Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: The Elementals

The Elementals are a quartet of powerful supernatural entities who ruled the Earth millennia ago before they were unseated by the *yawn* Whazzat. Uh, sorry, I fell asleep partway through my own description there, it was so boring and predictable. Anyhow, the Elementals are basically Elder Gods who dress like they escaped from a Renaissance Faire, despite supposedly predating the Asgardians, and whose power is constrained by the existence of a mystic doodad called the Ruby Scarab.

And, yes, the token female is very scantily clad, of course.

Back in the Dawn Times (okay, fine, the '70s), they enlisted the aid of a dude called The Living Mummy to help them get control of the Scarab so they could get their full powers back. It . . . didn't work, and the ended up getting collected by the Collector.

Has anyone else noticed just how on the nose 70s Marvel was? The Elementals have elemental powers. The Ruby Scarab is a scarab, made of ruby. The Living Mummy is a mummy, only he's alive, and then the Elementals get collected by the Collector.

Anyhow, there's no stat block here, so it's up to me to figure out how to make this into a thing. First, there's block for the Ruby Scarab, and then a block for how to use it in an Event.

Ruby Scarab
Elemental Interference 1d12
SFX: Complication - In any dice pool in reaction to the attack of one of the Elementals, spend 1 PP to use Elemental Interference as a complication even if not in the scene.
SFX: Growing Threat - On a successful reaction, add a die to the Ruby Scarab, or step up a Ruby Scarab die by +1.
Limit: Draws Down Power - When wielded by the Elementals, shutdown Elemental Interference. Any other dice on the Ruby Scarab are renamed to match the Elemental's power set.

Ruby Scarab (5 XP/10 XP/15 XP)
For 5 XP, once in the next scene each of the heroes can use the Ruby Scarab without spending PP.
For 10 XP, they can use the Ruby Scarab in any reaction against the Elementals, even if the action isn't directly against a hero.
For 15 XP, they can use the Ruby Scarab in attacks against an Elemental as well.

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: Flying Tiger

Late period Boney M costuming
got weird.

This is a minor-league African-American villain who's named after a much-decorated corps of WWII airmen. He's mostly known as a member of one of the lesser versions of the Masters of Evil, and as one of the members of Spiderwoman's (Jessica Drew) rogues gallery.

We . . . aren't going to spend a lot of time here.

It's not that this isn't a character who doesn't have potential for use. I mean, he's superhumanly strong, extremely durable, quick and has a memorable costume, but he's pretty much following the Marvel motto - ABH. Always Be Henching. Still, he should serve as a good supporting character.

Flying Tiger
Solo    1d8
Buddy 1d4
Team   1d6

Distinctions
Braggart
Merc for Hire

Flying Tiger Suit
Enhanced Reflexes       1d8
Enhanced Stamina        1d8
Enhanced Strength       1d8
Flight                           1d8
Superhuman Durability 1d10
SFX: Burst - Step up or double an Enhanced Strength die against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.
SFX: Multipower - Use two or more Flying Tiger Suit powers in a single dice pool at -1 for each additional power.
Limite: Exhausted - Shutdown any Flying Tiger Suit power to add a die to the doom pool. REcover by activating an opportunity.

Acrobatic Expert 1d8
Combat Expert 1d8
Menace Experts 1d8

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: Jean-Paul DuChamp

This is another tough-ish one because DuChamp is:
A supporting character
To a B-list hero
Who's gone through several iterations

This is the man your pilot could smell like.

As has DuChamp

I mean, I love Moon Knight, I really do, but he's been everything from a Batman knockoff to a 90s Xtreme vengeance machine to a pseudo-mystical to a semi-serious take on the personality-altering act of being a street-level hero, and DuChamp's been with him in each incarnation. So, which DuChamp do I pick?

In the end, I'm going with the DuChamp who supported him in his Batman knockoff days. For one, I'm most familiar with him, and for another, he doesn't have weird, poorly-defined superpowers and has use of both of his legs. Okay, yes, I shouldn't discriminate based on disabilities, but I don't like the plotline that lead to one of the few openly gay characters in the Marvel universe getting bashed around and, seriously, Batman knockoff DuChamp is pretty boss. I mean, he's got the Mooncopter, people.

