RIP Jessica Jones

As far as I’m concerned, the story of Jessica Jones ended with Season 3 of the Netflix show. To hell with this whole Daredevil Born Again bit, and all the spinoffs that dribble from the corner of its nerveless mouth. 

I was willing to give the parent thing a chance - I knew they'd mindlessly echo that unfortunate mess from the comics eventually - but they couldn’t just stop there. They had to add this bullshit with her powers glitching and make her live in the burbs. Disney is really, really desperate to keep the uppity bitch in her place.

I thought the MCU was a bold, exciting thing when it started. Now it’s just Mojovision.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Luke Cage

Much as I love Jessica Jones, I gotta show some love for the people who made Luke Cage. (I'm talking about the show here, but the original comics are also worth checking out.)

Obviously, the gorgeous Harlem's Paradise set leaps out at you first. Then there's the music. Both the diegetic songs and the background music are perfect, giving it a delicious seventies exploitation feel. It's peppered with amazing actors. Apart from the ones we all knew from the start would be amazing, I have to mention the guy who played Diamondback, who chews all the scenery like he's out of gum, and I never get tired of watching him do it. 

They had a therapist who actually sounded like a real, competent, therapist. I get so tired of movies and shows where the psychologist is just some pompous douche who recites diagnostic terms like that's supposed to fucking help.

The story has depth. It's clear early on that we're stepping in after generations of history. And there are no one-dimensional characters. Even the flunkies have stories. The bad guys have endearing qualities without negating the fact that they're bad guys. The good guys have flaws. Misty is smart, brave, and generally heroic, but she underestimates people on her side, more than once, with tragic consequences. Cornell is a career criminal and a bully who takes no responsibility for the way his ambition runs other people down, but you can't help but feel bad for the kid inside him whose destiny was ground under the feet of someone even worse. And, with Tilda, we get to see how someone who is essentially good, and who was actually doing good, can become something else.  

And Tilda might have been showing us where Luke was going. From fugitive to reluctant hero to not-so-reluctant hero, and then…? His future promised to be an interesting exploration of just where hero worship takes us, and what it does to our heroes, when the whole thing was shut down. I don't have much faith that the character's current stewards will prove worthy of what was dropped in their laps. 

This show might be the best of all four when it comes to staying in touch with the comics, too. They even managed to get Diamondback's comic book costume onto the screen, and there was a shot of Cottonmouth firing a rocket launcher that was Watchmen-level storyboard-echoing. 

Finally, while I'm not gonna diss the Defenders miniseries, Luke Cage gave us the best Power Man and Iron Fist adventure to ever show up on screen. The S2 E10 story, "The Main Ingredient" was what I wanted to see from the moment I heard that Netflix was going to bring these two characters together. This is probably the easiest achievement to follow, so maybe we'll at least get a bit more of that kind of fun. 

.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Defenders Sessions 8-11

I was scrolling through the "SuperHero" tag after posting last night's review and noticed that I never posted the rest of my Defenders session recaps. Some of these were just notes I wrote for myself, rather than for strangers to read, so there's that. Anyway, here ya go. Oh, and yes, one of my players who joined around this point just had to be a goddamn DC character. I apologize on his behalf.

Session 8 Recap (04/11/20)

Cut Scene: Skivorski investigating. Follows Croit and CTE enforcers into warehouse where he sees them packing up (take this/leave that). Croit mentions that they have to clear everything important out because "those Hydra freaks" have been snooping around. Suddenly we see Skivorski cry out and fall and pan up to Silencer, crouching on top of some crates. Croit and his crew, expecting more people to show up, rush to leave and carelessly knock over a barrel on Skivorski. As the villains leave, we see Skivorski scream and get up as bullets fall out of his skin. He staggers towards the front door as his skin bubbles and his features warp.

Jessica has been sleeping a lot. Harry hired a new drummer for Dazzler's band, Johann, "Jack" Toggins, a big nordic-looking guy. 

The Big Concert: Starts great, although Jack is a little heavy-handed. Then protesters show up with anti-powers signs. Fights break out, but Dazzler pacifies them with a light show and the song, "Imagine." Jess didn't have to intervene. Kate Kane was hanging out at the bar. 

While the crowd is clearing out, there's a scream from backstage. Alison, Jess, and Kate, show up and see Cassie with a Hydra-drained Lance. She says she just found him this way. Jess is compelled to link into Hyra-consciousness and finds out Cassie did it because Lance caught her melting stuff with her aura. Same with Beefer.

