and now for the evil mastermind behind the five warriors from forever. a mad foe that took on the jla singlehandedly in the silver age, i'm just glad i was able to use the hypertime ta proper here instead of having to spell the whole thing out each time with all those kang chases last time .

what's funny about the man who would later be named epoch and face off against the jla/wildcats is that his greatest claim to fame was delivering the first uncontested defeat to the jla/jsa ...just to rile them up enough to be able to defeat the supercomputer he built to stop all time after he realized he wouldn't be able to unstop it . in the grandest stroke of reverse psychology and tough love in comics, the members of the combined teams that could get back up after the amped up ( sp) five warriors whooped them then waged a war of attrition against his devices in his palace of eternity launched unrestrained by the dutiful and misguided Eternity Brain (dun dun dun) until at last the last survivor - elongated man of all people - was able to shortcircuit the computer and save all of time. lord of time had never been so happy to lose

so this dial has that speed value ticking clock and the corresponding cap on everyone's speed as time was being slowed to molasses while his mutilfaceted mc represents both his recruitment of the five warriors to do his bidding against their will as well as the eternity brain recruiting forces throughout time to defend the palace. and if you want to be esoteric about it, his manipulation of the league and society to be his champions against his own device. it's all very cross-eyed :

the two SPs take their names from the two issues of the tale. with yesterday being the initial assault of the five warriors (and his ability to boost their power levels for their surprise assault) and it's sequel tomorrow being the heroes' assault on the palace of eternity and time's dreaded decay

so while he's soft and slow and not terribly damaging (on his own right) he should be able to pull off tentpole status given the scope of what he can pull off. the dial length doesn't hurt

and personally, i think he looks like a pallet-swapped great gazoo

#who025 Dubbilex
Real Name: Dubbilex
Team: Superman Ally
Range: 7
Points: 60
Keywords: Metropolis, Project Cadmus, Suicide Squad, Psychic, Scientist

7 9 17 2

7 10 16 2

6 11 16 3

6 10 17 3

6 9 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

(+5)Superboy's Chaperone: A themed team may include Dubbilex and is still a themed team as long as a character named Superboy is on your force. // When Dubbilex is adjacent to a friendly Superboy they can both use each other's printed defense powers.
If Anyone Can Unravel A Puzzle Like This, Our Resident DNAlien Can!: Perplex. If Dubbilex chooses a combat value other than damage, he can instead modify that value +1 on all friendly characters within 4 squares of the target that share a keyword with the target. // At the beginning of your turn, roll 1d6. 5-6: Remove an action token from a friendly character within range with a shared keyword.
Telepathic Disguise
Lifted By Some Unseen Force!!
Brain Blast
Oh, I Assure You, Sir…
…I Can Do Far More Than That
If I Wasn't A Telepath, I Might Be Suspicious
In The Future, However, May I Suggest Not Judging A Person By Their Appearance?

Ah yeah! Dubbliex is in the house! I am never not paying that 5 points for the Superboy team up. Giving him that extra layer of defense will be awesome. Mega perplex and token removal will be so sweet, the frosting on the DNAlien cake. A Fantastic start to the Cadmus subtheme

Great Kirby's ghost!

Cadmus always felt like a love letter to the King, with art style, characters and tone.

Dubbilex is a great example of "All that is ugly is not evil" a favorite topic of Kirby himself.

If Anyone Can Unravel A Puzzle Like This, Our Resident DNAlien Can!, finally a telepath I actually like and he's a great team coordinator to boot!

Handing out buffs and taking away tokens like a champ, Dubbilex is going to make me use the option to spoof him onto any Superboy team quite liberally.

Mwahahah and I get to borrow Superboy's printed Defense power and lend him Dubbilex's Super Senses or Willpower.

Starting and ending with excellent support Dubbilex has a crunchy offensive center with both PPB and Outwit. I particularly like click four with PPB, Stealth, Willpower and Outwit I am going to make hay on that click.

Dang, Dubbilex is just an all around winner and Superman Ally TA!

for the life of me, i have no idea why he hasn't been clixed. what a staple of '90s comics. and while i didn't include superboy (i know, i know) i did give you reason to reach back to your various conner clix and pick out the best combinations to receive senses and later wp and what to give to dubb-step beyond the invitation to come along. i prefer the design style that doesn't render what came before obsolete, but enhances and encourages you to have a robust collection for more fun

the project cadmus subtheme i'll let you know came about on its own. it wasn't planned (hence the absence of conner) but lots of guys i wanted to include for various reasons did link back there and before you know it, it grew along with the rest of the set. this is a superman/batman set for marketing so there's lots of guys in their spheres that haven't gotten the nod yet that i got the excuse to explore
i do hope kirby enjoyed project cadmus as he made it . so you're definitely picking up on the right style here . the mad science in the underground labs at the heart of metropolis gave some wild and fantastical elements to the superman tales in the '70s. i'm glad it got to ramp up again in the '90s, keeping it relevant enough to be revisited in jlu so as to give us as many reasons as possible to justify the subtheme and get these guys clixed

the range non-leadership is plenty self-explanatory and the most benevolent use of tp i could think of. for the perplex, i envision it as an ee of perplex. it's a slight riff on the mass perplex we've seen many times before, centering it on a target instead of dubbilex, and since we're doing that, why not make it dependent on the target's KWs instead of his own? added mechanics for his ability to tag along with superboy, after all.

i do start him modest, that opening 9 is letting you know that there tk is for friendlies. but as the match opens up and he stops being introspective, the role shifts from pure support to "don't underestimate me" in the most dubbilex way i could figure out. trademark brain blasts stacking with outwit that can be use for something other than enemy defense (or someone else's, your druthers ) makes for a feisty middle. never mess with the kindly ones

Ha, I did not know that!