Jean-Paul DuChamp
Solo    1d6
Buddy 1d10
Team   1d8

Distinctions
Charmingly Roguish/Roguishly Charming
Mercenary Past
Trusted Confidante

Mercenary Arsenal
Guns 1d8
SFX: Focus - If a dice pool contains a Mercenary Arsenal power, you may replace two dice with a die of +1 step.
Limit: Gear - Gain 1 PP to shutdown Mercenary Arsenal. Activate an opportunity or recover during a Transition Scene to regain it.

Combat Expert 1d8
Medical Expert 1d8
Tech Expert      1d8
Vehicle Master  1d10

Mooncopter
Silent as the Night
Unique Construction

Mooncopter Construction
Cannons                   1d10
Enhanced Durability  1d8
Enhanced Reflexes    1d8
High-Speed Flight     1d8
SFX: Area Attack - Add a 1d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.
SFX: Evasive Maneuvers - Step up or double High-Speed Flight when opposing a physical attack. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.
Limit: Piloted Vessel. Your ship takes stress separately from you and is destroyed by taking more than d12 stress. Anyone opposing a roll made using a Space Cruiser power may use the ship’s stress or the pilot’s stress.

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: Crimson Dynamo

I had an odd choice to make here.

Of all the designs, this is my
favourite.

The Crimson Dynamo has been an enemy of Iron Man since the early 60s, and while he's consistently lost to old Shellhead, their relationship has been a dynamic one, in part because while the armour has remained constant - well, in that it's red and stuffed with Soviet goodness - but the actual pilot and the abilities of the armour have changed a great deal over time. Sometimes it's lumbering and slow, other times nimble, other times possessed of unique or at least induplicable abilities.

And there's no stat block in the actual handbook so, based on the terms of my agreement with myself this time around*, I really shouldn't be building up an entry on the Crimson Dynamo armour anyway. So, what to do?

Well, a while back I'd bought a comic off of Marvel Online and with it came access to this giant back catalogue of stuff. Digging through, I found the appearance of the first Crimson Dynamo, Anton Vanko. He's a fantastic inventor, an amazing engineer and a scientist par excellence, dedicated to promoting the excellence of the Soviets. In a few panels, he shows himself to be highly intelligent, dedicated and keenly interested in technology, and sick and tired of contesting against America's showboating Iron Man, who's basically a jerk.

So, he builds a suit that almost takes out Iron Man until Stark picks him up and flies over a lake, threatening to drop him into the water which will short out his armour and likely kill him. Our frickin' hero.

Anyhow, later Stark dupes him into defecting to the United States where he's eventually blown up. End of story.

Ugh, that's awful. I mean, I get that he's supposed to be a bad guy, but you can't make him more sympathetic than the hero and expect me to cheer when the good guy threatens to electrocute him, and then fools him into abandoning the cause he'd dedicated his life to. So, I'm statting up Anton Venko. He's back, and he's angry.

* If there's a stat block, stat it up as a character, if there isn't one, make it into something else.

Anton Vanko

Solo    1d8

Buddy 1d4

Team   1d6

Distinctions

"Curse You, Iron Man!"

Mad Engineer

Still A Communist

Vanko Suit

Energy Blasts               1d8

Superhuman Durability 1d10

Vanko Generator          1d8

SFX: Absorption - On a successful reaction against an electrical attack action, convert your opponent's effect die into a Vanko Suit stunt or step up a Vanko Suit power by +1 for your next action. Spend a die from the doom pool to use this power even is your opponent succeeds.

SFX: Anti-Armor Capabilities - When you succeed on an attack against an opponent in a powered armour suit and are creating a complication, step up the effect die by +1 . Spend a die from the doom pool to also inflict stress on the target.

SFX: Area Effect - Add a 1d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

Limit: Gear - Add a die to the doom pool and shut down Vanko Suit. Activate an opportunity to recover.

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: Contemplator

"Hey, kid, wanna Squirrel
Nut Zipper?"

This is the first picture I ever saw of The Contemplator, and, well, it makes him look like an evil Cabbage Patch Kid who's just gotten too old for the company to sell and has kind of gone to seed. When he isn't cruising around his neighbourhood in a panel van that says "Free Candy" on the side, you can find him sitting on the back stoop, dressed like this, drinking back White Lightning with Lenny from down at the shop. You know Lenny, right?

