Heroclix Sunday: The Pension Building

There's an exciting new set of Heroclix figures coming out this month in honor of the 80th Anniversary of Wonder Woman.  The figures are more detailed than ever (thanks to SCIENCE!), there's a neat new mechanic for empowering sidekicks, and lots of characters are being made for the first time (e.g., Angle Man, Ferdinand the Chef, and Wonder Woman's brother Jason). If you are new to Heroclix, there's even a Wonder Woman-themed starter set to help you learn.

In preparation, I created a new map of Washington DC indoor location: The Pension Building.

The exhibit rooms are empty so you can put object tokens in there for the characters to throw at each other.

Build in the 1880s, the Pension Building is an imposing building inside and out. 

It's monumental. Even for DC.

Even if you ignore the exhibits, the building itself is a thing to be seen.

Originally a government office, it's housed the National Building Museum since 1980.  I call it The Guy Museum, because male visitors who aren't keen on art or history still eat up exhibits on architecture, city planning, and building construction.  

Although it's too large to accurately represent on a Heroclix map, my scaled down version comes close (although it doesn't capture the second story).  The bespoke element is the rug which is a scanned version of the ACTUAL iconic rug at the museum (and I almost fell off the balcony!).  

The Pension Building is known for holding prestigious events, like the Presidential Inaugural Ball, in its Great Hall, or wacky large-scale interactive art projects:

The Beach

The Hive

The Maze

The Lawn

In fact, it was at the National Building Museum's indoor kite exhibition that I got the idea for the Flying Robot Zombie Shark of Christmas Future. But that's a story for another time.

Fictionopolis Skylines #3

Here is the final poster in the series, "Fictionopolis Skylines #3", which includes Wonder Woman's Washington DC and Aquaman's Amnesty Bay.

I had to think a while before figuring out how to represent the invisible plane and aquatelepathy. The Bat-Signal is a lot easier, conceptually.

So now the entire series, once printed out and hung on my wall should look something like this (depending on how I arrange them; what do you think?):

The Scariest Place on Earth

This is the scariest place I know:

Monarch Novelties.

Ever read one of those comic book stories where the villain holes out in some semi-abandoned area, using a run-down store as a front? The dilapidated seafood store along the docks, the unloved curio shop, the forgotten magic emporium? Behind such facades lurk the likes of Captain Squid, Hugo Strange, and Eivol Ekdal. There seem to be an endless supply of such places in Gotham City. They reek of evildoing; they obviously do no real business and couldn't possibly remain open if they were legitimate.

One wonders, in fact, why, whenever some malefactor threatens the city, the GCPD doesn't simply go out shopping until they inevitably arrive at the appropriate storefront. The dusty merchandise, the ex-con at the register, the red light bulb that starts flashing above the door to the backroom as soon as the cops enter: it would all be so obvious to spot!

Of course, that's just the comic books, we say to ourselves. Such places are merely convenient plot devices; there aren't such places in the real world.

Oh; but that's what they (the villains) want you to think. Because there are. And Monarch Novelties is the king of them all.


Monarch Novelties is, improbably, smack-dab in the middle of downtown DC. It should have folded, or its building been sold out from under it years ago. DECADES ago. And yet it remains, purporting to purvey "rain bonnets", "glasses drinking" and "reunion favors".

Don't call that number.

If you do, someone you love will die with 24 hours.

I have never seen anyone go in or out of it. After years of building curiosity, I myself ventured in... once. There was a bewildered proprietor, obviously unfamilar with the concept of a 'customer', and I discovered that, impossible though it might seem, the merchandise displayed in the window was much better than most of what was inside, stacked in unappealing mounds, floor to ceiling.

Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for your seriously disturbed child?

I feigned nonchalance, but I was terrified, expecting to be walloped by a giant rubber mallet at any second, and then dragged to some dungeon workroom where I'd undergo some torturous cyborgification into one of the Toyman's playthings of doom. However, I did, to my surprise, make it out alive.

"Rescue us!', the toys cry; "Save us from the horror and the screams!"

Monarch Novelties is like a building on the cover of a '70s issue of House of Mystery, where the kids are going in the front door, and one ringleader kid is egging the others on with "C'mon, this'll be killer!', and the scary monster/witch/psycho is in shadow, just beyond the door... .

If you visit Washington DC, forget the Mall and the White House. Make sure you stop by Monarch Novelties... if you DARE.