Which villains do you think are the most sympathetic?
And, a related question - which villains do you think are most likely to make temporary alliances with the heroes in order to fight an even greater evil?
I think one of the most sympathetic villains is Dawn. She's basically the Magneto of the Sentinels universe. I don't know if there is severe paranoia towards metahumans in the Sentinels universe, and or how much adversity Dawn has had to overcome in her life, but I imagine it's been quite a bit. The only part that would really make me question having sympathy with her is how she treated her daughter.
I'd also put the Dreamer pretty high on the list since she's just a child who does not have control of her powers and isn't intentionally evil.
Dreamer and Iron Legacy are both very sympathetic to me.
The Dreamer's just a poor kid who's wrapped up problems beyond her ken. Iron Legacy is motivated purely by tragedy and his inability to grieve in a healthy manner.
I don't feel bad for Dawn whatsoever. She casts her own kid out because ExPatriette doesn't have metahuman powers? That's just harsh. And where Magneto has the Holocaust-tragedy angle, Dawn's metahuman superiority angle comes from pure egotism. According to her bio, she just "lost patience" with normal people; she wasn't the victim of tragedy or prejudice, ergo I have no sympathy for her.
I do feel bad for poor Aminia Twain. While vengeful, she's the victim of colliding time/dimensions. She needs a good friend to help her get back to her senses.
The Dawn-Magneto comparison is really great for this discussion. I have no sympathy for a 3 year old throwing a hissy fit, be they the leader of an army of x-gene mutants, or the leader of an army of metahumans living on dinosaur island. The constant whining from everyone in the x-men universe is pretty much the reason I avoid them.
Iron Legacy's story is... again kind of annoying. His bio even talks about how prepared Pauline was for her father's death in the main universe, to have Legacy bring his daughter into the world of the Freedom Five and to freak out when she dies is... well... annoying.
Completely agree with the dreamer though. Although is she technically disqulified from this as she's not actually a villain?
It could be argued that Omnitron is the way he(?) is due to programming, like HAL was - I mean, once he installs an empathy chip into himself he's just fine...so technically he ends up correcting the mistake his original designers made when they decided whey wanted a literal killing machine.
Interesting. That's definitely not how I saw IL's story. He freaked out not just because he lost his daughter but because, with her death, the Legacy was coming to an end with him. His entire life had been this role, and to see it end like this was catastrophic to him, as he believes the world needs it. He wanted to fix the world so it wouldn't need the Legacy any longer, and it would be fixed if it liked it or not. I don't know that I'd say he freaked out as much as he came to the cold, hard conclusion that he had to take drastic measures.
That's my perception, anyway. 
Considering Legacy and his line are full fledged American heros, I am not quite sure if there is any x-menish type paranoia toward meta humans. It is quite possible the Chairman and Pike Industrial providing super serums to criminals has the general public pretty worried though.
Of course, X-Men type paranoia doesn't even make sense within the Marvel universe. Apparently everyone has the innate ability to detect mutants from mutates, and automatically hates mutants.
And Spider-Man.
I've actually heard from Christopher that Dawn can be described (in an oversimplified way, granted) as very Magneto-esque, sans any sort of redeeming value. She is a megalomaniac bent on breaking non-metas and having meta-humanity do what they please with no consequences to their actions.
I feel intense, horrible, painful sympathy toward all of the Gene-Bound Minions. Especially the Psy-Weavers...considering they're just brains trapped in monstrous centipede...things. They're just tragic. And the Shock Infantry...the maniacal expression on his face and the quote from Tempest is just soul crushing.
Yeah, Dawn is certainly written to be an unsympathetic Magneto, what with the fact that she didn't actually care about helping other metahumans (she just wanted to hide out with the dinosaurs) until some random fugitives showed up to start worshipping her and she decided to make an army, the insane glare she's sporting in all her art, the way she treated her daughter (and rumors that she killed the father for "failing" by siring an unpowered child), etc.
In fact, Sentinels seems to work pretty hard to avoid any sympathetic villains. They're all brutally amoral, clearly insane, totally devoid of any comprehensible thoughts and reasons, or just psychotically self-absorbed. The only exceptions so far are, as mentioned, victim of circumstances The Dreamer, and fallen hero Iron Legacy. And Iron Legacy's sympathy bid really is questionable - lots of people throughout history have had to see their children die, or the business their family built for generations go under, or the country they cared so much about be destroyed, and managed somehow to not go postal about it. Can we really hold our "Finest Legacy" to a lower standard just because, what, he cares more? Hmmmmm.
