Best Geek Ever!: superheroes

Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts

Public Domain Hero Origins: Captain Wonder

Hey uh..surprise! After a long hiatus of not doing anything, especially comics which I haven't done since Obama's first term here's...here's some comics!

I've been meaning to do more stuff with Public Domain heroes and since a game is taking me a lot to make (am now learning to animate so I can take on the animation stuff myself) well I decided why not just show people my ideas for how I'd reinvent these characters?

For my first test: Captain Wonder!

It took me like 2 weeks to make, in part because I lost the shading layers for some reason.

But uh...I don't want to say more I want the work to speak for itself.

Wonder vs Capture Proof of Concept!!!

at 9:55 PM

They're wings, guys. It's the Raven.

So I sure haven't been posting a lot since The Hurricane. There are a few reasons for that. Like, obviously he hurricane didn't leave me exactly intact. Also, I have been having lots of personal problems and my life basically sucks now more than before the hurricane. And certainly it's hard to get in the mood when you read about the state of the world.

But the main (and I guess less depressing) reason is because I've been hammering away at the fighting game project I told you about.

For those who don't know it was my plan to make a tag team fighting game using heroes from the public domain, with Gamemaker, which was donated by a Roberto Ledesma after the 2nd PR Gamejam in 2016 ( the third was cancelled because we had a fucking hurricane.). Since we got the power back I've dedicated any time not spent despairing into this baby, and I finally got something to show. Click here to DL!

Now, I am not deluded. This isn't even actually playable and the graphics are not gonna be this . A lot of the moves that are there have no effect (but not because I can't give it an effect, but because I'm trying to implement a hitbox system and I don't want to deal with that NOW.) I'm not showing you this barely functional thing because I believe it's impressive, but to prove that I'm not just a guy with a bunch of ideas, but a guy who can start coding them and indeed already has.

See, since last time I'm still hunting for other people to join this project. I figure there's gotta be somebody out there that likes fast fighting 3 on 3 tag team action ,ya know? The plan is to eventually get to some kind of crowdfunding so there's that.

So this proof of concept includes 10 characters, with special moves and Unique Assists. Unique assists are moves that can only be performed as assists, giving you more incentive to find different combinations and teams based not only on what they can bring to the fight on point, but also as assists.

Comet:
Comet is probably the most basic character I could think of. He can shoot a beam in nearly every direction and can also dash in nearly every direction.

Unique Assist: Sniping(not yet fully implemented)

Spider Queen: Spider Queen has several moves to trap her opponent in webbing, as well as climbing up walls.

Unique Assist: Poison Dart
A small dart that causes poison status in the opponent.

Captain Warvel
This character has thunder based attacks and can even turn into a small child briefly.

Unique Assist Upsy Daisy
Warvel throws the player character towards the opponent.

Bombshell
This character wields a magic sword and shield, and can deflect projectiles.

Unique Assist: Shieldbuster
This move is a short dash that is unblockable.

Iron Maiden:
Iron Maiden's main move is Power loader, which depending on the directon you press can change to change various other moves

Unique Assist: Homing attack. An attack that turns your opponent into a homie. Na, jk.

Black Dragon:
Besides having two kinds of projectiles so far, BDrags has a nasty dash attack and stomp.

Unique Assist: Stolen Chi
He actually uses the players life to raise the superbar.

Blue Bolt:
Bolt is a videogame character. In-story. So he has a main attack which involves basic projectiles but he can change it to shoot other kinds of attacks if an item for it appears. He can also dash across the screen on a board. He can also bounce off of your head, Mario style.

Unique Assist: Homing Attack
A dash move where BBolt flies toward the opponent. Unimplemented.

Sivana:A little inventor, Sivana uses her inventions to substitute for her lack of build. She can manipulate rocks to fall on the opponent as well as use a dash attack.

Unique Assist: Power Inhibitor
It cancels the opponents ability to execute specials and supers.

