Red, White, and Blue Arrow, 1

 Riddle me this! What is worse than 

Answer:

Four of him.

What's this? Has Geoff Johns time-travelled to the Golden Age so that he could create a spectrum of archers, one for each color?

Nope, this is Adventure Comics #133, in which Speedy tells Green Arrow he's over-the-hill and needs to be replaced, so they hold try-outs for his replacement.  I'll say this for Green Arrow; that's definitely a story you wouldn't find Batman and Robin doing!

Your definition of "glorious" may vary.

It begins, as many Green Arrow stories do, with Green Arrow bringing a bow to a gunfight.

"Yeah, G.A.; it's almost as if using weapons that require expertise and strength to produce only one tenth as much force as those that can be used easily at a greater distance by an amateur were somehow tactically unwise."

Naturally, Green Arrow proposes to solve the problem with one of his dumb arrow-based stunts, which immediately backfires.

"Leaving Speedy as a decoy" says so much.

"Aqualad is my decoy!"
At least Aquaman is more self-aware about it.

Unsurprisingly, this stupid "ladder of arrows" stunt G.A. used to pull all the time finally goes South, and Speedy plummets to his death.

You know, being saddled with the guilt of a dead sidekick would be much more on-brand for Green Arrow than Batman.   Except I suspect Ollie is not capable of guilt. "Ugh! Now I have to go back to the Rez and get ANOTHER one."

Fortunately, Speedy's REAL ability isn't archery; it's PARKOUR.

As we learned from the CW. Roy can do parkour WHILE outrunning a TRUCK.

Thus Speedy saves himself by, um, rolling.

Translation: Roy has known for years that Ollie would eff this stunt up at some point.

It's like I always say, folks: always get your crime-fighting orphans from the circus.  They come pre-equipped for such situations.

This bracing brush with death helps Speedy to finally realize that his adult partner is dangerously incompetent.

"Yeah, G.A., it's almost as if traipsing around fighting crime on rooftops in a Robin Hood costume with a dilettante millionaire amateur anthropologist and archery enthusiast was somehow tactically unwise!'

Ollie, of course, feels he's not to blame.

It's like watching the scales falls from Roy's eyes.

Rotten wood or no, the "ladder of arrows" stunt is stupid and dangerous.

Pictured: how to safety scale a wall.

In case you never noticed, every time Batman'66 throws a bat-line so that he can Robin can scale a wall, THEY SHOW HIM TESTING THE SECURITY OF THE LINE before they climb.  Always buckle up!

Speedy's doubt is immediately freshly fed by G.A. flubbing a smoke arrow shot

and blaming it on the wind.

Old Man Yells At Cloud.

Unlike the rest of us, this is Roy's first realization that Green Arrow just may be incompetent, which torments him into sleeplessness.

"Knowing that G.A. in his prime never made any slips".  I'm just going to put THESE here as a reminder of Green Arrow In His Prime:

Roy has a case of rose-colored glasses so severe that he may think his own costume is grey.  But he realizes that, as Ollie's only friend, it falls on him to inform Ollie that he is, in fact, incompetent.

There is much I could say about Ollie's decor. I will say none of it.

Fortunately Ollie facilitates the necessary confrontation by asking for it.

Neither will I make an "awfully hard" joke.  That is for lesser wits than mine.

"No secrets between us remember? I mean, unless you are doing drugs. You BETTER keep that from me because I have a ZERO sympathy policy."

Awfully hard it may be, but Roy gets right to it and wastes no words.

"THAT CAN'T GO ON."
Meanwhile, nearly 80 years later...

Okay, now I'll address the decor.  I think it should always be remembered that Ollie is rich amateur anthropologist, which means that he's a classy packrat, who picks up knick-knacks from any culture and shoves them into some display in his overcrowded apartment.

Anyway, to his credit, Ollie is self-aware enough to IMMEDIATELY understands that Roy's saying he's washed up and needs replaced. AND ROLLS WITH IT!

"This week, on Hoarders..."

Man, I bet the souvenir stand operators just salivate every time they see Ollie coming and put on their best fake obsequious foreign accents to dump their excess unsalable tchotchkes on this rich rube: "Oh, um, SI, memsahib, we have-um heap big sale on velly velly rare objectos!"

Ollie doesn't mind being put out to pasture but is determined that his legacy will be preserved! THERE MUST NEVER BE ANOTHER GREEN ARROW!

Actually, I think Ollie had the right idea.

Ollie's solution therefore it to create THE RED, WHITE, and BLUE ARROWS!

More on this idea tomorrow!

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)?