See, boys - this is why we can't have nice things

I'm really slow off the rank with the subject of this blog, but I just hate it so damn much, I couldn't let it go unnoticed. This chappy here does a fantastic job of analyzing it from a proper advertising perspective; I just want to joke about it.
A while back I started getting bombarded with a series of ads for a so-called online RPG, called "Evony". Now, as an old-school dice-rolling pencil-chewing roleplayer from waaay back, I detest these MMORPG things. They have sucked all the positive aspects of RPGing right out. "Pen-and-paper" gaming was always about a bunch of friends getting together, telling stories, and having fun. It was always a social affair.
Online gaming is most definitely not that. Instead, it has taken up the worst aspects of the hobby - most notably the powergaming, the near-autistic obsession with number crunching and replacing character development with an endless repetitive grind - and reduced players to isolated drones, destroying all the interaction that made gaming fun.
I don't care if you've got some 40th-level Blue Elf Fartbender in WoW, and it's the greatest thing ever. That's not roleplaying; it's some kind of grotesque social networking outfit where you get to kill people. So yeah, it's not like I'm going to be playing a MMORPG anytime soon; and given the kind of game we're going to look at here, I won't be ever.
A few things to note about this Evony game, as established on the dozens of blogs who have ripped it to bits:
-despite its claims of being "free" there is actually a hidden charge, -it is a very cheap and nasty ripoff of Civilization, and doesn't even bother to disguise the fact, -it is run by a major spamming outfit, primarily to harvest email addresses.
The ads were unexceptional at first, but their increasing dodginess prompted me to first arch one eyebrow, and then another.

"DUDE! THE 'ROIDS ARE TOTALLY PEAKING NOW DUDE! WHERE'D THOSE FUCKING ORCS GO? RRRRRAAAAAAGGGGRRRRRRGGGGHHH MY SWORD IS SO HARD!"
So they're like "check out this game man, could this dude get anymore badass? And it's free forever!". My initial reaction - like most astute folks, I'd hope - was to reply "I'd rather not receive all your Viagra spam, thank you", and ignore them. Sensing this didn't work, the ad men at Evony cranked it up a notch.

"Hail unto ye, pink-cheeked elf chick! Would thou hold my lance awhile?" Figuring they really needed to go for the brainless hormonal boy (and boy-man) market, the Evony ad men decided to cast a Dispel Subtlety spell. It worked. Dangle a buxom lass straight from a costume catalog, get her going all servant-wench styles, and they'll run salivating!

Yeah, that's the spirit! A week after running the last ad, the boys upped the ante by running this one. Why ravish one maiden, when you can ravish TWINS! Lipsticky-lesbiany-looking ones straight out of Marie Antoniette! (Wait, that's not medieval fantasy...) PLAY NOW, MY LORD! Yet, even this doesn't seem to have been effective enough. It was time to crank that Dispel Subtlety up to 20th level...

Yeah. Have you ever read Freud? He would have a few things to say about this ad. It is wrong on so many levels, it's gone right through to the earth's core and come out the other side. It is an event horizon. I struggle to joke about it. I swear, by Apollo, I first time I saw the above ad I emitted some kind of choked sound, an admixture of horror, despair, and stupefaction. I've seen a lot of offensive bollocks in teh interwebs in my time, but that one's a doozie. Horror, because it was just so ugly; despair, because this is the kind of stuff that makes RPGs reviled by so many women; and stupefaction, because I just could not believe somebody could actually be that STUPID.
Yet, like some 14-year-old's poorly scripted game, it gets even worse.

Seriously guys, do you think anyone who plays this game would be worried about DISCRETION? We're up to languorous maidens with heaving bosoms, dreaming of their lord and his big sword. Anyone who has gotten into the game by this point has clearly surrendered all shreds of self-respect. Oh, wait-

I promise you kids, this is a bona fide ad for the game. They're just not even trying anymore. I can just imagine some frustrated adman over there at Evony going "what will it take to get these damn kids signed up? We gave them chicks 'n' shit. To hell with it, just slap some plastic-faced tranny in there and say PLAY ME; let 'em know it's SECRET too, so their mom won't bust them, like that time she caught me with the lingerie catalogue - wait did I say that out loud?"...or something like that. So, ultimately, they took this idea to its most insane conclusion, with the most recent ad:

