JuJuBit: Bull's-Eye

 Our next JuJuBit figure profile is BULL'S-EYE.

or, as he is less actionably known, Leapo the Clown.

As you may remember, Bull's-Eye is the completely original one-of-a-kind clown-like villain who used to battle Green Arrow in the Golden Age.

There's no backstory as to how his face got That Way (or whether he just wears elaborate make-up while lounging around the hideout).  You don't have to be that deep to be Green Arrow's nemesis.

"Battle" is rather a strong word.  

God, I love Bull's-Eye.  Never any elaborate traps or devices; he simply clobbers Green Arrow with whatever happens to be lying around. He's an improv comic.

Mostly Bull's-Eye made a fool out of Green Arrow (no challenge there) until the very end where he would be caught through some turn of bad luck. As if being a Green Arrow villain were not bad luck enough!

Bull's-Eye schtick was that. he was a former acrobatic clown ("Leapo") whose specially was dodging projectiles, making him the perfect living target to confound Green Arrow.

Confounding Green Arrow is fun but not especially difficult.

The JuJubit sculpt was based on this image of B-E:

That signature is George Papp, co-creator of Green Arrow.

Given his schtick, I knew that his Heroclix dial would need to grant him "Leap/Climb" (a mobility power that allows easily change elevations and escape from opponents) and some other powers that might make him difficult to hit.  I also wanted him to be a low-cost figure so that he would be easily added to teams; a "harasser" rather than a "tentpole".

So, I chose this dial:

Some obscure Marvel menace, I believe.

It has two "move and attack" powers (Running Shot and Charge) and three "hit avoidance powers" (Deflection, Combat Reflexes and the Super-senses granted by his team ability), all of which is perfect for his M.O. of attacking on the go and being hard to hit.  The trait that grants leap/climb and a free change of elevation screams "Leapo"!  And he has power Ranged Combat Expert and Close Combat Expert (which shows he's both a crack shot and wicked hand-to-hand opponent).  The Wildcard team ability (that's the Question Mark in a circle) allows him to fit in on any team of villains.  Plus, he's got TWO starting lines, meaning you can play him at a more threatening 50 points or at a still spicy 25 points.

It looks like this on his customized card:

I have a lot of customized Green Arrow villains in Heroclix (e.g., the Red Dart and the Octopus), but Leapo is going to be my favorite!

JuJuBit: Wild Dog!

Our next JuJuBit profile is: Wild Dog (a.k.a. René Ramirez, as portrayed by Rick Gonzalez on The CW's hit show, Arrow)

Or, more accurately, Wild DogS.

On our left, O.G. Wild Dog, Wild Dog in his original homemade outfit.

Which is VERY comic-book-accurate, by the way.

On our right is Wild Dog 2.0; same guy, but with a new, high-tech outfit (courtesy of Green Arrow's team).  I remain extremely impressed at this design and how it echoes the origin costume, while still looking like modern protective gear.

I also remain impressed that Rick Gonzales could make Wild Dog both the funniest AND most believably badass character on the show (despite stiff competition from Green Arrow and Arsenal in both categories!).

So for two versions of Wild Dog, I wanted a Heroclix dial with two different starting lines, one for each figure.  So I got two of these guys:

Like Wild Dog, Moon Knight is rather a loose cannon.

Adapting this dial for the character looks like this:

I will add the appropriate photo in the circle once I print out the card.

Obviously, a change to appropriate keywords was in order. Also, because René Ramirez was a Navy SEAL, I gave him the "Swim" combat symbol (which provides an advantage in water squares).  Speed powers of "running shot" and "charge" (move and make a long-range attack; move and make a short-range attack) capture Wild Dog's "proactive" approach to combat and military experience; so, too, the abilities granted by his special traits.  Triple targeting and improvement movement evoke his 'sleep shooting and keep moving' tactics. Precision Strike attack power lets him do one damage to a hit opponent no matter what damage-reducing powers they might have.  For defense powers, the damage-reducing Toughness and defense-increasing Combat Reflexes represent his armor and military experience.  His damage powers of Perplex and Close Combat Expert similarly evince his unpredictability and combat training.  

