Evaluation #6 - The Invisible Woman

Here it is guys, a truly momentous occasion. This will be the first actually new blog for me. As you may have read in the title, it's The Invisible Woman. I have decided to make sure that all of my reviews are objective. I want you (the readers) to feel like you're getting good information, rather than me just making up numbers from thin air. So anyway, with that we can begin.

The Invisible Woman


The Invisible Woman or Susan Storm, is a member of the Fantastic Four. She is a quintessential character of the Marvel universe, and is among the oldest and most popular comic book heroes. The Invisible Woman wears the typical Fantastic Four uniform. She initially went by Invisible Girl and then later changed her name to Invisible Woman. She debuted in Fantastic Four #1 in November 1961.

The Invisible Woman's brother is Johnny Storm or The Human Torch from the Fantastic Four. She and her brother grew up orphaned after the death of both their parents. They lived with their aunt where Storm eventually met Reed Richards (Mr. Incredible), her future husband. Reed was a scientist working on a new spacecraft, which lost its government funding. Reed was determined to test the prototype and when the crew went into outer space, a blast of cosmic energy shot their spacecraft back to Earth. Upon their return, the group including Susan Storm discovered new powers. Sue found she had the ability to become invisible. Later due to the lack of substance to her powers, writers decided to give her the ability to manipulate invisible force fields.

The Invisible Woman fought alongside the other Fantastic Four and eventually married Reed Richards. Eventually she became pregnant and due to her cosmically altered genes, had to obtain a special artifact from another dimension. After giving birth, she returned to the Fantastic Four. Sue Storm is very notable for her beautiful appearance. This has often led to many villains becoming infatuated by her. Dr. Doom and Namor the Sub-mariner are two of the most common suitors of Storm. In alternate realities, Storm actually has children with both Doom and Namor.

Storm was featured in both Fantastic Four movies, played by Jessica Alba. Her powers of invisibility can be transposed to other things and people but do not allow her to pass through solid objects. The force fields she controls can also be used in many ways including blunt weapons, walking platforms, or methods of containment. It should also be noted that The Invisible Woman's force fields are not indestructible and can actually cause physical harm to her if damaged enough. Some have criticized Storm for being the weakest member of the team, but her defensive abilities are a necessary asset to the team.

So let's get an evaluation under our belt...


Costume: Invisible Woman's costume is pretty simple, yet classy. She does however lose points because it is worn by 3 other members of the team. She is very sexy which would probably be the case no matter what she wore. 7/10

Powers: These powers are decent. The ability to become invisible is cool enough, but rarely is useful in situations other than infiltration or escape. These powers are obviously defensive and only practical as part of a team. They have limited attack use and aren't indestructible, which is a let-down. 6.5/10

Cool Factor: She is very sexy, which helps her case on this one. Other than her fine ass, Sue Storm is not very cool at all. It must be nice to be the token hot chick on a super group, but it won't get you too many points for Cool Factor. 6/10

Versatility: Even though her powers are primarily defensive, she is able to use them in a wide variety of ways. Her invisibility can be transmitted to other things, and her force fields can be used in countless ways. My favorite use of the force field is her ability to create one inside of a person, then expand it to essentially explode them. She has high levels of versatility even with her low levels of strength and overall ability. 8/10

Weakness: Other than the plight of being mortal, Invisible Woman has no true weaknesses. Her powers are limited which is a weakness, but you won't find her high-tailing away from Kryptonite. Also, her force fields can be penetrated by extremely powerful enemies. 7.5/10

That makes for an overall score of.......6.9

As always, feel free to leave comments or your own evaluations.

Further reading for this character can be found here.
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Hero Evaluation Scale

Evaluation #5 - Lady Deathstrike

Well, today's evaluation will be of Lady Deathstrike, a fierce, sexy, and not to mention female villainess. That's right! This will be the first female character to be evaluated. So ladies, you better have comments coming out of your ovaries!