Daredevil
But not like MARVEL'S Daredevil. I'm still unsure if I'm gonna chicken out on the actual name. He's got a few wallbounce moves as well as a variety of boomerangs

Unique Assist: (uninplemented.)

Nightmare
Nightmare is a grappler. by holding and then releasing the special attack buttons he can do devastating throw. He's also meant to have a spin attack and a projectile.

Unique Assist: Helleport
He disapears and appears attacking at the opposite edge of the screen, attacking.

So besides that there's some things here that arn't necessarily gonna come intuitively to you. They are as follows.

Angel Dashing: By pressing back then forward while jumping you can fly in the general direction of your enemy.

Unjump: By pressing down, down while jumping you can accelerate your fall towards the ground

Assist Change: By pressing and holding a tag button you can change the assist types of your partners.

Combo Breaker: Pressing the attack button your opponent is using during a combo can result in a combo breaker.

Retcon
by holding kick and power together (Z and X) you can perform a retcon which temporarilly changes various stats in exchange for meter. Right now most changes do nothing and the input is not exactly final version but you know.

Hypermoves: Hypermoves aren't a thing yet but I already putted the imput. Just press punch and power(A and S) and uh...I think it freezes sometimes

melee attacks:
I mean, most fighting games have them, but they work a little different than in most games. You have 3 main attacks for each melee button(A and Z). To do the strong attack, push forward and punch/kick. To do the middle attack, press back.

Or, you can also do a magic series by chaining a quick hit first.

Modes to try!

Arcade mode
Arcade is pretty basic. There is unique boss dialogues if you can slog through it.

Stories!
Besides the basic arcade mode, I am planning on adding various stories to play through, fleshing out the world and also the characters.

Vs mode
Nothing special. Just fight each other and see which one's won most.

Training: It's training, perfect to test out all those moves the deep AI in arcade won't let you.

Custom Palettes: You can't really TAKE the palettes to the fight itself yet, but you can have fun messing with the colors

So, if you are interesting in helping this endeavor, I kinda do need an artist, an animator, and a music composer. And money. So...contact me at drawnder@gmail.com if you think this all sounds right up your alley.

11 Geek Comandments for adapting a work

at 12:00 PM

Michael Bay, stop making an idol in the shape of Shia Lebouf!

This days, just about everything is an adaptation of a comic, movie, book or candy, if not a sequel to an existing property, or a remake of an old movie. It all ties in into filmmakers trying to get your butt on a seat, and they think this is less of a risk than starting a whole new, original thing.

And it's fine. Yeah, you heard me. It is fine-ah! Back in my days trying to make a movie based on a comic or a game, tended to be seen as a risk. Nobody would have expected people to "GET" Avengers, as if this highly loved decades old material was something far beyond the comprehension of your average person.

Invariably, they made a lot of mistakes, which made what attempts they did do at the time laughable now. But there are some lessons in those that a lot of Hollywood suits still need. Which is why I'm making this handy guide. After all, the point of making these adaptations is to bring you into the movie initially, but to keep you there and bring in more people you need to know what they walked in expecting.

So I'm coming down from the mountain, with the stone tablets in my hand. These are the commandments for adapting any works I like.

1) Thou shalt not turn your villain to a guy in a suit

Fear me, Wonder Woman! I AM EGG FU!

I've mentioned this several times, but I'm going to expand it into a commandment, now, because Hwood obviously needs to hear it. So you got the rights to, pfft I don't know, Mortal Kombat. And its still a viable franchise after decades of being introduced. And you have to work in Shang Tsung, immortal demon sorcerer from another dimension, because he's one of the more popular characters. But then your like, "Oh, shit, that's too creative to work with and I want to make this movie super low budget, so in this case Shang Tsung will be a buisnessman working for Outworld Corp. Instead of a sorcerer, he's a CEO!"

Hey, HEY. This is Shang Tsung as a manager. TOTALLY different.

