Some Hot Wheels play sets that brought back memories

Hello friends, I hope that you were doing well. If you remember a few blogs back I mentioned how I was cleaning up the garage to help with my mental health. I was looking for things that inspired my creativity. One of those things were toys. I’m sure your favorite toys inspired your imagination growing up as well. I talked about it previously but I was really into Hot Wheels as a kid. I’m still a huge fan of cars, and automotive art, and always will be. My brothers and I had a number of classic Hot Wheel, and Matchbox cars, and tracks growing up. As we got older we gave up a number of our toys to our cousins, nieces, and nephews that weren’t so lucky. Since we took great care of our toys they were in super great condition even as hand-me-downs. One of the best sets we gave up were from an old line called Sto & Go. These were track playsets that held a few cars, and could close into a small suitcase complete with carrying handle. Each playlet was themed after parts of Hot Wheels City. You could find a set that looked like downtown, complete with pop-up skyscrapers. One set had a garage, gas station, and car wash. One set was a construction yard, complete with working crane, and gravel dump. These playsets offered so many things to see, and do. We definitely got our fair share of wonderful memories through them, and were sad to let them go, but knew they were going to be enjoyed by another generation of family members.

One of the last sets I remember getting, possibly the last set in fact was called the Wildwave Stunt Set. The thing I really appreciated in the Hot Wheels sets was the storytelling that they provided. The early generation of tracks in the ‘60s, and ‘70s were fairly straightforward jumps, and loops. In the ‘80s there was much more storytelling. The Wildwave story was essentially a wave that a car could surf on. The track was a beach scene with a corkscrew loop over a lifeguard tower. There were tiny plastic palm trees, and characters that you could play with when you weren’t dropping the woodie surf wagon down the track. It was a compact stunt track that you could take apart for travel. I enjoyed this set more than others because it reminded me of my childhood. We spent a lot of time at the beach. I was gifted this track for Christmas in 1990. This was during an especially cold, and rainy winter. There was a death in the family, so my parents left us in the care of our grandmother. Despite the somber holiday when I played with the track it always reminded me of those warm summer memories.

It was certainly a track that I thought about picking up on eBay. But reason got the better of me. There was just no room to display it. There were plenty of other toys in the garage I had yet to find room for. The memories of that set remained, and that was enough… for now. I’d like to know if there were any toys, or playsets specifically that you had great memories of. Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A symmetry of villainy, part 3…

When I started this series I mentioned that the Incredible Hulk’s greatest villain was returning. It caused me to start talking about my theory on rival design. For people new to character design I advised if they were stuck on creating villain then they should try making an evil mirror version of the hero. For example the Abomination was the evil counterpart to the Hulk, and Bizarro was the same for Superman. These types of enemies worked well all throughout pop culture. I also mentioned that the most interesting rivals had asymmetrical designs. They did not have a similar group of skills or abilities as the protagonist. Even opponents that were physically inferior could be considered the most dangerous of rivals. Lex Luthor was a regular human compared to the Kryptonian Superman, yet for over 80 years he was considered the greatest opponent.

For the Hulk I mentioned that General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross was similar to Lex Luthor. Introduced in the first issue of the Hulk way back in 1962 he was a military leader that managed to be very problematic for the most powerful monster in the Marvel U. Then I talked about how not every author understood the characters that they were assigned, and ended up changing them to fit their own narrative. Jeph Loeb was a writer that gave Ross powers, and turned him into the Red Hulk in 2008, forever changing their dynamic in Marvel continuity. He then went on to give his daughter a gag comic where she added a Blue Hulk as well. I thought it was a bad idea then, and still think so to this day. If I were to give all the flowers to a writer that went in blind, and managed to continue building the legend of the Hulk then I would go with Peter David. Mr. David had written all sort of stories, and characters over the years. When he was hired at Marvel his dream was to write the Spider-Man books. He said he would have been happy with any book he was given, as long as it wasn’t the Hulk.

He thought that character had no dimension, and nothing interesting about him. Yet that was exactly the book he was told to write for in the late 1980’s. He didn’t complain or change the character to fit his preconceived notions. Instead he rolled up his sleeves, and studied every previous story in order to figure out the dynamics of he hero, his allies, and opponents. Once he understood the appeal Mr. David created several fantastic arcs for the character. He revisited old rivalries, introduced new friends, and conjured up amazing villains as well. He worked with a penciler named Todd McFarlane, and helped develop the Gray Hulk, or Mr. Fixit persona. McFarlane presented a version of the Hulk that was as wide, as he was tall, a literal walking tank. A few years later he would find popularity on the Amazing Spider-Man. Then he left as a co-founder of Image comics, and created Spawn. Little did we know that an even better Hulk artist would turn up not long after.

David worked with the brilliant Australian penciler Dale Keown (creator of the Pitt), and the duo helped make the Gray, and Green Hulk appealing to new fans. At the same time they never insulted the continuity for older readers. One of Mr. David’s greatest contributions was introducing the Maestro. The stories with the Abomination, the Juggernaut, and other heavy-hitters were amazing, but he wanted the Hulk to have a rival that was his superior in every way. An older, wiser, and stronger version of the Hulk from the distant future was what he came up with. After all, the only monster that actually stood a chance against the Hulk was… himself. The first appearance of this character was in the 1992 series called Future Imperfect (which was pencilled by George Perez). It was such a hit that the Maestro became an important part of canon, appearing in comics, but also animation, and video games for over 30 years.

