My Top NES Games Pt. 1

So, inspired by the announcement of Nintendo’s “NES Classic Mini”, coming in November, I decided to write this article, originally appearing on Skirmish Frogs, detailing My Top 30 Favorite NES games.

It’s funny, because just a week or so ago, I was hanging out with my long-time friend Harold (whom many of you have now “seen” in a couple of “Game Challenge” episodes, and currently starring in his first official RR Youtube playthrough, his favorite game of all time, MC Kids . We were recording a playthrough of the Japanese Famicom game “Mickey III”, which was repurposed in NA as the great classic Kid Klown. He suddenly posed the question to me, “What are your Top 10 NES games of all time”, or something along those lines, and for once, especially given this kind of subject matter, I actually found myself rather stumped. I didn’t have a full answer for him, and while it was no big deal, it bothered me a little bit. Mainly because, I guess I had up until that very moment, never really sat down and dedicated time to deciding what games DID make up my Top 10, or Top 20, or whatever.

I have, of course, I have in the past already nailed down what I more or less now consider to be my iron-clad Top 10 Favorite Games of All Time , for all platforms ever. And it just so happens that the Top 3 of those, are NES games. So the first three games in what will become my very own “Top NES Games Ever” list, are already decided.

 1 – Game: Super Mario Bros. 3, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1988 (’90 in NA)


Simply put, while SMB1 was the game that got me to become obsessed with gaming, SMB3 was the game that stole my heart, and made me fall in love with gaming. As far as I’m concerned, it is the greatest game, the MOST flawless video game ever crafted, of all time. This was Nintendo in their prime, at their absolute best, getting the most they could out of that NES hardware in the late 80s, and stuffing as much content as they could into that little gray plastic cartridge.

They perfected the platforming/side-scrolling controls and mechanics that they themselves had pioneered. They had honed the “Mario formula”, which they had been tweaking and messing with, down to it’s finest and most distilled elements. They took the ridiculously catchy nature of SMB1’s music, and composed a bouncy soundtrack that simply refuses to get the hell out of your head. They provided a wide array of worlds, with a plethora of challenges and unique experiences contained in each. They presented gamers with an enormous menagerie of different monsters to overcome, and a bad ass arsenal of new power-ups with which to do so. This game established so many precedents, such as the Mario Suits, the Koopa Kids, a fuller picture of what the Mushroom Kingdom/World actually looked like, etc.

Simply put, this game has a bit of everything, for everybody. And while it’s easy for anyone, of any gaming experience level, to just pick up and play, and enjoy, it also happens to be arguably the hardest Mario game ever made, as it has some downright sadistic levels contained within it. There was a time when I played this game SO often, that in my childhood years (ages 9-13), I got so good at it that I could go through the entire game, without warping or skipping levels, while losing very few lives at all. I’m not sure I’ve ever done a DEATHLESS run, but I was goddamn good at it. In my old age now? Not so much.

But as mad as this brilliant classic now makes me sometimes, I still love it to death, and I easily and gladly maintain that it is my very Favorite Game of All Time.

2 – Game: Mega Man 2, Publisher: Capcom, Originally Released: 1988 (’89 in NA)


Very similar to how SMB3 shows Nintendo at it’s finest, firing on all cylinders, you could easily make the same case for Mega Man 2. While later Mega Man games would, little by little, add neat little elements that more often than not really did add to the overall experience, such as the slide, the charged Mega-Buster shot, and Rush the robo-dog, MM2 really kinda was the old school Mega Man team at their very best. And while it seems popular to say that “MM2 is the best Mega Man ever”, it really kind of is, with there being some very specific reasons for saying so.

This game was, simply put, a pure passion project. This was Keiji Inafune and his team at their height of caring and dedication, as the original Mega Man was actually not a big hit, and Capcom did not desire a sequel. But Inafune-san more or less begged them to allow his team to make another game, and they gave him permission to do so, so long as they did so in their own free-time, while they were also working full-time on whatever game Capcom actually wanted them to make. And the very fact that this game was a passion project, bleeds through in every single pixel and bloop you experience.

Like SMB3, it takes the basic mechanics and formula that MM1 established, but refines and pretty much perfects them all. The controls are tighter, the bosses are cooler (all of them), the level designs are more intricate and creative, many of the boss powers tend to be far more useful. And the MUSIC! My god, the music. This game has the reputation, by many, of having the single greatest soundtrack of any game ever made, and while I’m not certain I would say THE SINGLE best of any game ever, personally, I absolutely will say it’s right up at the top. It isn’t just incredibly catchy, it’s actually damn good tunes! MM2 may not fully perfect and refine the Mega Man formula the way SMB3 did for Mario, as sliding, Rush, and Charge Shots are pretty damn cool/useful. But it IS, I would argue, the most “perfect”, top to bottom, for what it is,
of any Mega Man game, or for that matter most games ever made.

I think I would, in fact, actually go so far as to say that I think MM2 is the second greatest game ever made.

 3 – Game: Kirby’s Adventure, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1993


There may well be a recurring theme here, at least for these Top 3 games. The original game, Kirby’s Dreamland, released for the Game Boy in 1992, and was one of the earlier big hits for Nintendo’s original portable console. It was a fun, but short and very simplistic game, basically perfect for the “on the go fun” vibe that GB was originally all about. But it was with the NES sequel, Kirby’s Adventure, in it’s full glorious 8-bit color, that Iwata, Sakurai and Co. went absolutely nuts, making what would turn to be a rather huge game. In just about a year’s time, it would seem, they managed to churn out not just a “by the numbers” sequel, but to put it in modern gamer vernacular, a “Megaton”.

This was the same basic deal, in many ways, as MM2 and SMB3 before it, in that they took a formula, added to it, refined it, and perfected it. When I rented this game in the mid-90s, even though what I had seen of the SNES (didn’t own one yet) and Genesis and of course Arcades were “way ahead” of it, I was still blown away by this game. It floored me just how much content they stuffed in this game, from the fact that it has 20 (yes 20) different powers, a huge slate of enemies and bosses, a wide variety of very different and very creative levels, catchy tunes, hidden secrets, and awesome mini-games. The final (full) world, “Rainbow Resort” by itself, with it’s crazy level designs, even providing a “grayscale” Game Boy style level, really impressed me. What they achieved on aged NES hardware in 1993, was honestly every bit as impressive and innovative as anything that had been achieved during that same era on a variety of considerably more powerful consoles. It isn’t just a major achievement, I don’t mind calling it a masterpiece.

This instantly became one of my very favorite games of all time, permanently winning a spot in my heart, both for the Kirby character, but also for this game specifically. They even made an awesome remake of this, 16-bit style, on the Game Boy Advance, years later, called “Nightmare in Dreamland”. You even get to play as Meta Knight if you can 100% the game! However, no matter how many new Kirby games come out in the series, much like MM2 and SMB3, to me THIS game will always be the quintessential Kirby experience. It’s the best Kirby, in my opinion, ever created.
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So, that’s my Top 3, as I said, easy peasy, and I could honestly go on at far greater length about any one  of those games. Now, rounding out the Top 5 probably isn’t too terribly tough either, at least as far as filling in the spot for #4. There are probably several games that could make a case for these spots, but I’m pretty sure that these fit up at the top, the best.

4 – Game: Star Tropics, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1990


 I originally rented this game, and liked it a lot, even though it’s challenging, as a kid. I eventually wound up owning a copy, and beat the entire game. I don’t mind telling you that when I beat this game, it was a major childhood triumph, and to me at the time, the (unusually elaborate for the console) ending was totally worth it. Star Tropics is an oddity, in that it was developed in-house by Nintendo, but specifically for the “western” market, meaning that it was never originally released in Japan. Which of course makes zero sense, because I think Japanese gamers would have loved this gem just as much as Americans and Europeans did.

