NC needs creative Help

[sunandshadow]

The reference art is anime, but shapeshifters have been done with no problems in western comics, X-Men for example has one who is a fairly major villain IIRC, and animal-themed powers in general are common. Unless you meant the plot ideas, that I can't comment on, I know it would all be fine in a fantasy novel but I don't really know the genre and content range of western comic stories.

Glancing through the earlier posts though, it seemed like there were already one or two shapeshifters planned.


BTW for gang weapons, bladed brass knuckles or gloves would be cool.

 

[Ravenloft]

I was mostly refering to the plot ideas.

You remember correctly, and you would be refering to Mystique, the sexy blue skinned woman.

*Turns into Brody from Mallrats*
Genre and content? Well, that greatly depends on the era you're looking at. Golden age was camp with homoerotic undertones. Read: Batman and the Boy Wonder.

The 80's were all about big guns, big attitudes, and even bigger breasts.

And today, everyone seems to be looking for the next independant to launch into the spot light until it is drained of all of its freshness and originality, and dies the long slow death of premature commercialization.

*Turning into a bitter frenchman*

Damn you cruel world, I speet on you and your naughty, dirty, ffffeelthy commericalization! *Ptooi!*

 

[sunandshadow]

So just out of curiosity, which of the plot ideas would you consider inappropriate for western comics, and more importantly, why? (You can answer in a PM if it's too off-topic to the thread.)

 

[Sean Renaud]

I'm not now, nor does Raven, speak for Nitecrowe.

That said we've got a one shapeshifter for sure and a second potential shapeshifter in the works. I think a third would just make things crowded unless the theme of the stories was changed so that shape shifting was basically what everybody does.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with your charachter other than being submitted a tad bit late, though to be fair I don' think a gay charachter is going to get over well with a western audiance. I might be wrong and it certainly shouldn't stop somebody from trying, particularly as it's not a main charachter but I don't believe that the US is ready for that.

That aside I'm not against your charachter, I hope Nite gets enough success off of this to encourage other authors because I've been working on similar things for years, I have at least hundreds of pages of decent stories that need cleaning up and maybe some charachters that didn't come from me but at this point the risk to reward ratio simply isn't there, I wish I new an author because I think if I had an artist to help me out that I could be a great webcomicer. That's another issue though. Good luck Nite! I'm still working on some new villians for you, or real villians.

 

[NiteCrowe]

Thanks Shaun. I know what you mean, I'm an Author, i just wish i could just find an artist lol.

Lol, for those who don't know i'm a freelance comic writer and have worked on such things as the X-men...despite my age.

Anyway....Shapeshifters....We have 1 (almost 2) like sean said.

Shapeshifters in western comics.....Wendigo, Collosus (trust me they're shapeshifters) Mystique, Morph, Plastic Man, Martian Manhunter, Chameleon, Wolfsbane, Beast Boy, Mr Fantastic, Ferro lad, Hyrdoman, Sandman, Yellowjacket, Giganta, Mist, Absorbing man....

Okay, you may say that they aren't all shapeshifters....but the way i (and wiki) catagorise them, they are, they just have different shapeshifting capabilities...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comic_book_superpowers#Shapeshifting

Anyway I diverge...
> SunandShadow, its not that i don't like your ideas, its just i don't think they'd work in the context i'm using. Don't get me wrong though, I think they have potential...As i read it i thought it would be better as its own comic...

> Gay heroes...Have you not seen Ultimate Collosus, Northstar, Mystique, Destiny or Anole....

Sorry i divulge again...

Anway, keep up the good work...I can now say that i need villians and no longer require supporting characters

Thanks,
NC

 

[Sean Renaud]

C'mon Nite, lets be fair once you're outside of Wiki most of the heroes you mentioned don't count as Shapeshifters no matter what their technical abilities maybe. Human Torch, not a shape shifter, just like Collossus not a shapeshifter, I'd be willing to debate Carnage/Venom and other symbiots into the group on a technicality.

