Friday Night Fights 3, Play-In Round: Gadgeteer!

With great pleasure, I proudly kick off the play-in round of the third HeroMachine Friday Night Fights contest! We once again have some fantastic character portraits; I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did.

As a quick review, here's how all this works. You can vote for up to 16 of these entries, once per day from now until next Thursday at midnight Pacific Time. That means you could vote for your top 16 up to 7 times if you come back every day. Why? Because we want visits, that's why! Get your friends to come as well, because if there's one thing we like more than visits, it's visits from new people.

Next Friday, the top 16 vote getters will square off in a series of eight one-on-one, head-to-head matches, while the remainder will all compete all in one big group for a consolation prize.

The challenge for this edition was to come up with a team of five characters, all unified by some sort of common costume elements like the original X-Men or the Fantastic Four, so that each member stands out as an individual while also clearly belonging on the team. Each team had to have a Gadgeteer, a Mentalist, an Energy Projector, a Mentalist, and a Martial Artist. First up: Gadgeteers!

Good luck everyone! And remember -- vote early, and vote often.

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META: FNF3

I'm working on getting the first "play-in" round for Friday Nights 3 assembled and posted. It's a lot of work so it might be a little later in the day, but I wanted you to know it was coming. There are some fantastic entries in there, I promise it'll be worth the wait!

So … Broadway musical?

(From "Eagle Comics" number 2, 1941.)

Death Hulk

When last we left our Lone Wolf, we had decided to walk forward with our hands up towards some soldiers. In other cultures this stance would be known as "surrendering", but since we are a Kai Lord we get to just say we happen to be walking unarmed towards potential enemies with our hands up, completely unarmed. That's totally different. So here's what happened:

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Next stop, Accounting. Guess you'll be on the Book Case then …

(From "Eagle Comics" number 2, 1941.)

Setting yourself up for failure

If you feel the need to wrap yourself up in bandages before heading into battle, the odds are good that you should not, in fact, be heading into battle at all:

Considering he had to add an eye patch, it would seem that advice was tragically too late for "Ammo". Oh well, at least if he gets shot in one of his pre-bandaged spots he can only see it with one eye. So that's nice.

(Hat tip to Myro for cluing me in to this guy.)

At least, not without dinner and a movie first, YAAARRR!

(From "Long John Silver" number 30, 1956.)

Only two days left for Friday Night Fights entries!

Don't forget, you must have your Friday Night Fights entries in to me by midnight this Thursday!

Rick 'em, rack 'em,
Rock 'em, ruck 'em,
Get out there and really ... TRUCK 'em!

That was a motivational cheer, by the way. I'm wearing a mini skirt and wielding pom poms but no way am I posting a photo.

Poll Position: Wolverine vs. Darth Maul!

I have to admit, these "versus" Poll Position questions have become my favorites, because they're so easy to write so much fun to see you all debate. I think this week we have a particularly interesting selection for you:

{democracy:200}

Both possess speed, reflexes, agility, strength, and stamina. Both have survived countless battles against a myriad of foes. Each wields blades that can slice through almost anything (except whatever they make Cloud City railings out of).

Darth Maul can of course bring Dark Force tricks to the table, meaning in theory he could grab Wolverine and throw him around the battlefield from a distance. He also fought two of the greatest Jedis in history to a virtual standstill (make that a literal standstill for all too many on-screen minutes while they waited for various force fields to go down). Plus, cool facial tattoos.

Wolverine, of course, has his ever-loving rapid healing factor. But that's more of a long-term bonus; for the purposes of a single engagement fight, it wouldn't really come into play since, even if he could survive being chopped in half eventually, by the time he was up and about, the fans are already back home and the popcorn is cold.

Maul's twin light sabers give him the advantage of reach, but would be a disadvantage if Wolverine could get in close enough.

I admit, I can't call this one, it's too close. I'll have to see which way the enraged geek spittle flies before I can decide. So have at it, folks!

Aye, it's $0.99 Fish Tacos for us all, huzzah!

(From "Long John Silver" number 30, 1956. I hope they have Long John Silver's fast-food restaurants where you are, or this joke makes no sense.)