The Wine Taster

Suppose you’re at a party, or any kind of social gathering for that matter, and you see one person among the crowd wearing a strange mask, sipping from a glass of wine, and seemingly focused very intently on you. Maybe you turn to someone you know and ask what the deal is, but when you turn to look back, they’re gone. You’ve just been a victim of the Wine Taster.

The Wine Taster is an Unsettling Oddity, a being who exist solely to cause confusion, create insecurity, and make people ill at ease. These sorts of emotions cause the psychic plane to roil and bubble, generating the energy on which the Oddities feed. While more predictable entities might try to create outright fear in their victims, the Oddities look down on those as lacking in subtlety. They’re the snobs of the mystical entity set.

As with last week’s entries, I’m exploring characters who would exist in the world of the Secret Government Robots comic, in which the Oddities are one of SecGov’s fellow weird governments.

The Sword-Snout

In the forests of Upper Canada a most strange and monstrous creature has been reported. Hunters have spotted a large rodentlike beast, the size of a wolf, but with a blade protruding from its face. It has been seen running through other animals, such as deer, rabbits, or even birds. It has been seen feasting on their remains. But no hunter has reported being attacked. Or at least, none that has ever been attacked has managed to report it.

This one was at least partially inspired by a recent few hours I spent reading about Fearsome Critters. I like that sort of thing. After I’d done the sketch, I figured it would be a good opponent for Horribloid.

Dial H was an iteration of DC Comics’ Dial H for Hero franchise. The basic concept is that the protagonist(s) have a dial that, when activated, turns them into a superhero. This Beekeeper was one such transformation, so the panel above is actually someone else using the identity of this hero. But Dial H, at least, used the notion that the heroic identities made by the dial were actually the heroes of other universes, so somewhere out there this Beekeeper is probably fighting all types of crime.

That single panel is, as far as I know, the only appearance of this Beekeeper (I’m assuming they’re named “the Beekeeper” because of the B and K on the costume). Still, that single panel tells us an awful lot. This Beekeeper can sic bees on their enemies, which is a great, if standard, beekeeper ability. This Beekeeper also make good use of their smoker, also fairly standard, but depicted less frequently. But then: This Beekeeper Rides A Flying Hive! That’s new. It appears that the hive is actually carried by the swarm, and it must be assumed that the Beekeeper uses this hive as their primary mode of transportation, like the Green Goblin’s glider. It’s a pretty great visual. And on top of it all, sweet cape.

We don’t, sadly, know anything of this Beekeeper’s personality. The Dial would not have summoned this identity if they weren’t a good guy, but beyond that we know nothing. Did they swear revenge on crime after their Beekeeper parents were killed by mobsters? Was this Beekeeper chosen by bees to do good in the world because they were such a noble soul? Was radioactive bee-stinging involved? We don’t know. As such, it’s really hard to rate this Beekeeper with any real authority. But if anyone can do it, I can:

Three Honeycombs out of Five. Cool powers, cool visual. We don’t know enough to go higher, but also we don’t know enough to go lower.

It’s been a while, let’s see what PDR is up to:

Okay, yesterday I wrote my last exam of the semester, so I haven’t got class again until the new year. This is nice, because I’ve been feeling kinda mentally exhausted lately. Last year I was doing seven days a week without a day off from both work or school, but I just can’t bring myself to do that again. I assume that this is all proof that I’m too old, but I don’t want to do that again. I’m only going to be a part-time student from this point onward.

I’ve also been off work for a little while for a reason I will likely expand upon in a later post. I’ll go back this weekend, but the time with less school and work has allowed me to be more productive at other things. Kip and I are still working on a project, which I mentioned last time, but which I am still being vague about.

In more noticeable news, I have started a new feature of the site: I am reviewing fictional beekeepers. I’ve done two so far and I hope to do about four or five more before classes start back up. Once busytimes begin anew, I’ll drop down to about one beekeeper review a month, essentially filling the gap I left when I stopped doing Canadian Heritage Moment reviews. (On that note, there are still a handful of those left that I haven’t reviewed. I’ll try to do them if inspiration ever strikes.)

Haiku!

Trouble from the moon.
Reverse astronauts are here
and they want our cash.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back at some point before January, though, because experience tells me that once school starts I’ll be silent for months.