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

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
Sidney369
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Erik the Red! 8-Ball! Iron Mask! Omega the Unknown!)

Post by Sidney369 »

Iron Mask traveled through time and fought Wolverine and a group of Xavier School's student in the Savage Land in Wolverine and the X-Men #s 26-28.

And Omega wasn't part of the Liberty Legion.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Erik the Red! 8-Ball! Iron Mask! Omega the Unknown!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:33 am You know, while I empathize with Gerber's desire to tell "meaningful stories", his desire to own his creations (even though he knew what creating things for Marvel meant) and his frustration at his career . . . the man sounds like a pain in the butt to deal with.
Jim Shooter parodying him in the "Thundersword" tale is hilarious. Raging against the violence in the media while writing violent stories for "MY AAAAAAAAAAAART!" and then accidentally destroying his workplace while trying to save it.

Marvel: The Untold Story definitely seems to have a point in that modern creators who "know the deal" are much smarter about it, using Marvel work to draw interest for their creator stories.
Sidney369 wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 2:25 am Iron Mask traveled through time and fought Wolverine and a group of Xavier School's student in the Savage Land in Wolverine and the X-Men #s 26-28.

And Omega wasn't part of the Liberty Legion.

That was template fail I think- I also called him a "Golden Age Character".
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Erik the Red! 8-Ball! Iron Mask! Omega the Unknown!)

Post by Thorpocalypse »

I got the first few issues of Omega as a kid and all I really remember is the usage of the word "crud" a lot. I guess that was the worst word Gerber could get away back then in his attempt to make the people sound "city gritty". Someone said something like "Look out, ya crud!" which was the first (and last, now that I think about it) that I heard someone call someone "a crud" as an insult. :)
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Erik the Red! 8-Ball! Iron Mask! Omega the Unknown!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Thorpocalypse wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 3:43 am I got the first few issues of Omega as a kid and all I really remember is the usage of the word "crud" a lot. I guess that was the worst word Gerber could get away back then in his attempt to make the people sound "city gritty". Someone said something like "Look out, ya crud!" which was the first (and last, now that I think about it) that I heard someone call someone "a crud" as an insult. :)
Distinctive insults like that can be hilarious. Reminds me of how WCW couldn't swear like the WWF during the late '90s, so you'd have Hulk Hogan looking like an idiot while screaming about how "I'm gonna kick... your... BUTT!".
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Goldar
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Erik the Red! 8-Ball! Iron Mask! Omega the Unknown!)

Post by Goldar »

LOL, Omega the Unknown is really unknown to me overall. I know he ain't a part of the Liberty Legion, unless some new retro info?
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Ulysses Bloodstone

Post by Jabroniville »

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ULYSSES BLOODSTONE
Created By:
Len Wein, Marv Wolfman & John Warner
First Appearance: Marvel Presents #1 (Oct. 1975)
Role: Immortal Hunter, Mercenary
Group Affiliations: The Monster Hunters
PL 10 (223)
STRENGTH
7 STAMINA 7 AGILITY 6
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 5
INTELLIGENCE 4 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Athletics 8 (+14)
Deception 3 (+6)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+14)
Expertise (Mercenary) 10 (+14)
Expertise (Monsters) 8 (+12)
Expertise (History) 12 (+16)
Insight 2 (+6)
Intimidation 3 (+6)
Investigation 8 (+12)
Perception 8 (+12)
Stealth 6 (+12)
Treatment 3 (+7)
Vehicles 5 (+10)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Beginner's Luck, Benefit 3 (Wealth), Chokehold, Diehard, Equipment 7 (Huge Arsenal), Favoured Foe (Monsters), Great Endurance, Improved Critical 2 (Firearms, Swords), Improved Initiative, Jack-of-All-Trades, Languages 3 (Numerous), Quick Draw, Ranged Attack 7, Tracking, Trance, Ultimate Mercenary Skill

