Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

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BriarThrone
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Re: Conan the Barbarian

Post by BriarThrone »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:16 pmCONAN THE BARBARIAN (Conan the Cimmerian)
Created By:
Robert Howard
First Appearance: Weird Tales (Dec. 1932)
Role: The Ur-Example of Barbarian Fantasy Heroes, The Guy You Wanted to Be When You Were Twelve
Odd. There seems to be an implication of some kind of end point...
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Ares
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Re: Comet

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:57 pm Image

COMET (Harris Moore)
Created By:
Marv Wolfman & John Buscema
First Appearance: Nova #21 (Sept. 1978)

-Harris Moore gained powers decades ago from some radioactive meteor, and used them to become a superhero of the 1950s. He appeared in Marv Wolfman's Nova, which wasn't a terribly popular book. In 2014, when I first built him, all of his bios were hilariously short- basically a single paragraph. Of course, since then, somebody managed to fill out the Marvel Wiki with an ENORMOUS bio, containing absolutely tons of useless information that I couldn't possibly use. Good old comic book fans.

-When he thought his son was dead, Harris became a derelict drunk who was pretty much ageless. However, he would eventually recover, helping out a rookie Nova. He even agreed to go to Xandar with him in order to help fight the Skrulls, and would even discover that another ally, Crimebuster, was his long-lost son! The heroes all fought a months-long war between Xandar and the Skrulls. Sadly, Crimebuster was killed by the enemy in the pages of Rom (since Nova was already cancelled by that point), and Comet joined the Champions of Xandar in order to honor his son's memory. By this point, the Champions were largely just a backdrop to other stuff, and were largely ignored (making reading their bios a chore). Really, all those characters essentially vanished from the narrative, as Nova disappeared from comics for years, then showed up on The New Warriors with a new personality and very little link to his past. Comet, Powerhouse and the other Champions got one of those really, REALLY off-handed deaths in Annihilation in the early 2000s, having been killed off-panel by Nebula's forces during the destruction of Xandar.
I kind of dig characters like this. The Comet's a good example of a "gap filling" hero to exist between World War II and "the modern age of heroes" that Marvel and DC both have. Because it's weird that there'd be no superheroes for a continually expanding length of time. I mean, in the Silver Age WWII wasn't all that long ago, so not worrying about the heroes between WWII and the modern age made sense. Now tho? With 70 years between WWII and the modern age, it makes sense to have fill in heroes doing stuff between now and then.

It actually kind of cracks me up to think about how Captain America felt like "a man out of time" after only being in the ice 10-15 years, whereas now the dude is 70 years out of time.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:15 am Minor correction, but the Champions of Xandar were actually killed off long before Annihilation. See, Annihilation was actually the SECOND time Xandar had been blown up. The first time they were destroyed by Nebula during the 80s, wiping out the Champions of Xandar and the Nova Corps in one move. All of the power of the Nova Corps was then transferred into the sole surviving Nova Centurion, Garthan Saal, who became the immensely powerful Supernova.
OHHHHHHHHHHH, okay- that was bothering me. I was like "I don't remember that bit", especially since I recall Nebula being around on that planet of amazons with all the Alien Space Babe characters.
The Nova Corps weren't really used following the various New Warrior books, and when Annihilation rolled around, they basically blew up the planet and killed off all of the Nova Corps AGAIN, just to show how serious the situation was. And I know Annihilation gets a lot of love, but really, rather than establish the Marvel Cosmic scene, it basically brought back little used characters and franchises mostly to kill them off and wipe the board clean, then introduce new characters or the few characters they felt worth keeping to push them as the new cosmic scene. Giving guys like Nova, Ronan and Super Skrull a push was a solid idea. Killing off Quasar, the Nova Corps, ignoring the Space Knights, just comes off as wasteful. Then you got weird decisions to make Adam Warlock a literal warlock with "Cosmic Magic", make Phyla-Vell the new Quasar, etc. I will say that Kratos Drax is more useful than Flying Hulk Drax, and they made better use of him in the MCU.
I'm a bit stunned you'd have a negative reaction to Annihilation- I figured it would have been everything you love about comics- taking stuff out of the sandbox and making them cool again. I mean, the purpose of that crossover was more or less to reignite a dormant part of the Marvel Universe (the space scene), and they succeeded in SPADES. They also turned several unused (or improperly-used) toys into big names- Nova, Drax, Thanos, Galactus, Annihilus and more all got MAJOR pushes and were turned into stars again. It's also the DEFINITIVE "Crossovers Don't Have to Suck", coming out around the same time as Civil War.

