I like how murderous humans are the real monsters in this tale, much as angry mobs were the real villains in Frankenstein movies and exploitative humans were the villains in the Creature from the Black Lagoon sequels. Thematically, that works for me, as I’m here to see monsters kick ass.

The drawback, though, is that most of the movie is martial arts fights with scarcely characterized one-off characters. I’m not invested in any of these people, and if I’m here for a monster movie, I’m here to see them fight monsters and lose badly. Sure, they’re all visually distinctive, and that’s fine, but I can’t tell you their names without googling it, and none of them are scary on their own.

That’s also part of why the special’s 52-minute runtime works against it. There’s barely any characterization for anyone outside of the main 4 characters and not much depth for them outside of a couple of monologues.

Add to that the film culminates in Jack and Elsa fighting a bunch of guardsmen & hunters. It’s maybe spooky, but not particularly scary, and certainly no more climatic than Venom fighting the SWAT team in VENOM or Wolverine fighting the Weapon X soldiers in X2. That’s an elevated fight scene, sure, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the climax. A hypothetical Elsa, Jack, and Ted team up against a majorly super-powered Verussa would.



#150 Monster Hunter
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 5
Points: 50
Keywords: Bloodstone Hunt, Warrior, Martial Artist, Brute

7 11 18 2

7 11 18 2

7 11 17 2

7 10 18 2

7 10 17 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Dozens of Kills Per Hunter: This character has +1 Attack & Damage to characters with the Monster, Mystical, and/or Animal Keywords.

Couldn't agree more mate = They all looked interesting and in need of a back story. Reminded me of the "Bloodpack" from Blade II - but at least they got mentions.

And a very picky thing for me - if you're gonna get an actor to do a regional accent ... get a decent one (it felt a bit Dick Van Dyke meets Braveheart to me).

Cracking dial though buddy !

Cheers
HB

Just got around to seeing the finale of She-Hulk.

While I found the big 4th wall break cool and interesting, I'm also left with a few issues about it.


First, did She-Hulk just hurt a bunch of "real" people who were just doing their jobs of protecting Kevin? 'Cause that doesn't seem cool to me.
If she had just (gently) muscled her way past them, I think it would've felt less problematic. After all, they obviously weren't able to stop her, so why did she need to slam them into walls or break their arms?
The show makes a big deal out of Jen choosing non-violent ways to deal with Intelligencia, but She-Hulk is allowed to hurt people for making bad fiction? Are we supposed to think of these people as less real than those of She-Hulk's world? Surely the 4th wall break would imply that they're more real.


Second, while I liked the jokes about saving money on the transition back to the story, I feel like the jump skipped over too many details. Where exactly did the story change, and how did Jen & co. manage to alert the authorities (with bad cell service) and keep the angry mob contained? I'm assuming Jen transformed into She-Hulk, since that's how we see her approach the cops, but it's really not clear what happened.

As a result of this skip, the wrap-up of the finale felt kinda rushed to me. It feels like we didn't get an actual climax to Jen's story. Just the aftermath.
Jen more or less explained what she wanted the climax to be, but I feel like we needed to see it play out on screen after she had her chat with Kevin.
Seeing the angry mob turn on her and her friends could have lead to a moment where Jen had to decide whether she should transform (breaking her release condition) or stay human (risking her friends' safety). That could have served as a nice climax for what she herself claimed was the main subject of the show: How Jen and She-Hulk can coexist.


Overall, I still enjoyed the show (and I liked what the finale was going for), but did Kevin really say that we won't be seeing She-Hulk on the big screen at all? Because that's disappointing.

My thanks, friend! Glad the dial feels good!

You're dead-on about BLADE 2's Bloodpack-- they're all established by name, and although it's subtle, they each have more distinct personalities than we see among the hunters here. Really wish the special had been longer to make us care more about all of them.

Oof, I didn't notice the rough accents, but I don't have a good ear for when they're off-base. It's funny... actors from the UK are consistently better at doing Americanized accents than American actors are at doing accents from the UK.

...lol or anywhere else. Looking at you, HOUSE OF GUCCI.Those are all valid and well-made points. I agree with all of them, truth be told --especially the points about the rushed climax. It does feel like we breeze past multiple major developments and don't really see how She-Hulk gets out of any of it. I was ok hand-waiving that, figuring that her talk with K.E.V.I.N. gave an plot allowance to skip it, sort of like the Byrne comics would have She-Hulk skip past story beats she didn't like. The flipside, of course, is that if one was invested in what was happening, it'd feel like an unsatisfying digression.

