American Daredevils, the monster trucks that changed the world, part 1...

 

Where were you on Memorial Day, Monday May 27, 2019? If you were like me you were counting down the minutes until a monster truck jumped over a flying airplane. It was simply too outrageous to be true. There was a social media push months before the event which was hard to miss. I didn’t let on to my coworkers, who were focused on the NBA, and various boxing championships happening around then. Monster trucks were for kids, but it was constantly on my mind. I had always been a fan of monster trucks, I mean going back almost 40 years! But that love had been dormant for a long while.

 

My prized collection of off road, and monster truck magazines was destroyed in a freak Southern California rainstorm more than a decade ago. Since that time I couldn’t bring myself to look at anything monster truck related. It just hurt to think about what I lost. When I heard that some crazy person was planning on jumping an airplane that passion came roaring back. Every moment spent in the playground with my Matchbox Super Chargers was recalled in vivid detail. Powering over Hot Wheels on miniature sand dunes at the park, crushing makeshift cardboard race tracks on rainy days. The tiny button that I had made reading I (heart symbol) Monster Trucks was pinned inside my wallet, like a secret message that only true fans knew about. Every video game, every toy featuring a monster truck was forever a part of my identity. My friends and family all knew it. That bit of me had been in a coma, it was now waking up.

 

I planted myself in front of the television hours before the event. Turning off my phone and other distractions so I could live in the moment. The stunt came from the mind of a kid like me. Somebody with an overactive imagination. In this case the kid was the burly Dave “Heavy D” Sparks, one half of the “Diesel Brothers.” Sparks along with “Diesel Dave” Kiley run the Diesel Power Gear shop and website. Their adventures are covered on the Discovery channel. They build for customers, but also give away trucks. Their marketing must be working because they are flooded with projects week in and week out. They've created many amazing builds. Many of them are featured on their show, however their star is called the Brodozer. It is the first diesel truck in Monster Jam competition. It is a bright yellow 2018 Ford Super Duty Crew Cab inspired by an offload truck that Sparks had built years earlier. This new monster truck is a real beast. With a Duramax Diesel engine generating 1,100hp, it has enough power to make the 5 ton truck do backflips!

 

Sparks splits his time between running the business and driving the truck on the Monster Jam circuit. He’s just one of three people that pilots the Brodozer. Diesel Dave also gets a chance to run it, and second-generation monster truck driver / builder Colt Stephens as well. Sparks was the one behind the wheel on Memorial Day when he jumped over an 800lb plane piloted by Anthony Oshinuga. Getting the stars to align took a lot of hard work, and months of preparation. Every challenge behind the attempt, from locating a pilot to prepping the truck would be recorded. Legendary monster truck driver Tom Meents would help make sure that Sparks was prepared. It became the narrative behind the fifth season of their show. The Brodozer team was promoting the event on every media outlet they could find. You can imagine that it didn’t take much to get me interested. I was on board and counting down to the big day.

 

The original idea was for the Brodozer to break the monster truck distance world record on Memorial Day. Monster trucks had been setting distance records for more than thirty years. The lead had changed hands a few times in the past decade. Almost exclusively between Dan Runte in Bigfoot and Joe Sylvester in Bad Habit. Runte was possibly the best monster truck driver of his generation, and Sylvester was a young-guns champion and accomplished driver on several popular trucks. The two had gone over 200 feet in their rivalry. Sparks did not feel confident that he would topple their records. So instead of distance he decided on something more spectacular. The Brodozer would jump about 100 feet in distance, but at a height of around 40 feet, leaving enough space to allow an airplane to fly underneath it with room to spare. This was an insane idea to say the least.

 

Discovery made an event out of the jump. It was very much in the style of classic television spectacles. They stretched out the show by featuring other record-breaking attempts, and guest commentators. For those old enough to remember, ABC Wide World of Sports would host specials featuring motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel. When I was a little kid my family would huddle around the TV hoping to see a man jump his motorcycle over a row of buses or die trying. The Brodozer jump made me feel like I had traveled back in time. It was an electric feeling! As much as I was enjoying this moment I knew there would be a new generation forever be changed by this event. It’s hard to put in words how much a sensational stunt could change a life. It made me think about how I was fortunate enough to live through some revolutionary pop culture periods.