Powers:
"Immortal" Immunity 11 (Aging, Life Support) [11]
Regeneration 6 (Feats: Regrow Limbs) [7]
Speed 2 (8 mph) [2]
Leaping 1 (15 feet) [1]
Power-Lifting 1 (6 tons) [1]

"Invisible Third Eye" Senses 2 (Detect Human Auras- Ranged) [2]
"Astral Travel" Remote Senses 8 (Vision & Hearing) (Flaws: Physical Body is Defenseless) (16) -- [17]
  • AE: "Telekinesis" Move Object 6 (12)
Equipment:
"Huge Arsenal"
"Swords" Strength-Damage +1 (Feats: Improved Critical, Penetrating 4) (7)
"Knives" Strength-Damage +0 (Feats: Improved Critical) (1)
"Firearms" Blast 6 (12)
"Sawed-Off Shotgun With Exploding Shells" Blast 7 (14)

Offense:
Unarmed +13 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Swords +12 (+8 Damage, DC 23)
Firearms +12 (+6-7 Ranged Damage, DC 21-22)
Initiative +10

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (DC 23), Parry +13 (DC 23), Toughness +7, Fortitude +8, Will +8

Complications:
Enemy (Ullux'l Kwan Tae Syn)- Bloodstone hunts the Cthulhu-looking extradimensional being who is responsible for the death of his tribe, all those centuries ago.
Weakness (Lack of Bloodstone Gem)- If the gem is removed from Bloodstone's chest, he will soon wither and die.
Relationship (Elsa & Cullen Bloodstone- Children)- Elsa became a Buffy-esque Monster Hunter like her dad, while Cullen was left in an alternate dimension for 27 months because Ulysses died before he could bring his son back (it was a training mission). The latter is kind of a dick.

Total: Abilities: 94 / Skills: 78--39 / Advantages: 34 / Powers: 41 / Defenses: 15 (223)

Ulysses Bloodstone- Weirdo Side-Character Turned Retcon Guy:
-Ulysses Bloodstone was a monster-hunter who was supposed to be debuted in a grand, sweeping epic, but the realities of publishing comics in the 1970s reared its ugly head, and he ended up being reduced to a mere two-parter. But he nonetheless turned out to be a popular character with writers who dug his whole concept, and so he appeared semi-frequently as a background guy, often in the back-up feature of the more adult-oriented black & white mag Rampaging Hulk, teaming up with an actor and going on adventures in modern times. The character ended up being very minor and died very quickly... yet has now become well-known for having at least TWO children debut posthumously (Elsa & Cullen) and the crystal lodged in his chest being used in tons and tons of stories.

-So Bloodstone debuted in this two-parter in Marvel Presents, where he was a monster hunter in the Hyborian Age (circa 8,250 B.C.) who became empowered by a meteor that lodged in his chest called "The Bloodgem". The Bloodgem itself has a bit of backstory, as it was meant to be a shell to house the "Hellfire Helix", who needed it to interact with our world. The gem ends up being a nexus of magical powers, making it very important. But the Helix refused the orders of some elder gods to create some guardians, and fled but was lost, being discovered by the hunter Ulysses. It's agent empowered Ulysses dramatically, intending to use him at a later date, but Ulysses lashed out at the Bloodgem when it killed his tribe, shattering it- a Bloodgem shard then lodged in his chest permanently. Ulysses Bloodstone was alone but immortal, super-strong and mysically-powered.

The Bloodstone Story:
-Ulluxy'l, the agent of the gem, was attempting to rebuild it from the shards left all over the world, but Ulysses hunted him endlessly for the death of his tribe. Ulluxy'l created monsters both to fend Ulysses off, and to ensure he grew as mighty as possible. Many stories since the character's death have featured past adventures- things like joining a 1959 version of "The Avengers" with Nick Fury & Silver Sable, having two children with a woman named Elise, and forming the Monster Hunters with a Wakandan warrior and Makkari, then fighting the Deviants. Original canon things include becoming the inspiration for Melville's Captain Ahab, and becoming wealthy in modern times owing to his entrepeneurship and investments, with bases in the USSR, under Central Park, and more.