The Maestro was a brilliant design, however I would not consider him to be the Hulk’s greatest rival. Nor would I think of Thunderbolt Ross (in any form) as his greatest opponent. I would reserve that honor to the Leader. The Leader, also known as Samuel Sterns, first appeared in Tales to Astonish #62, way back in December 1964. He was a simple-minded janitor that was exposed to gamma rays during a work accident. He opened a drum of toxic waste because he thought it might have something that he could steal. Instead of dying from radiation poisoning he mutated. He turned into a genius rivaling the most brilliant minds in the Marvel Universe. His skin turned green similar to the Hulk, and other gamma-powered characters. His skull also grew to grotesque proportions. He developed awesome mental powers, including telekinesis, and mind control, on top of his inventing proficiency.

Most Hulk fans, myself included believe that the Leader was actually a chance to reboot the Hulk’s original mutated opponent. In the first issue of the Incredible Hulk from May 1962 there was a Russian spy that was transformed when he tried to recreate the conditions that changed Banner. Instead of growing massively powerful the scientist turned into a twisted version of his former self, with an enormous skull. The first Gargoyle, Yuri Topolov, was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. A few years later the Leader was created by Stan Lee, and Steve Ditko. This formula of mutating spies for the Hulk to battle even applied to the Abomination, previously known as Emil Blonsky. The different looks, and powers of each character was explained as a psycho-physical manifestation of gamma mutation. Their subconscious self actually determined how they would appear to the world. Emil was an abusive husband, and a cruel manipulator. Of all the enemies he was the one that was truly a monster on the inside, and out. That was why he looked like a nightmarish beast when he transformed. The Leader was aware that people thought Sam Sterns was a dummy, but subconsciously he wanted to make everyone feel dumb. Thus he gained a massive brain. Yuri was already intelligent, but thought himself superior to his western rivals. His conceited nature was as ugly as the Gargoyle.

The Gargoyle would be used less, and less as the years went on. His most notable contribution to pop culture happened decades after his debut. In the Incredible Hulk animated series from 1996 he was voiced by Mark Hamill. Hamill was famous for playing Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, but for an entire generation his voice work was even better known. Hamill gained a massive following in cartoon circles when he started voicing the Joker for the Batman Animated Series in 1992. In the cartoons the Gargoyle was a subordinate to the Leader, voiced by character actor Matt Frewer. He first gained fame by playing the digital character Max Headroom. The Hulk animated series melded classic plots from the early era of the comics, plus newer designs that had been featured during the Peter David run. It managed to present the lore of the comics fairly well, and explained how the gamma mutations worked to newer fans. It summed up the obsession that the Leader had with the Hulk. He felt superior to Banner in every regard, except for his body, which lacked the strength, and resilience of the Hulk. He felt that he needed to possess the body in order to prove he was the ultimate being.

Like most comic book characters the Leader, and Gargoyle underwent some design changes over the years. Early on the Gargoyle had a large deformed head, with a relatively proportional human body. His frame became diminished, and twisted in later versions. His features made grotesque, and impish. The version featured in the animated series more or less defined his modern appearance. The Leader was traditionally seen with a long vertical head, and average build. In canon his body was covered in sores, and he wore a special uniform to allow him to function without pain. He was upset with his frail body, and expected that the perfect mind should be supported by a powerful physique. His look evolved early in the Peter David run. I believe it was Todd McFarlane (before Spider-Man, and Spawn fame) that gave him a new look. He figured that if his brain were to expand then it should have two massive hemispheres, rather than grow straight up. It made sense to me, although many fans were split on the new look. The comics even referred to him as “Jiffy Pop” head, after the popular way to make popcorn before microwavable bags.

Different iterations of the Leader would appear in comics, and animation. Sometimes the designers would strike a middle ground between the classic look, and the Jiffy Pop form. The Ultimates version of the Marvel U, a sort of retelling of the classic characters in a more contemporary setting influenced the presentation of the live action movies. In that continuity the Leader was a British Special Forces officer named Peter Wisdom. He experimented on himself to save his program, and also in an attempt to become a super soldier. He did gain mind control powers, and telekinesis, but also ended up wheelchair bound. His brain was so big that his neck couldn’t support it. He required a brace in order to keep his head upright. This macabre look was incorporated into some of the latter designs of the traditional Marvel comics. The Leader had a mind literally big enough to figure out every way to take on the Hulk, and have backup plan, after backup plan that even Thunderbolt Ross couldn’t even contemplate.

Tony Stark invented power armor light years ahead of anything else on Earth. Yet his biggest rival dressed in robes, and used 10 magic rings that science could not explain. The Mandarin’s powers came from the time of mysticism, and superstition, millennia before science had cracked the atom. The Mandarin was determined to rule the world, and in order to do so he had to destroy Stark, and his precious technology. The Hulk on the other hand could beat any conventional weapon, or other form of technology by sheer force. He had fought Iron Man on numerous occasions. Each time the monster took apart Iron Man like a tin can, including the fabled “Hulkbuster” armor. The Leader made sense in the tradition of great Marvel villains. He was so unlike the Hulk in every way that he was destined to be the ultimate rival. He was able to defy the Hulk by using powers that Banner did not possess. It was his awesome mental abilities, and not brute strength that would challenge Banner, and the Hulk. 

The Leader was another example of the asymmetric enemies that I previously discussed. Despite his frail appearance the Leader was actually a dangerous character. He didn’t even need to know how to throw a punch. His ability to use mind control on individual, and even groups of people was scary enough. If he was mortally wounded he seemed to have the ability to resurrect himself as well. He was a relentless villain that could hunt the Hulk with more vigor than even Thunderbolt Ross. There was a certain logic to his design that made sense in the context of the Marvel universe. I will talk about that in the next blog. Until then I want to know if you have a favorite Hulk villain, or any villain in general. Tell me about it on the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Disney, the Italian Legacy, final part - A 1UP classic from July 20, 2011

Warren Spector was passionate and knowledgable about the Disney universe, this message was obvious in Epic Mickey and his DuckTales story thus far. As a die-hard Disney fan he was familiar with the work on most of the television shows and especially the comic books. He knew the various incarnations of characters in comics produced domestically as well as overseas. Through Kaboom Studios Mr. Spector was able to find a good middle ground between the comic canon laid out by Carl Barks, the animated canon of DuckTales and the Eurpean take on the universe as well.

