Ep 57 of The Letters Page - Tempest (Iron Legacy)

Booooooo

I mean its fort adamant next week right? That sounds like a great way to get super powers to be amped up by making the Heroes angry. 

Well that stinks I must’ve missed the cutoff for the Iron Legacy questions somehow.  A lot of stuff I had asked was answered but some more specific things didn’t get mentioned in that section.  

Ouch, Cult of Gloom.  Right in the feels...

I had to literally slap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing inappropriately at work when I heard the words Asquash Bhuta.

I hope to never see the Caturalist 

I'm generally a callous individual, who will gladly make tasteless jokes or say just the wrong thing intentionally.

The ending of that letter was... a bit much.

I thought it was rather fitting.  

I'm much the same; out of my circle of friends, I'm easily the most crass.  But wow...if ever there was a way to turn Legacy into a cultist, that'd be it right there.

...probably the goal all along, now that I think about it...

I don't disagree.

Same.  It fit, but damn....harsh!

Question: Does a hit in the feels get sneak attack damage?

Answer: Yes, Lets see his stop one big attack shield deal with that one.

I was worried that perhaps that line would get the letter cut, so I was grinning ear to ear when they started reading the letter. And hey, I sent in another one with a much lighter tone read two questions later.

I will say that I edit these questions a lot, regardless of the name being written under, trying to ask more unique questions to not step on anyone elses toes.

So I am trying to remember if I did, indeed, ask if Iron Legacy sought out any way to return his daughter to life or to gain immortality and they didn't answer it, or if i edited that part out because I was sure someone else would ask it.

Either way, great episode. Still love gloombeaver, and a meat version of akasha'butha is just wonderfully gruesome to imagine.

Pile on those d6s, chief.  I'm vulnerable against heroic tragedy.  :P

Cult of Gloom, driving Christopher to drink! :O

I have to wonder if the various Animalverse questions were unaware that it was created via the Letters Page letters because Adam can't talk good sometimes. >.> That's why I love online communities, they can take the silliest things to amazing ends if given the opportunity. :D

For what it's worth, there's a long history of "animal morphs" of superheroes in both DC and Marvel, particularly during the Silver Age of Comics.   Rumor had it that, during the late 60s and early 70s, an ape on the cover a comic book would result in that issue selling up to 40% more copies than a non-ape copy in the same series.  This gave rise to creations like Gorilla City in DC, and special issues like Marvel Apes and JlApes, to say nothing of character like Detective Chimp, Congrilla, the Ultra-Humanite and Gorilla Grodd.

http://comicsalliance.com/history-gorillas-comic-books/

The mispeaking that spawned the Animalverse ("Stargent Seal") was Christopher, not Adam, actually. And as the person who sent in the letter asking about the Stargent Seal, I just want to say "you're welcome".

In all seriousness though, it is pretty amazing how one silly question can result in a silly answer that everyone just runs with so amazingly (and creatively!).

Also, is it a good thing that we've finally found a universe *more* depressing than Mist Storm? Because, WOW is the Iron Timeline ever bad.

And Cult of Gloom, I have only 1 word for how you ended that letter. OUCH.

You can almost hear Gloomweaver dropping the mic. 

Also, it's really worrying how it only takes a Legacy turning evil to overpower most villains & heroes on earth, turning earth into such a mess that Voss looks at it and goes yikes. And they only grow more powerfull by the generation. 

I uninstalled the game from my computer so I could focus on some projects, but this episode made me want play it again just so I could beat up Iron Legacy as catharsis. I might even do it with Luminary once Obliavaeon is out, if I feel sadistic enough.

I loved the Cult of Gloom's parting remark because it's the best kind of horrible: That which is horrible because it's true.

It reminded me of someone noting in another thread how the only time we see Visionary and Argent smiling is when they turn evil.

I've sometimes pondered the fact that Legacy, Scholar, and Argent are three of the most powerful people on the planet and literally the only thing holding back their usage of their powers is their heroic personalities. (And we see this with the Visionary versus Dark Visionary too.)

Other thoughts:

I feel a bit sad my questions missed the cutoff, as I really am curious about the more "out there" alternate heroes we see. Virtuoso Nightmist, Omnitron!Unity, and the Native American Chrono-Ranger in particular captured my curiosity.

