What Would Comic Book Villains Do? (WWCBVD?) Week 5

Nasty.  Nefarious.  Naughty. 

Just a few words used to describe those who embrace or indeed embody evil.  They are the super villains of comics, the requisite “bad guys”.  They are the arch-nemesis, the evil twins, the players on the other side.  And yet how often do we seek their opinions on issues?  Largely this is a matter of personal safety that we spurn them, but when you take the time to pose a pertinent question to such villainous types, you learn a lot about them you might never know otherwise.

Scenario:  You answer the phone in the middle of the night to the sound of a frantic voice.  It is an old friend you have not seen in several months and he begs you to meet him at a secluded corner in town.  Concerned, you agree to his request and find him looking disheveled and terrified.  Looking unnerved he begs you to hide a gun for him until the heat is off and he can take it off your hands.  What do you do?

Hammerhead: Wow, this sure brings back memories!  I remember the first time I needed to hide a gun!  I called my cousin Saulie in the Bronx because he was the only person I thought I could trust.  I was so panicked!  He told me to forget about it, there was no gun.  Saulie took good care of me, you see.  Funny thing, ten years later that gun winds up being used in a robbery.  The guy gets caught and, get this, he winds up taking the rap for not only the two guys I plugged but some broad that was killed before I ever got that gun!  Small world, huh? 

Deathstroke the Terminator:  Certainly I would take the gun to hide.  In my line of work what we call “experienced firearms” are always welcome.  Depending on the type of gun I would either sell it to underworld contacts or file down the serial numbers and reconfigure the rifling before adding it to my personal arsenal.  Though I am rather particular about the guns I use myself, so it will likely be the former.  A few days later I will naturally have to track him down and kill him.  No loose ends as we say in the business.

Arcade:  Naturally I would be only to happy to hide the gun.  And I would hide it very well.  Deep in the bowels of an abandoned warehouse that I have refit with elaborate death traps like animatronic Foreign Legionnaires armed with long rifles, a breakaway bridge over a snake pit, and an oversized version of Whack-a-Mole.  Convincing me to hide the gun is no problem at all, getting it back will be quite another matter!

KGBeast: I would take the gun and hide it for him.*

Kraven the Hunter:  I would refuse and send him on his way with a strict rebuke!  How dare he deign to assume that Kraven the Hunter would hide a handgun for him!  A HANDGUN!  Everyone knows of my disdain for those pathetic weapons.  Now a rifle, that is a whole different story.   A rifle is a man’s gun!  From the Browning A-Bolt to the Ruger M77 these are the guns of choice for a true hunter.  Take the .300 Winchester Magnum (with a Nikon Buckmaster 4.5-14x40 scope) for example.  Ideal for hunting zebra, red hartebeest, or caribou.  It is also highly prized (by me) for hunting Spider-Man.

Gizmo:  I would only be willing to hide a gun for a friend if he did not actually ever want it back.  Certain guns make ideal templates upon which to build more elaborate, and indeed useful, weapons.  By reconfiguring a revolver to accommodate miniaturized kinetic energy accelerators of my own design and adding an amplification matrix to the muzzle I can create a single-shot force ray useful for blasting holes in bank vaults.  Certain types of automatic pistols are useful in creating sonic resonance field generators that can counteract Cyborg’s white sound laser.  I hate that guy and his gadgets!

*KGBeast (continued):  What?  No, there’s really no more to it.  I have many places to hide a gun, no one would ever find it.  I’m KGB, hiding a gun for a friend is elementary stuff!  A new recruit could do it.  Why do you insist on long, drawn-out explanations?

Half-Ass Roundtable II - What the Hell Happened to My Villains?!

Greetings JediCole Universe followers!  We have convened a second Half-Ass Roundtable!  And it's about damn time!  This outing Stu, Andrew, and myself are joined by Rick (of the United States of Geekdom) yet again and Jim (of the Film Thugs Movie Show)!  The five of us are challenged with another topic that was a mystery until we began the show.  Did we sink or did we swim again?  Well there is one way to find out!

And like last time, I don't censor or reign in the hosts or guests.  There is some language that is not appropriate for the little ones and some of the concepts may be a bit shocking to some.  This is a damn good show and the most organic and off the cuff of any show I've been involved with.  If you pass this up for content you are missing something pretty spectacular! 

What Would Comic Book Villains Do? (WWCBVD?) Week 4

We can all pretty easily guess what a super hero would do in a situation where a strong moral code is essential.  But what about their polar opposites?  That is the purpose of this series of course.  So once again we pose a conundrum to a variety of super villains from the long history of comic books.