Each sculpt will go on one of these dials;  the 2.0 version will go on the 60 point full-dial and the O.G. version will stay set on the 35 point second-starting line version.  That way I have two consistent versions of Wild Dog at different point values, making the character easier to include on various teams (because, in case you didn't notice, I really like Wild Dog).

Jujubit: Red Bee

 My first profile JujuBit creation is the Red Bee.

If you don't know who the Red Bee is, well, where have you been?  He's a Golden Age hero who had a usual hook and a very brief floruit. This sculpt of him was generated from this image:

The Red Bee had no powers (other than being praeter-naturally athletic in the way Golden Age heroes always were).  His only competitive advantages are his vaguely empowering and unexplained "stinger gun" and his equally unexplained trained bee, Michael.

I mean, nobody wants to deal with bees.

I have put his sculpt on the "Jinny Hex" dial.

I mean, it's not like I'm going to play Jinny Hex.  Jonah Hex fan though I am, not even I think he needs a legacy in Young Justice.

Her "Quickdraw" trait means you are motivated to make sure she gets in the first strike any turn you use here.  And, face it, the element of surprise should be a necessity for someone as underpowered as the Red Bee.  Her special attack power grants "Blade/Claws/Fangs" allows her to roll one die to determine the damage she does on a successful attack; ordinarily, that only works for attacks on an adjacent opponent figure, but the special power allows you to do it even in a distance attack.  The possibility of doing up to SIX clicks of damage in any kind of attack? Terrifying, and not a bad representation of, well, whatever kind of damage the Red Bee's "Stinger Gun" does.  

The dial has "Running Shot", the grey Speed power that allows a figure to move up to have its Spped value then make a ranged attack.  It's especially valuable in combination with the "Stinger Gun" power and running around zapping people on the fly is very consistent with the Red Bee's vibe.  So too is pink "Sidestep" which lets him move two spaces for free.

The Red Bee was always on the go.

The pink attack power (Precision Strike) always lets him do at least one damage no matter what damage-reducing powers his opponent has.

I figure that's for Michael the Bee.

The lime defense power of "Combat Reflexes" increases his defense against close attacks (which is consistent with his being a good hand-to-hand combatant); the purple defense power of "Willpower" give him extra actions (I mean, you really need some Willpower to combat crime armed with bees); his damage powers help him and teammates make ranged attacks (like with.a swarm of angry bees). 

It's not a perfect impression of the Red Bee's Golden Age abilities and style, but it's serviceable.  

JuJuBitten!

 Okay, I am very much not a fan of what is currently being called "AI".

My standards for what can legitimately be called "artificial intelligence" are not low.

I saw a video that compared it to polyester, which was also introduced as a new Modern Miracle, then overused in applications for which it was not suited, thus gaining a reputation as crap, until it was eventually used in a more limited fashion or combined with more natural products.  

And of course there are all the not-minor insalubrious effects on the environment, the economy, and society.

That said...

I have fallen under the spell of JuJuBit, a AI-driven website that allows you to create 3D tabletop game pieces better than any other method I've used.  For example:

The camera on my elderly iPhone really doesn't do these figures  (The Penny Plunderer, The Red Bee, Bull's-Eye, Wild Dog 2.0 and 1.0, and Dollman) justice.

All of these were generated by JuJuBit by a combination of image and textual input.  For example, the AI didn't really detect the pennies in the Penny Plunder image, so I added the prompt "holding pennies", and lo, there were pennies.

Anything that produces anything this good, specialized, and reasonably costed must SURELY be deeply evil.

Or perhaps just deeply misunderstood.

You may judge that for yourself.  I know only that I have been pleasantly surprised at this new means of creating Heroclix sculpts that would be otherwise impossible  In forthcoming posts, I'm going to focus on each figure, tell you why I made it, and what dial I'll be using for it.  In the meantime, you may want to experiment with using the site itself.

Before Winslow destroys it.

Why "Supergirl" Failed.

The new film "Supergirl" has not performed well at the box office.  

