaced his dismembered hand with a machete. Ash is bemused, noting the lack of originality.

By the end, Freddy and Jason are both defeated for the time being, but the Necronomicon opens to a page that’s very reminiscent of the movie poster for Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, only this time, Ash is leading the siege.

That leads us to Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors by the same creative team, though with Cruddie Torian doing a bit of fill-in work. Sadly, Jason Craig’s art takes a huge dive, even worse than before. Really, the whole comic is a gigantic mess, making it a perfect Friday the 13th comic bookend to whatever the hell was going on with that Satan’s Six issue.

read more: 13 Brilliant Horror Movies Under 90 Minutes Long

It’s a real shame too, because I absolutely love the setup. It’s such a brilliant concept for a climactic finale to Freddy and Jason’s respective series. See, Ash is invited to join a support group of sorts made up of those who have survived encounters with Freddy and/or Jason. So you have a group made up of Maggie Burroughs (Freddy’s Dead), Dr. Neil Gordon (Nightmare on Elm Street 3), Steven Freeman (Jason Goes to Hell), Stephanie Kimble (Steven’s baby daughter from that movie all grown up), Alice Johnson (Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5), Jacob Johnson (Alice’s son, also grown up), Tina Shepard (Friday the 13th Part VII), and Rennie Wickham (Friday the 13th Part VIII). Then waiting in the shadows is maverick survivor and quasi-hero of the Friday the 13th franchise, Tommy Jarvis, who wants to take out Jason on his own terms.

Also awesome is Jason’s redesign. For the first half, at least.

After all the bullshit he’s been through fighting Freddy and Ash in the last book, Jason is barely holding together. He’s got so much battle damage that even if he’s freakishly strong, he looks like’s seconds away from falling apart. Between his jaw being completely fleshless and the bottom part of his hockey mask before destroyed, he’s got this badass skull goalie thing going on.

read more: 28 Alternative Horror Movies Worth Watching

Then Freddy ruins it by making Jason his general and using the Necronomicon to amp up Jason's appearance, cleaning him up and fixing his disfigurements. He also gives him long, black hair, making him look like a generic 90s vigilante. This also allows him to speak for once when he has his final battle with Tommy Jarvis.

Certainly better than, “HRMM!” at least.

As I said, the book goes completely full-on nuts, especially when it comes to Maggie Burroughs. She is actually Freddy’s daughter and killed him in the sixth Elm Street movie (the last canon one before Freddy vs. Jason). Here, she’s secretly evil and is working for her father. I guess they can get away with it because she’s the hero of the most hated Nightmare on Elm Street, but it’s never explained why she’s suddenly evil. Then not only does she start dressing like a sexy X-Men supervillain, but she starts making out with her father. And he puts his hand down her pants while grabbing her boob with the other. What. The. Fuck?

read more: Nightmare on Elm Street Comics - A Nightmarish History Lesson

Anyway, she’s crushed by a tank a couple of issues later while fighting Jason in the Oval Office. Strange, strange comic. The book has a lot of big ideas, but it’s completely incomprehensible.

What I find interesting is the ending. Freddy’s attempt to cause Hell on Earth via the Necronomicon goes sour and they give him the most final death possible. He’s stripped of his powers, leaving a naked human form, begging for his life. Ash shoots him with his boomstick, killing him. Then some really ill-explained and badly-set-up time-travel happens where the warrant for his arrest from decades ago is now correctly signed, meaning he’ll never become the dream demon and so many deaths are negated. Not only is Freddy done, but he never really started in the first place!

Jason, on the other hand, is stabbed through the chest by Stephanie (which is supposed to be the one thing that can totally kill him for good) and Tommy chops his head off, but his body is missing anyway because one day he’s going to go to space and God forbid we mess around with continuity!

Gotta protect the sanctity of Jason X, man.

That was the last we’ve seen of Jason Voorhees in comic form and there’s no sign of him coming back any time soon. Despite being such a cinematic icon, there’s only so much you can do with the character. He’s a walking plot device who isn’t allowed to be anything more, nor should he ever be. He’s just an excuse for shock value and mainstream comics have already gotten to that level of mean-spirited violence, making him nothing but obsolete.

Poor guy. Finally DC Comics is about constantly tearing people’s arms off and Jason doesn’t get to play.

Gavin Jasper thinks it’s fitting that Jason is a goalie, considering he's constantly out to stop people from scoring. Follow him on Twitter!

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Sep 13, 2019

Friday the 13th

Horror Movies

from Books https://ift.tt/2AevHhN

#aion-rsa #Books

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staraptor-is-my-son · 5 years

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Silvally Breaks Free!

Reasoning:

-Gen 7 rep (I had this idea before the Incineroar reveal but I really wanted to share it)

-Important to the SM/USUM story

-Would do a great job representing the Pokémon series as a whole (see Moveset)

-No Spirit present in-game

-Gladion can appear in victory animations and such, like an emo Doc Louis

Moveset:

Here’s where the representing the whole series comes in. Every Smash character has 17 attacks. Add grabs as one move to make 18 moves. Silvally’s main selling point as a Pokémon is its RKS System Ability, which lets it switch between all 18 types. In short, Silvally has one move from each type in its moveset. Silvally doesn’t necessarily learn all of these moves, but it’s the types themselves that count here. Also, the protrusions from the fin on its head glow the corresponding type’s color with each attack. Yellow for Electric, purple for Poison, green for Grass, etc. If you think this moveset feels like an artificial combination of attributes from other characters without much originality, you’re absolutely right. That’s exactly what Silvally is in-canon.