 

The jumps (and horrific crashes) of Evel Knievel became the stuff of legend. I was born after Evel’s greatest stunts, but his name was inescapable growing up. Evel had become so big in his lifetime that a movie was made about him while he was still active. Can you remember a biopic for a singer or actor being made at the height of their career? More often than not they are filmed decades after their death. Such was the influence of Knievel. This daredevil “fad” was not short-lived, but instead lasted decades. New comic book heroes, movies, and tv shows revolved around motorcycles. To be fair Evel was not the first person to shift the pop culture sphere through the ‘70s and even early ‘80s. Everyone wanted to become a martial artist thanks to the films of Bruce Lee. Kung-fu became hot on TV, in comic books and toys around the same time as well. The influence of these icons never faded, and in fact, continue to color pop culture 40-years later.

 

The kids that grew up with Bruce Lee and Evel Knievel are now running companies. They are writers, directors, animators and producers. They get to decide what the entertainment industry focuses on. Look at the character Duke Caboom, introduced in Toy Story 4 in 2019. The entire series is a love-letter to childhood, and the toys that meant the most to us. Kaboom was inspired by the Evel Knievel stunt cycle, rather than the toys of today. You can imagine that if he was covered in stars and stripes then the Disney would have owed the Knievel estate a big paycheck. Instead they painted Caboom in the colors of the Canadian flag, red and white with a maple leaf on his cape to avoid any trademark infringement. Even with those changes audiences could guess who inspired the toy.

 

Kids are going to remember every detail of watching the Brodozer jump over an airplane. They are going to fondly recall the summers spent lining up jumps for their motorcycle and monster truck toys. They are going to draw, write about or become the daredevils in their own life story. Eventually there will be a generation that doesn’t know the names of Knievel, or where monster trucks came from. There are many names that should never to be forgotten. Pioneers of motor-sports and pop culture deserve some recognition. I want to talk a moment about the forefathers that made monster trucks popular. We will look at these people in the next blog. 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!

The new Evil Ryu, a look at Kage

Hello friends, I hope that the year has been going well for you. I just wanted to be completely transparent with the slow update schedule. Since fall of last year I've been changing my habits. For health reasons I'm putting myself on a better path. I've also been focusing on my art and less on my writing. I'm still 100% passionate about fighting games, but I've got to make sure I'm healthy for the long run. Thanks for being patient in the meantime. Today I want to talk about Kage, a new character revealed for Street Fighter V at the end of 2018. On the surface level this character is reminiscent of Evil Ryu, because in essence he is Evil Ryu. If you didn't know Evil Ryu had his breakout appearance in the Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series in the mid '90s. For budding game designers that read my blog I mentioned that the transformation of a hero to a villain was a very powerful storytelling tool.

 

Evil Ryu is a version of the hero of the Street Fighter series that wants to prove he is the greatest warrior. Even if this means killing his opponents in a fight. He is often presented with a tan, and even red eyes in some official art to signify that he is possessed by evil forces. Kage in Street Fighter V is presented in a different light. Instead of simply being Ryu fighting with the evil forces inside of him, this character is the physical embodiment of the Satsui No Hadou. He has neon horns sticking out of his head and elongated teeth. The red headband is broken and rests on his shoulders to signify that his mind is not his own. His head and face are distorted so that it looks more like an ogre and less like a person. The animal traits applied to a human were originally featured on Gouki / Akuma. To make him appear less than human the designers flattened his nose and gave him a crown of blazing red hair. He was meant to conjure images of a lion.

The earlier Street Fighter designs, especially those from the late '80s and early '90s Street Fighter II and Street Fighter EX era were well done. The characters had an easy to identify theme, perhaps they were a soldier, wrestler, or kung fu master. You could tell right away based on their look what archetype they were. Some clues were obvious and some were more subtle. When you added all of the details together they turned a typical fighting game character into an icon. I believe that the the designs in Street Fighter IV and V are lacking. They lack subtlety. They lack an understanding of what made the original World Warriors so memorable. Instead of letting audiences discover that Gouki has lion-like features, the studio now presents him with a literal lion mane. Fans call this version Akuma-matata, a play on the African word hakuna matata.

Capcom is hitting audiences over the head with their latest designs. It's the fastest way to tell a story, but it doesn't make it the right way to tell a story. The look of the Street Fighters are loud and boorish, they are the characters that a teenage fan could have pitched. The look of Gouki and Kage are prefect examples of what is wrong with Capcom's current design culture. The majority of new characters, such as Rufus, Hakan, Abel, F.A.N.G., and Rashid introduced in Street Fighter IV and V are forgettable because they subscribe to the same design philosophy. There is nothing wrong with having characters in the franchise that have some animal-like traits. Blanka is an example of that, but he is on the extreme end of what works in the franchise. Characters like Blanka are few and far between. Not to mention that there was already an Evil Ryu. When you start to fill the roster with similar outlandish characters it dilutes those that are really unique. Having literal demons in the series is changing the narrative. This series was founded on martial arts archetypes. As Capcom expands the design circle to include demons and comic book villains then it is going down a path that is hard to return from.