At least someone asked for me about the Argent Artist, and we got even more info besides. The Prime Wardens are delightfully weird in Arataki's universe. Particularly Sekhmet being among their number; is there a Ra incarnation in that universe and how does she relate to them? And is the Discordian related to the story from Argent's episode where he dealt with the Nether Egg?

I was giggling uncontrollably during the whole "Asquash'Bhuta" segment. Definitely one of the Crowning Moments of Funny of the podcast.

I'll probably have more thoughts once WalkingTarget's summary reminds me of more things.

Right? If I'd knew how to send questions at the time I'd just ask C&A to tell the story of every single character in Quando-Ahora. 

I feel there are quite a few heroes besides those who if they went the villainous route it would be as devastating as Iron Legacy.  Haka with his strength, regeneration, knowledge, and combat experience would easily be an equal in my mind to Iron Legacy.  Fanatic already tows the line and if she wasn’t doing it for mostly good reasons has shown, especially in Cosmic Contest, she is a force to be reckoned with.  Tempest unleashing the elements on the world without a care would be a global crisis quickly.   Guise if he became serious with his shape shifting could maintain abilities from multiple heroes and villains along with still producing whatever he might need to tackle an obstacle.  Nightmist has proven to be quite scary with her magic already and not caring about others might require summoning Gloomweaver to overcome.  Lastly, a Ra that just wants to watch the world burn who as a hero has accomplished getting the Ennead and Anubis to submit to him along with dealing a blow to OblivAeon at the height of his power when it seemed impossible.   I’m sure other heroes there are arguments for how hard they would be to deal with if they became a villain but these are the main ones that comes to mind for me.  Overall, I think Legacy becoming a villain is certainly the most surprising, much like a similar hero in a superhero fighting game , as they are looked at as the boyscout of their universe. 

Haka and Ra at least have the limiter that they received their powers precisely because they're heroic. The Staff of Ra likely wouldn't work for someone who wasn't some level of heroic, and La Comodora chose Haka precisely because (s)he would be a worthy warrior and defender for the OblivAeon fight.

But otherwise, I agree; we've already seen how dangerous an evil Fanatic and Tempest would be, and Nightmist would be another force to be reckoned with.

That reminds me I forgot to express my amusement at finding out that there really literally is a Grand Warlord Tempest.

But yeah, to go with your last point, I think I hit upon Scholar and Argent as reminding me of Legacy because they're as solidly heroic as Legacy is, while Tempest, Fanatic, and Nightmist already have some level of "dark side".

I’d certainly be curious to learn more about Citizen Storm and Grand Warlord Tempest.  Had I fully realized how far reaching this episode would go I might have asked that in addition to the Iron Legacy ones I had.   

Oh yes, "Grand Warlord Tempest" are three of the greatest words I've ever heard. People need to ask more about him for the Tempest episode!

I am also unaware of things. D: Has this show only been going for a year? Crazy.

Animal-verse is best Universe, and Iron Legacy-verse is worst universe.

Both sides of the spectrum in one episode.

I was starting to get a little frustrated that a lot of my letters hadn't been read in a while (except for the bad, old one last week), but thankfully this week more than made up for it.  Lots of juicy info.  There were still a few more they didn't answer, IIRC.

I guess Megacy of Destruction is like the main Legacy : He is a team player, he doesn't go all out so his team can shine too.

 But if his daughter dies, killed by Luminary ... maybe he will see that is evilness caused the death of the only person he cared about and go arounf the world recruiting other heroes to create an 'army of good' protecting weak and innocent by any way possible. This Golden Legacy would never hold back to prevent someone's death. Even if Lightspeed decide to create the Fearsome 6 to counter his former partner ... she will have no chance to prevent pure goodness to spread.

...

On a unrelated note ... The Fearsome 5 ... do they have an Intern ... and a Tower ... and a secretary that may be or not a traitor ?

Don't forget that in Legacy of Destruction's universe, every hero is a villain there. Including all the aforementioned heroes that are equally ridiculously powerful in their own right. So he's probably competing with other "villains" as much as he is against the "heroes".

Whereas Iron Legacy had the benefit of basically blindsiding everyone, both hero and villain alike. Long after he had intel on said heroes and villains to boot, in a way the Legacy of Destruction might not have.