But that looks like it'll change soon! Based on what we know now*, Proletariat sounds like the real deal. He was legitimately dedicated to his government, and gained powers (at personal risk) in its name... but then they put him on ice, and forgot about him. He's practically a Soviet Captain America, only his hiatus was due not to a heroic sacrifice, but being directly betrayed by the ideals he stood for. That's pretty darn sympathetic - I intend to take a crack at a playable Proletariat hero deck, once I've seen the Vengeful Five.
Ironic
* This is a heavy caveat - based on her released blurb, I expected Kismet to be a classy catburglar type, instead of a psychotic addict.
Oh that's been confirmed. She really did kill the guy.
The villain I feel is most sympathetic is Spite. All he wants to do is suck out everyone's life force and do drugs. Is that really so bad?
I think I would have to go with Matriarch. It's her parents who constantly harped on her for not being as good as her cousin that made her go down the life of crime.
The most likely villain I see helping out the heroes would be Omnitron, give him a hundred years and i'm sure he'll realize the error of his ways.
Agreed. Seriously, what parents compare a jaded teenager to a super-scientist superhero who has revolutionized multiple fields and is the fastest woman alive!? As far as I'm concerned, THEY'RE the real villains.
No love for The Operative?
She was a student of Mr Fixer who just got pushed down the wrong when he gave up, it's all his fault that she didn't turn out to be an ally rather than a nemesis.
I would consider the (closest to) sympathetic villains to be:
Dreamer: Just a kid with no control over her powers.
Miss Information: she's a victim of the time cataclysm
Iron Legacy: he's overzeoulous and brutal, but his goal is (in his mind) altruistic/necessary.
Matriarch: she's young enough that she could conceivably be reformed as she matures
And I'd the see the following as villains who might, in the right circumstances, be open to helping the heroes.
La Capitan: a thrill seeking pirate, but probably open to alliances
The Operative: Sort of a victim of circumstance; she's almost sympathetic. However, she's also extremely rational. I could easily see her (and the Chairman) chipping in against a bigger problem, but still trying to profit from it.
Kismet: She sounds like a sociopath, but one who might form an alliance for the fun of it.
Ambuscade: Morally, he's no more sympathetic than Spite (hell, Spite has an excuse - he's completely crazy. Ambuscade is just a sociopath). However, I could see him actually forming an alliance against a bigger evil, but not for moral reasons, just to satisfy his own ego.
Wow, harsh. Apparently, every person who has ever known somebody that became a violent criminal is directly responsible for this fact, while the criminals themselves are innocent. (Granted, I suspect that Fixer blames himself just as much as you do, but it sounds pretty silly to me.
I suppose The Matriarch is somewhat sympathetic, if one grants that she's just a confused kid and is flipping out with the mask for a relatively short time (or being posessed by it). Her actions are as reprehensible as many others, but even supervillains probably get an exception for being a minor - again, assuming her villainous career is relatively brief.
I find Miss Information to be less sympathetic than Spite, so I am deeply confused by the outpouring of votes for her, here. Either she is completely insane (see: Spite), or her reasoning boils down to: "the superheroes dared to put the needs of the few above the needs of me personally. As the most important thing in the universe, I must kill them for their arrogance, even in a timeline where they haven't even done that!" I just don't see a good way to spin that.
Almost anyone might ally with the heroes under the right circumstances, though - in my games, we're about to have a big fight between Iron Legacy and all the heroes who could get there in time - assisted by none other than Baron Blade!
Ironic
I wanna say her villain career is short. For the sole purpose that she doesn't appear very often outside her own deck. Unless I have missed something, I think Haka's Savage Mana is the only other card that depicts the Matriarch. Of course Chairman hasn't appeared outside of his deck either, but we already know for a fact he has been carrying a career as a villain for a few life times.
The only villains that have not made an appearance in Shattered Timelines are Matriarch, Chairman, Voss, and Baron Blade. I think we can actually account for each of these other than Matriarch. Chairman may still be in the shadows and have yet to be discovered, if he has than maybe he is recoverying. Voss is currently in another dimension or something as seen by NightMist's Mistbound. While Baron Blade is most likely wrapping up his formation of the Vengeful Five. The Matriarch though? Who really knows, perhaps she is in juvie. Or maybe she is being taught by someone to be set on the right path.