Mystique, Beastboy, Martian Manhunter. All true Shapeshifters.

Sandman, Hydroman I'm willing to not debate this. How would you define Kevin 11 if you're familar with that?

And is there any gaps your seeing in the charachters? A niche you'd like to see filled? I mean we haven't even covered an elemental yet. No fire, water, ice, electricity. It seems that almost by law you need atleast one of these bases covered.

We're lacking a brute as well you know a Rhino, Collosus, Bane, Killer Croc, Doomsday, Juggernaut

We don't have a a true nut case, Joker, Carnage, Green Goblin (though we could easily get Damian to fit that role as he's got a dozen pluse voices screaming in his head, we could even use that as an explanation for why he'll purposely induce the "high" that turns in into Samael or Torquemada because it gives him a clarity that he's normally unable to obtain.

 

[sunandshadow]

> SunandShadow, its not that i don't like your ideas, its just i don't think they'd work in the context i'm using. Don't get me wrong though, I think they have potential...As i read it i thought it would be better as its own comic...

No problem, I'm a writer also and I've had the experience that random suggestions from other people almost never fit in my context. It was fun writing out the character description anyway. Glad you think the ideas have potential and could be their own story. I suck at coming up with any kind of main plot though, for some reason I always have character, worldbuilding, and romance ideas but I never have ideas for dramatic climaxes/endings, or for characters that actually have driving goals or nefarious plans or other things that might actually create plot.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Also I'd like to note that the bladed knuckles is both cool and not hokey.

 

[NiteCrowe]

okay, firstly i called them shapeshifters long before i ever saw wiki lol, but lets not go into that....

Okay...Sean's right....We need to fill the following niches

>Water Based or similar
>Fire based or similar
>Electricity based or similar
>Ice
>I think i have a possible brute, but your welcome to make others...
>I think Brody fits the pyschotic niche lol....

 

[CountV]

the lupine I've been fixing (it's data is at the office) can emit fire from his/her arms, not sure if that would fit your elemental needs

 

[NiteCrowe]

yeah that would be okay.

 

[Sean Renaud]

You may have, and I'll even concede that they techincally are shape shifters. I just usually wouldn't categorize them as such. I'm seeing your point just when I think Shapeshifter, Collosus and Carnage don't really make my list. Though technically they should. For me it's kinda like debating if the people of this thread constitute a gang. Webster would say yes.

That aside in hindsight I think HAVOK could double as an electric themed one. I agree that Damian can fit the pure psycho role. I'm enjoying fleshing him out. We (or possibly you Nite since you are lead man) should clean this stuff up a bit so we have a better idea of what we're working with. I mean I can only assume that some of our ideas you're already tweaking so they make since withing your world.

Another thing that would be nice (if such a thing exists.) is a rough map of the city. I don't mean everything but you know maybe a few major streets, where the prison is located, where the bad part of town is, where the Polce HQ is, where Nite's HQ is and what it's called, city call. Or at the very least names for some of these locations.

Another question is how new are "supers" like is there a specialty prison (Gotham as I'm sure you know has Arkam where the crazies or special cases go. Joker, Harl, Two-Face, Riddler, Mr. Freeze *notable because he's not insane he just has special living conditions. And a prison, Stonegate where the sane villians, Penguin, Catwoman, Kroc *I think*,) So is there a system in place to deal with these charachters?

If not I think that might be a good place to interject the US government so they can be both good and bad as they would be taking these guys off the streets and also researching them.

If you answered earlier I apologize. How dangerous is the city? Is it like Sunnydale(Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Gotham where walking home after dark could qualify as an extreme sport? Or is it just bad?

 

[thewhiteone]

Tina Lowan

Tina is a cat burglar who has faught her way off the streets. She has the ability to control light and darkness. With in about 300ft of her, she can turn any or all of it pitch black (she can still see), make it blinding, make a stage light, or make the light so intense that you'd think your taking a stroll in the Sahara on fresh black top (naturally leaving the spot she is standing in safe).

