Just Stay at Home

Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.

Here I try to give you some good clean old-fashioned fun, like mad Jean Loring wrecking the planet with earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricane and the tragic story of unreciprocated love between a pirate and his bosun.

And what I get for this selfless entertainment of the people?

ATTACKED BY THE WIND PIRATE!


Yes, Totaltoyz secretly set a custom-made Wind Pirate Heroclix figure upon me, in all its absurd glory. Accurate right down to the marzipan magenta skull-flower on his Cap'n Crunch hat.

In case you wondering what the Wind Pirate can do, he sits appropriately enough on a Major Disaster dial; here is his card...


Although the Wind Pirate was not given a name in his one and only story, his backstory on this card lists him as Navy weather scientist Gilbert Sullivan. I assume his middle initial is "N". Probably for "Nancy" (family name, I'm sure).

I'll have to team him up with one of my Jean Loring customs. Or have a new one made, with her in a torn magenta dress and special powers that let her destroy entire portions of the map. Then once she's kayoed she becomes a special object that gives those same powers to adjacent colleagues.

But now I'm also going to need a Bosun figure with some sort of minion power ("Bitchslap: Wind Pirate may Mastermind attack damage or pushing damage to Bosun, making Bosun really hot") and a Piratical Parakeet pog with the power to Perplex ornithologists and Hal Jordan.

Wizkids, makers of the superhero table-top game “Heroclix”, has just announced that their next full DC expansion set will be Superman-themed.

Wizkids had great success recently with two Marvel sets focused around one main character (the “Web of Spider-Man” and “Hammer of Thor” sets). This “Cape of Superman” set will be the first DC set focusing on one character. While the “Arkham Asylum” set had a healthy representation of Batman and villains it was more of a potpourri than its name suggests. After all, it included figures like Human Bomb, Ghost Fox Killer, Lightning Lord, Amon Sur, and Metron.

The potpourri strategy was a sensible one. Seldom was any one customer overjoyed at the list of characters in any one set, but each set had enough variety to entice almost everyone to get it for the characters they did like.

But the evolution of the game gave this strategy unfortunate side effects. Characters you really wanted to play together were spread out across many sets. For example, after ten years, you still can’t field a Detroit League Team because they’ve never made Steel (*ugh*) or Vibe (*popping hearts around head*). Also, early characters were often hopelessly outclassed by later figures they should have been compatible with, simply because the game mechanics had been improved. There hasn’t been a solo figure of the comic book Catwoman since the first DC set ten years ago, and it’s nearly unplayable in today’s game.

As a character represented in Heroclix, Superman has suffered from these side effects. I can easily put together plenty of Heroclix teams (good and evil) to play around Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and (with a bit of customizing) even Aquaman. But a Superman teams still remain a challenge to compose. The sets always have a Superman—there are plenty of great versions of him—but his allies and enemies have been wanting.

With the advent of individualized “special powers”, rather than dials composed entirely out from a group of generic “standard powers”, Heroclix has made great strides in playability and comic book accuracy of its figures, including recent additions to the Metropolis Heroclix rolls like the Kryptonite Man figure. But this new Superman-centric set provides a fresh opportunity to bring Metropolis alive on the Heroclix maps.

Which leads to my actual point: Wizkids, don’t give short shrift to the supporting cast. Superman’s supporting cast is much more important than almost any other character’s, and a more central part of his mythos. Jimmy Olsen’s public profile is enormous; people who can’t name three Superman villains can all name Perry White, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy Olsen’s comic book ran for 20 years, for pity’s sake. Yet, after ten years, there’s still no Jimmy Olsen figure in Heroclix, though Wizkids has managed to emplasticify such mayflies and lowlights as Forerunner, Aztek, Shimmer, the Holiday Killer, and the Human Defense Corps. Julius H. Schwartz, you could make an entire sixty-figure set (plus addition LEs) of nothing BUT Jimmy Olsen figures, each one a different one of his bizarre transformations or alter-identities.

Wizkids has gotten much wiser in including “regular people” characters as supporting figures in their newer sets (such as Mary Jane Watson, J. Jonah Jameson, Alfred Pennyworth, and Amanda Waller). They used to just represent them as one-click deep pogs! But I want to encourage them to go even further in that direction: I shouldn’t have to have ordered customs made just to have important characters like Iris West, Jean Loring, Steve Trevor, Etta Candy, and Jimmy Olsen on the board.

In short… if Jimmy Olsen and Perry White are not represented in this “Cape of Superman” set, I am going to be really ticked off.