70's Superman is not exactly my bailiwick, it would explain why I liked Cadmus so much.

It does make me laugh that Kirby did so much that even what I thought was a loving nod to him was just more straight up Kirby.

Truly he is the Russian nesting doll of comics.

#who038 Unique Dabney Donovan
Real Name: Dabney Donovan
Team: Superman Enemy
Range: 0
Points: 55
Keywords: Intergang, Metropolis, Project Cadmus, Scientist

8 10 17 1

6 11 16 1

7 10 17 1

4 11 18 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

The Government's Official Mad Scientist!: DOUBLE POWER: Once per game, place an opposing character that was KO'd this game in your starting area on their starting click. It is friendly to your force. // At the start of your turn, deal that character 1 click of unavoidable damage. If that character is KO'd by this ability, your opponent scores no points for them.
What's The Big Deal? Petri Dishes Are Sterilized Every Day, No One Makes A Fuss: Exploit Weakness. Increase the damage dealt +1 for each action token on a hit target.
Liars! Hypocrites! They Cut Me Off And After I Stepped Away, They Stole My Ideas-- Robbed Me Of My Glory!
Short-Lived Clone
Fortunately, I Didn't Come Here Entirely Unprepared…
Obviously, My Reported Death Was A Ruse… But That's Of Little Importance
Don't You See-- With The D.N.A. Code Cracked, Anything Is Possible!
They Saved Luthor's Brain!

And the winner for best flavor text is!

The Government's Official Mad Scientist!: I know you're not going to be able to use this to best effect every game.....but man the threat of it will lurk in your opponents mind.

Dabney brings mad science goodness to the map with support aplenty and giving him a chance to return with Regeneration is spot on!

....Legends say if you play Dabney Donovan on the same map as the LORD OF TIME subtle disruptions to local gravity and electrical fields can lead mysterious happenings and the haunting sound of maniacal laughter.....

The Cadmus shenanigans are coming in strong. Dabney is a great representation and a really fun dial. I love when these scientist types get to contribute more to a game than an outwit here and a perplex there. The exploit power is great especially given the right set up. Great job.

and here i thought the petri dish was gonna win it for flavor . yeah ol dabney is 10 pounds of crazy in a 5 pound sack. just look at that mustache. that's not the lip-ferret of an emotionally adjusted human being

the regen was an absolute must, he was the king of the not-dead comeback. but the looming threat of cloning your opponent's piece is going to make him a priority target, so it's a good thing he's got all that mm to scuttle that as much as possible. i figured it's balanced out by the need to have taken that dude out in the first place so you essentially pay for it by going for it to scale
thank you, kindly. there's a considerable amount of mad scientists in this set so each one had to have their own flavor, can't just rely on the vanilla tropes.

ol' dabs gets his classic cloning schtick. i knew it had to happen, it was just a matter of figuring out exactly how. but the inherent thematic justification of the mechanical decay through some good ol fashioned clone disease helped me to refine the balance for the effect

his sp lets him be even more ...invasive with that scalpel the more subdued his target is. this also helps him to be more hands on and have a reason to be in the thick of it and have something to do beyond his cloning so he's not relegated to a mere 1 trick pony. and the late dial mc-as-cloning was interpretive but i think you could have fun imagining a quick kitbashed clone walloping your opponent before turning to mush. so much mush. we need a mop

So glad you included the version from Starman. Though I love the Errol Flynn stuff on the first dial too.

Always nice to see another Starman fan, if nothing else the Jack Knight Starman run proves that there were good comics made in the 90's.

Baron.... Baron... Baron... You continue to impress with your creativity and your ability to make me have a severe sense of nostalgia. Well done so far on this set and well done on this particular dial.

Oh any excuse to include the opal city kw in as many sets as possible . If I could squeeze an opal subtheme into a marvel set, I would .

Robinson did such phenomenal stuff with black pirate, easily the only exposure most folk have with this golden oldie, I just couldn't leave it on the table. And giving more value for each dial is something I strive for. The more fun the merrier, I say.
I just wish we could get a dedicated subtheme in a dc set. Such great stuff still untapped. And I'm not even talking about the deep cuts.


Thank you kindly. That's my aim, to enjoy the stuff I used to enjoy but enjoy it now differently

When you put it that way, I have been on a nostalgia streak with my set themes. Tapping into that ol' vein doesn't get old for me