Dream Team (Viners)

@rosso:

It's also funny because, operationally, Abby is soooo much less than those two (three, if you include Vincent).

I rate Abby fairly high in terms of street level battles and not just because of OOC friendship or because I am a fan of the character. Abby has a lot of amazing feats, powers that are difficult if not impossible to counter and excellent gear. Or at least she did the last time I was around.

@hawkshade: I rate her fairly high too! I mean, I'm totally biased, but if you asked me to put her up against any street leveller, there's a part of my brain that's gonna figure she can do it! But because I'm so close with her (because I am her), that part of my brain is probably closely linked with the strategic/tactical thinking part of my brain and is gonna look for ways that she could win, given her gear and things.

She does have powers that are hard to counter...if she were inclined to use them. Which, I guess she will in an extreme emergency, but not standard. I mean more as like...As an example (because I'm still fresh off reading his bio and his capabilities are all in my mind), Grimmwald is above human capability in his speed and strength and agility and so on. Hawkshade may not be quite that (I actually haven't looked at his bio but you mentioned how big and strong he is), but he's higher than she is. Abby is athletic...military level at best, in certain areas. Probably closer to real-life military, and in line with someone of her size and build than comic book military, where people can do all sorts of crazy inhuman things. And she has a cardiac issue that resurfaced since the last Ivana fight where she got pummelled in the heart. So when I say less, it's like...less strong and fast and stuff. Which in Dragon Ball terms is a really big deal. And in battles thread terms someone with her exact stats and gear and mental proclivities (so she's not just gonna use her powers to freeze them in place or try to wipe them from existence or whatever), without her feats, would have a hard time with any one of them.

I think. I feel like maybe I didn't say what I wanted to say the way I wanted to say it? But maybe?

@rosso: I could never stand Krillin in DBZ moving forward, LOL. Especially not in Super where he's just a loser. He (and everyone really) was much better back in Dragon Ball.

I think it's the fact that Abby doesn't embody all those virtues perfectly, or that she herself is a flawed individual, that makes her more compelling as a hero. Because it's easy to do something when you're not held back by any external or internal force, when you have no physical, philosophical and psychological barriers to overcome. It's why people gravitate a lot to Batman because he's not this godlike being like Superman is, and he's not a well adjusted person anyway, so for him to do these great deeds, it just feels greater because he doesn't have it as easy as Superman does. When Abigail does these things, it doesn't feel forced at all. It feels inspirational because she has so much going against her.

Vegeta fails too much to be Abby, LOL. I think maybe Gohan is a better example? A Gohan who hadn't messed things up against Cell and Super Buu.

I give her a lot of Gothic credit because it's the most memorable city or place she's operated in save for Venezuela.

??? ????? ????

• Kaija
• Ali
• Black Bat

@grimmwald:

It's why people gravitate a lot to Batman because he's not this godlike being like Superman is, and he's not a well adjusted person anyway, so for him to do these great deeds, it just feels greater because he doesn't have it as easy as Superman does.

Weeeellllll...depending on who you've got writing your comic book. >_>

Oh, definitely not like Gohan did! Although she's had her moments. The kind where you're like "Now there's a GSP that knows he's facing the best BJ Penn. But he doesn't care. Because he also knows the best GSP is better than the best BJ Penn." Although I like that about the Saiyans, particularly in Gohan because he's always shown as so different than the others, so it's like...reversals. He's smarter than the others, he hates violence but he's got a great capacity for it; but even he's got that thing where he gets too cocky and taunty and screws everybody over. (Also--though there's another part of me that feels bad we were deprived of an awesome fight scene--the way they implied he learned from it [at least temporarily] in Bojack Unbound, because he didn't toy with him like he did with Cell when he went SS2. Didn't even play "let's fight my blast against yours and see who's stronger." Instead he went straight for the kill, shredded him.)

It's ironic because there are other heroes who dedicated themselves solely to Gothic for extended periods of time but have the same...impact. I'll say it. (Of course the last impact was a pretty bad one and killed a lotta people. [Ba-dump-tsssh!] >_>) And in Venezuela she was the one who was dedicated way longer than anybody else, and the one place where she operated exclusively (of course, I was running with her being trapped down there, but for that period it was the only place I'd RP with her), but that's the one she never gets any credit for.

Makes me wonder what Tonia could've done, had she stuck around, because she wasn't even around or in the limelight very long at all when you think about it, but she etched herself irrevocably into history. She is the embodiment of the phrase "Half as long, twice as bright."

@rosso:

True!