Turning the main character into a monster, and keeping him that way has been explored in other fighting games. Devil Kazuya is possibly the best example of this. Tekken has a number of main characters that have demonic alter-egos. Jin Kazama has a Devil Jin persona, his great grandfather Jinpachi Mishima becomes a demon, and Jin's grandmother Kazumi Mishima also becomes a demon. The series is well known because of the number of fantastic archetypes. The series has monsters, cyborgs, robots and even panda bears. That lineup, that presentation is not in the same vein as Street Fighter. I'm worried that the people designing the next generation of Street Fighter can't make the distinction.

The arc that would have had Ryu fighting his inner demon and facing off against the man that killed his master was considered for Street Fighter III. A lot happened to Capcom in the early and mid-90s during the gold rush of the fighting game genre. As members of the Street Fighter team left Capcom to other companies they took some of those ideas meant for Ryu and Gouki. Having a main character that becomes overpowered and destroys a demon was explored in Street Fighter EX, and later on in the Fighting EX Layer series. Kairi was the surrogate for Ryu and Garuda was the stand-in for Gouki. In ARIKA's franchise it was established that there were supernatural elements in the universe, however the majority of the cast was still rooted in martial arts archetypes. So having some mysticism was welcome in their take of the franchise. The fighting game market imploded at the end of the '90s, and wouldn't recover for about a decade. In that time Capcom had new faces making bold decisions with established characters. In the history of fighting games I consider Gouki the greatest villain ever designed. In the history of the Street Fighter franchise however I only said he was the third most important.

Capcom established that Gouki had a "stronger" form called Shin Gouki, or true Gouki. This was the unleashed, no-holds-barred boss in Street Fighter Zero. More than 12 years later the character was revisited for Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. The new developers decided that they wanted to make him even more overpowered. Oni debuted, and Gouki went from having subtle lion cues to being an outright DragonBall Z villain. The blue skin, demonic features, and abilities made little to no sense for the character. This was the same type of thinking that went into the look of Kage. Evil Ryu was already a great design, especially with a smoldering crater in his chest from when Gouki tried to kill him. The look of Kage didn't really have enough elements to make him stand apart from Evil Ryu. Some people in the community even likened his glowing horns to cat ear headphones. This was hardly as intimidating as he was supposed to be. To be fair however, Capcom had been pursuing a redesign of Evil Ryu since Street Fighter IV.

Evil Ryu and Violent Ken were on the drawing board for Street Fighter IV, and each more or less looked like their traditional designs. There was nothing unrealistic or supernatural about their appearance. No wings, fangs, or horns smacking audiences in the face. Instead they each had attacks that were more aggressive or powerful than normal. They had just enough going for them to make them unique. The majority of their appearances were in the sprite-based games of the '90s. This look did not really deviate much until the introduction of Kage. In at least one draft of Kage he was so far removed from Ryu that he didn't even look like a Street Fighter character. If anything he looked like a monster that would have been featured in the manga and anime series Mob Psycho 100. In case you are not familiar with the series, the main character is named Shigeo Kageyama. He is a very plain-looking kid. He is so plain in fact that he is called Mob, a reference to the nobody background characters in most shows. Ryu could be considered similar to Mob, in that he looks like a plain "vanilla" karate fighter. Of course that perception changes when they use their awesome powers. Mob however also has a dark side that manifests from time to time.

If Mob loses control of his emotions he becomes a being made up of raging psychic energy. He no longer looks human in this form. He can be cruel and unstoppable in this form. In the story this makes sense, as series creator ONE has established that all sorts of psychic and metaphysical things are possible in his universe. Capcom doesn't have that luxury. The Street Fighter gang is not made up of ghost hunters. They are not exorcists but instead warriors. Dropping in a demon made of cracking energy would have been way out of left field. So much so that audiences would have pushed back on the design. As it is, they are lukewarm to the idea of Kage. What do you think of the character? Am I reading too much into it? I'd like to hear about it in the comments section. 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!

The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy, final part.