-Jab: Fury Swipes (Normal). Two quick claw swipes in succession. Get-Up Attacks would also be Fury Swipes.

-Side Tilt: X-Scissor (Bug). Slashes forward with two claws at the same time. Works like Wolf’s Side Tilt.

-Up Tilt: Zen Headbutt (Psychic). Silvally swings its head in the air while it’s surrounded by psychic energy.

-Down Tilt: Poison Fang (Poison). A low bite with venomous teeth.

-Dash Attack: Ice Ball (Ice). Silvally rolls up into a ball, freezes, and rolls forward for a bit.

-Side Smash: Play Rough (Fairy). A rapid flurry of various forward attacks. Perhaps the comical dust cloud from the games could appear so they don’t have to be animated.

-Up Smash: Eruption (Fire). Two pillars of lava shoot up on either side of it. Works like Squirtle’s Up Smash.

-Down Smash: Bulldoze (Ground). Silvally leaps up and slams the ground, causing shockwaves nearby. Works like Incineroar/Ridley/King K. Rool’s Down Smash.

-Neutral Air: Shock Wave (Electric). An electric field around Silvally. Works like Pikachu/Mewtwo’s Neutral Air.

-Forward Air: Shadow Claw (Ghost). A slash forward with a ghostly claw. Works like Bowser/Wolf’s Forward Air.

-Back Air: Double Kick (Fighting). Two quick back leg kicks. Works like Link/ Young Link’s Back Air.

-Up Air: Iron Head (Steel). A strong upwards swing of a metallic head.

-Down Air: Smack Down (Rock). Silvally spits a small rock downwards. Like in the Pokémon series, anything hit by the rock crashes straight to the ground (or bottom blast zone). Works like Megaman’s Down Air.

-Neutral Special: Seed Bomb (Grass). Silvally spits an explosive seed forward. This attack is relatively slow, but hits hard and can be angled and shot at an arc.

-Side Special: Sky Drop (Flying). Silvally grabs its opponent, leaps into the air, and slams them back down. Works like Bowser’s Side Special.

-Up Special: Dragon Rush (Dragon). Silvally surrounds itself in blue energy as it floats in place for a bit, then lunges in any direction as the energy around takes the shape of a dragon. Works like Fox/Falco’s Up Special.

-Down Special: Sucker Punch (Dark). A hooking swing with a front leg. In Pokémon, this move is fails unless the target chose an attack that turn. In SSB, this would work as a counter.

Grab: Whirlpool (Water). Silvally surrounds its opponent with a small water vortex. The pummel just has the whirlpool swirl around the target faster, and the throws would have Silvally use the Water-Type version of Multi Attack (Silvally’s signature move, which appears as a claw swipe) to hit the foe in the chosen direction.

Final Smash: Ultra Wormhole. A wormhole drags an opponent into Ultra Space, and Silvally chases them through it an attacks them.

Alts:

-Gold head and neck (Shiny Silvally)

-Brown head and neck (Type: Null, it’s pre-evolution)

-Red leg hexagons, yellow head fin (Gladion, the first trainer to use Silvally)

-Yellow front legs, hexagons, and butt fin (Arceus, the legendary Pokémon who can change its type at will, an ability that Silvally was made to replicate)

-Purple head and neck, teal front legs and butt fin (Crobat, the only other Pokémon Gladion has in all Gen 7 games (except Lucario, who’s in Smash already) and who evolves by high friendship, just like Silvally.)

-Black head and neck, red head fin, white front legs (Both the Weavile Gladion has in SM and the Zoroark that replaces it in USUM)

Classic Mode: Beast Killer, Activate!

(Every fight is based on one or two Ultra Beasts, which Silvally was created to counter.)

Round 1: White Zelda (Nihilego)

Round 2: Red and Black Incineroar (Buzzwole) and White Zero Suit Samus (Pheromosa)

Round 3: Robin (Xurkitree)

Round 4: Galleom (Celesteela)

Round 5: Giant Black Kirby (Guzzlord)

Round 6: Black King K. Rool (Stakataka)

Boss: Giant Ridley (Naganadel)

SSB Idea Master Post

#nintendo switch #super smash bros ultimate #pokemon #ssbu #ultra sun and ultra moon #gladion #silvally #ultra beast

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desultory-novice · 2 years

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Do you think there could be a Kirby game with an open world setting where you could do things at your own pace? Like exploring ruins, collecting treasures, beating villains here and there, etc? It doesn't have to be a full 3d like Sonic Frontiers, Botw or Mario Odyssey. Imo, the terms 3d and Open-world have been thrown around so often, that they sometimes get confusing. If I remember correctly, wasn't Amazing Mirror considered to be open world?

I'm a lifelong game player. and it is so hard to keep genres straight. Over time, a game will come out and mix stuff up in a way that is nearly un-categorizable, or it'll be a whole new genre with its own new name. And in other cases, another genre gets stretched out to fit it in, until it is slowly subsumed by that new type of game!

(Speaking of sub-genres born from a specific (pair of) games) I consider Amazing Mirror to be a Kirby-fied Metroidvania, what with a selection of themed areas loosely connected by a larger map that you can ostensibly explore as you like based.

But then again, Metroidvanias might as well be the 2D equivalent of open world games.

In answer to your question, I do think there could be an open world Kirby game! I think it would be a natural evolution of the new style we have going with Forgotten Land!

However...