Lady Deathstrike


Lady Deathstrike is a hyper-sexy femme fatale from the Marvel series of The X-men. Lady Deathstrike has a few costume variations, the most notable being the above due to her recent appearance in X-2.

May I just say, I would so hit that, regardless of the 12 inch scratch marks on my back the next morning. Lady Deathstrike first debuted in August 1983 in Daredevil #197.

Lady Deathstrike's real name is Yuriko Oyama. Her father, Kenji Oyama, was a Japanese scientist who developed the method for grafting adamantium to bone, a process later used on Wolverine. Yuriko sought the Daredevil to assist her to free her father from captors. In the end, she turned on her father as he nearly killed Daredevil. She then went psychotic to some extent and vowed to restore her family's honor. She enlisted the skills of a literal "body shoppe" and obtained cybernetic enhancements and an adamantium skeleton along with her trademark talons. (It should be noted that at this point in the comic, Lady Deathstrike looked as pictured below, not as the above picture, which is the Ultimate version of her). Her hunt to bring honor back to her family led her to Wolverine, and their rivalry was initiated because she wanted the adamantium from his very bones to be returned to her father's name. It should also be noted that Lady Deathstrike is NOT a mutant as portrayed in the movie, she was actually just cybernetically enhanced and given an adamantium skeleton. Her story ends there for the most part, but one blog-worthy incident between she and Wolverine should be recognized. When Wolverine lost his adamantium to Magneto, Lady Deathstrike disengaged a battle with him when she saw he merely had bone claws. She has a high sense of the honor code despite her social and mental instabilities.

Lady Deathstrike's powers include being a cyborg, which entails super-human strength, speed, and agility. She also has an adamantium skeleton, and ten 12 inch talons, one from each finger and thumb. She is skilled in many forms of martial arts and is also a skilled sword fighter. Although her usual role of assassin gives her a tendency to stealth, she can be extremely lethal either way. Lady Deathstrike has no known weaknesses other than her value of the honor-code.

And the evaluation goes like this...

Costume: I have to say that the Ultimate costume couldn't be hotter. I mean, a sexy Asian in a business suit. Mmmmmmm. But the retro costume is gonna cost her some points due to its, let's face it, ugliness. 7.5/10

Powers: These powers are pretty awesome. She has a very powerful arsenal. With ten 12" claws she can literally slice and dice her way to victory. Being a cyborg only helps due to her mechanical enhancements.8/10

Cool Factor: Lady FUCKING Deathstrike is pretty damn cool. She's crazy, gives wolverine hell, and has TEN FUCKING DEADLY FINGERNAIL CLAWS. 8/10

Versatility: She has a pretty good level of versatility. Yet, with no flight abilities or sea skills, she is grounded to ground fights. The cyborg enhancements help, but versatility here is still only average. 6.5/10

Weakness: She really has no "weaknesses" other than in any given fight. Her devotion to the honor-system can be a weakness in today's world, as many opponents will not hesitate to take the cheap shots. 7.5/10

So that comes to a final score of........7.65

Remember to comment and share your thoughts.

Further reading for this character can be found here.
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Hero Evaluation Scale

Evaluation #4 - Gambit

You know the deal. I'm migrating. Once I move all the old posts, I plan to do an evaluation once a week. We'll see if I can do more, but these require a lot of research, composition, and analysis. Hopefully this blog can be really cool, and if you're into it, tell your friends, subscribe, and comment! For this post, a lot of people seemed to really enjoy it, so without further ado...

Gambit


Gambit (real name Remy LeBeau) is a mutant in the comic book world of the X-Men. In the animated series and comics he was part of the X-men for some period of time and then later branched off to explore his own endeavors. He first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #266 in August of 1990 and has been a semi-popular character since. Gambit is traditionally depicted wearing a brown trench coat over a pink, purple, and navy spandex suit. Gambit was one of the first fictional characters to start the "trenchcoat trend" due to the fact that he just made it cool to wear one. Gambit has a French accent due to his childhood in New Orleans and was often criticized for his blatantly stereotypical dialogue.

