Sunday, August 10, 2014

Batman's most laughable imitator fights Batman's second-most laughable imitator!



This weekend at my house, Killer Moth kicked Green Arrow's butt.

By kicked butt, I mean "successfully ran away with some loot while abandoning the Mothmobile as a lost cause".  And by at my house,  I mean, "in a game of Heroclix".

Now, as anyone who knows anything about Heroclix knows, the character most egregiously absent from the hundreds of figures that the Wizkids company has made is Killer Moth.  In Heroclix circles, we simply call it "The Great Injustice", and leave at that (much as postbellum Southern women called the Civil War "the late unpleasantness")

That, of course, has not stopped me; I have two Killer Moth custom figures (many other players have customer Killer Moths, but they are not as fabulous as mine, which I had 3D printed and professionally painted)  But I have gone further (around the bend)!  Ha, ha!

I now have, to serve as Killer Moth's backup gang, World Public Enemies No. 1, 2, & 3!


They are quite uncannily accurate, actually.


The World Public Enemies -- Dragon Fly, Silken Spider, and Tiger Moth -- are the three greatest female villains who never existed.  There were introduced (see below) in Batman #181 (June 1966) solely as literary devices in Poison Ivy's first story; jealous of their fame, she was inspired to commit a very public crime spree in which she kicked their patooties, and Batman's, too.


Pictured at lower right: meeting of the Gotham City Art and Accountancy Aficionados Association.

Later writers very cleverly created a new backstory for them: that they were merely actress/models hired for the pop art exhibit as concept villains who represented the allure of costumed villains as celebrities.  They then turned to crime AFTER being attacked by Poison Ivy and typecast as bad gals.


Here they are fighting Nightwing.  Like ya do.

These customs sit on the following dials:

Dragon Fly
Because, I mean... what ELSE are you going to do with a Falcone Bodyguard figure?


Silken Spider
Sneak, sneak, sneak!



Tiger Moth
Naturally, let "Killer Moth" replace "Tony Stark" in the above.  Because if Killer Moth were a Marvel character, he'd already have three movies. 

And they make a great gang for Killer Moth:


If only Killer Moth were actually this cool.


and his Mothmobile:



Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha--KILLER MOTH!


Now that I have them, I didn't want to pit KM and the Bug Babes against Batman right away, because, frankly, I wanted the game to last longer than that.  And who better when you need a hero that will take forever (and sometimes still not succeed) to defeat Z-grade villains than...GREEN ARROW and The Kid Who Tags Along With Him?  They were aided by a Gotham Cop driving a GCPD police cruiser, who did the grubby work of taking down the Mothmobile.  

I was playing with the special rules that allow villains to gain points by 'escaping with loot' rather than just by kayoing heroes (because DC criminals like to actually STEAL stuff, not just attack Spider-Man).  Naturally, Killer Moth had the biggest swag and made it off the board after Green Arrow cracked his rib with a boxing glove arrow.  Tiger Moth hung around to duke it out with GA, while KM, limbs flailing no doubt, limped back to the Mothcave.  Speedy almost took out an unwary Silken Spider, but Dragon Fly took him out with a few well placed kidney jabs.

Oh! And speaking of the Mothcave,  I decided to celebrate this Battle of the Batman Knockoffs with a commemorative custom Heroclix map for EACH of them.  Behold, then.


THE ARROWCAVE



The Fletchery; because plastic cat arrows do not make themselves, you know.
Featuring:
The Target Range, where arrows are shot, because what else does Green Arrow do?
The Trophy Room, where Oliver and Roy can search online for crimes in the making, because patrolling is too tedious.
The Fletchery, where GA can test out the personal lubricant arrow and process server arrow in private.
The ridiculously yellow Arrowcar, so beloved by children.



THE MOTHCAVE

If you think making that Mothmobile image was easy, think again.


Featuring:
The Trophy Room, or, as I like to think of it, The Atrophy Room, full of empty trophies cases commemorating Killer Moth's nonexistent victories.
The Pro-Crime Lab, where he invented the gun condom.
The Cocoon Room, where Robin was placed unguarded for many hours in a bonfire-based deathtrap.
The Pupatorium, where Killer Moth descends from stately Van Cleer Manor to don his crime-helping garb and roar out in the Mothmobile.  But mostly because I really enjoy saying "Pupatorium".
The unlabeled dirt-removal tunnel, where KM paid those two laborers in lead.
A Gratuitous Secret Passage, because it seems just like the kind of thing that Killer Moth would have.

Enjoy them, if you play Heroclix.
And if you don't, start!

8 comments:

CobraMisfit said...

We are so playing The Mothcave.

Also, "Pupatorium" is the name of our next quartet.

SallyP said...

Pupatorium does seem to just flow from the tongue. And I SO want a secret passage!

Anonymous said...

In the Arrowcave, where are the plesiosaur and the giant button? (There also ought to be an oversized Lord Licorice card, but I understand if it can't be seen from overhead.)

Scipio said...

I demand that someone who actually knows the contents of the Arrowcave not remain anonymous.

Anonymous said...

In "real" continuity, I know it's got a giant arrow from an adventure where Ollie and Speedy were transported to another world where everyone was a giant and their great hero was Xeen Arrow. Except that happened in 1958, so I don't imagine it "still" "happened".

So I'm just assuming the current Arrowcave has much lamer copies of everything Batman's got: an Arrow-Calculator, dry cleaner bags containing Speedy's old costumes, and so on.

Nathan Hall said...

I can dream until
I'm old enough to try to try to
catch them, can't I? (Right?)

(One sound away from a haiku.)

Bryan L said...

The cave's finished, Mis-
ter Van Cleer. And now our pay ...
Here's your pay, in lead!

Killer Moth can't stand to see a good haiku go to waste. Waste ... you see what I did there?

Unknown said...

The Arrowcave's trophy room should include a small-scale model of the giant robot octopus (as the original is too large, and is probably now a dockside tourist attraction in Star City). Other trophies would probably include a jar of sand from Clock King's hourglass trap; some of Red Dart's red darts; a circus poster of Leapo the Clown; and the deactivated Iron Archer.