What he does not look like is a man who has found complete and utter peace and oneness with the universe through constant contemplation of the mysteries of the cosmos, but that's what he is. He is, in fact, one of the Elders of the Universe, a group consisting of all of the most ancient living being in the universe who, through devotion to a single ideal, have achieved near-immortality, which is a decent enough idea and even explains how that grouchy old guy in your neighbourhood never seems to get any older despite the way he's constantly shouting at kids to get off of his lawn - he's actually an Elder of the Universe who draws his power from crotchetiness.

Anyhow, The Contemplator has been involved in a number of cosmic schemes, many of them surrounding either trying to kill Galactus or not get killed by Thanos, and sometimes both at the same time. He's also been the Make A Wish family for one of the back-up Captain Americas. Remember Adam II? Well, he helped a dying Jeff Mace get his final wish which was, apparently, punching an android. Hey, not going to judge.

Anyway, this is a pretty standard write-up for a character that you're not really supposed to defeat so much as circumvent or out-think.

Contemplator
Solo     1d8
Buddy  1d4
Team    1d8

Distinctions
Master Manipulator
Supremely Aware
Zen Master

Elder Focus
Astral Projection         1d12
Cosmic Awareness     1d12
Cosmic Flight             1d12
Cosmic Mastery         1d12
Superhuman Strength  1d10
Telepathy                   1d12
Teleportation              1d12
SFX: Healing - Add Cosmic Awareness to your dice pool when helping others recover stress or trauma. Spend a die form the doom pool to recover your own or another's mental stress or to step back your own or another's mental trauma by -1.
SFX: Immunity - Spend a die from the doom pool to ignore stress, trauma or complications from disease, poison, aging, radiation or outer space.
SFX: Invulnerable - Spend a die from the doom pool to ignore physical stress or trauma unless caused by a cosmic power.
SFX: Multipower - Use two or more Elder Focus powers in a single dice pool at -1 step for each additional power.
Limit: One With Everything - When you inflict stress on a target, you can add a die to the doom pool to take the stress as well at -1 step.

Cosmic Grandmaster   1d12
Psych Grandmaster      1d12

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: Captain America

America. Not "'Murica." America

Oof, this should be an easy one, right? Okay, enough with the sarcasm - Cap.

Oof.

So, he's kind of a big deal, this guy, right? And it's kind of funny that he is, considering that he showed up in comics for a few years, only to disappear. He was the biggest name in the Marvel vein of patriotic comics but, really, he wasn't that big of a deal.

Now? Three movies of his very own, plus two Avengers movies, his own monthly title, plus guest spots, well, just about everywhere. No, we aren't going to talk about the, "Hail, Hydra," thing. That actually sounds like it's turning out to be an interesting plotline where the actual cause of Cap turning Team Hydra was intentionally obvious because the point wasn't to make that a mystery, but to deal with the fallout.

We also aren't going to talk about Sam Wilson (formerly The Falcon) taking up the mantle because, frankly, I've only read one comic with him as Cap and it was pretty darned good.

Do I need to detail Cap's origin story? I bet I don't, but here goes. Steve Rogers started out as a good kid. Skinny, poor, hungry and desperate to get out of Brooklyn and fight for his country, but a good kid. Along comes a secret government program that, with a combination of drugs and radiation, turns him into a super-soldier. Years later, we'd find out that he was pretty much the only guy the program worked on. At various points, it's been that some of them didn't get the "Vita-Rays" or got an imperfect version of the serum, but it's often implied and is occasional absolute canon that the treatments "took" with Steve because he's just that kind of guy.

Nope, not being metaphorical. That's actual Cap, and that's
actually Hitler he's punching. Like a boss.

He fights his way through World War Two, punching Hitler along the way, and running with some pretty nifty heroes, some of whom I'll get the chance to visit late in this book. He also picks up some new enemies. A lot of them . . . have not stood up well to the test of time. A few, like Master Man, were introduced retroactively and proved to be pretty cool, but there's basically two major ones: Red Skull and Baron Zemo.

While deactivating a rocket in mid-flight, Cap ends up taking a dive into the Arctic Ocean, only to be found and thaws out decades later, just in time to join the nascent Avengers.

I'm pretty sure jaws don't look like that.
Pretty sure.