Very much this. The fact that he can't handle a scenario that was from the very start very likely makes me think less of Iron Legacy altogether.
About his whole lineage being done after her death… well that was a risk that was always there. It was a risk he himself took when he was out fighting crime before Young Legacy was born. If he was that concerned about lineage he should have kept her in the sidelines until she herself had a kid.
Bottom line. You don't put your daughter in life-threatening situations by raising her to be a member of the FF and then totally betray all your principles when she dies.
Akash'Bhuta is just doing her job. She's a chaos entity, and frankly the Final Wasteland is kind of awesome, and I like to think that's Akash run wild. Just because her idea of creation isn't cohabitable by humans doesn't mean she's evil, just misunderstood.
The Matriarch is basically a teenager who is lashing out. Teenagers with Super Powers is bad for the world. You would hope that Meredith gets some time with her to help the kid out. She'd be an awesome hero. (and a super fun deck to play)
I'm sympathetic towards repair drone. Poor thing just wants to fix stuff, does a good job too.
Almost any villain would team up if they were threatened, unless they are crazy or not-human. I could see Voss going down before he'd accept help, but he would also use the heroes if it helped him. I couldn't see Blade helping Legacy, he'd rather destroy the world than do that, Akash and Plague Rat probably wouldn't be able to.
The ones I could see helping when they weren't directly threatened would be The Matriarch, Kismet, and Iron Legacy if it was a threat to the world he couldn't handle alone. I could see a redemption storyline where he needed the Freedom six to help stop a tougher Grand Warlord Voss invasion, and working with his them could make him look differently at things. Of course I think Vengence kind of puts the Iron Legacy line out, as Baron Blade is alive, I can't imagine him surviving in the Iron Legacy timeline.
Iron Legacy is what could of happened, while Vengeance is what does happen. Or something like that. The main time line is the one we are on the ride for, the one which Legacy dies and Young Legacy will take his place. Iron Legacy's back story says that he pulverizes Baron Blade until he was no more.
I do not think Legacy will end up dieing in our main timeline like he is supposed to. Grandpa Legacy falling into a timeportal and showing up randomly probably has an impact on how the Vengeance narritive will play out. Thats not even mentioning the presence of Dark Visionary who screws the main timeline up more than Ganpappy does.
On second thought I see Iron Legacy is a sympathetic villain, he believes that any wrongs must be made right by him, there is no Legacy to pass the mantle, the world must be safe when he dies.
That may lead him to be the most monstrous of villains, but it is being misguided, not being evil that leads him. Slowly his grief, and the refusal of others to see why he must do what he must turns him against his friends and innocents, he will make the world safe, no matter who he must fight to do so. I find him a very sympathetic villain.
[quote="phantaskippy"] Akash'Bhuta is just doing her job. She's a chaos entity, and frankly the Final Wasteland is kind of awesome, and I like to think that's Akash run wild. Just because her idea of creation isn't cohabitable by humans doesn't mean she's evil, just misunderstood...
On second thought I see Iron Legacy is a sympathetic villain, he believes that any wrongs must be made right by him, there is no Legacy to pass the mantle, the world must be safe when he dies.That may lead him to be the most monstrous of villains, but it is being misguided, not being evil that leads him. [/quote]
I see this in a lot of discussions of assorted fiction beings, and I just don't get it.
Who cares about some abstract idea of "evil" when compared to genocide? if something is so far removed from human morality that we cannot blame it for mass murder, then it's pretty hard to sympathize with, right? As in, literally impossible, by definition? And if we're willing to meet those beings on their own terms, why can't we meet the billions they would kill on their own terms?
Although, really, I don't think Iron Legacy gets to hide behind even that convoluted excuse. He's murdering his friends for disagreeing with him. That's not okay, no matter the excuse - debate of whether it is "evil" does more to discredit the idea of evil than to excuse Iron Legacy.
> I'm sympathetic towards repair drone. Poor thing just wants to fix stuff, does a good job too.
On this, we completely agree. Good old Repair Drone.
Though, really, there's lots of villain targets I find sympathetic. Voss' slaves, obviously. And I really wonder about the stories behind some of the Citizens - were Blood, Sweat, and Tears outcasts due to their appearances and possible fear-manipulation powers? Anvil never speaks, and enters battle only to protect his less hardy allies, what's his story? The four season Citizens all have little poems about themselves... except that Winter's is delivered by Dawn rather than herself, does she have doubts? - though it is possible I overthink such things.
