I have mentioned before that the Hallowed Ween is my favourite holiday, due to its “spooky” nature. That’s why it is pretty darned appropriate that I have, for the last month or so, lived above a Halloween store. It felt “on brand” for me, as it were. Well the holiday has now arrived, so I assume they’ll be gone soon, which is a shame, but maybe they’ll leave me all their unsold Halloween stuff. That seems likely.

Anyway, that’s my way of breaking onto the topic that my move of apartments has been pretty successful. This first month has needed some supplementary purchases (shelving and such) to make it all work out, and the move itself was followed up by some car expenditures, but as of today those should be over with now too. And while the monetary cost has been one thing, another has been the amount of time spent dealing with such things. But, unless I’m missing something big, I feel like this is the first time in a few months in which I didn’t have some big important nonsense to deal with. Perhaps now, finally, I will be able to pull myself back on track for everything else.

I mentioned a few years back that I consider Caution Tape to be a terrible Halloween decoration. I want it on record that this year I saw a “decoration” that was a literal sign that said “Halloween” in a kind of horror-movie font. That’s a pretty weak decoration, but I’d still take it over Caution Tape. This is my decree!

I have said that I am jealous of Batman’s villains because they are “better” than Superman’s. That is true, but you know whose villains I enjoy even more than the Great Fleidermaus Detective’s? Spider-Man’s. That guy has a ton of villains who are just plain fun. And it isn’t even his a-listers I’m talking about. I barely care about Spider-Man’s big villains. What I like is his c-listers. They are so good they could and have headlined their own books while still being c-list super-crooks, not brilliant criminal masterminds or maniacal killers. That is what I want for Superman’s foes. I want him to have his own equivalent to the Sinister Syndicate. So let’s work on that, shall we? (I will do it. You can just sit there.)

I don’t know what name this team would have, if it had any. In my ideal world, I would find a name that was once used in some obscure Superman comic that would fit this team perfectly and reclaim it. At the moment, I have not found that name. I would NOT however, call this team the “Superman Revenge Squad”. I’ll probably do a post about those guys someday, but they aren’t these guys. These are the guys who mostly don’t want revenge on Superman. They just want to do crimes when Superman isn’t around. There probably wouldn’t even be a permanent roster. They’d be more casual criminal acquaintances than an actual team.

Mostly I will be plucking very obscure supervillains for this. There are some more mainstream ones who’d fit in, though. Off the top of my head, Metallo and Livewire would work. Anyway, at least, I don’t have enough to say about either of them to merit their own posts, so I’ll cover them here today.

Metallo, a cyborg thug with a heart of Kryptonite, is without a doubt the highest ranking of the villains I will propose for this group. He’s also the one most likely to be involved in plots that go beyond the parameters I just set for the team. He is the type who’d go out for revenge on Superman. He would probably be perfectly willing to work for Lex Luthor or whomever instead of doing bank jobs or whatever. But he’d do those smaller crimes too. He’s not picky. And for this group to work, they need at least one notable criminal in the batch. Metallo works.

Livewire, an electrically-powered sassmouth criminal, on the other hand would probably think she’s too cool for this crew. But being a supercriminal isn’t easy. Sometimes she’d need the money and working with a team can be better than working alone. I don’t know that she’d be especially loyal, though. She’d also probably think she’s on top of things enough to manipulate the rest of the group, but that may not always be true.

And that’s it for villains anyone has heard about. I’d also throw Timebomb into this. I think he’d fit into the group too. Next week I’ll start throwing out some of the others I think belong here.

Well, well, well… It’s that time of year once again where a new year’s worth of Phone Guys comics begins. After last year’s turned out to be a big globe-spanning thriller story, I can only assume this year will top even that.

This week I am just going to be unloading a random mess of thoughts about a potential Superman game, as I discussed last time.

Collectibles: seems like all these games have things strewn around the city that you must gather up because it is easy fun. Well, I propose we can do that here as well. I would go with the story that Beppo the Supermonkey ransacked the Fortress of Solitude and hid them around town. You gotta get them back. Easy. And the collectibles would be souvenirs from old missions or Kryptonian artifacts and so on. A good chance to introduce the franchise to players.

Mxyzptlk Missions: As I said last time, I would keep Mxy away from combat missions. Much better if he is used to create crazy side missions. And I would absolutely include one where he makes you fly through rings as in Superman 64, considered one of the worst games ever. And I wouldn’t even feel bad about it.

Fast Travel: I don’t know for sure how super speed could be done in a game. I picture a button that you press and everybody but you slows to a snail’s pace, it uses up your power and all that stuff. That is all well and good, but also it is clear that fast travel in the game could also be presented as super speed in action. As long as your in your guise as Superman (ie, not as Clark Kent) you should be able to instantly get to any location in the city. And if you leave the city boundaries, or just fly up, up, and away, you get to choose locations outside of the city to visit. (The Fortress, Smallville, probably some oil rig, wherever else the game takes you).

Other Playable Characters: If this game is designed to make it feel good to be Superman, don’t take that away by making the player have to be Lois or Jimmy for missions. Instead, have the Other Character missions be other superheroes. I have no idea what kind of canon this game would be shooting for, but if I were in charge we would be seeing a Superman who has been around a while and therefore has allies. Supergirl, Steel, Mon-El, Superboy, Krypto. There are plenty of options.

Plot: As I said among these posts, I’d not want to use either aliens (such as General Zod) or Lex Luthor as the villain of my Superman game. For the first game, I’d keep it lower stakes. You start the game with Lois and Clark investigating someone wrongly accused of murder (which functions both as a reference to the very first person Superman saved in the comics, and as the sort of thing I like to see them doing in general) and that investigation leads them to uncovering corruption in local politics, police, and ties organized crime (The Scarlet Widow would work for that role, of course). These corrupt politicians and mobsters would obviously have supervillains on the payroll, so we’re good to go.

Anyway, I’m gonna stop talking about the game now. I have proven to myself it could work, so now I can sit back and wait until a real Superman game is either made poorly or not made at all.