Now, this game may be an acquired taste for some. It features, to put it nicely, rather rigid gameplay, with a lot of well-timed jumping being the key to greatest success. It’s not quite as “pick up and play” as Mario or Zelda, or even Kirby. But it’s also not all that hard to get into, or get used to, and once you get the “cadence” of the jumping down, you really can conquer this game. The main challenge actually lies in a few moments of rather clever (and even devious) puzzle solving you are tasked with, including an infamous submarine code that could (originally) only be discovered by dampening a piece of paper that came with the game. But all in all, with it’s tongue-in-cheek, self-aware cheesy dialogue, catchy soundtrack, cool story, and sense of wonder and exploration, it’s a game that I would say any gamer should at least try.

It was a unique and fresh experience for it’s time, that still holds up to this day.

 5 – Game: Yoshi, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1990 (’91 in NA)


To be perfectly honest, there are probably many games that I could make an argument for deserving this Top 5 spot. Maybe even some games that, at some time or another, I have played the living shit out of and have loved more than this game. BUT, it just so happens that, behind only “Puzzle Bobble” (aka “Bust a Move” in NA), this game is probably my second favorite puzzle game of all time. Most people seem to know of it’s more bizarre cousin, “Yoshi’s Cookie”, which released on NES and SNES a year later, but somehow this little treasure is more obscure to the greater gaming consciousness.

And that’s a damn shame too, because it is, I don’t mind saying, a far better game than Cookie. Part of it’s immediate allure to me as a kid, of course, was that the puzzle “pieces” that you have to match up in this particular Tetris-inspired puzzler, happened to be actual, honest-to-Boswer enemies from Mario games. More specifically, their sprites were obviously inspired by the enemy designs of Super Mario Bros. 3, which just so happened to be my favorite game. The game featured Yoshi, an invention of “Super Mario Bros. 4” (World) on SNES, but it otherwise screamed SMB3, which suited me just fine.

But beyond aesthetics, it’s a genuinely fun, addicting, and clever puzzle game, wherein you have to stack up enemy monsters to clear the game board. That in and of itself isn’t terribly unique in a post-Tetris world, but the clever part of the gimmick, was that you could also sandwich monsters in between halves of a Yoshi egg, and depending on how many monsters you stacked before putting the top on, you would get a bigger Yoshi, and thus more points. If you brave enough to risk a game over by having the monsters reach the top of the board, you could get the biggest Yoshi and max points. The Yoshi’s went in order: Baby, Adult, Winged, and Star Yoshi.

Ultimately, this game gets the #5 spot because it’s damn fun, and in my opinion one of the best puzzle games ever made.
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SO, now that I’ve covered my Top 5, I’m going to cheat a bit, and not be quite so elaborate for the remaining games. I’m also, in the interest of time and space, not going to bother (for now) with making sure I place them all precisely where I think they belong numerically, in relation to one another. The remaining games on this list, will still be in some kind of descending order of greatness, in my opinion of course, but I’m not going to stress too much about making it a definitive, finalized list. Rather, I am going to list games that I love, played a shit-ton as a kid, or otherwise consider to be tops when it comes to the NES library. So away we go!

6 – Game: Mighty Final Fight, Publisher: Capcom, Originally Released: 1993


A late NES era rental that I fell in love with, Mighty Final Fight is a somewhat miniaturized port of the arcade classic. But in all honesty, while it is missing two-player, one of the areas from the arcade, it is still in many ways, at least in this man’s opinion, the best port of FF. The action is crisp and responsive, the soundtrack is rockin, and the game even features a “Double Dragon”-esque leveling system that is unique to this version. Plus, unlike the SNES port, you get to choose between all three characters, Cody, Guy, and Haggar. This game, while tough at times, gets my vote for best beat ’em up on the NES.

7 – Game: Final Fantasy, Publisher: Squaresoft, Originally Released: 1987 (’90 in NA)


This game gets up pretty high on the list for two reasons. The first being, it was basically the first console rpg I ever played. I had played a couple of old PC rpgs, such as Sorcerian (great game) and Times of Lore, but this was the first so-called “jrpg” styled game I experienced. The second reason being, while it is VERY “old school”, very simple and even obtuse in certain ways, it is still a really, really good game. Having to buy your magic sucks, and having to grind for days for levels and gold can get old, but the original Final Fantasy has a lot to offer, and hard-as-nails or not, it still captured my imagination, and I eventually beat it. I was rather proud of myself.

8 – Game: Super Mario Bros. 1, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1985


I wondered to myself which of the original two Mario games I thought should come before the other in this list, but the original won out. The primary reason being, as mentioned before, it was this game, specifically, that made me go from having a passing childhood interest in video games, thinking they were neat, and fun to play if I could get my hands on them, to growing into an outright childhood fixation. This game captured my attention upon first seeing it at my friend Harold's house, and captured my imagination and my heart, as soon as I was finally able to own an NES myself, a late-comer to the scene, in 1990.

This game drove me nuts at age 8/9, to the point at least once of crying when I got to one of the last levels and couldn’t beat it. But it also became ingrained in my psyche, as I would very often pass the time or distract myself from homework, etc., by imagining Mario running and jumping around my house, or wherever I happened to be at the time. The main Mario tune, in fact, to this day is still always somewhere playing in the back of my mind. And I was very proud that I was the first kid I knew to figure out that goddamn last castle, and beat the game. I even showed Harold and his brother how to beat it. I felt like I was the shit, for that.

But this is also THE game that more or less revived console gaming in the United States, and it also single-handedly made the NES the king of consoles in the mid-to-late 80s. It’s one of the best games ever made, and the only reason SMB3 tops it, is because it took everything about this game, and perfected it.

9 – Game: Adventure Island 2, Publisher: Hudson, Originally Released: 1991


The Adventure Island games are a classic part of gaming history. And the way they’re set up, you could argue they were some of the first to lend themselves to “speed running”, as that is literally what you have to do: run for your life and avoid obstacles before your meter runs out. Originally “Wonder Boy” in the arcades, published by Sega, the developers of that game split off, and continued and refined the formula as “Adventure Island” on the NES, while Wonder Boy actually went on to become something totally different on the Sega Master System. I actually only rented the first of this series myself as a kid, though I did play either 2 or 3 at a friend’s house. I chose AI2 because it’s my favorite, and my pick for best of the NES set, though they’re all highly fun (and challenging) games.

10 – Game: Tetris, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1988 (’89 in NA)


My grandmother had already discovered (and become hopelessly addicted to) “Dr. Mario” on a chance rental, and she later bought it for “me” (IE herself) as part of probably the most bad ass Christmas package I ever got (also came with Bugs Bunny and SMB3). She was so addicted to Dr. Mario, that she would sometimes play it for hours, and of course it being MY NES and all, and my not being allowed to have the NES hooked up to the TV in my room (believe me I tried), that did get a bit annoying to me. She would often rent other puzzle type games when she found them, though none stuck on her quite as much as the good Doctor. Tetris came close, but surprisingly, she never bought it. She DID however borrow my Game Boy she later got me often enough to play that version.

I would say that the NES version of Tetris is pretty much the definitive version, if not for two issues. The first being, unlike the unlicensed NES game, it's not 2-player, which is absurd. The other being, that while it has good music, it does NOT feature the tune most people identify as “The Tetris Song”, which was only in the Game Boy version for some stupid reason. But, I include it on this list because Tetris is probably my third favorite puzzle game of all time, and it’s otherwise a really good version of the game.