And, of course, no discussion of sympathetic minions would be complete without a mention of Blade Battalion Guy Furthest To The Viewer's Left, his awkward posture and downturned mouth showing that he has no interest in all this fighting, and is only here because it's so hard to make enough money to provide for his family back in Lithuania. Poor guy.
Ironic
Who cares about some abstract idea of "evil" when compared to genocide?
It's a question of scale.
We don't call eradicating an entire colony of Termites Genocide, because they aren't human. Akash'bhuta isn't Human either, She is a god, and to her we are play things, if we are making a garden we think nothing of tearing out weeds and letting them die, only to replace them with different plants that we like better and if Akash is remaking a part of the world the way she wants and we are in her way she would remove us. We fight her in self-defense, she fights because she is being attacked while doing her thing.
She is the role of chaos in creation, we may hold her at bay, but I would have a hard time ascribing right or wrong to either party, she is acting out her role in creation, and we are acting in self-defense. If Akash dates back to the beginning of creation then the Heroes would be more wrong than her, as we are imposing our will against the natural order.
From our perspective she is wrong, because humans have decided that human life is valuable.
Anyone else feel bad for all of the innocent Fowl compelled to peck at the heroes by The Matriarch?
No. I hate birds.
If God intended animals to fly he would have made them airplane pilots.
Matriarch provides the flavor text for Skunk Ape.
I better indication of her criminal career might be the comic numbers on her flavor text. If they have a wide range, that argues a long criminal career.
Hmm… Though we can't really determine if she is with or against the heroes in that. Perhaps Tachyon has came to her for help and than it lead to a wacky adventure!
Matriarch appears in Freedom Five #690 and #691. Plus two additional titles that she is the lead villain in.
I want you to know: this made my day.
My thanks.
Not many villains that are sympathetic, but I do feel Plague Rat fits the bill. Sure, guy was a drug-dealer and probably scum, but then his hidey-hole devolved him, stripped him of all humanity, and made him completely incapable of doing anything but follow base intincts, mostly hunt, eat, and "breed". It makes me feel a little bad for him, it isn't like he had a choice in the matter, and it was the dangerous chemicals, improperly disposed of by the Chairman that turned him into what we see today.
I can't take Plague Rat seriously. He's far too similar to a Captain Planet villain.
I've always felt Rook City and its villains really had more of a "World of Darkness" vibe. I always think of Werewolf: The Apocalypse with Plague Rat.
Well, not to dog pile on Plague Rat too much, but as I was introducing the game to someone and explained Plague Rat as having been mutated from toxic waste, she immediately said "So he's like Splinter?" (the teenage mutant ninja turtle trainer). Albeit I had to explain Plague Rat is a villain and his personality is way different, I just quietly have never been able to look at him the same way again after that Splinter comparison. 
(okay okay, Splinter was a rat mutated in to a rat-man while Plague Rat is a man mutated in to a rat-man, so i know there are more differences and all, just saying the comparison does pop in to my head every time he comes up as the villain)
Except for when he's a man mutated into a rat-man (80's and newest cartoon series)
I would now attempt to rerail the topic but…
Gloomy just kind of is, isn't he? Or at least he was…
As far as sympathetic villains, there really aren't many, which is a bit disappointing to be honest. Too many of the villains seem to be evil for the sake of being evil (I'm looking at you Apostate and Gloomweaver).
In addition, many of the villains have very flimsy and petty excuses for being evil. Both of Tachyon's nemeses, Friction and The Matriarch, are so petty it's pathetic. The two of them are essentially just throwing tantrums over imagined slights, and are completely unreasonable and childish (at least The Matriarch has the excuse of actually being a teenager). I was kind of disappointed when I learned Ermine's backstory, given that she is clearly the Catwoman to Wraith's Batman, and yet lacks any of the redeeming qualities and character depth that Catwoman posesses. She too seems childish and pathetic.
Iron Legacy is not all that sympathetic. Sure, I feel bad for the poor guy, no one should have to watch their own child die, but that certainly doesn't justify his reaction. I can't blame him for killing Baron Blade, but his regime of terror? That I can certainly blame him for. Yes, his daughter was murdered. Baron Blade's father was killed by Legacy's father, that doesn't make Baron Blade sympathetic, and the excuse isn't much stronger for Iron Legacy. I actually found the idea of Iron Legacy kind of disturbing, it's frightening to think that Legacy was that unhinged, that unstable.
