Wolverine's Post M-Day Journal - Entry 3

((Hey there! This entry summarizes the events of the third and fourth session's of the game. It was not written between since the events ran together and our favorite feral mutant wouldn't have had the time to sit down and write introspectively! Enjoy!

Entry 3:

It's three in the mornin' and the only thing I can do to try and find some solace is write in this fuckin' journal.

I don't dream anymore. When the eyelids shut and sleep paralysis sets into my adamantium laced bones, a dark figure sits me next to an ancient film projector in a shadowy room. Try as I might, I can't get up, can't shut my eyes. The figure steps into the light on the screen. Sometimes it's Victor. Sometimes it's Mystique... Maybe it's always Mystique? Doesn't matter.

"Which film shall we watch tonight, Logan?" they say in the most irritating tone possible, "The one where you murder Itsu? A classic. If you're in the mood for romance, we could watch some Mariko. Maybe more Jeanie? Ah, but we watch those a little too often, don't you think? We could always play the bloody murder reel..."

Somethin' inside me is trying to stir up the guilt from a life of murder, and despite every attempt I make to keep a gruff exterior, it's startin' to work. I've ruined families, ended lives for no better reason than someone told me to do it, or I was lost in a rage. Every time I decide to make things better, to strive to fix some of the damage I've done, somethin' drags me right back down to my old ways.

That's why I can't be an Avenger.

We had a meetin', somethin' about a revision of the Mutant Registration Act that is gonna effect all of the other freaks of nature and vigilantes that put on tights and try to save the world. Stark wanted to present a unified front, under his own idealism, about the superhuman community tryin' to police itself. Some of the guys there even had the nerve to offer up the X-Mansion as a school for new recruits. Shows how ignorant they are about the livin' Hell we're goin' through over there.

There will be no more mutants. Every mutant that's left, whether they like it or not, has to be cooped up on school grounds, livin' out in tents like a fuckin' reservation. Charles is gone. Scott doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Sentinels march around the grounds. The last thing we need are some two-bit amateurs walking in with big smiles ready to learn from a dying race.

Stark proposed an internal affairs branch of our... organization, and put up Carol to be in charge of that. Turns out we needed it faster than we ever would have thought. The Crusader shows up at the Avengers mansion with a Shi'ar bomb, guarded on all sides by Purifiers. My blood was boilin' to see those sons of bitches crawl out from the wood work, but I wasn't the only one.

Things go about as expected, with Stark and Banner disarming the bomb and the rest of us fending off the crazed religious fanatics. 'Cept Moon Knight was after some blood, and crippled Crusader. Slashed him right in the spine. If the poor sod lives, he'll be spendin' the rest of his life in a wheelchair, or worse. They clap him in irons and send him off to prison.

I can't be an Avenger, because before you know it, I'll be right in the next cell. I've killed, as an Avenger. Ended the life of Griffin in our first breakout fiasco, and no one cared then. Even though that was a wake-up call, what's to say my berserker rage won't lead me to that place again? My anger is welling up, and I'm liable to burst.

Hopped on my motorcycle afterward to help Stark present his case in front of Congress. Someone had to represent the mutants, but unfortunately, the conversation never turned in that direction. Instead, Dr. Doom is showin' footage of the lot of us tearin' through Doombots and Latverians on behalf of Colonel Nick Fury. Just like my dreams, there I am again, killin', and I can't help but watch.

Things didn't turn out so bad. Congress seemed impressed with Murdock's knowledge of law and the way we handled the Spector debacle earlier. Earned us a man on our side. 'Cept, what's one voice among the majority? Usually, jack-shit.

Next, I was sent to testify for the character of Luke Cage, who was accused of murdering some of the Purifiers, according to a pretty obviously doctored bit of footage. For some Goddamn reason, someone thought it was a good idea to bring in Marc Spector to testify. The bastard got away, after makin' a pretty solid point that the Avengers are a bunch of incompetent assholes. Apparently, someone hasn't let Konshu know that I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do isn't very nice.