11 – Game: Arkista’s Ring, Publisher: American Sammy, Originally Released: 1990


The first games that I owned, were the SMB1/Duck Hunt cart that came with so many NES units. The other two earliest games I remember owning, were another Light Gun shooter called “To The Earth”, a space-based shooter that was hard as hell, but I did somehow beat, and this obscure gem. At first glance, I’m sure to some it seems like a Zelda clone. In fact, my grandmother stopped me from actually renting Zelda 1 myself (a heinous crime, to be certain), because she claimed it “looked too much like that other game you own, try something different”. However, it is actually not much like Zelda at all.

It’s an odd little game, that comes straight from the arcade era of gaming. It literally seems like it would be a port of a 1980s arcade game, as it has the style, the points, the simple, limited stages, etc. But nope, it’s an NES original, and it’s actually a lot of fun. You play Christine, a female warrior elf, trying to save the kingdom, etc. etc., you use a bow and arrow, though you can upgrade to fireballs and a couple other odd powers. The game features about 31 stages, and true to older type games, you have to beat it not twice, but THREE times over, to get the “Ending”. Otherwise, it’s a great, underrated gem that I think more people should try.

12 – Game: Monster in My Pocket, Publisher: Konami, Originally Released: 1992


As detailed here, probably my single favorite toys from my childhood, were a line of monster figures called “Monster in My Pocket”, released in the early 90s. Thankfully, someone decided to cash in on the (sadly) temporary craze, and made a game of it, because it turned out to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. Developed by Konami, back when they actually made good games (or actually made games at all, really), I would say this was one of the best games they ever put out. You play as Vampire and Frankenstein’s Monster, and go against a legion of other monsters from the set, all possessing the same point values the figures themselves did (nice touch). You journey through five or six stages of miniature mayhem, before finally taking on the master of disaster himself, the Warlock. It’s a great game, lots of fun, with co-op 2-player, and a bad ass soundtrack.

13 – Game: Kid Klown, Publisher: Kemco, Originally Released: 1992 (’93 in NA)


A very similar case to “our” Super Mario Bros. 2, this game was originally released in Japan as “Mickey Mouse III: Balloon Dreams”, and part of me wishes we had gotten this game, if only so that the NES would have had a GOOD Mickey game. But, I am alternatively glad we got a repurposed game, because on the one hand he’s a cool original character, and on the other, we got the amazing name for the new bad guy: The Night Mayor! That name alone sells the game all by itself, as far as I’m concerned.

But in all seriousness, this game is a LOT of fun, plays very well, and features a defining game mechanic that I have perhaps never seen a developer make better or more diverse use of, in any other game. Your main (only) weapon are red balloons, but with these balloons, you can throw them (including varying distances), you can hold them as a shield, you can drop them on the ground to jump on (giving you a boost), throw them straight down to jump on mid-air, and even hold them in the air to float-jump. If for no other reason than that multi-purpose balloon action, I would say retro game lovers owe it to themselves to try this game out.

14 – Game: Super Mario Bros. 2, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1987 (’88 in NA)


Speaking of which, here is Nintendo’s own repurposed game! And I’m very glad, personally, that this is the “Mario 2” that we got. Because, while not a bad game, in my opinion at least, what would later come to be known to us as “The Lost Levels”, the original Japanese Mario 2 is an uninspired, professional hack of Mario 1. Some people love it, and I can understand that, but I can also fully see and appreciate why Nintendo decided against bringing it stateside. Instead, they gave us THIS masterpiece, which was not originally a Mario game at all, but they covered it with Mario paint (pun-intended), and it is now forever part of Mario lore. I specifically remember originally renting this game and not liking it all that much, because “hey, THIS isn’t like Mario 1 and 3 at all!”

But I later came to own it, played it more, and came to appreciate it for the brilliant little platformer that it is. In fact, I really wish they would make another 2D Mario game in this style. Or hell, even a game starring Toad or SHY GUY (one of my fav. Mario enemies), so long as it has this same gameplay and takes place in Subcon, the land of dreams.

15 – Game: The Legend of Zelda, Publisher: Nintendo, Originally Released: 1986 (’97 in NA)

The game that to many people, officially kicked off the “action/adventure” genre of gaming. As previous described, I was going to rent this once as a kid, and my grandmother cut me off, suggesting I rent something else. And for whatever reason, I never tried to rent it again. I actually DID later play Zelda 2, and my first “real” Zelda experience, is when I came to own “Link’s Awakening” on Game Boy, my favorite Zelda of all time. But, I eventually got to play Zelda 1 in my teens, and though compared to later Zeldas it’s very “rough” (IE few hints, etc), it is considered a classic and one of the best games ever made for a reason.

I really love Zelda 2, for all its ridiculous hardness, but I’ll put Zelda 1 higher simply because it’s Legendary (pun-intended) status deserves it. This, Super Mario Bros., Pac-Man and Tetris should all be requisite playing for serious gamers, so that they can fully appreciate gaming history.



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Well that's it for Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2, covering #16-30!

Heroic Visions: The Savage Beast

So last time, I could have easily gone on at far greater length about just the comic book superhero characters that I mentioned. The Celestials, the "Alpha Team" of mutants, those two teams alone could have easily gotten their own, more elaborate articles. But there was one character that I purposefully left out of the article, both for time/space considerations, and because he too deserves his own spotlight. Perhaps more-so than the others I've already discussed, because he has more a more personal touch. Because he was a character that, in some ways at least, was meant to be a superhero version of me.

The first such character I ever created, using my imagination to conjure up a superhero version of myself, was straight up going to be an actual member of the X-Men. He was going to be the brand new teen (ala Jubilee), who got to sign up with the mighty mutants and go adventuring around with them. His name was "Lightning", and he started out just having the ability to fly (because I've always wanted to fly), and electric/energy powers similar to his namesake. I say "just", because as might be typical for a 12 or so year old kid to do, I eventually gave him more and more powers, to the point that it probably got kind of silly, such as super strength and invulnerability (ala Rogue), super speed (ala Quicksilver) and telekinesis (ala Phoenix). He was going to have the X-Men's trademark blue and gold color scheme for his look, a blue costume with a big gold/yellow lightning bolt on his chest (naturally). Looking back, if you tone down what would become his ridiculous pile of powers, Lightning was actually a decent character idea. But he was nothing, in terms of depth or intrigue, compared to the guy who would come to take his place.

This next character would never be part of the X-Men, but he would still be a part of the main "Marvel Universe" that they, and others like the Avengers and Fantastic Four, occupied. In contrast, all the characters I discussed in my previous article, exist in their own, unique universe.

Crappy old drawing, destroyed by time. And cats.

So as you can see above, the guy that would replace Lightning, is called "Wyldcat". Spelled with a "y", because obviously that's fuckin' cool. It's entirely possible that I created this character when I was 13, but just to be on the safe side, I'll estimate that I created him when I was 14, for sure. The first thing you might notice, for those who have been paying attention, is that my main e-mail was/is named after him. Created when I was about 14, I still use that account to this day as my "main" account.

 Instead of the ridiculous pile of powers that Lightning wound up with due to pre-teen avarice, Wyldcat, as you can plainly see, is a kind of tiger/human hybrid. As such, along with more readily obvious traits like fur and a tail, he also has (more or less) the proportionate abilities of a tiger, in human form, such as superhuman strength (more on Beast or Spider-Man's level, rather than Rogue or Colossus, for instance), speed, agility, stamina, and of course very sharp senses of smell, sight, hearing, etc. He possesses retractable claws on his hands and feet, his feet even being more cat-like in form. He also has an incredibly fast metabolism, which on the one hand means he has to eat a lot, but it also means that while he doesn't heal quite as fast as someone like Wolverine, he heals much faster than a normal human.