Miss Information is sort of sympathetic, but not really. She's a victim of the overlapping timelines, but her reaction is still over the top. The woman is clearly very intelligent, she could have gotten work wherever she wanted, yet she chose to assist the Sentinels. Surely she must have been at least partially motivated by a desire to help others, and yet here she is trying to murder the people she worked with because in another timeline they let her die. I can't really sympathize with her.
Plague Rat is actually one of the more sympathetic villains. He's a victim of circumstance, was probably poor and almost destitute before his transformation. Sure, he was a drug dealer, the guy was also homeless, he wasn't exactly a drug lord, he was just trying to get by however he could. And now he's been robbed of his very humanity, become a mindless beast, living in a terrifying world in which he can't coexist peacefully. Hard not to feel bad for the poor guy.
The Dreamer is also fairly sypmathetic, again, a victim of circumstance, and clearly not really a villain, just a victim of her own powers. Not sure it's even fair to call her a sypmathetic villain, she's not really a villain at all.
One of the more sympathtic villains in my opinion is Fright Train. This guy is the victim of an uncaring society. He's a veteran, who nearly died serving his country, and yet when he returns home, he can barely find work and realizes there are next to no opportunites for him. He tragically makes the mistake of embarking on a career as an illegal mercenary, using the skills he has to try and make a name for himself, to carve out a life for himself. And in return, he gets experimented on against his will and subsequently locked up in an extradimensional prison. Plus, the fact that in the Iron Legacy timeline he has taken up the mantle of Bunker suggests to me that he really is a decent guy, just misguided and frustrated.
Lastly, I kind of wish we knew more about Akash'Bhuta. She never speaks, so we have no way of knowing her motivations. She may simply be lashing out at society for the way we have been systematically killing the planet for thousands of years, in which case, can you really blame her? But unfortunately, we have no way of knowing that, and so she just seems like a mindless monster.
That turned out way longer than I intended. I have always loved villains in movies and games though, so it should come as no surprise that I feel strongly about this sort of thing I suppose.
Would you have rather they lifted Catwoman whole cloth and named her "Feline Fatale" instead? I understand that you don't mean that they should've both just been complete lifts of the characters, but I'm ok with the fact that Wraith gets a transhuman serial killer as her main arch and a frivolous thief as her baddie on the side. Just because she is inspired by Batman doesn't mean she should just BE Batman.
I definitely get where you're coming from with Tachyon, though. I've never been terribly impressed with The Matriarch as a nemesis, but I love Friction's "reverse Tachyon" design.
Friction's design is awesome, but for me, her bio just doesn't hold up. She's... bad at everything, and everyone (hero and villain alike) just wants to ignore her. EPIC NEMESIS! Characters like this obviously exist in coics, too, and they can be pretty amusing - but as one of the focal characters of a huge event? That seems rather weak to me. In Tachyon's own words: "dude, you are not my nemesis."
As for Ermine, I disagree with both of you - I think she is a direct lift, and I wish she weren't. So, if nothing else, it shows how open to personal opinion this kind of discussion is.
Ironic
Perhaps true, but I'd definitely say she's LESS sympathetic than Magneto. He's a holocaust survivor, whereas she's basically just a bullied teen. Plus the cult-like and communistic vibes of the CotS are definitely way creepier than even christening your followers the "Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants" (I always figured that name was meant to be ironic, though still questionable.)
It was clarified earlier in the thread that Dawn is just meglomaniacal. So I wouldn't put her in my list of sympathetic villains so far. My list contains the Dreamer for obvious reasons, and even though I'm not really sympathetic to Iron Legacy, I still think his story is very sad. I guess there might be some sympathy for Omnitron since he becomes O-X and then ends up on a quest to end his own existence. I'd put Proletariat on the list since he was basically forgotten about and abandoned and is being forced into a world he doesn't really understand very well.
The Brotherhood of Mutants, originally known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (although its members themselves never used the term), is a fictional Marvel Comics supervillain team devoted to mutant superiority over normal humans. They are among the chief adversaries of the X-Men. The original Brotherhood was created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby and first appeared in X-Men #4 (March 1964).
Why can't Legacy have more kids? That would continue the line. He could have a whole family of Legacies. Life isn't over after one bad event.