Not Marvel Baby! 5 Marvel fighting games Capcom didn't work on

at 2:30 PM

If you ask people their favorite fighting games, usually they'll name a Capcom one. They've owned the genre since 1991. They've made several series, but none more superheroey than The Marvel vs Capcom series. A 7 game spanning series (I'm being charitable letting Marvel vs Street fighter, but fuck UMVC3 being a whole entry.) IT is considered among the finest superhero fighting games, and overall king amongst brawlers.

Unsurprisingly, the Marvel License goes around, so others did tried their hand at making the residents of the house of ideas fight. Let's see the results.

Marvel Comic´s Avengers in Galactic Storm

For a time, there, Data East, of Double Dragon fame, had the Marvel License. They where mostly smart and kept to their area of expertise by making Double Dragon knock offs.

But at some point they got it into themselves to make a 1 on 1 fighting game. And so they made Marvel Comic's Avengers in Galactic Storm, based on the current storyline at the time where the Avengers got into a fight with the Kree.

Now, I'm all about taking up obscure and unused characters in this type of situations, but this game's biggest mistake might have been it's cast. For kids weaned on a series that had Wolverine and Spider-Man, big cartoon stars at the time, Thor substitute Thunderstrike fighting Dr Minerva while Iron-Man occasionally did a drive by was not exactly setting the roof on fire.

Also, the graphics were...prerendered cg. All the bad of mid 90s 3d graphics, crammed into all the bad of mid 90s sprite work.

Marvel Nemesis

During the time between Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 3, EA got the license for a while. And they got an ambitious idea: to launch a new set of heroes on the back of a Marvel crossover, on a fully realized free movement Powerstone style fighting game.

But it's not how far your goals are, but how good you are at getting there. Sadly, EA failed at making the game fullfill the lofty promises of it's premise. Maybe it's because it's new characters where...not that great. Or maybe it was the gameplay, which failed to have that "Superbattle between heroes" feeling they where going for.

Whatever it was, EA just couldn't cut it.

Unnamed Marvel fighting game from EA.

But why do we fall? So we can stagger for a bit and then fall again! EA tried again to raise a game from the bones of Marvel Nemesis, this time ditching it's original characters. Early footage looked pretty good, but the game got canned, so what are we gonna do.

On the games, the game was gonna correct the horrendous snobbing of Hulk in Marvel Nemesis.

Activision's Mutant Academy series

Activision had the rights to X-Men in the late 90s. And having learned it's lesson from the Capcom games, it opened the doors to X-Men: Mutant Academy shortly after 2000's X-Men movie. It even had costumes from it!

Over time they released a sequel, a Game Boy Advance iteration, and a third game called X-Men: The Next Dimension. I've only played that last one, as a way to cure my X-Men Fever after X2. It...was not so great. It's got interesting ideas and characters, but they're done in such a halfhearted manner, that all the Playable-For-The-First-Time Lady Deathstrikes in the world couldn't save it.

There was also this.

And every possible assumption you could have about it is true.

The M.U.G.E.N. stuff

Over time, several fans with more sprite editing expertise than knowledge of copyright laws have edited existing characters into new-ish characters for the M.U.G.E.N. fighting engine. So one day the Heroes/Char Thieves at M.U.G.E.N. Eternity picked many of these efforts along with some work of their own and cobbled them together into a package they called Super Marvel vs Capcom: Eternity of Heroes.

It's probably at it's best if you're largely unaware of M.U.G.E.N. I've played it and I just can't look past the fact. When you've been in there, you can feel the sprites haunt you. You can totally look at Symbiote Onslaught and go "Fuck, that's just Onslaught with a little dressing. And look, that's the Silver Surfer some guy started but never finished"

And while it's nice that you can play as Arthur and Captain Mar-Vell simultaneusly against Balrog and Centaur Man, it always feels like this characters came from completely different games, in part because they totally did do that.

　

There's other Marvel M.U.G.E.N. projects bouncing around, including Scruffy Dragon's Decade + effort to make a Marvel vs DC game. That one I followed for a long time, with the hopes I'd be able to make a rocking Black Manta and Mary Marvel for it. He. Didn't quite pan out.

