Jab’s Builds! (Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef! Sweetums! Gonzo!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
Shock
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Re: X-23

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jun 03, 2018 11:22 pm Image
Pictures like this are why I love comics. Shark punching never gets old
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Ken
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Ken »

Which is a good thing, because, since she used her claws the blood in the water will draw MORE SHARKS.
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danelsan
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by danelsan »

I consider Laura a character that had seemingly everything set to go wrong, but instead shows that a good execution of an apparently terrible concept is viable. The art helped a lot, too, of course. Sana Takeda's work is the reason I got into Monstress (I do enjoy the story and found it intriguing from the first teaser I read, but would have likely given it a pass if the art wasn't so good).
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KorokoMystia
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by KorokoMystia »

I don't know too much about Laura (Somehow, despite watching X-Men Evolution when I was younger, I seemed to have completely missed any episodes featuring her, or I just didn't remember her at all), and I first really found out about her from Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
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drkrash
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by drkrash »

I like Laura as a character more than I thought I would as well. Her book is adequate, though I think she has had some inconsistent personality portrayals over the past decade.

Her stupid clone Gabby is a waste and needs to go, however. I find she undermines Laura's heroism and badassery on a consistent basis and totally caters to the "slightly-chubby teen girl" archetype showing up more often, presumably as "representation" but not adding much value to the story.

(And yeah, I know I'm being mean for picking on a 13-year old.)
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Batgirl III »

(And yeah, I know I'm being mean for picking on a 13-year old.)
Except you’re not picking on a thirteen-year old, you’re criticizing the fictional creation of a professional writer and artist, Tom Taylor and David López, both of whom are in their forties. Both of whom have decades of experience in the industry.
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drkrash
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by drkrash »

Batgirl III wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 4:43 pm
(And yeah, I know I'm being mean for picking on a 13-year old.)
Except you’re not picking on a thirteen-year old, you’re criticizing the fictional creation of a professional writer and artist, Tom Taylor and David López, both of whom are in their forties. Both of whom have decades of experience in the industry.
Thanks for making me feel better, then. Gabby sucks and I was disappointed when she didn't die. :P
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danelsan
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by danelsan »

You know, these Weapon-Whatever Program scientists should stick to putting indestructible metal in people, as they clearly suck at cloning. When your very first effort comes out with different eye color, skeletal mutation structure and sex, and then you continue to be unable to do clones equal to their cloned-from bodies, despite every other super-scientist who engages in the practice being able to do so (and accelerate growth to adulthood, with full adult knowledge and experience somehow), you must realize you are not playing to your strengths.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Batgirl III »

I assumed they cloned X-23 as female on purpose...
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Woodclaw »

Batgirl III wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:40 pm I assumed they cloned X-23 as female on purpose...
The in-universe reason was that they only had a damaged sample of Logan's cells, so one of the scientists added her own genetic material to fill the gaps. As a result Laura is actually more of Wolvie's test tube sister/daughter, rather than a clone.

Gabby on the other had was build from the same genetic culture as Laura, so they are clones.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Well, at least they didn’t use frog DNA to fill in the gaps. That never ends well.
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Jabroniville
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Mister X

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
Image

MISTER X
Created By:
Frank Tieri & Sean Chen
First Appearance: Wolverine #159 (Feb. 2001)
Role: Super-Martial Artist
Group Affiliations: The Thunderbolts
PL 12 (174)
STRENGTH
3 STAMINA 4 AGILITY 6
FIGHTING 12 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Acrobatics 8 (+14)
Athletics 7 (+10)
Deception 4 (+8)
Expertise (Business) 6 (+10)
Expertise (Criminal) 6 (+10)
Intimidation 5 (+9)
Perception 5 (+9)
Persuasion 3 (+7)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Agile Feint, Benefit 4 (Wealthy), Defensive Attack, Equipment 2 (Swords & Knives), Fast Grab, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Ranged Attack 4, Takedown

Powers:
"Martial Artist Supreme" Strength-Damage +1 [1]

"Telepathic Pre-Determining Offense"
Mind-Reading 8 [16]
Immunity 2 (Pain Effects) [2]
Enhanced Fighting 4 [8]
Close Combat (Unarmed) 4 (+16/+20) [2]
Enhanced Dodge & Parry 2 [4]
Enhanced Advantages 14: Agile Feint, Daze (Intimidation), Defensive Roll 2, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 3, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative 2, Power Attack, Seize Initiative, Takedown (total 2), Uncanny Dodge [14]

Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Swords +12 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Telepathic Unarmed +20 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Telepathic Swords +16 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Initiative +6 (+14 Telepathic)

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (+15 Telepathy, DC 23-25), Parry +14 (+18 Telepathy, DC 24-28), Toughness +4 (+6 D.Roll), Fortitude +6, Will +7

Complications:
Motivation (Killer)- Mister X is a sociopath and a serial killer, desiring to kill for it's own sake. He murdered his childhood pet puppy, his parents, and hundreds of others over the years. His greatest "rush" comes from murdering someone in hand-to-hand combat.
Prejudice (Scarred)- Though he dresses well, Mister X's body is covered in scars, one for each of his murdered victims.
Power Loss (Telepathy)- Mister X is technically reading the minds of his opponents, using their thoughts to govern his responses. Anyone immune to Telepathy (such as due to a berserker rage, being too fast to "read", or otherwise not thinking about their actions) would be immune to his bonuses. Nobody has yet been seen to actually resist his probes.

