Personal Challenge:A Fat Superheroine

In the next scene she splits a car apart with her fists.

The universe is made of forces clashing. Particles impacting each other,  gravity denying force, survival of the fittest. So too is Democracy.

Whoa, that was a good opener, huh? It makes what I'm about to write seem deeper. Recently some controversy has spilled over, in  the form of this one person tried to get people to hire her as an artist. And then somebody said that her Batwoman looks fat is the short story. I'll let myself steal the image under the veil of context. Sorry.

She must be one of those rap-guys' girlfriends...

I have many opinions on this, in particular. Is Batwoman supposed to be hot? I thought she was supposed to be some kind of Lesbian-ey Lesbian from planet Lesbian. I'm not saying I don't think lesbians aren't hot, just that that isn't the point of the character.

But moving beyond the picture, this has again sparked the debate of depictions of women in the media, particularly comics. I don't know how much I can say about that that hasn't been said, except lately I can't even be bothered to pirate comics.

I think we could have some Superheroeines that aren't extremely geared toward idealistic beauty. Could doesn't mean it'd be successfull, or that people could take to it, but there isn't really  a reason why it can't happen. Then a contest opened up in Deviant Art about the subject of creating  a fat Super Heroine.
In this post, I announce my intention to win the contest(against my own advise), as well the general process in which I  will.

I myself could not defend myself from accusations of being sexist. I Play Strip Fighter IV. FOR FUN. But I also think, much like King David(Or was it Solomon?) there is a time for everything. But never let it be said I don't take challenges seriously. So here is my process.

1)My Superhero has to have more than going for her than being fat.

Feel Empowered yet?

You know, I already made a fat Superheroine, the steel armored Girl-Ephant in my critically acllaimed(hey, one guy liked it!) Celemutant #1. I am not a stranger to reusing my thoughts of the past, but I will do a new one because I am just that awesome. Also, they don't want fat themed  Heroines.

But the point it, If you wanted this to be a character people would willingly give money to(and by definition, to you) it needs something more than being Superman, but a woman and also fat. The market for Superman-But-X is closed, okay?

Your superhero needs to be interesting in and of herself. And well...

2) You can't make the central theme being fat.

Uwe Boll is getting an Oscar someday.

You see, if you're going for the sort of people who read "The Mary Sue" and get outraged at something like this, you can't really make the character's central problem that she's fat.

See, the way I see It, Black people don't want a hero who is getting constantly discriminated by everyone and Gay people probably don't want their heroes to be constantly stopped from getting married and adopting kids, so fat people probably don't want a fat heroine who is constantly obsessed with her girth. If you push too much in that direction, you get into a "Helen Degeneres" effect where neither the  afflicted party and  those that aren't all feel it is too much.

And beside, such a theme can probably not hold interest for very long. Sure the character must deal with it from time to time, like Peter Parker dealt with guilt and being poor. But it can't become a somber study of life as a fat girl, especially since because I am a Man, I do not trust myself with such a topic.

3)The character needs to be visually interesting

For something!

 I cannot emphasize this enough. Comics are a visual medium. Your character(that you pretend sells comics) needs to look good and capture the imagination of the reader, probably while selling whatever gimmick you character has. There is some sort of a color code to character personalities, although it doesn't always follow an exact pattern.

Blue is serious characters, like Superman and Cyclopse and Captain America.

Red and other bright colors are for wilder personalities, like Deadpool, Flash and SPider-Man.

Black and gray is for grimmer, darker characters, such as Spawn, Batman, and Raven.

Normally, we could take some shortcuts by making the character visually attractive. But since we're circumventing convention, our design needs to be at it's strongest. The design needs to sell the idea quickly, lest peoples eyes dart over to whatever whackiness is going on in X-Men(OMG Xavier has WOLVERINE CLAWS NOW and he's using them to STAB BOLIVAR TRASK IN THE JUNK!) or Catwoman (OMG CATWOMAN IS HAVING SEX WITH THOSE CATS AND BATMAN IS CRYING ABOUT IT!) and forget about you. You're gotta have a clear, strong hook, and need to sell it quickly and strongly.

4)Your character needs to be explainable

Cannot be summarized in less than 5 sentences.

Your character can be some sort of deconstruction of jungian archetypes present in preclassic litterature and mysticism as juxtaposed by the postmodernist ideals of Generation X. But you can't put that in writting in a comic cover. You gotta cake the pretentiousness in simplism. You need  a fast sell, but a good sell, too. There needs to be some element that's recognizable in there for modern audiences. If you can make people think of Harry Potter, or Jason Statham by glancing at the cover quickly, you're already won their attention, which is what you want. Now, I'm not saying your character needs to be a rip-off of The Last Airbender to win. Just that, if your character gives the impression "Like a  mix between The Last Air Bender and  300 with some Battlestar Galactica thrown in", the character is more likely to gain adherents, who will think it's somewhat original since they've never seen all those elements together(or if they have, not like yours).

