Jab’s Builds! (Whomp 'Em! Plumbers Don't Wear Ties! ToeJam & Earl!)

[catsi563]

Huh well Ill take the devils advocate position because I liked Starkiller and Galen Marek myself. I thought the force awakens games did a solid job developing the character. Based one of my own Star Wars RPG characters stories a bit of Mareks backstory.

[KorokoMystia]

I always enjoy builds from The List, because builds of goofy jobbers that went nowhere are great.

I thought of a loser that might fit on the list, unless he's too minor: Viper I, who was mentioned in The Eel's bio, and killed by Viper II.

Also, I noticed a "Thunderbolt" in the To-Do List: Is it this guy?
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[Jabroniville]

I always enjoy builds from The List, because builds of goofy jobbers that went nowhere are great.

I thought of a loser that might fit on the list, unless he's too minor: Viper I, who was mentioned in The Eel's bio, and killed by Viper II.

Also, I noticed a "Thunderbolt" in the To-Do List: Is it this guy?
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probably the same dude. If he's a Cage foe, it'll be sooner rather than later. I'll be doing a Cage/Fist bit early next year.

I skipped Viper over notability issues, but I might get to him eventually.

Current To-Do List:
* The List (3-4 days)
* RWBY
* Marvel Foreigners
* Big Hero Six
* Mega Man X
* Primal Rage

[Jabroniville]

Actual covers.

MARVILLE:

-Among the most notorious, but also forgotten, stories in Marvel history is Marville, a bizarre tale that sprang from the mind of Bill Jemas. It was apparently part of a bet between him and Peter David (whose Captain Marvel was always in danger of cancellation)- he'd taunted David that he could produce a book to outsell CM, and made THIS. The book was part of a "U-Decide" event, in which fans could choose which of three books would survive- the other one being Ron Zimmerman's Ultimate Avengers. 

-The storyline is... okay, so a guy named Kal-AOL (HAW HAW!) is the future son of Ted Turner and Jane Fonda from 5002. He is sent back in time thanks to a time machine made of video game systems, and tries to become a superhero, despite having no powers. He and his friends then use their time machine to go back in time (encountering an off-continuity version of Wolverine as an Neanderthal, and Dinosaurs that speak Yiddish) and talk to God. Well, a guy they think is God, who is named Jack, and teaches Kal-AOL and his buddies the meaning of life, and he tries to share the secret of world peace via a comic book series, but it is rejected because it's not about superheroes nor action.

-Now if you're anything like me, you just read that synopsis and went "-- The FUCK?" after each and every sentence, because seriously... the fuck? The series was meant in part to parody Smallville (which was a show then), with issue #1's cover featuring the character tied to a fence with an "M" painted on his chest, in reference to Smallville's Clark Kent imagery doing much the same (but with an "S", obviously). Other covers featured some female character in odd "Pin-Up"-style situations that were just her naked outside, but rather than looking sexy or like a surprised bimbo (as is usual in Pin-Up art), she wore a look of discomfort had to take a massive crap in every picture, with a furrowed forehead and a grimace on her face. Issue #3 came out with the art unfinished, and the script superimposed over it, and the seventh issue, the book's last, only contained the submission guidelines to Marvel's new Epic Comics imprint.

-As you might imagine, this thing went over like a massive turd, and is considered one of the worst comics of all time. Jemas initially treated it like a parody of DC Comics (what with a guy named "Kal-AOL" after DC's biggest hero and their corporate owners), but segued into what was apparently a straight attempt at philosophy and science, which gets a ton of things wrong (he repeatedly calls the Jurassic Period "Jurassic Park", and says that humans only use 10% of their brains), features Rush Limbaugh as a superhero and promotes Intelligent Design while calling paleontologists "idiots".

-The career of Bill Jemas went from "law student to corporate President" to "obscure nobody" relatively quickly, but he was actually the President of Marvel at this time, before arguments with Joe Quesada, and the success of the Marvel films distancing him from his former supporter Isaac Perlmutter, sank his run. He languished in obscurity after that, working only for start-up indies and the like, usually using his own (or investors' money).

