Tag Archives: marvel

FGC #600 Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes: Part 5

Finally, some gameplayMarvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy the final day of our five-part, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Now let’s talk about the monkey girl…

SonSon

Go Go MonkeySonSon is one of four original characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2. Amingo, Abyss, and Ruby Heart were all created exclusively for MvC2, and they have not appeared in anything but cameos ever since.

Except SonSon is not an original character. SonSon is based on SonSon from the obscure 1984 Capcom arcade title, SonSon.

Except SonSon is an original character, because she is the granddaughter of that SonSon. She is not the SonSon of SonSon. She is, essentially, SonSon III.

Except SonSon I was not an original character, either. SonSon I was based on Sun Wukong from the 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West. SonSon is one of a thousand “adaptations” of this classic tale, with the original premise of Dragon Ball being one of the most prominent illustrations.

So, SonSon III is ultimately an original character that is based on a character that is possibly the least original character in the whole roster.

But, hey, at least she can turn into a giant monkey. That might be better than being a cactus.

Peter “Spider-Man” Parker

Its that guySpider-Man is Sailor Moon.

And, yes, both franchises subsist on several Young Adult fiction tropes, but very specifically for both cases…

1. The central “Marvel” conflict of Spider-Man was always that Peter Parker kind of sucked as Peter Parker, but excelled at being Spider-Man. Iron Man had his potentially deadly shrapnel that “made him” Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk had his man/monster dichotomy, and Spider-Man had the unbearable burden of having to be a good Peter Parker and superhero. He failed. A lot. Nearly everyone in Peter Parker’s life, from his adopted mother to his boss, thinks Peter Parker is a slacker that is never going to achieve anything, and this is primarily because Pete puts too much of an emphasis on saving the world. He was late because he was stopping a mugging. He missed Aunt May’s birthday because he was dealing with Galactus. It’s kind of a “nice guy” fantasy wherein your every failing has a big, important reason that no one would ever understand because it must be a secret for their own good. But, end of the day, Spider-Man is saving the day, even though J.J. would never believe Peter Parker can accomplish anything. In much the same way, Usagi, Sailor Moon’s “secret identity”, is the world’s biggest screw-up, and if you told her parents that she was destined to rule a thousand years of peace after banishing all evil witches from the land, they would likely die laughing. Very similar “secret identity hijinks” on both sides, with a heavy emphasis on simultaneously being super important but extremely poorly regarded by their friends and family.

2. Similarly, Spider-Man is…

FGC #600 Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes: Part 4

They shall take me for a rideMarvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy day four of a five-day, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Today, we’re going to go down the rabbit hole with…

Betsy “Psylocke” Braddock

This is for Ms. Marvel…. Look, even I have limits.

We’re on day four here, and we’re at something like 15,700 words all about this nonsense, and… Gah, Psylocke. I really want every entry in this #600 to get to some “core” of a featured character. I mean, look at the crazy depth of the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 roster! It has at least one character that was five decades old when he appeared in the game, and he could fight a sentient, newborn cactus. That’s huge! That’s bigger than Mario! And the fact that it is unlikely we will see such a game again without excessive marketing department input or a bunch of weirdos meme-voting Deadpool’s companion unicorn into the proceedings is significant. We are never going to have Marvel vs. Capcom 2 again, as it was a perfect time capsule of an epoch before videogames and comics were the exclusive domain of commercial monopolies. Say what you will about the presence of Marrow or Ruby Heart, but there is no way we are seeing one of them take up a valuable “slot” again when Thanos’s latest rival is available.

But Psylocke? Even though Betsy Braddock has been kicking around comics since 1976, the “core” of this character is… It is impenetrable. You get any deeper than the surface level of Psylocke, and things get muddled at best, and downright racist at worst. I don’t want to write about how Marvel Comics had an incredibly ridiculous Asian fetish back in [insert any year since 1976], and damn near everything about that comes off as racist as hell if you examine it for more than three seconds! I just want to write about wacky mutants fighting equally wacky computer game dudes.