I don't think we'll see it soon. HAL Labs is, okay, they are such a brilliant game studio. Part of what makes them brilliant is that they're not just in a rush for innovation, they specialize in iterative polish. Let's see if I can phrase that more coherently...

I think we will probably get 1-3 more games in the FL style before they move onto the next thing! You know how RtDL, TDX, and PR all rather resembled each other, gameplay wise? And then they used that style again, but added a few things they'd always wanted to try onto Star Allies?

And if you go back, you'll find a similar lineage in Kirby's Adventure to Kirby's Super Star. AND from Kirby's Super Star through the GBA and DS games. They're all trying new things, seeing what sticks, seeing what they can innovate on further.

It's almost guaranteed that (as good as Forgotten Land is) it is not the end all and be all of what HAL Labs wants to do with our modern 3D Kirby playstyle. I expect they had a ton of ideas left on the cutting room floor that they will want to test out in a variety of sequels, all building on the FL formula!

So, an open world Kirby COULD be on the table - as the next thing they try once they have finished all they wanted to do in the semi-open world genre! (...If that is indeed the genre name.)

Meanwhile, we can happily look forward to the hyper polished equivalent of what Planet Robobot did to the RtDL-style games happening to FL down the line! ...Exciting!

#Kirby #kirby and the forgotten land #Kirby series #Dess Answers Questions #Dess Text Post

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doshmanziari · 5 years

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2019 Mega Drive Explorations [4]

A continuation of parts 1, 2, and 3. Click the link below to read the full post.

The NewZealand Story (1990)

This almost instantly became one of my favorite games for the Mega Drive. It was first an arcade release (1988), and got a ton of ports with, I assume, differences between each; Wikipedia notes that the version I played “had its levels based on the prototype version of the arcade game.” What that means, qualitatively, I’m not yet sure. This is some of the weirdest level design I’ve encountered in a platformer that’s not, like, a reactionary deconstructive work (in the way that the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is). The only other somewhat contemporary title I can compare it to is Milon’s Secret Castle (1986). Each of The NewZealand Story’s stages is a sort of maze that’s completed when you reach a fellow kiwi and release them from a cage. What really lets the layouts grow as they do is that, once you get to the second zone (of four), you need to start making use of the various flotation devices which preexist here and there or are left behind by enemies you defeat. So the level design gets to, in a kind of freeform way, flip between “normally” accessible paths and platforms, and toothy stretches demanding aerial navigation. The flotation devices are distinct from one another, too, from how you adhere to it to the speed. What was especially fun about this to me is how, following a clear-out of enemies, you might have a selection of these devices to choose from, and there aren’t really comparative downsides between them (the closest you get to that are these things that look like, uh, torpedoes, which are slow, but they’re also the one device that can’t be popped by shooting at it or touching spikes).

Even if The NewZealand Story isn’t genre-/series-deconstructive, that doesn’t mean it can’t have whimsical moments. A standout for me is illustrated in the third screenshot, where a “room” you have to get to is surrounded by a barrier, and seemingly inaccessible, until you remember that if you are standing below platforms and walkways of a certain thinness and appearance you can jump through them. The solution is to get yourself up against that vertical band and jump through the bit where it briefly horizontally redirects. Cool!! The other thing I like a lot about the level design is that it’s not strictly economical, that some of the structural arrangements seem to exist to form visual patterns more than to control your route. So you have minor casual options for where and how to move through a space. Mercifully, amazingly, bosses are few -- only three -- and they have brevity: you can get rid of the final boss (see the screenshot above) within seconds by popping his balloon. I like looking at this game, too. A couple of stages reminded me of Falcom’s Xanadu and Faxanadu in their cute, flattish, compact representation of architecture or architectural elements within a screen’s worth of space and fortressed tiling. Once you’re past the first zone, loosely themed as a zoo, it’s impossible to tell if the zones’ apertures and voids admit further views or are all mosaics and/or props. It was an unexpected and engaging ambiguity: either interpretation has strange implications. Besides a couple of jumps over and under spikes which demand an inapt exactitude, this is pretty much a perfect game for me, and I wish it had gotten a handheld rerelease on the Nintendo GBA or DS.

Arcus Odyssey (1991)

As a Wolf Team-developed game, Arcus Odyssey sits snugly beside Earnest Evans and El Viento as a whirlwind of inexplicable plot points (rendered more inexplicable, and amusing, by an amateurish localization), lopsided pacing, and just a ton of baffling game design that doesn’t really care about you. Everything is exploding and the gravitas has no narrative grounding. It is at its best hilariously joyful and at its worst insensitively prohibitive. Environments, from a network of walkways suspended thousands of feet above the earth, to a colonnaded stepped complex that recalls John Martin’s infernal painting, Pandemonium, are set at an oblique angle and are swimming with sorcerers, skeletons, cockroaches, and other creatures who unendingly come at you from out of nowhere and half of the time spit projectiles. The palettes and narrow, minuscule tilesets give everything the veneer of a PC-98 title. Regardless of the character you choose (for me, it was the pink-haired Erin who wields a whip), the best strategy is to never stop mashing the attack button. This got iffy in one stage where a numerous type of flying creature left behind a crawling string of flames on the ground upon death. The best strategy for bosses? Use an invincibility-granting item you’ve hopefully snagged from a treasure chest, stand right next to the boss, and... yeah, mash that attack button. Which is fine! This is not a game where the mechanics could’ve yielded bosses who were interesting for reasons other than their appearance.