P.S. It's hard to be too critical of Wizkids in this respect, since DC itself seems to have half-forgotten the importance of a recognizable, long-term supporting cast to a successful superhero mythos. Only Geoff Johns seems to get it. Fortunately for the fate of supporting characters, his influence is powerful and wide, so maybe others will start to catch on.

You know what’s missing from Heroclix?



Bodies.



Warm, living, innocent civilian bodies (or at least tiny cold plastic representations thereof). In a “real” comic book battle, one of the most common issues is the welfare of the innocent bystanders. How often the hero has to “take the fight away from this populated area”. How often the weaker but more mobile team-members are assigned crowd control and evacuation. How often an evildoer takes a hostage to proof himself against batarangs, plastic-cat arrows, and ill-defined energy blasts. Without such opportunities, how’s a villain supposed to do his job?



Yet Heroclix battles seem to take place in an unpeopled social vacuum, an oddly tidy post-apocalyptic wasteland where no signs of life remain other than abandoned hot-carts and bubblegum machines. There are no elders, no adults, no children, no pets, no birds, no bugs, and no airborne viruses. Nothing but capes and criminals. And Lois Lane.



And that’s just not how the real (?) comic book world is. So I’ve begun incorporating bystanders into my Heroclix games.



Heroclix did originally began with Bystanders as part of the game. They were tokens—pogs, as it were—of either stock characters (e.g., “The Politician” or “The Paper Boy”) or of well-known supporting characters (e.g. “Alfred Pennyworth” or “Linda Park”). Wizkids (makers of Heroclix) clearly had a sense that such characters needed to be included in the game, but they gave insufficient thought to making an appropriate role for them in the game’s mechanics. As a result, the on-line forums for Heroclix players blossomed with strategies like Superman using baby Lian Harper as a ‘meat shield’ to protect himself, Alfred’s enduring partnership with the Legion of Super-Heroes as their camouflage expert, and how Galactus can conquer the universe aided only by an army of clones of Aunt May.



Over time, Wizkids realized that Heroclix’s ability to represent comic book characters accurately is one of its competitive advantages, and one that distinguishes it from a host of other table-top games. Heroclix is at least as much about its four-color atmosphere as it is game mechanics. Within that in mind, they’ve discontinued “pogs” (along with the out-of-character strategies they fostered) and have made some of the more important supporting characters into regular figures (e.g. Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Lois Lane).



But my nature abhors a social vacuum, so recently I’ve been adding bystanders back into the mix as part of my house rules for the game. And you can, too!



Buy Standers



You could use pennies or beads to represent bystanders but it ruins the flavor of the game. It would be like playing Heroclix with no sculpts on the dials and with only terrain markers on the maps. Just do what I did, go to the dollar store and buy some toy soldiers or firefighters or such. They are recognizable as people, similar to Heroclix in size, stand up on their own, and easily distinguished from the “real” figures in the game. You’ll need about 40.



Extras Find their Marks



After the real game pieces have been set up in their starting areas, place the bystanders as follows.

· Do not put any in the starting area rows or the row adjacent.

· For each other row, roll a pair of dice of two different colors (let’s say, one red and one blue). The red die tells you where to place figures to the right of the spine of the map (the line between Columns H & I) and the blue one is for the left. For example, if for Row 4 you roll a Red 1 and a Blue 6, you would place a bystander at I4 (one space to the right of the spine) and at C4 (six spaces to the left of the spine). If you want bystanders to be sparser, roll two dice for each side rather than one. Treat a roll of nine as if it were a one, and if you roll 10-12, omit placing the figure.

· If a square is blocked, just skip putting a bystander there.

· Repeat the process for Rows 4 through 21, and you’ll have bystanders randomly distributed throughout the map.



“Get out of my way, inferior beings!”



Bystanders block lines of sight. Non-flying figures (including bystanders) cannot move through a square occupied by a bystander. Bystanders are neutral figures with regard to breakaway. Bystanders are affected by hindering terrain and blocking terrain as normal.



“EEK!”

Bystanders have only one goal: run away from the fighting. Because when a guy with a bow and arrow starts shooting at a talking gorilla in your airport terminal, you change your travel plans mighty fast. None of this “Gosh, the Spoiler needs our help!” or “If you want to hurt Halo you’ll have to get through me!” nonsense for our bystanders; they are practical people, with other, non-combat places to be Besides, since they live in the DCU, they’ve see all this already. So at the end of each round of turns, they try to run away. But how? And whither?



