Friday Night Fights 3, Round 2: Energy Blasters

With great pleasure, I present Round Two of Friday Night Fights 3, featuring the following fantastic fights:

As a quick review, there are four head-to-head contests this week. You can vote once in each matchup for your favorite. The winner of that fight moves on to face the winner of the next bracket, so the first-place finisher in the Asder-headlessgeneral poll will meet the winner of the Martian Blue -PapaKrok match in week 3.

Good luck to our Elite Eight! Note that you can click on the image in the poll to see it full-size, and that once again results will be hidden until the polls close next Friday at 1 a.m. Mountain Time.

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Friday Night Fights 3 Round 1 Results!

The first round of Friday Night Fights 3, Round 1 has ended and I now proudly present the results! Congratulations to all of our winners, condolences to those who are not advancing, and many thanks to everyone who took the time to enter in the first place. Winners are in bold.

  • Headlessgeneral - Sutol 131, Borntobealoser - Mantis 7.
  • Tarkabarka - Taisen 95, Watson Bradshaw - Ankshir 39.
  • Vampyrist - Bandit 42, AJW - Cuervo Bronce 92.
  • Papa Krok - Takkouri 68, Myro - Riposte 65.
  • Martian Blue - Specter 73, Frevoli - Starr Flagg 67.
  • AMS - Crimson 132, Marquis Samedi - Martial Law 5.
  • DiCicatriz - Synapse 122, Imp - Patriot 20.
  • Kaldath - Kunoichi 59, Asder - Wei Feng the X-2 80.

So advancing to the next round are headlessgeneral, Tarkabarka, AJW, PapaKrok, Martian Blue, AMS, DiCicatriz, and Asder. Congratulations! Here's how the brackets look:

Our Consolation Round 1 champion, who wins their choice of a new HM3 item, a custom portrait of their face, or a black and white illustration on a theme of their choice, is ... TOOL - Quicksand of "The Sand Vipers"! Congratulations to him, and thanks again to all of the contenders in this round. Here's the complete list of results.

Creator Votes Percentage
TOOL - Quicksand of "The Sand Vipers" 93 12.85%
Jamesinchains - Shadow of "Crimson Cyndicate" 85 11.74%
Kyle - Hillary the Werewolf of "The Monster Mash" 49 6.77%
Atomic Punk- King of "Damning Eyes" 48 6.63%
Xion Unborn- Swarm of "The Golden Scarab" 48 6.63%
Cliff - Oni of "Tsunami Force" 46 6.35%
Mercwithamouth - The Raven of "The King's Hand" 43 5.94%
GeneH - Zero of "The Young Mutants" 40 5.52%
Brons - Scarlett of "The Red Gang" 34 4.70%
Skybandit - Purple Pentagram of "Five Stars" 30 4.14%
Jessica - Zephyr of "The Wu Xing" 26 3.59%
Superfan1 - Dr. Sancks of "The Faculty" 24 3.31%
Trekkie - Striker of "The Defenders" 24 3.31%
Gero - Crimson of a no-name team 20 2.76%
ManiacMick - Stryke of "The League of the Scarab" 20 2.76%
alphaalpharomeo - Webb of "The Mutates" 19 2.62%
Kaylin88100 - Tamra of "Guardians of the Wildwood" 16 2.21%
Craig - Psyche of "The Protectors" 11 1.52%
Jo Duggan - Viper of "The Agents" 11 1.52%
Firecracker - Cheetah of "Phoenix" 9 1.24%
VonMalcolm- Tiger Dao of "The Tiamat Triads" 8 1.10%
McKnight57 - Lee Norris of "Hero Corps" 7 0.97%
Hyperanthropos - Agent Kanahele of "The Scouts" 6 0.83%
JordanXord -Madame Blade of "American Power Team" 5 0.69%
Phatchick - Malachite of "The Stunt Jewels" 2 0.28%

Round 3 will be going up in a couple of hours as I set up the polls, upload the characters, and format the post. Thank you for patience, and good luck to everyone going forward!