In all, Wyldcat is actually one of the less powerful superhero/villain type characters I've ever cooked up, comparably, but he is the kind of character who is powerful and dangerous not merely because of what he is, but also who he is. He is the type of character who is often ruled by passion and emotion (and primal instinct), and the type of character whose biggest asset, is perhaps his "heart", or force of will.

More than meets the eye.

The other aspect that might stand out to you, is that he carries a "bo" fighting staff, of sorts. And therein lies some of the intrigue and complexity of the character. For while he has razor sharp claws and could very easily carve up most bad guys like a Thanksgiving turkey, he is also in his heart a hero, and as such has an aversion to mutilating and killing people, if he can help it. So he instead often employs the use of his staff over his claws, a very strange staff with semi-mystical origins, which is wood yet basically unbreakable, a gift given to him by the man who raised him. Wyldcat is something of a martial artist, even beyond his staff, as he received martial arts training early in his life, but also over time developed his own unique style, wild and unpredictable yet fully controlled, based around his own unique physiology and abilities. So while he might pale in comparison to the raw power of someone like Cyclops, he is still one of the most dangerous individuals alive.

As you can see above, his original costume was essentially a blue and gold X-Men type outfit. But later on, I revised this, and gave him a far more original look, with basically dark gray/blue/black (alternating over time) leggings, a bare top (gotta show off that fur coat), and a cool "yin-yang" harness that holds his fighting staff on his back. Later still, his character would go through a physical change, his original orange Bengal tiger looking fur, giving way to a more white tiger appearance. In a way, taking on the white tiger appearance, would be indicative of his character growth.

All New, All Cooler Look. Same goddamn cats.

So to get right down to it, Wyldcat's origin story is both familiar and unique. He was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, to a young couple who were not only not ready for a baby, but certainly not ready to give birth to a "monster". While in Marvel Comics canon, most mutants don't display or develop their "mutantcy" until their teens, he was born a mutant, covered in fur, tail, little claws, the works. Being confused and afraid, the boy's parents left him on the doorstep of a church. And as fate would have it, that church happened to be connected to a very unusual group of people. They took the baby to a rather remote monastery, up in the mountains, that was inhabited by a rather eclectic bunch, which included Buddhist monks, Native American spiritualists, and even a secret Druid or two, posing as Christian priests to the outside world. One such man was Father Jediah, and while the whole monastery would have a hand in raising this strange child, he would become the closest thing to a surrogate parent the boy would know. The monks would raise him on a steady diet of martial arts, spiritualism, natural education, history, literature, the arts, and even some mysticism.

All things considered, even though he had a very sad start to his young life, the boy was raised with a sense of love and community, and while he knew he was different, and knew that he did not know his birth parents, he had a relatively happy childhood. However, he also possessed a fairly restless nature, and having never been allowed to go very far beyond the woods and mountains surrounding the monastery walls, by the time he had reached the ripe old age of 15, he decided that he wanted to leave. While fearful of what the greater world held for this young man, Father Jediah gave his blessing, knowing that he must be allowed to choose his own path in life. And so, with tearful goodbyes to his "brothers" (and "sisters"), the boy set out, spending his first few months alone, living wild, just exploring the Canadian wilderness.

His first brush with "heroism" would come though, when he ran across a young girl who had been abducted and taken up into the wilds, by a pair of suitably creepy men. Before they could carry out whatever they had planned for the child, Wyldcat tracked and hunted them down, for the first time in his life putting his fighting skills to a true test. The battle was short, and he left them tied fast to a tree, for the authorities to find. The girl was initially afraid of his appearance, but quickly came to be very grateful to the "Cat Man" who saved her, and took her back to civilization. It was in making sure she got home, that he had his first real brushes with human cities, and eventually, he found himself wandering into New York state, and ultimately, as if drawn by fate, New York City itself.

Bad ass? I think so.

Now while he did wear a hooded cloak of sorts to hide his mutant features from immediate notice, it wasn't long before he had his first taste of the darker side of human civilization. Largely naive to the ways of the world, while warned by Jediah that not everyone would accept him, he was still taken by surprise when assaulted by a group a local gang over his looks. He, naturally, made rather quick work of them, but this in turn brought him attention he didn't need, as there was now a violent "monster" on the loose in New York, and just like that he found himself on the run from the law. Fortunately, or not (time would tell), he ran into a certain kind of "help" that would change his life forever.

He found himself being saved from the police by a group of anarchistic young mutants who called themselves the "Mutant Rebellion", self-styled "freedom fighters", who claimed to be making a stand for mutant rights. They invited him to join their merry band, convincing him that he was "one of them", and that he could help them make a difference. Feeling like maybe he finally belonged somewhere, he took the offer, though it would take him some time to see the group for what it really was. His new "brethren" included: their enigmatic leader, Chaos, a mutant with the power to absorb just about any kind of energy, ambient or residual, either to augment his physical abilities, or to release in violent bursts. Titan, the second in command, a black dude who could transform his limbs (usually his arms) into ultra-dense carbon, making them super durable, and hard enough to punch through solid steel. Static, a free-spirited blonde with the power to generate electro-static energy. The couple, Gargoyle, who has wings and stone-hard skin, and his girlfriend Echo, who can manipulate planet-life (originally appearing here, while later having versions on the "Alpha Team" in my alternate hero universe). And last but hardly least, the mysterious and dangerous team teleporter Mist, who could create a strange glowing "mist" that only she can manipulate, to a wide variety of effects.

It was with these self-styled "Rebels" that he first really started to experience the world, and where he originally received his new code-name, "Wyldcat". While he had compunctions about some of their methods, such as their tendency to blow things up, and cause general mayhem, for a long while he bought into Chaos' rhetoric about having a message, and making a difference for mutants everywhere. It wasn't until over two years later, that the cracks in that facade would finally appear, as young 'Cat would experience his first real trauma. During one of the group's "missions", they had to fight their way out of a building, and in the heat of battle he lost control, using his claws and badly injuring a man. The team teleported away, leaving Wyldcat to wonder if he may or may not have actually killed someone. That fact would stick with him and haunt him for years to come.

The hands of doom.

That incident didn't cause him to immediately leave the "Rebellion", as he felt like he owed them, and believed they had become his new "family" in a way. But it did cause Wyldcat to finally see them for what they really were: not truly evil, but most definitely deserving of their public image as terrorists. He let himself see for the first time, that he had allowed himself to, in spite of good intentions, become one of the "bad guys". It was not long after that initial trauma, that he would meet another key figure in his life, a teenage boy who had the power to transmute energy into a crystalline sort of "armor" around his body, which he could manipulate mentally, a boy that would come to be known as "Gemstone". During an accidental public manifestation of his powers, young Gemstone found himself at the center of a lynch mob, and the fact that his "armor" protected him only spurred on their attack. Once again, the "Rebellion" swooped in to save a mutant in need, and once again Chaos invited another young mutant to "join the cause". Wyldcat, though now conflicted with his feelings for the group and their activities, also welcomed and befriended Gemstone, sensing a kindred spirit, someone naive and confused as he once was.

The big happy "family" carried on as they always had, their new addition in tow, for the next couple of months, business as usual. But Wyldcat felt more on edge than ever, not being able to shake an inexplicable sense of dread. His feelings would, sadly, prove prescient, and he would come to regret not having left the group sooner, as the last stand of their so-called "Rebellion" was at hand. As it turned out, certain secret government types had been tracking the groups movements for some time, and finally decided to spring a long-culminating trap to eliminate the terrorists for good. Lured by a false report of mutants being attacked in public, the entire group teleported in to "save the day", only to find themselves faced with a far more serious threat than they had ever faced before: the governments' answer to "The Mutant Problem", 20 foot tall mechanical monsters known as Sentinels (pictured above).