-No stats required, really- they're just normal people who ran around being talked to. I don't even think they fought. Though it features a Ted Turner who could cut meteorites in half with a tomahawk chop. There's that.

Just... just read this...

[Ares]

Yeah, Marville was a huge turd. I need to find the reviews Linkara and sfDebris did of it. The book isn't funny, it isn't insightful, and it isn't well crafted. Jemas, someone who accused other creators of cronyism, went on to say that a book like Marville wouldn't have been possible if he wasn't head of the company. So, as sfDebris put it, apparently it isn't cronyism if you do it to yourself.

[Horsenhero]

So, as sfDebris put it, apparently it isn't cronyism if you do it to yourself.

Not cronyism...just a colossal waste of corporate resources.

[greycrusader]

Rampage strikes me as a character concept with at least somepotential and relevancy, particularly so in today's increasingly stratified global economy...hell, the Spider-Man: Homecoming version of the Vulture has pretty much exactly the same motivation for villainy, and the concept was praised for being a pretty fresh take. Of course, in that example the idea was grafted onto a "name" bad guy, and buttressed by Michael Keaton's acting chops as a "working-class" antagonist. That's the problem with Rampage-a random, nobody jobber created for a D-List book 40 years ago, nothing more than comic-book trivia. But a few writers who know about his background are inspired to try out their own execution of the concept...but then the stories move on, and the character is forgotten all over again, until the next time a different writer uses the poor guy for an entirely different type of plot. And so on, until the schnook gets killed off "for real" and just falls entirely down the collective memory hole of the Marvel U.

All my best.

PS: Oh, and as regards Marville; once, nearly twenty years ago, I had a temp job for two weeks, where I was filling in for clerk/form processor type position in an HR office. Supposedly I was coding workers' compensation claims...except I got no training besides what I could read and interpret from the training booklet, since the supervisor was out sick as well and her assistant was swamped. I literally had NO clue if what I was turning in was done correctly, and just desperately hoped I looked busy when much of the time I shuffled papers and tried to make sense of their system. The assistant kept assuring me I was "doing just fine", but at the end of the fortnight, you could have told me I'd been passing along secret messages to the Mossad and it would have been just as believable. The only part I am certain of is the assistant supervisor was really tall for a woman, wore glasses, and had a chirpy voice.

And even THAT made more sense than Marville[/i}.

[Ares]

Ah! Found them.

Here's Linkara's reviews of Marville.

And here's sfDebris talking about Jemas's time at Marvel, though you should fast-forward to the 20 minute mark for when the whole Marville fiasco.

[Jabroniville]

I always enjoy builds from The List, because builds of goofy jobbers that went nowhere are great.

I really enjoy doing builds from The List, too- especially when they're Jobber Villains. It reminds me of when Spectrum and I first compiled it, and I did a few sets of nothing BUT "The List" builds- like, for two weeks, nothing but. Unfortunately those didn't prove to be that popular, so I learned to split them up among other builds, then to do the Marvel Alphabet (like I just did the "R" names), spacing them out a tad.

But a bunch of these names had been jumping out at me lately, so I really wanted to do them.

The "M" section in particular is really huge (it'll take at least three weeks to do- the longest now that the "S" section is done), so I wanted to grab a couple of them. As Marville is a pretty notorious aspect of Marvel history, the "Marville/KalAOL" name kept drawing my interest. Similarly, Mr. Brownstone (who prefaced my "R" builds, for no other reason than I didn't want to post them right away, so I needed a build as a buffer) got posted. A minor Mage-type character will be posted soon, too (because Spectrum listed the word "Fanservice" next to her name ).

I wanted to dwindle down the "F" builds, so we have the Face Thief and one minor setting note, which is coming up.

Cardiaxe and one minor group were both brought up in the past as ideal Jobbers I'd missed on "The List".

There'll be two names from the "B" list, plus another, since it was related to Black Box, whom I'm about to post. And a minor-league guy who shares a name with a major Marvel hero, who came later.

