Jab’s Builds! (Sword of Sodan! Nightmare Creatures/Circus! Lawnmower Man!)

[Ares]

I remember Maxam, given my brother was an Adam Warlock and Infinite Watch fan. It's kind of a shame no one did anything with him, because he was the first real Class 100 African American in Marvel. The outfit was a bit generic, but they could have done something with him. It'd be easy enough to bring him back, have him find out he was tricked, but then travel back in time to a point where Warlock is supposedly dead in order to get away from the Church and maybe build his own life. He averted a lot of the "angry black man" sterotypes, being a generally pretty chill and level headed guy who had advanced knowledge of technology.

He's kind of an illustration of Marvel's real problem with diversity. It's not that these characters didn't exist, it's that no one was using them. And the modern writers at Marvel want to create new characters and pat themselves on the back for adding to Marvel's diversity . . . often by replacing existing heroes with women and minorities. Instead of remembering "Oh hey, Firebird exists. Why haven't we done anything with her?"

Maxam also had some jet boots that allowed him to fly, though they seemed to work best when he was in his default size.

Another neat thing about Maxam was that he was actually a capable fighter. Not Gammora good, but able to do decently enough against her before relying on his massive strength to win.





He also pulled this stunt on Hercules. While giving him a harsh burn about being "a little smarter than Drax".





It's also kind of sad how little Starlin thought of She-Hulk.

[Ares]

MAD JIM JASPERS (Sir James Jaspers)
Created By: Dave Thorpe & Alan Davis
First Appearance: Marvel Superheroes #377 (Sept. 1981)
Role: All-Powerful Enemy

I'm actually not a fan of "reality warper" villains myself, because they create this kind of weird conflict. See, there have been way more human reality warpers in fiction than anything else. Even cosmic beings like Galactus tend to not really warp reality, they just show up and tend to use their cosmic powers in direct fashion. Meanwhile Proteus is shifting how gravity works, turning bricks into bees, and just completely unhinging Wolverine's perception of existence.

It might actually be something of a plot point if it was ever brought up. Maybe once you get to the Odin/Zeus power level, you effectively become a reality warper, but you also learn that warping reality is bad, because it causes damage to the fabric of existence with too much of it ending in universal destruction. As such, it's better to employ either direct force or work within the confines of reality to keep the structure intact. So guys like Galactus could easily do everything Jim Jaspers does, but he refrains from doing so because it would be the equivalent of cosmically polluting the universe.

Humans get that level of power, but since they either don't know better or don't care, they just do whatever they want and say to heck with the rest of existence.

Which would oddly make guys like Jim Jaspers and Proteus the cosmic equivalent of China's pollution standards, while Galactus of all people is technically a member of the Green Movement.

Generally speaking tho, I feel Reality Warping should be limited to something of vast cosmic power, beyond even the likes of folks like Galactus. You'd need some rare artifact like a Cosmic Cube or Infinity Gauntlet, otherwise it's just weird having someone whose power is "Whatever the fucks I feels like".

THE FURY
Created By: Dave Thorpe & Alan Davis
First Appearance: Marvel Superheroes #387 (July 1982)
Role: Implacable Foe

The Fury kind of reminds me of a similar android from the Ultra-Verse called NME, which sort of looked like a hybrid of the Fury and a Queen Alien Xenomorph. To the point I wonder if the Fury wasn't a direct inspiration for NME, given they were both bio-tech superhuman killing machines designed by superpowered beings with god complexes.