Jess pretends to help but really tricks Cassie into burning her arm a little and calls Costa. She uses the burn to make it obvious that Cassie is powered and get her hauled off to The Raft. Introductions and stuff. Everyone's famous. 

Later, Doc Samson (post-mutation Skivorski) shows up with his muscles and green hair and tells them about the warehouse in the Bronx. 

Session 9 (4/25/20)

Ali, Jess, and Kate check out the warehouse and find several hydras also checking it out. They find spilled chemicals and a control panel with three big buttons and masking-tape labels reading FEAR, DOUBT, and HATE. Jessica used her hydra link to get in on their plan and keep them away from the others. Their plan turned out to be destroying the vault and setting all its inmates loose on the city. None of them knew who Fury really was.

They also caught a guy named Basil Elks who tried to freeze Ali and Samson with some kind of psi power. 

Jessica left and tried to use her hydra abilities to identify Fury. A vague feeling made her suspect Trish. When confronted, Trish seemed oblivious so Jess tried to make contact again. Trish's expression changed suddenly. She said, "what have you done?" and passed out.

Session 10 (5/9/20)

Cassie got disintegrated by Fury on her way to the Raft.

Everybody ended up at Trish's apartment. They couldn't wake her up so they called Claire, who said she needed a hospital with big beepy machinery or something. After a little reconnaissance courtesy of Kate's drone, they found that the old theater across from Rudy's still had an active CTE lab. They broke in and intimidated the scientist there into letting them use his gadgets. 

Samson suggested projecting their minds into Trish's because "her consciousness is fragmented." In Trish's mind, they overcame some trippy obstacles and finally set her free from a funky dome thing. Trish woke up and told them there was more to Fury's plan and it had wanted to incorporate everyone into its hydra collective. Also, while the remaining hydras (including Jess) were no longer linked, some of them still had powers.

Session 11 (6/8/20)

With the destruction (?) of Fury, Hydra was going berserk in New York. Malcolm gathered a gaggle of powered peeps over at Alias and put together a plan to split up into groups and take down the assorted villains and their brainwashed minions all at once. Dazzler, who had seen Moon Knight die, was a little surprised to see him there. He shrugged it off as, "a Moon thing."

15th Precinct – Iron Fist, Frank Castle, Doc Samson

A ghost was terrorizing the 15th Precinct. Danny put on his Iron Fist outfit and joined Frank Castle and Doc Samson to check it out. They found Cassie ranting to a brainwashed mob about how Dazzler and her freak friends got her killed and she was going to get revenge. Frank ran in and begged Cassie to take him to the other side so he could see his family again. She reached into his chest and he dropped. Samson decided he should take on the ghost while Iron Fist did crowd control, which didn't work out so well because Samson couldn't touch her. Switching roles, Iron Fist found a way to drain her chi, although he pleaded with her to go in peace so he wouldn't have to destroy her. Once she was vacuumed up, they were able to revive Frank.

Times Square – Luke Cage, Colleen Wing, Moon Knight

Ripley Ryan and Vince Hayes were in Times Square preaching the virtues of Hydra. Ripley turned out to be so strong that she was even able to hurt Luke (Sweet Christmas!). Vince had mind control powers. Again, there was a mob to fight but the good guys won eventually.

Hell's Kitchen Pier – Hellcat, Misty Knight, Daredevil

Doreen Green, Jackson Day, Jason Macendale, and a bunch of goons were taking over a boat at one of the docks in Hell's Kitchen. Doreen's annoying power nullification ability caused Misty's arm to weaken. Jackson had rage powers and Jason had a bunch of gadgets. He also had a psychic thing, but he never got around to using it.

Next time, in part 2 the season finale, we get to find out what happened to Jessica, Alison, and Kate.

Session 12 (6/20/20)

Intro

Red Hook Pier – Jessica Jones, Dazzler, Batwoman

(Basil Elks, Joey Macone, Maddy Pryor)

Oops. I guess I never got around to doing this one. Bummer. I'm pretty sure there was a surreal party scene on a boat.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Bonfire

I've been listening to Bonfire, by Krysten Ritter on the drive home after work and just finished it tonight. I loved it.

I generally avoid books by famous actors because I hate the thought that they might be written by a ghost writer who, while paid, will never get credit for giving some rich person yet another thing to brag about. Not that it would affect whether or not the book was good, of course. 