Huh.
There was this great bit in the last season of Mad Men, when Peggy noted "sex sells". Don, slightly irritated, corrected her: "Rubbish. The people who say that think a monkey could do this job". This ad is an illustration of that. They're just going for the whole LOOK AT THESE BEWBS angle. Hell, the ad department at Evony had probably just walked out by now, and monkeys had been bought in to replace them. All they needed was a look at the last ad and five minutes on Google Image Search.
Fortunately, as I noted at the start, everybody's had a good rip at these losers, and their lameness has been broadcast netwide. If some fun could come of all this crapiness, a satirical MMORPG mocked this campaign with an ad of their own:

As a final coda to this ghastly business, in case you were wondering if anyone did actually fall for this crap : a few weeks ago I read a feature article in one of the Sunday papers about a particularly nasty right-wing blogger, known for his misogyny, obnoxiousness, and the fact he's reviled by most of the media in this country. I thought he was loathsome enough, but there was a crowning moment of fail right at the end of the article - where he revealed he played Evony. Actually he went on about how great it was. I couldn't help but laugh - here, revealed to me, was the kind of creep these ads really spoke to. God help roleplaying.

I are serious blogger. This is serious blog.

 A while back, Emerson says to me, he says : "Blogging is like disco, and it's 1976".  The only possible rejoinder to that kind of damning statement - as always - is a Simpsons quote.  "Well then," I opined, "I'm Disco Stu.  And if these trends continue...HEY!"



I will try to make this a daily kind of thing.  Consider it a work in progress thusfar.

Dog Soup Is A Woman?

Fanboys everywhere felt the hair rise on their neckbeards recently, when it was announced that Scarlett Johansson had been cast in the Iron Man sequel as Black Widow. The usual divisiveness sundered the nerd community – half had their hearts set aflame with visions of La Johansson in the Widow's trademark tight rubber; the other half protested at what they felt to be studio-driven miscasting. Originally, English ingenue Emily Blunt had been lined up for the role but a profusion of projects forced her to drop it. The positive fan-buzz surrounding Blunt kind of then backlashed at Scarlett. After all, this is the Widow we're talking about.

Perhaps it is important to recognise the significance of the Widow in the Iron Man stories and the Marvel Universe as a whole. She's a seriously old-school character (from 1964) and one of the MU's most important superheroines. Originally she was the archetypal sexy Soviet spy, on a mission to seduce and destroy that ultimate Cold Warrior, Iron Man. Foremost among the “Soviet Super Soldiers”, her past is indelibly linked to the old USSR. The fact that's now ancient history has forced a retcon, whereby she's been gifted an extended lifespan; keeping one of her booted heels firmly planted in the past.
However, the joys of capitalism (and it's men) soon saw her counter-seduced over to America's side. She became an Avenger, and fought as a poacher-turned-gamekeeper against the Red Threat on the streets of New York. Other than Iron Man, she also carried on a famous affair with Daredevil; these two tortured souls enjoyed a great run during the 80's. All-in-all, we've got a complicated character with a lot of baggage and continuity, in need of an actress who could carry it all off.

Well, all we've got so far are two stills and a few pouty moments in the trailer, but initial impressions are good.

By the sounds of it, and based on my own estimations, the Widow would take something of a classic Bond-girl role in Iron Man 2; initially working against Stark, only to team up with him against a deadlier opponent – the nasty Whiplash, played (quite well, by the look of it) by comeback kid Mickey Rourke. There's also the whole love interest angle. The first IM flick played on the classic romance storyline between Stark and his ever-faithful sidekick, Pepper Potts. The introduction of a second Titian-haired beauty into Stark's life really does complicate things. (This is the Law Of Marvel Redheads; it is a universe amply stocked with gorgeous flame-haired women and the men who fetishize them; Wolverine, I'm looking at you). After all, Scarlett is really bringing something to the game here; you have to have something really special to be Woody Allen's leading lady.

But where is this leading (other than someplace bad?). Well, in an interview promoting IM2 at the global nerdgasm in San Diego, Scarlett said something that serious excited about nine nerds on the planet, of whom I am three. Here's the quote: Q: When you first met with Favreau and Feige, were there other Marvel characters that they were considering you for or did you know< they wanted you to play Black Widow?

A: I think that it was mostly [Black Widow]. I mean, there were different characters like Moonstone, the Scarlet Witch and the Blonde Phantom? There were a couple that I looked through and thought, “Okay these are the kind of characters that could maybe work somewhere.”