 

Designing fighting game characters was an art form. It was something that I had been studying a long time. For the past 20 years I had been writing about fighting games, specifically dissecting the Street Fighter characters by Capcom. On occasion I had also looked at the designs from Namco, Sega, Midway, and SNK. The majority of the studios were Japanese. I never had reason to bring up the comic book fighting games because they were not my cup of tea. This changed with the Contest of Champions. Kabam was doing a brilliant job adapting the look of 2D characters into 3D models. Their figures were dynamic, colorful, and easy to read. Essentially all of the things that audiences needed fighting game characters to be. The models captured the details perfectly, whether from the pages of a comic book, film, or television. The artists and modelers at Kabam were really doing the characters justice. The heavy hitters, like the Abomination, and Juggernaut had mass, and heft. The small agile characters like Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Man looked elastic, and flexible. The characters the studio created for the game were among my favorite looks for these icons. These were the designs I wish I had seen in animated, toy, and game form while growing up. The reverence for each character showed in the details that Kabam included. This hopefully put the (sometimes) rabid fan base at ease. If not they certainly won me over.

Little by little Gabriel Frizzera and the team at Kabam in Vancouver introduced new things into the Marvel Universe, and they were accepted by the community at large. Their respect for the various properties was tangible. They didn't introduce a new character, or a new Chapter without a reason. Every hero and villain dropped into the contest served a purpose. They all helped drive a bigger story. Kabam had earned enough trust from Marvel to begin putting their own spin on the multiverse. They even created a few new faces in the process. The first of which was Civil Warrior. In the comic book story arc Dark Reign there was a star-spangled version of Iron Man, known as the Iron Patriot. In the absence of Tony Stark this armor was actually piloted by Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin. Kabam presented an alternate timeline where Steve Rogers killed Tony Stark. Riddled with guilt he donned the metal armor and took on the identity of the Civil Warrior. Having both the Marvel, and Kabam originals be playable characters, each with their own library of moves and abilities was inspired design. It demonstrated the level of commitment that the studio had with the game.

Not every multiverse character featured in MCC was so serious, some were decidedly out of left field. An alien Symbiote infected Peter-Parker during the events of the original Secret Wars. It replaced his tattered costume, and covered him in a black and white mesh that enhanced his strength and abilities. He kept the new look for a while after he returned to Earth. He eventually tore away from this alien, and it stuck to Eddie Brock who was a rival of Peter Parker. This was when they became Venom. In the MCC there were timelines where the symbiote didn't end up with Brock but instead went to Wade Wilson, better known as Deadpool. Venompool was an extreme party animal, but also a dangerous fighter. Again, having moves in MCC that were all his own. The most bizarre multiverse hybrid happened when Howard the Duck, inter-dimensional detective, gained the powers from the symbiote. Venom the Duck was a servant of darkness, and easily the strangest looking fighter in MCC.

 

It took much more to making a mobile game than filling the roster with fan-favorite characters. The game had to be balanced, no particular class of characters could have an overall advantage. This meant months of tweaking, updates and roster changes. The control had to be simple, and accessible. It had to be something simple to pick up but difficult to master. There had to be an object to playing over, and over again. A series of in-game rewards, daily missions, and more kept people engaged. It also had to to require some skill and strategy to play. Even without using the familiar Marvel characters that was a tall order. Any fighting game, let alone a mobile game, could be undone by the slightest oversight. If a studio spent too much time on the graphics while sacrificing game play then it showed. Fighting game aficionados were a fickle bunch. They wouldn't support a title that was poorly made. There were hundreds of fighting games that had come and gone in the past 30+ years. Few had been as successful, or had lasted as long as MCC. The majority of the survivors were created by Japanese studios, this was one of the few franchises created in the west.

 

Great fighting games also featured eye catching stages. Most of the levels in MCC had to be spectacles, like the remains of a Celestial in the deep cosmos. This site was better known as Knowhere from the Guardians of the Galaxy. MCC had gorgeous stages by the boatload. They were pulled from the various comics, live action films, and television shows. New audiences could identify the places in the Battlerealm that were pulled out of a movie screen. The Avengers Tower, the location from the first Avengers film was one such place. It was breathtaking when it was illuminated at night. Players almost expected Tony Stark to walk on to the helipad with a drink in hand. Then there was the golden throne on Asgard. Formerly occupied by Odin. Audiences could see ornate filigree carved on the throne and columns. Giant banners swung in the breeze over polished stone floors. It was a stage truly worthy of a king.