Pictured: the public's response to "Supergirl".

The on-line punditry on exactly why this is so is nearly limitless.  It's Superhero Fatigue. It's Fear of Female-Leads.  It's James Gunn.  It's the budget being too large.  It's mistaking a secondary character for a primary one.  It was "Creative Differences". It was studio interference.  It was the writing (or the editing or the filming or the action or the lack of action or the muddiness of the action).  It was too feminist. It wasn't feminist enough.  It used feminism as a ploy.  Literally the only aspect I have NOT heard blamed for the film's failure was Alcock (the actor playing Supergirl), who seems to have acquitted herself well.

I don't want to dismiss any of these possible factors; but, in fact, I don't want to talk about them at all. Instead I want to point out the one problem that seems obvious to me. The one that let me know from the very beginning of the project that it would fail.  And that the reason it was obvious to me wasn't some special insight on my part.  I just happened to be... a comic book reader.  And that reason is:

it's based on Tom King's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. 

I have seen this miniseries described in the comic book press as a "fan favorite", and the only time the comic book press uses that description is for something that is exactly NOT a "fan favorite", but rather "something only diehard fans even know about". In it, Tom King has Kara (Supergirl) drunk at her bar at a birthday, which is already, you know, merely a modern "counter-intuitively edgy" interpretation of the characters that fits poorly.  Then she goes on a Hero's Journey, blah blah blah, but the damage to the character is already done.

This approach is at the heart of Gunn's version of Supergirl (even though no one likes Edgy Supergirl, no matter how many times writers time to go that route as a cheap way of distinguishing her from her famous cousin).  No one liked her that in the Superman film and, unsurprisingly, no one wanted to see a whole film based on that.  

And trust me; as I have made clear before, I am not someone who believes that Supergirl needs to boundlessly optimistic. 

That fact alone was going to doom the film, regardless of any other factors.  I knew this; so did most Super-fans.  

Or even anyone who watched more than one episode of the Supergirl show.

How come this is the one decision that was never questioned (or is credited for the film's failure)?

The Aquaman Revenge Squad

Well.

Isn't THIS interesting?

From Emperor Aquaman #19

As previously discussed, writer Jeremy Adams is doing some strong stuff in "Emperor Aquaman", first with putting Aquaman's powers on a new level and now with putting a wide selection of Aquaman villains "back on the board" and in collaboration.  

Sure, we have seen "all the hero's villains gang up on the hero" before.

"Their minimum objective MUST BE...
the entire world."

But this is different.  For one thing, I can't recall this ever having been done for Aquaman before.  

Well, there was that time The Brain teamed up with Black Manta and Queen Vassa in January 1968.

But this is not 3 or 4 villains; it's 13 (the Crimson Queen and Black Manta are not labelled and Scavenger is off-panel).  It's not just the quantity of villains, it's their qualities.

For example, even in their short appearance here, an effort is made to help distinguish them from one another.  Lolanna, the Crimson Queen, is the Planner/Organization.  She's a ruler and is accustomed to leading a large group of disparate people.  The heavily armed Scavenger is a Bruiser who stays on the move.  The Sea Witch, as an occult, automatically knows the limits of the powers of Vivienne, the Lady of the Lake.  Kordax is eager; Ocean Master is polite but wary.  Siren is impulsive; Black Manta is calculating.  This is not an assemblage of interchangeable characters differentiated only by their powers; it's a collection of individuals with their own motivations and personalities.

The real outstanding feature of this coterie of aqua-villains is just how diversely SOURCED they are.  Black Manta, Ocean Master, the Fisherman, and the Scavenger are "classic" villains from Aquaman's late Silver Age (1960s). These are arguably Aquaman's Iconic Foes; they are always fair game and often in play.

The Underwater Underworld, as it were.

Siren is also from that time period, but her mother Lolanna is a fresh addition to the seascape of evil.  

Trok is one of the "Deep Six", a Jack Kirby creation from 1971.  

Kordax is an "anti-Aquaman", who was created by Peter David in 1990, as was Tiamat, who comes from an alien reptilian race.

