Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 3

The Mandalorian isn't big on letting things go, it seems.

Last time on The Mandalorian, the job just got a little more complicated. After finding the target, which turned out to be a baby of the same species as the late great Master Yoda, The Mandalorian swiftly executed his short lived partner IG11 and took custody of it. He had to fend off a few lesser hunters trying to steal the bounty from him, only to find out that his ship had been chop shopped by a bunch of local Jawas. With the help of the Ugnaught Kuiil, he brokered a deal with the Jawas, he gets them a special egg, he gets his parts back. The only part they neglected to mention that it was the egg of a giant mud rhino. The Mandalorian was pretty beaten up by the beast and is only saved by the child revealing it has force powers. They’re able to get the parts back and with Kuiil’s help get the ship space worthy again. They fly off into the blackness of space.

Chapter 3, The Sin

Like most parents on a road trip, the Mandalorian learns that
sometimes it's just easier to give the kid what he wants.

So, the Mandalorian and the Kid make it back to orbit around his home planet. After reenacting every “parent says don’t touch that, the kid touches it anyway” scene involving a little silver ball at the end of one of his control switches, they land. He immediately takes the Kid to the Imperials… huh, not conflicted even a little, eh, Mandalorian? The Client and Dr. Preshing are both extremely excited to get the little guy. And I of course am not totally sensing nefarious intent from these two. None at all. He’s given the Beskar Steel, and told to be on his way. The Mandalorian does ask what they’re going to do with the Kid, but just gets reminded of the Guild’s stance on such questions. Don’t ask them. Okay, so maybe he’s a little conflicted about leaving the Kid with him.

When you bring mom home a prize, and your big brothers
show up to ensure you don't get a swelled head. Pretty much
anyway.

He takes the Beskar steel back to the Armorer. She’s quite excited to get the rather sizeable amount of Beskar back, but his brother Mandalorians are less than pleased to hear one of their own has been dealing with Imperials. We get more vague references to a Purge that happened some years back, which greatly reduced the Mandalorian numbers. This is what drove the warriors into hiding and why they try to only send up their kind one at a time to hide their true numbers. Must really suck when one is off planet for weeks at a time and no one else can go out. Just sayin’. Our Mandalorian and the other’s almost kill each other, before the Armorer makes them back down. Given what she says, I guess the Mandalorians adopted a new tradition of never removing their helmets. I say new because I can name several Mandalorians Jango Fett, Boba Fett, Sabine Wren, Duchess Satine Kryze, and Pre Vizsla, all of whom are still canonical that showed their faces quite often. Anyway, the Mandalorian asks that his portion of the Beskar be used to make him a new set of armor, as his was badly damaged by the Mudhorn beast last episode. The Armorer is very impressed by this and offers to make the beast his personal signet, but he refuses as “an enemy” helped him kill the beast. How could anything as cute as the Kid be someone’s enemy? It’s impossible. Instead of a signet, she uses the left-over metal to make him Whistling Birds, a special ammo used against multiple enemies. Huh, I wonder if that will factor back in. Just like when she forged his shoulder pad, the forging process caused the Mandalorian to flash back to some kind of massacre that killed his family. It ends just as a droid appears to kill the young Mandalorian.

Gotta use context clues to figure out if this is him conflicted.
happy, sad, annoyed, tired, or hungry.

The Mandalorian goes out in his new duds to meet Karga, who is in a fairly happy mood himself. He got a piece of Beskar as part of his reward for contracting the Mandalorian. He offers to take ol “Mando” as he refers to him out to celebrate, but The Mandalorian just wants more work. He gets fobs for more contracts, gets on his ship, and almost takes off, before noticing the little silver ball is off of one of his control switches. That apparently was the straw that broke the camels back and causes the Mandalorian to shut down the engines and run off to save his little green friend. Apparently, he was way more conflicted than he let on.

The Mandalorian uses his rifle and some surveillance gear to listen into the Imperials plans. Preshing seems to be trying to protect the little guy, but the Client wants him to just him to extract the needed DNA and run. The Mandalorian begins his attack by ripping off their front camera and drawing a few guards out. He then walks around to the back door, blows an enormous hole in it and starts assaulting the base. He easily dispatches several Stormtroopers as he descends into the bowls of the beast. He takes the Kid, but spares Preshing, as the doctor seemed to have done his best to try and protect the Kid. The Mandalorian kills several more Stormtroopers as he escapes, even using the Whistling Birds from earlier to dispatch a large group.

How many years of Mandalorianing do you think you have to
put in to get the jetpack? Because I want to do exactly that amount
of Mandalorianing.

Once outside, I guess that the Client called a hit out on The Mandalorian. Every bounty hunter on the planet, including Karga. They force the Mandalorian into a corner, so to speak, and things start to look very grim for out faceless hero. Right until all of the other Mandalorians that were in hiding fly in on Jetpacks and start wasting EVERYBODY. The big guy that the Mandalorian was fighting with earlier tells him to run. The Mandalorian points out that by coming to save him, they’ve revealed that there are a LOT more Mandalorians in the area besides him. Big Guy kind of shrugs and tells him to get moving. Karga follows the Mandalorian and tries to get him before he can take off. The Mandalorian shoots him and drops him from the ship. He flies off, and then it’s revealed Karga is still alive, as the Mandalorian either intentionally or accidentally shot him in the piece of Beskar steel Karga was keeping in his shirt. The Mandalorian sees Big Guy fly by his ship for a sec to give him a sendoff, laments that he needs to get one of those jetpacks, and then gives the Kid the silver ball to play with.

This episode did a good job show casing what a bad ass the Mandalorian is. He mows down Stormtroopers, beats the heck out of his fellow bounty hunters and is a general bad ass throughout. Well, excluding the parts like almost selling out the Kid forever. The best moment that showcase his confliction was right at the end when he almost took off, but the thing that stopped him was that missing ball bit. Despite the mask, I could all but feel Pedro Pascal’s writhing emotions as he judged what to do. Side note, that was a very Mandalorian thing to do, take the prize offered to him but then immediately turn around and steal back what he’d just handed over. Mandalor would be proud. And while that final bit where the other Mandalorians showed up to save him was a little hokey, it did show off how dangerous they can be as a group. Mandalorians are like any warrior culture but in space. They’re the Spartans, the Immortals, the Spetsnaz, the Marines, warriors trained to kill and to kill super well. A group of them could overwhelm a force twice or three times the size of theirs. It was really cool to get a hint of that fighting power when we saw what could only have been about a half dozen of them shooting down dozens of Guild bounty hunters. I wonder if Karga surviving will have any significant to the plot? He’s Carl Weathers, so I guess the answer is maybe? Who knows? And that’s all I have to say about that.

I’ll for sure have episode four out by the end of the month. We’ll see if I can squeeze one more post in after that. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 2

After today, I think the Mandalorian will have a serious grudge against Jawas forever.