Arcus Odyssey has two serious, debilitating issues, though. The first is that you only have room in an inventory menu for six items (five, really; one of these items is permanent), and yet I have quite literally never seen another videogame with so many treasure chests relative to its stages’ sizes. You’ll mostly be passing stuff up then because you’re at capacity. Sure, you can consume the things you have to make room, but there are at least three items which have contextually valuable uses: the potion of invincibility, the lifebar-refilling lamp of life, and the resurrecting doll of life. Stocking up on one kind to the exclusion of everything else isn’t a sustainable plan. So the “economy,” as it were, is kinda fucked. The second debilitating, perhaps eventually paralyzing, issue is that Arcus Odyssey has the design of an early Japanese PC action-RPG like Ys or Rune Worth, where you are constantly harangued by waves of enemies who non-specifically occupy the level designs and bosses who may instantly unload multiple projectile-based attacks. That sort of design, somewhat haphazard as it was, could function (with degrees of success) in the context of the RPG part of the “action-RPG” equation, since you could reliably and incrementally level up (and save!). Arcus Odyssey doles out a few upgrades here and there, but it plays out like an action game that doesn’t understand the forms it’s borrowing. As such, it’s easy -- and become easier, the further along you are -- to get yourself into situations whose demands for superhuman, verging on omniscient, performance make no sense. Real shame.

Marvel Land (1991)

Like The NewZealand Story, Marvel Land is a Mega Drive port of an arcade game released a couple of years earlier. Also like the former, it quickly became a personal console-favorite. A few prickles keep me from fully loving it -- namely, the bizarre precision you need to have when jumping on enemies to not get hit yourself (and a hit here, as per usual with arcade games before the 90s, equals death), a few too many leaps of faith, and optional doorways which can send you back to previous levels, as far as the very first -- but the diversity of creatures, stages’ arrangements and themes, power-ups, and unconventional bosses have an individual and cumulative appeal that outweighs those problematics. I think I’m obligated here to say that I will almost automatically like any videogame that has a candy-themed environment, and Marvel Land has one of those, complete with waddling ice cream cones, gingerbread houses, and a maze built of cracker-cookies. The two main and most interesting power-ups are wings which temporarily give you a much higher jump and the ability to fly, and a string of self-duplicates which can be whipped around to hit enemies, collect items for score, and latch onto targets to swing from them. A later level surprised me when it both expected me to use the wings to progress and to be mindful about the height of my jumps so as to not skewer myself on spikes., denying the expectation that such a liberty would dissolve hard designs.

Bosses deserve a special mention because, god, by now I just hate bosses, they ruin so many of these games, and Marvel Land’s are designed as “minigames” -- a game of rock-paper-scissors, selecting an illustration in a grid that matches an example below, or Whac-a-mole (against a mole). It’s decent, clever, and properly playful. Despite this, the game is still compelled to have a “real” boss fight at the very end (were the developers anxious?), and I could’ve done without that; but, it was straightforward enough. The aforementioned bestiary, if you want to call it that, is wonderful and funny and can hold its own against any of the Kirby games’ rosters. You can see, for example, in the last screenshot that a feisty mallard duck who beckons at you with an index feather-finger is named COMEON. Other members include HEAVY, a chubby pink snake, and GIANTBURGER, a sentient burger. As a closing comment, I’ll say that it’s striking and odd how many videogames, from Japan, no less, were about restoring the rule of a Eurocentric fairytale monarchy. Hell, that’s what two of Nintendo’s most popular extant series are about (Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda). Why is this an international go-to for a premise? And how could anyone care about it? In some cases I think it’s fair to guess that the creator(s) did not care and simply went with a cultural trope that was within grabbing range; but the question remains of why those tropes are within grabbing range. We already know why these narratives are also fiercely heteronormative (even The NewZealand Story has to make the last kiwi you rescue be a girl -- wow, thank god!), but this prevalent medievalism that has an uncritical nostalgia for monarchy kinda mystifies me.

#sega genesis #mega drive #new zealand story #arcus odyssey #marvel land

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shyguycity · 5 years

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Goty 2019

Hey. It’s game of the year 2019 baby. By now you know the kinda justice we seek on these streets, so no long-winded introductions, except to remind you that these aren’t reviews, and honorable mentions have been moved down to the bottom this year because we're evolving.

12. Super Kirby Clash (Switch) - A free to play online Kirby spinoff centered around combat that features microtransactions sounds like an awful idea on paper, and yet it’s somehow my most played multiplayer game of 2019. I won’t try and present the game as anything more than what it is, which is basically a very (very very very!) simplified, arcade-y Monster Hunter game with a very (very very very very!) cute aesthetic. But as a recent convert to Monster Hunter and a longtime Kirby lobbyist, it turns out that that’s all I need to play a game for nearly 100 hours. The four classes all have varied abilities, gameplay and roles to play, and there’s nothing more satisfying than freezing time as the mage in the middle of an enemy’s jumping animation. I found the microtransactions to be completely fair, as I spent around 10 dollars total on the game and never found myself hurting for apples (the game’s main currency and the only one you can buy with real money) to upgrade my equipment. This isn’t a game I would be able to recommend to everyone, but if it’s your type of thing then it’s going to be very much your type of thing.

*Image credit: 505 games

11. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/PC) - Despite horrible first impressions from my backer copy of the Switch version, Bloodstained really ended up delivering the true Castlevania: Symphony of the Night successor it promised to be, and I had a fantastic time with it (after trading in my Switch version and begrudgingly purchasing a PS4 copy). While I love almost all of the Castlevania games in their own ways, even the best entries post-SotN didn’t end up feeling much like SotN. Bloodstained, meanwhile, wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Or rather on its wolf hood and gas mask combo.