-The gem formed a being called the "Exo-Mind", which formed a group called The Conspiracy, giving up on Ulysses and deciding to conquer present time, but ultimately the Exo-Mind had him captured and killed, the gem removed. However, the Exo-Mind betrayed the Conspiracy and killed all of them, generating a body for itself which the dead body of Ulysses rose to fight, still carrying some residual life thanks to the gem's magic. Ulysses then destroyed the Exo-Mind on his way to the Hellfire Helix (man it's confusing that there's like 2-3 things liked to the gem in these stories), finally killing the Helix with a spear via a psychic spear he'd generated. No longer having a reason to live now that his tribe had been avenged, Ulysses Bloodstone died at last- his body crumbling to bones and dust. So Ulysses and all of his enemies were dead at last.

The Bloodstone Lives:
-Shockingly, despite showing up in a billion stories since his death, Ulysses Bloodstone CONTINUES to be dead, but he would be offered little dignity nor rest. The removed Bloodstone would be the center of The Bloodstone Hunt, a very popular Captain America arc that pitted Cap against Baron Zemo and Batroc's Brigade in a global hunt for the object (which was literally pulled out of Bloodstone's skeleton, which was used to "home in" on the thing). The gem pieces ended up falling into a volcano. In fact, the poor guy's skeleton has been used in all manner of indignified ways... and it'd get worse! Subsequent retcon stories have included various things that paint Ulysses out to be a harsh father, forcing infant Elsa Bloodstone to fight off a Blight Beast when she was only a baby, then had Elise committed to an insane asylum by blaming her for the abuses that he himself had committed. Later, Cullen was trapped in an monster dimension for two years because Ulysses left him there to hunt, but then died in the meantime. It has to be the strangest use of a little-seen character's legacy I've ever seen. I actually know about jack-all about this character aside from what I've read in his Wikipedia page, as I own precisely ZERO comics featuring him- he's been dead for thirty years (our time), yet the Official Appendex website comments that he's appeared in DOZENS of comics since then, all showing retroactively-added stories).

Bloodstone's Powers:
-Bloodstone is a highly-skilled fighter with super-strength, and earns PL 10 status with an apparent reputation for bad-assery. His melee weapons do less additional damage than they would for a normal human since he's already so strong (being hit by a guy who can bench 5 tons is painful ENOUGH- adding a metal sword to the end of it won't make it hurt that much more- just change the kind of damage done). His points-cost is highly-extreme, but befits a Skillmonkey and elite melee fighter with numerous abilities and even a few super-powers picked up as well.
Sidney369
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (8-Ball! Omega the Unknown! Ulysses Bloodstone!)

Post by Sidney369 »

You didn't even get into the really crazy part. The Conspiracy was comprised of two obscure supervillains, an evil cardiologist, a stripper, and an intelligent, and apparently magic-using, dolphin.
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Davies
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (8-Ball! Omega the Unknown! Ulysses Bloodstone!)

Post by Davies »

I once thought he was intended to be a sort of ersatz Doc Savage, but apparently not, because Marvel had the rights to publish stuff featuring the real Doc Savage at the time. (An ersatz heroic version of Wagner's Kane, maybe? Interestingly, Wagner's Bloodstone came out the same year as Ulysses' first appearance.)
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (8-Ball! Omega the Unknown! Ulysses Bloodstone!)