Gambit was born and mostly raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was abandoned as a child due to his powers which gave him "burning red eyes." He then was later adopted by a street gang where he was given the nickname "le diable blanc" or white devil due to his mutant powers. With the street gang he learned his many abilities in thievery and cons. After attempting to unite two gangs of New Orleans by marrying a girl in a Romeo Juliet fashion, he was exiled from New Orleans.

After his childhood in New Orleans, Gambit roamed the earth honing his thief skills until he met the evil geneticist, Mister Sinister. Sinister helped Gambit by surgically lessening his powers to a more controllable level and in return Gambit agreed to do some missions for Sinister. Gambit (along with Sabretooth and other mutants) went to a subterranean society named the Morlocks and proceeded to slaughter them all. Gambit saved one Morlock who later became an X-Man, Marrow. Gambit encountered the X-Men when he saved Storm from being turned into a child by an evil mutant named "Nanny." He then fought alongside the X-Men and maintained a steady rivalry with Wolverine. Later in the series he became intimate with a fellow teammate, Rogue. Due to her powers of energy absorption, she could not previously have an intimate lover, yet due to Gambit's ability to create energy he acts as the perfect match for her.

Gambit's powers are derived from his ability to control and manipulate kinetic enery. He often uses cards to fight with as he heats them up and throws them so they explode on contact. Gambit's powers make him extremely agile and give him super-human reflexes which he uses alongside an adamantium telescoping staff. He also has mild hypnotic powers, but these are most likely derived from his expert knowledge in theft and deception.

Let's evaluate.

Costume: Now don't get me wrong, Gambit is a badass, but pink and purple spandex?@?!?!? I have to give him props for having the trench coat and overall looking and acting like a badass, but I must deduct some points due to the poor choice of color scheme. 6.5/10

Powers: Gambit's powers are pretty awesome. Just think, you could burn the fuck out of ANYTHING. He also does not just stick with his given abilities, as he uses an adamantium rod. I like this added bonus and along with his thievery this makes him a tough rival. 8.5/10

Cool Factor: Gambit is the original badass. Not only does he have the sheer "Ill fucking kill you" factor as with wolverine and the like, he has this suave (not to mention French) charm. His cool factor is also only helped by his use of cards as weapons. 9/10

Versatility: Gambit has a wide variety of powers and effectively uses them to his ability. Although the powers are a bit limited, he uses them is a strategic manner. 7/10

Weakness: Gambit doesn't have much of a weakness other than his various social insecurities/disorders. He faces abandonment issues as well as his inability to accept the slaughter of an entire mutant race. Overall, Gambit can hold his own but finds problems occasionally with teamwork. 7/10

So that makes an overall score of......7.65

Remember to leave your feedback and/or comments.


Further reading for this character can be found here.
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Hero Evaluation Scale

Evaluation #3 - The Joker

Ok, so for those of you who don't know, I am migrating this blog from myspace because I want this to be a stand-alone blog that I can devote more time to. So it may seem like I'm posting a lot in these first few days, but I'm really just putting up my old posts onto this blog. So anyway this is an evaluation of a villain, which I will do from time to time. Alright, here it is.

The Joker

The Joker is a super-villain of the super-hero Batman. He is arguably Batman's arch-enemy and his official death toll lies in the 1000's. He wears a purple business suit, has a white face, red lips, and green hair. His mouth is also deformed into a twisted smile that he cannot change. The other aspects of his costume are specific to each rendition but the basics remain the same. The Joker was based off of this character from the movie The Man Who Laughs. His first appearance was in Batman #1 in 1940.

