Meet Our Custom 'Clix Candidates!

If you haven't weighed in yet on our current poll to determine the next custom heroclix I'll commission, please do. For those of you who are new here, below is a rundown on those candidates, their past history on this blog, and why they are on the list.

Orca the Whalewoman. Batman has fought some stupid villains in his day, but former G.I.Joe scribe Larry Hama was determined to surpass them all with the likes of Allie the Gator Girl and Orca the Whalewoman. Fan outrage was off the charts and Orca got Hama fired. The now legendary Orca the Whalewoman symbolizes the power of fan feedback and the internet as a medium for fandom. But she looks really cool and would be fun in an Aquaman-centric game.

Dr. Domino is a character so ludicrous that, although he appeared in only one Wonder Woman story, the Absorbascon once devoted an entire week to him. Crazy Bob Kanigher created him out of whole cloth to throw at Wonder Woman right after she regained her powers and went to work at the UN. Dr. Domino personifies the creativity of "Crazy K", is the patron saint of all object-headed villains, and represents the position that things don't have to make sense in order to be entertaining. He the DCU's closest equivalent to Dr. Doom.

The Red Bee. If that name doesn't make you smile or sigh, then you're not a DC fan, folks. The Red Bee actually is the creation of another comic book company, whose characters DC bought en masse at a fire sale. For the most part, he's no sillier than the better known Green Hornet, but once you've used a trained bee named "Michael" as your sidekick, it's hard to recover the public's respect. The Red Bee teaches us that, in comic books, it is better to be remembered for being ridiculous than not to be remembered at all.

The original Red Hood. Are there people reading about the new Red Hood (Jason Todd), who don't know that the original Red Hood was a backstory created in the 1950s to explain the Joker's deformity? The original Red Hood was simple but striking: a guy in a tuxedo wearing a featureless red helmet that protected him from changes in the environment. The original Red Hood story is painfully crappy; the Joker himself is an afterthought in his own origin. But the Red Hood stands for the idea that a crappy mythic element, given enough love over time, can evolve into something useful.

The Mist is the arch-enemy of the most dramatic of all heroes, the Golden Age Starman. The Mist is a testament to the power of a strong visual (the floating head) combined with over the top Republic Serial villainy. The Mist shot his own daughter dead while she was holding her baby and reminds us that pure evil never goes out of style.

Scipio: Sword of the Absorbascon is our parody of the controversial forthcoming series by Kurt Busiek, Aquaman: Sword of Absorbascon. Sorry, Kurt! It's all in good fun.... besides, the dog looks really cute in a cape. The Sword stands for the idea that "anyone can criticize; the challenge is doing so in an entertaining way".

Joe Coyne, the Penny Plunderer, is seen here at what is clearly not his finest moment. Three-time loser Coyne went round the deep end one day and decided to base all his crimes around pennies as a theme. For a couple pages, Joe actually gave Batman a pretty hard time, but was finally undone by his own obsession, yet another victim of comic book irony. But you know that giant penny in the Batcave? That's Joe's. Just goes to show you, it doesn't matter what your thing is in life, if you go all the way with it, you'll have an impact. Or go to the electric chair, like Joe did.

Breakdance-fighting Vibe (with pop-and-lock action!) is our totem character here at the Absorbascon. A Puerto Rican kid from the Detroit ghetto, Vibe could shatter concrete with his vibratory powers and hearts with his rakish charm. Despite a bad background and environment, he had an irrepressible joie de vivre, but it didn't save him from a tragic, lonely, meaningless death, the first Justice Leaguer to die on duty. Vibe stands for all potentially great characters doomed by the circumstances under which they are introduced.