Haha it kind of helped that I've struggled to be invested in anything this season.

It also struck me that we don't know Abomination's role in this exactly, or if he knew anything about Intelligencia. It makes him seem s***y either way to me. Additionally, we barely saw She-Hulk act as a competent lawyer this season. Even in a courtroom sitcom, her love life was frequently treated like the A story, and the lawyer stuff a B plot carried out by secondary characters, if it was addressed at all in a given episode. Feels weird that the climax to her series wouldn't be winning a major court case.

That scene with K.E.V.I.N. is also striking in a few ways.
1. It's a recrimination of MCU shows having overblown, CGI-heavy finales that rush things... but it's absolutely an overblown, CGI-heavy finale that rushes things. It just mocks the idea of it being an action spectacle.
2. ...but at the same time, there's always a critical debate over bluntly mocking tropes while doing them isn't the same as just doing some more novel in their place as the subversion.
3. After the episode aired, Kevin Feige went on record saying that he never forces the big spectacular finishes these shows have. That suggests to me that many of these shows have them because they're written like TV shows, but treated like one-and-done movies, and all of them have to wrap up nearly all of the narrative strings by the finale because another season is unlikely. That's been a recurrent shortcoming of these shows.

That all said, the fun thing was K.E.V.I.N. didn't say that was the last we'd see of She-Hulk, but the last she'd see of him-- like she only gets one deus ex machina moment, so to speak. Season Two has been confirmed... but I still hope She-Hulk snarks at K.E.V.I.N. again.

WEREWOLF BY NIGHT was hyped as being extremely gory, and frankly, as a horror fan, I found it to be rather tame. Yeah, a dude loses a hand and some blood squirts on the camera, but that’s not far flung from Drax covered in monster gore in GOTG2, Yellowjacket and Grandmaster liquefying people in ANT-MAN & RAGNAROK, respectively, or Captain America knocking a Hydra goon into a propeller in CAPTAIN AMERICA. It’s PG-13-level when 2010’s THE WOLFMAN shows what could’ve-debatably-should’ve pushed WEREWOLF BY NIGHT’s intensity even further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbdHhLOzT-Y

Even Verussa, being CGI-roasted alive by Man-Thing so quickly, seems less violent than Ego melting in GOTG2 or Hulk’s fight with the Abomination in INCREDIBLE HULK. It doesn’t have the prolonged or shocking nature of some of the best horror kills.

But I do like seeing Man-Thing wreck s***.



#151 Bloodstone Guardsman
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 50
Keywords: Bloodstone Hunt, Armor

8 10 18 2

8 10 18 2

8 10 18 2

7 10 18 2

7 10 18 2

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Cattle Prod Staff: Giant Reach: 2. Hit characters are dealt an Action Token. Hit characters with the Monster, Mystical, and/or Animal Keywords have Battle Fury until the beginning of your next turn.

Looking over your list here there’s a few characters you could maybe add

Skaar
Donny Blaze
Todd/HulkKing
Lulu & her dog (Patti Harrison has to have a dial!)

Also think you could give the wrecking crew and group therapy figures their own dials but understand why you might not given some of your previous designs

Hi there, friend!

Thanks for the suggestions! In this case, I didn't feel like any of them contributed enough to be worth the bother of dialing.

On the plus side, Madisynn's dial sort of covers Donny Blaze, and Abomination's dial will wind up covering Todd's. I figured to hold off on the Hulk and Skar until their inevitable film appearances where they'll be more substantial.

Once again, Harriet Sansom Harris rules as Verussa Bloodstone. Great, creepy villainess who I wish had gotten more time to shine.

Owing to a combo of the short runtime, practical sets, seemingly-not-large-enough climax, and lack of a true post-credits, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT feels small by design in a way that I don’t think it needed to be. I view the special as an experiment, something to iterate upon and to refine with each following special. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY’S HOLIDAY SPECIAL has already wrapped, but supposedly there are more specials in the works. I truly hope I don’t have to wait until next October for the next MCU horror thing, but an annual horror special wouldn’t break my heart either.

Marvel horror has and will always be my jam, so even if WEREWOLF BY NIGHT didn’t check every box for me, I’d love to see more like it. Genre love aside, I DO think it’s the strongest MCU thing since DOCTOR STRANGE: INTO THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. Taking into account what it is and what it's trying to be, it might genuinely be the best Phase Four property thus far.