Another one is a group that's been jumping out at me for a while, but their Template-based nature, and the rather long-ish Marvunapp bio, was preventing me from doing it, until now.

And finally, we'll have a guy who came from a set of computer games, an additional member to one of the Jobbiest Jobber Teams of all time (plus re-posts of the team), and a re-post with additional notes for the single oldest ATT-era build I've yet to translate over to a new thread!

[Jabroniville]

BLACK BOX (Garabeb Bashur, aka Commcast)
Created By: Fabian Nicieza & Joe Madureira
First Appearance: Deadpool- The Circle Chase #2
Role: Low-Powered Villain
PL 5 (114)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Expertise (Military) 4 (+8)
Expertise (Criminal) 4 (+8)
Perception 3 (+6)
Stealth 3 (+5)

Advantages:
Contacts, Ranged Attack 2

Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Technopathy"
Enhanced Advantages 1: Eidetic Memory [1]
Features 1: Infinite Memory Storage Capacity [1]
Senses 1 (Electronic Data- Analytical 2) [3]
Remote Sensing 13 (Electronic Sense) (Feats: Subtle) (Extras: Area, Simultaneous) [37]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Initiative +2

Defenses:
Dodge +7 (DC 17), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +2, Fortitude +4, Will +5

Complications:
Motivation (Greed)- Bashur sells information to the highest bidder, and once led a mercenary squad.
Power Loss (Memory Access)- It takes a great deal of effort, usually through meditation and willpower, for Bashur to find specific information that's locked away in his mind.

Total: Abilities: 52 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 42 / Defenses: 10 (114)

-Garabed Bashur is a technopath from India who is used to store data from any form of electronic media. He received early training from Charles Xavier, but Professor X rejected him upon learning that his student had criminal intentions. He used his knowledge-gathering powers to amass a "small fortune" and leader of the mercenary "Executive Elite" unit as Commcast. He and his Elite went against Deadpool (in a comic from before Wade became what he is now- back then, he was just a smart-ass mercenary), but they were all slain- Commcast escaped by using a clone body to die in his stead.

-The character vanished aside from a cameo here or there until his creator, Fabian Nicieza, moved on to Cable and Deadpool, at which point he became Black Box. Now, he was an information broker, selling his knowledge to the highest bidders. With numerous mercenary characters (including Deadpool) searching for a computer virus that would led Bashur sort through all the data he'd accessed, he soon led a clone army against some heroes, but was finally convinced to join Cable's operation as a head of security. Eventually, he was brutally murdered by Sabretooth, but was quickly revealed to have survived, holding a grudge against a now-powerless Deadpool.

-Black Box has a low-key, interesting power that lets him absorb information from all electronic sources (I threw in the "Area" extra to show that he could do this over the entire range of his Remote Sensing), making him the ultimate information broker. However, he cannot access this information easily, necessitating a lot of effort on his part to sort the stuff out.

[Jabroniville]

Ah! Found them.

Here's Linkara's reviews of Marville.

And here's sfDebris talking about Jemas's time at Marvel, though you should fast-forward to the 20 minute mark for when the whole Marville fiasco.

Saint Matthew had a great quote, many years ago:

The question of whether or not Marvel or DC is better is easy; DC is better, because it never produced Marville.

And yeah, that Starkiller guy reads like ban FanFiction- "Vader's Secret Apprentice" is like the start to ever 14-year old boy's "Bad-Ass Story".

[Jabroniville]

"Alien spinal fluid", huh. I know the Blood Pack came about from that arc.. All I know about them is from a panel of where one of the characters just up and cuts his own hand off after being told to make things more interesting.

I'll give DC this: the Bloodlines crossover at least was an event, and some of the characters created actually had some potential. Most of them were just "EXTREME!" 90's characters, but a few of them at least had some interesting concepts. One character in particular that was kind of cool was Sparx, a girl from a family where everyone has a mete-gene and all they need is something to activate it. It was like this huge extended family of aunts and uncles, all of which had superpowers. Anyone whose powers didn't get triggered before puberty would go on a road trip with a more experienced family member, looking for something that might trigger it, and basically ANYTHING that could possibly trigger a meta-gene would work on them. That was actually a pretty cool concept that could have warranted further stories. Instead, all it got used in was the really awful "Superboy and the Ravers" series.