Bystanders head for the closest exits, of course. You need to decide in advance where those are. What makes sense as an exit depends on what map you’re playing on, of course, but a good ‘default exit’ is the starting areas. That way, both teams are sure to have panicked citizens pouring toward them as they wade their way into battle.



At the end of each round of turns, one die is rolled to determine movement for all the bystanders. Each bystander moves toward the closet exit, as many squares as the die roll (and other obstacles) permit. They should always move, if possible, away from regular figures, as well. For example, if a regular figure is directly between a bystander and an exit, the bystander will, obstacles permitting, move diagonally so that he’s both moving both toward the exit and away from the figure. Although all bystanders get a move after each round, they don’t exactly move simultaneously; ones on outer rows move first, followed by the inner rows. So, first the ones in Rows 4 and 21 are moved, followed by those in Row 5 and 20, etc.



With the right terrain, the bystander will create unpredictable logjams that regular figures will have to work around until the citizens clear out. After a few rounds, almost all the bystanders will have escaped, except for those who have become …



HOSTAGES!



I love this part. Bystanders aren’t just ‘moving terrain’; they’re ‘special objects’, too. Villains can, if you wish, land on the same square as a bystander and take it hostage. Hostages function sort of like objects, except a figure doesn’t need superstrength to “carry” one.



Villains with a hostage:

· Move at half their speed

· Cannot be the target of a ranged attack

· Get plus one to their Defense against close combat attack

· Can, if they have superstrength, throw the hostage at an opponent up to six squares away to whom he has line of fire; this action incapacitates the opponent automatically (because they have to ‘catch’ the hostage). The hostage is then placed adjacent to the hero, but not in between the hero and the hostage-taker.



Naturally, the main advantage to hostage-taking is immunity from ranged attack. Sick of getting bopped by batarangs from the shadows? Grab a hostage! Oh, and no sneaky rules-lawyering to get around the direct attack thing. No fair trying to zap the hostage-taker with Pulse Wave or splash damage or Force Blast; don’t want to hurt an innocent hostage!



Now, if you’re automatically thinking, “Well, how can I tell the difference between a villain and a hero? How do I make such an arbitrary distinction not covered by the keywords in the game? And what if I’m playing two teams of heroes against each other?” Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, then I can’t help you and you’re probably playing Marvel Heroclix anyway.



“RUN!”



Hostages can escape from villains:

· If a hero does damage to the hostage-taker, or

· If a player uses an action to give him a chance to breakaway (which requires a roll of six), or

· If the hostage-taker makes a critical miss or

· If the hostage-taker has two action tokens on him, and adjacent hero breaks away, the hero can carry the hostage off with him, releasing it in a square adjacent to wherever he stops.

In these cases the hostage is ‘released’ into an adjacent square, then to run away to be interviewed by Clark Kent, looking for a human interest angle to the latest super-donnybrook.





Is this a foolproof, watertight addition to the regular rules of the game without any unforeseen issues for game mechanics? HECK, NO!



But it is fun, gives the villains a fighting chance, and feels a lot more like a comic book than a battle in an utterly barren landscape.

I'd say we're due for a Heroclix post!


Wizkids is pumping out the DC 'clix this year: The Brave & the Bold set at year's start, two
starter/collector minisets (Blackest Night and Brightest Day seven-piece sets) , and the forthcoming DC 75th Anniversary Set.






Some of the 75th Anniversary pieces have been revealed already, such as long-awaited Golden Agers like the original Mr. Terrific and Crimson Avenger, essential foes like Ragdoll and Ocean Master, boss/minions like Sgt. Rock/Easy Company, more full-spectrum lanterns, and wacky factors like Sargon the Sorceror and Detective Chimp.


But what would a DC Anniversary set be without.... gorillas?







Okay, I'm not expecting "JLApe" pieces (glorious though those would be). But I will be surprised and disappointed if we don't get something like gorilla generics for Grodd (as part of the latest craze for more functional generics that use some sort of 'minion' power that weighs heavily in favor of using them with their appropriate 'boss' figures). C'mon; you KNOW you want to be able to field a team of nothing but gorillas.


So I'm preparing. My (plastic) crack customizing team in the sub-sub-basement of the Pentagon (you know-- where they kept the Telephone Avatar?) has prepared this little gem representing one of the great One-Off Gorilla Characters of all time....