Since your character is new, you don't have to tie it down to any pre-existing franchise and you can therefore create your own mythology, your own world. But remember, that the audience DOESN'T  know what's in your head, and has to be guided into the world. You lay the rules out to them, and never assume they know what the hell is going on. They don't.

But most of all, you can't JUST think of your character. You gotta give it a little backstory, maybe a  quick supporting cast. You may not use all of it or may change it. Or maybe neither. Bottom line is, no character operates on a vacuum. Fat or no fat, your character needs setting to execute her amazing adventures in. Otherwise, what's the point?

So I'm somewhat ahead in my creation and hopefully I'll get some scanner soon and show you my work. Stay tuned!

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The Fantasy Female Fighting game roster draft

More Breasts...

Before games like Tekken and Virtua Fighter  changed the landscape, making  a fighting game usually involved playing a game of chicken with how close a fighting game can come to Street Fighterwithout actually being Street Fighter. Even classics like KOF and Killer Instinct have easy lines of comparison.

This is Fighting Female July, so I wanted to know if I could pick up random female characters from different games and put them on  a roster, kind of like fantasy football, but without any possibility of it actually happening. Except, of course, M.U.G.E.N.

So I will pick and draw one female from one fighting game that fits the archetype of each Super Street Fighter character, and explain why the character fits the roster.

Ryu The Hero

  The hero is usually the character that gets selected if you just bang at the buttons on the select screen. Also, look for the hero to be in, usually at the center of, all the oficial artwork.  If that's not possible, it is usually a character that is well rounded, both morally and in terms of gameplay.

I choose, Raiya Mikazuki, Touki Densho (ENGEL EYYYES!)'s resident main character. Raiya fits the bill perfectly.

Ken The Rival

This character's story is irrevocably tied to another character. In fact, the character usually evokes the other character visually.

Mileena. Mileena, unlike my boy Scorpion, has not distracted herself from the vendetta that justified having her be a palette swap. As of late she's been presented particularly more provocative than her rival as overcompensation of the fact she's a disfigured version of a well respected, well liked member of the community. Kinda like Brandon Routh or Johnny Test.

Honda  The Overtly Japanese character

Okay, most notable fighting games are made in Japan. So, there usually is more than one Japanese character. However, sometimes you get a character representing things so particularly Japanese, that the character becomes "the Japanese Guy".

What's more Japanese than a Geisha? How about a Ninja Geisha? Following the advise of Sutefani, Namco added such a character(sort of) in the form of Setsuna, a pretty lady with a parasol-sword that  conveniently covers her beautiful kimono from all the arterial spray she's bound to cause.

 blanka  The Monster

You know, when you need a character to represent 3 things, like, say, a country, a play style, and a character archetype, things can get a little messy. Everyone wants to be represented by the hero, not the nymphomaniac. Still, you gotta have a monster character. And he's probably from a country  that will really love your game, why not?

Mantazz, from Time Killers. Female in a very technical sense, as she's an insectoid queen from another planet. Mantazz represents giant monsters from space can be ladies too just fine.

 guile The Gringo

America's history with Japan, as well as being  a world superpower, has made this an archetype in several medias of the Island nation. The American is usually pretty easy to spot. Look for military ranks,  strokes of Red, White and Blue, and engrish.

And here's another chance to say how much I love Tiffany Lords from Rival Schools. She's a completely silly, sexy, energetic character. She has a move called EXCITING KICK! That's s fucking exciting!

 balrog  The Specialist

Here's a fighter that screws up your button scheme. The style is usually a real martial art that doesn't conform to a button style presented.

Gonna go with Ryoko  from World Heroes. She's a judeka, and she's not gonna not Judo throw just because  you say it's a "punch button'.

Or How about Ryoko from Fighter's History?

 Look...I never got them done, awwight?

chun li The Chun Li

Chun Li is the first lady of fighting games. There is only one Chun Li. Her name is Chun Li.

T.Hawk the Horrible stereotype

Allright, look: Most of the Street Fighter cast is some sort of stereotype. It would just take a huuuuge, huuuge kind of stereotype for people to get actually offended at this point. This character is that. However,  that's not to say said controversial character won't be liked.  Just...not a lot.