Although the official history of The Joker is debateable because it is known by no one, each rendition consists of him being altered to look how he does because of a fall into a vat of chemicals. After falling into the chemicals and seeing his altered appearance, The Joker went insane and has been so since. The Joker is also said to live just to kill Batman because they are natural opposites. Both The Joker and Batman have been thought to be unable to live without the other. On many occasions they have had the chance to kill each other but chose not to which supports the fact that they need each other.

The Joker's "powers" are both his insanity and his array of weapons. A psychiatrist, Harlene Quinzel, theorized that his insanity was so deep it actually gave him ESP. Dr. Quinzel later fell in love with The Joker (a reverse Stockholm Syndrome possibly) and was turned insane by him. She then became Harley Quinn, his lover/acomplice in crime. He also uses many weapons such as razor cards, a squirting flower on his lapelle, and deadly gag buzzers. He is also skilled in Chemistry and developed a gas named "Smilex" which kills victims with painful laughing spasms that leave them dead and wearing The Joker's smile. He is usually never predicable and his weapons can work in anyway at any time. His flower can spray gas, acid, water, or nothing depending on his mood for example. The Joker's crimes are usually because of his own insane desires. He usually has no motive and enjoys each one.

And now the evaluation...

Costume: The Joker looks like a pimp. He wears a purple pinstriped suit. It is pretty cool...but then you add the fact that he looks like a clown, which is freaky but for a villain is cool. 8.5/10

Powers: The Joker is crazy which is a plus for villains and he also uses cool weapons. The Smilex gas is pretty fucking badass because his victims smile when dead. The fact that you never know what's coming is also a plus. 8/10

Cool Factor: The Joker is so fucking cool hes cold. HE IS AN INSANE CLOWN. thats just cool...not to mention he fights Batman very well. His death toll being in the 1000's and including one robin and batgirl makes him just more cool. 8/10

Versatility: The Joker is very versatile due to his spontaneous and crazy behavior. 9/10

Weakness: The Joker's weaknesses are only his own insanity and insecurity complex with Batman. This is kind of a bitchy weakness because he is a little gay for "needing" Batman. 6/10

So that gives us a total of..........7.55

And as always, feel free to leave comments or even your own suggestions/versions on the ratings.

Further reading of this character can be found here.
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Hero Evaluation Scale

Evaluation #2 - The Silver Surfer

So this review is for Daniel and Patrick because you guys really like Silver Surfer. Silver Surfer is a lesser known character loosely associated with the fantastic four, but is indeed very original and cool.

The Silver Surfer

The Silver Surfer is a Marvel Comics character that wears only a "speedo" type garment as his entire body is covered in a silver colored protective metal coating that is the result of a power called the Power Cosmic. He also uses a vehicle similar to a surfboard to travel around which he controls with his mind telekinetically.

One of Silver Surfer's more interesting traits is his past. Before coming to Earth, The Silver Surfer (real name Norrin Radd) was working for Galactus destroying planets and other races. He came into this work to save his home planet of Zenn-La from Galactus himself. He then found himself about to destroy the planet of Earth when he noticed certain traits of humans that intrigued him. He found humans to be noble, valiant, and brave in times of great trial. Because he had never possesed such traits or even known of them, he decided to betray his old master, Galactus, and save the planet along with the help of the Fantastic Four. This first appearace was in The Fantastic Four #48 in 1966. Galactus was ultimately defeated but not before he put a restraint on The Silver Surfer binding him from ever leaving the planet Earth. Galactus did not however take The Silver Surfer's powers, so he then used them to continue to help Earthlings.

The Silver Surfer's powers are extremely extensive. The Power Cosmic is what Galactus used to consume and destroy planets and Silver Surfer has these powers as well. Some of his abilities include manipulating molecular items in any way, expelling beams of energy from his hands, or withstanding high amounts of heat. He can basically do anything to anything molecular and can transfer anything kinetically charged to other media.

