Nemesis icon question

I’ve been seeing a lot of discussions lately (mostly about the Sentinels) that seem to reference each hero being his own nemesis because his nemesis icon says so. Should any effect, whether hero, villain, or environment, which causes a hero to deal damage to himself actually be inflicting an extra HP? Have I been running, for example, Absolute Zero wrong this whole time, and he should be healing a minimum of 2 HP every time he shoots himself in the face with an ice beam?

More importantly to me, is that the actual intent of the nemesis icon, or was it meant to provide shorthand to indicate which villain is most dangerous to which hero(es)?

Nemesis bonus only applies when striking another target with your nemesis icon. So it usually runs quite smoothly except when decks have multiple targets with the said icon IE: The Sentinels and The Ennead

It's hard to be sure, but it's likely that Ennead members hitting each other extra-hard was an oversight; the point was almost certainly that Ra, the Ennead members, and Anubis should all be good against each other.  House-ruling that nemesis doesn't apply within a single team is not unreasonable, though I for one think it makes the Sentinels a little more interesting to picture them constantly bickering like the Fantastic Four.  It's just unfortunate that some nemesis bonuses are more one-sided than others - Chrono-Ranger gets tremendous mileage out of his bonus against Plague Rat because of how often he shoots, while Visionary gets absolutely no benefit against the Dreamer, but on the contrary can get a Game Over just by playing two Psychic Maelstroms because Nemesis acts as a strict disadvantage in her case.

It's not hard to be sure, it's been stated that was the intended interaction. The Ennead are not a team, they are a bunch of individual who happen to be working together, if one of them falls it's just more power for the others.

The ruling in my FAQ is exactly what was stated by Christopher on the forums - for simplicity's sake, ANY character with a particular nemesis icon will deal/receive extra damage to ANY OTHER character with that particular nemesis icon, except when damaging itself.  He explicitly said that members of the Ennead and Anubis would deal extra damage to each other if they were somehow made to hit each other.

So, it's not a misinterpretation of the designer's intent for the Sentinels members to have to deal extra damage to each other if they were ever to hit each other.  Again, the rule was done this way for simplicity, but of course you're free to houserule it away if you want.  We tend to play that the nemesis rule is only effective against cards from decks other than the attacker's to get around just the problem you're expressing.

I love the nemesis rulings for Ennead and Sentinels.

More than anyone the Sentinels fight together, for someone like Kismet to cause them to hit eachother, it would be harder for them to defend against than members of the Freedom 5, who don't always fight together, and watch their own back.

I know Writhe in the Sentinels deck can cause a villain to hit all other villain targets so that would be a way for Ennead to hit each other.  However, when I'm playing I don't normally use the nemesis rules.   

Thank you for the responses, everyone.

The explanation I've seen discussed here about heroes with similar nemesis symbols hitting each other harder was that guard would be lower around individuals who share that bond.

If anything the symbol seems to indicate strong feelings both positive and negative, as well as the effect they can have on the battlefield.  Your Flying Smash is smashier against the guy who killed your dad, but your daughter won't see your Motivational Charge coming.

I've made myself some special Nemesis tokens that say "Nemesis Damage +1" so I just pull those out when we are fighting a nemesis to help remind us.

I've totally been meaning to do something like that. Thanks for reminding me!

Yeah, I have a random assortment of "gems" (leftover from playing Magic) that I throw into the HP pile for anyone with a nemesis. That way, whenever I go to pull out HP I'm reminded to think about if the nemesis rule matteres.

I rememberthose gems from those mid-90s starter sets.  Still have some that I'll use in certain games that can use them.

I still have the little cardboard tokens from my 4th Edition starter set, the +1/-1 and other such counters, plus some other counters that I couldn't quite tell what they are, maybe poison counters.

Poison counters, life counters. Various +/-, -/-, +/+ counters. Those came from Magic: The Gathering comic books.

Had some of the comics as well, couldn't fully remember where the counters came from since it's been so long but knew they were for MtG.

i have a nemesis question about fanatic and apostates interaction, when famatic uses her hero character card power of exorcism against apostate is it 1 melee, 1 radiant, +1 nemesis for a total of 3 or 1 melee (+1 for nemesis) and 1 radiant (+1 for nemesis) for a total of 4? I have been reading around the forums trying to find a deffinitive answer but i couldnt find this particular question, it may be there, i just couldnt find it.

Thank you

4. Apply modifiers for each instance of damage, not once per power or card.

EDIT: It really is 2+2 not 4. This idea is important where you are hitting something with damage reduction, since it applies to both instances of damage.