I'm going with Voodooh, from the legendarilly shitty Shaq Fu. I mean, they put the name of  the thing into the character. Not the last time it would happen, but this is the one time it's a lady.

 zangief The Grappler

Grapplers as usually deadly in the hands of experts, but shit to newcomers who rely on their reflexes and mashing over memorization and  stats. They tend to be slow and rangeless to compensate for their damage output.

Tina Armstrong, my favorite Dead or Alive character. Sure, in DOA there's not any great amount of projectiles, and Tina's pretty great in it. And sure, she's kinda the gringo in that one, too. Still...she's a grappler, whatayawant?

dhalsim The contortionist

The contortionist is a weird character with far reaching or visually confusing moves that make for good mental games.

For this slot a slut: Rana, from Strip Fighter. She's pretty much my favorite character of that game. And it's not just because she's graphically naked and gives blowjobs to losers.

 sagat The Frustrating Subboss

Usually coming before the frustrating boss, the frustrating subboss is annoyingly difficult when the CPU uses it. That's not to say that it's not frustrating to fight against in multiplayer.

Chizuru from King of Fighters. I have no observations on Chizuru, except that she was a subboss in KOF 98. I'm a couple of years behind in this franchise.

Vega  The Psycho

There's always a psycho in these games. Watch the anime adaptation and he'll be there, licking blood of his blade, laughing maniacally, and talking about how killing is fun.

I'm putting up Sekka, from the game adaptation of the Double Dragon cartoon. I don't know much about Sekka, but she has blades coming out her arms. that counts for something, right?

Fei Long The Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee is a worldwide icon...whose name and likeness is registered by his estate. Otherwise, every fighting game would have old Brucie in it. Instead, they all have some kind of Chinese, Jeet Kune Do, doing, "whooooaaaa" yelping  warriory warrior that isn't actually Bruce Lee.

I gather this character Chie from Persona is the closest any videogame has come to a female Bruce Lee. Since the character is confirmed for the Persona fighting game, I think I will favor this once. If I decide to do this feature again I will be in big fucking trouble.

Deejay The Islander

 The islander doesn't have to actually come from an island.  He just needs more pigment on his skin than most of the other fighters and  fight in Capoeira or other fluid, dance-like moves and  be overly energetic and rhythm obsessed. 

Christie Monteiro, of Tekken fame, is the only Tekken character I've taken up that I haven't felt like a complete noob playing.  So, here's Christie.

Cammy The eye candy

Capcom, seeing the sucess a fully dressed woman fighting had, quickly realized  that Sex drops quarters, and for the Super version introduced a lady in a thong leotard that grabs people with her legs.

 We could sit here all day talking about sexy fighting game females and a lot of the other ones could probably apply, but I would have to go with Ivy. There's no denying that Soul Edge's Taki and Sophitia where meant to arouse,  but Ivy was both added  later in the series, and meant to take up the sex appeal up to eleven. She'd only gotten more blatant over the years. But let's be fair: hasn't every SC woman?

Akuma: The Hype

This character is so tough, you guys. He can, like kill whatever he wants by looking at it. He just doesn't because you're playing wrong he, like enjoys the thrill of the fight and stuff.

In that context, Athena Asimiya seems most fit. An import from an older SNK non fighting game, Athena Asimiya is a Japanese schoolgirl that is somehow related to the Greek Goddess Athena. That's kind of a big deal. She's even played the role of Boss.

Bison The Boss

It's the final threat: the meanest fighter.  He will fuck your shit up.

Or she. She will fuck your shit up. Sadly, there isn't a great history of female final fiends in fighting games, so I will have to look for the licensed one: Karai. Final Boss of 2 TMNT:  Tournament Fighters, despite the logic supporting Shredder for the role. Sure enough, Karai is frustrating to defeat, overtly evil, and not the sportest fighter in the world. So just throw her like a ragdoll.

So here's my roster. What's yours? You think I should use another game as base next year. Lemme know!

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The first woman in fighting games

Yeah...hopefully you won't have to avenge your father many more times.

Folks, they say history is written by the victors, and it's mostly true. Sometimes history is written by the victor's bitter enemies, though.

But it's true in the sense that, if someone spearheads something that becomes really popular, people are way more likely to study them instead of checking if benchmarks they made had already been made, therefore attributing them to  the more popular one.

In fighting game terms, Street Fighter, specifically Street Fighter 2 is the trendsetter, the first, the freshmaker. Sure, a little research will show fighting games existed before Street Fighter 2 made them a genre, such ar Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karateka, but generally, we accept that the genre was shaped by Ryu and Ken's shenanigans.