Tragedy struck, and the group met the fate perhaps that they had always been destined for, as the "Rebellion" found themselves outnumbered, outgunned and unprepared for such a challenge. Almost immediately, Mist abandoned her "friends", teleporting herself away, leaving them to their doom. Static and Titan found themselves captured, while Chaos, making a valiant stand and destroying several Sentinels by himself, eventually fell, as the Sentinels' secondary orders, if they could not incarcerate, was termination. In the confusion, Wyldcat, Gemstone, Gargoyle and Echo barely managed to escape with their lives, splitting up and going their separate ways, though all of them now more fugitive than ever.

Hope for the future?

While Gargoyle and Echo went into hiding, Wyldcat took Gemstone back to his family, and set out wandering again, alone. It wasn't long, however, before he was tracked down and caught himself, and he found himself take to an "undisclosed" top secret facility where mutants were apparently incarcerated, even studied and experimented on. It was at this facility where he met another young mutant, a boy who would come to named "Inferno", who had the power to turn his body into "living flames". Not being able to control this power, Inferno accidentally hurt his father during an argument, alerting the authorities to his existence, and leading to his incarceration. Unbeknownst to Wyldcat, this was the same facility that his former friends Titan and Static had been taken to, and Static most especially had become the focus of certain experiments with her powers, that wound up augmenting them considerably. She used this to her advantage, causing a power outage, and staging a jail-break, freeing Titan and several other young mutants, as well as unknowingly freeing Wyldcat and Inferno.

Once again on the run with a new friend in tow, they eventually met up with Gemstone, and the three young men made their way towards California's west coast. It was here, in the Bay Area, that they would finally find what they really needed: a place to belong. During a skirmish with a local chapter of the so-called "Friends of Humanity", an anti-mutant militia outfit, Wyldcat and Co. first crossed paths with another group of young mutants who called themselves "Legacy". Formed and led by the rich and quite famous corporate CEO, Richard Windstar, who himself was a mutant possessing psionic (mind) abilities, this team patterned themselves after other superhero groups, literally intending to be the next generation, to carry on that heroic "Legacy". Windstar had come to believe that mutant powers were a gift, and that they could and should be put to use making the world a better place.

Impressed by the way the mysterious trio handled themselves, Windstar offered them a place on the team, which they accepted. At first, they merely accepted to have somewhere to lay low, so they could stop living on the run. But gradually, they actually became part of the team, and felt like they were part of something bigger than themselves, something good. They found themselves among such personalities as: Shockwave, a rich Senator's sun who had fallen out with his family, mainly due to his power to channel kinetic energy into devastating blasts (hence his name). Jade, a brunette girl who not only has the ability to manipulate a wide array of energy fields (making her potentially one of the most powerful "superhumans" on the planet), but also later turns out to be Wyldcat's little sister (long story). Changeling,  a Japanese boy who can metamorph into practically any solid form. Morningstar, a German youth who channels raw life energy through his body, giving him the power to heal himself and others (which he also makes novel use of with a pair of swords). And Blitz, punk-rock girl with multi-colored hair, and the power to cause dormant residual elemental energies to quite literally explode to life.  

One of the coolest comic characters ever created.

I eventually would add a couple more characters to the "Legacy" team lineup over the years, such as the mysterious and beautiful "Blink", aka Clarice Ferguson, an actual Marvel Comics character. She had originally (and tragically) been killed off before she ever really became a superhero in normal continuity, during a mid-90s X-Men story called "The Phalanx Covenant". She was actually created by my favorite comic/X-Men writer, Scott Lobdell, whom I will undoubtedly write about more at a future date. Not too long later, they brought her back, in an alternate reality version of herself, during their line-wide 1995 epic storyline called "The Age of Apocalypse". That alternate world, itself, seemingly blew to shit at the end (SPOILERS), before the normal X-Men timeline comics resumed, but Blink was one of several characters who had a very vague fate. So I decided, in my awesome teenage wisdom, that she would wind up teleporting (which is part of her power), to the main Marvel reality Earth, where the Legacy team would find her and take her in. Because she was too good a character to be wasted, and I happened to think she was awesome (still do). It JUST so happens, that Marvel actually did dust the character off and bring her back, in 2001, first in her own (very MEH) mini-series, and then later in the very Sliders-esque "Exiles" comic. Naturally, while only existing in my imagination, I beat them to the punch (and made far better use of her), all the way back in like 1996.

So that is the overall story arc of Wyldcat, in a long nutshell. He went from orphaned baby, to being a ward for a very eclectic group of monks, to striking out on his own in his teens and unwittingly joining a terrorist group, to living on the run, and finally coming full circle to a destiny that surely Father Jediah had always known he was meant for, becoming a bonafide superhero with this new Legacy team. He even eventually meets the parents who abandoned him, through Jade, who turns out to be his sister. Though the fact didn't immediately make him hurt any less, it turned out that it had broken his parents' hearts to give him up. While he long thought they "threw him away", not wanting to raise a monster, the truth was that they were young and scared, and didn't know how to handle raising a mutant "tiger kid". It took time for wounds to start healing a little, but he eventually came to forgive them, realizing that perhaps his sheltered life with the monks was better than what his parents could have offered him. And they in turn readily embraced him as the son they always regretting giving up. They even had a third child, Wyldcat and Jade's younger brother, who had not yet (and perhaps never would) displayed any signs of also being a mutant.

Not that his life was "happily ever after", or that he wouldn't experience pain and struggle and tragedy along his path. Such is the life of most superheroes, after all. I won't get too into what all happens to Wyldcat as part of his adventures with the Legacy team. I will say that some major shit goes down over time (naturally), and the team eventually moves out of the United States and evolves into a larger organization called "Legion", a group that more pro-actively and openly trains young people, mutants and non-mutants alike, to work towards a better tomorrow. And while the team originates in the main Marvel universe, and spends their first many years there, due to the ridiculous state that (I personally feel) Marvel's comics got themselves to, I eventually decided that the entire team (and related persons) gets shunted to a separate alternate reality of their own.

Here's a badly edited better look at Wyldcat!

Wyldcat is, without a doubt, out of the literally dozens upon dozens of comic book characters I've imagined over the years, the one that I spent the most time imagining. He thus wound up getting the most elaborate characterization, background/history, adventures/stories, etc. And mind you, I came up with most of that character background, and the Legacy team, in 1996. Some details would be fleshed out over time, but all the important basics were there by then. I may have mentioned before, but I would really love to travel to an alternate reality where things I've dreamed up, like these comics, like Wyldcat comics, actually existed, so that I could read them and enjoy them. He's one of my favorite creations, in any medium, that I've ever yet conjured up, and so I thought I'd share him with you all. I hope you all found the awesome martial arts-y "Tiger Dude" as interesting as I always did. Until next time!

Heroic Visions: My Early Comic Book Concepts

Growing up, I wasn't as into superheroes as I might otherwise have been, because of my grandmother. I've mentioned before, she didn't "approve" of many things, and one of them was comic books and superheroes. Oddly enough, there was a point in my childhood when I went as Spider-Man, and later Superman for Halloween, and was allowed to watch cartoons like He-Man and Thundercats. But in general, I didn't get exposure to superheroes a whole lot until I was about 11 or so years old. It was then that I got a tv in my own room, and was able to watch whatever I wanted, even if I had to make sure I didn't get "caught" watching it. One of those things was the X-Men Animated Series, circa 1992 or so, which will most certainly get an article all it's own at some point.

It was the X-Men cartoon, more than any other (even though I also dug the 90s Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Batman cartoons), that really ignited my love for comics and superheroes. I didn't actually get to own any comics, outside of a few Nintendo comics, until I was a bit older. But that didn't stop me from eating up those cartoons, and it ignited my own imagination like wildfire. I had a bonafide passion for the concept of superheroes, and I fostered it in whatever limited ways I could.