[Jabroniville]

THE MODULAR MAN (Dr. Stephen Weems)
Created By: John Warner & Val Mayerik
First Appearance: Rampaging Hulk Magazine #2 (April 1977)
Role: Forgotten Villain
Group Affiliations: None

-This curious-looking guy was a scientist who accidentally disintegrated his molecular bonds, turning him insubstantial- only attaching him to a modular robotic frame saved his life. He started working for The Conspiracy as one of their agents, and sought a way to better his condition. The character was created by two guys for a back-up in the black & white Rampaging Hulk magazine, but the writers swapped out and we never learned what the purpose of this "modular robot" was. Writer Steven Grant instead used the character for a Marvel Team-Up issue featuring Spider-Man and the Beast. Here, he teams up with Killer Shrike and tries to gather microwave energy to empower himself and become unstoppable- a TV transmission tower allows him to grow to a gigantic height, he beats up his teammate for questioning his goals, and ultimately he's brought low when the Beast suggests they use a bolt of electricity to disrupt the microwaves, as lightning would a TV transmission. It works- the Modular Man is defeated, with Weems's intangible form dispersing into the air. The Modular Man has never reappeared.

-The Modular Man appears to be a Class 10-ish Robot who happens to be a genius, and can grow if given access to microwave radiation. His whole "modular" schtick extends to him being able to be disassembled, which is a pretty minor trick.

[RainOnTheSun]

It's also kind of sad how little Starlin thought of She-Hulk.

I may be letting his reputation poison my thoughts unfairly, but I generally don't expect Starlin to think very highly of any character he didn't make himself. On the other hand, I can understand people assuming She-Hulk isn't that strong.

By concept, you'd expect Hulk and She-Hulk to be in roughly the same ballpark of strength. About the same as, say, Superman and Power Girl. Hulk is to She-Hulk as Superman is to She-Superman, right? Except that Superman and Power Girl are drawn basically like tall, good-looking people who work out a lot. She-Hulk is drawn like an extra tall, good-looking person who works out a lot. And the Hulk? He's drawn like something between a gorilla and a hippopotamus standing on its hind legs. That works out a lot. So by the art, if She-Hulk is made of the same basic "Hulk-stuff" as He-Hulk, you'd assume she's a lot weaker than him.

The other possibility is that She-Hulk, like Thor and Hercules and Wonder Man and all the other "almost as strong as the Hulk" guys, is actually significantly stronger than the Hulk per square inch. I like that possibility. It makes me chuckle, and I don't think artists think about it when they make the Hulk look so huge.

[M4C8]

I may have posted this before but I doubt the cosmic types were too afraid of Jaspers to act, they probably viewed him a an internal problem for Earth and therefore it wasn't their place to interfere. Once he began to effect reality outside of Earth's system though then they'd probably take action against him.

[Ares]

It's also kind of sad how little Starlin thought of She-Hulk.

I may be letting his reputation poison my thoughts unfairly, but I generally don't expect Starlin to think very highly of any character he didn't make himself.

I think it depends on whether or not Starlin "adopted" the character or not as well. Adam Warlock was originally created by Stan and Jack, but Jim basically rebuilt him as part of his big cosmic opus as a heroic counter to Thanos. But generally speaking, he tends to put Adam and Warlock at the top of the pecking order and pretty much everyone else gets used as a jobber. Heck, the Infinity Gauntlet, War and Crusade sagas could basically have the subtitle of "Where the Heroes You Care About Don't Matter".

[Jabroniville]

It's also kind of sad how little Starlin thought of She-Hulk.

I may be letting his reputation poison my thoughts unfairly, but I generally don't expect Starlin to think very highly of any character he didn't make himself. On the other hand, I can understand people assuming She-Hulk isn't that strong.

By concept, you'd expect Hulk and She-Hulk to be in roughly the same ballpark of strength. About the same as, say, Superman and Power Girl. Hulk is to She-Hulk as Superman is to She-Superman, right? Except that Superman and Power Girl are drawn basically like tall, good-looking people who work out a lot. She-Hulk is drawn like an extra tall, good-looking person who works out a lot. And the Hulk? He's drawn like something between a gorilla and a hippopotamus standing on its hind legs. That works out a lot. So by the art, if She-Hulk is made of the same basic "Hulk-stuff" as He-Hulk, you'd assume she's a lot weaker than him.

The other possibility is that She-Hulk, like Thor and Hercules and Wonder Man and all the other "almost as strong as the Hulk" guys, is actually significantly stronger than the Hulk per square inch. I like that possibility. It makes me chuckle, and I don't think artists think about it when they make the Hulk look so huge.