She has the stereotypical 'bad girl' personality (not evil girl, bad girl).

I think she would be an interesting sidekick for Disciple, playing around with the light when he shifts into his 'divinely inspired' forms. That and blind everyone else when they need to escape.

 

[Kalika84]

um i personally have not read alot of comics but I thought id give it a try..also question, how often is an arch nemesis a female?

anyway

Villain
Name: Blaize Harmon

Description: 5'9 Long dark red hair, smooth creamy skin and amber coloured eyes. Blaize is strong and well toned. Due to one of the experiments her fathers corporation was working on she can cover her entire body in armor with thought.
Background: Very very rich thanks to Daddy and his less than squeaky clean business deals. Fronted by a massive Technological Corporation that makes everything from computers to prototypes for future products civilian and military. Daddy however also sold on the black market earning his revenue from legitimate deals twice over in shady ones. At one point the corporation was working on a new project for the Defense Force for an "Auto-Response Shield" By injecting the human subject with combination of metals and nanobots the subject could then concentrate and cause the metals to come to the surface of their skin and join to form a shield over the person's whole body. Unfortunately Blaize went to see her father one night and fell into a vat of the metals and nanobots.

Thanks to her fathers criminal deals he was brought down in a huge bust headed up by Nate's parents. However he was not arrested having been shot numerous times in the cross fire.

Blaize is now on a mission to destroy Nate. His parents took her father and as his parents are dead he will have to pay the price.

Thanks to her billions of dollars she has unlimited gadgets at her disposal and unlimited funds to go about her hunt.

****************

PS: she could always use her body and looks to try and get closer to nate? just a side thought

 

[cats]

Gangs? How cheesy can we be with the gangs? Could there be a nerd brigade? Rides around in a big black van with air brushed space opera scenes on the side... Play D&D, zap people with invisibility ray guns... Oooo. Fun!
QUOTE]


I did not like that season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 

[cats]

Long read, so to sum up.

I will speak to tumble as a possible artist, but she may prefer our own project (which I have been neglecting) over this. Also she has less experince at traditional comic art and more in other types.

Which Kevin 11 are you refrencing? His initial absorbtion shape shifting, the odd concotion of his absorbtions, or his Alien force Absorbtion?

Bladed knuckles are awsome, and worthy of recuring use.

Suggestion for second shape changer: Make it less refined with bone spears, horns, random eyes, etc. The visual difrence between the percise true shape shifter and the created monster shape shifter would set them worlds apart in peoples minds.

Of the elementals air is by far the least well known. A gasous person would be very dificult to beat. (hard to write though)

If you want one shot villians, I suggest we avoid mutant powers so a comic with a lead hero thats not a mutant doesn't become saturated with mutants. Technology being his power source we may want to aim more in that direction, other super suits and things of that nature. Perhaps even genetic engineering or cybernetics. (Like splicers in Batman Beyond.)

 

[NiteCrowe]

Okay....

SEAN.... I havent tweaked charcaters much but i'll put up a post with what i have later on....To be honest, i hadn't gievn any thought to the city, hadn't planned it one bit, but i will give it some thought and let you know... I hadn't thought about specialist prisons ect ect, though i did decide that supers are nothing new (For example the occassional reference to heroes and villians from outisde the city - I'm merely starting with focusing on one such character for now) - I also intend that it was a super who was involved in crowes parents death, So if you would like to create a system to deal with that, i'd be very appreicative....I'd say its somehwere between the level of metropolis and Gotham, though closer to gotham...the reason for this is that i'm trying to stop it from becoming a new version of Batman.

thewhiteone...I like your suggestion and will use her. She doesn remind me of Catwoman, which is bad, so i won't use her often....maybe not even more thna once...

Kalika84...I was about to say that we need an arch nemesis, and would be cool to have a female one, and then your idea falls in my lap and...well Put it this way, I loved the Joker....but i think i love Blaize more...

