Valkyrie and other questions

[Turric]

I have been reading the back stories on the NPC characters in game and came up with some questions.

 

1.  Valkyrie. Now I understand that a valkyrie is a mythological concept / figure, but I am curious as to whether Marvel ever disputed the name especially when they disputed the original name of Citadel as Bastion. Also, the two are somewhat similar. Anyone have any input on this?

 

2.  Anyone ever notice that Citadel is green? He is a green android...

 

3.  For the original Freedom Phalanx characters, 3 are invulnerability tankers (Statesman, Back Alley Brawler and Citadel). The original team consists of 3 tankers, 2 defenders, 2 controllers and a blaster. No scrapper. Just an  observation there.

 

4.  Aurora Borealis has no secondary power set. She also has no Praetorian counterpart. I feel like her secondary could be "Light Manipulation", if that were a thing.

 

5.  Who are Rose Star and Spark Blade. Wiki says they are "not currently in game".

 

6.  And for the game being heavily resistant to psychic damage in the later stages, there are quite a few signature heroes who do psi damage: Numina, Sister Psyche, Aurora Borealis, Penelope Yin and Swan. Ok, well 5, but it seems there should be more variation.

 

7.  Infernal was potentially the prototype sentinel. Kind of. Fire blast / battle-axe blaster tanker.

 

8.  Anyone think that Woodsman's secondary set would be Earth Assault, if that were a thing?

 

9.  Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit need more use. Just an opinion.

 

10. Mynx's powers are labeled as Claws / Super Reflexes yet her archetype is tanker. I think there is a mistake on the Wiki or the source information.

[Luminara]

16 minutes ago, Turric said:

1.  Valkyrie. Now I understand that a valkyrie is a mythological concept / figure, but I am curious as to whether Marvel ever disputed the name especially when they disputed the original name of Citadel as Bastion. Also, the two are somewhat similar. Anyone have any input on this?

 

Names of historical figures are public domain, and the likeness and abilities of mythological figures are as well.  Anyone can make a comic book about the adventures of Thor, the God of Thunder, for example, and not be subject to copyright violation because the name, likeness and the abilities are all public domain.

 

What would invoke copyright protection would be plagiarism of existing stories which are currently protected under copyright laws.  Making a comic book about Thor in a group of heroes who fight off an alien invasion in New York, that would be copyright violation.  Making a comic book about Thor and Odin battling Níðhöggr in New York would not be copyright violation.

 

Marvel would never have a case based on name alone, as the word is in public domain, and there's no plagiarism in our Valkyrie's back story or related content, so despite the two sharing a name, there's no case to be made for a copyright suit.

[TheOtherTed]

39 minutes ago, Turric said:

5.  Who are Rose Star and Spark Blade. Wiki says they are "not currently in game".

IIRC, they were to be part of the Korean launch, but the launch either flopped or never actually happened.  Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit were also characters from that attempt, which might explain their under-utilization.

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, Turric said:

 

4.  Aurora Borealis has no secondary power set. She also has no Praetorian counterpart. I feel like her secondary could be "Light Manipulation", if that were a thing.

 

Aurora's Praetorian counterpart, if you can call it that, is the body that Mother Mayhem (Sister Psyche's counterpart) has forcibly taken possession of.  You see her in the cut scenes at the beginning of the Behavioral Adjustment Facility raid (BAF).  This merging is a callback to the origins of the game and the Earth Prime storyline, where Sister Psyche, in order to survive had to mentally take control of Aurora's body, allowing Psyche's body to slowly heal over time.  Eventually, of course, they separated. 

[Shred Monkey]

1 hour ago, Turric said:

3.  For the original Freedom Phalanx characters, 3 are invulnerability tankers (Statesman, Back Alley Brawler and Citadel). The original team consists of 3 tankers, 2 defenders, 2 controllers and a blaster. No scrapper. Just an  observation there.

If there had been a scrapper Hero, they wouldn't have needed a team.

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Turric said:

3.  For the original Freedom Phalanx characters, 3 are invulnerability tankers (Statesman, Back Alley Brawler and Citadel).