Anyway, I looked into Ritter's background and I think it's plausible that she can write for herself. She's sold screenplays. And it's not like what you're known for has to be the only thing you're good at. Most of the people I've worked with at my day jobs, even customers I chatted with at my old comic book store, had no idea I was a writer. 

The book is written in a noir detective novel style, which I think she almost overdoes sometimes, but I'll always pick a book with too many poetic phrases over one with too few. I think there was plenty of Jessica Jones still skulking around in her brain when she wrote this. It's also written in present tense, which put me off at first. It's kind of like when you're watching a good cartoon with a weird animation style, though. Eventually, you don't even think about it. Also, telling the investigation story in present tense makes it easier to keep up with because there are a lot of flashbacks.

The protagonist is an environmental lawyer who is returning from Chicago with some of her colleagues to the small company-owned town she grew up in, Barrens (a little on-the-nose for a town in Indiana, but whatever). They're investigating the possibility that this company, Optimal Plastics, has been dumping dangerous chemicals and covering it up. Combined with the event from the prologue, it doesn't sound like there's much more to learn, but there are a lot of surprises coming, and they aren't goofy, last-minute Murder by Death style surprises; they make sense.

Abby, the main character, is not Jessica Jones, but she has some of the traits that make Jessica appealing. She's a loner who thinks for herself; she doesn't mind a drink now and then; and she doesn't have a problem with one-night stands. She's not perfect, but unraveling her flaws is part of the fun of the book, so I'm just gonna leave that alone.  

I guess what it boils down to is, if you like noir, you'll probably dig this. Also, if you've ever lived in one of those small towns that some corporation rules like a feudal lord, you'll find it particularly easy to root for the hero. 

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Fury

I've been trying to make the second season (Session 5 on) of the Defenders campaign a little more "ramped up" and it seems to be going well. We've got more dangerous opponents, more mystery, and more guest stars. We even picked up a new player last time. The gang continues to surprise me as well.

Another thing we've done is to switch to an alternative dice-rolling method. Instead of both the player and GM rolling one die and adding the modifiers, it's almost all on the players. They roll two dice, one designated as positive and one negative. The total is then added to the same stuff and compared with a target number, usually the appropriate ability score of an NPC. In player vs. player rolls, we use the old method. Mathematically, it's the same, but it helps me focus more on what's going on if I let the players do all the rolling.

Session 7 Recap (02/22/20)

Over the course of the morning, they all eventually saw the latest Daily Bugle headline, Dazzler Lights up WITHOUT Props which showed a picture of Alison dazzle-blasting Pandora. The article, credited to "E. Brock" went on to describe the fight and continued to make the point that Dazzler had powers and was not just using stage lights and technological tricks.

There was also a short article about Moon Knight fighting a werewolf. This seemed odd to Ali, who had seen Moon Knight die, way back in the prologue. Don't worry about that, though; it's just one of those random unrelated plot threads I like to drop.

Eventually the three got together on a rickshaw because Jessica was using a Malaysian burner phone and the only ride-share app was "TurtleRabbit." Seeing the crowd of reporters, Jess pulled up her hood. One reporter asked if Jessica and Pam were Dazzler's "superhero gal pals" and Ali said the team was "Dazzler and Her Amazing Friends."

Alison wanted to talk to her manager, Harry Osgood, about her newspaper appearance and wanted Jess to interrogate Cassie, whose name was on the list, while they were there. Jessica actually bonded with Cassie about their shared issues with Alison while Ali and Pam talked to Harry.

Harry said he was disappointed that Ali had kept her secret, but he had been swamped with job offers since the news broke, and had several for Ali to choose from just for this coming weekend. She chose a concert at Stage 48 in Hell's Kitchen. Asked if this was really a good thing after all, Harry said Ali should be careful, but it was certainly a big opportunity.

Outside, Ali found out that, while Jessica had made friends with Cassie, she hadn't asked her anything about Hydra. At Ali's insistence, Jessica went back in and said, "By the way, are you a Hydra?" Cassie said she didn't know what that was about so Jessica followed up with a question about being sick after the incident with Kilgrave. She said she hadn't.

The plan after that was to split up, each one taking part of the list.

Alison started with Jackson Day, the closest one to where she already was. He was a dock worker and a first glibly denied suffering any illness after the incident. Then he got a pained look and adopted a completely different manner, saying that yes, he had been sick, and had suffered blackouts occasionally since. He had still never heard anything about a hydra, though. She thanked him and texted the others that they should look into him further.