Then the press showed up, and by this point, I was pissed. Really pissed. These assholes are never too far behind when controversial shit goes down. They don't learn. Apparently, a well placed 'go fuck yourself' doesn't send the message. I trashed some equipment, grabbed my bike, and went to a dirty pub somewhere to try the nightly game of tryin' to out-drink my healing factor.

I lost.

My gut is tellin' me that there's something goin' on beyond just a bunch of random events. If anyone knows about conspiracies, it's me. I've been the instrument of more of 'em than I can count on my claws. Someone's trying to strike while the iron is hot, taking down the community through the system. Worst part? One of the smartest men in the world is missin' it, too absorbed by tryin' to run his little band of kids playin' cops and robbers.

I'll let him know. I'll tell him when I resign.

For now, gonna sit on the couch with a beer and watch the news until I fall asleep from boredom. Not like anything news worthy happens in this country anymore.

-Logan

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 4 Report

Hey, readers!

Terribly sorry for the lack of activity here on 'Perceive Things.' We all get busy at times, and I have been involved in other things, like, lots of role-playing. So, I have a huge backlog of summaries to do, including a Civil War session that happened almost two weeks ago!

As always with this campaign, if you'd rather experience the magic yourself, the Youtube link has been provided.

We were missing quite a few people this session, but those involved were the following: Daredevil and Hulk, Iron Man and Thor, Ms. Marvel and Tigra, Hawkeye and Moon Knight, and myself as Wolverine and Spider-Woman.

Here we go!

Session Summary:

Where we left off last session, the team had just defeated a sinister villain in Washington DC and were just in time to be there for the Congressional hearing regarding the Superhuman Registration Act that was starting to tumble its way through the Senate. Being the world's premier super-team, Tony thought it was a good idea to present a unified opinion with the team and present their case for an internal affairs reworking rather than outright registration.

Of course, this sort of thing is always made more interesting by a surprise witness. Enter Doctor Doom, who wants to discredit our heroes with a neat little powerpoint/video depicting the lot of us slaying Latverian forces by the score during the Secret War. Why the government thought it was a good idea to let a known international terrorist who had just come back from Hell and was only recently trying to get a sword of the Apocalypse is beyond me, but I wouldn't put it past 'em.

So, our team begins to retort, showing some impressive shows of logic and reason that seem to baffle Doom and the congressional board. Tony Stark's hacking of Doom's presentation and a printer to pass out some crucial evidence along with a masterful explanation of law by one Daredevil (who has no association to Matt Murdock) had both us players and the characters in the game baffled beyond belief. If you watch nothing else of that video, go to 25:48 and watch the magic happen.

With all of that good and done with, we manage to score a friend in Congress that can help us out in the future, and we managed to out filibuster all kinds of government officials in the name of democracy! I would call that a pretty solid win for the side of justice. And stuff. Not really, but...

Anyway!

Apparently, after the whole Moon Knight fiasco last session, Luke Cage got slapped with assisting or murdering a guy somewhere. I mean, one could say racial profiling, especially when you had someone like Wolverine on the scene who was slicing and dicing like usual, but... We're going to go with the fact that Cage has a criminal record. So, like good friends/Avengers, we're called to testify for his character and give our account of the scene at the hearing before he gets slapped with anything official.

Now testify!...

Another surprise witness joins the scene as Moon Knight is brought in to give his account on the events. His player rolled a die to decide which personality was dominant in Mark Spector's head, and Konshu was the result. Awkward. Wolverine was stopped for quite a while at the metal detector. Funny since that was brought up in the movie that just came out, but... Yeah. More awkward!

Ready for the most awkward?

After getting a torrent of bad mouthing from the prosecution, Moon Knight is elected to speak first, since he's the surprise witness and all. He gets out of his chains, without anyone reacting or anything, and begins a piece on how Luke Cage could not have murdered anyone because he and the rest of the Avengers are a completely incompetent bunch who cannot serve the larger goals of justice. Once his piece was done, the Moon Copter shot a line through the window and he escaped from imprisonment.