Post by Ares »

I honestly love the concept of Ulysses Bloodstone. He's basically a heroic Vandal Savage that dedicated himself to hunting monsters, which is awesome. He has access to this whole Highlander style history of being involved in things, he could be someone who faced guys like Apocalypse and Dracula in the past, his whole schtick is very fun. Honestly, I'd have brought him back over introducing two kids, as they lack the history that makes Ulysses so much fun. He could easily serve as a pulp era hero, someone who fought Nazis during WWII, was fighting monsters during the 50s, 60s and 70s, etc.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (8-Ball! Omega the Unknown! Ulysses Bloodstone!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Sidney369 wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:35 am You didn't even get into the really crazy part. The Conspiracy was comprised of two obscure supervillains, an evil cardiologist, a stripper, and an intelligent, and apparently magic-using, dolphin.
That I knew from when I looked them up: https://www.echoesofthemultiverse.com/v ... 133#p22133
He even has a build of his very own!: https://www.echoesofthemultiverse.com/v ... 136#p22136

I just didn't' want to derail an already incredibly long bio about a character who means nothing to me by also mentioning "HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS HIS ENEMY IS A MAGICAL DOLPHIN!" XD.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (8-Ball! Omega the Unknown! Ulysses Bloodstone!)

Post by Ken »

The semester I was oversees, back in college, I made a friend who was from a different American school. He had a fond memory of an issue of "Omega the Unknown" he had as a child. In the course of about three months we scoured the island of Great Britain, and managed to track down a complete run.

It was some weird shit.
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Jabroniville
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Holly-Ann Ember

Post by Jabroniville »

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HOLLY-ANN EMBER
Created By:
David Michelinie & Greg LaRocque
First Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel #16 (Sept. 1985)

-Holly-Ann is a one-shot character who appeared in one of the Marvel Graphic Novels (why don't they DO that anymore? That seemed like a good idea if you had a longer story and didn't want to do a solo book). She's a little girl whose town is endangered by A.I.M. (their boss shuts off the town from the outside world all Under the Dome style thanks to an invisible force field, causing civil disorder and food shortages), and then her Mutant Powers manifest themselves. She Teleports four Marvel super-heroines to her side to rescue the town- this lends credence to the old theory that "People develop the exact kind of Mutant Powers they need for any particular crisis". Holly-Ann's idols are The Wasp, She-Hulk, Storm and Tigra, and the four overthrow A.I.M. and their Giant Robot along with the townspeople, who help out the outnumbered heroines. Storm let the girl know that there was a special school for her type of people, but she was never seen again.

-"Teleport Others To Your Location" is actually a rather difficult power to set-up in M&M- it's basically a Summon, except you're affecting other P.C.s. You basically have to do a Teleport Attack with either a Perception or an Area Effect that covers the entire planet (!!), and is Selective. It's a really clunky kind of power to wield. Since Holly-Ann's a one-off, never being scene again, and is a little kid, I feel the need to leave it blank :).
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Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Post by Jabroniville »

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DRAGON- THE BRUCE LEE STORY:
Release Date: 1994
Makers: Virgin Interactive Entertainment
Genre: Fighting Game

-A game saved from infamy largely by its obscurity, Dragon: The Bruce Lee story is a weaksauce fighting game based off of the actual Bruce Lee biopic starring Robin Shou in 1993. The game largely features Lee fighting a series of opponents from the film, but the game notably is NOT well made, and not even a proper modern "Fighting Game" so much as it is you playing one guy through a series of opponents, more like the early genre games like Yie Ar Kung-Fu and the like. Which, mind you, came out in the mid to late *1980s* and these were from the era right before the PlayStation and such came out.

Your opponents are the sailor from a dance in Hong Kong, the chefs from the Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, a martial arts master who challenges Lee, and others. You can build up the "Chi Meter", which allows you to use Special Moves. You have three continues, and if lost, you must then fight The Phantom (the personification of Bruce's fear who takes the form of an armored Japanese Samurai in the movie)- the Phantom is also the game's Final Boss. Most unusually, the game has a "Vs. Mode" where up to three players can fight each other simultaneously... but all three of you must play as Bruce Lee, Bruce Li and Bruce Le (references to the various wannabes Hong Kong produced in the wake of the man's death)- clones differentiated by the color of their trousers.

The designers had said they didn't want to make a Streets of Rage clone and instead something more like Street Fighter II... which is funny because they're instead doing something that's way more dated than that (and SFII came out three years prior, mind you).