The first issue of Warren's DuckTales had a strong visual impact. This was because of the differences in coloring between American and Italian comics. In Italy the artists that worked on Topolino magazine were also the inkers and colorists. The magazine itself was full color but the turnaround time was very short. Each issue of Topolino averaged 180 pages which meant that artists had to have pages pencilled and inked at a rapid pace, leaving little time for artistic touches.

In the US most comic books averaged 24-36 pages and the inking and coloring duties were often delegated to specialists. This meant that the art on many US comics had a stronger visual impact than those featured in Topolino. The colors used in the various Topolino stories were solid and flat, there were almost no shadows, midtones or highlights on any character. The colors themselves were very bright but rarely did they have any gradation. The massive volume of pages turned out could explain why the art was minimalistic.

Some of the better artists in Topolino used rendering techniques in ink to create gradations for the panels while still using flat colors underneath. Unfortunately these artists and stylistic panels were few and far between. The best coloring jobs usually ended up on the covers or on promotional material.

Kaboom Studios went with western coloring team Magic Eye Studios for the pages of DuckTales. This same team helped color several of the other Disney comics published by Kaboom including Darkwing Duck. Many of the panels in Darkwing Duck for example took advantage of digital coloring effects. Characters could be colored, given highlights, shadows and mid-tones and then on top of that have lighting, transparencies and even blurs and weather effects added to the art. These were coloring effects that would have been impossible with the traditional techniques used in Topolino. Advances in digital coloring, effects, higher quality paper and digital presses allowed the art featured on the pages of Darkwing Duck and DuckTales to match the vivid style of the animated shows they were based on. At the same time these techniques were also more time consuming than those used overseas.

These advances weren’t cheap either, the cost on average for a comic book had shot up to $3. The trade off of quantity versus quality pages of art and story was worth it for US consumers. They had grown to expect a high level of visual impact in the graphics department, especially since digital coloring and magazine-quality paper had been a standard for over a decade.

The Spector version of the DuckTales universe became much more interesting because of the choice for rival. Mr. Spector’s comic worked in regards to the Italian approach of villain choices Rockerduck was the tycoon with little respect for Scrooge’s hard-earned fortune. The fact that he was a younger and more impulsive mogul gave him a bigger chance for doing something brash to Scrooge.

Warren slipped Rockerduck right into the start of story and kept pushing forward with the plot masterfully. He knew that readers unfamiliar with the character would pick up instantly if he was supported with great dialogue and shown doing something devious or underhanded later on.

At the same time Warren did not completely ignore the established US canon for DuckTales. That was why he went with Webby as the character that could get the ball rolling on a new adventure. Her innocent voice would have sold the idea of returning treasure to the rightful owners. This plot could then easily unfold into a more grand adventure.

The story by issue #2, included a return to the island of Ripan Taro and a cameo from a giant jellyfish featured the classic Carl Barks story of The Status Seekers. Mr. Spector had filled the adventure with many nods to the classic comic adventures. The entire series thus far seemed to be rooted in a lot of nostalgia and material that had been covered in previous adventures. In the museum on the first issue of DuckTales the characters pass many treasures that had been gathered over the decades of the classic Barks stories. Scrooge even mentioned how some treasures were added to his collection from the adventures of other characters. Like how the crown that got stuck around Gladstone Gander’s neck in the Secret of Hondorica was now featured in the museum.

These nods to the canon established by Barks were great for fans of the comics but possibly lost to those that were only familiar with the cartoon series. Worse, the series thus far seemed to be a retread, if not several layers of retread material.

Don Rosa tied up my entire Italian Legacy theme. He was an Italian-Irish-Scottish-American whose full name was Keno Don Hugo Rosa and was named after his Italian grandfather Gioachino Don Rosa. Mr. Rosa was without a doubt the undisputed master of modern duck storytelling. He picked up all of the qualities that made the Carl Barks adventures memorable and then expanded upon them. He was able to connect the dots between actual historical events and phases through Scrooge's lifetime, all while managing to fold those adventures right into Barks continuity. Not unlike the research required to pull off historical Forrest Gump or Dan Brown sleight-of-hand. The problem for the Spector DuckTales comic was how similar it was to material created by Don Rosa. The whole idea of Scrooge having a museum display his treasures had been covered in the the story the Son of the Sun. Those first pages also managed to cram a lot of treasures from canon into the background. In that story Flintheart Glomgold, not Rockerduck, played the major villain.

Flintheart challenged Scrooge to a treasure hunt instead of tricking him into returning the treasures. The winner of the bet would be the one who found the single greatest piece of Incan treasure. This allowed Rosa to revisit the Andes and craft a story that was in the classic vein but completely new to audiences. The story took place geographically in the same part of the world of an earlier story yet there was no overlap of specific locations or even supporting characters. The same could not be said of Spector's DuckTales story. It was the Status Seekers in reverse as it took the Candy Striped Ruby past a giant jellyfish to the island of Ripan Taro to be returned to King Fulla Cola. To be fair Don Rosa also revisited Barks locations and canon and in one story had even written the adventure path backward from the original story as well. 

In the story Return to Xanadu Scrooge, Donald and the nephews went on a new treasure hunt. The ducks used historical data and even the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to track down a location for the final resting place of Kubla Khan. Scrooge knew the legends of the fabled location must have been true because he had the crown of Kubla's grandfather Genghis Khan. He had retrieved it from a Yeti hidden in the nearby Himalayan mountains. Most avid fans of the Barks universe knew that the ducks had never been to Xanadu in any prior story yet were eager to find out what Don Rosa was crafting.