Genius.

Before we had a chance to pick up our jaws from the floor, the press stormed in to tear us a new one. Hulk took some emotional stress and managed to Hulk out, showing an incredibly docile and photogenic Hulk who wanted to talk to the press. Everyone else tried their best to get away. Tony bought out a bunch of news companies and went around firing people. Ms. Marvel made a handy excuse and hit the road. Wolverine got pissy, destroyed some equipment, and went to sulk with a lovely d6 of emotional trauma.

Hulk walked home alone.

Before things were wrapped up, we got a nice little bit of narration as the classic "Stamford Incident" occurred. For those of you not in the know, basically a bunch of pretty amateur superheroes, the latest iteration of the 'New Warriors' were filming an episode for a reality show, pissed off some villains, and a particularly explosive crook named Nitro blew up and killed a whole bunch of people, including a group of children.

This is where things take a distinct turn for the worse, for the those of you playing at home.

My Reaction:

This was, by far, the best session yet. Everything worked out really well, we each had a nice moment to shine, and things progressed at a logical pace. There were some really good jokes, shows of character, and all that sort of stuff. It really made us eager to jump into the next session, which is coming up rather soon.

Unfortunately, this sort of showcases a point that I have brought up time and time again that smaller groups work better with this game. While each and every member of our group is awesome, less does turn out to be more in terms of flow and proper spotlighting. That being said, I am really looking forward to the other two members of our group returning this coming session to bring their own unique flavor and ingenuity to our game.

I don't have too much more to say besides that point, and there really wasn't anything negative on my end whatsoever. Next game, our character troupe's are opening up to another slot, so we'll start seeing some new characters thrown into the mix as we clean up after Stamford and try to track down Moon Knight.

That's my summary and reaction! Hope you enjoyed it. If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

(Wolverine journal coming up super-soon!)

Marvel Mondays - X-Men - Session 5 Report

Hey, readers!

So, with this session, we finally finish off the Breeder Bombs module which is, admittedly, pretty lousy when it comes to the actual plot. We had fun with it, however!

For those of you just tuning in, the basic plot here is that Magneto has been setting up these nuclear devices called Breeder Bombs that flood the atmosphere with radiation in order to create more mutants, and our team of X-Men are travelling to shut them down due to the danger they present to mankind. However, it turns out Magneto isn't really behind it, since he's working to stop these bombs as well.

Whodunit?

Well, the answer is... Probably not what you expected.

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

Our intrepid team of X-Men consisting of Beast (Feline version), Mr. Immortal (On leave from the Great Lakes Avengers), and Rogue (With Ms. Marvel's powers, played by me), ride the Blackbird to Chile, to the Andes where the last Breeder Bomb is located. Apparently, it's holed up in some sort of ancient temple made by some great civilization of the past. It seems quiet... Too quiet!

Our team enters the hallway, which is sloping downwards and slowly expanding outwards the further along we go. Out of the shadows emerges a trio of flesh robot things! One is modeled after a circus performer of some sort and is incredibly strong. Another has an optical blast very similar to Cyclops'. The last one is super fast!

Beast targets the super-fast one and does his best to wrangle him down, with little success at first. Mr. Immortal, being the suicidal one of the bunch, decides to take on the strong man with a dizzying array of feats that are surprisingly effective, including wall-running in order to poke him in the eye and a good old fashioned sucker-punch. Rogue pairs off against the optic blast guy, hoping to use her energy absorbing powers from Ms. Marvel to give herself an edge, but she isn't doing so hot. Beast finally manages to catch the super-fast robot off guard and smashes his head apart. Using a trick used against her in a previous battle, Rogue decides to pick up the dead super-fast robot and smash her opponent with it, ending the fight.

Feeling a little cocky, Rogue and Beast throw the remains of their opponents into the entrance of the main chamber. Turns out that was a terrible idea, because, in the room with the Breeder Bomb is none other than... Magneto!... And... Magneto...? Apparently, we have finally met robo Magneto who has somehow captured regular Magneto and has him bound to the wall.