I still hold a grudge that the initial Invulnerability set had Unyielding Stance, which immobilized the user. I maintain that no developer ever tried to street sweep with their character while using that particular power. I was also non-plussed that Statesman had a ranged attack, and never understood why that final click of the original HeroClix figure had Pulse Wave on the final click.

[Wild Claw]

2 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

IIRC, they were to be part of the Korean launch, but the launch either flopped or never actually happened.  Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit were also characters from that attempt, which might explain their under-utilization.

I believe you're right. Spark Blade, Rose Star, Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit were all part of the supergroup "W.I.S.D.O.M." which was part of the "City of Hero" Korean beta. It never made it to production, but parts of it got integrated (All the 'young faces' in the character creator came from that beta, I believe). I think Spark Blade at least appeared in the physical Top Cow comic for a couple of issues. Not sure about Rose Star.

[Techwright]

4 hours ago, Turric said:

 

3.  For the original Freedom Phalanx characters, 3 are invulnerability tankers (Statesman, Back Alley Brawler and Citadel). The original team consists of 3 tankers, 2 defenders, 2 controllers and a blaster. No scrapper. Just an  observation there.

 

Unless it was adjusted late in the game, so I would not have heard it, Back Alley Brawler is actually not a member of Freedom Phalanx, though he certainly runs with them a lot.  He is actually one of the founders of The Regulators, a drug-culture fighting supergroup, that I think the Eagle Eye storyline in King's Row has you rebuilding.  The confusion comes apparently due to mishandling by the original dev team. BABs is a member of the Surviving Eight from the Ritki War, and since most are Freedom Phalanx members, folks confuse the status group with the super group. Even one of the old wikis got that mixed up, though the other one corrects it.

 

Also, technically they are not the original Freedom Phalanx. They are the game-starting members.  The original group founded in 1932, just days before Brass Monday. Of that group, I think only Dark Watcher and Statesman survived to the modern era.  I know Maiden Justice and at least one member of the duo Vambrace are dead. Elementar is presumed dead, but his passing is unusual and probably left open the possibility of a comic book styled return.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Techwright

[Techwright]

13 hours ago, Wild Claw said:

I believe you're right. Spark Blade, Rose Star, Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit were all part of the supergroup "W.I.S.D.O.M." which was part of the "City of Hero" Korean beta. It never made it to production, but parts of it got integrated (All the 'young faces' in the character creator came from that beta, I believe). I think Spark Blade at least appeared in the physical Top Cow comic for a couple of issues. Not sure about Rose Star.

They can all be seen in action in the trailer here: 

 

Edited June 30, 2020 by Techwright
re-insert video link

[catsi563]

Rose and Spark did appear in the COH Comics as part of the Korean team led by Foreshadow. fighting off the Circle or BP if I recall correctly. 

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

IIRC, they were to be part of the Korean launch, but the launch either flopped or never actually happened.  Foreshadow and Mirror Spirit were also characters from that attempt, which might explain their under-utilization.

Flopped hard, actually. Asian MMOs are highly group-focused, an artifact of the early days of MMOs. In Asia, the average home computer didn't have the graphics power to run the games, so publishers cut deals with the 'bangs' (internet cafés) to supply computers in exchange for them offering their games. Where Western MMO players go home, fire up their computers, go online, and meet their friends to play together or run solo, in Asia they typically get together with their friends, go to the internet cafe, sit down at adjacent systems and play together. Over time this resulted in MMOs where virtually all the content beyond the starting areas required a team, and the activities you could do solo (gathering, crafting) were hugely grindy and provided little play advancement. So when City of Hero was released in Korea, it didn't play the way the MMO community had come to expect from MMOs, and it never attracted enough players to keep the Korean version alive.

[Redlynne]

On 6/29/2020 at 5:29 AM, Turric said:

4.  Aurora Borealis has no secondary power set. She also has no Praetorian counterpart.

 

There's a statue of Praetor Tilman in Nova Praetoria that uses the body of Aurora Borealis.