Rosa took the ducks across some very interesting and exotic locals and the entire journey supported the clues and historical data through winding mountain passes and hidden underground tunnels skirted by a river which went on for miles. Eventually the ducks came across an enormous underground reservoir and a bridge that had been destroyed leading up another tunnel. The poem suggested they were indeed following the right path because in order to reach Xanadu they had to go backwards through the locations described.

"It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean"

The ducks found a way across the river by damming the lifeless ocean and walking up another tunnel. What they discovered was breathtaking for both new and old fans. The hidden valley of Xanadu turned out to be the same one visited decades earlier called Tralla La in the Carl Barks Story Time To Dream. This serene place was in and of itself was a take on the hidden valley of Shangri-La. Don Rosa sublimely gave that valley a back door under the guise of a completely new treasure hunt. Where the story went from there was pure genius. I would be hard pressed to find a fan of the universe that saw this revisit of a classic location coming.

The DuckTales adventures by Mr Spector did not seem to have the same hidden path or "back door" to a greater adventure. In the two issues presented thus far everything was plainly laid out and foreshadowed with scenes featuring a saboteur. The art was fantastic, the nods to comic book and cartoon canon were great but the story did not seem to have enough substance. There was too much reliance on fanservice and nostalgia and not enough story construction. By comparison the pilot series of the DuckTales cartoon, the search for the Treasure of the Golden Suns was a fantastic and completely original adventure. Written by Jymn Magon, Bruce Talkington and Mark Zaslove the series captured the spirit of the Barks and even Rosa adventures without overlapping into any previous stories.

The lack of substance and reliance on established canon for the new DuckTales comics was indicative of some traps that other Disney comics were falling into. The stories were becoming too safe, too childlike rather than family oriented. Even the very first Carl Barks comic Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold! had recently been revisited by Kaboom studios in the story Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold… Again!

The DuckTales comics had just started and I was undoubtedly being too heavy handed with my criticism in this blog. However in order to make the series work with new and returning fans Mr. Spector has to take the rest of the series into some figurative and literal unexplored waters. For those stories I cannot wait. If you were a fan of the television series and want to rekindle those memories then you owe it to yourself to pick up this new series. They would be big hits for Disney fans, especially those that play games and read comics as a family. I hope you enjoyed this series. If you have any comments of questions please let me know.

As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Martial Myths; the dangers of the dark path and the dim mak. A 1UP classic from April 5, 2012

In adventure stories there was usually a great warrior or even king that had exceptional martial prowess. What made them important were the qualities that they demonstrated to audiences. These heroes were brave, kind, clever and acted as a moral compass for a society that had lost its way. In the adventure traditions there were usually villains that were morally opposite of everything the hero stood for. What made these villains scary was that they usually had far more martial prowess than the heroes and were willing to kill. In wuxia legends the heroes and villains mainly fought with their hands and occasionally a weapon. These archetypes followed the classic traditions, powers and origin stories.

What made Street Fighter special was that it brought the wuxia tradition to game players. It gave a generation that may not have been exposed to the same comics or films as the SF developers a way to experience the heroic traditions. It was more important to the traditions because it gave audiences a chance to play as the archetypes. By tapping into fighting mythology the developers at Capcom were able to create heroes and villains that could withstand the test of time. The heroic tradition has many parallels in Eastern and Western storytelling. What makes it unique in wuxia was in how circular the stories were. The basic plot goes as follows: tragedy begets a quest for revenge, the heroes are hopelessly overwhelmed by the villain and driven out of society, along the way the heroes train brutally and learn the techniques required to defeat their nemesis. The hero grows into a powerful martial artist and returns to redeem their name and fulfill the vow of revenge. This template was taken almost verbatim in martial arts cinema, manhua stories as well as in the origin story of Street Fighter.

As the Street Fighter universe was fleshed out through the 1990's the traditions of wuxia were used to make the characters more interesting and plot more dramatic. Ken and Ryu were the introduction to the universe. At first gamers did not know much about the characters, how they got such awesome powers or what they were fighting for. The designers at Capcom had actually been fleshing out the characters well before the first manga was ever published. 

"I wanted to add depth with a story. It just happened to be a fighting game, but I wanted there to be a story so it would feel like a movie. We even conceptualized details for the characters that we didn't put in the game itself -- what the characters might like to eat, do they have sisters, other family members, etc. Street Fighter was different from prior games in the amount of depth we gave the characters." - Takashi Nishiyama, the designer of the original Street Fighter.

As the universe was explored in manga and animé the classic themes began coming up. Ken and Ryu were part of a martial arts tradition. Their master was named Gouken, he along with his brother Gouki were taught by a kung-fu master named Goutetsu. It was not karate as many fans of the series had assumed. The main characters were learning but a form of Antsasuken, or an "assassins fist." Goutetsu brought this over from China and had distilled the most lethal techniques into an unstoppable fighting art. In manhua the setup was very familiar. Two gifted youngsters, raised as brothers would be trained, one with a level head and another more impulsive. The more impulsive one would tend to get himself in trouble with the master and disobey orders. In the Iron Marshall the master was Tienway Champ, the level-headed youngster was Iron and the impulsive one was his adopted brother Duke.

In order to create dramatic tension there had to be a terrible accident or a murder witnessed by the young students. In the Street Fighter mythos it was Gouki that assassinated his master. His brother was a witness to this terrible crime. Years later Gouki assassinated Gouken while Ken and Ryu were witnesses. Iron ran in on the assassination of Tienway by Duke. These things left the characters with emotional and in the case of Iron, physical scars. The tragic events galvanized the heroes' resolve and put them on a path toward revenge. This was difficult for the young martial artists to accomplish now that they were masterless. In order to become better fighters they must seek out new challenges and learn the difficult lessons without the aid of a mentor.

Similar tragedies were the origin stories for Western heroes like Batman, Spider-Man and Superman. It was a great plot device which helped hook the reader and made the hero sympathetic.