　

Overall, while there have been sincere efforts to bring Marvel to fighting games, overall Capcom is still the reigning champ. But that's not to say we can't take another stab at it. I heard the Unreal Engine is free, now.

And Capcom, meanwhile, well...that's another story...

Horrendous Theory: My Super Ex Girlfriend is Superman's daughter.

at 10:39 AM

So the Superman Reboot did well enough to try and launch a joint universe out of it. It's kind of all right, but I just saw All Star Superman and that shit is just super fantastic and positive, and not just caked in grey morality/litteral gray.

I will punch you, Son of Jor El!!!!

Do I sometimes wonder what could have been if Superman Returns had had a sequel? Yes, I do. I even remember some vague rumors about Superman dating an Indian nurse in that movie, or something. But really, how do you follow on giving Superman a neglected, out of wedlock kid? It's so wrong, you know, putting Superman in the place of a guy who would lay and not even call back to check.

Except...that it already happened. In Superman III, Superman becomes infected with faulty Kryptonite by Richard Pryor and his friends, and as such, becomes evil. But not really "Elseworld's" evil, just kind of a general asshole.

"If you sing Super Hero Lover again, I will punt your head all the way to Hawaii."

The villains use computers to control all the world's petrolium carrying barges, because even bofore we invented the word "hacking" we were completely missunderstanding what they can and can't do. However one barge decides to ignore the orders, and so the villains decide it looks like a job for Superman.

They send Superman the bait, the main villain's sexy ass assistant Lorelei. She asks Superman to, as a personal favor worth points towards fucking her, divert the barge away from shore. Naturally, he complies. Sure, an evil Superman could probably have any woman he wants, and that's without veerying off into "unconsensual" talk, but I guess whatever gets the plot moving and keeps the rating under R.

But it's after that that things become interesting. Superman comes back to cash in on his poon coupon. And he does, albeit offscreen. And I think the fruit of said relationship is G-Girl, the main character from the movie "My Super Exgirlfriend".

It turns out the G spot was the heart all along.

Now you may have some questions. "Where is Superman in Super Ex-Girlfriend?" "Why doesn't she have Superman's exact powerset?" "Don't they explain her origin in that movie?" "Hey, Superman can't have kids with a human!" Joke's on you, that last one isn't even a question!

Let's begin with the last one. Superman Returns, being mildly in cannon with the Donner series, established that movie Superman CAN have kids with a woman. He just can't pay them alimony (goes for high-five). "But Superman Returns takes place after Superman II and cancels out Superman's III and IV!" Yeah, those are words. But what parts of Superman III and Superman IV get contradicted? Both of those movies could take place 2-3 months after Superman had his thing with Lois, and he'd then be able to fly away to space and leave her to take care of the kid. Hell, Lois' caribean vacation on 3 could have been where she met Richard White and dumped her Superkid on him.

Or, maybe this takes place in the Superman 3-4 timeline and not the Superman Returns timeline.

Kid, hopefully the worst you got from this movie was being slightly scared by Kevin Spacey.

So whatever, nobody said Superman CAN'T have kids in this movies.

I can definitively say why she doesn't have Superman's exact powerset. It's because she isn't really just Superman's daughter. She's Evil Superman thorugh faulty Kryptonite's daughter. Hell, that alone could account for her manically obsessive personality. She's got some Bad K in her genes, besides being raised by a criminal, maybe.

"whoawhoawhoooa...Your dad knew Gus Gorman?"

Yes, she does have an origin in the movie. She'd throw a Shark at a girl, yet you don't think she'd make up an origin story to hide her shameful parentage? Come on. Further, she got those powers from a meteor. Perhaps her Kryptonian side laid dormant until the meteor jump started them.

As for where Superman is, why would you assume he's be available to this one grown woman when he wasn't around for his kid of his main squeeze? Pick whatever answer you like: gone to space, dead, Mission in the Middle East. I can't do them all for you, you know? Now, who wants to hear about how Eggman is the Hero and Sonic is the villain?