Beast asks the astute question, "How did a bunch of robots capture the Master of Magnetism?"

And, somewhere, the author of this module cries in shame from his obvious plot-hole.

(Nope. He's happy.)

Turns out robo-Magneto is not alone, for he is joined by a half-finished collection of his Brotherhood of Mutants, consisting of Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and the Blob. Proclaiming that they are doing the will of the Sentinal God, they attack the bewildered X-Men. Beast immediately begins to scramble to the real Magneto in an attempt to rouse him, but robo-Magno manages to stop him in his tracks. Quicksilver does his best to deliver a punch to everyone, and manages to do so! Rogue is also trying to make her way to Magneto for completely irresponsible reasons, but robo-magno is intent on not letting his captive free.

Blows are traded across the board, and dice are rolled poorly on both sides! Mr. Immortal met his untimely demise when he attempted to bull-rush Scarlet Witch into the Breeder Bomb, but ended up tripping and impaling himself on a spike. Beast tries to wrangle robo-Magneto, giving Rogue a window of opportunity to reach the real deal, which she does! He then tosses robo-Magneto into a computer panel, which temporarily dazes all of the robots. Odd...

Robo-Magneto and his cronies gather around the Breeder Bomb as the pretend Master of Magnetism tries to boost up its power. By this point, Rogue has announced to Beast that, should this plan of hers go horribly wrong, that he has every right to take her down. Summoning her courage, Rogue absorbs Magneto's powers and memories and proclaims to the pretender that he will pay for impersonating the Master of Magnetism!

In a moment of awesomeness, Rogue uses her new powers to lift robo-Magneto from the ground, and impales him with a variety of sharp objects from around the room, which ultimately resulted in shutting down all of the other robots. Magneto's personality passes from her, and she and Beast work together to shut down the final Breeder Bomb, ending the crisis. With many questions, the pair pick up the remains of Mr. Immortal and head off to the Blackbird, having saved the world from... Radiation, and stuff.

My Reactions:

This was my favorite session of our X-Men game yet, for one very important reason. I finally got to do what Rogue does best, which is absorb powers with all of the consequences! Mechanically, I got to try out her power-set with awesome results, and it was just a cool conclusion.

My own personal bias aside, this group continues to do a good job. My fellow players are great, and our GM has one quality that I really admire. He knows how to straddle the line between challenge and good story-telling when it comes to coordinating his action scenes. Sure, his knowledge of the system isn't great, and there were a lot of things mechanically that he could have adjusted to make the ending scene run better (Such as creating a timer when robo-Magneto surged up the Breeder Bomb), but he knows when to go hard and when to ease off for the sake of spotlight and awesomeness. This is a trait I'm hoping to incorporate into my own GM style in the future.

Not too much to say besides that, really. I'm looking forward to how this group will proceed, especially now that we are off the rails of a pretty old and poorly constructed module. That said, I hope you enjoyed this session summary! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

  

Marvel Mondays - Civil War - Session 3 Report

Hey, readers!

So, it has been about a week since this week's session has occurred, and due to me being busy and distracted, I have a few session reports backlogged a bit.

However, I will try to relay this one as best as I can remember!

As always with Civil War, you can watch the session yourself here:

(I found My Little Pony versions of both my characters and put them as my pictures. Whoo Bronies!)

Just a quick logistical update before we get into the meat of things: one of our players has respectfully bowed out due to being uncomfortable with the amount of players, which is a totally understandable position. Therefore, Yellowjacket and the Thing will be absent from here on in.

For the record, our current Avengers line-up is the following: Hulk and Daredevil, Iron Man and Thor, Tigra and Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye and Moon Knight, Captain America and Luke Cage, Wolverine and Spider-Woman, Dr. Strange and Spider-Man.

Let's dive in.