Okay, here's one that'll keep you up at night:

When he joined with the heroes of Earth to help fight against Oblivaeon, how did Baron Blade end up choosing for his heroic name the name of another version of himself?

Based on the KS he chose that hero name since he would show them his true brilliance.  Writer wise I imagine they liked the name from their alternate reality version.   More so I’m curious if they ever meet.  

I admit I'm honestly wondering how Blade would even react to a goody-two-shoes version of himself. Or if he'd be more interested in the fact that Legacy is evil in that other universe.

Edit: I just recently had a realization about Fanatic. Namely, AFAIK Fanatic still has no idea about her true nature, but it's likely that Arataki does considering the nature of her Helena's powers. So... man, what is that conversation going to be like?

I was right and the summary did made me think of something else.

Namely that to answer Christopher and Adam's confusion, I suspect the reason why people thought Freedom Six Wraith having white eyes meant she was blind while not blinking twice at something like Nightmist's equally white eyes, is that the majority of other Sentinels characters who sport monocolored eyes at some point are either aliens or have magical or cosmic powers for which weird eyes are almost expected, while Wraith is just a Badass Normal so her suddenly having monocolored eyes is more likely to generate a feeling that something must be wrong.

For Wraith it’s odd since we always see her eyes except that case.  Setback, however, varies from white eyes to seeing his eyes within his deck.  Compared to F5 Wraith though Setback at least has a domino mask but F5 Wraith has nothing like that her bandages on her face just changed to a black bandana. 

Yeah, Setback was the main exception I could think of regards another Badass Normal-ish who sports the monocolored eyes, but he's also Setback and so it's assumed something's always going wrong for the poor guy anyway.

Other than that, I'm trying to think... Argent and Fanatic we see regularly switch between normal and monocolored eyes; I think everyone else with monocolored eyes pretty much has them all the time?

I mean, they must! 

The Fearsome Tower is a secret base hidden in the depths of Negalopolis, named not because it actually towers, but because it descends endlessly into the depths of the city. For many years, the Fearsome Five had an efficient but terrorized secretary, Aminia Twain, who did whatever they demanded under constant threat of death. But after an inter-universal mishap showed her what the world could be, she began secret sabotaging them; eventually, she was discovered and fled, to take up arms as the heroic trickster, Miss Chief! 

I may be working on a hero deck...

I love the name Miss Chief !

The more I think of this universe the more I want to play it in the RPG instead of the official background. :)

That's one of the things that excites me most about the RPG... we can do that!

After the Animalverse thread I'm already thinking about how I can drop my players into the Animalverse for at least a one-shot. (It's definitely going to involve a certain little blue pain known as the Wager Hamster).

I don't know why, but I find the Iron Legacy story to be compelling and fascinating. Especially the whole sequence of his descent into evil, and his old friends' reaction. This would be a hard story to execute well in a comic but would be a really cool read.

Of course, I gathered that the focus of Iron Legacy's appearances was on his push into our "home" reality, which makes things much more clear-cut. Still, seeing his reaction to fighting his old friends again would be awesome. It also makes for a nice setup for the "all the feels" game: Iron Legacy vs a team with America's Newest Legacy.

Thinking a little bit about the question on how Iron Legacy is so powerful: you know, the Legacy we know and love is super capable when he manages to get all his Ongoings out. I was thinking that idea might make a "Legacy Unleashed" promo, with a power something like, "Search your deck for an Ongoing card and put it into play, then shuffle your deck." But, you know, Freedom Five Legacy is pretty close to this already!

EDIT: Also, I know Steelheart makes a ready comparison, but I always think of Darkwarrior Duck as the analogue for Iron Legacy.

It can't help but be compelling when the Boy Scout Earth Dad of the universe goes bad, especially in a way that's understandable even as it's horrible. Just take the normal grief of seeing your child die and multiply it by knowing a centuries-old stewardship of what you feel is all that's right and good about humanity just ended on top of it, and you can see why he could go off the deep end even as terrible the results were.

Oh man, there's a comparison I never thought I'd see on this board.

And it's all coming back to me, wow, that was an awesome episode, wasn't it?

Heck yeah! And he makes such a great Iron Legacy comparison, too. Wracked by the loss of his daughter, he cracks down on crime, adopting ever-harsher methods until he's effectively cleared out the villains and has only the minor infractions of the civilian population to punish. Then time shenanigans!