She-Hulk, back in the '90s, was basically in that "Class 100" zone where Beg Grimm, Colossus, Strong Guy and Warpath sat. NOBODY moved from that tier to the upper one.

But yeah, it's kind of an embarrassing showing- that's like "Spider-Man punching a strong guy" embarrassing. I don't think he'd draw Colossus or the Thing having that "OW- my hand!" reaction.

[Jabroniville]

MALACHI
Created By: Tom Brevoort & Mike Kanterovich
First Appearance: The Secret Defenders #15 (May 1994)
Role: Magic Villain
Group Affiliations: None

-Malachi is a sorceress from the middle of the Secret Defenders book's run, when Doctor Strange was removed only a couple years in and replaced with wildly unpopular DOCTOR DRUID. Millennia ago, she and her lover were slain by a guardian of Agamotto's while they attempted to steal a magical trinket, but she managed to survive thanks to a fragment of the thing. Eventually grabbing the "Moebius Stone", she aged much of the Earth's population and raised her lover from the dead... but he shocked her by revealing that he preferred death to immortality. While she was thus distracted, Deadpool stabbed her through the chest, and Druid destroyed the Stone.

-Malachi used Mind Control, Blasts, Flight, and Object Animation, among other spells. She was also highly-vampiric, and drained the life force of others in order to empower herself.

[Jabroniville]

The original Madelyne storyline was that, at its simplest level, she was that one in a million shot that just happened to look like Jean Grey [a.k.a. the first Phoenix]! And the relationship was summed up by the moment when Scott says: "Are you Jean?" And she punches him! That was in Uncanny X-Men #174. Because her whole desire was to be deeply loved for herself not to be loved as the evocation of her boyfriend's dead romantic lover and sweetheart.

I mean, it's a classical theme. You can go back to a whole host of 1930s films, 1940s, Hitchcock films—but it all got invalidated by the resurrection of Jean Grey in X-Factor #1. The original plotline was that Scott marries Madelyne, they have their child, they go off to Alaska, he goes to work for his grandparents, he retires from the X-Men. He's a reserve member. He's available for emergencies. He comes back on special occasions, for special fights, but he has a life. He has grown up. He has grown out of the monastery; he is in the real world now. He has a child. He has maybe more than one child. It's a metaphor for us all. We all grow up. We all move on.

Scott was going to move on. Jean was dead get on with your life. And it was close to a happy ending. They lived happily ever after, and it was to create the impression that maybe if you came back in ten years, other X-Men would have grown up and out, too. Would Kitty stay with the team forever? Would Nightcrawler? Would any of them? Because that way we could evolve them into new directions, we could bring in new characters. There would be an ongoing sense of renewal, and growth and change in a positive sense.

Then, unfortunately, Jean was resurrected, Scott dumps his wife and kid and goes back to the old girlfriend. So it not only destroys Scott's character as a hero and as a decent human being it creates an untenable structural situation: what do we do with Madelyne and the kid? ... So ultimately the resolution was: turn her into the Goblin Queen and kill her off.
-Chris Claremont

MADELYNE PRYOR (aka The Goblin Queen, The Red Queen)
Created By: Chris Claremont & Paul Smith
First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men #168 (April 1983)
Role: Replacement Girlfriend, Scrubbed-Out Supporting Character
PL 12 (217)
STRENGTH 1/9 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Perception 1 (+4)
Intimidation 6 (+9)
Vehicles 5 (+9)

Advantages:
Attractive

Powers:
"Unreadable Mind" Immunity 2 (Mind-Reading) [2]

"Clone of Jean Grey- Mutant Powers: Telepathy & Telekinesis"
"Mind Shield" Enhanced Will Check 2 (Flaws: Limited to Mental Attacks) [1]

Mind-Reading 11 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Effortless) Linked to Mental Communication 2 (Feats: Subtle) (Extras: Area, Selective) (47) -- [59]