Obscure, bizarre, and goofy secrets are around every single corner of the castle. I mean, like, really esoteric ones that I can’t imagine having found without a guide. From the myriad of hidden (and very challenging!) boss fights, to trophies popping for playing a piano while having a fair familiar out to entire sprite based areas, the surprises never stop being thrown at the player. It adds so much goofball flavor to the game that’s missing from just about any other entry in the genre, and it does the brunt work in giving this game its identity.

Not only are the secrets plentiful and good, but the combat is also excellent; much like a couple entries in the latter Castlevania games, just about every single enemy in Bloodstained has a chance of dropping you a shard upon defeat, and each one gives your character Miriam a new ability. Some of these are simple passive buffs, while others completely change your combat options. From ghostly portrait guardians to giant dentist drills coming out of your hand to summoning disembodied dragon’s heads, the shard system is never not entertaining, and leaves the player so much room for experimentation and realizing their ideal build it’s actually a wonder they were able to bug test this thing at all. And truly, the main issues holding Bloodstained back from true greatness are its technical issues. Which is a shame, and seemingly an issue on all platforms. But if you can handle a hard crash here or there, you’re in for a treat.

10. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch) - I never thought I would care at all for any Fire Emblem game. Certainly, I saw the appeal of them prior to Three Houses, but they just never seemed like something I would want to devote a lot of time to. But putting the game in a school setting and recontextualizing your soldiers as students really made a huge difference for me, and I bonded with the characters in the game in a way I normally reserve for my Pokemon teams. And unlike Pokemon, I can marry my students, which is beautiful and horrifying.

There are definitely issues with Three Houses. A silent protagonist has no right starring in a game like this, especially with all the emotional story beats the game is trying to pull off. The writing in general was also all over the place, ranging from odd decisions with both the characters as well as the overarching story (some of this is remedied by replaying the game multiple times and going down different routes, but I put 60 hours into the game and couldn’t even finish two paths, so that’s a bit unrealistic). Lastly, the monastery that serves as your school needs just a tad more variety in activities to do in between the battles, as what started out as my favorite part of the game became a chore for the last dozen or so hours.

All of that said, I am anxiously waiting for the sequel, as the foundation that’s been put down here could lead to something truly special. As it stands, this is the best secret Harry Potter game ever made, and that alone is going to have a lot of appeal to a lot of people.

*Image credit: Gamespot

9. Resident Evil 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PC) - Truly, I have never been more stressed out when playing a game than the first time I had to start dealing with Mr. X. Yes, on each subsequent playthrough (of which I did many!) and even encounter he became less of a threat and more of an annoyance, but much like a good horror movie, that first time will remain embedded in my brain as one of my most memorable gaming moments.

And that kinda sums up Resident Evil 2 as a whole for me. An amazing, unforgettable start in the police station, followed by a somewhat middling second act in the sewers, and ending on kind of a weirdly short whimper in a very tonally different setting than the rest of the game. And that’s without getting into how disappointingly similar the “B” playthroughs of either character were to their “A” counterparts. It was all still great, mind you, and the gameplay and scares remained excellent throughout. But man was that first act in the police station something truly special, and I’m hopeful that the eventual remake of 3 keeps more of that tone throughout.

8. Pokemon Sword/Pokemon Shield (Switch) - Cutting hundreds of Pokemon was pretty close to the bottom of my list of concerns going into the latest Pokemon. The series hasn’t really grabbed me in a major way since Black and White on the DS almost 9(!) years ago, and I had largely accepted the idea that I was finally growing out of the franchise. While this 8th generation of Pokemon titles is far, far from perfect, and in fact doubles down on a lot of the aspects I don’t like about modern Pokemon games, Sword has become my favorite entry in the series in a very long time.

This is down to two things: my favorite batch of new Pokes the series has ever had (Galarian Farfetch’d, my prince............) and the introduction of multiplayer coop content with raids. The former is subjective I suppose (but seriously, Galarian Farfetch’d), and the appeal of the raids is going to be dictated by how into repetitive content you are and if you have people to raid with. I’m fortunate enough to love repetitive tasks in video games, especially repetitive tasks that amount to fighting and capturing giant monsters for rewards, and to have a partner to enjoy those repetitive tasks with. We lost entire weekends to hunting down new raid opportunities in Sword, and this feels like the first major step the series has taken in nearly a decade to try and reengage me in a meaningful way.

And don’t get me wrong: Pokemon has a long way to go to bring me entirely back into the fold. The dungeons are nonexistent, the routes are largely completely straightforward affairs, the post game content is so light that “barebones” feels like a generous descriptor, and the performance issues in the wild area (the game’s more open, free roaming space) are inexcusably awful when played online. I hope by the time the 9th generation games roll around that we’ll get a bigger advancement than what’s been seen here, but to me, this feels like an all around better made product than any of the 3DS entries, with or without Galarian Farfetch’d.

7. Risk of Rain 2 (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/PC) - The original Risk of Rain is a personal all-time favorite, so seeing the developers successfully make the jump from 2D to 3D while still maintaining everything I love about the first game is a truly remarkable feat. Both games sport essentially MMO-lite combat with abilities dictated by cooldowns and items that you get from chests and bosses, with rogue-like progression and permadeath. That’s a lot of jargon even for me talking about video games, so essentially: keep shooting things and powering up by grabbing items and defeating bosses, and when you’re dead you’re dead (bar a specific item), rinse and repeat.