For those few of you who don't already know, the

was a criminal mastermind who drank a "gorilla serum" (I bet you didn't know there WAS such a thing! Darn you, FDA!) and probably spent most of his ill-gotten gorilla-crime-gains at Gambi's tailor shop buying silverback-sized pinstriped zoot suits and french-cuff shirts. And he fought Animal Man. And by "fought" I mean, "tossed him around like a ragdoll until the gorilla serum wore off".

Naturally, a character this inspired belongs in my Heroclix collection. And so, behold:


I considered giving him a Special Trait that lets him use Animal Man as a permanent Light Object if he manages to kayo him. But I think I'll just keep that as a House Rule.

RRARRR, Black Lantern Azrael here again with some seriously good news for all my fans. In the same way that I and the other forgotten heroes of the DCU have risen from our graves, WizKids' HeroClix game also seems to have been reborn.

Why does this matter? RRARRR! I'll tell you. I only got one HeroClix to represent me, while guys like Hawkman, Booster Gold, and Aquaman got two or more. What are the chances that we'll be seeing HeroClix representing the legions of Black Lanterns? Pretty good, no? And don't you think they're likely to include most of the Lanterns who got lines in the mini-series?

Black Lanterns like me. Don't deny it: when you see those new Azrael HeroClix you'll be feeling avarice. RRARRR!

Heroclix is back from the dead!

For those of you who can't access that article, Heroclix, the superhero-comic-themed tabletop strategy game I've written about on occasion, seemed to have died when its company, Wizkids, was closed by its parent company, Topps. But the involvement of another company, NECA, has brought Heroclix back to life, with a Marvel set coming out this fall (Hammer of Thor) and a DC set in the Spring (Brave & The Bold).

To celebrate, I offer you this map of an abandoned churchyard and graveyard as a venue for a Black Lantern themed game.

Candidates for a Black Lantern team include figures that represent characters whom we've seen, or know we will see, resurrected as Black Lanterns (e.g., Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Amon Sur, Golden Age Superman, Hawk, the original Firestorm, the Spectre, Deadman). Candidates for a team to oppose them include those whom we have seeing fighting the BLs (e.g., Superman, Superboy, Flash, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Star Sapphire, Sinestro, the living Titans, Deadman, Phantom Stranger, Hawkman, Hawkgirl). Don't put the same ch character on each team, LOL!

Also: the Black Lantern team MUST have Black Hand on it. Any of his teammates whom he can see may automatically heal one click as a free action of the beginning of their turn. And if his team KOs a figure, he can 'bring it back from the dead' as a power action and put it on his team. Resurrected figures reappear wherever they fell, and start on their last click. Because the odds are obviously in the Black Lanterns favor, all the opposing team has to do is KO Black Hand, and flee off the edge of the board. If they can.

It's not likely there will be Black Lantern heroclix made any time soon, so if you want some, you might look for a customer clix maker to create them for you...!

Just a brief note, which should be of particular interest to certain supervillains who like to imagine themselves to be bloggers...

I've been playing a solitaire game of Heroclix that honors the first issue of the new Doom Patrol series, with my DP-themed team of 750 points against a team of villains associated with Oolong Island. I'm playing on my Big Monkey Store Map, which naturally breaks the action up into different theaters of war.

While the Doom Patrol has been busy fighting Giganta, Dr. Domino, and Angle Man, (and getting nowhere),

the Metal Men (who are the, ahem, 'co-feature' in the back of Doom Patrol) successfully took out Egg Fu (that's Chang Tzu to you kiddies) and then...

wait for it...

they kicked Dr. Polaris's patootie.

Yes, you heard right. Dr. Polaris, the *snicker* "master of magnetism", was handed his funny-looking hat by ... the Metal Men.

OH, the comic book irony.

AND, Iron wasn't even helping out. He was elsewhere, casually holding his own against BIZARRO.

Sure, the Metal Men had a little help from Beast Boy, but, you know, how much of a difference is that? The Metal Men pwned DOCTOR POLARIS with one metal tied behind their backs.

Metal Men rocked, and Dr. Polaris rolled. *Snort*!

A new friend to the Bat-Blog Fan Site, named Dan ( who lives in NJ ), sent us these wonderful photos of his extremely cool Batman Toy & Memorabilia Collection! The main focus seems to be The Dark Knight movie but he also has some great vintage items as well. For example, on one bookcase I see a 1966 Batman TV Show Theme Record & on the floor is a 1989 Batman Movie Calendar, ha ha! Actually, there's a very nice selection of stuff here to drool over. Thank you Dan for sending these great pics, I really appreciate that! I want to invite all Bat-Blog Readers to do the same. Sharing the love of the character & the joys of being a collector is really what this site is all about!!

