I know you shared your rules but there's a dial I have to ask you to make because its so relevant to the thread- YOU! Dial yourself.

haha this is such a bonkers idea, I'm gonna have to do it. Rep inbound, friend.

That said, it's the kind of great prompt I'd expect to see in the Dial Design Contests! Niceguyrob has done a fantastic job spearheading these, and all of the dials people have submitted put mine to shame by a hefty margin. To everybody reading-- if you've never read or participated in the Dial Design Contests, you're missing out!Haha I'm officially in hype mode for this. I've begun my rewatch of the Netflix series. Midway through season one and enjoying it all over again. Not looking forward to the season 2's second half's pacing slump, but pretty stoked for S.3's second half!

I'm hoping that BORN AGAIN will be good, but as I've mentioned in the past, I really worry that the narrative will try to cram too much into the season. We'll discover if Matt is picking up from where S.3 left off, if this is a different universe, and if he'll go from street hero to lord of the Hand by the end of it.

I'm also curious how the show will ultimately look and feel. I was disappointed that the Netflix shows stripped so much of the character's lore, characters, and comic book charm. Hopefully this will feel just a little more playful with more costumed and powered villains. I'm also hoping that Disney & Marvel's slowing the pace of production across the board will help this avoid the bugbears that have plagued the other shows-- rushed finale episodes and thematic murkiness, chiefly.

I'm excited too! I'm honestly all for a fresh stylistic take over the Netflix series. Not that it should totally veer away from the previous series, but I think giving it a slightly unique approach that helps it stand out from the previous series could be really great. Daredevil's comics aren't all dark, gritty, and down-to-Earth "realistic", after all, so there shouldn't be a need to limit his adaptations to just that.

I'd like to see a live action Daredevil going up against Stilt-Man. Or Mister Fear. Oooh, Mister Fear could be seriously cool. I agree I wouldn't want it to go too far, but I think there are things we can all get behind.

Let's let Kingpin take a back-seat. We know he'll be here, but he doesn't need to be the primary antagonist for a third season. Mister Fear could easily fill the shoes of a primary antagonist. Really put that "The Man Without Fear" tagline to the test.

Maybe let's have some White Tiger in this one. Not only could the MCU use a strong, definitively Latino/Latina superhero, but I think a Daredevil show is a really good place to explore Hector's story and how a grave injustice against him led to his sister Ava becoming the White Tiger.

Fully agree with all of that! Haha Stilt-Man & Mr. Fear were the big two I'd had in mind. Given that we know Punisher is going to be involved, I want to see Bushwacker and the Nocenti version of Typhoid Mary.

Thanks to casting news and other set-ups, I'm willing to bet D'Onofrio's Kingpin will still be a big deal, and we'll see the likes of Echo, She-Hulk, and possibly White Tiger. In this case, I'm guessing "Born Again" will mean a new take on Daredevil within the MCU, much like we saw Spidey get rebooted in CIVIL WAR. Kinda bummed that Karen & Foggy's actors aren't returning. I really liked what they'd brought to the Netflix series.

Granted, I'd also like to see Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist's (Jessica Henwick, not the other idiot) actors return too.

It's funny how we just accept things that we've gotten used to, huh? Fox's X-Men movies are going to be thematically strong, but get a ton wrong about the characters and lore. DC's movies are never going to have any consistency. MCU characters are always going to be more militant, murderous versions of their comic book selves. And Squabbler's gonna be long-winded about something.

Doesn't matter if he loved it, hated it, or was largely ambivalent about it, here's a guy who's gonna go off on how "Spider-Man 16: Mo' Webs, Mo' Problems" is emblematic of the fall of capitalism and an indictment of the upper class or something. Is he reaching? Is he onto something? Who the hell can tell.

Dude tries, though, that much is clear. Tryhard you might say, as you'd expect of a guy looking to do something with his film degree beyond burning it for warmth. So he decided on Heroclix. For reasons. Because evidently starting a youtube channel might've offered too much financial security.

But here's the thing-- Squabbler may be a longwinded pickypants who seems to only like horror comics and nothing else, but he's absolutely grateful to have chatted with everybody who's ever graced his humble little movie threads and given him more praise for his custom dials than most of them really deserve. It always gives him joy to talk movies, comic characters, and his favorite tabletop game with all of you. Hopefully someday, he'll wind up on the same part of the globe with you and share a great Heroclix game.

Or he'll just talk you do death. One or the other.