However, I will have to take away at least one of Capcom's most prestigious awards: The first woman in fighting games. Sure enough, most of us recognize Chun Li as the first. Games like Yie Ar Kung Fu could hardly bother letting you choose character, let alone putting a woman in there as a playable. However, Chun Li is not the first woman in fighting games

The first woman is, in fact, Gaea, from Konami's 26 Year old Galactic Warriors.

Pink. Of course.

If you've been following me, you should recognize the title. It is a 1 player, robot vs robot game. Like Cyberbots but...really sad. On of Konami's many, many failed attempts at fighting games. Gaea is merely 1 of 3 playable characters. But is she better than Chun Li? Well, It's a matter of opinion, but I guess it depends on how much you like breasts as projectiles. That's usually the dividing line.

At least Chun Li is still the first LADY of Fighting games. Haruumph!

Sure, we could split hairs on whether a robot shaped like a woman counts as a woman. But that would be (even more) pointless. The guys at Konami put breasts and hips  an d high heels on a robot so we could identify it as female.  I'd say she's as much a woman as a videogame can let a school of sprites be.

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Why didn't no one tell me?

Is there an academy award category for mammaries?

I mean Christina Hendricks as Wonder Woman? I know it'll probably not be, but...

Not you: YOU TWO, get over here!

I didn't even know about this amazing woman until today, but she has completely revolutionized my understanding of what breasts are. Are they fake? Hell yeah. But we don't have enough women with porn-star breasts starring in our mainstream movies. All you guys swooning over Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox, I'll never understand you. I guess collagen is an aphrodisiac to some. There's pretty,there's sexy, and there's stacked, and there's I support Christina Hendrick's Breasts for the role because of their outstanding achievement on the field being stacked.

However, we must temper our excitement: the guy who is sure can do what Joss Whedon could not, Nicholas Refn ,has talked about HIS plan on Diana of Themyscira's adventures.

...because the real origin of Wonder Woman is: What if women were more powerful than men? What would the world be like? That’s a subliminal theme.

The whole idea of a woman who is basically more powerful than any man — and who will always be that, and comes from a society of women who are more powerful than men — is an interesting theme that I think can be very contemporary.

The guy made Valhalla rising, which sure is a film that exists. And his take on the material seems pretty alright. I hope it turns out well, so we can watch the deep impoications of gender relations wrestle Christina Hendricks into the ground, her chest heaving, swinging wildly her mighty  breasts of justice, dirty with sand and sweat.

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Hey, you got your tits in my sci fi!

They grow up so fast...

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Scolding reviews-X-Men Anime's 1-3

'は、フロント、真の信者の顔！

For the record, I love X-Men because of the cartoon. I don't go to comics shops that often and when I do, I usually don't buy X-Men? Wanna know why? Because everytime I open an X-Book to see what is going on, I just don't know what's going on. I'm like "what's this one about, it's got a cool cover. What? Gambit is blind? Rogue lost her powers? Jubilee is  a vampire? Rogue controls her powers? Shatterstar is gay? Who the fuck is Shatterstar? Why is Xavier walking? The Danger room has tits?"

At least Ultimate X-Men streamlined and simp...Why is Wolverine Cable?

I guess for people who can afford to keep up with the stories this changes can provide dramatic buildup but for a guy like me who can't, it's a smattering of the familiar battered with strange goings on.

So I'm happy to say the first 3 episodes  of X-Men Anime series are mostly base X-Men, without any excursions into the thick layers of canon fat that make up the books.

Episode 1 opens to Phoenix kicking the X-Men's ass. Just that.They don't even delve on the Phoenix force. Can't say I blame them. It's Phoenix guys. We KNOW already.

Yeah, it's Monday allright.

Each character does a showcase of their powers, which is great for people who don't know what "Waruverinu" is. Then Cyclops starts crying. Some excepts from his script.

"Cyclops: JIIIIIIN!"

"Cyclops: JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"

"Cyclops: JIIIIiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNnnnNNN!"

Jean has enough of Scott wearing her name out and telekineticaly raises him and messes up his suit. A mental projection shows Scott a more lucid Jean and behind him... a mysterious pair of breasts woman.

Then Jean dies.

Nobody gets a day off if Jean Grey dies.