#152 Verussa Bloodstone
Team: Mystics
Range: 7
Points: 50
Keywords: Bloodstone Hunt, Mystical, Ruler

6 10 16 1

6 10 16 1

6 11 16 2

6 11 16 2

6 12 16 3

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

The Stone Must Be Earned: Leadership. // When a friendly character KOs an opposing character, you may equip them with #146 The Bloodstone from outside the game or from any other equipped friendly character or opposing character, if the Bloodstone in play began friendly to your force.

Here’s yet another interesting Darren Mooney article.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/she...th-wall-break/

In it, Mooney discusses the adversarial tone She-Hulk adapted with its fourth wall breaks, often seeming to accuse audiences to care more for cameos and universe plugs for the show itself. He doesn’t draw an issue with the cameos in a vacuum, but does indicate -as I have also argued- that the cameos frequently felt like they stole Jen’s spotlight and prevented her from organically leading her own show.

I believe that some of the tone comes from the showrunners forced to make the eighth episode the pilot; they’re annoyed that test audiences weren’t patient enough to just vibe with an MCU lawyer sitcom until an origin came at a later date. There was also, of course, reasonable cynicism in the fourth wall breaks in predicting what toxic incels would make of the show.

It’s fascinating that test audiences felt that way about the original pilot, because plenty of major TV shows don’t offer origins for the protagonist until later. That means either people expect superhero fare to begin with origin stories, or the original pilot -part one of the Blonsky case- wasn’t wowing audiences on its own merits. Personally, I think it’s a bit of both.



#153 She-Hulk
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 60
Keywords: Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway, Celebrity

9 10 18 3

9 10 18 3

9 11 18 4

8 11 18 4

8 11 18 4

8 11 18 5

KO KO KO KO

5 9 16 1

5 9 16 1

5 9 16 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Talking to the Audience: Once, during any turn, talk to the audience (must be appropriate and respectful to all present). If any of your opponents so much as chuckle, She-Hulk has +1 combat stats until the end of your soonest turn.
I'm a Woman. I'm Always Angry.: FREE: During your turn, turn She-Hulk to click #1 or click #8. If you do, She-Hulk has Shape Change until the beginning of your next turn. You may not choose to turn to the same click twice in a row.
Yeah, I Can Do That Jump Thing Too: Charge & Leap/Climb.
That Patented Hulk Strength: Super Strength & Quake
Iffy Legal Skills: FREE: during your turn, She-Hulk has Probability Control, Outwit, or Perplex until the beginning of your next turn, but your opponent chooses which of them.

Flurry: Sorry, Had to Go Fight Demons.
Stealth: Nobody Really Notices Jen Walters.
Invulnerability: What, Did You Rob an Asgardian Construction Site?
Toughness: Okay, My Turn.
Mastermind: I Knew It! Captain America Fu-
Empower: I Guess I Am, Now and Forever, She-Hulk.
Battle Fury: No, A Normal Amount of Rage!

UPDATED 10/19/22 - Thanks, Hein2208 and No-Name!

Those are some fun and creative effects that fit the show well. Very nice.

I’m a little unsure about the transformation trait, though. Is it intended to let her reset her dial to click 1 every turn? Because that would mean the only way to KO her is to do it in one turn.

Maybe you should use click colours and do something like this:

Click colours: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 11 12:

I’m a woman. I’m always angry.: FREE: If She-Hulk is on a green click number, turn her to the red click number equal to half the current click number. Otherwise, turn her to the green click number equal to the current click number. Either way, she can use Shape Change until your next turn.

That would still let her heal over time, but it would force her to use the vulnerable human clicks to do it. And it would be slower, so the opponent can still make progress on KO’ing her.


A simpler alternative without click colours would by this:

I’m a woman. I’m always angry.: FREE: During your turn, turn She-Hulk to click #1 or click #8. If this is not the first use of this effect this game, you must pick the click number opposite to last time. If you do, She-Hulk has Shape Change until the beginning of your next turn.

That still lets her reset every turn, but every other reset has to use the vulnerable human clicks, giving the opponent a more realistic chance to one-shot her.

The show is kinda perfect for flavor text on this dial.