Trading Cards, a major 90s thing that should still be going strong.

One of those ways, was via collectible trading cards. A friend of mine had a bunch of spare/extra comic trading cards, like the one shown above, and gave them to me in a collector's binder. That alone, to me at the time, was heaven. Somehow I got away with keeping those things, though I'm certain my grandmother disapproved, and as such, even though I couldn't read the comics, I still felt like I was getting little pieces of them through those cards. For one thing, as you can see, they of course often featured some awesome original artwork, made just for the cards. That was part of what made them collectors items. But on the back of these cards, they often featured little bits of background info on the characters, or certain specific story arcs, etc., and it was because of this that I came to know little bits and pieces about various characters like the Punisher, or the Avengers, or Adam Warlock.

My main interest the entire time, of course, was the X-Men, and as such, given that I was prone to daydreaming, and have always had a vivid and powerful imagination, my mind started going wild, using this raw material afforded me by these cartoons and cards, to start forging my very own visions of superheroes, super villains, and various stories. I did this to entertain myself, but I also did it as a means of escapism. I've intimated before that my childhood was not a great one, and I often daydreamed about any manner of things, as a means of getting away from that. And superheroes were no different. Imagining fantastical situations and characters was cathartic to me, as much as it was fun. I won't ever deny, that there is a part of me that has always wanted superpowers, has always wanted the freedom they would provide. And a part of me as well has always wanted to be a hero, to make a difference, to save the world.

As the main crux of this article, I am about to share with you some of the artwork that I made as a kid and young teen, based on some of the creations I came up with. I have never considered myself a very good artist, but there's a few of these I'm still rather fond of.

Saturn, Mistress of Gravity.

I even did the back info, too.

So one of the first sets of hero characters I created, for what I once dubbed "Universe Comics" in my head, was a team of galactic space-based heroes called "The Planet People". As you might well imagine, this was a team based on the 9 (Pluto will always count to me) planets of our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth/Terra, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. And as you can plainly see above, I actually went out of my way to try and create my very own trading cards for these creations of mine. I cut out bits of card paper, as well as pieces of regular drawing paper, pasted those bits to the cards, and went to work drawing.

Pluto, cat-like Ice Goddess of the stars.

Fee-Line Prowlerr. You'll have to forgive me, I was like 12.

In short summary, the Planet People were a group of cosmic heroes, gathered together by an ancient woman from a forgotten race, to face the timeless menace of the self-styled savior of the universe, Sol, the Sun God. The woman who gathered these 9 heroes (9 including herself), would come to call herself Venus, and she was the last known member of her race, being wiped out eons ago by Sol. She put herself in hibernation, until Sol's own prison was broken, and he awoke in the modern universe, which caused her to awake as well. She possessed highly powerful psi-talents, such as telepathy, telekinesis and so on, her mighty mind making up for her small and frail body.

The team she brought together, consisted of: Terra (Earth), a somewhat immortal male human, who has mastery over the earth element, manipulating stone, soil, metals and minerals. Mercury, a being whose body is made of a liquid metal type substance, which he can transform from liquid to harder than steel. Mars, a sort of advanced android, made as a living weapon, who can focus energy into his fists and feet, as well as shoot heat beams from his eyes. Jupiter, a being of living energy, who keeps a humanoid form via a sort of containment harness, and can absorb and project outside energy sources. Saturn, the red-haired woman pictured above, who has the power to manipulate gravitational fields. Neptune, a cross-breed between an Earth-based aquatic "mer-man", and a metamorphic alien race. Uranus, a towering powerhouse from a warrior race, who actually hates war and has a poet's soul. And lastly, the cosmic cat-girl shown above, Pluto, who was blessed/cursed with vast cold and ice powers by an unknown cosmic phenomenon.

This many heroes were gathered together, because the threat they faced in Sol, a being with the power of a living star, was so great that even together they can barely face him. And granted, I didn't come up with ALL of those details on the spot. I gradually filled in more and more over the years, and honestly, imagining the lives and stories of these characters and their universe has been one of the many things I've spent my time imagining, even into my adult years, as a way to pass time, entertain myself, or even now, still a means of escapism. I eventually decided to rename the team "The Celestials", because somehow it sounded cooler, or fancier, or whatever. But I'll also readily admit that part of me still thinks that "Planet People" has a very nice Silver Age DC Comics type of charm to it.

My original, very Apocalypse looking design for the Sun God.

I definitely had some heavy inspirations for some of my earliest kid superhero ideas, like the Planet People. For example, when I first thought of the villain Sol, I was so enamored by the seemingly unstoppable X-Men villain, Apocalypse, that I basically styled him likewise. I would later amend that design, in my head at least, and make him look more different. He's not actually the bulky Apocalypse/Thanos/Darkseid type of guy....he's certainly taller than humans, but I'd say he's leaner, from a warrior race himself, that was one of the oldest in the universe. He's a bit of a fanatic, as his race basically wiped themselves out with technology and war, but he was spared by some cosmic force, given new life and the "power of a living star", and tasked with keeping what happened to his people from ever happening again. On paper, doesn't sound so bad. Unfortunately, the way he went about that, for millennia, was offering an ultimatum to civilizations he would encounter: accept his rule, and lay down their weapons and agree to regulate their technology, or be utterly destroyed by his ultimate weapon, the "Nova Burst". So he's definitely one of those complex villains who thinks he's doing the right, just thing.

Unfortunately, I only ever made those two cards I've shown in this article, even though I had fully intended to make a bunch more, a whole set really. I don't even remember why I stopped, but I did, and while I've somehow managed to hold on to those two cards, two of the few things I did hold on to from my childhood (I could kick myself for not keeping a LOT of shit I wish I had now), it sucks that there isn't more to show off. I did draw and doodle a lot, but not enough to have a whole set. It was ultimately only a fraction of the characters I actually dreamt up, that I bothered to draw on paper, with my limited drawing talents.

Two of "The Amazing Mutants".

It goes without saying, loving the X-Men as much as I did, that I also made up my own mutant type team. In this case, I literally decided to just name them "The Mutants", or at least that was the comic title, though the actual team name was always something like "Alpha Team" or "Team Alpha" (and later Beta, and Omega iterations). These X-Men wannabes, as I'm sure many would label them, were my own homage to the idea of a clandestine band of mutant heroes. I later filled in more blanks, in my teens, and decided that these youngsters were originally gathered together and trained by a mysterious group of people called "The Trust", who basically existed from the shadows, and kept a watch on super-powered people, believing if they got to them early enough, and trained them to use their powers for good, they could make a positive difference in how these people affected the world. In another somewhat "trying to be original" twist on the mutant mythos, when it came to THESE mutants, instead of treating this as some kind of genetic mutation phenomenon that just happened to give people super-powers, it was instead treated more like an almost supernatural phenomenon, with those in the know referring to these people born with powers as "The Gifted". And the phenomenon itself being explained as more of a mysterious spiritual type of thing, connected to something unique in these individuals' energy fields/makeup, not so much a genetic quirk. The term "Mutant" is, if anything, in their universe, more of a common derogatory term.