• Dynamic AE: "Focused Mind Control" Mind Control 10 (Feats: Dynamic) (41)
• Dynamic AE: "Group Mind Control" Mind Control 6 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Burst +2, Selective) (Flaws: Touch Range -2) (31)
• Dynamic AE: "Mental Detection" Senses 4 (Feats: Dynamic) (Mental Awareness, Radius, Extended, Acute) (5)
• Dynamic AE: "Mental Stun" Affliction 10 (Will; Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated) (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Perception Range +2, Cumulative) (41)
• Dynamic AE: "Astral Form" Remote Sensing 10 (Visuals & Hearing) (Feats: Dynamic, Dimensional) (Flaws: Physical Body is Defenselss) (22)
• Dynamic AE: "Mental Blast" Damage 11 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Perception Range +2, Will Save) (45)

"Reality Warper" Variable 10 (70) -- [87]

• AE: Transform 10 (Anything to Anything Else) (50)
• Dynamic AE: "Telekinesis" Move Object 13 (Feats: Dynamic, Precise) (28)
• Dynamic AE: Force Field 11 (Feats: Dynamic, Increased Mass 4) (Extras: Affects Others 10) (26)
• Dynamic AE: "TK Attack" Blast 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (25)
• Dynamic AE: "TK Wave" Damage 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Area- 60ft. Cone) (25)
• Dynamic AE: "TK Ram" Damage 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (Extras: Area- 30ft. Line) (25)
• Dynamic AE: Flight 5 (60 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (11)
• Dynamic AE: Deflect 12 (Feats: Dynamic) (24)
• AE: Teleport 10 (Extras: Easy, Accurate) (40)
• AE: "Augments Physical Abilities" Enhanced Strength 8 (16)

Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Mind-Reading +12 (DC 22)
Mental Attacks +6-10 Perception (+10 Perception Affliction, DC 16-20)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +2 (+13 Force Field), Fortitude +6, Will +6 (+8 vs. Mental Attacks)

Complications:
Relationship (Scott & Nathan Summers)- Madelyne had a whirlwind romance with Scott Summers soon after the death of his beloved, Jean Grey. The two married and had a son, Nathan. Then Scott abandoned them both to go boink his ex-girlfriend.
Responsibility (Looks Like Jean Grey)- This provides some complications, like when Empress Lilandra mistook her for the Great Destroyer of Shi'ar Mythology, and when the X-Men saw her for the first time and freaked out.
Responsibility (Clone, Demonic Pawn)- Essentially being Mister Sinister's pawn, and then N'astirh's, Madelyne often lacks a will of her own.

Total: Abilities: 46 / Skills: 12--6 / Advantages: 1 / Powers: 149 / Defenses: 17 (219)

Oh God- Poor Madelyne Pyror:
-oh, poor, POOR Madelyne Pryor. You think YOUR favourite character got the shaft over the years? Just think about THIS poor lady. Initially created to be an exact doppelganger of the then-deceased Jean Grey, Maddie (named after the singer of obscure band "Steeleye Span") was just meant to be "one of those things" where someone just HAPPENS to look exactly like someone else. She was also meant to hook up with and marry Scott Summers, who was initially supposed to retire (Claremont actually wanted the X-Men to AGE and move on from super-heroics over time). However, despite some brief happiness (and the birth of Scott & Maddie's son Nathan), factors would drive a wedge between everyone. See, the X-books were selling SO WELL at the time that it soon became clear Marvel needed to add ANOTHER series, and since they had four perfectly-not-dead Original X-Men lying around, they got chosen to head up "X-Factor".

-Unfortunately, to fill out the team, it soon became clear that Jean Grey had to return. So she was resurrected by John Byrne (a co-plotter of her death), using a story idea from a young letter writer (future Avengers & Astro City writer Kurt Busiek), and thrown onto the returning team. BUT (and this is the worst part), Scott then immediately went chasing after his "One True Love" girlfriend Jean, pretty much ABANDONING HIS WIFE AND SON IN THE PROCESS. It may seem weird these days (since Marvel more or less COMPLETELY glossed over that little problem immediately, since it makes Scott look like literally the worst superhero ever), but yes- Scott Summers LEFT HIS WIFE and most of the writers seemed to just ignore it. And I mean, I'd been reading X-Men comics since the early 1990s, and I'd NEVER heard of that part- Marvel was VERY happy to just pretend that bit never happened. It helps that the X-writers trounced her out of comics quickly and wiped her out. So a lot of this was forgotten by the time I started reading in the early '90s.