Last time on The Mandalorian, a stoic Mandalorian bounty hunter was given a seemingly impossible mission. To travel to some backwater planet and capture, or kill if he’s forced to, a target that has eluded capture for fifty years. Hm… let’s see, The Galactic Empire lasted for about twenty-five years, it’s five or six years after that, and Emperor Palpatine was Chancellor Palpatine for about twelve years before the conversion… I guess someone had been hunting this target since before Palpatine even began puppeteering things… If someone has a more definitive timeline, please let me know. Anyway, he goes hunting on a backwater world, temporarily teams up with an IG bounty hunter unit, before killing it. Either to protect the child from the IG unit, as it was ordered to kill the target, or to keep the prize to himself. And what was the target? An infant of the same species as Yoda. Hm… I realize that if he gets to live to be 900 like Yoda, that fifty years will be like five percent of his life span, but still, damn, that’s a long time to be a baby. Just sayin’. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Chapter 2, The Child

The Mandalorian and the kid start walking back to his ship. Well, he’s walking, the kid has something like a floating carriage thing.  Apparently, the trail to the temple required a Blurgg, the path from, not so much. They’re ambushed by some other bounty hunters, Trandoshans (Lizard looking guys). It’s a challenging fight for the Mandalorian but he’s able to over power and kill the reptilians, finishing the last one off by vaporizing it with his rifle. I’m not a huge fan of guns, but even I would love a combination vaporizing plasma rifle and stun staff.

In the evening by the fire, the Mandelorian does some field medicine on the wound he took in the arm during the fight and some basic repairs to his armor. The Child gets out of the carriage and reaches out to him. As someone versed in a little of the Jedi arts, I think it’s clear that the little guy was reaching out and trying to heal the Mandelorian through the force. He either doesn’t get it, or maybe the Child was just pointing at the wound. He picks the kid up and sticks him back in the carriage. He has to do this a second time before the Mandelorian seals him in for the night.

He's movin' on up, to the East Side!

They make it back to his ship to discover it’s already being stripped for parts by Jawas. Those little buggers are everywhere and they work fast. The Mandalorian shoots a few of them before they get in the Sand Crawler and try to scram. He leaps onto the Sand Crawler and tries to make his way to the top. Keep in mind, Sand Crawlers are the Jawas mobile fortress. The fact he’s even able to get on it is something of a miracle. He fights his way to the top, only to see about a dozen of the buggers pointing guns at him. He’s hit, knocked off the side and passes out from the electrocution. He wakes up some time later, the Child watching him and the Sand Crawler out of sight. He goes back to his ship to find it’s been stripped of pretty much everything. He and the child go to Nick Nolte… I mean Kuiil’s place seeking aid. Kuiil helps him make a few minor repairs to his armor, and convinces The Mandalorian to try and trade for his ship’s parts back. He’s… annoyed at the thought of bartering for parts they literally just stole from him, but agrees.

Or not...

The next day they reach the Jawa’s Crawler. They agree to barter, but only if the Mandalorian disarms himself. This goes against Mandalorian custom, as weapons are part of their religion, but he does so… angrily. After some heated words in Jawan, tee hee, you’ll get the pun when you see the scene, they agree to give him the parts in exchange for The Egg. He agrees, and the little blighters give him a lift to the cave of the egg.

He makes it to this little valley with a cave in the back wall. He goes inside, and get’s ROCKED by a… wooly… rhino? Okay, it’s not really a wooly rhino but this alien horned beast looks bizarrely similar. It’s like if a wooly rhino took some kind of steroid injection that made it’s horn enormous. The creature charges out after him. The Mandalorian tries to shoot at it, but his rifle is jammed with mud. He gets slammed to the ground by the beast, which seems only mildly annoyed by his flamethrower when the Mandalorian tries to burn it. It charges and slams him to the ground again, really ringing his metaphorical bell. I’m not sure if his chest plate is Beskar steel, but if so that Rhino hits hard enough to crack it and then some. His armor can’t take another hit, his weapons are either damaged or ineffective, and the beast is charging again. The Mandalorian pulls out a knife, expecting to die, but the charge is halted as the Child lifts his hand, and the beast starts floating upward. As a little green man once said, size matters not.  But the little guy only has so much strength. He drops the creature, but the Mandelorian is able to stick it in the jugular, or whatever the giant mud rhino equivalent is, killing it. He goes to check on the Child, to see him passed out.

He grabs the egg from the mud rhino’s nest and takes it back to the Jawas. The Mandalorian arrives just as the little shysters were about to roll out. They take the egg, crack it open and start eating it… well, that was a lot of work get them a hearty snack.

Size is insignificant compared to the power of the Force.

The Mandalorian and Kuiil return to his ship. The Child is still out for the entire trip back. With Kuiil’s help, they are able to get his ship up and running again. Not sure how much time passes, as they do kind of a weird edit to it, but it’s clear the kid is out the whole time. Once the ship is up and running, The Mandalorian offers Kuiil part of the reward, and then a job as thanks, but the little Urgnaught turns him down for both. He wishes the hunter luck, though. The Mandelorian takes off. Once out in space, the Child begins to stir again. Which is good, it means the Mandelorian will get full pay for it. Woo.

This was a solid follow up to the first episode. It had a good balance of action scenes, like the Mandalorian fighting the Trandoshans, Jawas, and Mud beast, and more character moments, like his quickly established but nonetheless real bond with Kuiil, and to a lesser extent to the Child. Speaking of, that little Green Gremlin is freaking adorable. It’s like if Gizmo from Gremlins had a child that wasn’t a homicidal monster. Just saying. Now, as the Child is of the same species as Yoda, the fact that he manifests Force powers doesn’t feel too shocking, but it was still chilling to see him Force lift the Rhino into the air. From what I’ve seen, lifting more than rocks takes a fair amount of training, so for a literal baby to lift a minimum thousand-pound beast, that speaks to an insane affinity to the Force. I can see why the Empire remnants might want him, and will be deeply concerned if they do. This was also a good episode to show case how human the Mandalorian is. Last episode, we mostly saw him kick ass, be stoic and stern, and shoot stuff. That’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t make for a very interesting character. This time, we got to see him lose his cool on Jawas, get shot, dropped and outmaneuvered by said Jawas, and nearly impaled by a monster. That’s some more exciting television, I tell you what. So, The Mandalorian has now gotten his quarry onto his ship and is making his way home. I’m looking forward to sharing how the prisoner trade off is handled. See you next time. 

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Viewer Log: The Mandalorian ep 1

The hunter is shown his next prey.

For those of you that have just returned to civilization after spending the last few years living on a desert island and befriending a beach volley ball, Disney just launched its own streaming service, Disney+. We can talk about how this new model of every major film studio and/or cable network having their own streaming service is inherently unsustainable another day. As part of the release, Disney premiered its latest entry in the Star Wars mythos, The Mandelorian. The story follows a Mandelorian bounty hunter whom gets wrapped up in a situation far, far larger than he probably could have ever imagined. Let’s get to it.

Boba Fett, eat your heart out.