Annihilation: Conquest was EVEN BIGGER, as it turned the Guardians of the Galaxy into stars- making a big name out of two failed '70s acts (Star-Lord & Rocket), a '50s one-off monster (Groot), and also helped out Mantis, Drax again, and more.

Of course, it did some stuff you hate- the Nova Corps were Tito Santana'd to put over the big new threat, and Quasar died in the end. But... there needs to be death in war. And the Nova Corps were just a shitty Green Lantern knock-off in the first place. I think these were valid deaths (plus, Quasar all came back as a light-being). Though Phyla-Vell is the curious failure in the attempts at pushing all of these space toys.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 4:15 am I'm a bit stunned you'd have a negative reaction to Annihilation- I figured it would have been everything you love about comics- taking stuff out of the sandbox and making them cool again. I mean, the purpose of that crossover was more or less to reignite a dormant part of the Marvel Universe (the space scene), and they succeeded in SPADES. They also turned several unused (or improperly-used) toys into big names- Nova, Drax, Thanos, Galactus, Annihilus and more all got MAJOR pushes and were turned into stars again. It's also the DEFINITIVE "Crossovers Don't Have to Suck", coming out around the same time as Civil War.

Annihilation: Conquest was EVEN BIGGER, as it turned the Guardians of the Galaxy into stars- making a big name out of two failed '70s acts (Star-Lord & Rocket), a '50s one-off monster (Groot), and also helped out Mantis, Drax again, and more.

Of course, it did some stuff you hate- the Nova Corps were Tito Santana'd to put over the big new threat, and Quasar died in the end. But... there needs to be death in war. And the Nova Corps were just a shitty Green Lantern knock-off in the first place. I think these were valid deaths (plus, Quasar all came back as a light-being). Though Phyla-Vell is the curious failure in the attempts at pushing all of these space toys.
Annihilation was a mixed bag for me. It did some cool things like breaking out some old toys, cleaning them up and making them fun, introducing some new concepts, fleshing out the Marvel space scene a bit, made Annihilus a relevant villain again, etc. But there was just a lot of "board clearing" and junking toys from the toychest, some "back to basics" of making the Surfer Galactus' herald again, just some decisions that I didn't care for personally. Though I love how Jim Starlin felt the need to retcon the fact that Drax, a guy who was designed to kill Thanos, managed to kill Thanos.

It was definitely a more welcome crossover than Civil War by a country mile tho.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:44 am
Jabroniville wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:17 am -Powerhouse is a Flying Brick
I've actually got a few issues with Powerhouse, and he was just a Brick (not a Flying one). He generally had to physically touch whatever it was he was draining to power himself up, and he was a pretty effective grappler as a result.
Oh, haha, I called him a Flying Brick but didn't give him Flight. You can tell I wasn't really giving a crap- the powers were hard to research, but apparently my original build (which I'd forgotten about) had the proper research done.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 3:10 am
Hoid wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:57 am ...why didn’t they just imbue these guys with Nova powers? The various DC Lantern Corps have superpowrred ringslingers...so, why not Xandar?
It's honestly a shame the Nova Corps and Space Knights aren't used more often like the Green Lantern analogues they should be. The Nova Corps should be a bunch of Thing-class flying bricks with powerful but taxing energy powers, with Nova Prime being a full on "I can fight Gladiator or Thor"-type. Each Space Knight should be a bunch of guys who are basically Cosmic Iron Men, less versatile and smart than Tony but with more focused power in their primary ability. Hell, Rom has traded punches with guys like Gladiator on occasion.
I REALLY never liked the idea of having Thing/Iron Man-tier guys being so common, especially in the defense force of just one planet. Like, all these dudes are concentrated in one place.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 4:35 am
Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 3:10 am
Hoid wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:57 am ...why didn’t they just imbue these guys with Nova powers? The various DC Lantern Corps have superpowrred ringslingers...so, why not Xandar?
It's honestly a shame the Nova Corps and Space Knights aren't used more often like the Green Lantern analogues they should be. The Nova Corps should be a bunch of Thing-class flying bricks with powerful but taxing energy powers, with Nova Prime being a full on "I can fight Gladiator or Thor"-type. Each Space Knight should be a bunch of guys who are basically Cosmic Iron Men, less versatile and smart than Tony but with more focused power in their primary ability. Hell, Rom has traded punches with guys like Gladiator on occasion.
I REALLY never liked the idea of having Thing/Iron Man-tier guys being so common, especially in the defense force of just one planet. Like, all these dudes are concentrated in one place.
Not really. The Nova Corps and Space Knights use to be these intergalactic peace keeping forces. The Nova Corps was based on Xandar, but their forces were supposedly out in the universe fighting crime and that sort of thing. Heck, the reason Richard Rider got his powers was due to a Nova Corpsman coming to Earth to apprehend a space criminal. Likewise, the original Space Knights were spread out throughout the universe fighting Dire Wraiths. And it was always a single Space Knight traveling from world to world on their own, fighting the Wraith threat. One of the few times they actually fought together in any kind of numbers was when Galactus attacked their world.