It's not the kid, it's the power (though I'm sure the kid is a part of it). The powers are passed down through the first born, Paula's death stops the legacy of powers, hence him heading down the Iron Fisted path to cleanse the world of evil while there is still a 'Legacy' to do so.
This came up before...and sort of mutated into a discussion of "What if a Legacy has twins/triplets etc?" :D.
That would be interesting, what could be the explanation for a genetic mutation that only passed on to the first born?
Either way I would think Paternal/Maternal Twins would have a chance to both have the powers, since they share DNA.
We know it is genetic based because Baron Blade's serum counters Legacy's Genetics.
Who's to say it's "genetic mutation" and not more akin to magic and Blade's serum isn't a magic potion?
Baron Blade in the annual says it reacts to Legacy's genetics, he might not be trustworthy.
Do you mean fraternal/identical twins?
As far as my university-level genetics knowledge goes, I can't think of a way that a genetic trait could specifically be passed on to only the firstborn*. But maybe since the superpowered portion of the Parsons line is relatively short, it could well be that the firstborn in each case has got "lucky" and got the right genes by random chance and any subsequent children haven't, leading to a misinterpretation of the type of inheritance due to small sample size and a bit of luck.
Do we know if all the Legacies before Young Legacy were all male? If it wasn't for YL I'd suggest that maybe the trait is dominant and Y-linked and the firstborns all happened to be male and thus inherited the super Y chromosome from their father, and that they were either an only child or al subsequent children were either female, or illegitimate (i.e. with a different father which is not at all uncommon), or both. But of course Baby Legacy blows that theory out of the water, since she's female and doesn't have a Y chromosome but obviously has the superpower genes.
The most likely explanation is that it's comic book logic at work, which means that basically any old explanation works as long as you use words like "genetic" or "mutation" or "dilithium".
That means that it is keyed to Legacy and his family. Nothing more.
And Gloomweaver chuckles about when he gave Blade the recipe.
The most likely explanation is that it's comic book logic at work, which means that basically any old explanation works as long as you use words like "genetic" or "mutation" or "dilithium"
I think what it really means is that the Parson's are actually ridden with guilt over the Revolution, and are secretly longing for the Monarchy to return, thus only the oldest gets the genes.
That Pauline got it this time (for the only female Legacy, and only known female carrier of the genes) could have something to do with Elizabeth.
I think it is more than a Coincidence, and is likely a key insight into the >G guys really wishing they were British.
You'd think they'd've come up with at least one British character so far, then ;). But no, no English, no Scottish, no Welsh, no Irish...maybe there'll be one in a later expansion :D.
Seriously, we go through Shattered Timelines and get a cowboy and a robot, no Robin Hood or Knight of the round table with a jetpack. So wrong.
Doesn't everyone really wish they were British?
Apart from us British people, of course.
I'd definitely like to see a British hero or villain.
Yeah, that'd be cool :). And since >G are good enough to stay away from the boring stereotypes, we can be sure that an English character wouldn't be a moustache-twirling, top-hat-wearing villain or posh, monocled, tea-drinking hero, a Scottish character wouldn't be some crazy, claymore-wielding red-haired nutjob in a kilt, a Welsh character wouldn't be...closely attached to sheep, and an Irish character wouldn't be a red-haired idiot ;).
Chip is British.
Also, surely at least one member of the Ennead is British. To have a team of villainous archaeologists without at least one Englishman would be in defiance of the greatest Hollywood traditions.
Really? Where did you get that from? [Edit: the Chip bit, I mean.]
I suppose one measly minion's better than nothing, but not a substitute for an actual character.
Hey! La Capitan doesn’t have “measly minions”!
His flavour text.
Well, In GSF, one of the Techno-Dwarves is Grey Hammer.
That doesn't exactly scream British to me, to be honest.
There are no Americans named Chip. ;)
Well I never met anyone named after a fried potato product over here...
For such, assuming we are not considering the supernatural, etc., we are in the realm of epigenetics – " functionally relevant modifications to the genome that do not involve a change in the nucleotide sequence". Yes, your DNA is 'read' and becomes proteins which do things and make you who you are, BUT there are environmental and other factors that can effect how your proteins are expressed AND, most importantly, it's actually possible for factors that effect your protein expression BESIDES your DNA to be heritable. In other words, we used to believe that it was not possible for anything besides 'genes' to be passed on from parent to child, but that is known to be false.