But, I suppose I have to see this project through to its end, so, with that in mind…

Psylocke was born Elizabeth Braddock, the mutant younger sister of Captain Britain, Sir James Braddock. She had several adventures with the X-Men as a telepathic, purple-haired supermodel with a tendency to attack her opponents via butterfly motif. In 1989, things got weird when Betsy was… urgh… okay… so originally “Psylocke” was given “new eyes” by Mojo (we will get to Spiral tomorrow), and… like… that made her Asian? But then that was misinterpreted by the next writer, so it was established that she was not just given some kind of eye surgery, but had her brain scooped out and implanted into an Asian woman that was incidentally a badass ninja assassin. And this explained why previously fairly chill Betsy suddenly could do backflips around the universe while wielding a katana that was a projection of the focused totality of her psychic powers. And, in time, there had to be an explanation on who the woman Psylocke was before she was Psylocke, so Kwannon was retconned, and now there was the eternal story hook of Psylocke being returned to a revived form of her old body, or Kwannon coming back for revenge, or… Gah!

It’s too much! In an effort to “correct” the uncomfortably racist plot of “someone made Betsy generically Asian”, an entirely new, marginally less racist story had to be created. And it is the story of a wealthy white woman stealing and tangentially killing an Asian woman. And Marvel’s staff has literally stated that it was meant to be temporary, but everybody liked Jim Lee drawing an Asian lady in a swimsuit. And damned if “Kwannon’s body” wasn’t plastered over every comic book cover, trading card, and even videogame from the 90’s until the end of time. Psylocke is even unnaturally “jiggly” in her Capcom appearances! This was a sold few years before Dead or Alive! And you don’t see Wolverine employing real-time sprite physics! All to feature a “stolen” body!

Argh! I just want to fight with the pretty ninja lady! But you jerks made it all terrible!

If you’re curious, in the current comics status quo, Betsy is back to being original Betsy, and Kwannon has reclaimed her original body (more or less) that is totally not being randomly killed by Mr. Sinister on an irregular basis. This seems like an effort to make the character(s) less problematic, but the fact that it took about forty years to get there is… a little disheartening.

And don’t get me started on all the times the writers “threatened” to bring back OG Betsy like it was the worst thing that could happen…

Anna Marie aka Rogue

Feel the MojoChrist on a cracker, Rogue is next after Psylocke? Dammit! I do not want to examine that “Southern Belle” dynamic here. Yes, she is flirty as hell but equally chaste because her power kills potential suitors. Can we look at something else? Something more fun?

Oh! Let’s play with names…

FGC #600 Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes: Part 3

You know this is legitMarvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy day three of a five-day, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Let’s suit up, and look to…

Anthony “Iron Man” Stark

An older crossoverThe basic, most driving force for Marvel comics creations in the Stan Lee era was that everybody had “real world” problems to complement their fantastic superpowers. Sometimes these problems were mundane (Mr. Fantastic had some less-than-fantastic family dynamics to deal with, Spider-Man with great responsibility yada yada yada), and sometimes they were more metaphorical (Hulk was a rage monster, Thing’s literally rocky exterior did not match his big heart). Tony Stark, the Invincible Iron Man, started with a pretty basic problem: if he wasn’t Iron Man, he would die. Thanks to some errant shrapnel from around when the first Iron Man suit was created, businessman Tony Stark had to wear an Iron Man chest plate at all times to keep his heart beating. This served the dual purpose of guaranteeing Tony Stark was always “stuck” being Iron Man, and also granted the “battle” weakness of setting a battery-based timer on all of Iron Man’s supervillain fights. Iron Man is invincible! Except when he has to duck out for a recharge! Sorry, Mandarin, this millionaire has to wrap this up and hit a gas station.

And this “weakness” has existed in various forms throughout the years. At one post-shrapnel point, Iron Man had “extremis” on his side, and he was powered by nanite-based armor and abilities that put his powers firmly in the futuristic category. But he once again had to rely on tech (this time repulsor-based) to keep the whole thing working and not murdering the poor billionaire. Similarly, Tony Stark’s big demon in the bottle, alcoholism, has been a consistent weakness that is a real-world problem that works not unlike his batteries of old. Instead of a stressful battle requiring a battery charge, now he has to charge his mental batteries by calling a sponsor. But by this point in continuity, the likes of extremis has fallen by the wayside, and Iron Mans Anonymous can only fuel so many stories before “nobody wants to watch a dude be sad all the time” sets in. So, now, what is left as Iron Man’s current weakness?

Well, he’s kind of a dick.