 

Long time fans were surprised to see classic locations also make the transition to 3D. Those that had grown up on the X-Men comics knew about Asteroid-M. It was an enormous planetoid floating near the moon, it had been pulled into orbit by Magneto. He used it as his base of operations, and treated it as a sanctuary for the persecuted mutants of Earth. This place was central to the original X-Men pilot cartoon. It was also used as levels in arcade games by Capcom and Konami. Then there was the Astral Plane, a nexus of magic users often visited by Dr. Strange in the comic books. Seeing this in game form left me giddy. Spreading out the locations for the Battlerealm across the different franchises worked in the favor of Kabam. The studio was not limited to a specific movie, timeline or event. It had room to grow and that was what excited me most about the future of MCC. The universe was completely wide open to them.

Kabam was celebrating four years with the Marvel Contest of Champions. This celebration coincided with Marvel regaining the rights to the X-Men, and Fantastic Four (FF) movies. A good number of mutant characters were already in the title, but the Fantastic Four were notoriously absent. All of this changed at the end of 2018. The Silver Surfer appeared in a trailer and teased their return. Over 2019 new Chapters were planned for the game. Each was supposed to bring back one of the four. January saw the introduction of Ben Grimm, aka the ever-lovin' blue eyed Thing. Who was next would be anyone's guess. Perhaps it was Reed Richards "Mr. Fantastic", or his wife Sue Storm "The Invisible Woman", or maybe even his brother-in-law Johnny Storm "The Human Torch." Gabriel Frizzera and Kabam weren't saying.

The Fantastic Four had always enjoyed some notoriety in comics. They were also the ones that helped lead the charge against two of Marvel's biggest bad guys. Dr. Doom had not appeared in MCC either. There were many timelines in the multiverse where he was the supreme ruler of the world. He was a brilliant scientist, and master of the dark arts after all. Imagine someone with the scientific brilliance of Tony Stark, and the magical abilities of Dr. Strange. He was also underused in cinema for too long, but would undoubtedly get his due in a video game. Having the Silver Surfer in the trailer also hinted that he would be a playable character at some point in the future. And if the Surfer was planned for the game then it also meant that his master Galactus, the "Devourer of Worlds" would not be far behind.

From this point on the game could only grow, and evolve. As long as Kabam continued to explore the Marvel universe there was no telling how long the series could continue. I eagerly waited to see what they had planned this year and beyond. If you want to find out more about this game make sure you pick up Marvel Contest of Champions: The Art of the Battlerelam by Paul Davies. It will get you caught up to the events thus far. Do you have a favorite character or team from this game? What were your favorite comic book games? I'd like to read about it in the comments section! 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!

The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy, part 5...

 

Having a great comic book property meant nothing if it was mismanaged. When it came to making great movies out of comic books Hollywood did not always get it right. The studios often released big-budget let downs. They would sometimes pack as many big name celebrities as they could into a movie, hoping that star power was enough to win over the audience. They scripts were written by people unfamiliar with the comics, and directed by equally clueless people. They often ignored the elements that made characters appealing in the first place. Worse yet, they would sell a license to a game publisher to make a tie-in video game. They were almost all horrible, and sadly the only time a comic book fan ever got to play as their hero.

 

Look at the creative decisions of the previous generation of movie executives. They tried to cash in on the comic book trend some 30 years ago. They put films like Dick Tracy, The Shadow and The Phantom on the big screen. Those characters were darlings to the Silent Generation / Baby Boomer crowd. They grew up on radio serials, and black and white cinema. These classic figures couldn't entertain the Gen-Xers that grew up on the Superman, and Batman features. It was no surprise when the retro hero movies flopped. They showed how hopelessly out of touch the old guard was. Compare this to how well Marvel was handling their film and television properties in the current era. Executives Kevin Feige, and Jeph Loeb had intimate knowledge of the various franchises. They had far more hits than misses, in part because they didn't repeat the mistakes of the executives that came before. The other reason was because they understood each hero and selected the right screenwriter and director for each project. 

 

 

Marvel's digital leadership was also on their A-Game. When it came to new media everything they experimented with seemed to strike gold. Especially Marvel Contest of Champions. It was not by accident. Marvel Games Executive Creative Director Bill Rosemann had been writing, editing and developing new IP for decades. He learned first-hand about the creative process and knew what fans expected. He knew that comic book fans had been burned in the past and were wary of any new titles. He had worked his way up the Marvel ladder by earning their trust. So had Marvel New Media Vice President and Creative Executive Ryan "Agent-M" Penagos. He originally started with Marvel's Digital Media Group. His focus had shifted as rapidly as the digital landscape changed, he soon found himself coordinating social media, podcasts and just about every major convention that Marvel was presenting at. They found the right studio in Kabam to take on an ambitious mobile game.