I put 'genes' in quotes, because the original concept of a gene was an abstract one – the part of our body that defines who we are. Through the discovery of DNA and its role in protein expression, we came to define genes as nuceotide sequences. Since we've since learned that there are other factors that are heritable, I wonder if our common definition of what a gene is is still appropriate.
Anyway, how does this help us answer the question? Well, perhaps there is something about Legacy's first born that somehow uses up whatever is required to inherit powers. It would have to be pretty strange – something like the very first batch of sperm are carrying the powers and once shot, they're shot. Every single Legacy down the line would have had to successfully impregnated upon first ejaculation.
"Chip" is generally a nickname.
Well, to a non-Brit like me he all but announced his intention to have tea and crumpets after the dogfight.
"Crackin'" is not very American as slang. I don't know if it actually British.
Is he quite posh-sounding, then? I've not actually read his fluff text - I think I'm normally too busy getting my arse kicked :P.
Chip sounds to me like what Americans tend to think we British sound like.
"Cracking" is a thing we say occasionally, but it's not "stereotypically" British. If it said "spiffing" or "smashing" then I'd agree but "cracking" really doesn't say English fighter pilot to me and definitely doesn't seem right for the period his clothing suggests he's from. I don't think we can conclude he's English from that.
Ameena, the text is, "Why, hello there! Up for a crackin' dogfight?"
"Why, hello there! Up for a crackin' dogfight?"
That is totally what an American would imagine a Brit would say.
At least one American did.
L'Epeiste is clearly French, he even has a destroyed Effiel Tower in the background but no identifying marks for Chip, I guess not even the villains of the Sentinels' multiverse dare to touch England.
The crew of La Paradoja Magnifica are:
[list]
[] The Amazing Mable, Mable Griffin. The use of “sugar” in the flavor text sounds pretty American to me. She is a flying trapeze artist, which according to Wikipedia was introduced around 1860 in France.
[] Final Breath, Ishikawa Zenjirou Kagemune. Pretty obviously Japanese. Ronins were active in the feudal Japan period, 1185-1868.
[] Chip, Charles “Chip” Stevenson. Flight goggles, scarf, and gun look WWI or WWII.
[] L’Épéiste, Pierre le Vignierz. Obviously French, but “Vignierz” is a pretty wierd name to me; does anyone know more? The Eiffel Tower, which seems to be under construction in his background, was constructed 1887-1889.
[] Battle Forged, Orinn Haugen, Scandinavian. The Viking age was ~790-1066.
[] Trueshot, Khutulan Bekhi. The names are Mongolian, but I don’t know enough to say more.
[*] Siege-Breaker, Geremio Esaltazione del Signore. Spanish name, right? The glasses look a little anachronistic 
I thought it was obvious that Chip was British.
If the British don't think so then it wasn't that obvious.
Well, not necessarily; it's an American game, and so the characters, especially minor characters who need quick characterisation, would be designed to be obvious for Americans, which it apparently is, not for the British. If GTG put out a British hero (or villain), I imagine they would be a lot more well-rounded than Chip, but for a minor member of a crew meant to represent various nationalities and ages I'd say he was good enough at evoking Britain (though I hadn't realised he was one of ours until this thread).
I think 'smashing' has more global reach than 'cracking', which I've never heard a non-Brit say.
Chip is polite, uses good grammer and says a word that clearly isn't American. He's a Brit.
It is funny that he is so obviously Brittish to us Americans, and not at all to anyone Brittish.
Something about stereotypes and all of us learning something and getting along.
Take a look at the Hayes brothers in Silver Gultch, Matthew Hayes looks far more British than Chip, but as a memebr of the Hayes brothers there is no way he is British.
Hehe, I agree on Matthew Hayes - with his monocle and teacup he looks just like a stereotypical English posh guy...apart from the rifle and the fact he's part of a trio of Amercican, Wild West brothers ;).
The only example of the word "cracking" (no apostrophe) I can think of is Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit ("Cracking toast, Gromit!"). If Chip was supposed to be a posh English guy I'd expect there to be no apostrophe - "cracking" instead of "crackin'". Still, if >G decide to make an actual proper British character (English or otherwise), at least they have plenty of people here to ask about it, right? ;)
Hehe, I agree on Matthew Hayes - with his monocle and teacup he looks just like a stereotypical English posh guy...apart from the rifle and the fact he's part of a trio of Amercican, Wild West brothers ;).
That's a proper Western dandy, is all.