Cats...I like the idea of a gaseous villian....and i agree that we need a wide variety of villians, and not just focusing on Mutants ect...thats why i'm trying to make equal use of Machine, Mutant, and Mobster...Maybe i'll eventually like the idea of Magic and then we'd have all of the 4M's (a coin i came up with years ago...).

 

[Sean Renaud]

I was refering more specifically to the modern Kevin 11 featured in Ben 10: Alien Force, his second appearance he was definitely a shape shifter but I wouldn't have defined his current form as one though he clearly meets the criteria. To be honest I don't know WHAT he is now other than kinda cool and at the same time entirely illogical.

Ok, well we at least need to know points of interest, a full map isn't actually required but points of interest and maybe a few landmarks or something would be nice.

Ok onto the prison for the moment.

The Prison at an undisclosed location (Nite will eventually figure out where but hopefully not early on.) It's funded by a semi-secret branch of the Government, hey you guy who came up with HAVOC and DRONE, come up with something clever!

I'm thinking something similar to the Inititive from Buffy Season 4 if your familar with that.

If not basic run down is they are a military unit that specializes in capturing "supers" and then studying them in the hopes of understanding and nutralizing their powers. There will of course be a certain amount of corruption with people wanting to discover how to duplicate these powers (which could eventually lead to a vilian who has some kind of blend of all the powers we've seen up to that point and a few we haven't)

Over all though I want them to be seen as good or at least neutral (I'll see if I can't put together a quality squad to be the main faces of the organization.

Anyway prison is going to be underground and so when villians do escape they won't (usually) be able to find their way back because where they escape is going to be very non-descript.

 

[Ravenloft]

Uh.... *Working on a good acronmym...*

Disaster
Assessment
Military
Application
Special
Corps
Unit
System

"I'm the D.A.M.A.S.C.U.S. Agent assigned to this mission because of my specific talents."
So, DAMASCUS could be an automated database that finds the best man for the job and sends them where they're needed?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Damascus makes for a great computer not only picks the best agent but also optimal teams and equipment.

I think the organization needs to have a shorter name, something that emphasis. Something that also denotes they are specifically there for the capture and detainment of criminal "supers" which it might help (and maybe I just forgot what it was) but what is the official term for "supers" in this universe?

 

[Ravenloft]

Supervillain
Apprehention
B ???
Education
Rehabilitation

 

[Ravenloft]

I was trying for something based off of a weapon

Saber
Scimtar
Scepter

The SC ones could be supervillain containment

...Hmm

Incarseration...

Oh!

Supervillain
Containment
Incarseration
Military
Training
And
Rehabilitation

Damn... Thats only good for a super-prison facility name...

 

[Sean Renaud]

You're fucking awesome. I like that. I'm glad I had the common sense not to try to do this on my own.

So lets get about standard equipment and start fleshing out the facility a tad. Which I guess needs to start with Crowe telling us what kinds of powers are standard/common. I mean in Marvel/DC being able to fly and super strength are pretty much expected of you so any prison would ned to be built with these abilities in mind. Marvel has enough psychics that I would imagine some kind of shielding would be required where as DC has a lot of magicians (though they aren't in this universe) so we can kinda speculate for a bit but Nite's expertise is needed.

 

[Kalika84]

Im glad you like her and Females i think have huge potential to be seriously nasty bad guys we may be soft and sweet but when mad we can really be quite vindictive

 

[NiteCrowe]

Okay.....

The Official Term for Supers is Homo Sapiete rather than Homo Sapien.

I like the sound of Damascus as the US government's database on Supers...

And I like SCIMITAR as well...It could easily be the name of the Facility.

Okay, Sean Make me a questionaire of questions you want me to answer...

Hehe, I agree females can usually be far more viscious than women but are overlooked the majority of the time.

Also attatched is a very rough (and very crap) map with places listed, its very rough and if someone could make a better map for me, i'd be very appreciative.