#184 Squabbler
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 7
Points: 50
Keywords: Mystical, Cosmic, Reporter

5 12 16 1

5 11 16 1

5 11 16 1

5 10 16 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

"He won't shut up about script structure": Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering & Elevated.
'Jeez, does anything make him happy?": Characters that Squabbler doesn't like have -1 Attack and -1 Damage when targeting Squabbler. // Movie set versions of characters that Squabbler doesn't like have -2 Attack and -2 Damage when targeting Squabbler.
Wouldn't It Have Been More Interesting If..?: Mind Control, Squabbler gets +1 to his attack roll for it if a version of that character has appeared in a movie.
Long Blocks of Text: During your turn, choose one. Squabbler has that until you choose again.
1) Once per turn, you may reroll a character's attack roll or breakaway. A targeted character must be within range and line of fire, minimum range: 4.
2) FREE: Minimum range: 4. Choose a target character within range and line of fire. Modify one of that character's combat values other than damage +1 or -1 until your next turn.
3) FREE: Minimum range: 4. Choose a target opposing character within range and line of fire and then choose one: any standard power -or- any special power printed on the target's card. The target can't use the chosen power until your next turn.

UPDATED 03/25/23 - Thanks, Wilx!

As a jest, I was going to quote the feedback you once gave a self-dial, but here you used so much (joking) self-deprecation, that I really can’t call this conceited.

What I can call it, is a very funny and fittingly meta dial. The focus on movie versions of characters is particularly fitting, and the damage special is a very amusing touch. At first, I was wondering why you added minimum ranges, when the dial already has range. I guess you could say I was perplexed.

Your long-winded rant is also a wonderful work of self-parody.

Oh no! Now I’m worried I was a total dick about whatever feedback I once gave! I apologize if I was in any way harsh at the time!

I’m glad that this dial seemed funny, meta, and appropriately self-deprecating. I was shooting for a critic-like character who’d fallen into what they recognized as a story, and they’re constantly calling out tropes, identifying themes, and yabbering about story stuff. Haha “celebrity” might be a stretch, but I thought maybe I’m known enough among the 5-6 people who keep an eye on these threads.

vBulletin Message
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Squabbler again.

Don't worry, I was in no way insulted. That self-dial was an exaggeration, sort of like a caricature, so I just took it as a reference to that.

I figured the Celebrity keyword was for your film degree. Hollywood and all that. But I could also see you have a bit of celebrity status here on the 'Realms.

Hahaha huge thanks, friend! It literally never would've happened or occurred to me without you.

BIG news, everyone: Victoria Alonso, one of Marvel's big three producers alongside Kevin Feige and Louis D'Esposito, is out of Marvel Studios. News on the subject is still vague, but she was president of physical and postproduction, visual effects and animation production. That should stand out to you, give all the reporting about Marvel's VFX practices and struggles.

To read this article...

https://www.vulture.com/2023/01/insi...hollywood.html

...it's heavily suggested that Alonso's management is responsible for the studio's abusive VFX practices and the recent movies' poor VFX quality. I would speculate from there that there's a reason we haven't get gotten WHAT IF...? season 2, or any of the other MCU animated Disney+ shows.

There's much we don't know yet. It's plausible that the situation is more complex than we know and Alonso is just switching gears and moving up after an extremely profitable 20 years. It's also plausible that Disney/Marvel Studios is dropping her in an attempt to course correct and change the narrative about their VFX practices... and by proxy, improve the critical conversations around their content.

Keep an eye on entertainment news-- it's sure to be spicy.

https://apple.news/Am__jyXDdQIS88yvSEjAKNA

Apparently, it’s due to a breach of contract when she took a producer role on “Argentina, 1985” - or at least that seems to be the officially stated reason.

That's very fascinating. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she was given multiple warnings against producing the film and was fired by Disney after ignoring them. Sounds like a conflict of interest, non-competition clause or something.

I saw in another interview that Kevin Feige didn't attempt to prevent her hiring, which is striking. I'm curious if he didn't intervene because she was doing double VFX duty between MCU films and ARGENTINA, 1985 and/or because firing her allowed her to seem like she was solely responsible for Marvel Studio's crappy VFX business practices.

Going to be very interesting to see how this all shakes out. I imagine that THE MARVELS is the first we'll see of how her firing affects Marvel Studio's VFX practices and the overall VFX quality of their projects.

I was surprised to not see the Reporter keyword here as I think critic could easily fall into that category. I would also like to see a Teacher or Professor keyword in the game, which could be what you do by educating all of us. We could have it in X-Men sets, Strange Academy, Avengers Academy, etc