The two shown above, again more or less the only two I ever actually bothered to draw (that I remember), are basically the team leaders, "Sunblast" (Whom I later renamed Daybreak, good choice on my part I think), and Andromeda. Daybreak is a living solar battery, and adsorbs solar energy, which he mainly puts to use projecting it in intense offensive blasts. Andromeda, while I had trouble defining her powers at first, in my teens I decided she actually is able to manipulate energy fields in general, which can tax her greatly, but also makes her one of the most powerful beings on Earth. Their teammates over time consisted of: Cinder the original youngest member and a party girl, who has the power to transform her body into, basically, her namesake, and is able to generate heat and flame. Changeling (originally named "Horror"), a Mexican mutant with an adaptive metamorphic power, which gives him many different abilities and traits of wildlife (mammals, fish, birds, etc.), but typically only as his circumstances  and environment demand. There was Feral, a ferocious fighter with peak human physical ability, and superhuman senses, who also possess a kind of "6th Sense" that gives him brief glimpses of what is just about to happen (sometimes, not always), giving him seemingly superhuman reaction. Tremor, a Japanese orphan who is raising his kid sister, who has the power to generate powerful force waves. There was also Greywolf, a German aristocrat of sorts with the power to transform into a werewolf type state, and his partner Blurr, a red-skinned British woman with superhuman speed.

Other teammates that came and went in my imagination for this "Mutants" team over the years, included Static, an African-American female who started out in a rival semi-villainous group known as "The Mutant Rebellion", who as her name implies, has the ability to generate electro-static energy (I came up with this character years before I was aware of a similar male Milestone/DC Comics character). There was Songbird, a Canadian teen girl who has the power to manipulate sound waves, giving her abilities including amplifying/muting localized sounds, or even creating powerful "Sonic Boom" shock-waves. She would later retire from the team to return to her home country and become a solo hero in her own right, the premier superhero of Canada. There was even later a second generation, of sorts, that included the likes of Chrome, a big black dude who could transform his body into various types of solid metal, making him both heavy/durable and strong. There was Panthris, a mysterious woman who had been the victim of secret experiments on the "Gifted", transforming her into a cat-like state, giving her cat-like physical abilities and senses. There was the couple of Gargoyle and Eco (alternatively "Echo"), a winged man with stone-hard skin, hair and claws, and a green-haired girl who has the power to commune with nature and manipulate flora (plant-life). Later still there was even a guy called Twilight (completely unrelated to the trashy vampire novels), a man who can't even speak, because his body has a "nullification field" that absorbs not only all kinetic impact, making him hard to hurt, but also absorbs sound and light immediately around him, making him always appear in the shadows (and functionally invisible in the dark), as well as making him dead silent (as in zero sound). His field even renders him scentless. He's basically the perfect spy/assassin, but luckily prefers to fight on the "side of the angels", though he has a murky, unknown past.

Here's Ragnarok, a largely abandoned very early villain concept.

I also came up with many villains, of course, because it's no fun coming up with superheroes if you don't also conjure bad guys for them to fight. I've certainly imagined/created my share, in this comic universe that has continually evolved in my head over the decades. One of the very first, outside of Sol of course, was one of the "Mutants" primary enemies, an Irish "terrorist" type called Firestorm. I came up with the concept and name for Firestorm long before I was really aware that the DC comics hero existed. Though I'd also like to point out that while THAT Firestorm is cool, and unique, I think this guy is far more complicated, and earns his namesake better (of course I'm biased). While Ronnie Raymond (DC), has weird nuclear-related powers that basically let him transform stuff, among other things, the villainous "mutant" Firestorm, my brainchild, is someone who popped up on the radar back in the early 60s or so, in a turbulent Ireland, in a small community where he was attacked and ostracized for his natural flame-manipulating talents, and labelled (of course) a spawn of the "devil", etc. Because he suffered greatly at the hands of human ignorance, he lashed out in kind, burning his entire home village to the ground. He was presumably also killed as the final outcome, but as comic book fate would have it, he disappeared from history, only to reappear over a decade later, still young and more full of rage and pain than ever. A villain who wants to see the world burn, to make others feel the pain he feels. No great pretense at benevolence, like the X-Men's Magneto. Instead, just a tragic figure, who commits heinous acts, quite irrationally, because he is too broken inside by hurt and hate. Pretty dark stuff, to be sure, and while Magneto is a master of magnetic fields, Firestorm is a master of the fire element itself, as he more or less has control over heat and flame, even able to sometimes manipulate magma underneath the Earth's surface (or as it were, cause volcanoes to erupt, one of his past nefarious deeds.)

Of course, not to get TOO into one character, nor to get too "spoiler-y", but while this is not the case for ALL villains I've come up with over time, I think one major theme that recurs with many villains I've created in this little comic-verse of mine, Firestorm is someone who, as hard as it could be to imagine only hearing that little bit, does later somehow find a road to partial redemption, and much later fights on the side of the good guys (more or less). And again not to get TOO deep into it, but for anyone who was paying attention, just for fun, there most certainly is a connection (and no coincidence) in the similarity of Firestorm's powers, to that of "Alpha Team's" own Cinder, who would later suffer trauma and slight transformation of her own, and become known as Brimstone.

 Yet another "Mutants" related villain, has far greater personal history with the team, that being a mysterious would-be assassin that shows up calling herself The Hornet. At first of course, they have no idea who she is, but it is later revealed that it is in fact former "Alpha Team" member Tremor's little sister, Izumi, who herself had not yet really developed her "gift", and who had been a teenage ward of the team, as well as the "Trust" folks who facilitated them. See, spoilers, but poor Tremor was, in my comic mythos, the first major hero I came up with to suffer a tragic death, dying in battle trying to save his team-mates. His kid sister, naturally, was deeply affected by this loss, and ran away, disappearing from the team's radar in spite of their efforts to find her. Then this Hornet character shows up, complete with techno-organic hornet-like wings, a suit that allows her to cling to surfaces ala Spider-Man, and perhaps her most dangerous attribute, wrist gauntlets that contain deadly "stinger" blades, which she puts to lethal use. As it turns out, Izumi went somewhat mad with grief, and blamed the team for letting her brother, her whole world, die. So in her grief, she was approached by one of the more nefarious of my comic villain sorts, one Dr. Ramos, the kind of man who doesn't do any fighting himself, but is glad to send his various robots or experiments, etc. out into the world. He offered to transform her, and give her real power (though it turns out she already possessed hyper-keen senses, as well as a superhuman tracking/homing ability, which she also develops to deadly use), so that she can take her revenge. Of course, he does this because those damn "Mutants" have gotten in his way once too often. So the poor girl falls for his schemes, gets techno-wings permanently grafted to her back, and allows the Doc to turn her into a trained (even conditioned) killer, before she finally strikes out at her former caretakers. Long story short, while she never does (thankfully) succeed in killing them, she DOES eventually become disgusted with what she has become, realizing she is dishonoring her brother's memory, and is just being manipulated by Ramos. So she ultimately turns against him, and later goes on to become something of an anti-hero herself. See? Again, redemption.

A crappy drawing of an awesome character.

Speaking of dark and tragic pasts, before I start wrapping this up, there are a few more characters I should tell you about, starting with this guy pictured above. His name is Donovan Crestmore, a man who would go on to become the hero Supernova. Now I seriously doubt that his dark origin story was something I originally envisioned, when I first concocted some preliminary form of the character around age 12 or 13. But a bit later in my teens, I filled in his backstory, and it's a doozy. The short version is, as is often the case with some of these super-types, he has a hard life and a tragic past, a loner, a former orphan, etc., whose life never quite seemed to go right. Until, of course, he met this girl....that one RIGHT girl, the kind who can suddenly seem to set everything right. Except then they got caught, quite by accident, in the crossfire of some gang-land or otherwise criminal enterprise. Donovan escaped with a couple bullet wounds. His girl on the other hand, the person who meant more to him than anything in the universe, tragically died of her wounds. Having lost everything, in his mind, and having nothing left to live for, he actually straight up tries to commit suicide, throwing himself form the very top of a very tall building. But as comic book fate would have it, his deathly decent was halted, as before he hit the ground, he found himself in a dark and mysterious "Other World", and was approached by mostly unseen, certainly unknown entities, who offered him a second chance at life. And why the hell would he want that? Because they offered him a chance at Justice. Not Vengeance, mind you, Justice, and that would be an important sticking point.