In the wuxia tradition, if a fighter was lucky they came across another master who was willing to teach them new techniques. More often than not however the fighter had to learn by teaching themselves. They had to fight masters of every style and learn how to defeat that style along the way. This made for great adventure writing, and a chance to explore the various martial arts schools. However for the sake of a self-contained story rather than adventure serial the fighter had to come across a new master.

The heroes of the stories were usually gifted fighters to begin with. They knew all the techniques and secrets of their original master and could quickly build onto these things in a relatively short amount of time. This helped speed up the plot and allowed audiences not to have to sit through months of training and humbling lessons.

Years after the death of Tienway Champ, and hot on the pursuit of the Bloody Duke, the Iron Marshal was aided by a hermit named the Great Thor. He promised to teach Iron his trademark Thunder techniques. These techniques could take a great fighter decades to master but Iron picked them up at a rapid pace. Similarly the SF games allowed for both classic wuxia traditions to be explored over the course of multiple games. Characters had new or more powerful moves and those techniques did not have to be explained, players assumed that they were becoming better fighters as the years went by. Story-wise Ken and Ryu travelled the world looking for challenges and becoming stronger fighters in the first two SF games. By SF III it seemed that the characters had reached their potential and could fight Gouki. At this point in the story the elderly fighter Oro decided to take Ryu under his tutelage. It seemed that the young master still could become more powerful and thus fill an even greater presence in the universe.

The manga and manhua stories would often take an aside to show the characters becoming stronger by highlighting the training regiments they endured. It was supposed to be inspiring but almost sad to see how characters had to suffer during these periods. Characters could sometimes be degraded and tortured just to become marginally better. Perhaps the writer and artists of the stories were a bit sadistic but in actuality were reinforcing the understanding that mastery of the martial arts required constant hard work. The end result would be worth all the struggles especially when revenge was involved (think of how Beatrix suffered under the cruel tutelage of Pai Mei in the Kill Bill movies).

These characters often learned secretive techniques known only to a handful of people. In many cases it was only the master and the one or two disciples that were privy to the ancient techniques. This exclusivity made the heroes and villains unique. They could do things that regular people, or masters of the traditional fighting arts could not do. The trust that the masters had in their pupils had to be absolute. There was often a danger associated with teaching these techniques to inexperienced or corruptible students. In the SF canon Gouken was once infuriated with Ryu with the nonchalance that he put behind the techniques. In one story Ryu recalled the first time he performed a variation of the Shoryuken, or rising dragon fist. Ryu had split a boulder with the punch to which Ken was bragging about what a powerful fighter Ryu was becoming. Instead of being pleased with his disciples Gouken was infuriated, he struck down Ryu. The two were being shown extremely dangerous moves, some were techniques that were not used for fighting but instead for killing, the fact that they did not treat the moves with more reverence had caused Gouken to react the way he did. Ryu recalled this lesson as he was on the verge of defeat at the hands of Sagat following their first encounter.

Ryu staged a miraculous comeback against Sagat thus becoming the greatest fighter in the world. This story became the stuff of legend in SF canon. It highlighted how a perfect technique could topple even the most powerful fighter in the world. When Masahiko Nakahira revisited the fight in the Street Fighter Zero manga he took a closer look at what was driving Ryu and it was neither brave nor honorable.

Ryu exploited that same killing technique he used to split the boulder on Sagat. The Metsu Shoryuken or "Destroying Rising Dragon Fist" was supposed to be a killing blow. If Sagat were not equally powerful then he surely would have been killed by the punch. The encounter had repercussions in the continuity of the universe. Gouken was trying to convey the gravity of the moves his pupils were learning. They should be taken in all earnestness and never used casually in a fight. Ryu could have accepted defeat and acknowledged that Sagat was a better fighter when they first met. It would have been his pride that would have suffered the most. He could have returned to fight Sagat in the future, older wiser and stronger. Instead Ryu gave into the temptation of exploiting the most powerful strike even if it would have turned him into a murderer. This made for a much more interesting story, especially for a jumping off point as the sequel had developed. Sagat returned as a boss character but had a grisly scar across his chest.

A shortcut to winning battles was not what Gouken was protecting his students from. By going for the lethal arts Ryu had exposed himself to the corrupting influences of techniques based in dark hadou, or evil chi. The philosophy is similar to the "dark force" from Star Wars mythology.

Again, to use an example of turning to darkness here was another quote from the Star Wars series.

Yoda: Yes, run! Yes, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice.
Luke: Vader… Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
Luke: But how am I to know the good side from the bad?
Yoda: You will know... when you are calm, at peace, passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, NEVER for attack.
Luke: But tell my why I can't...
Yoda: No, no! There is no "why".

Once a person set toward the path to the dark side it was all but impossible to find the path back. In doing so the hero would become exactly like the villain. For Star Wars Luke would symbolically become Vader. In Street Fighter Ryu would become Gouki. In wuxia traditions there was good and evil chi as well. The meridians in the body cycled through energy that could grant strength or heal. If a person succumbed to evil then they generated dark chi. This energy was poisonous and could grant practitioners tremendous strength but could also turn them into monsters. Tapping into this power could make a hero as powerful in a villain, but by doing so the hero could become just as reviled as the villain.

The martial arts myth did a good job at exploring the variables in the revenge plot. If a main character succumbed to darkness then they could become very powerful, but the cost of that is the humanity of the fighter. Getting revenge on an assassin by becoming a murder undid the purpose of the hero. It was the classic "two wrongs do not make a right" or "an eye for an eye" parable that was being explored in wuxia. The temptation to steer away from the honorable and righteous path was a constant in literary form. The hero was defined by being able to overcome strife and adversity without succumbing to temptation. In the SF mythos Ryu had to face the challenges of his own dark side. This storyline was explored in the SF Zero / Alpha series.