Notably, the game was released for five of the systems out at the time: Game Gear, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Super NES and even the ATARI JAGUAR, where it was one of the only 2-D Fighting Games available for that system. The game was considered very slow-paced and shallow, with no focus on a moveset or Special Moves. Almost all the games were trashed- GamePro and GamePlayers were brutal, scoring barely 50% or less.

Looking at playthroughs, the graphics are clunky and just plain BAD- the realities of Fighting Games require precision control and good frames of animation, and the genre dynamics mean you need big, cool-looking characters- these are 1-2 frame attacks with under-detailed losers. Fights go on for AGES, with attacks doing little damage, so you have to whittle your opponent down with dozens of different attacks.

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"My obsession is to make, pardon the expression, the fuckingest action motion picture ever made."
-Bruce Lee


BRUCE LEE (also Bruce Le & Bruce Li)
Role:
BRUCE FRIGGIN' LEE
PL 8 (108)
STRENGTH
2 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 6
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 2 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Acrobatics 5 (+11)
Athletics 9 (+11)
Close Combat (Unarmed) 2 (+13)
Expertise (Acting) 2 (+6)
Expertise (Martial Arts) 9 (+10)
Insight 2 (+4)
Intimidation 2 (+6)
Perception 4 (+6)
Persuasion 1 (+5)

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Assessment, Equipment (Nunchucks), Fast Grab, Grab Finesse, Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed) 2, Improved Initiative, Instant Up, Takedown 2

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

Offense:
Unarmed +13 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Nunchucks +11 (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Initiative +10

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +13 (DC 23), Toughness +3, Fortitude +6, Will +8

Complications:
Responsibility (Fame)- Kim Dragon is quite famous and well-known, especially in his native Korea. He will be easily-recognized.
Weakness (Predictability)- Kim Dragon, like all World Heroes fighters, cannot simply "spam" out the same attack over and over again, as the opponent will expect the attacks, and be ready for them (and a counterattack). The third time he tries the same technique (or same combo of techniques) in a short span, he will be at -2 to Accuracy, AND to his Active Defenses in that round. All will decrease by 2 every successive round the same move is done.

Total: Abilities: 62 / Skills: 38--19 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 1 / Defenses: 15 (108)

-You play Bruce himself in the game- a stiffer, less versatile version than the Bruce Lee Clones you find in games like Super Street Fighter II and World Heroes, but still- BRUCE LEE! Bruce's moves consist of a handstand flip kick, a backwards throw over his shoulder, and a flying stomp to a downed opponent.

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BRUCE LEE'S ENEMIES
Role:
Nameless Enemies
PL 6 (66)
STRENGTH
3 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 4
FIGHTING 7 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+6)
Athletics 5 (+8)
Expertise (The Martial Arts) 6 (+6)
Expertise (Job) 6 (+6)
Intimidation 4 (+5)
Perception 3 (+4)

Advantages:
Fast Grab, Improved Critical (Chosen Weapon)

Offense:
Unarmed +9 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Initiative +4

Defenses:
Dodge +6 (DC 16), Parry +9 (DC 19), Toughness +3, Fortitude +5, Will +4

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 26--13 / Advantages: 2 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 9 (66)

-A series of nameless bad guys face you- some met in the movie, others being more generic. You fight two the same time, in different colored outfits, and a couple use weapons. Despite being martial artists, they are all simple brawlers with only a few attacks each- not well-rounded at all.

The Enemies:
THE SAILOR- PL 6 (66):
-A guy with a chain wallet or something who does a bunch of uppercuts.

THE COOKS- PL 6 (68): Equipment (Cleaver +1- Split), Teamwork
-A pair of pallette-swap cooks using paired meat cleavers. You fight one in the kitchen, then move out into the back where the other one is waiting.

BLACK KARATE GUY- PL 6 (66):
-A black guy with a '70s afro and a blue gi.