Kind of like the Rampaging Reptile-Man, but less original.

The "Sea Witch"is, I believe, Gememnae from the crazy JLA Obsidian Age arc (2002).

The Eel is, of course, from the (in)famous Sub Diego arc of 2004. I adore The Eel.

Legend, the haunted suit of armor, is from 2014's Aquaman and The Others miniseries (and is not to be confused with The Dress Suit). 

Corum Rath is, like Ocean Master, a (rather colorless) throne-usurper and comes from Aquaman Rebirth in 2016.  

It's not merely that these characters are from different eras. It's that, except for the Classic Four, they come from storylines that have been largely BURIED by currently continuity.  For the most part, they could safely have been presumed to "no longer exist".  But Jeremy Adams knows that, although crappy storylines are forgotten, good villains should not go to waste because of it.

Honestly, I'm not saying I think all these are "good villains" by any means.  Trok and Tiamat are mostly just sea monsters, Kordax is goofy and heavy-handed (like much of David's work), and Corum Rath painfully bland.  

Kordax is just the kind of dumb-ass who says things like "I, Kordax" and "long have I dreamed" of "laying someone low".

I would have replaced them with, say, Chimera the Creature King, original anti-Aquaman Pomoxis, the amusingly eloquent robot The Torpedo, and, unquestionably, the awesome Human Flying Fish, who god knows is game for ANYTHING.

Okay, maybe not Chimera. He's not really what you'd call a team player.

But Adams has clearly picked some villains who need not merely salvaged but some revamping, which he's doing in process of advancing the plot.

In this small excerpt from one panel, he revamps The Fisherman's look while reaffirming the theory that the Fisherman has some sort of symbiotic relationship with his headgear.

I supposed this should come as no surprise since it's pretty much what he's being doing with the AquaHEROES.  He's de-emphasized Aquaman's traditional coterie (Mera, the Aqualads, and the Atlanteans) and reorganized a group of secondary water-related characters (Zan, the Lady of the Lake, Nemo, Lori Lemaris, et al.) around Aquaman to expand his mythos.  

It seems to be working.  I have a feeling that, regardless of the outcomes of any particular plots, his legacy will be a grand and "permanent" expansion of the Aquaman mythos, of the kind that previous writers have tried and failed at some frequently. I wish him luck!

Safe and Unsafe States

 States That Have Superhero Cities

Here's a game for fun. Can you guess which cities I based this map on?

Disclaimer: locating where cities are in the DCU is, at best, an inexact science.

The Black Dragon versus Johnny Thunder

Last and least sensible, Johnny Thunder.

Unlike the other JSAers, Johnny Thunder was never meant to be a serious character. He's just a much less intelligent (and less amusing) version of Maj. Anthony Nelson, with his troublesome wish-granting genie.

Larry Hagman was a brilliant comedian; despite all the pratfalls and absurdity, he made you believe that Tony Nelson was essentially an intelligent, serious, dignified, even boring military guy, who, without his genie, would have a completely hijinx-free life.  Exactly unlike Johnny Thunder.

When you are a comical character, having an all-powerful genie isn't a problem, it's a bootstrap for hijinx.  But when you are suddenly thrown among strong-jawed spandex types, it's a problem.  No matter how powerful Starman, Dr. Fate, or the Spectre may be, Johnny's Thunderbolt can drag them around like a mom taking an child across a busy street.

Thus Johnny (or his Thunderbolt) is often sidelined or used as a framing device.  He will idly wish the JSA could be present at the start or finish of some adventure and, thanks to his wish-granting Thunderbolt, that happens. It is an extremely useful gimmick to the writers. It's absurd, but the limits of Johnny's intelligence and morality (and the strict rules the Thunderbolt must follow) keep him as the comic relief rather than an all-powerful god-king.

The Black Dragon is very much one of those stories, as these panels I omitted earlier show:

"Hurry, Jim, the light's about to change!"

"Here, let me carry you like a one-year old, Doctor."

"Because I'm your mother, that's why!"

"Mom! I can fly by myself!"