When a fighter became evil they traded in their humanity and compassion. The core of the martial arts was not learning how to fight, per-say, but how to defend from attacks. Even Shaolin Quan was created as a form of exercise to combat the fatigue of sitting for extended periods of time in meditation. It was also designed as a means for monks to fight off wild animals. The techniques and philosophies were designed to make a practitioner mentally stronger as well and make their spiritual cores healthier. In qigong this meant keeping the meridians clear and connected to the elements. By focusing on developing a higher consciousness the practitioners could see the importance of the fight, not to win or lose but to become examples of righteous living. By showing mercy to an opponent, even those who sought to fight for the wrong reasons, could often turn them into allies. This plot was explored in many wuxia legends and even contemporary Hong Kong films.

A hero defending his life from an assassin would not always seek to kill his opponent but to grant him mercy instead. The assassin, if he or she did not poison themselves, would give up crucial information to the hero. For the villains however this was the complete opposite. They were often cruel to opponents and demonstrated a lack of compassion. Mercy was for the weak and there was a great temptation to keep exploiting the most dangerous techniques that they knew. The most powerful of the evil techniques could often kill with a single strike. This legend was based on martial arts fact.

In the classic martial arts the lethal strikes were called the dim mak. These were death touches or death punches delivered to vital organs, or major meridians. The five point palm exploding heart technique from Kill Bill was an example of a dim mak, the metsu shoryuken was another. In manhua and manga the dim mak was often delivered in a spectacular fashion. Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken for example punched villains in their pressure points and then walked away exclaiming that they were already dead. When a villain did this it had to be delivered more brutally. They wanted their opponent not only to die, but to suffer in death as well. In the Iron Marshal, the Bloody Duke performed a dim mak to the chest of a fighter named Elephant. This punch crushed Elephant's heart and went clean through his torso.

In the SF series the final punch of Gouki's Shun Goku Satsu aka "Instant Hell Murder" traveled through the opponent. He was not the only character to possess this technique in canon. Those that could perform moves like that were evil characters, such as Evil Ryu, Dark Hokuto and her brother Kairi from Street Fighter EX. What made the move awe-inspiring in the comic format was that the technique exploded in the shape of kanji, or traditional calligraphic characters. Street Fighter fanatics might be surprised to learn that this had been done years before SF in manhua tales like the Iron Marshal. The Bloody Duke did not only cause a heart to explode into a single character, he actually wrote out a challenge to the Emperor in blood, using punches and sword strikes on his opponents.

These techniques were exploited by the villains in wuxia epics to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. However what it did to the practitioner of the dark arts was even worse. This was the cautionary tale that went back thousands of years. It was shared by every culture around the world in poetry, spoken word, comic book, and film. As summed up by the character Harvey Dent aka Two Face in the 2008 film The Dark Knight; “You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain.”  Were there any hero origins, major villains, or cautionary tales that you grew up with? I'd like to hear about it in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Why I thought the original God of War was close to perfection.

Most of you may be familiar with the string of hits developed by Sony Santa Monica, their biggest contribution to the games industry being the God of War series. The studio did not appear out of thin air. The odds of them striking gold right out the gate was not coincidence. Many of the founders were senior members of SingleTrac, and Inognito Entertainment. They had cut their teeth on the Playstation, and Playstation 2 consoles. They managed to get more out of the systems they developed for than other studios in the US, or Japan. They explored multiple genres, and demonstrated that they could create profitable original ideas. Many of those hits coming from the mind of David Jaffe. He understood the audience better than many other directors. He knew how to delver new experiences that gamers weren't expecting. The team at Santa Monica was put together to create a new type of adventure game. Something that could go toe-to-toe with Tomb Raider, Halo, Resident Evil, and other big hits from their contemporaries. This game would be set in ancient Greece, and feature a different kind of hero. Somebody with a dark, and tragic past that reflected the failings, and triumphs of classic archetypes. Jaffe, and company demonstrated a knowledge for writing serious content through the Twisted Metal series. They also knew how to tell the story through the action of the game itself.

They went through countless iterations of Kratos, the star of the series. The early drafts had a faceless character in armor. This unknown warrior could have been anybody. It would have been easy for audiences to imagine themselves in the place of the protagonist. That type of projection worked for Master Chief in Halo, and Issac in Dead Space. That type of design even worked for the homicidal clown Needles Kane in Twisted Metal. It was good in concept. However the studio wanted to tell a different kind of story. They wanted a protagonist with a face, somebody that could show expression. Somebody that audiences would be able to empathise with. He still needed to be strong, and identifiable when compared to other humans in game. He would be tall so he could be picked out of a lineup. He wouldn't wear a helmet, or chest armor either. He would be bald, and pale as well, with a sharp beard, as if he was some sort of ghost on the battlefield. He would have solid red tattoos covering most of his body, and head. These things combined was counter the look of Sparticus, Ben-Hur or what we would think a sword, and sandals hero would look like. The icing on the cake were the weapons he was supplied with. In the early stages Kratos fought with a sword, but that seemed kind of basic. The studio wanted his weapon to have the range, and functionality of a whip, but with a sharp edge as well. Putting jagged swords at the end of chains was the kind of psycho idea that worked just right, thus the Blade of Chaos were born.