This story takes place about five years after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Things are a bit… unstable, which is pretty common after major political upheavals. I assume Luke and Leia and all their friends are busy rebuilding the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate, so odds are we won’t be seeing them. Which is convenient, given how the last few years have been. The story proper opens to a bar scene, where several aliens are prepping to torture a blue alien for not paying off his gambling debt. In walks The Mandelorian. I do hope they reveal what his bloody name is soon, as typing Mandelorian over and over again gets kind of tedious. Anyway, the Mandelorian draws the attention of everyone in the room. You don’t see many folks dressing in the Mandelorian style anymore. The goons try to pick a fight with him, the Mandelorian ignores them until they try to touch him. Never. Touch. A. Mandelorian. What follows is one of the most one-sided barfights I’ve seen in a while. He kills them all, one dude even gets sliced in half by a door, and then approaches the blue guy. Yeah, turns out Blue Face had a sizable bounty on his head, and the Mandelorian is here to collect. Blue Guy tries to talk his way out of it, but the Mandelorian just tells him “I can bring you in warm. Or I can bring you in cold.” Bad ass!

After an uneventful speeder ride back to Mandelorian’s ship, which ends with the ship being attack by a massive walrus looking beast that he has to tase to make it let go, they fly off into the wild black yonder. The Mandelorian isn’t much of a conversationalist, nor does he seem too concerned with keeping Blue Guy imprisoned, so Blue Guy asks to use the rest room. What a shock, he’s actually looking for the escape pod. He sees that the Mandelorian is a collector of weaponry and… carbonite… slabs… The Mandelorian sneaks up on him, grabs him and tosses him into a portable carbonite freezing chamber. Dude could have probably just forced him into the pod as soon as the super-walrus was taken care of, but there you go.

He arrives home and meets with his bounty hunter guild contact, Apollo Creed. Sorry, sorry, he’s just played by Carl Weathers. He’s actually named Greef Karga. The Mandelorian asks if they have any other high paying contracts, but Karga only has jobs that won’t even pay for the fuel to get to the star systems in question. Karga tells him that he does know of one… under the table contract to take. Somebody is willing to pay big bucks but isn’t willing to go through the direct channels. The Mandelorian takes the pass Karga offers him and goes to meet with his potential client.

These two have a weird but fun chemistry. Shame what happens
to IG-11

While we can’t see his face through the helmet, but I have to imagine that he was quite shocked to see that his client’s guards are some incredibly dirty looking Stormtroopers. The client, played by Werner Herzog, wants the Mandelorian to take care of a fifty-year-old target. Not sure how that could be, considering the Empire was less than thirty when it fell, unless Palpatine had an eye on this target when he was still just Supreme Chancellor. Who knows? Anyway, the Client seems to not care what happens to the target, but his science advisor Dr. Pershing is quite insistent that the Mandelorian brings the target back alive. The payment is going to be in Beskar Steel. The metal has some kind of significance to the Mandalorian, or so the Client seems to hint at. The Mandelorian takes the job.

He takes the Beskar steel bar that he received as a down payment to a secret forge. There, a mysterious Mandelorian called the Armorer takes the bar and forges it into a new pauldron for him. While they don’t say it, the way the scene is shot makes me think forging Beskar steel is something akin to sacred amongst the Mandelorians. He takes the new pauldron on his right shoulder and takes off. 

The Mandelorian flies out to Arvala-7, a desert planet to take out the target. He’s almost immediately attacked by some local fauna, Blurggs. He’s almost torn to pieces by two of them, but is saved by Kuiil, an Ugnaught moisture farmer. Oddly, this Ugnaught goes against tradition and instead of talking in oinks and grunts, speaks with Nick Nolte’s voice. Neat. Kuiil takes the Mandelorian home and explains a bit about his target. Namely that the target had been on Arvala for fifty years and no one has ever gotten close enough to nab it. He offers to take the Mandelorian to the temple where it is held up, provided that he can ride a Blurgg. Apparently, the way is too treacherous to go on foot. And somehow the Mandelorian’s ship won’t do… because reasons.

After a failed first attempt to mount, he’s able to get on the beast and they get on their way. The Mandelorian goes on ahead by himself, only to find out that another bounty hunter beat him to the punch by like five minutes. It’s an IG model, IG-11. It’s the same model as the robot bounty hunter from Empire Strikes Back. The two team up, and are able to kill all of the guards. They make their way inside and find… a… baby… Yoda? Holy Crap! I was originally not going to spoil that, but the internet circulated this little guy’s image faster than rumors of the latest Marvel movies. I’m not sure if he realizes how big a deal this little guy is, but he knows it’s a big enough deal that the Mandelorian shoots and kills… er deactivates IG-11, to keep the reward for himself.

I really liked this show. It has a real western vibe to it that I really dig. I blame my father and his love of John Wayne films for that. A lone gunslinger trying to find his way in an unforgiving world, I just eat it up. Pedro Pascal, the titular Mandelorian does an amazing job in his role as the stoic Mandelorian bounty hunter.  All we really learn about him is that he seems to have an issue with droids, and he was a “foundling” amongst the Mandelorian. I believe this means that he’s not a Mandelorian by birth but by upbringing. But I’m not sure what the rules are in the post Episode 7 Star Wars expanded universe. They threw out a LOT of the old rules when they decided that only the movies and a couple of the TV shows are canon.  I imagine that it’s incredibly hard to really act when your face is covered 100% of the time, but Pedro does his damnedest. He’s a solid fighter in most situations, but I get the sense that he hasn’t spent much time roughing it on less civilized planets. Or maybe he was just having an off day when the Blurgg’s snuck up on him. Some of the effects are kind of so-so, but the show overall makes up for it. The story, I think, will be one of the highlights of this new Star Wars era. Or at least I’m really, really, really hoping it will be. Don’t drop the ball, guys!

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Hero Profile: Harry Dresden

Closing out October with my favorite fictional wizard.

Let’s see, for October I’ve covered the Lizard (Jekyll and Hyde), Hobgoblin (kind of Goblin), the Ghost, and the Wendigo. I think for this last one I should cover a true-blue wizard. But, I want to try something a little different. Rather than covering a wizard from Marvel or DC, I’ll instead cover my favorite wizard in fiction. No, I’m not talking about Harry Potter, but you’re close. No, this time we’re going to do the hero profile for Chicago’s only practicing wizard, Harry Dresden. Let’s get to it.

I should point out that Harry Dresden’s history is told throughout the Dresden Files novels, with tidbits being sprinkled in across multiple books from Harry’s perspective. So, obviously, some things he thinks about his history in the early books is eventually revealed to be incorrect or distorted by time or emotion. I’ll keep this profile as spoiler free as I can, as I want to inform you about the character and get you to read the books.

Just an average midnight stroll for Chicago's favorite wizard.