We'll leave out the Scarlet Witch for now, because she's worthy of a whole blog to herself (and is yet another stunning redhead). It's the other two characters Scarlett mentions here that made me feel funny inside in a good way. I'll explain why.

I blogged about the Blonde Phantom ages ago, expounding on her awesomeness as a pulp heroine. She was created by Timely Comics, Marvel's predecessor, back in the 40's. With a domino mask, and clad in a red evening dress, she was the terror of gangsters, vampires and Nazi spies across America's home front. I think you can imagine why Scarlett was thought of for this character, and why it seems to have appealed to her.

Recently, the very funny comics blogger MGK did a post on how 'anti-feminist' the BP was. As much as I like that guy's humour, he got it way wrong here. She was a cool character from the start, quite ahead of her time. In the early 90's, a fellow called John Byrne – whom Comicvine aptly describes as “one of the most prolific and controversial writer/artists in the history of comics” - started writing the She-Hulk title. Things got really weird as Byrne revelled in breaking the fourth wall, and incorporating a lot of surrealism in the title. He also grew She-Hulk from a glorified piece of (green) cheesecake to an interesting character, with a title whose wit and writing set her far above the trash being produced that decade. In the course of these wacky adventures, the Blonde Phantom re-emerged from a long retirement.

It turns out that a little old lady called Woozy, who had been kicking around She-Hulk's law office, was actually Louise Mason, the original BP. Since she had dropped out of comics, she had aged, become a widow, and had both a daughter and granddaughter briefly (and
unsuccessfully) take up the BP mantle. In one of Byrne's typical meta-moments, Louise realised she had to get back in a regular comic again in order to cease aging. She teamed up with She-Hulk, and in the course of their adventures, was reborn as “she had always seen herself” - in her glory days as the BP. When Byrne's run finished BP disappeared into B-lister limbo, but at least her re-emergence in the Marvel Universe had been set. A few years back, Marvel introduced a strange new character called the Sentry into regular continuity. He got a weird miniseries called “Age of the Sentry”, which was basically a tribute to the kind of Silver Age “four-colour” comics that originally inspired the character. In this alternate Marvel “history”, the Blonde Phantom was none
other than the leader of the Avengers! Sheonly appeared in a single issue, and it was a timeline which technically never happened, but I for one was thrilled to see the BP was still remembered, albeit with a nod to her obsolescence.

Shereturned to limbo after that, but in the post-Civil War carnage, it was noted that she was active and still super-heroing. Recently, it seems her moment in the sun might finally have arrived. 2009 marks the 70th anniversary of Timely Comics, Marvel's aforementioned predecessor. In tribute to this Marvel have been released original comics, based on the classic Timely comics. Mostly they have been retro-style bores, with little appeal. But then they came out with the Blonde Phantom one! Unlike the other tributes, it was clearly established that this story tookplace in 2009, and that my beloved BP was still an active superheroine. It also had a sense of humour, a knowing irony, and a good story. Considering this is more than many top-selling comics today, I think it shows the validity of the character is rock-solid. It's more than that she can go kung-fun crazy in that
dress! That page above is one of the best things I've seen in comics this year. I love how BP has a real costume moment, referring to her outfit as “she”, and adopting a whole new persona when she puts it on. The wearing of costumes, and the identities they bring, is often a poorly misused trope in superhero fiction. BP's take on it here is so cool. Her investigation into her friend's murder is pursued in typical gumshoe fashion, taking to account BP's sixty years of experience as a law clerk, private eye, and vigilante. It takes on an incongruous aspect when the case leads her to a team of criminal hackers. But BP just has to “let her out to play again”, and bring out her patented nut-crusher kick. This is where the story takes an interesting turn, and lifted this comic (IMO, anyway) from being a bit of fan service, to being a damn good read.

In the end, BP has deduced that her friend's killer was actually his wife, who is also an old friend of hers. I think the pages themselves best describe the rest.