The phenomenon usually called "g-dropping" (which is really a misleading name) occurs (as far as I know) in all varieties of modern English at all registers, although at varying frequencies. See http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000878.html . That article mentions studies on American English, but I believe British dialects are similar in this regard.
Of course it's very weird for us to be speaking as though there were a single way British people speak, and, you know, not all people living in the UK are upper class with the nice tea cups.
The dropped G is really what breaks the stereotype for me. He's a WW2 fighter pilot by the look of him, and stereotypically they're upper class and therefore speak very correctly with all their Gs intact. (I know that in real life that's not the case - airmen came from all walks of life - but the trope is of the dashing posh chap from a public school (which for you non-Brits is actually a private school - don't ask). Think Lord Flashheart from Blackadder, or Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf.)
I suppose my thought process is: if he's a fighter pilot and English he's posh. He drops the G so he isn't posh. Therefore he probably isn't English. Unless he's trying to "pass" for posh and not quite managing it?
If he'd said "hallo" instead of "hello" that would totally say English-from-that-time-period.
His whole "dogfighting as sport" attitude screams early WWI to me. And America wasn't in early WWI.
He's also obviously British to this Irishman.
Maybe Final Breath isn't obviously Japanese to a Japanese person. Anyone here Japanese? ;)
Well, his name follows modern Romaji perfectly, and Kagemune sounds exceptionally Japanese (as in I've heard both 'kage' and 'mune' in Japanese contexts before).
So English or American are the only two options?
I'm sure WW2 pilots were rather "sporting" too! I guess we could date Chip from his clothing, which I have no knowledge of whatsoever. But hey, time travelling ship… who knows?
I'm not Japanese, and only speak enough Japanese to ask directions sometimes. But the name is perfectly Japanese: Ishikawa Zenjirou Kagemune, 石川 善次郎 景宗. All three components are names used by real people. Ishikawa seems to be a clan name from the correct era: Ishikawa clan - Wikipedia
I'm guessing Paul knows Japanese. The calligraphy on Mr. Fixer's style cards looks not bad to my eyes, and appears to be done with a Japanese/Chinese calligraphy brush. (Again, I don't speak Japanese, so can't give a verdict better than "not bad".)
Update: I read a little more, and learned that Japanese names were substantially different before the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, and I can't vouch for any sort of correctness.
Speaking of which, while I wouldn't automatically go to this place with just any female hero, the fact that the Legacies are specifically a bloodline makes me think about Pauline being pregnant. Would she continue to crimefight in that condition, and risk losing the baby if "Baroness Blade" or whoever gets in a really good whompf on her? Or would she retire from superheroing for at least those nine months, leaving America without a Parsons hero for the first time since the 1770s? Either way, I see drama.
Actually it IS possible for a person who is apparently a woman to actually have a Y chromosome (or an apparent man to lack it, I think, though I only have confirmation of the former). There are several disorders which can cause this; the one I'm most familiar with is called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where the hormones that are supposed to cause male development in the fetus fail to work, and the child develops as physically female despite having XY genes. Of course, this tends to lead to fertility problems, which could be a BIG issue in terms of America having another Legacy after her.
Come on, if Chip were British, wouldn't his name be Crisp instead?
Know it just means he would be a French … excuse me … Freedom Fry.
That's an entirely valid perspective, but isn't it also possible that if he weren't British his name would be French Fry?
Or he could just be a small piece of stone or wood which has been broken off a larger object ;).
Would it really be the first time? Greatest Legacy died while Finest Legacy was 11 years old (we know this because Baron Blade was 13 at the time according to his bio, and he's two years older than Paul) , which surely left a gap while the boy grew up. And that might not even be the first time - it's dangerous being a superhero.
It is. Which is why I dislike Iron Legacy so much more? He knew the risks involved in having his daughter fight crime alongside him... The possibility if her death (and the subsequent end of his line) must have been something he considered at some point. So the fact that he lost it so bad makes him... well... awful, IMO
of course this all just means that they did him right. I dislike him in the sense a villain should be disliked. I really like his concept.
Ivan Ramonat was 13 when his mother died. That was after his father died, doesn't say how long. He doesn't kill Greatest Legacy until later when he's known as Baron Blade and has gained power.
Touche, and my mistake.
Regardless, it seems more than possible to me that it was while Paul was too young to take up the mantle, and/or that this has happened at some point in the past.
This might be a case of sarcasm that I am not getting. But that name pretends to be Italian.
Do you know what it means?