It’s deceptively simple while being endlessly replayable. The true fun comes in when playing with other people, as every character plays completely differently, and figuring out builds for each person on the fly is extremely fun and rewarding. This also means that if you start getting bored of one character, simply play a different one on your next run. Add in an extremely moody sci-fi aesthetic (including one of my favorite soundtracks of the year) and that’s Risk of Rain.

The main issue with Risk of Rain 2 at this point is that it’s simply unfinished, and won’t even have an actual ending state until spring of 2020. This doesn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game much, hence it being on this list, but I imagine a lot of people would be bothered by it. The developers have done a great job of updating the game at a decent pace so far though, and every major patch has come with a new character, among a ton of other things. And if I’ve already gotten this much enjoyment out of an early access title, it’s exciting to think about a feature complete version down the line. And hopefully that feature complete version of Risk of Rain 2 includes the Chef character from the first game *ahem*.

6. Astral Chain (Switch) - In a year full of some real dang weird yet shockingly great games, Astral Chain stands tall as probably the weirdest surprise of them all. You’re a future cop fighting invisible ghost demons from an alternate dimension with your own invisible ghost demon chained to you through some high tech handcuffs. That’s just the first half hour of the game, and it ratchets up the anime nonsense many magnitudes over in the course of its 20ish hour runtime. And it’s great and stupid.

It’s not just the plot that’s over the top, though. Coming from developer Platinum Games, renowned for their nonstop super sweaty action portfolio, Astral Chain spends just as much time tasking the player with exploring its world, characters, and lore as it does asking you to punch enemies the size of skyscrapers (or bigger). It’s a formula that works shockingly well, as I found myself enjoying the downtime segments just as much, if not more, than the action portions of the game. And the action that is there doesn’t really play like your typical Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, either; the player character, while critical to pulling off combos and the like, is not your primary damage dealer, with that role being fulfilled by your five “legions” (the aforementioned ghost demon buddies), all of which have different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. The gameplay ends up feeling kind of like a realtime Pokemon game by way of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and no sentence I’ve ever written has been as cool as that one.

I do think Astral Chain falls a bit short in the combat department, at least compared to other games in the genre. It’s a bit too simplified, despite how crazy looking and overwhelming the actions you and your legions end up doing can be, and I think that the obligatory Platinum-style grading system in this is very poor - it doesn’t seem to grade overall performance so much as it just wants you to constantly be switching your legions in the midst of battle. Which is a great lesson to teach your players, but I would also like if anything else about my combat performance seemed to have significant weight on my grade. Having said all that, it’s a flaw that I found much easier to overlook in the midst of battle when I sent my wolf legion ahead of me, biting and tearing its way through a cluster of enemies, while I hung back inside of my punching legion, finally able to fulfill my years-long Star Platinum “ora ora ora” fantasies.

5. Anodyne 2: Return to Dust (PC) - There’s a lot going on in Anodyne 2, and I fear trying to describe it in words, not only because of all the jargon I’d inevitably have to use, but also because I’m not sure I can do the game justice. To that end, here’s a brief trailer of the game to get you started:

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If you find that trailer at all intriguing, Anodyne 2 is definitely for you. And if you’re still skeptical, know that the game has far more to offer than just its (beautiful) low-poly aesthetic. While visually it’s obviously most evoking Playstation 1 era games such as Mega Man Legends, in terms of the tone of its writing it strikes a pretty peculiar balance between Earthbound and Nier: Automata (names I do not invoke lightly!). The visuals aren’t just an aesthetic choice, either - throughout the game you find yourself in 2D overhead areas, solving puzzles inside of the minds of other characters, and these varying layers of abstraction serve to further the game’s message and atmosphere. And it’s all of these things combined that pushed Anodyne 2 over the edge of “memorable” and into the realm of “haunting” for me.

It’s a game that wants to be played and experienced by everyone; you can tell how much love was put into every single corner of the world, every line of dialogue, and each and every single goofy joke. Steven Universe (another seeming inspiration of the developers) is the only other piece of media that has reminded me of just how lost and alone I’ve felt at various stages of life, while choosing not to dwell on that and instead using it as a launching pad to remind me of just how far I’ve come. As the game itself says, Anodyne 2 is a game about life, and I’ve rarely come across one that felt so full of it.

4. Judgment (PS4) - With the release of Yakuza 0 a couple of years ago, the Yakuza games went from a series I was vaguely aware of in my periphery to maybe my all-time favorite video game comfort food. They’re silly, melodramatic, sad, and beautiful, tonally swinging back and forth like a large imposing guard wildly trying to hit Kiryu with a couch section. Most importantly, they manage to feel heartfelt and personal in an age where high budget games seldom feel anything of the sort. I was initially hesitant, then, to play a spinoff that threw aside its entire cast of established characters for a crew that dabbles in detective and lawyer work; I didn’t think there was much of a chance that this new band of very handsome crimeboys with hearts of gold would be able to compare to Kiryu, Majima and the like. How glad I was to be wrong, as Judgment is now maybe my favorite of the Yakuza games I’ve played.