So them having that kind of power in relatively limited quantities made sense to me. There are thousands of Green Lanterns, while there never seemed to be more than a few dozen Space Knights and the Nova Corps never really seemed to have anywhere near Green Lantern numbers.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 4:25 am
Annihilation was a mixed bag for me. It did some cool things like breaking out some old toys, cleaning them up and making them fun, introducing some new concepts, fleshing out the Marvel space scene a bit, made Annihilus a relevant villain again, etc. But there was just a lot of "board clearing" and junking toys from the toychest, some "back to basics" of making the Surfer Galactus' herald again, just some decisions that I didn't care for personally. Though I love how Jim Starlin felt the need to retcon the fact that Drax, a guy who was designed to kill Thanos, managed to kill Thanos.

It was definitely a more welcome crossover than Civil War by a country mile tho.
Oh yeah, the funny "Surfer the Herald" thing, which was promptly COMPLETELY IGNORED as if it had never happened. I've mentioned before how Keith "Ares's #1 Fave Writer" Giffen's contributions were almost immediately ignored. His Heralds stuff was utterly dropped, and Super-Skrull never really factored into things again, either.
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Nova-Prime

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

NOVA-PRIME (Tanak Valt)
Created By:
Marv Wolfman & Keith Pollard
First Appearance: Fantastic Four #204 (March 1979)
Role: Forgotten Character, Powerhouse
Group Affiliations: The Champions of Xandar, The Nova Corps.

-Tanak Valt is one of the oldest Nova Corps. members, having helped found it. He was the high commander, having married Queen Adora years earlier. Both died when Nebula wiped out Xandar's population.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Jun 16, 2022 5:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Ares »

It's kind of weird how both the Nova Corps and Brainiac both have three circles connected by lines as their symbol. With Nova, it was originally 3 stars linked together, but since Annihilation it's become three circles that make a V pattern. While Brainiac makes more of an A shape.

Note to self: In merged universe, Brainiac is a corrupted Worldmind and the Nova Corps were created to oppose him, then protect the universe out of penance.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 6:09 am
Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 4:25 am
Annihilation was a mixed bag for me. It did some cool things like breaking out some old toys, cleaning them up and making them fun, introducing some new concepts, fleshing out the Marvel space scene a bit, made Annihilus a relevant villain again, etc. But there was just a lot of "board clearing" and junking toys from the toychest, some "back to basics" of making the Surfer Galactus' herald again, just some decisions that I didn't care for personally. Though I love how Jim Starlin felt the need to retcon the fact that Drax, a guy who was designed to kill Thanos, managed to kill Thanos.

It was definitely a more welcome crossover than Civil War by a country mile tho.
Oh yeah, the funny "Surfer the Herald" thing, which was promptly COMPLETELY IGNORED as if it had never happened. I've mentioned before how Keith "Ares's #1 Fave Writer" Giffen's contributions were almost immediately ignored. His Heralds stuff was utterly dropped, and Super-Skrull never really factored into things again, either.
I think the longest lasting of Giffens contribution was Kratos Drax, though he was handled better elsewhere. And he gave us Drax's annoying kid sidekick, but people at least call her out on being annoying and she doesn't really get used.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Jabroniville »

I was gonna mention this before, but we got into an oddly-busy set with the Champions of Xandar, who HAVE to be the lowest-end Red Guardian Characters I've ever seen on here :). I might need to change that term to Champions of Xandar Characters!

So yeah, I was reading a bunch of Excalibur issues from the "Alan Davis Years" when he was the sole creative force, and... they're not bad. The plot is more straightforward and less "TEE HEE!" than Claremont's writing was, and OH MY GOD the art is good. Davis basically spoils us by adding EVEN MORE women to the run. His sense of action and dynamism is remarkable as well- Nightcrawler looks REALLY cool doing some martial arts board-breaking.

But man... I'd never seen his Cerise in action before. Really, all I'd seen of the character was some Marvel Cards. But HOLY HELL- I had no idea he drew her as a ripped Lady Bodybuilder. I only have one issue featuring her, but she is packing HUGE shoulder muscles, and her haughty, unusual alien demeanor makes it ever better. They even do the classic "Alien Misunderstanding Leads To Sexiness" thing, as she observes competitive lip-locking going on with Meggan & Courtney Ross (actually Sat-Yr-9) competing over Brian Braddock, inquires as to whether or not this is a usual Earth custom, gets the affirmative from Kurt ("ja- and quite enjoyable!"), at which point she basically yanks him off his feet and tongue-wrestles him for several minutes (Davis, being a master, has a grandfather clock right next to them for three panels, so you can tell).