Poor, POOR Madelyne Pryor:
-CLAREMONT, however, who'd created Maddie & Nathan, was pretty much beside himself with horror over one of HIS characters (he was very proprietary over the X-Men, and rightly so given what he'd given to them) doing something so horrible, and so chose to actually continue to use Madelyne, who was quite naturally upset over the loss of her husband. She grew closer to Havok, and even joined the X-Men for their "death" in Dallas, putting them in Australia, where she puts her piloting skills to use as the team's tech support. However, poor Claremont was left with the "structurally untenable" situation of Cyclops running around on his abandoned wife and son, and so felt the only thing to do was kill her off. Delerious over losing her family, she makes a deal with the Demons Sym & N'astirh, slowly becoming the lethal Goblin Queen.

-But oh no, they weren't done- Claremont revealed that Madelyne's resemblance was no coincidence after all- she was a CLONE of Jean Grey, created by Mister Sinister in hopes of combining Summers & Grey DNA together! Oh, and all her memories were fake, she was a failed clone (no Mutant Powers), and the Marauders were always hunting her because they were Sinister's dogs, trying to wipe her out. Losing her mind fully to this, Madelyne becomes the Goblin Queen, willingly allowing Manhattan to be overrun with demons during the X-Event known as Inferno (in which many other Marvel titles had the characters fight demons). Regaining her son thanks to N'astirh, she witnesses him defeated by the X-Men & X-Factor, then commits suicide in an attempt to take Jean Grey with her- Jean is tempted by the Phoenix Force with resurrection, but Madelyne ultimately chooses revenge over Sinister over Revenge against the X-People, dying without killing anyone.

Oh God, It Gets Weirder:
-And so Madelyne was dead- only six years after her debut, she was gone through some INSANELY convoluted storytelling (a Claremont trademark). She mysteriously reappears in X-Man, acting as a female companion to Nate Grey. However, she soon joins the Hellfire Club as their "Black Rook", and is later revealed as a "Psionic Construct" accidentally resurrected by Nate's vast psionic powers. Weakened by an attack by a military unit, she disappears. An Alternate Reality Jean (JESUS CHRIST) them impersonates her to get inside Nate's head. Things get so bad that we never learn what really happened between Maddie and this Jean, though Cyclops & Cable later encounter her on the astral plane, where she reveals that she's a "ghost" and unable to return to the physical world.

-This is it for Maddie for a NUMBER of years, as clearly this was only going on in X-Man and thus didn't matter when that book got the axe, and so her "Big Return" would ignore this, as Madelyne shows up leading a new "Hellfire Cult", with Empath as a minion. Now calling herself the Red Queen, she harrasses Scott's new love, Emma Frost, and forms a Sisterhood of Mutants when the Cult is broken up. Her Sisterhood (Spiral, Chimera, Lady Deathstrike, and two of Mastermind's daughters) resurrect Revanche's body and put Betsy Braddock's mind back into it (OH GOD THAT STORY DIDN'T NEED TO BE MORE COMPLICATED EITHER), as a "test run" to give her psychic body a physical body to inhabit. They attempt to use Jean Grey's corpse to hold Madelyne, but Cyclops anticipates this and has the body replaced with another, and her vast psionic energies destroy the corpse on contact, killing her once more.

-Matt Fraction was iffy on revealing whether or not it was really her, and they even went as far as to claim that the Maddie who appeared in X-Man wasn't really her at all! Later, six Madelyne clones are used by Mister Sinister to absorb the Phoenix Force, but it immolates them instead. Then Lady Deathstrike forms a new Sisterhood, and resurrects Pryor in the body of a Colombian girl. So as it stands, she is currently alive and at large.