So yeah – a Blonde Phantom feature film, with Scarlett in the lead? I'd like to see that. Her other choice, Moonstone, is a whole 'nother story entirely. She's a leggy blonde, like BP; but where BP is a heroine, a champion of justice, Moonstone is a criminal psychopath of the highest order. She is a serial killer, an expert mind-gamer, and a feared opponent. It's rare in comics, or actually any popular entertainment, to find female sociopathy done properly; indeed, this
comprised one of the best jokes in the best-ever issue of Sandman:

(I always wondered just what exactly Dog Soup had done that made her so notorious. I don't think she's ever appeared anywhere again, despite the Sandman world being a part of the DC Universe. At any rate, I always have liked Gaiman's little ironic chuckle here). Moonstone was born Karla Sofen, somewhere in Anywhere, USA. She was raised by a solo mother who was often absent, working three jobs to provide for her daughter. Karla herself was too naturally selfish and self-obsessed to notice this, and grew to resent her missing mother. But her intelligence and her mother's earnings got her to college, where she graduated as a psychiatrist. That's when things got quite nasty.  Karla reveled in the power she had over people's minds, and instead of treating her patients, she only encouraged their problems. She incited suicides to kill themselves, drove homicidal maniacs to murder, and so on. Naturally this ultimately got her imprisoned. But she broke out, and killed a minor villain who called himself Moonstone, after the alien artifact he drew his powers from. Karla took it and became the new Moonstone, establishing herself as a seriously nasty piece of work, and making herself very useful to Norman Osborne, the Green Goblin. Lately, thanks to some major overhaulsin the MU, Osborne is now calling the shots. He exiles all the superheroes, and sends in his personal squad of baddies to fill their positions. Taking the role of Ms Marvel, or “Requisite Blonde Hottie With Killer Bod”, is Karla. She rapidly adapts to playing the role of a heroine – in public at least. With her boss, she's still the same vicious gal she always is. (The Ms Marvel costume has become a major issue for Karla, as she reflects
in another comic:

I love the lampshading here; the way she's seen as a bimbo in stripper gear when she's actually a fiercely, ruthlessly intelligent woman). Karla had a crowning moment of awesome recently, which could easily prompt ideas of Scarlett bringing her to the big screen. Osborne forces Karla to take a psych test, but the shrink in question is actually an assassin, out to try and destroy Karla's
mind, attacking at what appears to be her one weak spot.



Karla
and the shrink battle it out in her mind. Eventually he thinks he's found the key; Karla appears to have a trauma associated with the Hulk, so he takes on that form. But what he then discovers is that the Hulk-trauma is a bluff; a mental defence, blocking out something faaaaar worse. Karla finally reveals what happened to her mother.





Yeah, she kills him. Horribly. Then she storms off down the corridor, past a grinning Osborne, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. C'mon, couldn't you just see La Johansson working
that something awesome on the big screen? I can.


 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 





As a movie, “Watchmen” faced a major challenge. Dumping a whole bunch of exposition and alternate history on an unexpecting audience can result in disaster, and this film had about forty years to rewrite within the space of three hours. So they compromised, and produced the justly celebrated credits sequence, which unloads a whole bunch of Watchmen lore on the audience in a snappy, MTV video. But the REALLY cool thing about that sequence was how it played with the material, to paint a picture of this alternate world using some original ideas. A great example is the kiss above, an incident which only exists, Watchmen-wise, in the movie. The original kiss is, of course, iconic and a significant part of a collective historical memory. Its abrupt revision is a beautiful illustration of how this world is different. I really like how, at the left of the screen, you can see a sailor walking up; if he was five seconds earlier, history would have gone as we know it instead. (It's like Schroedinger's cat, only he served in the navy). So who is this mystery woman who changes everything, anyway? Watchmen fans immediately recognised the Silhouette, one of the original 40's Minutemen. This page below – from issue 2 – is her only “on-screen” appearance in the entire comic.



Just after the classic Minutemen photo is taken (a scene briefly referenced in the movie) we get a picture of the Silhouette. Firstly, she stands apart, on her own, smoking one of the weird pipes that exist in this world. Then, her only line in the entire comic involves her subtly insulting Sally over the latter's Polish heritage. Generally, the Silhouette doesn't strike you straight off as a nice lady. The only mentions we get to her in the comic are sinisterly oblique. Reflecting on the grim fates most “capes” have met, Rorschach mentions how the Silhouette “....retired in disgrace, murdered six weeks later by a minor adversary seeking revenge”. Later, in his tell-all book, Hollis Mason is a bit more specific. He first references her positively, describing how she specialised in busting child pornographers. But later, he alludes to what he calls her “sexual hangups”, and how she “provided proof for those who need it that, for some people, dressing up in a costume did have its more libidinous elements”. This is a laughable and naïve understatement, of course, but that kind of joke is part of what Watchmen is about. It's a little later that Mason drops the bombshell : that the Silhouette was< kicked out of the Minutemen when she was outed as a lesbian. He adds that she and her lover were later murdered by an old enemy, slightly expanding on what Rorschach mentioned. There's never any suggestion, incidentally, that this lover was a nurse, but that seems to work somehow – the uniform thing again, perhaps? Other than that, the Silhouette is an enigma in the comics. Her brief appearances in the film's opening sequence are a better treatment, funnily enough, than she got in the comics. But some justice arrived for her when the Watchmen Sourcebook was published. This was intended as a reference book for gamers of the DC Universe role-playing game. But because it was illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and contained material written by Alan Moore, it's considered Word Of God by Watchmen fans, and a fascinating insight into that weird little world. It makes for a better read, than a game, that's for sure. And here, we meet all the characters, including the Silhouette.