I just love the Hal Jordan heroclix figure. Thanks to a wise use of the "special power" mechanic, he slices, he dices, he makes Julienne fries. Best thing? He can take a wallop almost as well as Goofy.

So, in honor of Hal Jordan generally and of his heroclix figure in particular, I've designed some new objects to use when he's in the game.

Objects, by the way, are tokens used in the game to represent, well, objects. There are two basic kinds of objects: light (marked by a yellow border) and heavy (marked by a red border). Three of each are placed on the map at the beginning of each game. Light and heavy, by the way, are relative terms; a gumball machine is a "light" object, for example. That's why only figures with the Superstrength power can pick up regular objects on a heroclix map. A light object adds one to the damage dealt by a character attacking an adjacent foe, and a heavy object adds two. You can also throw them at opponents, which is fun but usually a waste of a good object. Once used in an attack (successfully or not), the object is "destroyed" and removed from the board.

There are also "special objects" (marked by a blue border), each of which has its own special rules. Most of the "official" special objects are tedious techno-crap that must appeal to Marvel Heroclix players: Structural Integrity Field Generators, Kinetic Absorbers and Accelerators, Dynamostats. I know what a gumball machine is; what the hell is a dynamostat?

Whatever. I'm from DC; where are the objects we need? Giant typewriters. Manhole covers. Stuffed bear heads. You know.... the stuff we actually see in our stories. Not only do we deserve more DCish objects, certain DC characters cry out for peculiar objects of their own. And no character says "peculiar object" more than Hal Jordan & His Amazing Head.

We've already created tokens for two of the greatest object-foes of Hal's head, the Yellow Ceiling Tile and the Heavy Yellow Lamp. But Hal deserves more.

Stalactites (Heavy Object) Face it, a good 17 percent of all the action in DC comics takes place in a cave somewhere. For pity's sake, DC has had spelunkers as cover headliners.

An Oscar (Light object)

Who needs Billy Crystal? Let Hal host the Academy Awards every year and just wait to see who klonks him on the head with Oscar, how, and why. You know you'd watch.

Truly, Hal getting hit in the head by the Space Owl is one of comic book television's 113 Greatest Moments (which also includes the first appearance of Huntress's breasts in live action, the Joker versus Scooby Doo, and Alan Ritchson in wet angry bondage). Some evenings I just curl up on the sofa with my lapdog and my laptop and put the "Magno-beam-guided Space Owl Hits Hal on Head" sequence on infinite loop and nod off to the soothing sound of a space owl hitting Hal's head again and again and again like waves on the shore... . Usually, that's after a finite loop of Alan Ritchson in wet angry bondage, but that's another story. Ahem, anyway, the Space Owl comes with same rules as the Toy Airplane.

This object can be wielded just like a regular heavy object. But it's more fun to leave it in place because of its special rules: Hal may not destroy "The Sign" with a standard attack, but as long as Hal can make an action and is not within range to attack any opposing figure, Hal must fly headfirst to "The Sign", destroying it, if it is in within range of his speed value. Just have Dr. Polaris or Sinestro park their car within shooting distance of the sign and wait for Hal to show up!

From the folks at Save Heroclix

Sorry for the radio silence for the last week or so; we've been hearing some tremendous news and we've been waiting for the time where we could spill some major beans. While we can't say things in plain English yet, we do have some announcements.

#1 HeroClix will be sold, and it will be sold shortly. Both Topps and a newly formed game company have agreed in principle, and are hashing out their final deal.

#2 The game will be sold to a new ownership group that Pinata Games' members have met with and talked with over the past few months. They're nice people and we think they have some solid ideas...some BIG ideas. We've worked together with them on a few little projects tied into their purchase of the brands.

#3 In addition to HeroClix, the new group is buying some other brands from Topps, and other WizKids' fans may be delighted to hear what the new group wants to do with them.

#4 While Pinata Games will not be owners of the properties, we are working on a long-term deal with the new owners to collaborate with them on the relaunch and operation of HeroClix. We officially will announce our partnership with the new group after the purchase of the brands.

#5 Justin Ziran (CEO of Pinata) has been out-of-state talking with the new ownership group for the past few days, and he has nothing but good news to report. We anticipate a formal announcement some time over the next couple of weeks, which may have some other interesting news in it as well.

To reiterate, this is great news, and we'd like to thank all of the HC fans for remaining so resolute during this process.

-Jake Theis

This one I'm proud of. ..