This appears to be the one constant in Iron Man’s characterization over the last twenty years. Iron Man is a brilliant futurist, and, implicitly as a direct result of that, he’s a jackass. Iron Man is invincible once again, but, more often than not, he is going to get into trouble thanks to some combination of hubris and vaguely self-serving intentions. Yes, Iron Man is going to save the world. Unfortunately, after doing so, he may have also brought back some interplanetary technology that he is going to study/watch destroy the world in a whole new way. Tony Stark has outright created about half of his rogue’s gallery, and when he was brainwashed (more or less, long story, involves Nazi Onslaught) into being an evil tech billionaire that sold people microtransactions to live, it was kind of hard to tell if this was a result of the whole brainwashing thing, or just his latest bright idea. Couple this with his current origin merging with his movie-based story of being a superpowered version of Lockheed Martin, and we come up with a Tony Stark that might be a hero, but is definitely not going to be invited to anyone’s birthday party.

Iron Man: you may enjoy his unibeam, but don’t make the mistake of talking to the trillionaire. He’s probably going to try to sell you on Starkcoin, and then tank the stock just in time to get a new paintjob on his armor. Do not engage this dick.

Jill Valentine

Hiya!The Resident Evil franchise started with a basic story about a handful of mundane cops investigating a mysterious mansion. This is an extremely well-trodden premise, and, give or take the threats being supernatural or superscientific, this is literally just the same concept as a haunted house. Or a generic horror movie! And Resident Evil, at its core, plays out like a horror story. There are characters that are not going to get out alive, a betrayer, and a pair of protagonists that will survive not only through brute force, but also the ingenuity of employing unusual skills (like lock picking, jewel sorting, or sandwich aversion). Jill Valentine was one of those survivors, and her second starring role, Resident Evil 3, ultimately cast her in the familiar “final girl” role as she made her exit stage left while pursued by a bear(-sized zombie).

And then the Resident Evil franchise got weird…

FGC #600 Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes: Part 2

Taking you for more of a rideMarvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is an amazing, once in a lifetime game that brings together over 50 characters from wildly disparate worlds and franchises. So, in an effort to pay tribute to one of the games I believe to be the greatest of all time, please enjoy day two of a five-day, 100% complete, generally alphabetical look at every fighter in Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Let’s start today with…

Piotr “Colossus” Rasputin

RAWR!Now here’s some characterization! Colossus is Russian and a pedophile! Kick ass!

Okay, wait, no, start again.

Piotr “Peter” Rasputin is Russian. And that was huge at his introduction in 1975! This was when America had that whole Cold War thing going on, and, while X-Men was deliberately drawing from a global-based cast of new characters, it was just kind of assumed that the USSR was not on the menu. And if they should actually contain a Slavic character, they were going to have a traitor on the team inside of a dozen issues. But Piotr was invariably good! Like, okay, he may have had a brief flirtation with the Brotherhood of Generally Not Friendly Mutants, but he was grieving his (apparently temporarily) dead sister at the time. Perfectly understandable! Other than that dalliance with the forces of evil, Пётр Николаевич Распутин has been unwaveringly kind, reliable, and virtuous. He is the very pinnacle of the “sensitive strong guy” archetype, and that is significant when he likely would have been cast as the villain in nearly any other media of the time. Just because you were from Potato Europe in the 70s did not mean you were a bad guy, and Colossus affirmed this fact in his every appearance.

But he also started a relationship with a 14-year-old Kitty Pryde when he was, like, probably in his late 40s (it’s hard to judge with some guys). That was gross. But he did eventually dump the squirt for an alien woman on another planet, which was probably morally a better move. Other than, he’s a pretty reliable dude!

If you need some more dossier information, Colossus has the ability to transform his skin into metal/explode his pants into bikini briefs. It is an oddly specific power. This metal transformation also increases his strength (presumably because his fleshy muscles would snap under metal skin without super strength… crap, that was an Ultimate plotline, wasn’t it?), so if you need somebody to help move furniture around the X-Mansion, he is good to go. Unfortunately “super strong” doesn’t always translate well to videogames where everybody down to Two P is already throwing knockout punches, so please enjoy a Colossus that occasionally has the power to generate some kind of transformation-energy-blast thing. Or maybe he can just toss a car around. Whatever works.

Oh, and Colossus also has a brother that is a secret space villain. That brings us neatly to our next featured character…

Scott “Cyclops” Summers

There are often claims that X-Men’s Wolverine has multiple clones, duplicates, or something, because he can appear in a different comic storyline every week. Logically, there must be more Wolverines to accommodate his presence in multiple superhero events across the globe. This is, obviously, foolishness, as Wolverine is one of the most consistently characterized personalities in all of X-Men. He’s the best at what he does, bub, what more does he need to be?

Cyclops, though? Nobody knows what this guy is supposed to be…