Session Summary:

Things begin in the illustrious Avengers Tower where Iron Man has summoned all of the available Avengers to discuss a bill that deals with super-humans that is going before Congress the following day. Iron Man wants the team to be on a unified front with his position so that they can make a good showing. Rather than explain everyone's position in my own words, I'm going to borrow from our GM's summary which can be found on his blog here: http://knighterrantjr.blogspot.com/

"Doctor Strange is neutral on passage of the bill, as long as discussion is measured and intelligent, Spider-Man is all for training new heroes, but doubts official status will make them any more popular, Tigra and Ms. Marvel both agree with Tony's proposed modifications to the bill, Thor seems completely indifferent and doesn't not believe he has a stake in the argument, Moon Knight  (possessed early on in the meeting with his Khonshu personality) does not believe mortal authority should meddle with the affairs of heroes, while Hawkeye thinks that bill isn't needed and is just asking for someone in the government to release private information on heroes to the public.  Wolverine doesn't trust the government to regulate super humans, but wants to make sure mutants don't get the short end of the stick, and Spider-Woman also appears to agree with Tony.  Daredevil seems to be reluctant to speak on legal issues, and Banner is generally in agreement with Tony."

With that shameless plug and borrowing out of the way, let us continue on!

The meeting ends with almost everyone in agreement with Tony's position, which is that superheroes shouldn't have registration necessarily, but should be held accountable, have their own internal affairs branch, and be more akin to a government sanctioned branch of defense than a free-for-all, do-whatever, thing. As an extension of putting these ideas into work, Tony creates an internal affairs branch of the Avengers, putting Ms. Marvel in charge of that to deal with things such as Moon Knight slicing throats.

We'll get to more about Moon Knight in a second.

So, the next day rolls around, the day of the hearing, when a distressing news report comes on the television. Turns out that the Crusader has set up a bomb at the restored Avengers Mansion with a gang of Anti-Mutant purifiers who are looking to make an example. Simultaneously, there's a situation in Washington DC where Master Pandemonium is beating people up... For no, real apparent reason, I guess? So, half the Avengers team go to the Avengers Mansion while the other half goes to Washington to deal with the impending threat.

(Close enough!)

We'll start with the Avengers Mansion debacle. One by one, the players fly into action, Moon Knight taking the helm and starting to lay the smack-down on Crusader with his adamantium sword. Ms. Marvel joins in on that initiative, along with Wolverine, who is rather pissed to see this low-classed Thor villain teaming up with the Purifiers. Iron Man and Bruce Banner work together to disable the bomb while Luke Cage does his best to mop up the cronies. Everything proceeds swimmingly, until Moon Knight ends the conflict rather explosively by severing Crusader's spine.

Y'owch.

Needless to say, Moon Knight is swiftly arrested and Ms. Marvel has her first internal affairs operation to deal with. Daredevil knows a good lawyer...

God, imagine She-Hulk and Daredevil on the same team? Lawyer squad? Throw in Foggy Nelson and the sitcom writes itself!

(Yeah, that was the best picture I could find. This needs to be done, now.)

Nevermind.

So, meanwhile in Washington DC, the second squad arrives just in time to watch Master Pandemonium... Turn his limbs into demons? This guy is a blast from the West-Coast Avengers past, so Tigra and Hawkeye know what to do, pretty much. Everyone swings into action dealing with the variety of demons that are attacking while Cap tries to shoo the crowd away. Each of the demon attacks are either swiftly avoided or taken down via counterattacks until Daredevil's sneak attack takes the crazy guy down.

With that wrapped up, a few of the heroes from the New York situation arrive in order to be on time for the Congressional hearing, which will be resolved next session!

My Reactions:

Let me begin by saying that this session was an improvement over the last one for me. Maybe that was a one time fluke of mood or something, or things just not being right, but this session made it back to the levels of fun I'm used to experiencing with this group. Good job on that account.

Now, the opening scene with the Avengers meeting together was interesting. My 'weird thing' had me unaware that our characters were actually discussing in-character until someone addressed Iron Man's player as Tony, which turned the light bulb on for me. Therefore, I didn't have too much to contribute, which is a bit of a shame, but my own fault, really. The roleplaying there was quite good, and I enjoyed listening.