Cut to a year later, where Xavier reminds us what X-Men are, what they do and all that shit. And he also informs us that the X-Men are disbanded, but will be rebanded soon enough for a very special case. Each of the core cast members are reintroduced as of their solo career before being called into action.Wolverine is stupidly trying to get through the airport but can't make it past the TSA checkpoint in a gag he should know  about by now,  Storm is taking a cruise ship and killing the hell out of pirates and Beast is giving a lecture. In an awesome moment, Beast shows that he has given a squid human intelligence, and  leaves him teaching in his place. I begrudge a bit that there is no ethical discussions on  giving fuckin' seafood human intelligence then leaving him to do your work for you, but dammit, I wish Prof. Devilfish was an actual character in X-Men.

Is he accredited?

Scott, however, never moved on. Literally. He's still at ground Zero of where Jean died, and even Wolverine quips him on it. Yes, Wolverine quips Cyclops in this a lot.

The episode ends with the group going to Japan and Cyclopes coming out of his marasmo to join them in a misson to look for a missing mutant girl in Japan.

Ep 2 opens up with the secret underground lair of THE U-MEN! The U-Men are Human supremacists, including A creepy man wired with electronics and The Grandpa from Boondocks by way of Deadshot and a bunch of overly eager robots with skulls for faces. Apparently they are behind the disappearance of young Mutants in the region. The X-Men interview the girl's parents until a neighbor informs them that their son, too, is missing. The X-Men head out and find that it was on their Hummer and motorcycles when an ambush occurs and robots attack.

The X-Men respond the way they usually respond: By shooting lasers and missiles out of their vehicles. I mean, wouldn't you? Storm tries using her powers but becomes ridiculously fatigued. She didn't get fatigued earlier when she froze a boat filled with pirates, but I guess it's the plot somehow. 

Cyclops is a reckless jerk and has to be saved by Wolverine. What? Wolverine is supposed to be...and Cyclops is...GRR! I think the Japanese got it all confused. I think that's why this series seems to star Cyclops and not Wolverine.

He don't even care a lot about Jean!

Eventually our heroes find the evil lair and the gruesome experiments the U-Men have done, including mutating the hell out of a...Mutant. Hmm. In either case, this mutant mutant mutates the X-Men's ass into his foot's resting place while Cyclops tries to convince the mutant he had good in him. You suck at that, Cykes. Stick to eyeblasting the hell out of things. After Beast uses his machine to determine he can't be demutated, Cyclops reluctantly agrees to put him down in a humaneEYELAZORRRR!

Even when THE GUY HIMSELF thanks him for the mercy kill, Cyclopse still has to cry and moan about it. Getoveritgetovertgetoverit!


Eventually, the team makes their way to the experimental chamber, in which the young mutant they where looking for is in a pod. Also in a pod? Helena, from Dead or Alive! Dun, dun DUUUN!

In the next episode, we find out She's actually Emma frost, a member of the Inner Circle, and the woman who Cyclops saw behind Jean in his vision. So no X-Treme Volleyball or complex power schemes from her. She's also an animal enthusiast, because she has some healthy puppies on her at all times.

Seriously, the escalation in chest sizes in this series is crazy, and I don't know if they can top this. I hope they try. This is what happens when Japanese add their own exaggerated views of white women's breasts and add it to American comics perception of what normal breasts are, and then they go : "Oh, but this character's supposed to have BIG Breasts".

Music Inspired by.

Cyclopse and Wolverine alternate between who's gonna kill her and who's not so sure if they should kill her. But once they get her out of the pod, she denies any involvement with Jean going crazy.

Then they let the girl out. Her name is Hisako Ichiki, known in the comics as Armor. You know, X-Men always have this young girls who serve as the audience's eyes to the strange world of the X-Men, and Armor is no different, as she does exactly what I would want to do in this situation.

She was there for more than  30 seconds. I cut from this.

We do know that, I think.

I think I hurt my pants.

In any case, they put off the execution of Emma Frost and try to head out, but Creepy guy in tubes attack! At first he's somewhat of a person, but then he starts yelling "organs" like he's a zombie that'll settle for anything really. Suddenly Armor 's mutant power activates and she beats the guy up. Then she goes on a rampage because she can't control her powers. And Cyclopse finally does the thing where you talk to someone out of his/er rampage. Took you long enough.

So they take Hisako back to her home, much to the delight of her parents. Looks like it's all wrapped up with... LOOK OUT!

And this is regarding?

Will the X-Men, Emma Furostu, and Hisako survive this assault? Tune in, same X-Hour, Same X-Channel!


It's a cool little series. I'm hoping now that the "setting up characters and situation" part of it is over, we can we can get some advancement on the plot. Also, maybe it won't be like Iron-Man and more characters from the comics will show up. The scroll in the ending shows Mistique, Juggernaut and...

Stryfe, Cable's clone. Damn.

Damn!

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Feliz Navidad, you perverts!

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