5 ways in which Cyborg will suck as bad as Steel

at 9:24 AM

I don't envy you, kid. Except your charming good looks and your money and that you get to play a superhero, and you're a shoe in for an Obama Biopic.

Ah, yes, once again DC/WB had announced a bunch of movies, and like a kid saying he'll be a rockstar one day, you have to humor the idea that, even if you know in your heart you've heard the same flights of fancy from others, who are currently flipping burgers. You just don't have the heart to tell DC it's more likely to end up sweeping floors than it is to make a Wonder Woman movie.

If I know my DC it'll be back to just Batman in no time (and occasionally Supes getting a reboot), but let's play their game. Sure, you plan to have 2 DC films a year ,yeah, whatever. Green Lantern and everything.

But most baffling of all of those is Cyborg. Dc HAS been trying to push the character to the forefront as of this last few years. He's on the new 52 Justice League, and also features in a big way on recent DVD and game based affairs.

And he was also in a pretty popular cartoon over 10 years ago. But you all knew that.

It's not the first time DC has tried to get hype for a black tech based superheroe. Years ago, shortly after Superman did his little tango with death, a character rose from the ashes of synergy. Steel. He was my favorite. When I read Steel had a movie coming out, I thought it was great. But I had THIS guy in mind.

I always wondered how he managed to move the face, though.

Instead, I ran across THIS in my local Blockbuster.

His helmet was like the movie...they both flopped.

Now, I know it was a different time, where DC movies where slightly more likely to be supershitty and slightly more likely to exist(but not too much, either). But I feel Cyborg is gonna end up being closer to Steel than it will be to The Dark Knight. It's not just because they both star a black Superhero. Buuut...

5) A Black Superhero

No movie for you!

Well, it's not that making a movie about a black superhero is harder than anything. There's some good black superheroes out there, who just need their story told right.

It's just that, historically, they've never been done right. But right as in "anyone would watch it, even if they didn't have some kind of ban against White People stuff".

Or maybe you have some counter-examples?

Sadly, Steel had to rely on being a "Black" movie, with gangbanger enemies, a chika-chicka 70s soundtrack , and an obvious blaxploitation feel. This is gonna be one of the challenges of Cyborg because...

4) The character's worth depends on other characters.

Seriously, Cyborg's not even the most interesting Titan

So let's say I'm not heavilly invested in DC comics of today. In fact, I'm not. All I know from Cyborg is what I know from the Teen Titans the cartoon(he's a cyborg and likes yelling Booyah!)

Sell me Cyborg. What are his enemies? What makes him special? What makes him likable?

I suspect Cyborg is at his peak in the Teen Titans. He's got attachments, there, relations, stories. Just like Steel.

Steel's very origins where related to Superman. That's where he was at his most interesting. Otherwise he was just a black Ironman.

Which is one of the things where the movie goes wrong. Shaquille O'neil as a low ass budget Tony Stark? Come on!

Again, Cy-Hards, let me know if Cyborg has some great villains and stories waiting to be brought to screen. Otherwise, he, too might just end up saving the 'hood from a gun dealer operating out of an arcade.

3) The Tone is compromised

Not even Michael Jordan could have saved this tripe.

Steel the movie could never be like Steel the comic. No way with a budget like it had. The changes to it's source are mostly traceable to "not enough money." Even if it had had intentions of being the best possible movie starring the (other) Man of Steel...money wasn't enough for Flying.

Cyborg faces similar problems, but money's no object this time. For you see, Cyborg is being set up in next year's Batman V Superman.

For the record, here's Smallville's low budget Cyborg.

Whatever they're gonna do in 2020 depends heavilly on what the character is set up as in Batman vs Superman and in the Justice League movie. If that movie has Cyborg as a wise ass clown, or boring and generic the solo movie's director won't be able to turn him into the next Wolverine.

And what exactly will be set up, with Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, and Flash and Aquaman all also being set up? Is it like when they set up Hawkeye is a human who shoots arrows in Thor?