Poor Madelyne's Stats:
-Madelyne Pryor starts off a simple female Pilot with no Intimidation and an Unreadable Mind (I guess to give some mystery as to her origins, since Xavier couldn't figure it out from reading her thoughts), but eventually her real powers (she IS a clone of Jean Grey, after all) come out, and then become enhanced by Demonic Forces, making her a PL 12 able to fend off a group of the X-Men all at once.

[HalloweenJack]

[

oh Maxam, you Infinity Crusade MVP you

[Jabroniville]

MISTER DOLL (Nathan Dolly, aka The Brothers Grimm I)
Created By: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
First Appearance: Tales of Suspense #48 (Dec. 1963)
Role: Forgotten Villain
Group Affiliations: The Brothers Grimm I
PL 10 (51)
STRENGTH 0 STAMINA 1 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 2 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Deception 4 (+4)
Expertise (Magic) 4 (+7)
Perception 2 (+4)

Advantages:
None

Powers:
"Voodoo Doll" (Flaws: Easily-Removable) [19]
Affliction 10 (Fort; Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated) (Feats: Precise) (Extras: Perception-Ranged +2) (31 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +2 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Voodoo Doll -- (+10 Perception-Ranged Affliction, DC 20)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +2 (DC 12), Toughness +1, Fortitude +2, Will +4

Complications:
Relationship (Priscilla- Wife)

Total: Abilities: 20 / Skills: 10--5 / Advantages: 0 / Powers: 19 / Defenses: 7 (51)

-Mister Doll was an early, forgettable Iron Man villain that never went anywhere, and was basically too-similar to the already-created Puppet Master in the Fantastic Four book, so there was really no reason for him to exist. He used a Magical Voodoo Doll to cause pain to his enemies. He was re-made in the Marv Wolfman/Carmine Infantino Spider-Woman book (which used more horror-themed baddies), putting his mind into a pair of wooden dolls, which resulted in him being permanently-trapped inside of them (since he was split between the two). He only managed to free himself by transfering his mind into two mannequins, becoming the first "Brothers Grimm" (later, a duo of Jobbers would take that name). He later coerced the sorcerer Magnus into freeing him, but was killed for it when Spider-Woman prevented him from taking over the body of a friend of hers.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM I (Nathan Dolly, aka Mister Doll)
Created By: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
First Appearance: Tales of Suspense #48 (Dec. 1963)
Role: Forgotten Villain
Group Affiliations: The Brothers Grimm I
PL 6 (81)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA -- AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 7 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 3 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Deception 4 (+4)
Expertise (Magic) 4 (+7)
Intimidation 4 (+4)
Perception 2 (+4)

Advantages:
Fast Grab, Teamwork

Powers:
"Wooden Doll"
Immunity 30 (Fortitude Effects) [30]
Protection 4 [4]

Offense:
Unarmed +7 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +4, Fortitude --, Will +4

Complications:
Relationship (Priscilla- Wife)

Total: Abilities: 30 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 2 / Powers: 34 / Defenses: 8 (81)

-As the Brothers Grimm, Dolly was a nuisance for Spider-Woman (herself a Rookie Hero), and probably a better fighter than he was as a Voodoo Doll-wielding baddie.

[FuzzyBoots]

^_^ And thank you for mentioning the Lasso of Persusasion. I was initially going to ask after it, having vaguely remembered it having been parallel to Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, but then got worried that I was thinking of some adult-themed version, what with the whole "mind control" aspect of it leading to a lot of potential stories (aside from, of course, that probably being very much in Marston's wheelhouse of powerful women and BDSM). As has been noted in past characters (and I think your builds), it's unusual for a hero to get a mind control power.

Side note to this, I've since learned that in the early Wonder Woman stories, her lasso did let her compel people. It was changed to only compelling the truth due to complaints over the Power Perversion potential.