Harry Dresden was born to stage magician Malcolm Dresden and his wife, an actual wizard, Margaret LeFay. Within the Dresden Files, wizard is a gender-neutral term, just a FYI.  Harry’s mother died within a few hours of giving birth to him, under mysterious circumstances. Tragic, but I’m sure that point won’t come up again. Malcolm named Harry after his three magician heroes, Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone Jr., and David Copperfield, for a ridiculously long full name of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Somehow, I think that Margaret might have objected to this, just saying. Dresden traveled with his father for most of his early childhood. Malcom was pretty much always working to make ends meet, but he loved what he did and did his best to look after his son as well. Dresden has described this tragically brief time with his father as some of the happiest he’s had in life. This came to an end when he was six, as his father died of an aneurism in his sleep.

Dresden spent the next few years in the foster care system. The next eventful moment in Harry’s life was when he was ten. He was up to do the running long jump during his elementary school’s “Olympics.” For reasons that even Dresden can’t remember, he really wanted to win the blue ribbon for it. He wanted it so bad that his magic first manifested, causing him to jump nearly a dozen feet. He landed badly and sprained his wrist, but he got that damned ribbon and kept it to this day. Right after that first bit of magic, he was adopted by a man called Justin DuMorne.

DuMorne was a wizard and he spent the next several years training Dresden. DuMorne is described to be a tough but fair mentor, the sort to throw baseballs at Dresden to practice making magic shields but rewarding young Harry when he’s able to block successfully. In that time, DuMonre also adopted another magically gifted child, Elaine Mallory. While the two young wizards in training had friction at first, they ultimately became each other’s best friend and “first” everything. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Things were good with DuMorne and Elaine for Harry until he was sixteen.

Paul Blackthorne was the best part of the sucky 2007 TV adaptation.

At that time, he found out that DuMorne was evil and had intended to make him and Elaine his magical enforcers. When Dresden refused to follow along willingly, DuMorne tried to enthrall him with Magic. Dresden ran off, but was chased down by a demon that DuMorne summoned to kill him. Dresden was able to kill the monster by exploding a gas station (not the last time Harry will do that). Dresden sought out and made a deal with a powerful Fae noble, the Lenansidhe (pronounced Len-on-she) to give him a power boost. He then faced off against Justin, killing him.

It’s only after that that Harry learned that there was a governing body to wizards, called the White Council. Justin DeMorne had actually been a member of the group, he was a Warden (wizard cop), but he’d kept that info from Dresden and Elaine in order to better control them. Dresden was pretty much instantly arrested and put on trial. See, wizards have several laws, the most important of which is that one should never use magic to kill. The punishment being execution. Thankfully, a wizard on the council, Ebenezer McCoy, asked for clemency. This meant that McCoy would take over training Dresden, and Dresden would be put under the Doom Of Damocles. It’s a fancy name for Wizard Probation, if Dresden broke another wizard law he’d be executed. He trained under Ebenezer in Hogs Hallow, Missouri for a handful of years, and “cooled off” a bit under the old man’s tutelage. Dresden then quickly became a full member of the White Council, something that was all but unheard of for a wizard his age at the time. Harry spent a few years traveling around the US, before settling in Chicago, Illinois.

He had a couple of jobs in the city before working for Private Investigator Nicholas Christian at Ragged Angel Investigations. Christian’s agency specialized in finding missing kids. Dresden worked for Nick for three years as he worked towards getting his own PI license. His time with Nick was largely uneventful, except for one case. They were hired by the Astor family to find their daughter, Faith. Dresden is able to track the girl down, having used magic to hone in on her, but is then informed that the Astors decided to distort the situation. They claimed that their daughter had been kidnapped by Nick and Dresden, rather than let it get out that their daughter had run away from an emotionally abusive household. Dresden refused to leave the girl to save his hide. He and Nick agree to meet at a bridge and figure things out. Faith distracted Harry for a second getting him to talk about Magic, bit his hand and ran for it. She was almost instantly grabbed by a Troll. Harry is able to get her away from it. The troll, Gogoth, demands that Dresden give her the girl. Dresden distracted it with a bright flash of light from one of his rings and sprinted away.  

Honestly shocked Murphy hasn't shot him more often.

They make back to the other side of the bridge and the two bond a little. Over Harry’s past and Faith’s currently crappy home lives. He does his best to encourage her, and gives her the “things will get better” speech. He grabs her and attempts to cross the bridge one more time. The troll makes another grab at Faith, but Dresden is able to get her away. He fights the monster while Faith ran to meet Nick. He gets some back up from a lady cop that he’d passed earlier. The two are able to distract the troll long enough for Dresden to chop into it with its own massive cleaver. The Troll dies, but releases thousands of mini trolls from the wound. Hydra eat your heart out, I guess.

Afterwards, the cop, whom took that bit of insanity rather well, attempts to figure out what the hell just happened. Officer Murphy is kept from arresting Dresden and Nick by Faith telling her what happened. Murphy takes Faith back home while Dresden and Nick marvel over surviving that one.

This entire story is from the short story “Restoration of Faith” which is available for free on Jim Butcher’s website.

In the years since saving Faith and becoming a true blue PI, Harry Dresden has had a very active life. He’s battled a warlock (evil wizard) that was pushing a magic drug, several varieties of werewolves, a vengeful ghost, the local vampire queen, several powerful nobles in the Fey courts, and Fallen Angels. And that’s just in the first five books. And he's always battling his eternal enemy, Rent.

Harry Dresden as a wizard has magic powers. He’s unique in his universe in that he’s unusually powerful for a wizard his age. He can throw around more magical power than many wizards twice his or even thrice his age. He utilizes a number of tools to help focus his powers and use them efficiently. His primary weapons are his blasting rod and wizard staff. The rod is basically a magic wand, but is designed to focus and aim his fire magic. His staff is more versatile, allowing him to work more spells through it but with less power. He also keeps a set of rings on his hands that he charges up with kinetic energy. Basically, ever time he moves his arm the ring will store some of the kinetic energy of the movement. It takes a while to build up, but when he unleashes the charge on his ring, he can slam a person through a wall. As for his defenses, he’s got his beloved leather duster. The old west style coat is covered in runes and spells to make it tear, cut and bulletproof. And also, more resistant to magic attacks. He also wears a charm bracelet on his left wrist. It has several small kite shield-like charms on it. By channeling his power through it, he can create a barrier around himself to protect himself from projectiles. He later upgrades it to include protecting him from heat and other forms of energy, after one of his enemies got clever.

Dresden is also assisted on most of his adventures by a spirit of intellect he dubbed Bob. Bob is kind of the wizard equivalent of a computer, as the spirit has centuries of knowledge on the art of magic stored within him. Bob is housed in a rune covered skull. His “real” body is as a cloud of orange energy. Dresden pays him in trashy romance novels, as the skull is the horniest disembodied spirit you’ll ever meet. He’s also often backed up by Lieutenant Karrin Murphy. The two have a very rocky relationship at first, due to Dresden trying to keep Murphy in the dark about the monsters and dark wizards that stalk the streets and Murphy’s refusal to just let Dresden handle things. She’s a skilled police officer, a crack shot, and a master of Judo. She’s at one point described as Tiny but Fierce by a Paladin. She’s only about five foot nothing.