MARTIAL ARTS MASTER- PL 6 (66):
-A shirtless guy who represents the rival school fighter who challenges Bruce to quit teaching foreigners their style.

BO GIRLS: Inexplicable Kitana/Mileena type girls with a purple and red bo staff who you fight on a film set.

BLACK KARATE GUY II- PL 6 (66):
-The black guy returns, but with a green gi.

MARTIAL ARTS MASTER II- PL 6 (66):
-The shirtless guy is back.

SOLDIER GUY- PL 6 (68): ST +1, STA +1, FIGHTING -1 [2]
-A very tall guy in military fatigues, fought in Thailand.

HAN- PL 7 (72): FIGHTING +1, AGI +1, Equipment 1 (Claw +1), Improved Initiative [6]
-The arch-villain from Enter the Dragon! Complete with his claw weapon! Okay, this isn't bad.

THE PHANTOM- PL 8 (73): ST +1, STA +2, Equipment (Naginata +1) [7]
-A gigantic Samurai wielding a large naginata. The Final Boss, he is fought in a graveyard over Bruce's ACTUAL GRAVE.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Omega! Ulysses Bloodstone! Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story!)

Post by Jabroniville »

So Dragon got builds because it helped complete my insane "Do all the Fighting Games" attempt with just a couple of builds- I still have a few more in the can but would rather spread those out. I also realized that my last Marvel set actually DIDN'T complete things as much as I thought, as I went down my list and realized a few of the "K" builds are still sitting as RA-only builds. So I'm doing those after the set that starts tomorrow- Warlord builds! There didn't seem to be too many people on here that familiar with it when I asked around, so I'm curious how those will do- it's about 3 days' worth of stuff. Then it's on to those Marvel guys (plus a couple of side characters I'd forgotten about).
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Warlord

Post by Jabroniville »

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WARLORD:
-Warlord is one of those fantasy-themed comics that appears to have this enormous fanbase (it had a VERY long run in its time- 133 issues over ten years), yet every single time they reboot the franchise and bring the series back, it fails utterly. The internet is FULL of that crap (the amount of Doom Patrol fans you see online vs. the amount that book actually sells speak speaks for itself), and it's particuarly pronounced in swords & sorcery books. As BatgirlIII said about Adam Strange- "He's an orphan of a genre no one wants to read anymore"- and writers have been trying and failing to make Sword & Sorcery books that sell for the past thirty-odd years now. So we'll probably see The Warlord make like ten comebacks in the next thirty years or something, all because it once sold well a quarter-century ago.

Warlord was started by Mike Grell, famous because of his run as "Legion of Super-Heroes" artist, in the era where he made all of the Legionnaires wear almost zero clothing. This book, similarly, features an entire cast of nudists, but Grell is one of the few artists who made EVERY character bare tons of skin, so he's never been vilified for it so much as made fun of. I mean, it ain't sexist when even the DUDES are running around half-naked, right? It's very much rooted in the old-timey comic strips like Burne Hogarth's Tarzan and the medieval Prince Valiant of Hal Foster- Grell openly cites his sources and his desire to create a "Modern Man in a Fantasy World" strip. Similarities to Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar and Journey to the Center of the Earth are clear. It was initially supposed to be a strip called Savage Empire, but Grell refashioned it into Warlord and made a comic series out of it.

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This is the only "Warlord" comic I owned as a kid- probably bought in one of those four-packs stores used to sell. Because I don't think I'd grab some random DC book I'd never heard of otherwise.