[Jabroniville]

THE MANDROIDS (Standard Mooks)
Created By: Roy Thomas & Neal Adams
First Appearance: The Avengers #94 (Dec. 1971)
Role: Elite Mooks
Group Affiliations: Various Criminals, S.H.I.E.L.D.
PL 7 (93)
STRENGTH 2/9 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 4 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Expertise (Goon) 5 (+5)
Insight 1 (+1)
Intimidation 4 (+4, +5 Size)
Investigation 2 (+2)
Perception 3 (+3)
Technology 2 (+2)
Vehicles 5 (+5)

Advantages:
Equipment (Radio, Gear), Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5, Teamwork

Powers:
"Guardsman Armour" (Flaws: Removable) [48]
Enhanced Strength 4 (8)
Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 7) (9)
Immunity 5 (Radiation, Suffocation 2, Pressure, Vacuum) (5)
Senses 8 (Infravision, Sonar- Accurate Ultra-Hearing, Radar- Accurate Radius Ranged Radio Sense) (8)
Growth 3 (Str & Toughness +3, +3 Mass, +1 Intimidation, -1 Dodge/Parry) -- (10 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) [7]

"Lasers" Blast 9 (Feats: Split, Variable- Various Energy Types) (20) -- (22)

• AE: "Neuro-Stunners" Affliction 9 (Fort; Dazed/Stunned/Incapacitated) (Extras: Ranged) (18)
• AE: "Tractor Beam" Move Object 7 (Flaws: Limited to Towards or Away) (7)

-- (59 points)

Offense:
Unarmed +4 (+9 Damage, DC 24)
Blasts +5 (+9 Ranged Damage, DC 24)
Neuro-Stunners +5 (+8 Ranged Affliction, DC 18)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +5 (+4 Armour, DC 14), Parry +5 (+4 Armour, DC 14), Toughness +3 (+8 Armour, +4 Impervious), Fortitude +3, Will +0

Total: Abilities: 22 / Skills: 22--11 / Advantages: 8 / Powers: 48 / Defenses: 4 (93)

-Man, I haven't seen these guys in YEARS, now that I think about it. They used to be semi-reliable as Elite Mooks in the time before the 2000s, but now they're just barely a thing. Too bad, because they were perfect for what they were- dangerous, impressive-looking, but beatable.

-The Mandroids showed up less often than the Guardsmen, but used to make appearances as the top-dog mooks of the Marvel Universe. They're big, strong, tough and have high-powered weaponry, so it makes a much better visual when the New Warriors or somebody pummels a bunch of them. They don't show up too much anymore, along with most of the other "Armour Guys", but they were pretty cool for their time. They're notable that despite being created for S.H.I.E.L.D. use, they've become FAR more iconic as two or three supervillain mooks who've apparently just stolen the suits from SHIELD. See, now remember when Tony Stark pulled the Armor Wars because he was afraid of evil people using his armour for their own means? Well turns out he was right.

-The Mandroids debuted fighting the Avengers, ironically having been created by Tony Stark. They battled the heroes when they were thought to be betraying humanity during the Kree/Skrull War (a Skrull disguised as a politician had turned the American people against the heroes). Iron Man was able to beat them using his foreknowledge of their weaknesses, thus allowing a victory without harming those within the suits. Mandroids appeared as Mooks working for various villains, including Moses Magnum and Matsu'o Tsurayaba as well. Iron Man neutralizes them during Armor Wars when they're sent after him again. Much later, J. Jonah Jameson, as Mayor of New York, sends a force of Mandroids (combined with Spider-Slayer technology) to oppose super-characters he finds threatening.

-Mandroids are elite Goons, being PL 7 overall, about as good as a REALLY bad Serpent Society or Zodiac Cartel member (Boomslang had better watch out), which fits. They're not elite enough to beat most any heroes solo, but three against one? THEN you've got a brawl. As a big suit of armour, it gives them Strength 9 (in "Armour Wars", a Mandroid one-arms a frickin' CAR at Iron Man- a feat way beyond Spider-Man or a comparable tough guy), boosting them further. They're basically like better versions of Guardsmen, being much bigger and tougher-looking, with more versatile Blasts. Some Mandroids seem weaker, some stronger (the first batch got the "New Villain Push" of beating up actual AVENGERS until Iron Man used his knowledge of their systems against them), so feel free to modify as-needed.