The Story that started it all. 

The Dresden Files, at the time of writing this, consists of fifteen novels with novel sixteen nearly complete, and two books of short stories. When the story begins, Dresden is a fairly generic PI character, just with the added quirk of being a practicing wizard. As the novels continue, he grows into more of a traditional hero, using his magical abilities to protect Chicagoans from the magical forces that traditionally prey upon them. And a few more mundane monsters, like the local crime boss, Gentleman Johnny Marcone.

I love Harry Dresden as a character. He’s a lot like Spider-Man, in that he’s been kicked around by life a lot and yet still does his damnedest to help everyone he can. He’s also snarky and sarcastic, which are two character-traits that I love. I also love how he describes the use of Magic. For Harry, it’s like a religious experience to use magic. At least once a book he has a very eloquent speech as to how Magic, this cosmic force of nature, is the most wonderful thing in the world and how he’s humbled about using this power. He’s not a perfect character, either. As he’s often gets himself into trouble by trying to do everything himself, and that he’s got a sense of chivalry so strong that for a while the best way to hurt him is to either threaten a woman in his vicinity, or be a woman that threatens him. Which is particularly bad for Harry as at least three of his most dangerous enemies are women. That all said, he always tries his damnedest to protect people, to use magic wisely, and to make the world a safer place. That why I thought he deserved a Hero Profile on his birthday. Have a good night everybody.

Just curious folks, did you enjoy this non-superhero hero profile? Should I do more on my favorite characters from books and other media? Let me know in the comments. 

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Villain Profile: Wendigo

There are occasions where death is preferable to survival.

We’ve done the Jekyll and Hyde style Lizard and the English demon inspired Hobgoblin, up next let’s dive into some Native American mythology. The Wendigo is a monster from Algonquian-speaking folklore. Legend goes that a person would be transformed into a Wendigo if they performed that most egregious of acts, cannibalism. Either the act itself, or a spirit drawn to a human that performed it, would cause a person to be transformed into a being of avarice, a monster that craved human flesh. Such a creature just screams comic book villain, doesn’t it? Well, even if it doesn’t, it does fit in with my Halloween themed posts. You don’t get much “Halloweenier” than a monster that eats human flesh. Let’s get to it.

Think a hotdog has enough human meat in it to
distract it?

As stated above, the Wendigo is a monster from Native American folklore, specifically the Algonquian speaking tribes of what is now Canada and the North Eastern US. In the Marvel Universe, a person could be afflicted by the curse if they ingested human in specific forests in Northern Canada. It’s believed the curse was created by an unspecified Northern God in an effort to deter people from literally eating each other. Hm… I feel like there was a better way of going about that. Just saying. Any person infected by the curse would turn into the Wendigo, becoming superhumanly strong, virtually indestructible, and covered in fur and sharp horns. The cursed individual would then roam the Canadian wilderness, eating humans until they’re either killed or the curse is somehow passed on. In the Marvel Universe, it remained an unstoppable predator of myth until the mid70s, when the latest victim of the curse crossed paths with the Jade Giant, thee Incredible Hulk.

The Hulk had been rampagining across the Canadian Wilderness in an attempt to find his/Banners love, Betty Talbot. He was having trouble accepting that Betty had recently gotten married. Don’t be that guy, Bruce, don’t be that guy. In his travels he was attacked by a group of hunters, whom he easily beat the snot out of. His fight was interrupted by a girl named Marie that rather insanely attacked him. She’d mistaken him for the Wendigo, the monster that killed her brother. Moved by the girl’s sorrow, The Hulk decided to help her by hunting the beast that killed her brother.

The Hulk searches for the beast, but it finds him first. He’d stumbled across the Wendigo just before it fed on its next victim. The Hulk and The Wendigo brawl, while they’re reasonably close in strength, The Hulk is knocked off the side of a cliff, and the Wendigo throws the guy he’d just about eaten after the Hulk in fury. Hulk saves the victim and takes him back to Marie, believing him to be her brother.

As it turns out, no this was not her brother, Paul. It’s instead Paul’s friend, Georges. Georges after recovering explains that he, Paul and their friend Henri had been out hunting when they were attacked by wolves and driven into a cave. Henri died, and the other two, left without other options, ate his remains to try and survive. This opened him to the curse and turned him into the Wendigo. The Hulk, goes after the Wendigo again and tries to reach Paul. While he did reach Paul for a moment, the beast consumed his mind during their fight. The Wendigo leapt away.

You know, considering its diet, I'm amazed the Wendigo can
keep its white fur so clean.

The Wendigo would come across and battle the Hulk on several occasions. Marie and Georges, wanting to save Paul, decided to try and transfer the curse to the Hulk. They tranquilize the Hulk, summon the Wendigo and begin a ritual to transfer the curse from one to the other. They’re stopped when the Hulk suddenly awakens, and the matter made worse when Wolverine showed up. Logan had been recruited to take care of the Hulk by the Canadian Government. The three savages’ brawl, while Georges and Marie tried to find a way to salvage the situation. Ultimately, Georges completed the transfer ritual, but took the curse into himself, becoming the next Wendigo.

Georges as the Wendigo was eventually tracked down by Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and members of Alpha Flight. Alpha Flight is Canada’s X-Men/Avengers. They’re able to subdue The Wendigo long enough for Alpha Flight’s Shaman to cure Georges. But, the curse of the Wendigo is eternal, so while Georges was freed, another person became afflicted. 

The Wendigo Curse continues to pop up to menace civilians and heroes that frequent the Canadian Wilderness. Wolverine, Alpha Flight, and Hulk being the most common individuals to battle this ancient evil.

The Curse of the Wendigo imbues it’s host with a number of supernatural powers. The transformation turns even the meekest of people into an enormous vessel of destruction. The host is superhumanly strong, on par with the incredible Hulk. They’re covered in dense fur, and grow massive horns and claws. The beast is also largely immune to cold, as it’s massive, fur covered body is basically designed to survive in a Canadian blizzard. It’s also superhumanly fast, despite its size, and can recover from traumatic injuries. That includes disembowelment. The transformation also robs your average joe or jane of their overall intelligence and ability to speak. Outside of shrieking WENDIGO at the top of their lungs.

The Wendigo has been used a few times outside of the comics, usually to battle either Bruce Banner’s alter ego or Logan.

It appeared in Wolverine and the X-Men in the episode “Wolverine vs. the Hulk.” In it, Nick Fury “convinced” Wolverine to help him stop a rampaging Hulk. He’s dropped into the Canadian Wilderness and finds his ol’ buddy the Hulk. The two fight for a bit, but when the Hulk calms down enough to revert back to Banner, he reveals that HE’D been dropped off to handle a rampaging monster in Canada for SHIELD. Banner is able to formulate a cure for the “curse” and go after the Wendigo. Imagine their shock when it turns out to be four Wendigo instead of one. They’re able to cure the beasts, only to discover they’re SHIELD agents. Turns out, their transformation was due to a SHIELD attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum. Whoops.