Total: Abilities: 82 / Skills: 44--22 / Advantages: 18 / Powers: 47 / Defenses: 14 (174)

Mister X- "New Villain Stink" Defined:
-Mister X is kind of an interesting addition to the whole "New Villain Stink" thing you see in most fiction based around ass-kickings. See, this guy debuted as basically OMG THE BEST MARTIAL ARTIST EVAAAAAAR in Wolverine a trope seen quite frequently in comics when the writer wants to show off his Precious Pet new character (occasionally with heroes). Englehart's Mantis did it, Loeb's Red Hulk did it, and Simone's Catman & Sin (I love Gail's work, but she ALWAYS wants to convince everyone of how bad-ass everyone is, to the point where sometimes I'm like "OKAY I GET IT THESE ARE GREAT FIGHTERS, OKAY?!?") did it- Mister X came in, beat the LIVING HELL out of Logan with ease, and fans were immediately all "ooooh this guy is TOUGH!" and were immediately throwing him into the "Tiers" of fighters out there.

-However, quickly thereafter, it was revealed that Mister X was actually a telepath who "cheated" by predicting guys' movements before they did them, allowing him to get the jump on his opponents. This is actually a VERY cool trick, and made for a unique character. Especially since they added it to an obsessed, depraved killer, more befitting a serial killer than a random murderer like Sabretooth (or the usual guys Logan fought). Of course he even did the "Learns martial arts from dozens of masters, killing all of them when he learned all he could" thing. Very quickly, Mister X dropped the second fight to Logan (who went into a Berserker Rage and thus was immune to having his mind read). A good, solid arc, brief push, and then a way for the hero to "out-think" him (ironically, but making it so he COULDN'T think).

-Of course, as Woodclaw noted the last time I posted this guy, this power wouldn't really work as well in real life, because fighting tends to be too fast for you to read "I'm gonna punch this guy in the nuts" before he punches you in the nuts. It's more about reflexes and automatic responses. But for comics, it's great- like Nemesis Kid's power, it allows him to be a dirty rotten cheater, "skipping" so much of the importance of martial arts training and leapfrogging over better fighters.

Mister X Moves On:
-In a good bit of business, Mister X actually CONTINUED to be used here and there, and never really lost his mojo, reputation or credibility the way so many other "New Villain Stink" guys did- he would lose the occasional fight, but would also get some BIG wins here or there. In one case, he beat the living hell out of the Taskmaster (another good example of a guy maintaining his cred over the years). However, he could be beaten by some trickery- Iron Fist once used "Drunken Boxing" to get him via the unpredictability (that's not really what that martial art does- it's not ACTUALLY random, just an imitation of a drunken person to be unpredictable- but good enough for comics, I suppose), and Quicksilver was notably just too fast to be read, and EASILY defeated him.

-The character doesn't appear much outside of that first arc, but became a regular in Thunderbolts, as one of Norman Osborn's new recruits. He managed to do some damage, went off to kill some random soldiers because he was bored, and then got trounced by Quicksilver during Siege. He has not reappeared, which is a bit odd, given how many heroes could use this guy as a solid one-off villain.

Mister X's Powers:
-Mister X is a LETHAL, high-level combatant, able to take on the very top-tier of characters and handily defeat them. As such, using his Telepathic "Cheat", he hits PL 12 caps and beats the living hell out of Wolverine, Taskmaster or any other martial artist unfortunate enough to face him. A +20 Attack Bonus is UNREAL by my standards (even my Akuma build only hit +19), but when you consider the fact that he's actively cheating his nuts off in every fight (predicting all of his opponents' moves), it could almost be HIGHER.

-My 2012 build of him featured all of the powers with a Flaw- Resistible By Will, but I think that's going too far, now. Nobody was ever seen actively resisting his probes, just "turning their minds off" from him. More of a Power Loss than a major Flaw.

-The last time I posted Mister X, in September 2012, he actually provoked a bit of a debate from Badpenny, who was irked at his high PL, but low Damage Bonus. She pointed out (repeatedly, as was her style) that he wouldn't really beat many powerful PL 12s like that and would be out of luck in team situations, to which I was like "well... YEAH". I mean, it's a pretty good emulation of the genre that somebody who's "High Skill; Low Damage" would be in an uphill battle against "Low Skill; High Damage" guys. Imagine Mister X fighting The Thing in the comics- I would imagine his best shots are easily shrugged off, while one solid hit might do him in. And my stats more or less reflect that. Murkglow (damn, I remember that guy) backed up my stats, at least.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Fri Jun 10, 2022 7:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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KorokoMystia
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Re: Mister X

Post by KorokoMystia »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 8:52 pm MISTER X
Created By:
Frank Tieri & Sean Chen
First Appearance: Wolverine #159 (Feb. 2001)
Role: Super-Martial Artist
Group Affiliations: The Thunderbolts
PL 12 (174)
Huh, this guy would fit more in a FIghting Game than anything else. He's perfect to be a "Cheeseball Boss" type, so imagine him going up against fighting game bosses like Akuma, Gill, Cheeseball M.Bison, Geese (or any SNK boss, really) or Devil Kazuya (who I've seen built at PL 11.5, since they've fought Akuma to a draw in Tekken 7's story mode.)
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HalloweenJack
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by HalloweenJack »

Batgirl III wrote: Mon Jun 04, 2018 5:50 pm Well, at least they didn’t use frog DNA to fill in the gaps. That never ends well.
oooh ah with the running and the screaming
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Sabretooth! Cyber! Romulus! Daken! X-23!)

Post by Batgirl III »

Do his tattoos change on purpose, like some side effect of his powers, or can Marvel artists just not stick to a model sheet?
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