[Jabroniville]

haha, wow- looking back at my old builds is funny. I last posted the Mandroids EIGHT YEARS AGO, in 2011: http://atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.ph ... 86#p781223

Various Madelyne Pryor quotes:

Yeoman:
Actually, one of the X-men books at least name dropped Maddelyn lately, and the new Deathstrike group may be attempting to resurrect and recruit her.

She's not completely forgotten, but, yeah, she doesn't get mentioned a lot because abandoning his wife and newborn son in the middle of Alaska to hook up with his old flame is probably the worst thing Scott Summers has ever done. And, yes, that's taking into account things like:

Horsenhero:
Yeah, Marvel can have some of their major characters act like total tools when they're trying to sell a storyline. Remember when Peter Parker smacked Mary Jane because they were trying to push the whole "the Scarlet Spider is the real Peter and the Peter you've been reading about for years is a clone who is emotionally unstable and about to turn psychopathic", because THAT plot twist was going to go over well with the readers.

Me:
The best part about that is that Peter had NO real reason to beat his wife like that, but it almost immediately got ignored & swept under the rug (like the rest of that garbage storyline). The more mediocre Hank Pym, who was actually undergoing a real psychological problem and thus had a justifiable excuse for slapping his wife, hit her once and it got stuck to him forever. He's got it so rough that he's not even the title character in the Ant-Man film! Friggin' SCOTT LANG replaced him!

Kreuzritter:
actually, the Maddie in X-man wasn't the 'real maddie'. well, when it was 'is she or isn't she', the implication was that she'd been created/restored by X-man's powers by accident, but in the later arcs of the book, it was retconned that she was an alt-reality maddie who'd become a tyrant god-queen of her dimension, and was trying to seduce nate to become her consort (or something along those lines)

Me:
... Every year of my life, I grow happier and happier that I never read much of X-Man. Between the fact that his existence was just there to promote Power-Geeking, and the LUDICROUS extent they went to just to ensure that his origin and supporting cast be as hard to figure out as humanly-possible, I think I dodged one hell of a bullet there.

Spectrum:
Taken pretty completely out of context and by itself, Inferno is actually a pretty good read. You just have to sort of forget about anything outside of it and accept that Cyclops is a jerk.

Greycrusader:
Exactly. Because Hank Pym wasn't/isn't popular with the writers/editors (basically he's a C-lister who only hasn't been killed off because of his Lee/Kirby legacy), he's been made a butt-monkey and a borderline loser/scoundrel. In the Ultimates line, he's a outright amoral, wife-abusing scumbag. But Peter Parker, Matt Murdoch, Reed Richards (Stan really needed that alliteration back in the day, huh?), Xavier, Magnus, Tony Stark and lots of others have done worse than Pym, and it's just sloughed off or forgotten by later writers.

The whole thing about Maddie Pryor that's so awful is that she was just supposed to look a lot like Jean-Claremont didn't intend her to be a clone or doppelganger or anything like that. Scott just ran into a normal woman who looked a lot like his lost love (which is a little iffy in and of itself in terms of starting a relationship). It's like when Puck of Alpha Flight was retconned into being a seven foot tall guy who was suffering from demonic possession, the suppression of which made him into a dwarf, all because Byrne mentioned Puck experienced chronic pain. People with achondroplasia (Puck's dwarfism) suffer chronic joint pain, that's all.

All my best.

[Woodclaw]

Well, I knew that X-Factor pretty much screwed up a lot of stuff in Claremont's plans, but I never read the part about Maddeline. It's kind of interesting that during the first couple of years of her existence the pencilers started to draw her progressively different from Jean (after a while she started looking a bit chubbier), but they were forced to roll back on that with Inferno.
In general, Claremont was a master on convoluted plots and any interference had a huge impact on his storylines. X-Factor was the worst offender because it both the first and the undoing of one of his greatest moments as a writer, but there were a lot more (almost everything written by Louise Simmons forNew Mutants for example).