Bloodlines is annoying, because looking up info for them gives me the typical "DC Fans Don't Write Shit Down" problem. Almost nobody in that line has more than a line or two for their bios, and often gives no indication of their powers. If they were Marvel guys, there's be a Marvel Wiki page with detailed real-life info about them and mini-bios, probably a Wikpedia page that sums that up, and even a Marvel Unofficial Appendix page that lists every single appearance they've ever made, and what happened in each issue. What IS it with DC fans?

[Woodclaw]

The Apprentice is..well..He's Darth Vader's secret apprentice. That's just ripe for Mary Sue-ness.

I don't think I can properly express how much the entire concept of Galen "Starkiller" Marek irked me when I heard of it. Pretty much everything from that storyline felt completely pulled out of a rabid fanboy ass, except one thing: a semi-decent explanation of the famous Stormtroopers' aim (i.e. Rebellion-era clones soldier were mass-produced from lower grade donors than Jango Fett, they had zero field training - only mnemonic implants - and the entire process took them just a couple of months or so).

The whole "Stormtrooper Aim" issue never really made much sense to me. Anytime the Stormtroopers aren't shooting at a main character, they're actually incredibly accurate. They've shown themselves to be as good or better than standard Rebel mooks. The most infamous example of their poor aim is how they failed to hit Luke, Leia and Han during their escape from the Death Star during "A New Hope". But as Leia points out "It was the only reason for the ease of our escape." The Empire LET the heroes escape in order to track them back to the Rebel base on Yavin. The Stormtroopers were therefore under orders to put up a convincing but ineffective capture effort in order to let the heroes think they'd just managed a narrow escape and could head home without any issues. Outside of a New Hope, Stormtroopers aren't really poor marksmen at all.

Now one explanation I do like about Stormtrooper armor not being as good as Clonetrooper armor is that the armor is designed for completely different purposes. Clonetrooper armor was designed for military troopers going up against cutting edge droid technology. Clonetroopers are soliders. Stormtroopers . . . aren't. Stormtroopers come about AFTER the galaxy has been put completely under Empire control. The Empire is not technically at war with anyone, not on a grand scale. As such, Stormtroopers are less soldiers and more police officers or security forces, designed to be highly visible reminders of the Empire's power. Their gear is good, but it's the difference between the kind of armor a Police or SWAT officer would have access to, versus the kind of armor a Navy SEAL or Marine would have access to. You expect a difference in performance. From that perspective, it makes sense that Stormtrooper armor is less effective than Clonetrooper armor.

As for Galen Marek . . . yeah, I never cared for the guy, and just as soon forget that his two games ever happened. It was bad enough he was a Force adept who could fight both Vader and the Emperor evenly, but he's also suppose to be the one who basically starts the Rebel Alliance. It comes off as total Fan-Wank-Fan-Fiction.

I was under the impression that by the Rebellion era, stormtroopers weren't clones anymore. They ran out and were just "elite" recruits.

That's indeed the case. Most clones were "retired" after the war and Stormtroopers are just soldiers loyal to the Empire.

Indeed, that was the generally accepted explanatation until Force Unleashed came around and George Lucas claimed it was part of his official continuity. Personally I wholeheartdly agree with Ares: Stormtroopers suffer from one of the worst forms on memetic mutation in the history of pop-culture.

And yeah, that Starkiller guy reads like ban FanFiction- "Vader's Secret Apprentice" is like the start to ever 14-year old boy's "Bad-Ass Story".

There was another element that, in mind made even less sense in the entire story: the claim that Galen Marek was so powerful with the Force because in his time (i.e. the 20 years that separated the prequel trology from the classic trilogy) there were fewer Force-users, so the remaining had more power at their disposal. So the logical consequence is that the Force is actually a finite entity that produce a finite amount of energy and so on ...