By pulling further out (but not completely away) from the culture of organized crime as the central driving factor of the story, you no longer need to memorize a dozen different yakuza organizations and all of their subsidiaries and patriarchs within, nor do you have to try and remember which side is feuding with who. And that isn’t to say that the story doesn’t have just as many twists and turns; it does, and despite the larger scale of the stakes, ends up feeling more focused and personal. I also found it easy to bond with the two main characters, Yagami and Kaito, as not only do their personalities play off of each other very well, but they simply share more screentime together than I’ve ever seen Kiryu get a chance to do with anyone. Truly, the story ended up being one of my favorites in the entire medium, and I fell in love with the characters to the point where I got misty eyed during the credits.

With regards to gameplay, it’s a Yakuza game. Which means a lot of running around Kamurocho, talking and shopping and playing minigames and brawling. Since the player character in this entry is a detective, there are various mechanics and events related to the profession, such as investigating crime scenes and tailing suspects, but they’re by far the weakest part of the game, and you shouldn’t come to this game looking for incredible detective gameplay. Instead, come to the game for literally everything else it offers, because it’s a fantastic experience all around, and a great jumping on point for anyone unfamiliar with Yakuza.

*Image credit: Steam user Symbol

3. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4/Xbox One/PC) - Frankly, I did not much care for Sekiro for the majority of my first play through. Specifically, I dreaded its boss fights. To go from the sheer joy of being able to dispatch a courtyard full of enemies in any way I pleased in the game’s relatively free form stealth sections, to being killed in a matter of two or three hits to every single boss and miniboss was frustrating; how could I not groan when I started that duel with Genichiro at the top of the castle, knowing full well that I was going to be stuck there for a few (or more) frustrating hours? It wasn’t until the fight against the protagonist’s father figure, Owl, hours later at the same location as the aforementioned Genichiro fight, that something clicked. It only took around 30 hours, but suddenly, instead of approaching the situation like a Dark Souls or Bloodborne boss, I was not only being defensive, but I was being aggressively defensive, parrying nearly every single blow. Suddenly it was me standing in place, baiting out my opponent’s attacks only to throw the force of his own momentum back at him. Suddenly combat made sense in this damn game. And suddenly I was dead again in a quick three hits after inhaling some magic gas that prevented me from being able to heal. But that was ok! Because suddenly this game was amazing, and suddenly I had completed it four times and adored every second of it (except for that fucken four form final boss with no checkpoints).

I still stand by my (and a lot of other’s) original complaint that the disparity between the freedom offered in the rest of the game compared to the unflinchingly rigid roadmap you have to follow in fighting the bosses is jarring game design, and it’s very fun to imagine a version of Sekiro that lets you approach bosses any which way you like. On the other hand, no other game that I’ve ever played, not even Sekiro’s predecessor and my favorite game of this console generation, Bloodborne, has come anywhere close to making me feel this cool when fighting bosses. And that’s a mighty impressive accomplishment on any game’s part, speaking from the perspective of an overweight, sweaty, hairy, very uncool man.

But really, fuck that final boss though.

2. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Switch/PS4/PC) - When we were around 10-years-old, one of my best friends, Patrick, used to host fairly regular Lego-building sleepovers, where everyone built whatever they wanted, and our creations were then showcased to the rest of the group. Being that the group consisted entirely of pre-pubescent boys, this meant building various robots or cars, all of variable quality/ability to stand upright. During one of these nights, in lieu of the usual deathbot piloted by the ghost minifig, I instead constructed a little bunker for the ghost - a place where, after a long day of being forced (by me) to pilot his mech suit and commit unspeakable acts, he could hang up his ghost hat and be forced (by me) to ponder the morality of his actions. It was just a tiny little room with the necessities: bed, table, bookshelves and pizza, but when presenting it to my friends I proudly declared that the bunker was also located at the bottom of the ocean, a factor that couldn’t be visually represented due to the harsh limits of time, Lego pieces and my ability. I was pretty proud of my cool-down chamber, but if memory serves correctly, it was Patrick’s no doubt boorish creation that was the apple of everyone’s eye. And who am I to try and convince a room full of my peers that actually, a secluded room where you could read in peace for all eternity was much cooler than a punching gorilla bot?

This is all to say that I have never been a creative type, especially when it comes to building. I had previously played Minecraft and the first Dragon Quest Builders, and while I enjoyed them, there wasn’t quite enough there to make me want to engage with them on a level beyond just playing them like any other game - I don’t think I ever built anything in DQB1 that wasn’t required for the sake of progression in the main story, and the less said about my Minecraft efforts the better. Builders 2 expertly sidesteps this issue by wrapping its building mechanics around an engaging and hearfelt story (I got teary-eyed multiple times!), great characters (especially the main character’s mysterious best friend/partner in crime, Malroth) and a lovely localization. It also encourages more freeform building than the previous game by tying the progression of the story to the progression of your main, customizable island. You don’t ever really have to go off into the weeds on your own in regards to building, but the game gives you so many opportunities to fill in the blanks on premade templates that you eventually just become comfortable in doing so. It’s hard to stop myself from gushing about the game, to the point where as I type this I’m questioning why it’s “only” number 2 on this list.