As her stats tell us, Ursula Zandt was a very intelligent and charismatic woman, and despite her small stature, a skilled martial artist. She's advantaged by a wealthy background and fine tastes; and disadvantaged by her secret identity and her homosexuality (definitely a 'dark secret' at this period). We also get a moment of honesty from Sally in the corner there, confirming what we already know – that she didn't like her, and faintly referencing that Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis were gay.





Here's a few excerpts from Ursula's biography; apparently published after the events in Watchmen, it does some revisionist justice to her story. Most significantly her lover gets a proper indentity.

Here we learn Ursula once dispatched a hood with the suitably pulpish name of the Liquidator, and that the Minutemen had to sack a thieving maid. These two events become significant later... The vengeful maid outs Ursula, as a desperate and maddened Liquidator walks out into the streets, and to make matters worse the Minutemen kick her out...

So yes, that explains the bloody 'L' on her wall, and gives us the complete picture of the Silhouette's tragic death. I'm glad she got her moment of glory in the film; even with the average moviegoer not being aware of her identity, she makes quite a impact.

Patriotic Nerdery IV

Welcome to the fourth installment of Patriotic Nerdery, my bizarre but not-entirely-pointless blog about New Zealanders in the Marvel Universe. This chapter deals with the formidable Devlin Greystone, who can boast more appearances (ten!) than any other Kiwi in the MU. He also appears on three covers, while none of his comic compatriots can even boast one. This may have something to do with the fact that he comes from a stock dystopian future - Earth-1191, if you’re counting. (The official Marvel U is Earth-616, this will become important later, so note that non-nerds!). He’s got that whole alternate future thing going on.

(Behold, the Cliff Curtis of Earth-1191!)

If you feel a bit of déjà vu here, hearken back to the second character we examined in this series, Kiwi Black. Like that Ruatorian teleporter, Greystone represents a bit of cultural hijacking. (He actually predates KB by six years - he was created in 1997, KB in 2003. This makes him the first Maori character to appear in a Marvel comic). An American creative team filtered ‘Once Were Warriors’ through ‘Mad Max’, and didn’t care much for the ethnographic details. The situation is worsened when we take into account that it was the Nineties. This was an age of grotesque excess in superhero comics - yes, even worse than usual. That creative ugliness, and a bloated comic book industry, nearly destroyed the whole damn genre during the decade. So a bit of bizarre cultural theft actually seems mild in comparison.

Greystone’s run was right at the height of this, in a ghastly comic called X-Factor. This title is one of the many, many spinoffs of the X-Men franchise. It’s also a prime example of the aforementioned atrocities. (Seriously, it was not a good decade to be a mutant. Anyone who remembers Rogue’s big hair from that period only does so with a shuddah!)

Greystone’s mutant ability basically classifies him as a Hulk- or Giant-Man-type; he can grow in size at will, becoming exponentially stronger (and uglier) with every inch. There’s theoretically no limit to this, but once he gets REALLY big he loses control and you don’t want that.

He also - very handily - has the ability to assume the shape of a 12-year-old white boy, called Brian Young. Greystone can change from muscular black dude to skinny white kid in a matter of moments (unlike Michael Jackson who took twenty years. HI-O!) This ability is very useful when you’re a giant Maori cyberwarrior trying to pass in the present day.