Once Kratos was fleshed out he needed a voice. Somebody that could pull off righteous anger, and fury, but then switch to curiosity, conviction, or defeat as well. The studio found T.C. Carson. My brothers, and I knew him from a TV show called Living Single. We couldn't believe the friendly character Kyle Barker, was also the intense Ghost of Sparta. I don't want to knock the performance put forward by Christopher Judge in the 2018 GoW, and Ragnarok, but to me T.C. would always be Kratos. The majority of his games would be narrated by another veteran actor. Linda Hunt had appeared in a number of films, and television shows. My brothers first saw her in the live action Popeye, but knew her best from the David Lynch movie Dune. She was very short for an actress, making her easy to spot in any role. However she spoke with a certain amount of gravity, and seriousness that could intimidate people three times her size. You simply couldn't ignore her delivery. She won an academy award for playing Billy Kwan, an Asian man with dwarfism in the film The Year of Living Dangerously. It was an amazing performance that holds up to this day. Today that type of casting could be considered problematic for a number of reasons, but I still consider it an amazing role. Her voice worked well as the narrator of God of War. It would also be revealed that the narrator was actually the titan Gaia in the sequel.

The game first came to my attention at the E3 in Los Angeles. My friends, and I managed to score some tickets to the industry-only event. The big publishers usually spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on their show floor booths. In a previous year Sony placed actual race cars on the walls to promote Gran Turismo. Nintendo hung a full size pod racer over their booth from the set of Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. For God of War Sony put forward an amazing display, featuring a rope bridge, and mountain pass that would appear in the game. I didn't know it then but it was cliffs leading to Pandora's Temple. I recorded some of the demo to show my cousins, but didn't really play it. I did put a pin in the game to check it out later. The buzz in the magazines following the convention was that this game was going to be something special. I didn't know anything about Sony Santa Monica, but I became more interested in the game when the magazines said the people behind Twisted Metal, and other PS hits were creating God of War. That was all I needed to hear. When I fired up the game I just thought that it was going to be a fun time. I had no idea how deeply it was going to rock my world. From a storytelling perspective it was one of the few games I could consider perfect.

I love a story that goes full circle. The thing is that the format is deceptively hard to do. Most stories told almost entirely in a flashback just never pan out. The setup is easy, but sticking the landing is all but impossible. One of my favorites is the Hudsucker Proxy, it is the best example of when the format works. The theme of having a cycle of ups, and downs, even the use of actual circles appears multiple times throughout. The story starts just a few minutes before the New Year, the symbolic end of a cycle. The opening instantly hooks the audience because they think they are watching a desperate man about to take his own life. I don't want to give away the rest if you haven't seen it. The other thing that engrossed me was the plausible fantasy of it. Some critics said it was like watching a fairy tale come to life. It is what I think the writer/directors Joel, and Ethan Cohen are masters of. They take a story that has an element of truth, and then push it to the very edge of what was possible, and what really happened. They did this to great success with the movie Fargo as well. There was a video game that I think captured this level of magic, and storytelling as well. That was NiGHTS into dreams… by Sonic Team.

NiGHTS into dreams… was an original title for the Sega Saturn. The early 32-bit system also featured memorable 3D titles Panzer Dragoon, Sega Rally, and Clockwork Knight. NiGHTS was, and remains, my favorite game of all time. I had written a tremendous amount about it on my old 1UP blog many years ago. I also wrote about the dismal follow-up on the Nintendo Wii. I will be reposting that 1UP series of my personal top 20 in the future. But I digress. NiGHTS was a story told without words, so there was nothing for localizers to translate or adapt for the US market. The game revolves around a boy named Elliot Edwards, and a girl named Claris Sinclair. The two kids have a challenging day when the thing they enjoy doing is taken away from them by their own insecurities. That translates into bad nightmares when they go to sleep. They come across NiGHTS in the dream world, and the androgynous character helps them fight against the nightmares. It’s a lovely, but short story. The thing that amazed me, aside from the brilliant design, and game play, was that the game went full circle. It ends exactly where it begins. Leading audiences to understand that NiGHTS had always been there for the “Twin Dreamers.” Kratos on the other hand has no such help to rid him of the nightmares he suffers from. Audiences don’t know what the character is going through when God of War begins. Kratos is at the Suicide Bluffs near Athens. He says the gods of Olympus have abandoned him, then he steps off the cliffs. This is where the narrator takes over, and explains that things were not always like this. I had no idea that the game would end at the exact same place, and that to me was amazing storytelling.

From the very first moment audiences were hooked. We wanted to find out why Kratos had lost all hope. We saw that a few weeks earlier he was in the service of the gods, Athena specifically. He had been completing missions on her behalf for a decade, but was plagued by nightmares. We didn’t learn the cause of his madness until later in the game. Athena promised that his past would be forgiven if he completed this final task. In a tragic misunderstanding he thought this meant that she would rid him of his memories. Misunderstandings like this were the case with other tragedies, such as Hercules. He accidentally killed his family, and was tasked to complete 10 labors (later expanded to 12) in order to find atonement. In God of War the gods were forbidden to fight each other directly, so Athena was sending Kratos on her behalf because he was trained by Ares, and once served him. The game shows, rather than tells us what is happening. We instantly start fighting zombie-like warriors in the middle of a storm out in the ocean. Kratos fights ship-to-ship until he faces off against a gigantic Hydra. The action, and spectacle never lets up. Visually there were very few PS2 games that could match what Sony Santa Monica delivered. Kratos soon found himself in Athens where we fought our way to the heart of the city. This was when we caught the first glimpse of Ares. He towers in the distance, as large as a mountain, stepping on the forces defending Athens. At this point I felt like giving up. The developer did such a good job at creating the villain that I felt genuine fear facing him. There was no way that I would accept that Kratos would have stood a chance against the actual god of war.