Oh sorry, this is an artist's rendering of a mythological Wendigo.
Imagine thinking one of these stalked the night!

Wendigos made a few appearances in the Disney XD Marvel universe. It first appeared in the episode “Avengers: Impossible” in Avengers Assemble. In it, Impossible Man, an alien with reality warping powers, summoned it as a means of improving an action show He created starring Falcon. The scene is “Scrubbed” by Impossible Man before it can cause any serious damage.

Another Wendigo appeared in “Wendigo Apocalypse” in Hulk and the Agents of SMASH. Hulk and his team/family go to a ski resort for some R&R. The resort is almost immediately overrun by Wendigos. They brawl with several of the beasts, which included a transformed Wolverine. They’re able to defeat the Wendigo’s leader, the Wendigo King, breaking the curse and curing everyone.

It appeared one last time in Ultimate Spider-Man. In “Contest of Champions” a Wendigo is paired with Kraven the Hunter and Molten Man to fight against Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk. Its defeated by Spider-Man making it fall into one of Kraven’s pit traps and then electrified with Spider-Man’s electric web.

A Wendigo is one of several villains seen escaping the Raft in the opening episode of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. It’s a nonspeaking cameo, but I am compelled to give a nod to my favorite Avengers cartoon whenever I can.

The Wendigo as a monster is something that I’ve enjoyed since I learned about this Canadian horror. I mean, it’s a monster that is created by eating human flesh, is insanely creepy and violent, and feels like it should star in many more horror films. As a Marvel Supervillain, it works as for any story that needs a mild horror esthetic. It works as a mirror to the Hulk, as both were unwillingly changed into a rampaging monster. And the fact that it’s an eternal curse that will forever pass on each time the current host is cured means that they can run the gambit on backstories. When anyone can be a Wendigo, all you have to do is orchestrate a situation for them to eat a guy to make it viable. It’s a pretty easy villain to use. 

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Villain Profile: Ghost

This Ghost will get into any machine, for a price.

Well, considering that I just did a goblin, it seems only logical to do ghost as well, right? And not just any ghost, but THE Ghost. While I mentioned this in my Ant Man and the Wasp review, I feel the need to point out again that the Ghost of that movie, Ava Starr, is an original character of that film. While I’ll go into her background in the character section, the bulk of this will be centered on the Ghost of the comics and most of the cartoons, whom is depicted as male. And that’s like the one concrete fact that we know about him. Let’s get to it, shall we?

The Ghost and Crossbones, a match made in hell.

The Ghost is a man who’s past is largely shrouded in mystery. While large parts of it can’t be substantiated, as the people involved besides Ghost are dead and he has claimed to have had his original identity wiped from public record, he has given us an origin story. I’d be willing to bet parts of the tale will either be revealed to be total lies or facts distorted by hate and anger at some point, here’s what he’s said. Back in the day Ghost worked as a programmer and engineer at a rising IT company called Omnisapient. While he doesn’t give his real name, I’m just going to call him Jacob Marley. What? If everyone else is blatantly showing off Christmas stuff in October, I should be allowed a somewhat subtle joke. Jacob impressed his companies board of directors with his prowess with designing advanced tech and his immense intellect. He quickly received multiple promotions before being put on the company’s flagship project, a new processor that could physically change in reaction to its environment. Basically, the processor would become intangible before it could overheat, allowing for rapid cooling. The Ghost Tech, as they dubbed it, caused the company’s stock to skyrocket. Which was good. But the board also grew ever more dependent on Jacob specifically to run and design their tech. Which was bad. After months of exhausting work, I’m reasonably certain with unpaid overtime, Jacob demanded to get some time off. The board was obviously… upset about the idea of Jacob not completing the project ahead of schedule, which would gain them billions, there wasn’t much they could do, now is there?

Just before Jacob left on his vacation, an attractive coworker… ugh, she doesn’t have a name either.  I’ll call her Jenny, because why not? Jenny came onto him and expressed interest in him. Jacob, whom claimed to be introverted and a tech geek before his transformation, was smitten with her almost instantly. He cancelled his vacation and kept working, but spent a lot of time with Jenny during and after work. Well, isn’t that convenient for Jacob, and his bosses. More and more of Jacobs personal life seemed tied to his job, but he didn’t complain as an attractive romantic partner is an incredible stress reliever. Things ended badly, though, as Jenny was killed in an explosion that destroyed her apartment. Gas leak, I’m sure. Jacob, depressed and needing some kind of escape, plugged his brain directly into his Ghost processor. Not sure if that sciences, but belief needs to be suspended with an origin story. Combining his mind with the processor pushed his consciousness into a hyper aware state, and he was able to piece together some things that he’d subconsciously realized that didn’t add up. Jenny, he realized, had been a Honeypot. The board hired her to seduce him and keep him working on their projects. She’d been killed because she’d demanded they give her more money, or she’d go public with what they did. I can imagine only a few things more heartbreaking than realizing just how badly Jacob had been used. The board had surveillance on him, so they realized what he’d discovered. They hired a hitman to take care of him. Hm… I feel like they’re just making more problems for themselves, but what do I know. The hitman set off a bomb in Jacob’s apartment, killing most of his neighbors. Jacob survived as the Ghost tech processor made him intangible as the heat of the explosion heated up the processor.  Nearly dying and discovering how much of his life was a fabrication, Jacob Marley died metaphorically and was reborn as the Ghost.

The Ghost is always trying to stick it to The Man.

Ghost became a hyper paranoid vigilante, hell bent on killing evil corporations. He killed the board of directors, their assassin and then the records of his former life. Sometime later, Ghost was hired by Carrington Pax, one of the head executives of the Roxxon Oil Corporation, to destroy Accutech Research and Development. The tech firm had been developing a beta particle generator, a potential super energy source, but refused to sell it to the oil company. Probably because folks in the Marvel Universe know their oil companies are evil. Roxxon hired Ghost to drive the company into bankruptcy. Thankfully for Accutech, they’d attracted the attention of Tony Stark, whom bought it within days of Ghost making his move.  Ghost attack, to which Tony sent his “bodyguard” Iron Man to stop. The two faced off, and Iron Man was able to beat the specter back. Ghost swore revenge on Tony, believing the corporate goon was more worthy of his ire than the working-class stiff in the suit. Huh.

Tony, fearing an attack by someone that could literally walk through walls, spent the next few weeks optimizing his armor and waiting. Roxxon, worried that their dealings with Ghost might become public, hired another costumed villain, Spymaster, to deal with him. The two fought in a Stark Enterprises building, which ended with Ghost sticking Spymaster in a wall and making him tangible again. Iron Man set up a trap for Ghost who walked right in. They were both in the beta particle generator room, the beta particles interfering with Ghost’s ability to cloak himself or go intangible. There was a ticking clock element with the fight, as the radiation from the Beta particles can be fatal after prolonged exposure. The floor ended up melting, and Ghost fell through. Iron Man only found the burnt remains of his costume, but he knew Ghost was still out there.