2) DC is bad at cinematic universe building, Solo movies.

"In my planet, liking fried chicken is totally a white people stereotype."

DC's terrible record at making movies that aren't Batman and Superman is well earned. But a large part of that comes from spinning of secondary and tertiary characters into their own movies. Because as long as we're not leaving our comfort zones(Gotham and Metropolis), we might as well dredge up some of the unexplored characters from there.

This is how we ended up with Catwoman, Supergirl, and yes, Steel. All these characters suffer from #4, and their movies are a testimony to that.

It might take some universe building, Marvel style, to get people into Cyborg. Or rather, the opposite of Marvel: try to use a team up to promote a single character. Their attempts to initiate a united universe have gone straight to hell so far, unless the Justice League movie they have coming up is called Justice League : Mortal and The Suicide Squad's Amanda Waller is played by Angela Basset.

If you're a betting man right now, money's good on them screwing up something that's both of the things they can't ever do right.

1) You can't do the Marvel, DC

We don't roll our eyes when Marvel announces their Captain Marvel movie, DC.

Franchises everywhere want in on the Marvel thing, from Universal Monsters to Robin Hood. As always, Hollywood studio heads completely misunderstand the very basics of what makes something a success.

Marvel's first couple of movies only had little hints at a larger universe. They also happened to be mostly good-to-great movies about characters who where not as popular as the X-MENs and Spider-Mans of the world.

A Mediocre Batman movie is already a half won battle. Millions of people in the world who only know what movies say through Subtitles, millions who'd never Wiki-binge the Dc pages or pick up a comic, know Batman and are willing to give him money.

Getting people to shell out a Bunch of money for Guardians of the Galaxy takes something WB didn't sure as hell put into Jonah Hex.

WB didn't put any heart into Steel. If they successfully put as much heart into Cyborg as much as they did Steel, and history so far says that's likely, then obviously it's poised to be the next Steel.

If it ever gets off the ground, that is. If you can actually go through with a plan to make a movie in 5 years, I'll eat my hat. That I'll have in 5 years

World exclusive look at Alpha Danger Squad behind-the-scene

at 10:52 AM

Here in BGE, I pride myself in bringing up obscure things that no one else is blogging about. And what could be more exclusive than a videogame that only exists in my mind. Here's a quick look at a little something I've worked up for Alpha Danger Squad, the only videogame starring public domain superheroes. Err, Mortal Kombat vs Dc Universe and Injustice notwithstanding.

It's missing the creepy music, though. I'm also happy to announce I'm advancing enough that I have the confidence to announce a proof of concept game for this summer. Called Alpha Danger Squad: Karno's Perfect Game, I will use it as a platform for my crowdfunding campaign. I wanted to call it Karno's Revenge, but I got legal cold feet.

So, more on that front soon.

World exclusive look at Alpha Danger Squad behind-the-scene

at 10:52 AM

Scolding Review:Birth of a Nation

at 9:26 AM

By my calculations, you should be paying 600 dollars per horse.

Award season is finally over, and we can finally put it behind us that movies people actually enjoy can hardly ever win. As fans of the scifi, adventure, and horror genres, we geeks feel this sting the most, as we must watch tepid, overdramatic pieces be recognized over the time Hulk slammed Loki into submission.

But it wasn't always like this. In fact, the very first Academy Awards show gave quite a few prizes to one of the genre pioneers, Birth of a Nation.

I had heard of this movie in passing, and thought I'd give it a review. After all, it's not every day you see a silent film with Zombies and masked Vigilantes by D.W. Wright, surely the Michael Bay of his time, but probably not as racist or at least with a better handle on history. I tried to avoid all spoilers, including not looking at Wikipedia and not reading the subtitles. After all, I think the drama can sell itsel well enought. Are you ready for an epic story full of Superheroes fighting Zombies? Well, it's after the jump!

I have been informed that Birth of a Nation is NOT a film about Superheroes, nor are it's antagonists "zombies". I apologize for my mistake. Enjoy your day.