 

On the development side Chris "Cuz" Parry was a huge fan of comics, but he was also known for rewriting the skateboard game genre. In a few years The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series had earned almost half a billion dollars for Activision. The publisher then drove series into the ground (same thing could be said of the music game Rock Band). Fans were feeling burned out on the annual releases with the same tired mechanics. At the tail-end of Hawk's legacy the rival studio EA introduced a different type of game, known as SKATE. It was a breath of fresh air. It was several years in development. During the decline of Hawk franchise when many other skateboarding games came, and went. EA's title turned out to be more realistic, and more in tune with how skateboarding had progressed. Parry was working for Black Box studio then, and was a good reason why the game was a hit. He stayed in Vancouver and went over to Kabam where he helped redefine the mobile fighting game. First with Marvel Contest of Champions, and later on with the Transformers Forged to Fight.

 

Kabam Creative / Art Director Gabriel Frizzera was possibly the most influential of the new faces. The Brazilian grew up on a diet of comic books and dreamed that some day he would also be a creator. Little did he know just how much of an impact he would have. He collaborated with Marvel Writer Sam Humphries on shaping the Contest of Champions. The series started small but little by little Kabam released new characters, and features in the form of Chapters. The game had over 40 million downloads, a certifiable hit when it debuted in 2015. It passed $100 million in revenue that first year. That was more than double what Marvel Future Fight had generated in the same year. It may sound odd considering that MCC was free to download, and free to play. Like many of the most popular mobile games it actually made revenue from micro transactions. Audiences could spend a dollar here and there to unlock rare items, and collectibles. They could also "grind" at the game and earn these things over weeks of playing. Think about how people could spend $6 on coffee every day without thinking about it. Paying 99 cents for an in-game item was a bargain. Now multiply that occasional dollar across 40+ million downloads. As of this blog post MCC ranked 38th on the top grossing iPhone games, earning over $60,000 a day in revenue (10 times the revenue of Marvel Future Fight). But those daily totals could change overnight with the release of a new Marvel movie.

 

In 2017 Marvel Contest of Champions was ranked the eighth most successful Android game, earning over $170 million from its customers. The title had been the #1 ranked free to play game on several occasions. It recaptured the #1 spot, when it passed $3.1 million in player spending on July 4, 2018. Thanks to the introduction of the Ant-Man and Wasp. It coincided with the release of the movie. For the month prior to that it was still earning over $640,000 per day. There was another spike on Cyber Monday in 2018 when it earned over $3 million in one day. Estimates that the Contest of Champions had generated over $400 million since its debut could be very conservative. Kabam and Marvel were sitting on a cash cow. As confidence in the developers grew Kabam was granted more creative freedom. A 10-issue Marvel Contest of Champions comic book was released in 2015. A new collaboration was long overdue. Frizzera and Marvel artist Luke Ross worked together on the Digital Comic, The Young Elders Tale in 2018.

Frizzera created a unique backstory to the Collector, and turned the eccentric Elder of the Universe into one of the more sympathetic figures. It would not be the only thing that he and Kabam were allowed to create in the MCC sandbox. We shall explore how the Contest of Champions created a template for successful comic book mobile games in the next blog. 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!

The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy, part 4...

 

Thanos was a frightening villain in the comics, cartoons, and movies. Obsessed with Death, as in the physical embodiment of Death, the Mad Titan didn't see a problem destroying reality and reshaping it to his ideal. In order to do this he needed to tap into resources far older, and more powerful than his own. This was when the Infinity Gems, and Infinity Gauntlet came into play. The origins of the Infinity Gems were not the same in the live action movies, they actually went back to when the Marvel universe was still evolving. The first Infinity Gem, the Soul Gem appeared in Marvel Premier #1 in 1972. The comic written by Roy Thomas and the penciled by Gil Kane introduced audiences to a gold skinned alien known as Adam Warlock, owner of the stone. The other gems were introduced a few at a time over the next several years. All six would not appear until a Silver Surfer story from 1988. The majority of these gems were owned by one of the Elders of the Universe. There were almost two dozen Elders that had been revealed in Marvel continuity, but only a few had the Infinity Gems. The Elders were extremely powerful, even without the gems. Nobody thought however about how powerful one would become if they possessed all of the gems. That changed a few years later. Adam Warlock was acting as a cosmic detective, investigating the movements of Thanos. The clues were pointing to something catastrophic.