Ghost has since gone up against Iron Man several times, as well as other heroes when he takes contract work. He doesn’t seem to care who he fights, he’ll fight anyone that tries to get in his way. He’s since joined the Thunderbolts. It’s kind of like Marvel’s Suicide Squad, a team made up of anti-heroes and villains that work for the government. While not having sought redemption, he seems to be trying to be a better person than he’d once been.

Despite the supernaturally suggestive name, Ghost’s powers are completely tech based. He’s designed and built a special battlesuit that incorporated his original Ghost Tech. This allows him to go intangible and pass through solid objects, or turn himself invisible, but not both at once. He also has incorporated various gadgets to help him hack or reprogram electronics on the fly, and to intercept and tamper with electromagnetic signals. He’s also a crack shot, using a variety of guns and grenades to help with his work. He’s a genius level inventor and computer hacker.

Why's every song about Love, or Drinking too much? Well,
Maybe it's because, everybody's lonely!
Sorry, that's Jukebox the Ghost.

 Ghost has appeared a few times outside of the comics. They seem to tone down the corporate terrorist angle of his character and usually portray him as a highly skillful mercenary. He’s usually an Iron Man villain, but the Ghost’s biggest appearance was up against Ant Man and Wasp in the film bearing their names.

Ghost appeared in a few episodes of Avengers Assemble. He’s introduced in “The Kids Are Alright” in the third season. In the episode, Captain America and Iron Man are working with a pair of Inhuman heroes, Inferno and Ms. Marvel, to handle a few Ultron robots. After that mess was handled, they give the teen heroes a tour of Avengers Tower. Unfortunately, at the same time Ghost attacked to steal Iron Man’s AI Friday. He’s significantly more dangerous as this version had discovered he was an Inhuman and gone through Terrogenesis to unlock his powers. Thankfully for him, his Inhuman powers were a more powerful form of phasing. The Avengers send him packing in the end. He appeared again in “Avengers No More.” He tried to steal tech from the Stark Expo, but is stopped by the new intern, Jane Foster and Thor.

He appeared in Marvel’s Spider-Man. This version is a former Stark Enterprises employee and that’s why he’s got a personal vendetta against Stark. In the episode “Stark Expo” he crashes said expo, phases into Iron Man’s mark 50 armor and starts causing havoc. Iron Mand and Spider-Man force him from the suit, but he steals the suit’s “inter-connectivity” disks, which let him hack all of the other tech at the expo. He’s finally stopped by Peter, whom used the Venom suit to enhance himself enough to over come him.

This Ghost is hunting Pyms.

A new Ghost, Ava Starr, is introduced for Ant Man and the Wasp. She’s portrayed by Hannah John-Kamen. She is the daughter of a former associate of Hank Pym’s, Elihas Starr. She was the one survivor of the quantum explosion at her dad’s lab. She was left in a state of molecular disequilibrium that caused her to phase through solid object, but caused her extreme pain. She was saved by another former Hank Pym colleague Bill Foster who had her join SHIELD. She was trained as an assassin, given a suit to better control her powers, and the codename Ghost. She left SHIELD when she realized they wouldn’t help fix her. She and Bill Foster attempt to steal Hank Pym’s mobile lab to get his Quantum Realm tech to help Ava. They believe that they could use the quantum energy that Hank’s wife, Janet van Dyne, had absorbed over the last thirtyish years to stabilize her. Once Janet is brought out of the Quantum Realm, she uses her energy to partially stabilize Ava. Scott, Hope, Hank and Janet end the film with a mission to gather more quantum energy particles to stabilize Ava further, but the Pym/van Dynes are Blipped out of existence while Scott was in the realm.  Huh, hope Ava was either blipped too or Bill Foster found another way to help her. Just saying.

The Ghost’s biggest strength, I think, is his look. He’s one of the most visually unique villains of Marvel’s roster. The white suit and largely featureless mask make him hard to forget. I think it also helps that, because he doesn’t have a super specific or well know origin means that he can be whatever a story needs him to be. Sure, that’s true of most characters, but the more popular a character the more you do really need to stick to certain plot beats, if you don’t want to piss off fans. If you want to write a Batman story, he needs to be a billionaire with dead parents. You want to write a story with Magento, you’ll need to include that he’s a survivor of a war and an incredibly angry but charismatic leader. There are no such necessities for Ghost. You need a generic psycho with weird powers? He can do that. Need a skilled mercenary that will keep hounding a target? He can do that. Need him to be a tragic victim of circumstance, and be a woman? She can do it. Plus, his powers are kind of kick ass. Phasing plus invisibility are kind of the perfect combo for a mercenary or assassin. I wonder how he’d handle going up against the X-Men’s Kitty Pryde? It’d be an interesting fight, for sure. And that’s all I have to say about that. 

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Villain Profile: Hobgoblin

There's a new Goblin in town.

So last time we covered Doctor Connors and the Lizard, a Jekyll and Hyde style character where the kindly scientist is transformed into an unstable, unstoppable monster. That’s a fairly standard background story for horror monsters and mad scientist turned monsters. Next, let’s talk about another staple of the Halloween season, a Goblin, a Hobgoblin specifically.

Let’s flashback to 1973. That July, the Green Goblin, Norman Osborn, had done the unthinkable and caused the death of Peter Parker’s long-time girlfriend Gwen Stacey. In the ensuing battle, despite being enraged by his nemesis’ actions, Peter didn’t end up killing the psychopath. Norman accidentally killed himself when he attempted to impale Peter from behind with his Goblin Glider. This marked the end of one of Peter’s happiest relationships, which is obviously depressing, but also his long-standing feud with Norman. Unfortunately for Peter, while Norman remained dead for several decades, there are never a shortage of copycat villains in the comic universes. And while there were a few heirs to the Green Goblin legacy, including Peter’s friend and Norman’s son Harry Osborn, I’d argue none was as effective as the villain that appeared ten years after ol’ Gobby’s death, the Hobgoblin.

He does look good on that glider.

I should point out most of the background I’m going to go into didn’t come up until several years after the Hobgoblin’s first appearance. According to his creators, Roger Stern, Mike Zeck and John Romita Jr., they wrote and introduced the character of the Hobgoblin and didn’t have a single idea of who would ultimately be behind the rubber mask. There were a few possible identities, which included a name you might recognize, Ned Leeds, but it wasn’t until 1997 that it was officially revealed to be a man named Roderick Kingsley was the true Hobgoblin. Let’s get into that, now that I’ve had three paragraphs of preamble.