Heroclix needs some love lately as the company that had the license and was making it got closed, and it's been shopping for a new daddy. My sources tell me prospects actually are good, but in the meantime, players are a little sad.

This should cheer them up!Oh, yeah. As Dick Grayson said, "the cave's not the cave without all the stuff."

Hindering terrain is provided by the three most identifiable trophies (the card, the penny, and the dinosaur), as well as other trophy cases, and an old bat-signal. The Batmobile awaits on an elevated platform, flanked by a bottomless pit; if a figure get knocked into it, it's out of the game!

The Batsub gives some water terrain for a visit from Aquaman and stalgmites/stalactites serves as blocking terrain (one of them is actual a rock arch, and you can walk through it). The giant floor map of Gotham makes me happy, and you can exit via the staircase or Alfred's service elevator. Perhaps a Wayne Manor map should be made to place adjacent, eh?

Most Heroclix maps just aren't spooky enough.

Oh, they're fine if you're fond of the glitterati heroes, with their zappy powers and flaming hairdos. But I'm a fan of the scitterati set, with their smoke bombs and skulking capes. And face it, these are not characters who fling hot dog carts at you in the middle of a sunlit park.

I want an appropriate place where Batman and Dr. Mid-Nite can throw smoke bombs at the Scarecrow; where the Blue and Red Devils can confront Etrigan about his breath; where Deadman and the Phantom Stranger can chase the Gentleman Ghost and the Shade; where the Spectre can teach Ragman to sew.

And, so, I created

This one is for you, Wonder Woman!

Or, at least, for you Heroclix-playing fans of Wonder Woman. Some of my favorite Heroclix figures don't always have the maps that they deserve. Take, for example, the most recent Wonder Woman Heroclix figure:

"I am sorry, sister; but I must shove this Ionic column up your septum!"

Even without going into her dial, it's pretty clear this Wonder Woman is not to be trifled with. So I made her this temple map.


Yeah, I know that actual rituals were seldom performed within the naos of a temple, so the altar is kind of out of place; but nobody knows that other than you and I. Besides, the map needed both color and cover, which the altar, the braziers, and (if you're Aquaman) the pools provide. There's even some elevated terrain, courtesy of the goddess's pedestal. And, please note that the columns are blocking terrain.

Get this map printed and trot this 700-pt level team:

• Nubia (69 pts),
• Cassie "Wonder Girl" Sandsmark (87 pts),
• Donna "Wonder Girl" Troy (94 pts),
• Artemis (95 pts),
• Hipployta in her WW garb (106 pts), and
• Wonder Woman the Column-Carrier herself (at a whopping 248 pts).

• The Cheetah (63 pts),
• Dr. Psycho (100 pts),
• Giganta (108 pts),
• Circe (149 pts),
• and the Big Bad himself, Ares (275 pts).

In a previous post, Absorbascommando Steven Mitchell challenged me to make a Heroclix map of Dr. Fate's Tower, which I deemed impossible.

Naturally, I start worked on immediately.

As Fate fans will know, Dr. Fate's Tower has, in recent years, been portrayed as having architecture reminiscent of Escher's "Relativity". Now, the rules of Heroclix don't even take into account things like windows and doors that close, or make a distinction between crawling over rubble at noon and walking through a dark alley at midnight. So you can imagine, representing something as wacky as Fate's Tower is a tall order. One good thing, though; the Tower doesn't even have doors and windows.

Not only is the Tower's architecture wacky, but it changes (and the first person who says, "Just like Hogwarts!" is fired). Plus, like the Escher piece that inspired it, the architecture is relative; it's different for each person standing in different parts of the Tower.

Yeesh! That's impossible.

Here it is anyway.

Look what I got from Totaltoyz for Klordny!


Dr. Thomas Wayne, wearing his Bat-person masquerade costume:

Shoulda worn THAT to the theater, Tom.

As my friend Chris said,

"What's his special power? Getting shot?"

No, wise-acre: healing. He was a doctor, remember? He's on the dial of the old veteran paramedic.

And this eye-popper:

The Golden Age Aquaman
Yellow gloves are the key.


The Golden Age Aquaman is a tour-de-force of subtle symbolic power.

The message in a bottle? Well, that's how surface dwellers communicate with Aquaman. And note the piece of a battleship that Aquaman punched a hole in. Yup, that's the Golden Age Aquaman, alright. He even came with a character card that has Superstrength listed as "punch a hole in a battleship".

His dial is the 70 point Aquaman (jl101).