She's had her moments but Abby being more reckless or careless than usual has never doomed everyone the way Gohan has, LMAO. Had Goku crash landed on another planet instead of the Yardrat's homeworld, he'd have never learned Instant Transmission and while he may have returned to Earth somehow, he wouldn't have been able to bail everyone out after Gohan's arrogant carelessness with Cell doomed everyone. Cell would've blown up the Earth and taken everyone with him, LMAO. So on one hand, Abby is like Gohan because they're both more gentle-hearted than their peers, and neither one likes violence, but on the other hand she's a much better hero than Gohan ever was. And okay, you could say Gohan was a little kid and he was experiencing all kinds of emotions. But then he goes and does the same thing against Super Buu years later when he's in his late teens. And had it not been for Goku and Vegeta getting the Potarra earrings and doing the fusion, the world would've been doomed. I loved Gohan in the Bojack movie though. Except for that "I'm my father's son" line, LOL. He ended Bojack so quickly. The first punch he landed on Bojack as an SSJ2 was lethal!

It might be that she's the most memorable character to have tried to save Gothic. She's one of CV's longest running characters so it makes sense that what she does holds more weight than what other characters do. She's also hard as shit. Alpha Dog, Ivana, Charlemagne, Satar, and even Brahma Bull (I think, I know they've crossed paths), are all villains she's defeated. And Ezra'll probably fall into that list as well. No other hero on CV has those kinds of feats.

Do a What If story for Antonia.

@grimmwald:

Oh, noooo, I would never compare Abby's screw-ups to his! Just that in she may adopt an almost swashbuckler-style demeanor, in moments. Even her worst screw-up (Black House) wasn't her being cocky or playing around. Maybe a bit overconfident in hoping she could restrain the effects of her arrow to a localised area despite never practising with her powers, but not cocky. Mostly angry and extra serious. It wasn't "I'ma do this because I wanna play around now and make you suffer." Maybe a bit of the latter. She liked the irony of bringing his faux-kingdom crumbling down on top of him to do him in. But it was a mix of "this is gonna do a lot of damage and should take him out in a single attack" with "imagine the psychological damage to his mind and his ego if I not not only do this, but do it in this way." Even her taunting (what little she does), she employs more in a Silva-esque way, where it's not really taunting for the sake of taunting because I think I'm that much better and you suck, but instead to draw an opponent into making a mistake.

Well, I did work long at it. I won't say hard, because I still just acted naturally, didn't go out of my way to manufacture anything, and stayed true to her character (particularly in that she always tried to give the chance for compromise or peaceful resolution before a conflict), but I worked long at establishing her as a credible hero. I remember being really fired up at one point. Around the time Gothic really started to gain traction, but before she was considered memorable...maybe up til a bit after the Avalon saga. Abby'd been doing a lot of work, all over, just her and her bow. And other people would come along, take up a bow as part of a trend and be active with it for like a month, or they'd have bows/arrows that they'd guide more-or-less telekinetically, or arrows that were more AoE so you didn't really have to be that accurate with them, and people would write about these characters, "they're the greatest archer in the world." [Not even the characters' writers either. People they were writing with.] And that part of me was just going "...o_O Based on what!?" I mean, she's still just a person, but in that sense, I at least accomplished one thing I set out to do (which actually wasn't a goal from the outset, but became one by my competitive nature).

Yeah, Dragon Ball is just about powers and nothing else. But comic book battles are much broader.

@hawkshade: Dragon Ball Z (and Super) battles are about power. The battles in Dragon Ball were much broader, and "power levels" didn't really factor in until Z. Then it went from "tale based on Journey to the West including long quest to find mystical wishing orbs" to "martial arts aliens with extreme powers."

@rosso: All I know is that someone is over nine thousand and Goku can shoot blue energy beams from his hands but it takes him a super long time. And for some reason everyone turns blond when they power up.

Wow, she doesn't even know who's over nine thousand.

TELL ME

@hawkshade: I know you, and I ain't scared! You don't kill! And besides, your power level is a measly thousand compared to him!

Preschool Heroes

Tassiana....

....and any other little kids that are around in CVnU still LOL

No but I singlehandedly keep a dozen reconstructive surgeons in business.

Wow. Even lower than Raditz's, LOL.

@hawkshade: There's a perfect joke I could've made but you never watched DBZ, LOL.

@grimmwald: Now I have to know this perfect joke.

Could have been worse... could have been farmer with a shotgun power level xD

@rosso: LMAO, Nova just made the joke for me.

Catriona/Luciana/Victoria!

YES! We will kick all the butts with our cuteness

World's Finest

• Arquitenens
• Lady Liberty

Maverick Six

• Maverick Six (@maverick_6)

@lady_liberty: Noooo, World's Finest was reserved for Tonia and Kelly. If you wanted to call Abby and her a team, they'd have to at least have a modifier.

@rosso: Hmmm... Brave and the Bold, perhaps?

@hawkshade: I actually really like that. Let's do it!