Scenario:   A car pulls up on a residential block with music blasting so loud that it can scarcely be distinguished as music.  The driver and passengers seem to have no regard for anyone on the block and loiter at the street with no apparent business other than to shatter the idyllic peace of the once quiet street.  What do you do?

Black Adam:  I would pick up the offending car and toss it fifty feet into the air.  Then I would fly over to catch it before it hit the ground and throw it again.  I would repeat this constantly until I managed to get them all the way to vast open fields or a trackless desert.  Then I would lower the car to the ground and, if the occupants survived the journey physically and mentally I would tell them, “Now you can turn it up as loud as you want!”

Anaconda: Me?  I would use my stretching arms and super strength to surround and crush the car and everyone in it!  I love crushing cars, especially with the radio blasting like that.  You get the great visuals of the body and frame crimping and bowing and the sound of the radio up to the point where it is rendered inoperable from the force of my constricting.

Circe: Well if they insist on acting like pigs I will do them a favor and turn them into pigs!  They won’t know what hit them!  One minute they are cruising around in their big fancy car, the next minute their hands are turning into hooves, their noses into snouts, and they are sprouting curly little tails.  I really love turning people into pigs.  I mean come on, I’ve been doing that for centuries!  It’s my thing!  Oh I know!  I’ve heard it time and time again…a good sorceress should be able to turn people into ostriches, trout, or even tarsiers.  Blah, blah, blah!  I just choose to specialize in pigs, okay?!

Asp: If there is one thing I can’t stand it is obnoxious people who play their music so loud that even they can’t hear any discernible lyrics.  Death Adder is like that, always playing his music to loud!  As if that wasn’t bad enough Cottonmouth and Rattler just egg him on!  So I would do like I do when the boys back at Society headquarters play their music too loud.  I would approach the occupants of the car and ask them politely to turn down their music and be respectful of others.  They would probably be dismissive of me and laugh just like the guys I work with.  In that case I will simply fall back on my usual Plan B and just zap the daylights out of them with my venom blast.  That usually does the trick!

Mirror Master: Music is not really my forte.  You might want to ask somebody like the Fiddler.  Now when it comes to light and reflections that is where I come in!  If they had a bunch of flashlights or something I would probably be able to come up with something cool to do.  Loud music really never bothered me that much.  To tell a bit of a secret I’m almost deaf.  Not that good hearing helps you when the Flash swoops in out of nowhere.  You barely have time to register the sonic boom before he has whisked you off to prison!  But I just got this really great idea about the question…I would make  a holographic mirror image of myself to go tell them to knock it off with the noise.  These types are usually pretty tough so if they try to threaten “me” I would make a whole bunch of duplicate images of myself appear.   I would make myself look as menacing as possible (not easy to do in green and orange) and tell them they had better get out of “our” side of town!

Constrictor: You know what the real question here is?  Why can I not get inducted into the Serpent Society?!  Come on!  I’m Constrictor!  My name invokes snakes as well as any of the rest of that lot.  I mean Princess Python got in!  What is that all about?  I guess I’m just the wrong gender.  They have a lot of guys and need more ladies to balance things out.  So that’s how it is!  They can keep their snobby society and their stupid quest for the Serpent Crown!  It’s not like they can split the damn thing between all 20 of them!  At least I got asked to participate in this installment.  Ha!  Take that Serpent Society!  What?  Anaconda AND Asp already gave their answers?!  Damn it! 

JediCole's Open Mic Night Episode 1: Adventures in Super-Collecting

Welcome to the launch of JediCole's Open Mic Night!  This is the second show in the upcoming JediCole Universe Podcasting Network.  On this show I will be engaging casual interviews that are intended to be more like conversations.  After this intial episode the show will feature two such interviews per episode. 

In the premiere episode I speak with Todd Carlton - Star Wars author and enthusiast, convention promoter, and a great friend of your's truly!  It was a great fun to talk with him to make the interview you are about to hear. 

On this episode I discover that I would not be publishing this show until a discount for preordering All-Con tickets would have expired.  So to save my bacon Todd arranged a special pre-order discount of $5.00 off the price of adult, child, or friend of the show tickets through August 31, 2011 if you use the code jedicole when ordering.  So if you want to buy your membership in advance then do it before August 31 and be sure to use the exclusive code for JediCole Universe and USG readers/listeners!  Visit All-Con's website to preorder your tickets today!

If you know anyone who is a figure in fandom who might make a great guest for this show, please drop me a line at the JediCole Universe email!