I can’t work out if those dreadlocks are supposed to be some kind of smoke discharger, or maybe an anemone. The ‘tribal’ tattoos - if you can call them that - seem to change constantly, and have little or nothing Maori about them. But like I said, this was the Nineties, and we’re talking about a second-rate X-ripoff here. Greystone’s creator was one Howard Mackie, chiefly remembered for his run on Ghost Rider at this same time. (You may remember Ghost Rider from the mindboggingly bad Nicolas Cage movie, made before Marvel got their films sorted. Or if you’re lucky, you don’t). With respect to an unnamed friend of mine, who was a great fan of 90’s Ghost Rider: they were some crappy comics dude, in hindsight at least. Many of the worst tropes - that general air of style over substance - pervade Mr Mackie’s work.

Oh, that reminds me - the plot! The world Greystone hails from is essentially our one around the 2070’s sometime - only in this timeline, the Sentinels (mean Humongous Mecha originally designed to control mutants) got sentient and decided they could run things better than humans. Things never go well when robots take over - witness R.U.R. - and this dark timeline was no exception. Normal humans were driven into hive cities "for their protection", while mutants were herded into extermination camps. They were also branded with an "M" over one of their eyes, and this becomes a hallmark of characters from this alterna-world. Basically, it wasn’t cinematic.

The first anyone in "our" (i.e. Earth-616) timeline knew of all this was when a guy called Bishop (think Sam L. Jackson with a bigarse cyberarm) managed to travel from his craphole world to out slightly-less-crappy one. (Bishop, with his rippling muscles, bionic doo-dads, and general OTTness is a great example of those aforementioned Nineties excess, by the way). In his own timeline he had established a mutant underground, inspired by the memory of Professor Xavier (long since executed in his world). He sought to return to the past to undo what had happened.

And here we come to the time-traveling. Let’s try and keep this simple. I find there are two common ways of handling this in fiction (although the tropers identify six - but my blog, my rules). You have the Back To The Future concept, which envisions time as a single linear concept. It’s a road you can jump back and forward along, tweaking here-and-there to change the "future". It is much obsessed with paradoxes, the Grandfather one in particular. But there is only ever "one" timeline; you just alter it as you go along, and can actively influence it for better or worse.

(Please allow a rant here. This concept of time travel was also in the TV series Heroes. Oh, Heroes - it was like a toxic relationship for me. It started out so good, and for a while it was all picnics and loving. Then it got worse, and worse, and by god even worse. One of its many problems was that it had THREE time-travelers wasting an awful lot of screenspace, contradicting their own rules, and basically insulting the audience. Emo drip Peter spent two whole episodes romancing an immensely boring Irish waitress, only to abandon her in an alternate future - which he then changed and erased. She was never mentioned again. WHAT. THE. HELL?)

As you could probably sense, I don’t like that theory. I much prefer the one that Marvel uses. This holds that you never actually "travel through time" - you just bounce about through a variety of alternate universes. You can never change the "future", because it is just one of an infinite number of possible worlds. Anything you do only influences the one you’re in, not the "past" or "future" you came from. So there are no paradoxes, or infinite loops, or any chance of you doing a Phillip J Fry and becoming your own grandparent. This theory holds two terrible truths, as all Marvel time-travelers eventually discover - one, that you can’t change the future (and hence your personal timeline), and two - you can’t go home again. Sucks, huh? But I like it. The same idea worked brilliantly on Lost over the past two seasons. Lost is waaay better than Heroes.

Now this is relevant to Greystone and his fellow team members, the mutant underground (Xavier’s Security Enforcers, or XSE). When we meet them in the 2070’s, they are trying to rebuild Bishop’s time machine - basically a rather bland-looking spaceship - which was conveniently destroyed when he last used it. They plan to follow Bishop back to Xavier’s time and literally fight the future. There is where we first meet our lad.

What’s not to like? I would have preferred "whare toa" instead of "war hut". That omission suggests there’s something to Fixx’s joke about how he’s a New Jersey kid - "retro boy"! But if you can believe an alternate future, you can believe that a Maori dude could have wound up in the ruins of New York (and indeed we’ll get to that shortly). At any rate, the Marvel Atlas gives his birthplace as Auckland - for the want of something better, I’d imagine - and I consider that canon.

So off they go, blithely unaware their mission is ultimately futile. Meanwhile, our lad gets his first cover.

And also a DeMille closeup, showing how Marvel artists seem to have confused Maori with Moai.

(How does this guy manage to chew?)