The twist, if you will, in the character and original powers of my Supernova, is that these cosmic-god-whatever beings who gift him incredible power, a mysterious purple energy source that only he can tap into in all the universe, he can only use this power source for what he knows in his heart to be good, and right. Meaning he has to fight for Justice, not Vengeance. So he can draw on this purple energy, which gives him many abilities, such as flight at up to (or beyond) super-sonic speeds, varying (unknown upper limit) superhuman strength, the power to create a nearly impenetrable force field around himself (and others, with effort), even the power to fire potentially devastating energy blasts. In other words he is one of the most powerful beings on earth, perhaps potentially even the universe. But the catch is, if he ever steps out of line, if he ever uses his powers for what he knows is wrong, or for some kind of personal gain, these cosmic beings will renege on their gift to him, both of his power source, but also the other side-effect that power gave him: a second chance at life. Not only will he lose his power, but he'll die as he was originally going to before they intervened. Now I don't mind saying, not to pat one's self on the back, but that is some serious shit. So it goes without saying, that ol' Donnie was a bit of a reluctant superhero, in many ways, for the good first while of his career as Supernova. He even eschewed superhero conventions, for a good while just wearing street clothes and a black leather jacket, instead of a costume (though he would later don one).

In fact, to give a brief glimpse into the future before moving along, later in my imaginary comic timeline, while spending many years acting the part of a hero, Donovan does eventually encounter a scenario that causes him to break. More tragic, pointless death at the hands of evil, and he finally does what he had privately wished to do all along: he kind of goes berserk, and uses his power to take human, albeit villainous lives. He also recklessly blows up a city block or so in the process, causing major damage and harming innocents.  It should then go without saying that those ol' mysterious cosmic entities were pissed, and made good on their promise. He got a measure of Vengeance, and also almost immediately lost his powers, and his life. But hold on a sec, that wasn't "The End". Just like last time, instead of crossing over for good, Donnie finds himself confronted by another ethereal power, this time a darker, colder one, a being calling itself "The Void", which offered him a new power source, no strings attached (so it claimed), in the from of a kind of "Cosmic Cloak", a cape that looks like a starry night sky. This cloak gave him many strange powers, transforming seemingly to match his will at times, giving him great strength, deadly weapons, even the ability to traverse the stars easily. Little known to him, not unlike Peter Parker's black symbiotic suit of the 80s, Donovan was unaware that the more he used this power, the more it started to take him over, and nearly too late, it was revealed that this "Void" being, was an ancient force of destruction that had been sealed away, and was using him as an avatar, a vessel to return and more or less destroy the known universe (eventually). The combined might of many Earth and cosmic heroes teamed up to fight him, including a couple of his friends, but it was ultimately Donovan himself, who in a final moment of clarity, took back control long enough to once again kill himself, breaking the vessel for the "Void", and thus sending it back to Exile.

Deep, dark, even depressing stuff, right? Well don't worry. As a consequence of his final, selfless sacrifice, Mr. Crestmore was one again confronted by those mysterious cosmic beings, this time bringing him better news: his actions had proven to them that he finally understood what true Justice and Balance were, and that he had finally proven himself worthy of the power they gave him. So this time, they were going to let him off the hook, return his life to him, and his old purple Supernova powers, but this time without the catch. This time, he was going to be entrusted with this power because they thought he deserved it, so he would now be able to use it as he saw fit, being trusted that he would do what was right. He finally learned what it really meant to be a hero, actually accepted and internalized himself as being a hero, and came to don a more super-heroic costume (as crudely represented in that sketch back up there a ways). Not a bad bit of growth and character arc, if I do say so myself.

*Picture does not accurately represent hero in question.

So, while I could honestly go on forever, and will in fact probably write additional articles about this stuff in the future, both because it's fun and because if I don't share it here, it's likely most of this comic-y stuff in my head may never see the light of day otherwise. Before I shut the hell up for NOW though, I'll talk about one last hero I created, one of the first I created, around age 11/12/13 or so, and that is a giant guy called Behemoth. A nice, mild-mannered Greek biologist and anthropologist, Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Janos, was deep in field-work in Africa, when he came afoul of a local superstition of sorts, that proved to be real. A supposedly ancient, malevolent witch-doctor called by many names, one of those being the "Mud Man", a masked old man who seemed to cause woe around him, and held many local tribes under his less-than-benevolent control. Gerry, not being the type to watch people suffer without trying to help, tried to expose and confront what he thought was simple superstition, a fraud of a witch-doctor who ruled people through fear. But he unfortunately got into some shit he didn't understand, and paid the price. Turns out, the shaman was legit, and used very ancient, very dark magicks to permanently transform a simple scientist and scholar, into a hulking, 12 foot tall (yes 12 feet) monstrosity.

Now, I shared the pic above, a trading card connected to the Monster in My Pocket toy line I loved so much at the time (early 90s), because that figure, of the mythical monster Behemoth, did in fact serve as the direct inspiration for this character, though my guy's final form would be quite a bit different. He was basically turned into this giant body, that is in some ways a composite of various animal life: he has a lion type tail, giant hoofed feet, clawed humanoid hands, a long dark main of hair, great ram style horns, and deep crimson scaly skin, that is highly invulnerable to damage, like a kind of armor. He has many beast-like abilities as well, along with his super-durable skin, such as incredible strength, great speed and agility for his enormous size, gills behind his ears to allow underwater breathing, incredible senses that can even see ethereal beings and see through most illusions, and a reptilian-like healing factor. Awesome powers, really. But the problem was, Dr. Janos also lost his life as a normal human, most people he had known and loved taking him for dead, and the world at large considering him a monster and a threat. Yet he still chose, because of his innate goodness, to be a hero, instead of the monster the world believed him to be. And unlike most iterations of the Hulk, he got to keep his rational, brilliant mind, at least after he came to grips with his new reality. That "Mud Man" chap would be his top villain, for understandable reasons, for years, with him repeatedly trying to find him and force him to change him back to normal. He even eventually gets a chance to finally return to being Gerald Janos, and leave the monster behind, what he's wanted more than anything for years. But he ultimately sacrifices that, realizing that as the monster, he can do good in the world and help protect people, which he couldn't as the man. Again, pretty deep stuff, more character growth.

AND, as a last note on those two characters, I'd like to point out that Supernova & Behemoth, two of my earliest creations, and both originally reluctant heroes in their own right, not only both eventually embrace being heroes, but also over time become more or less best friends.

Here is a completely unrelated, non-superhero pic of Scorpion I once drew. Misspelled even.

So THERE you have it. A peak inside my mind that is, I don't mind saying, overstuffed with a wide variety of such nonsense, things I've dreamt up or created in my head, the vast majority of it only EXISTING within my head, since childhood. Comic book ideas, book ideas, movie ideas, video games, you name it. In part I've come up with this stuff over the years as escapism and a means to entertain myself (growing up an only child, with an overprotective parental figure, it was a necessity for life). But I also happen to really like most of the things I've come up with, and continue to come up with, and would love to travel to a parallel Earth where all shit I've imagined actually exists (in their proper media forms, I mean).

I don't mind telling you that even just my private comic universe alone, is pretty well fleshed out. Tons of characters, histories, stories, etc. What I've shared here today, making for yet another sizable article in it's own right, only makes up a fraction of all the characters I've come up with over the years, and many of them also have just as detailed of histories. All filed away and archived somewhere in my head. So I'll shut up for now, but I'll be back soon, perhaps with some more totally imaginary comic book goodness!