And thanks to DQB2, for the first time in 20 years I revisited my first creative endeavor: the underwater solitude bunker, this time no longer held back by the technology of the day, instead fully realized in digital form. Built as far down as the game would allow my character to dig, hidden beneath the still waters of a reservoir inside of a pyramid, it is truly a testament to mankind’s ingenuity. And it is wicked. Naturally I had my artist (and DQB2 fanatic) girlfriend visit my game’s world so she bask in my true brilliance. I gleefully guided her down to the catacombs and down the intimidatingly long chain that dangled into the deceptively still depths. After a brief swim into the murky unknown, we arrived at our hidden destination at the bottom of the earth, where she was greeted by the sight of my submerged masterpiece. A wry smile snaked itself around my lips, as I knew, was absolutely certain, that within seconds, once she had made it through the de-pressurization chamber at the entrance to my paradise, I would be hearing the words of someone simultaneously shocked, awed, and hopefully only a bit jealous. Instead, I was met with a few seconds of silence followed by a patronizing “Well, I’d have never thought to build something like this.”

So, I guess that’s why Builders 2 couldn’t quite reach the number one spot: true art is never appreciated in its time.

1. Hypnospace Outlaw (PC) - No piece of commercial art has ever felt like it was made for me in the way that Hypnospace Outlaw does. I grew up on the internet during the time period this game’s alternate reality take on the 90s internet is drawing its inspiration from; I have talked at length, to anyone who will listen, about how this early incarnation of the internet felt more like a physical space than it does now, and how much I miss the days of stumbling on to weird Geocities sites, meeting people in AOL chatrooms, and the early days of pirating. I met my first girlfriend through the internet, as well as my current one. The vast majority of the friends I’ve made in my life would not have happened without the internet, and not just because of distance; the internet allowed the younger me to be the person I was too insecure to be in person, and to develop my own voice. I owe who I am to the people I met in freeware fanmade Dragonball Z games and IRC chat rooms, and I think that’s kind of fucked up and magical, and it’s all kind of a miracle that I’m not even more of a mess of a person than I am today. And the developers of this game have clearly had those experiences, too.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Hypnospace Outlaw is for everyone, because it’s absolutely not. It’s essentially a detective game, but you’re solving cases by investigating user made internet pages circa 1997, and the “cases” you’re working on are largely things like bullying and copyright infringement. In other words, you’re mostly just reading gaudy websites and figuring out more about the back end and exploits of the Hypnospace experience. It is incredibly specific and niche and, as someone that sorely misses staying up until 3 AM downloading Winamp skins, I can’t stop thinking about this game, even months later.

I wrote a longer piece on the game on this very blog, and instead of rehashing anymore of it here, I’ll just direct you that way. Though if I may, I’d like to give one last endorsement for the game for any hypothetical person reading this that’s on the fence about trying it - if you’re the kind of person that somehow finds yourself reading this game of the year list, and have made it this far down the page without getting bored, I promise you that you’ll find something to love about Hypnospace Outlaw.

Honorable mentions (for games that were either not originally released in 2019 or I still wanted to briefly touch on):

Dragon Quest 11 S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition (Switch) - Somewhere in between listing the original release of Dragon Quest 11 as my 7th favorite game of 2018 and now, it went from being “a really great JRPG” to “one of the best games I’ve ever played”, and in all honesty should have probably been at the top of last year’s list. A beautiful, unmatched experience all around.

Overcooked! 2 (Switch/PS4/Xbox One/PC) - The Overcooked games are possibly the best coop games I’ve ever played by merit of them actually requiring communication between players. Framing the game’s mechanics around cooking food, a universally understood act, is brilliant.

Baba is You (Switch/PC) - This is the most clever puzzle game I’ve ever played. Hell, it’s probably the most clever game I’ve ever played period. What prevented me from truly falling in love with it was that every single puzzle after the first couple of worlds became the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do in my life. And while that did make solving those puzzles equally satisfying, the thought of dedicating multiple hours each to stumbling through dozens and dozens more of single screen puzzles was a bit more than I was able to handle. Still, for any puzzle fans, there are some genuinely jaw-dropping moments in this that shouldn’t be missed.

Kirby’s Dreamland 3 (Switch/SNES) - The things I didn’t like about DL3 as a single player game are exactly what makes it a great coop Kirby game, which was a way to play this game that I never had the pleasure of experiencing until this year when it was re-released on the SNES Switch app. It’s skyrocketed up my list of favorite Kirby games, as well as become my favorite SNES coop game. Also, Gooey.

Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) (PC) - I don’t quite qualify this as a game, as it’s more of a message in a bottle app with a very warm and charming aesthetic. But if you’ve ever wanted to anonymously reach out to strangers and tell them things are going to be all right while listening to some calming music, this is the thing for you.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 (Switch) - I have a deep, deep fondness for all three of the Luigi’s Mansion games (the GameCube and the original game were my first launch day purchases!), and 3 is by far the best game in the series. Every single moment of it was some high degree of charming and/or cute, and it’s a game I would feel confident in recommending to just about everybody. However, while I truly loved my time with the game and will no doubt replay it years down the road, there was nothing inside of it that really left any kind of deep impression on me. It’s a summer blockbuster in a kid-friendly spooky form, and that’s great for what it is.

Super Mario Maker 2 (Switch) - Mario Maker 2, sequel to what I would consider to possibly be the best game Nintendo’s ever made, is by far and away my most disappointing game of the year. It’s still an amazing toolkit, and I’ve been very satisfied with the levels I ended up making. That said, the gaming landscape has changed a lot in the 5 years between the original and the sequel, and with Nintendo’s nigh complete silence regarding updates coming to the game, I can’t consider it to be anything but a massive disappointment. And maybe that will change! But as of this posting, there’s been almost nothing to keep me coming back to the game a mere few months into its life, and that’s a huge problem. All of that said, it’s still a fantastic game and value, especially if (like most) you didn’t get a chance to play the original due to the console it was stuck on.

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