Another notable trait of The Silver Surfer is that his comics usually had a deeper tone and meaning than most. He constantly went into in depth analysis of the nature of humanity and the things that were most important in life. He is known to have a strong connection with all that lives and is almost jealous of the human abilities that he may never be able to posess. The Silver Surfer has almost no weakness other than his shame of his past and jealousy of human characteristics that he cannot fathom.

So now for the evaluation.

Costume:The Silver Surfer doesn't really have a costume. He only wears a speedo and then his entire body is metalic in color. This is cool in itself but not as original as some costumes.6/10

Powers: These powers are pretty awesome to say the least. He can destroy an entire planet if he wanted, so it is therefore safe to assume that he won't have a big problem handling anything that can be thrown at him. His only setback is the fact that he primarily uses his energy beams and surf board as fighting impliments and doesn't execute his abilities in the most ideal way.8/10

Cool Factor:Silver Surfer has a very high cool factor because 1. He surfs 2. He actually has a dirty past and isn't this squeeky clean golden boy often found with other heroes, and 3. He surfs. 8.5/10

Versatility: Good skills here, but not as good utilization. As with his powers, his versatility is unused to a great extent and for that he will not score too greatly. 6/10

Weakness: With virtually no physical weakness, Silver Surfer is a formadable foe. He is however weak to his own insecurities and villians that exploit this weakness will have the upper hand. Because The Surfer values his Earthling friends so dearly, he will be virtually screwed if they are ever threatened, and along with his past being exposed, this could be fatal. 7/10

So that makes for an overall score of.........7.4

So as a side note, the Silver Surfer recently appeared in the newest Fantastic 4 movie. I was actually surprised that they did his story properly by making him a bad guy first. Good job Hollywood, you didn't fuck this one up like you did X-Men.

Opinions always welcome.

Further reading on this character can be found here.
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Hero Evaluation Scale

Evaluation #1 - The Green Lantern

Yes Everybody, this is it! This will be the first ever evaluation of a superhero and you guys get to witness it. The people who read comics or like the stories really appreciate this blog, but all are welcome to enjoy the trivia. So let's go!
The Green Lantern


The Green Lantern; my own personal favorite, but also one of the lesser known of the more popular comic book characters. The Green Lantern's constume consists of a black and green suit with a green raccoon mask to hide his identity. The Green Lantern Debuted in July of 1940 in All American Comics #16 where he was depicted in a different way than he ultimately is today. This depiction is the "Golden age" version of The Green Lantern and the above image is of the "Silver age" of comic book characters (most characters go through a few changes in appearace/story/powers).

The Green Lantern's super power is a special ring that gives him the ability to control and manipulate just about everything in the physical world. With the green energy it produces, he can create force fields, weapons, or use the energy to fly. The ring however, does not work on any item that is yellow, so Green Lantern must usually manipulate other objects to defeat an enemy playing off of this weakness. The ring's power is drawn from a green lantern used to recharge the ring approximately once every 24 hours. The more will power the ring-bearer posseses, the more powerful the ring will be.

The story behing the Green Lantern (secret identity Hal Jordan) is that an alien, Abin Sur, gave the ring to Jordan because he was sson to die and saw the traits in Jordan that were needed to use the ring.The rings energy can be manipulated into a force similar to that given off by Kryptonite, and thus making it deadly to Superman. This did happen in a crossover comic where an alien being used The Green Lantern's ring to subdue Superman but was innevitably defeated by The Green Lantern and Superman together (pwn3d).

So now to the evaluation of The Green Lantern.