They do a really good job of establishing Kylun as a cool character, featuring him lose the love of his life in HIS DEBUT, but you feel it with them having spent only a couple of panels together beforehand. It's too bad neither of these characters ever took off.

But thing Thong-Wearing Lunatic Jamie Braddock shows up and ruins the whole flow, because oh god I hate that character :).
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Woodclaw »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 12:01 pm So yeah, I was reading a bunch of Excalibur issues from the "Alan Davis Years" when he was the sole creative force, and... they're not bad. The plot is more straightforward and less "TEE HEE!" than Claremont's writing was, and OH MY GOD the art is good. Davis basically spoils us by adding EVEN MORE women to the run. His sense of action and dynamism is remarkable as well- Nightcrawler looks REALLY cool doing some martial arts board-breaking.

But man... I'd never seen his Cerise in action before. Really, all I'd seen of the character was some Marvel Cards. But HOLY HELL- I had no idea he drew her as a ripped Lady Bodybuilder. I only have one issue featuring her, but she is packing HUGE shoulder muscles, and her haughty, unusual alien demeanor makes it ever better. They even do the classic "Alien Misunderstanding Leads To Sexiness" thing, as she observes competitive lip-locking going on with Meggan & Courtney Ross (actually Sat-Yr-9) competing over Brian Braddock, inquires as to whether or not this is a usual Earth custom, gets the affirmative from Kurt ("ja- and quite enjoyable!"), at which point she basically yanks him off his feet and tongue-wrestles him for several minutes (Davis, being a master, has a grandfather clock right next to them for three panels, so you can tell).

They do a really good job of establishing Kylun as a cool character, featuring him lose the love of his life in HIS DEBUT, but you feel it with them having spent only a couple of panels together beforehand. It's too bad neither of these characters ever took off.

But thing Thong-Wearing Lunatic Jamie Braddock shows up and ruins the whole flow, because oh god I hate that character :).
Over a decade ago a friend of mine lend me his entire X-whatever collection and I think Davis's Excalibur still is one of my favorite books.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by Ken »

Alan Davis' art is just grand.
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Re: Jab’s Builds (Crystar! Cammi! Conan! Captain Universe!)

Post by M4C8 »

Ares wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 3:10 am
Hoid wrote: Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:57 am ...why didn’t they just imbue these guys with Nova powers? The various DC Lantern Corps have superpowrred ringslingers...so, why not Xandar?
It seems like there's only a finite amount of energy that can distributed amongst the Nova Corps, or that's how it always seemed. While the Green Lanterns have a giant battery basically powered by the collective willpower of the universe, whatever generates the Nova Force the Xandarians use has either a finite energy amount or they can only channel it through so many people at one time. So have superpowered champions who weren't tapping into the Nova Force was a solid idea, actually.

It's honestly a shame the Nova Corps and Space Knights aren't used more often like the Green Lantern analogues they should be. The Nova Corps should be a bunch of Thing-class flying bricks with powerful but taxing energy powers, with Nova Prime being a full on "I can fight Gladiator or Thor"-type. Each Space Knight should be a bunch of guys who are basically Cosmic Iron Men, less versatile and smart than Tony but with more focused power in their primary ability. Hell, Rom has traded punches with guys like Gladiator on occasion.

But even with those two forces you can still have solo cosmic heroes like the Silver Surfer or Quasar, and a need for an intergalactic superhero team like the Guardians of the Galaxy. Though it is kind of funny how the average Guardians roster is way underpowered compared to the average Avengers roster.
I liked the idea of the Nova corps, when Rider as Nova Prime joined the handful that remained and began rebuilding the corps (empowering new centurions) they were shown to be how I always imagined them to be, Marvel's Green Lanterns, sadly they were once again decimated. The current Nova Corps (which is similar to the MCU version) seems like a waste of a great concept. The Nova Corps and the Space Knight's should IMHO each be treated as an heroic intergalactic force of law that are recognised across the known universe.

I love Nova (rider) as Nova Prime and think he and Quasar (Wendell not that boring random shield agent woman) make a great kick-ass space duo, personally I'd have Nova leading/rebuilding a new Nova Corps with Quasar's aid. I also thought the Annihilators team was a great idea though I'd probably change the roster slightly featuring Nova, Quasar, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Silver Surfer and Firelord.
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