I'm aware that our GM's strength does not necessarily lie in these sorts of scenes, and after his recent blog post about this session, (which was linked above) he confessed that he did not like starting with transition scenes because they stumble a bit and take a while to get going. My response to that is that I think that starting with transition scenes is -almost- a given for any session, since most action needs a lead-in of some kind. What would help, perhaps, is some staging. For example, I would have greatly benefited if our GM began by saying, 'The meeting is starting, Tony's staging it in one of the many conference rooms in the tower. What are your characters doing before the meeting starts?' or something to that effect.

Also, I wasn't terribly comfortable with playing two characters at the same time in a scene. As an actor (Not professional, but as a hobby), it is taxing enough for me to wrap my head around one character at a time and play them well, much less two. This is why, as a GM, I hate having more than one important NPC in a scene, especially when dealing with things like councils, business meetings, etc. This hindrance caused me to clam up a bit as well, though, in retrospect, it would have made perfect sense to have Logan drinking beer with Thor, watching TV rather than sitting in on a meeting.

Moving on, the action scenes were a great highlight. What was really nice about the scene with the Crusader was that there was enough elements to make the scene interesting and give everyone something substantial to do, which elongated a scene that could have been wrapped up fairly quickly. There was a bomb, the Crusader, and a mob, so the variance was there to make each element challenging enough in its own right since everyone wasn't ganging up on one thing.

(Life is pandemonium)

Granted, the scene in DC was everyone against one guy, but he had minions for limbs or something which varied it up again nicely. Still, however, I wasn't entirely clear on why Master Pandemonium was wreaking havoc in DC. It's a trope in superhero fiction, games in particular, to have the rampaging monster who is attacking for little reason other than he wants to cause destruction and chaos and having the heroes come in and stop that, but it is a bit of a weak trope, all things considered. Even great shows like Teen Titans fell prey to that more times than was necessary, but at least it was usually considered a B-Plot to a more character focused A-plot. Once the main stuff of Civil War begins, however, I'm betting that things will be just a tad more unified and clear in meaning rather than, 'here's action, go to it.' This is just the 'Road to Civil War' after-all.

All-in-all, still having a great time with this group, and I'm extremely glad that I had a better time this go 'round than last time. I hope you enjoyed this report! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes

Teen Titans - Episode 8 "Shutdown" Report

Hey, readers!

So, another episode of Teen Titans has aired, and you're just in time to catch the rerun!

By this point, we're starting to wrap up 'Act 1' of the first season, as far as Marvel Heroic terms are concerned. This episode is going to be a lead-in to a big two-parter episode to close off the first act. Yeah, I'm throwing a lot of television and Marvel Heroic terms together, but that kinda makes it more badass, in a way.

Without further ado, grab your popcorn and your remote, and let's watch!

Episode 8: Shutdown

Session Summary:

Things begin with a dream sequence, which is a wonderful way to set the atmosphere for a session. We are in the head of young Ray Kord, the Blue Beetle, as he is heroically beating bad guys by the score, only to be interrupted by a giant Solomon Grundy who lifts him from the ground and roars into his face before swallowing him up. In the darkness of the inside of the zombie giant, Ray finds his father, the past Blue Beetle before watching his head explode. Turning around, Ray finds Deathstroke holding a sniper rifle, having just killed his father before his eyes before taking aim for the son!...

Such a nightmare is interrupted by an urgent message on Ray's sub-dermal communicator from Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. The rest of the team is called as well down into the basement where the 'Arrow Cave' is located. Dressed for action with Black Canary at his side, the emerald archer informs the team that they are needed. Three separate vehicle factories around Detroit have been broken into at the same time, and the body count is mounting up with the police hardly able to contain the threat. They decide to split into three groups to take each site.