Roderick Kingsley began his career as a fashion designing multi-millionaire. While he presented a kindlier face to the world, like a lot of millionaires in the Marvel universe… and real life if I’m being honest, he harbored a much darker personality behind closed doors. Kingsley had ties to organized crime, which he used to increase his business through corporate espionage and unethical deals. He was also the kind of jerk that strong armed his timid twin Daniel into doing the day-to-day company work. We’ll get back to that point in a minute. Kingsley made a few enemies due to his dealings, the one that started the ball rolling on his fall to supervillainy was a woman named Narda Ravanna. She was a rival designer that he’d ruined that took up the costume criminal identity of Belladonna. She tried to kill him a few times, but he was saved by Spider-Man both times. These incidents made Kingsley begin to search for… alternative means of protecting himself. One of his minions, a fella named George Hill, stumbled upon a solution. He found one of Norman Osborn’s secret lairs, which included all of his Goblin Gear and a cache of weaponry. Kingsley killed Hill and began looking over his new collection of toys.

Kingsley familiarized himself with the gear and some of the data that Osborn kept there. He decided that, since all other previous Green Goblins had (total of 3 at the time, I believe) had been driven insane, he decided to make a new identity model after the original Goblin. He created the orange and yellow costume and the alias of The Hobgoblin. His initial scheme was to use blackmail files that Osborn had compiled to get his hands on Oscorp. He was thwarted by Spider-Man on this and a few other minor crimes. Realizing that he couldn’t battle Spider-Man effectively as he was, Kingsley began trying to recreate the strength enhancing formula that Norman stole from his colleague Mendel Stromm. He eventually was able to perfect the formula. Rather than immediately take it himself, Kingsley did the smart thing and test it on someone else first. He used a mind control device he stole from a former employee and the formula to turn a small-time criminal Lefty Donovan into a Hobgoblin that could take a punch from Spider-Man and send the web-head flying with one of his own. Donovan proved to be a competent opponent for Spider-Man, so Kingsley killed him by forcing the Goblin Glider to crash. He took a hit of the gas himself, and becomes a physical match for Spider-Man.

Did he buy a Spider-Man suit just to rip in half? I don't get
rich people.

Despite his newfound power, Kingsley was still regularly defeated by Spider-Man and got onto the $%^& list of some of New York’s powerful elite, including the Kingpin. In order to keep his identity a secret, Kingsley kidnapped Ned Leeds, a reporter investigating him and brainwashed him into believing he was the Hobgoblin. He used Ned as a decoy for a while, and then had him assassinated so he could retire. He returned from retirement a few years later, to kill the current Hobgoblin, Jason Macendale, to protect his identity and remove an unworthy successor. He then captured Betty Brant, a former Parker love interest and current investigator into the Hobgoblin case. He tried to kill Peter, but in the ensuing battle, his brother Daniel is captured and Roderick is unmasked. See, in order to try to keep his identity a secret, Roderick would often send his twin into locals he’d attack as the Hobgoblin in order to protect his identity. Yes, this was a retcon in order to explain how Kingsley could be the Hobgoblin when he was shown to be in places that the Hobgoblin attacked. Roderick is arrested, Ned is posthumously cleared, and all is made right in the world. For a while anyway.

Roderick Kingsley has since escaped prison and continued to fight Peter Parker. He’s formed a bitter hatred with the returned Norman Osborn, as they both feel the other is the lesser Goblin. More recently, Roderick has gotten into the criminal arms dealing. He’d get his hands on the gear of deceased or incarcerated villains and then rented the gear and names to other would-be villains for a hefty fee. The dude is one hell of a business man.

Initially, Roderick Kingsley had no superhuman powers, but was an intelligent, cunning sociopath with an insane amount of luck. He had the knowhow to learn how to use all of Norman’s old gear and to upgrade them as he went along. He wears bulletproff mail along with an overlapping tunic, cape and cowl. He also wears an incredibly expressive rubber yellow mask to hide his identity. His main weaponry includes the incredibly useful Goblin Glider, concussive and incendiary bombs in the shape of Jack O’Lanterns, smoke and gas grenades, and bat shaped throwing knives. He later figured out how to recreate and improve the Mendel Stromm strength formula to give him superhuman strength, reflexes and stamina. He also improved it to remove the insanity inducing effects of the serum.  

The Hobgoblin identity has only been used a handful of times outside of the comics. I imagine that this is due to the similarities to the Green Goblin, and the other Goblin’s overwhelming popularity means that ol’ Hobgobby is left waiting. Interestingly, Roderick Kingsley has only been used once outside of the comics.

Roderick Kingsley appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man’s second season episode “Gangland.” In this version he’s the owner of a perfume factory and also African American. He’s one of several criminal types, including Doc Ock, Tombstone and Silver Sable, bidding on the blueprints for Rhino’s impenetrable skin. He wins the bid, but this all turns out to be an attempt by Hammerhead to set himself up as the new Big Man of Crime and eliminate his competition. Kingsley escaped unscathed. Showrunners had revealed that had the series gotten a third season, Kingsley would have returned and taken up the Goblin mantle.

The supervillain equivalent of showing up to a party in
almost the same outfit.

The Hobgoblin appeared in several episodes of Spider-Man the Animated Series. He’s voiced by Mark Hamill. Interestingly, in this continuity, he’s the first Goblin, appearing a full two seasons before Norman donned that Goblin mask. I’d read somewhere that this was due to insistence from Fox to include Hobgoblin for toy sales or some such nonsense. He appeared in the Hobgoblin two parter. He’s initially hired by Norman Osborn, irony, to assassinate Wilson Fisk. The Kingpin had recently gained control of Oscorp and regularly threatened Norman to get his way. He makes an attempt on Fisk, but is thwarted by Spider-Man. He makes several other appearances in The Mutant Agenda, Mutants Revenge, Goblin War, and Spider Wars Part 1. He’s also referenced in Enter The Green Goblin, where Norman revealed that he’d found the Hobgoblin’s cache of gear in his lab after an accident and remodeled it for his use. His identity is finally revealed in Goblin War. They used Jason Macendale as the real identity of the Hobgoblin. His identity is only revealed when his fiancé and former Peter Parker romantic interest Felicia Hardy stumbled upon the Goblin gear. I only bring him up in this as the Hobgoblin has only a few appearances, and I don’t see myself going back and doing a Jason Macendale version ever.

As far as villain’s go, Kingsley is probably just in the Okay range. The mystery of who the Hobgoblin was and his antics were good at the time, but the return of Norman Osborn a few years later pretty much solidified him as one of Spider-Man’s lesser enemies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Kingsley, and against another hero he’d stand out great, but when you’re being compared to the Green Goblin, it’s hard to measure up. I will say he’s probably one of the most visually distinctive villains, though. I can think of only a handful of characters that would think to use orange and yellow as their primary colors. And his more recent plan as being a super-villain identity broker is beyond brilliant. Think about it, you supply the tech and name for some nobody with delusions of grandeur, collect a huge fee, and yet you’re still physically strong enough to kick their asses if they step out of line. Or hit the kill switch on their tech. I’ll be honest, were I a supervillain, this is the sort of racket I’d like to get in on. So yeah, he’s a Good Goblin forced down to an Okay Goblin by the Green Goblin.  

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