   

The original Thanos Quest, written by Jim Starlin, and penciled by Ron Lim, was a story from 1990. Starlin used to write and draw for Marvel in the '70s and had done a lot of the cosmic world building back then. He was keenly aware of the Infinity Gems and had plans to use them, but it wouldn't happen for decades. Not until he returned to the Marvel Bullpen. In his story he had Thanos scour the cosmos and take each Infinity Gem from the Elders, one at a time, often by tricking them. The Soul Gem he got from the In-Betweener, an agent and prisoner of Lord Chaos and Master Order. The Power Gem from the Champion of the Universe, an Elder that was like a blue-skinned, nine-foot tall Hulk Hogan. The Time Gem he got from the Gardener, and Space Gem from the Runner. The final two he got from the most familiar Elders. The Reality Gem from the Collector, and finally the Mind Gem from the Grandmaster. Each gem was capable of shaping a portion of reality to the will of its owner. All six combined were incalculably powerful. I was glad to see the Champion introduced into the game at the end of 2018. His martial prowess, and arrogance was legendary. I was sure he could easily hold his own in the contest, but I digress.

   

The Thanos Quest planted the seeds for a longer saga. It was something that Marvel editors played close to their chest and surprised the comic community. Marvel readers didn’t expect there to be a series with the gravitas of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel would debut the Infinity Gauntlet in 1991, the Infinity War in 1992 and the Infinity Crusade in 1993. I remember when my little brother read the first few pages of the Thanos Quest he told my older brother and I that if Thanos wasn't stopped he would probably come to Earth and wipe out all of the heroes. We laughed at the idea. There was no way Thanos could stop the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, or Inhumans. We figured that any one of those super-powered teams would be enough to beat him. Heck, the Silver Surfer was arguably the most powerful cosmic hero. He could have stopped Thanos by himself. Fans expected MCC to give audiences another take on the Infinity War. This was when Kabam took things one step further.

 

The Contest of Champions was not just an adaptation of the Infinity War, but instead something more spectacular. It pulled together characters from different timelines, different dimensions, different realities, and dropped them into the middle of a new battle. This new showcase featured the alternate reality where Erik “Killmonger” Stevens was the King of Wakanda. He possessed something called the Infinity Claw, a gauntlet made of ornate vibranium, and had disposed of T’Challa, the Black Panther. The Battlerealm had its own Infinity Gems which were different than the ones Thanos originally claimed. In the Kabam title these gems were Evolution, Genesis, Chaos, War, Nightmare, and Death. They also shaped reality in different ways. The fight for power was on a scale not previously seen in any comic book or movie. From a fan perspective it was the best of all worlds. How this happened was an act of trust between multiple companies, and departments. At the heart of the project were a few faces that you should know about. Chief among these people was Kabam Creative / Art Director Gabriel Frizzera.

   

No less important was Creative Director Chris "Cuz" Parry, Design Director Tim Molyneux, Marvel Games Executive Creative Director Bill Rosemann and Marvel New Media Vice President and Creative Executive Ryan Penagos. This group worked well together, and accomplished something seemingly impossible. A mobile game that honored the Marvel canon, was able to keep up with the television, and film IP, and was still was fun to play. Very rarely had so many different branches of a major company worked so well together with a developer. The reason why was because everyone associated with the project was a die-hard Marvel fan. They knew the stories forward and backwards. They also knew that video games based on comic books were not always good. They were around when some of the worst Marvel games, like Captain America and the Avengers were released, but also when some of the best like the X-Men was in arcades.

   

There was enough creative freedom to allow Kabam to essentially add an entirely new chapter to the Marvel portfolio. All of the men pictured above were relatively young for their positions, they had grown up knowing the best stories from the '80s, and '90s. They saw what it took to make a good comic,  super hero movie, or game. They were able to bring that love, avoid the pitfalls, and corner the mobile market, even above the Marvel Future Fight game. In the next blog we will look at how solid leadership could make all the difference in the world. 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!

The Marvel Contest of Champions Legacy. part 3...

 

When fighting game fans think of Marvel fighting games they often go to the long-running series by Capcom. The first game in the series, X-Men vs Street Fighter debuted in 1996 and the most recent Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite debuted in 2017. Before the crossover titles Capcom had developed two unique fighting games that focused on a particular Marvel license. X-Men: Children of the Atom, a fighting game featuring heroes and villains from the X-Men comics debuted in 1995. That same year the studio also released Marvel Super Heroes, a fighting game inspired by the events in the Infinity War. The games featured highly stylized designs, high speed game play, brilliant animations, and a unique combo system. The Marvel Super Heroes title in particular allowed players to earn and use various Infinity Gems to give them a temporary power boost or special ability against their opponents. Of course at the end of the game Thanos would steal all six of the gems and use them against the player in true final boss fashion.