James, the Dullahon, and Johnny Thunder, driving his high tech car, arrive at their site first to find a police barricade erect around the factory. Driving through the barricade with little regard for the police, the pair find a rather strange set-up. In the middle of the main factory floor, a group of men dressed as 18th century revolutionaries armed with muskets were assembling some sort of missile silo. Using the turret on his car, Johnny began to mow down the strange thugs while James did his best to gather some intel with his tentacles.  Those that remain try to focus on finishing the missile silo, but that becomes increasingly difficult as the attack continues. Johnny liquidates a few with a rumbling sonic boom, and James finishes off the last two by wrapping them up in his mind tentacles, pushing them through the skylight, and bringing them back down again, absorbing some interesting intel.

It seems that these are members of a Neo-Luddite gang led by the mysterious Bane. They are targeting Detroit as a place to make a significant demonstration, since it is one of the most industrial cities in the United States.

Before James can relay this important news to the other teams, Ray and Juan arrive at the second factory. They find a similar set-up, except for the fact that all of the police in the barricade are dead and the assembly lines are churning away. Additionally, they meet an odd figure, gangly in appearance and tall, dressed in the 18th century apparel with one significant addition, a horrible gas mask. He announced himself as Bane, and as a show of his power, he tossed a car off the line into the empty police cars outside, causing an explosion. Juan got to work teleporting inside the missile silo, trying to dismantle it from within, while Ray tried to return fire by tossing a car to Bane, who punches right through it without effort. Trying to keep the men from working on the machine, Juan lets out a series of shuriken that each hits their target, taking down their numbers significantly. However, the situation changes immediately when Bane lumbers up to Ray, spouting off how he is an abomination for relying on technology to make him strong before lifting him into the air and breaking the boy over his knee.

Juan scrambles to rescue Ray, and succeeds in teleporting the both of them away, but not before a truck crashes through one of the entrances and Bane presses down on a plunger, releasing a wave of energy that wreaks havoc on Ray's system. Before more damage is done, Juan takes Ray to a local hospital. James and Johnny try to arrive on the scene to help, but they are compounded by police traffic and make it only to see an intimidating look from Bane which makes them both drive off.

At the hospital, they learn that Ray's back isn't broken as they had feared. In fact, he seems perfectly fine, despite the gory details. However, Ray informs the team that he can no longer feel a connection to the Blue Beetle suit embedded in his spine, and a scan from James confirms that the 'scarab' that contained the suit seems to have flat-lined. They return to the cave to inform Green Arrow and Black Canary, who were in the middle of some... post-heroic... calisthenics. They quickly end such exercises in order to better asses the situation. Ollie, having some medical and technical knowledge, recommends some slight invasive surgery to check on the scarab. Though afraid, Ray accepts, and the rest of the evening is spent going through the operation.

However, Ray seems to have miraculously healed from the invasive surgery bit. Unfortunately, Oliver is not entirely familiar with the tech, and is unable to give Ray more information beyond the fact that it seems to have been deactivated. Oddly enough, Juan has found that his sub-dermal communicator was also damaged after their encounter. This seems to make sense with Bane's modus operendi, as the pair of older heroes informs the team about Bane's neo-luddite group and their past acts of terrorism against major centers of technology and progress. Ollie mentions that it looks like LexCorp technology, and the only person who would know for sure would likely be Lex Luthor himself, who is currently on death row.

After a few days of recovery, Ray is well enough to go back to school. His humiliation compounds during gym, where the coach, who is extremely biased against meta-humans, arranges a game of dodge-ball with regular humans against metas. Johnny is not involved, as he is outside of the gym, making out with his college aged girlfriend and fellow vigilante Firebird. James lets off some frustration with the assholes in his gym class, and Ray gets pummeled. Juan savors the final blow, knocking the last kid out with vigor.

We have a rather... awkward scene following in the showers, the main conversation piece being the size of Beast Boy's... equipment, comparing it to that of a horse. Yes, in this group we have the range of maturity of deep character actions and roleplaying... to jokes about the kind of equipment Beast Boy can have as a shapeshifter. Quite the group, huh?