The Comic:
-Warlord is about Travis Morgan, a white-haired muscular man who is actually of our time- he's a Vietnam War veteran and SR-71 spy pilot- and he ended up falling through a hole in the very Earth, landing in SKARTARIS- a fantasy realm under an "unblinking orb" of eternal sunlight, that actually inhabits the inner surface of the planet (with an access point at the North Pole). Humorously, he looks almost exactly like Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen, complete with the Van Dyke goatee. Using a trusty magnum revolver (which had to be used sparingly, thus making it a good climactic battlefield weapon to show how serious things were), he quickly becomes a man of great power, and the strip is largely based around him and his family & friends as they face evil sorcerers like Deimos and the like. The cast includes his new wife Tara (who instructs him on the world and in swordsmanship), his magician daughter Jennifer, a flighty cat-girl named Shakira, a token black guy named Machiste, and a few others. The women are often FANTASTICALLY naked, with Mariah (Machiste's lover) and Shakira sporting among the very skimpiest costumes of all time, but almost every male character is a beefy, shirtless warrior, too.

The local antique mall near me has a great deal of Warlord comics in one booth, and I've both bought and Byrne-Stole enough of them to figure out what it's about- it's very episodic in nature, with the problem of the day being introduced, dealt with, and resolved with a measure of difficulty, leading to a fully-encapsulated tale... while there's still sort of a greater story unfolding. So each issue is self-contained and a whole story, yet there's a reason to keep going. It actually reads VERY similarly to the contemporaneous Conan comics, which were the same sort of thing- a continuing story, but it was mostly "Okay, what's the issue today?" leading to a big combat scene or two. Typically, both would feature the hero leading a group (containing at least one woman and a group of soldiers) from one place to another, then OH MY GOD A GIANT SCORPION OR A DINOSAUR OR WHATEVER shows up, the heroes kill it, steadily losing redshirts as time went on (Morgan actually takes time to mourn this otherwise-anonymous losses, however- one issue shows a single panel of them burying one), before the current threat is dead. You can very clearly see the bones of Conan in Warlord, though the latter has a far more human hero with common frailties and worries (Morgan has an emotional connection to his wife, daughter and others that the more aloof Conan lacks).

Various things befall Morgan and his friends- he & Tara have a son named Joshua, but he is kidnapped by Deimos, who ages him to adulthood and forces Travis to kill him in personal combat, shattering the parents' hearts. It later turns out this was a trick and that the real Joshua yet lives, being adopted by peasants- named Tinder, he is later is discovered by his half-sister Jennifer and trained in magic.

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The Book's Fate:
-Mike Grell was the sole creative force for the first six years- writing and drawing EVERYTHING. With Warlord #60, other artists began drawing it. Grell's then-wife Sharon Wright also apparently ghost-wrote Warlord #53-71 for some reason. The book's success is clear not only in its very long run, but the fact that DC attempted to create a whole "Swords & Sorcery" craze off its back while Marvel's Conan was red-hot. Jack Kirby's sci-fi OMAC was a backup in some middle-run issues, and Roy Thomas's Arak- Son of Thunder was an insert in another. It was also used to advertise Claw the Unconquered, Dragonsword and Arion, as DC seemed to want this series to be a fountain of their own Sword & Sorcery tales. Most of these didn't last long, but are somewhat emblematic of the 1980s as DC was trying a LOT of varied stuff in that genre.

In 1982, the series received a series of toys from Remco- Arak, Son of Thunder was also given a figure alongside Machiste, Morgan and Deimos, among others. They were VERY He-Man like in build and design.

So Warlord was cancelled in 1988, as the Sword & Sorcery genre was fading out- the Crisis on Infinite Earths had just happened a few years before, line-wide crossovers were now common, and the Conan book had faded badly (it was itself cancelled in the early '90s and Conan vanished for about thirty years as any kind of a serious pop culture thing). It was just a dead genre at one point. A Grell-written six-issue miniseries was released in 1992 but that was in. In 2006, Bruce Jones & Bart Sears created a Warlord book, but it died after only nine issues, leaving on a cliffhanger. Grell wrote another series for the book's 35th anniversary in 2009, running for sixteen issues. Here, Deimos returns, pitting Morgan's son Joshua against his father- Morgan is killed by this "Tinder", who himself becomes the new Warlord of Skartaris. Warlord is for all intents and purposes dead, part of a faded genre.
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