[DominusExMachina]

Hey, y'all! Long-time follower, first-time poster.

I'd absolutely LOVE to see Jabroniville's builds for the following characters:

From DC Comics:

Lori Lemaris (including stats for generic Atlanteans (one from Poseidonis and one from Tritonis))

DNAngels

• Cherub
• Epiphany
• Seraph

The Watchmen

• Comedian (Edward Blake)
• Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt)
• Nite Owl II (Daniel 'Dan' Dreiberg) - including stats for the Owlship
• Rorschach (Walter J. Kovacs)
• Silk Spectre II (Laurel J. Juspeczyk a.k.a. Laurie Jupiter)
• Doctor Manhattan (Jonathan 'Jon' Osterman)

From other sources:

Ben 10 (Benjamin K. 'Ben' Tennyson) (Ben 10)

Team Tennyson (Ben 10)

• Gwendolyn E. 'Gwen' Tennyson
• Maxwell 'Max' Tennyson
• Kevin 11 (Kevin E. 'Kev' Levin)
• Rook Blonko
• Julie Yamamoto & 'Ship'

Rex Salazar (Generator Rex)

Providence (Generator Rex)

• White Knight (leader)
• Dr. Rebecca Holiday
• Agent Six
• Bobo Haha
• Robo Bobo

The Pack (Generator Rex)

• Van Kleiss (leader)
• Biowulf
• Skalamander
• Breach
• Circe
• I-Bol
• Jungle Cat
• Bouncer

And knowing your history of doing builds for characters from video games, I'd love to see builds for the various characters from Blizzard's Overwatch:

Ana (Ana Amari)
Bastion (SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54)
D.Va (Hana Song)
Doomfist (Akande Ogundimu)
Genji (Genji Shimada)
Hanzo (Hanzo Shimada)
Junkrat (Jamison Fawkes)
Lúcio (Lúcio Correia dos Santos)
McCree (Jesse McCree)
Mei (Mei-Ling Zhou)
Mercy (Angela Ziegler)
Moira (Moira O’Deorain)
Orisa - including stats for Efi Oladele
Pharah (Fareeha Amari)
Reaper (Gabriel Reyes)
Reinhardt (Reinhardt Wilhelm)
Roadhog (Mako Rutledge)
Soldier: 76 (Jack Morrison)
Sombra (Olivia Colomar)
Symmetra (Satya Vaswani)
Torbjörn (Torbjörn Lindholm)
Tracer (Lena Oxton)
Widowmaker (Amélie Lacroix)
Winston
Zarya (Aleksandra Zaryanova)
Zenyatta
--
Omnic Template
--
Null Sector Omnics

• Nulltrooper
• Eradicator
• Slicer
• B73-NS
• OR14-NS

That's all for now...more to follow.

[Jabroniville]

Lol- WOWWWWWWWWW... that's a big list of dudes.

Lemme see:

Lori Lemaris: Not a bad idea. Kind of a fun look at the Silver Age.
DNAngels: Do they have real bios online? What little I've found doesn't indicate much of what can be statted. I can't even find a character history!
Watchmen: That's an interesting idea- one I've kind of always put on the backburner over the years and never really considered. ProdigyDuck is doing some good ones right now. I'll probably get to them someday, probably next year-ish.
Ben 10: I've only watched one episode of that show, and that was more than ten years ago I think, so I couldn't hope to do builds for it.
Generator Rex: I've never seen it. Is that the one by the Samurai Jack guys?
Overwatch: I've considered it from time to time. Though I have no interest in actually playing the game, I think I would have fun messing around with what I think the FPS game's abilities would look like in M&M terms, or in a typical comic book. Plus the character designs are AWESOME, and is exactly why that game hit so huge.

I GUESS I could do the male characters, too .

Are those Omnics something you fight in the game?


I'm a bit "booked" for the rest of the year, but some of that you might see next year (not Ben 10, unfortunately).