What medium and idiom hath wrought

Now for my next trick, which is to express or interpret Intruder via the concepts and mechanics across many role-playing games. It’s not a trivial comparison, as he’s based on very situational and preparatory concepts: “did it thirty minutes ago,” “crazy prepared,” “knew all about that,” “investigated and surveilled it all better than you did,” “stole your power,” and that potential mud-stomper of all dramatic conflict-of-interest, mind control. So it’s not just about whether he wields gravity or lightning powers, or how many guys he can take out with one zap. How does role-playing logic deal with this kind of content across games, or rather, what different forms of logic are employed across them?

Oh noes

You got politics in my superheroes, shock! … and superheroes in my politics, too?! Shock and outrage!

Too bad, sweet pea. That’s just how things are and always have been. I’ll tell you why: because comics are political, either via implication due to their junk-product nature which is forced to be close to life to be consumed at all, or explicitly because you can get away with it when no one vets them (or barely). So it’s not “superheroes” I’m talking about necessarily, but rather, superheroes in comics. Political. Put it up your ass and smoke it.

Rough and ready

Intruder is 14 (now 15 + cover) pages of fun between me and Scott LeMien. It pleases me and that’s all it’s for. Rest assured, the horror and blasphemy to follow in the next paragraphs shall not singe a hair upon the wisdom of comics creation that everyone knows. (As for the many how-to’s and about-comics accounts that do correspond to what I’m saying, shhhh!)

Forms and features

Let’s talk about making the characters for Intruder. I have an agenda with this topic. It is to shoot, chase down, finish off, hang up, and gut the typical discussions, usually framed as traumatic controversy, over who “really” created this or that famous comics character.