"Bath time for you, little man, and no arguments!"

"I think someone needs his nap..."

"I've had with you, mister, we are going home right NOW."

As the final story opens, Johnny is hiding in a garbage can to read his secret assignment.

Even Johnny's embarrassed about being Johnny.

What would possess him to hide in a garbage can?

Johnny must be a Speed Sanders fan.

Anyway, Johnny discovers to his chagrin that his orders are to STAND DOWN because the Black Dragon problem is too important and he's an idiot who would only mess things up.

I would really like to have read how cruelly that message was worded.
Ah, well.

Johnny casually wishes he could prove himself by getting to "the bottom of this business". Naturally, the Thunderbolt simply takes Johnny to Black Dragon's secret headquarters, because the Thunderbolt can do anything he is asked to.

Johnny is, as always, completely unprepared for the ramifications of making a wish, even though this sort of thing happens to him every day.  

Johnny and Thunderbolt's relationship is hampered by serious communication issues.

I will skip most of Johnny's hijinx; just because I had to suffer through them doesn't mean you have to.

Okay, here is one hijink; 
the eighth stolen invention disintegrates Johnn's suspenders, making his pants fall down.
You're welcome.

Then Johnny shows once again that, despite being an idiot, he is staggeringly heroic. When he learns that the Black Dragon is currently threatening death and danger elsewhere, he orders the Thunderbolt to go STOP them, rather than save him.

Johnny is not normal, but in some ways that is to his credit.

Another errant wish, however, results in another hijink, one with disturbing philosophical implications.

Uh-oh...

The Thunderbolt must always grant Johnny's wishes and so...

HE CREATES EXTRA JOHNNY THUNDERS.

This is deeply unsettling.  Do these Johnnys immediately die at the hands of the Black Dragon?  Do they escape and if so, don't they, of necessity, persist until they can sacrfice they lives for the country?  Can they also command the Thunderbolt?  Could Johnny not simply wish multiple JSAs into existence to solve any problem?  The implications are staggering and remain completely unexplored since they are never seen again outside of these two panels.  I am sure Roy Thomas had a script stashed away somewhere about the Johnny Extras, but fortunately it has never seen the light of day.

During this diversion, Thunderbolt goes off to magically stop the Black Dragons (who are going to blow up a factory or some such).

Proof that Thunderbolt could have taken each of the JSAers to their targets immediately.

Meanwhile, the Extra Johnnys are, of course, just as useless as Original Johnny.  So, the original Johnny, captured and about to die a martyr, makes one last wish: that the JSAers could see his heroic sacrifice to know he's not a complete loser.

I mean, Johnny IS a complete loser. But that's not a flaw, it's a feature.
Being a "stupid but heroic loser" is why Johnny didn't simply use the Thunderbolt to rule the world (which, you will remember, was the original plan of the Bahdnisian bandits who captured him at age 7 to gain control of the Thunderbolt).

This wish results in the seven scenes we saw earlier of the Thunderbolt dragging the other JSAers to save Johnny.

Which they do.

Several dragon-beatings later...

"I forget I have an all-powerful genie at my beck and call.
Again!"

The U.S. military rounds up the vanquished Black Dragon members.

In Golden Age comics, they usually made sure to show Regular Joe Authority Figures finalizing the defeat of the enemy. It was important to show that the superheroes were ASSISTING the common man, not REPLACING him.

Everyone files his report with Wonder Woman (because it's not a JSA story without REPORTS) and we learn, again, just how stupid Johnny Thunder is.

It's a metaphor, Johnny; look that up while you're at it.

Well, THAT was a long, torturous and fairly typical Golden Age JSA story.  Although it took us NINE DAYS to slog through it, I still have to give Golden Age writers their due: this was ALL IN ONE COMIC BOOK.  If this tale had been told under modern-style decompressed storytelling, it would have take longer than World War II itself.

Still, if this prompted you to reassess the "classic" nature of Golden Age Justice Society stories, it was worth the effort. Remember, don't believe everything you are told about any piece of literature until you have read it for yourself.