The Oracle of Athens explained to Kratos that there was one weapon that would give him a chance, Pandora’s Box. I thought that this was an interesting MacGuffin from classic Greek mythology to use. The quest to retrieve it from the Desert of Lost Souls was the next step in the journey. Had the game solely taken place there, and Kratos had returned back to Athens with the box then I would have been satisfied. As a huge mythology fan I was already elated to have battled the Hydra, then minotaurs, and even sirens in the desert. There was no way I thought the game could have gotten even better. I was so wrong. I had no idea that I would be hit with an experience that would have made an eight-year-old version of me explode from excitement. Even the older me started freaking out as the game slowly unveiled the next portion of the game. Athena appeared once more to Kratos to explain that Pandora's Box was at the other end of the desert, in a temple strapped to the back of the titan Cronos. I just about lost my mind when she said this, and then the game showed us the massive titan. My brothers had absorbed a lot of the footnotes of the mythological creatures because I wouldn't stop talking about them as a kid. When Athena mentioned Cronos we all got excited. This game was not going to be a surface level appreciation of the ancient gods, it was going to be a deep-deep dive.

The Playstation 2 was a fantastic console, and possibly the best of that era. When God of War debuted the developers were maxing out the potential of the hardware. Only a handful of studios could say that they made use of every feature, of every tool that they had picked up while working for Sony. As great as the console was there were a few things that it wasn't powerful enough to accomplish, one of these were graphics that were indistinguishable from pre-rendered CGI graphics. The cut scenes for the games were rendered with more powerful hardware, but more or less maintained the aesthetic that they were going for. The first time we saw an interpretation of Cronos my brothers, and I were in awe. The massive creature looked tormented with his burden. An enormous mountain was chained to his back. We had to figure out a way to reach him, and the mountain. Crossing the desert was a fun part of the game, and it gave me a sense of the challenges that were ahead. Not only would I have to battle different kinds of mythical characters, I would also have to figure out puzzles, and death traps as well.

As I progressed through the game I noticed how much of the experience was pulled from the work that the team had done earlier. The tragic origin of Kratos, plot, allies, and monster designs had a strong aesthetic. They rivaled the work that went into the story, and cast of Twisted Metal. The attention to detail on the textures, landscape, level design, color, weather, and even particle effects looked like it had originated from Downhill Domination. God of War had improved in both counts. When it came to rendering giant characters with the hardware it was all a matter of perspective. When Cronos was first spotted he was off in the distance, a tiny version of him wandering the desert could be seen while fighting the sirens. When he was close then all we saw was a portion of his face. Both of which were framing devices that made audiences feel a sense of scale with the mighty titan. I knew instantly that everything the team had learned while working on War of the Monsters was being used as well. This became especially evident at the end of the game. I expected Kratos to open Pandora's Box, and have a bolt of lightning strike down Ares. But that wouldn't have been enough for Jaffe, and his team. Instead the box imbues Kratos with awesome powers, and he grows in size to rival Ares. The two giants then square off in the port of Athens. Scaling down the buildings, and even having tiny pixelated soldiers fighting on the bridge, and town were techniques pulled right from War of the Monsters.

I don't mean to skip the entire challenge that happened in the temple of Pandora strapped to the back of Cronos. I just didn't want the blog to be a recap of the entire game. Rather the details that I picked up, and really appreciated as a Greek history geek. Every moment of the temple was building towards a more amazing reveal. Studio Santa Monica knew exactly how, and when how to turn every card they had placed on the table. They had mastered the ability to pace every encounter, to raise the stakes on every challenge. They allowed gamers to power up the Blades of Chaos, and even add a secondary Blade of Artemis, to help balance out the more difficult fights. All the while they gave us more, and more of the story of the battle between the gods, and the titans. They allowed us to explore every corner of the fantasy world they had created, and this included the underworld as well. Of course in typical Greek tragedy a happy ending was not in the cards for Kratos. Although he managed to stop Ares his nightmares were not erased. Athena only promised that the gods would forgive him for killing his family. They never promised they would rid him of the memories. This lead to Kratos feeling as if the gods had abandoned him. The final scene takes us back to the start of the game where we see Kratos try to take his own life.

Rather than die from the fall he was instead taken up to Mount Olympus. I was not expecting the game to end there. Someone had to take the place of Ares as the new god of war. Walking up the golden staircase to the throne room gave me goosebumps. Never in a million years would I have expected it. The effects, and presentation of Mount Olympus was one of my favorite visuals of the entire series. To this day I am amazed at how the studio was able to recreate something as etherial, and otherworldly. Returning full circle to the start of the game was a brilliant way to cap the experience. As with NiGHTS into dreams... it was something almost impossible to do. It was a literal one in a million chance of sticking the landing. Also as with NiGHTS if God of War had ended with only one game then I would have been satisfied. David Jaffe, and the studio had managed to create a perfect game. There were other developers that had been around for much longer, still trying to capture that kind of lightning in a bottle. Despite all the hard work that went into God of War there were no guarantees in the industry. It could have fallen short with the audience for some imperceptible flaw. Because of this Jaffe, and company wanted to plant the seeds of a sequel, or even series.

Gamers that returned to complete the Challenge of the Gods were rewarded with all sorts of secrets. Two potential paths for the franchise were revealed. One of the possible stories was set in the current era. A military expedition discovered the bones of Cronos out in the desert, with the temple still chained to his back. There were other challenges, and treasures waiting to be revealed inside. Would a soldier, a descendant of Kratos be the only person to go in, and come out alive? Would he discover his legacy? Perhaps become the next God of War? Then there was also a second story revealed. Kratos had a younger brother that was taken from him as a child. Whereas Kratos grew up to be a successful Spartan captain, his brother grew up in the underworld, and grew to resent Kratos. I had no idea if either ending would be explored in the future. As I said the market could be fickle. Despite the press, and marketing that went into the game if audiences didn’t help spread the word then it would have been a slept on after release. It would have been forgotten along with the hundreds of other games released each year. Today there are dozens of YouTube channels where gamers are rediscovering titles that perhaps came out at the wrong time, and deserve a second look. Thankfully God of War was an enormous success. There would be a sequel, and it would be even more incredible. I’ll talk about that in the next blog. For now I’d like to hear your take on God of War, or any other games you would consider to be close to perfection. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!