Running around "in the past", Greystone and co start to get heavily involved with modern-day doings. In his form as the boy Brian Young, he befriends a girl who is regularly beaten by her parents. He manages to pull off some fine superheroics, and teach them quite a lesson. It shows he’s not all talk when it comes to the noble warrior thing.

That earns him a second cover.

Then we come to his origin story. No other Kiwi character in the MU ever got one of these, so it’s significant in its own way. We learn that the young Greystone lived with his mother in a shattered New York, at least since he was a lad. I’m still going with the born-in-Auckland theory, because it’s quite believable when you consider the rest of the story. (How’d they get there? I dunno. A wizard did it). We learn how he lost his mother, first manifested his mutant ability, and gained a bitter sworn enemy - Micah Leash.

Heady stuff. This is all brought home to Greystone as he adventures in this world, and investigates a kidnapping - of a child with a familiar name. (Also note how the artists have completely given up on the facial tattoos by now, having probably forgotten all about them in the first place).

Of course, what Greystone doesn’t realize is that this Micah isn’t "his" one. Nothing he can do will change what happened to him, or what he went through. Your personal timeline is inviolate. But he starts to get a bit obsessed, and leads the team to find Micah.

They track the kidnapped boy down to a weirdo cult who look like extras from Barbarian Queen. Greystone prepares for his brutal revenge, when one of the cultists tries to kill the kid himself.

A furious Greystone promptly wastes the cultist, thus preventing him from scarring Micah - and, in the (still deluded) view of him and his team, changing the future. Our tortured hero is confronted with his issues pretty bluntly. After all, if killing a child is required to make you feel better, you damn well need counseling.

At this point, our lad and the rest of the team kind of part ways. They’re too busy hanging out with the X-Men. You see, those guys are their heroes, and if superhero teams were high school cliques then the X-Men are the ones with the weed behind the bikesheds - dangerous yet compelling. While mixing with them, our time travelers begin to get a clearer idea of their real position. They start to realize they’re stuck in this continuity, and nothing they do changes any future. Worse yet, it appears their time machine thingee is seriously malfunctioning, with an unstable reactor core and all.

Greystone, however, has gotten a bit scary. He’s convinced the mission has been accomplished, and the future is "fixed" - no Micah, his mother alive, and so on. He gets so intense his eyes go pink.

Then, he has his best cover (the bad guys always have the best). It’s his third and final; also those facial tats have finally turned into something from Tron. (Or kinda like Circuit Breaker - ah, now there was a great character).

It’s all on now, sister. All that barely suppressed cheesiness which dogs this kind of comic finally bursts forth, like some kind of overripe parmesan that a diseased cat puked up. It STINKS. Greystone starts chanting "GOIN HOME TO MAMMA" regularly, throws a tantrum at the group, and decides he’s going back home (you know, the one that doesn’t actually exist). He must be suffering from TEMPORAL INSANITY, whatever the hell that is. Also, he is quite blithely unaware that the time machine is kinda defective.

While Havok - he of the boundless fringe and girl’s legs - flies up to Save The Day, he does one of those inner narrative things that usually make a joke of comic book dialogue. "Chances diminishing…only one chance…!" and so on. As for dear old Greystone - well, he’s not hitchhiking anymore, he’s RIDING.

Fortunately - for us readers, anyway - Havok makes it to the ship and somehow breaks Greystone’s fugue. Bit late now, mate.

At this hour of great crisis, our Kiwi hero displays a great deal of humanity and poignancy, but is pretty frigging useless as a superhero. He reverts to Brian mode, allowing that poseur Havok to exposit and generally act like a dick. (He spells his name with a ‘k’, people - how wanky is that?) "We will live - I promise…"

Yeah, about that -

Bummer. It’s a dramatic end to a dramatic career. After all, Devlin Greystone’s track record is pretty impressive. He appears in more comics than our three previous entries combined. He gets three covers, which is really something for a C-grade redshirt-type character, let alone one from New Zealand. We even have an origin story and dramatic death scene - that’s virtually a whole character arc by modern standards. Ultimately, his character - despite all that dubious cultural piracy - is far better developed than others in his place could have hoped for.

Oh, and don’t worry, Havok wasn’t killed. How insulting is that? He was just shunted to an alternate dimension. Heigh-ho! Greystone may be gone, but some fans won’t forget him.

(My next blog will be another break from Patriotic Nerdery, as it will be dedicated to the Silhouette from Watchmen and the new Ms Marvel).