I mean...maybe, sometime. >_> We'll see how things go.

• Quintus Knightfall (Kamelot Era)
• Kelly Coltaine/Lady Liberty (At the peak of her power)

@grimmwald: That's ironic since he's the one who made her lose her powers in the first place.

Still, I wonder how that would go, considering in the early goings she was one of the main forces pushing for registration, and he was theface of the anti- movement. Then again, she and Abby started off at odds too over that same issue, and look how they turned out.

Still, he took her powers.

@rosso: I'd have loved to see that team-up, LOL. Other than Abby, Quintus is the only character I ship Kelly with.

@grimmwald: Oh, that's a ship? I'm curious! Why?

@rosso: One reason is I feel like that ship would've had an "it" factor. A charisma. But more-so I think the situation regarding their moral ideals would've been really interesting. Kelly is a very self-certain and driven character as far as her moral ideals were concerned. Whereas Quintus never really experienced permanent moral growth (or regression for that matter). He had a fair amount of cognitive dissonance and other characters (or events) would typically bring out aspects of his personality that were always there, just never prominent. I wonder how this would've affected his dynamic with Kelly.

Would she have been able to be enough of an influence to bring out the better aspect of him and make him a better hero? Or even if he were with Kelly, would the extent of his cognitive dissonance be so great that not even her influence would have been enough? I think the character arcs that ship could've had would've been fun.

@grimmwald: That'd be an interesting one, that's for sure. The only ship I remember him being part of was with Sha's character, way early on, and that one was complicated because I think she was also a villainous? And they both had influences on one another? He helped her in Venezuela as a villain, but I feel like I also remember her going good for a period, when she first put on the WW suit? Kelly would be interesting because she has certain traits that make her...odd, I'll say. Part of it is that headstrong self-assuredness, but also she can be very blunt and has a low tolerance for things she thinks are stupid or nonsensical. It's one of the reasons she and Trinity have had such hard times.

My money's on him still flip-flopping, and then it'd be interesting to see how the team dynamic shifted when he became her enemy. If she'd get attached enough and experience any hesitation, or look to handle him like other important things she's had to do for the sake of the greater good of humanity (a thing that is an immense driving force for her, if not the greatest).

But also I think I know some things about LL that most other people don't know. Which really only makes me have more questions than I otherwise would've.

@rosso: Yup, he was with Ziccarra. Yeah they had some interesting clashes, part of their conflict was ideological, and the other really just a conflict of interest.

The team dynamic would be really fun to see, depending on the extent of their relationship. If they got to the point were they fell in love, then I imagine Kelly might feel some hesitation. But Kelly is no stranger to difficult decisions, she's committed planetary genocide before. And a villainous Quintus operating as a threat to humanity could have led to an emotionally rich conflict between the two. Especially knowing that Quintus would try to use their past against her.

The ship has the seeds of an extremely personal feud. I'd have loved to see it.

Ziccarra was naturally good until she was influenced by Quintus.

@grimmwald: Now I'm kinda invested in wanting to see something like that.

I really wanna see the extent of her certainty.

@rosso: For now, we can only dream.

Max, Slip, Tank, and Good Neighbor. The New Teen Team

I got into a ship with zaubs

It was a father daughter ship but still

@grimmwald: No we've got to set them up as a super lethal hero team!

That or B&B. Last time Kelly and I teamed up it was great.

League of Justice

• The Champion
• Paragon
• Prime Lady Liberty
• Ziccarra
• Avatar

Perfect.

@hawkshade: At some point when I become interested in writing a powerhouse again, a proper flying brick, I may try my hand at starting a team like that.

@grimmwald: Could be a lot of fun. Champ was an all time classic too. He was the man in the powerhouse world for years.

@hawkshade: Yeah it really could be! I might go with a new version of him. The original character would still exist but "Thee Champion" would be more of a mantle than anything. I could take a Batman Beyond route. Who knows!

Awesome! Paragon can learn a lot from Thee Champion.

Just for the sake of being oppositional...

Death's Harbingers

• Prime Sha (goes by Shayla I think?)
• Current Trinity (stuck with Nordok in her head and all the excess energy from absorbing his whole essence)
• Registration era Charlemagne from when he had Superman-esque powers [Martial arts Superman with a viper mentality? Yuh!]
• Valerie Huntington (Phoenix Force)
• Zedracus The Inevitable breaks up the "blond hair, blue eyes" pattern [It's for Super Saiyan, really. Not...the other thing] and brings his resources to give them other challenges to worry about like most good villain plots.

If I could replace Charles with someone like Jean Luc, that could totally be a team feeling like they're serving a greater purpose for evolution or something.

Taskforce: Suicide Six

• Weidmann
• LittleSpark
• Depth-Goer
• Voracious
• Razor
• Deicidium