He's gone through a lot of phases, has Cap, and his power level has increased and waned. He's been in the hands of some of Marvel's best writers and artists, and has . . . not. There are definite issues with his rogue's gallery, in terms of the poor representation of minorities*, and some of the plotlines have definitely been more deftly handled than others, but at the end of the day he's an extremely recognizable and enviable character, and justifiably has served as the iconic Marvel character in the past, and no doubt will in the future.

And it's because of this that I'm statting him up as MCU Cap. I love comic book Cap but, dear goodness, is there a lot going on in his history that I'm just not getting into. I did this write-up and compared it to the official one in the Marvel Heroic handbook and found that while I'd put his Strength and Durability higher than in their write-up, we were otherwise much on the same page, and I think it's pretty clear that movie Cap is quite a bit stronger than his comic book counterpart.

* Yes, he picked up Falcon pretty soon on, but fairly shortly after it was established that Falcon was actually a recovering street criminal because of course he was.

Captain America
Solo       1d6
Buddy    1d8
Team      1d10

Distinctions
Battlefield Savvy
The Good (Super)Soldier
Leads From The Front

Super-Soldier Serum
Enhanced Speed          1d8
Enhanced Stamina        1d8
Superhuman Durability 1d10
Superhuman Strength   1d10
SFX: Immunity - Spend 1 PP to ignore stress, trauma or complications from poison, disease and aging.
SFX: "I Could This All Day" - Before you make an action inclusing a Super-Soldier power, you may move your physical stress die to the doom pool and step up the Super Soldier Serum power by +1 for this turn.
SFX: Lean In - Step up or double a Super Soldier Serum power against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.
Limit: Loyalty - Take 1 PP and increase stress by +1 when inflicted by an ally or former ally.

The Shield
Weapon                1d8
Godlike Durability 1d12
SFX: Area Attack - Add 1d6 and keep an additional effect die for each target.
Limit: Gear - Shut down The Shield and gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the doom pool to recover.

Acrobatics Expert   1d8
Combat Master      1d10
Cover Expert         1d8
Menace Expert      1d8
Psych Expert         1d8
Vehicle Expert       1d8

Making MHR Characters ANOHotMU:U #2: The Captain

Oh my gosh, you guys, Nextwave. Hipster superhero comics done right.

Did I mention he's also kinda ugly?

Their membership? Boom-Boom, a mutant refugee from the late 80s. Monica Rambeau, a superhero created literally just so Marvel could hold onto the "Captain Marvel" name for a while longer. Machine Man, basically a slightly more competent Inspector Gadget. Slightly. Elsa Bloodstone, a semi-immortal bounty hunter who'd never really found her footing in the comics. And the man known only as The Captain, mostly because he could never get the legal right to call himself Captain, well, Anything.

Seriously he went through a staggering number of "Captain" names, before finally settling on just "The Captain," although even then he had to pay off a melon farmer who already used the name.

He's your typical Superman type, possessed with the power of the Messianic-Siddha complex by the power of the Heartstar of the Place Between Galaxies, or at least so he was told by the aliens he promptly murdered because he thought that if you punched leprechauns like them in the head, they spat out gold.

He is . . . not bright. I've tried to give him a reasonable write-up, but really, he should be as gonzo as possible. I highly encourage anyone playing The Captain to constantly use Versatile to increase the chance of adding to the doom pool, and to use his last distinction to great effect. With my &#^@ blessing.

Oh, you might notice that he has Godlike Durability, but absolutely nothing to let him actually shrug off a hard hit. That's because he doesn't. Ever. He's the most jobbed brick ever, and it's hilarious.

The Captain
Solo      1d6
Buddy   1d8
Team     1d10

Distinctions
Abrasive Alcoholic
Dumb As A Post
Swears like &^%#

Power of the Heartstar
Flight                       1d10
Godlike Durability    1d12
Godlike Stamina      1d12
Godlike Strength     1d12
Superhuman Senses 1d10
SFX: Berserk - Add a die form the doom pool to one or more attack actions. Step up the doom pool die by +1 for each action; return it to the doom pool when you're done.
SFX: Burst - Step up or double a Power of the Heartstar against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.
SFX: Versatile - Split Godlike Strength into 2d10 or 3d8.
Limit: Screw-up - Both a 1 and 2 on your dice count as opportunities when using a Power of the Heartstar power.

Menace Master  1d8