Costume: The costume is really fucking cool. I mean, its green and black and he has a raccon mask. He doesn't have a cape because that's usually gay. The emblem on his chest is simple yet powerful. No costume issues for me. 9/10

Powers: I'm not sure if anyone caught this but The Green Lantern can do whatever the fuck he wants! Unless he is trying to affect a yellow object, he can do ANYTHING. And even then he can use something else to destroy the yellow enemy. He can create cages to trap enemies, fans to blow away fumes, make himself fly, pick up semi-trucks and throw them at whatever the hell he wants, or just shoot a mass of green energy at them. These powers are by far some of the best. 9/10

Cool Factor: As far as this category goes, Green Lantern is lacking. He doesn't really have a lot of personality and while his powers are strong, they're only power. He lacks that extra something that other heroes posses.
6/10

Versatility: The powers section should say it all but I'll say it again. HE CAN DO ANYTHING. Well, basically anything and for that, he will score fairly high on this category.10/10

Weakness: The problem with yellow objects is not as big of a problem with the fact that he has to recharge his ring about every 24 hours. "Hang on Dr. Sinister, I have to recharge my ring." That's lame. Plus, there's no real way to get around it; what if he got in some big ass battle that lasted a fucking day, I'm talking about crazy shit here. In this case Green Lantern would put up a great fight but get his ass pwn3d in the end...badly might i add. But since this situation is more unlikely than most, it won't hurt the score as much. 8/10

So that comes to an overall score of... 8.3

O yeah, please feel free to leave your own opinions on any aspect of the site including reviews of characters in a comment.

Further reading on this character can be found here
Questions about my grading and overall score outcome? Read the Superhero Evaluation Guidelines

The Ground Rules...

So this is a blog about superheroes. Basically I love them and want everyone else to love them too. So I am blogging about superheroes and then putting my own spin on it. Basically, each blog will be an evaluation of a hero (or villain) and through that process, we can all learn and share our thoughts on the various heroes. So check out this first post about how the heroes will be graded.

The way that each super-hero will be evaluated will be determined by a scale I have designed, then each super hero will be ranked on an overall scale from 0-10.
Evaluation Rubric:
Costume(10%) The first impression we have of a super-hero is his/her costume. If superman were created wearing pink polka-dots and a highlighter-orange beanie he probably wouldn't have made it so far.
Powers(30%) Lets face it, a costume can only keep you cool so far, if you just fly (or worse, run) around doing nothing, you really won't make it in the super-world; especially if your super-villian finds out how much you suck.
Cool Factor(20%) This category is legitimate yet difficult to describe. Think of Superman's suave nature or Batman's ability to literally scare the shit out of his victims. These types of things are unique to the hero and add a hint of character to his...well...character.
Versatility(10%) This category is similar to powers but is specific in how the character uses his/her powers. Doing the same moves constantly or only being able to pick large things up are hindrances in this category. A versatile hero will have a large variety of powers and/or use them in an innovative and original method.
Weaknesses(30%) Obviously if a Hero were weak to Oxyen he wouldn't be very effective on this planet. The hero will be scored in this category in almost a reverse fashion. The more weaknesses the hero has, the less his/her score will be unless they are able to avoid them consistantly and effectively. All heroes will have their weaknesses; therefore, this category is mainly judged on if the heroes cope with these weaknesses appropriately.

After the hero is evaluated on each scale, the percentage total will be put into number form between 0-10.
ex:
Cost.- 6: 6(.1)= .6
Powr.- 8: 8(.3)= 2.4
C.F.- 7: 7(.2)= 1.4
Vers.- 5: 5(.1)= .5
Weak.- 9: 9(.3)= 2.7

.6+2.4+1.4+.5+2.7= 7.6(Overall Score)

The Overall Score will determine the heroes ranking or class in this blog.

Rank/Class Listing:
O.S. of 0-1.9: Damsel in Distress
O.S. of 2-3.9: Hero Wannabe
O.S. of 4-5.9: Sidekick
O.S. of 6-7.9: Hero
O.S. of 8-9.9: Super Hero
O.S. of 10: God of all Heroes



Other Information:
-Each hero evaluation will include interesting facts, history, and the basic characteristics of the hero.
-Further reading as well as a picture will be provided in each evaluation.
-Green Lantern rocks and you know it.