All 3 of them basically have this effect

NEW BOSS EVERY WEEK: At the beginning of the game choose a friendly character that can use Leadership or Mastermind and a keyword that character has. he gains that keyword. (This doesn't affect theme teams)

That last part, This doesn't affect theme team. I read it as, they are like Taskmaster or Torbit or Thug. Were they don't break theme team, but also don't count for it. Does that mean they break theme team? and if so, why include that last part. when without it. they obviously do break it.

They gain the keyword but do not count toward the xharacter total for theme team benefits (TTPC and Initative bonus).
Basically they gain the keyword so they can be affected by Mastermind and Leadership, but not for theme theam purposes.
Edit: They don't break theme either.

Thanks!

Just to clarify, cause they rules change all the time round here lol. That normally they would break theme team. But because of that affect, they do not, correct?

Actually no.
Since all characters on a theme team must share a keyword, so if choose the shared keyword they wouldn't break theme.

The last sentence is there so that they don't provide theme team benefits (TTPC and the Initative Bonus) if they gain the keyword.

Interesting, Thank you very much!

They would not break theme if the team has already been determined to be a theme team. Note however that the effect doesn’t happen until the beginning of the game, which is after theme teams are determined, so you could not use this as a way to give them a keyword to make them count towards a theme team.

Yeah I was just going to correct myself:

23.2a Determining Themed Teams
In order for a starting force to become a themed team, when you reveal your force duringstep 1 of Game Setup, you must choose a single keyword that all characters on your starting force share. If all your characters share more than one keyword, pick only one.

So they're wouldn't gain the keyword until after then Theam has been determined.

THIS. There are very few ways to really use this much on theme. Going Maggia with Silvermane and making them Robot keyword allows for some synergy with his abilities.

Thanks for the convo guys! I like to collect all the pieces that can join or not break theme team. And thought they were part of that. But now that I know, I will be skipping them.

Great Eagle, Clayface, Silver Sable, Spider-Man (Spidey and Venom: Absolute Carnage fast forces), Prez Rickard. To a lesser extent, Muhammad Ali, prime Superman, and Triton.

A good start.

Spidey and Venom: Absolute Carnage 005 Black Cat as well. I keep extras of her and Silver Sable in my main tackle box to fill in when teams come up short. I'm hoping the upcoming Spider-Man set has both of them at low rarity so I can swap the sculpts for the new scale.

I KNEW there was one that was slipping my mind.

http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569737

My keyword cheating thread might be of some assistance.