Well, that conversation shifts into one about metahuman rights and how it should be illegal for them to be persecuted in such a way. See what I mean about this group?

Anyway, out in the hallway, Ray has a scene with his heart-throb, Tori Anders (Starfire), who actually shows a bit of sympathy for his condition. Offering her support, she gives him her actual phone-number, which brings a little light into Ray's life.

When Ray returns home, after attending German Culture Club, getting dressed in lederhosen and eating sausage, he goes to the Arrow Cave to find Ollie, who is incredibly concerned. They have a heart-to-heart, with Ollie admitting that a part of him sees himself as a father figure, and that Ray needs to snap out of this funk and get his life back in order. He arranged for Ray to have twenty minutes with Lex Luthor to try to figure out the suit issue. James goes alongside him, as he is the only one who can drive the jet they had stolen from the League of Assassins several episodes earlier.

They arrive at the secret facility in the middle of nowhere in which Lex Luthor is being held captive until his execution. Ray is escorted deep into the bowels of the facility into a small interrogation room where the powerful bald man is seated. Lex Luthor begins politely but cannot keep his rage in check for long, showing his anger that Ray's father had stolen his special suit that was designed to fight Superman. However, he offers to help Blue Beetle fix the issue with his armor if he vows to stop his superheroics forever. Holding his ground, Ray refuses. Impressed with his loyalty, Lex lets a word of advice slip, saying that if he truly wanted to be the Blue Beetle again, he could.

With a show of willpower, Ray summons the Blue Beetle suit back to his body. He learns that the suit has bonded to him as a defense mechanism and is now permanently linked to him, using his body to supply the energy. Lex Luthor vows to get the suit back, even if Ray has to die, but he quickly writes that off and tries to return home with James.

The session ends with Johnny and Juan playing video games when a televised message overrides the signal, as often happens. It is Bane, announcing that he will cleanse the city of technology with a specialized EMP, forcing the people to either die or adapt. Before anyone has a chance to react, in true Ozymandias style, he announces that the EMP had already been launched before the TV shuts down.

Bum.. Bum.. BUM!

My Reactions:

This session showed the good and bad aspects of having the TV show format with an episode centering around one character. In that sense, it was a great way to test these things. Of course, experimenting in this fashion does have its negative effects, which I will elaborate on below.

On the plus side, the action scene at the beginning was really cool and worked for everyone. Trying to mix things up a bit, I had the team split in two, but all being in the same action scene, trying out that sort of system. Also, I was doing my best to build the Doom Pool to 2d12 in order to end with the catalyst that will set up the main problem for the episode, hence Ray losing his powers. This involved a lot of grandstanding, which I haven't done before, and that was pretty fun. Especially playing with the narrative, such as working on the missile silos or throwing a car to create some chaos.

One thing that perplexed me was that, when Bane attacked Blue Beetle, he refused a reaction due to the fact that Ray was still pretty traumatized by being beaten up by big guys with super strength, even if this universe's Bane is a bit more scrawny with the Venom effect being less obvious physically. I wasn't exactly sure how you would handle a non-reaction, so I simply let it be that the effect die was applied immediately.

Now, one major failure of this session was that I was expecting Ray and the team to go on a search for the one who created the Blue Beetle suit. However, Ray's player wanted some scenes at school to emphasize his powerless-ness, so I incorporated that, and things never really went on the tangent that I expected. Unfortunately, that meant that I had less for the rest of the team to do while Ray tried to deal with his lack of powers. There was some RP here and there, but the second act kind of deflated for everyone but Ray. Again, my fault, but the others did have fun, as evidenced by my post-game wrap-up that usually lasts until the wee hours of the morning with this group. Still, this emphasizes the need for B-plots in episodes like this.

Not much more to say besides that, except that I really need to figure out this two-parter. Should be good!

Oh, and my Bane voice is awesome.

Hope you enjoyed this session summary! If not, here's a funny picture.

-Wes