 

Marvel Contest of Champions (MCC) differed from the classic arcade fighters in a number of ways. In traditional arcade fighting games the battles only lasted a few seconds. Some of the more difficult battles in MCC could take several minutes to complete. Then there was the scale and scope of MCC. This was not just a game with one inevitable outcome. The Marvel multiverse and its inhabitants all depended on the player, known as the Summoner in the story. There were dozens of characters to unlock and play as, pulled from different realities. The game was also not a linear fighting game where you fought through a few characters, and wrapped up the story. There were tons of main quests and side quests to explore, each with their own special rules, and rewards. Players could earn experience for their champions, along with all sorts of collectible goods by "grinding" through the various missions. Players had to learn what items they should use to boost their characters stats and abilities before an encounter. This all added an additional level of strategy to each match. It was more like a fighting game-meets rpg-meets dungeon crawler.

 

A touch screen limited how complex most mobile games could really be, MCC was no exception to this rule. Most traditional fighting games used a six button layout, usually with a joystick or pad for directional inputs. The complex moves, and split-second timing from the Capcom games would be all but impossible to perform on a touch screen. Kabam simplified this, and inputs to simple taps. This didn't mean the game was simplistic. It still required learning the timing, and strategies for hundreds of potential encounters. Players had to learn when to activate certain counters, special attacks, and combinations. Otherwise they left themselves wide open to a counter attack. Players learned that certain characters worked well against one of the six classes; Cosmic, Mutant, Mystic, Skill, Science, and Tech. So just because you have a character with awesome powers, like Quake from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, she didn't have the fighting prowess of Daredevil. In this way audiences learned to experiment and see which teams worked best for their style, and ability.

 

Best of all MCC draws equal parts from classic Marvel comics, and Marvel cinema. Both long time comic book fans and people new to the stories could be dropped right into the experience without missing a beat. In the Original Contest of Champions comic book the Grandmaster had organized the contest whereas in the Secret Wars it was the Beyonder. In the MCC the Collector was acting as the host of the tournament. The MCC took place in what was known as the Battlerealm. It was a nexus of different dimensions, and timelines that the Elders of the Universe had been shaping for their own entertainment. The idea of a dedicated arena was pulled from Secret Wars II in 1985. During that story Dr. Doom had temporarily gained the powers of the Beyonder. He hosted his tournament in what he called the Battleworld. The various locations released thus far in MCC did call out to specific locations that had been featured in over 40 years of Marvel comics. To help clarify the stakes and explain the new organizers Marvel released a 10-issue series titled Marvel Contest of Champions in 2015.

   

So how did Kabam hook new audiences without losing the veteran gamers? How did they strike a balance between easing players to a new game while still keeping it challenging. Of course the big question was how did they raise the stakes over any previous comic timeline? People that were just getting into fighting games, or mobile fighting games were probably familiar with the Avengers movies. Over the past 10 years Marvel had been building a cinematic empire that connected the various properties together. Almost every person today, young and old recognized Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Incredible Hulk thanks to these movies. They also knew the X-Men, and Spider-Man thanks to the films from other studios. What Kabam did was combine the live action licenses, including the characters that appeared on television, and placed them alongside their comic book counterparts. They managed to do all of this surprisingly well.

 

The contest organized by the Collector was simply one step in a much longer and more complex narrative. When Kabam released MCC only a few villains were revealed as organizers. Originally it was the Collector versus Kang the Conqueror, a time-travelling villain. They were battling over the ISO-Sphere, an item that allowed its owner to rewrite reality. This sphere was made up of ISO-8 crystals which champions earned in the game. All of this was explained in the comic. As the MCC series went on it changed organizers to include the Maestro. An evil version of the Hulk from the far future. In the "Future Imperfect" timeline he either killed or outlived all of the heroes and villains. The MCC also brought in the Grandmaster to act as an organizer. Of course what good was a contest if the Grandmaster could not participate, and show up his brother?

 

The ISO-Sphere was an all-powerful trophy, but long-time comic book fans were wondering if a different reality-changing item would appear in the series. Specifically one coveted by Thanos. The Infinity Gauntlet did exist in MCC, but not in the same way as the comic books, movies or even previous games had established. It took almost three years for Marvel Contest of Champions extend its version of the story, and the payoff was completely worth it. We shall explore this radical new world in the next blog. 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!