Flurry: Sorry, Had to Go Fight Demons.
Stealth: Nobody Really Notices Jen Walters.
Invulnerability: What, Did You Rob an Asgardian Construction Site?
Toughness: Okay, My Turn.
Mastermind: I Knew It! Captain America Fu- (okay, not a perfect fit, but that cracked me up and I wanted to include it)
Empower: I Guess I Am, Now and Forever, She-Hulk.
Battle Fury: No, A Normal Amount of Rage!

Currently only 3 episodes in for She-Hulk, but that feels like a fitting dial. Iffy Legal Skills is a jabby name (although my wife the lawyer has face-palmed multiple times) but I do love that it represents Jen's free-slowing, improvisational style we see in the Blonsky hearing if nothing else; her "make the most of disaster" way of lawyering. I have the spoilers about its being 4th Wall-Shattering finale so I feel okay being here.

It occured to me watching last night (Ep. 3) that I appreciate what I think the show is trying to do, and knowing the ending helps - it feels like foreshadowing/realization when Jen says "hey, this isn't the cameo show...except for Bruce...and Emil...and now Wong...but hey, it's still my show!". Like part of the show's thesis wants to be carving out your own identity as a legacy/"lady" version of an established hero. I applaud that, and of course think Tatiana Maslany can do no wrong since I watched her carry Orphan Black on her back(s) for 5 messy seasons. The show's willingness to interrogate double-standards and superhero media should be my bag!

...but so far the show isn't clicking for me. I think the short runtime leads to too-broad B-plots like that dreadful "Dark Elf Shapeshifster" one and doesn't give enough breathing room for those B-plots to gel with and enhance the A-plot. I also find the show's humor to just not be that funny? I chuckle occasionally, but this is not a primary comedy.

It occurs to me that the showrunners were inspired by Legal Dramedys like Ally McBeal and Boston Legal - both hour-long shows. I think the short run-times and over-stuffed plots and not-super-likeable supporting cast beyond Nikki definitely are making it hard for the show to be what it could be for me. I'll keep watching but I get the lukewarm response here for sure.

Many thanks for the notes, friend! I totally see your point, and think it's a fun way to keep the Jen side of the dial in-play --especially since the series put her in human form every chance they got. I've updated the dial and sent you some rep! Thanks again!Haha I dig the flavor text assist! I've added them to the dial post, and sent you some rep! Huge thanks for that!Haha if your wife has facepalmed at the legal stuff now, she's going to scream when you hit episode 8. I learned that nobody on the writing team had ever written a legal anything, so Charles Soule was called in midway through the season for consulting. It also explains why Jen is kind of a disasterpiece lawyer. ...and why the legal stuff tends to be B and C plots in what's supposedly a legal sitcom.

My God, that note about the show's humor resonates with me. The comedy just doesn't seem particularly strong, and the show's idea of humor is "here's a goofy character." The comedy lives and dies by its cameos, but without them, it feels like it just exists in a "Marvel Mileau," containing the same lighthearted jokes that punctuate every other Marvel thing.

I also agree about the mostly-unlikable supporting cast. Of them, I think I only dug Nikki and Mallory. The rest just felt like bland, mawkish stock characters who did little to distinguish themselves or, in the case of Jen's family, justify being in the show in the first place.

I do like your rightful praise of Maslany as an actor (Good Lord, the sheer range on display in ORPHAN BLACK...) and your observation about the show's themes. I think when the show is hitting its potential (I argue primarily in episodes 4, 8, and 9), it feels the most like its executing its themes well and relatively cleanly. At all other times, as you say, it feels like it's overwhelmed by the sheer amount of other stuff bogging it down and keeping it from addressing its simple stories.

Currently, I’d rank the MCU TV shows/content thusly:

What If…?
Werewolf by Night
Wandavision
Hawkeye
Ms. Marvel
Moon Knight
She-Hulk
Falcon & Winter Soldier
Loki
I Am Groot

I really wanted to love this show -much as I’ve said about the other Disney+ Marvel shows- But I only liked episodes 4, 8, and 9. Everything else felt bland and pointless at best, or a misfire at worst.

Still, happy for those who dug it. Taste is subjective, and this just didn't do much for me.



#154 Nikki Ramos
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 0
Points: 15
Keywords: Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway

6 9 14 1

5 9 14 1

5 8 13 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

Rules Lawyering: Errata: Perplex. If an opposing character has an ability, special ability, or a trait that has errata, they have -1 attack for the rest of the game, even if this power is lost.

Very creative. I like it