Always leave flowers the morning after. Or at least a note.

(From "Red Seal" number 14, 1941?)

Are you a half-man or a half-mouse?!

When last we left our intrepid Lone Wolf, he had carved a bloody path through undead nasties on the deck of a massive dreadnaught, and was deciding whether to storm the ship tower (whence came devastating sorceries) or to jump overboard in a daring attempt to see whether or not you can swim while burdened with armor and weapons. Sadly for science, we chose to hope for good luck storming the castle:

Sweet, we just cleaved through two zombies without even having to tap our dice chart! Why couldn't we do that every time?

According to our notes, we did at one time have a Crystal Pendant. Which got stolen by the pirates. However, our helpful narrator has said we can use it even if we ain't got it, which is a relief. Thus:

Yowza! An incredibly powerful master of the dark arts, and us without our wand or lightning bolt scar. Also, if i minotaur is half-man, half-bull, and a centaur is a half-man, half-horse, should we assume a Vonotar is only half a man as well? Because that would make our decision a lot easier. If he were a Vinotar and thus half-man, half-Vin Diesel, we'd have to tread carefully.

So what'll it be, fellow adventures? Boldly charge into the face of potential death, or leap into the waters in a quest to finally answer our earlier scientific conundrum?

[polldaddy poll="5560120"]

The spine-chilling chuckle of the Gay Desperado!

(From "Red Seal" number 14, 1941?)

META: Gone Gopherin'

I'll be out of the office from now until Saturday evening in Minneapolis helping my in-laws with computer problems (tech support for parents, woot!), so comment approval and such might be a bit slow. But never fear, I have content already written and scheduled so you hopefully won't be left in a lurch!

I've got all the materials for Friday Night Fights with me as well, so I should be able to get to a computer to compile the votes first thing Friday morning.

Be sure to have the place cleaned up when I get back and no parties after ten!

If only this costume really were dead

A reboot of a popular character carries many challenges for the enterprising comics creator. You've got to retain the fundamental spirit of the person in question while still bringing something new, fresh, and interesting to your take. Having said that, this "Ghost Rider" redesign fails in pretty much every way:

This character doesn't say "ghost" or "rider". "Alien Astronaut", sure, or possibly "Extraterrestrial Baseball Catcher" but there's nothing scary or Hellish about him at all. And if that's a human skull underneath those flames, I'll eat my shorts.

Look, we get a lot of motorcyclists here in the greater Durango area, but I haven't ever -- not even once -- seen someone tootling down the road on his Harley with a bright orange flight suit on. Especially not one with a gigantic zipper in the front that doesn't even go all the way down to the bottom. You put this guy on the back of a hog in any kind of actual rally and he's going to get the snot beaten out of him, flaming alien head or not.

Also, Black Canary is going to be pissed when she finds out he "borrowed" her jacket.

Today in Comics Etiquette

(From "Red Seal" number 14, 1941? This whole issue was strangely labeled so I'm not sure on either the name or the year.)

Poll Position: Doomsday vs. Juggernaut

With thanks once again to McKnight57 for the idea, I give you this week's "Versus" challenge:

{democracy:202}

Two incredibly tough adversaries from different, each advertised as unstoppable in some way. So who comes out ahead, and why?

Doomsday has the advantage of being custom built to destroy anything, given time. He's even beaten Superman and by most accounts can survive unimaginably massive damage.

Juggernaut, however, has "magic" in the form of a big tasty gem that gives him unstoppable momentum. He's incredibly tough and has his own healing factor, as does seemingly every Marvel character not named "Aunt May".

Something has to give when this immovable object from DC smacks into this irresistible force from Marvel! So have at it, folks, and give us reasons why you're right.

In comics, there's always enough breath for soliloquies

(From "Weird Comics" number 5, 1940. Also, "seaclops" FTW!)