Pam started with Dontay Jackson, a lawyer at Hogarth & Associates, but couldn't get in to see him until next week, so she moved on to Corwin Manson. Manson was a copy editor at the Bugle, and he hadn't been sick or heard anything about a hydra, but he did remember a chunk of a story that had never been printed. The reporter had interviewed and done background research on everyone present and noted that several of them were sick shortly after. Pam verified that Madelyne Pryor had been one of them and moved on.

Jessica went to see Madelyne Pryor, who was now an agent at the Perez Travel Agency. She found Madelyne in her office with a uniformed policeman who she introduced as Officer Macone. The conversation didn't last long before their eyes flashed and someone tried to telekinetically suck the air out of her lungs. Jessica grabbed Madelyne and jumped out the window, jumping to a nearby rooftop. Jessica kept trying to talk to her, but Madelyne, who was much stronger than she looked, broke free, took a swing at Jessica, and jumped away.

Jessica, enjoying the fight, followed and tried to foot-sweep her, but botched it. Eventually she got Madelyne to listen to her. She told Jessica about the bond of the Hydra units and their goddess, Fury, who promised them a wonderful new world of order and justice. Jessica convinced Madelyne to introduce her to Fury. Madelyne said she needed to arrange it because she couldn't reach Fury on her own. They exchanged contact information.

The information came a bit later. The next night, Jessica was to go to the for-pay parking lot where Midland Circle used to be. Jessica, Alison, and Pam got back together to do some more planning. The other two would hide nearby while Jessica went to her meeting. Before they left, Alison called Danny to fill him in on everything in case something went wrong.

There was nobody in the parking lot, but Jessica kept going and met a transparent, vaguely feminine figure. When asked if it was Fury, the shape said, "Yes, inevitably." Fury invited Jessica to join "my children" in bringing its vision of a utopia governed by superhumans to life and extended its hand.

Jessica accepted.

Jessica Jones, Attorney at Law

Session 6 Recap (02/08/20)

Setup Info Sent to Pandora's Player: You've been pursuing a creep people have been calling the Mad Gasser. He gets in through upper story windows in Hell's Kitchen, knocks people out, goes through their stuff, and steals things. You finally caught him in the act. He uses weird mechanical stilt things to extend himself up and then gasses them. You've knocked him down and are beating the crap out of him in the street when we introduce you.

Jessica got home around 3AM and, having been the sober one for an uncomfortably long period of time, went down the street for a cartful of whiskey and got to work on it before she even made it home. When she charged her phone, she found several calls from a blocked number and a voicemail from a man who said he had turned off some cameras to help her out the other night and wanted to meet with her at the Dewitt Clifton Park tomorrow at 5PM.

Meanwhile, Alison woke up to a bunch of noise outside. She and Danny found a woman with Betty Page hair (Pandora) beating up a guy with a metal tank on his back and some kind of mechanical leg attachments (Mad Gasser/Stiltman). As Ali and Danny arrived on the street, Pandora punched out Stiltman. Then she grabbed his head. Both their eyes glowed and Stiltman started to shrivel up.

Alison used the man's screams to power a weak dazzle-blast. Despite its low power, the beam nailed the preoccupied Pandora right where it needed to, overwhelming her senses and stunning her for the duration. Danny went upstairs to call 911 while Alison (still in her nightgown) made sure Stiltman was okay.

Jessica, reminded of Alison by the "BITCH" scrawled on her door, decided to pay her back with a drunk call. This eventually led to Jessica, Costa, some other cops, and an ambulance showing up around the same time.

Costa got them all to come to the station and held Pandora, who had reverted to her other personality, Pam Schrodinger, for psychiatric evaluation, but kept her powers out of the report because he wanted her out of Powers Division custody in case he needed more information on Stiltman. He had been pursuing this guy for a while and wanted the collar to stick.

Jessica decided that she was Pam's lawyer now and kept throwing in objections and sidebars and referring to Pam as "my client." The next day, Pam was released but Costa (who apparently never sleeps and answers all calls because I enjoy bringing him in when I can) asked Jessica to keep an eye on her as a favor.

Reminded of the investigation by a text about Beefer's upcoming funeral, Alison, Jessica, and their new buddy Pam, got back to the Hydra investigation. Jessica shared the information she had gathered so far. The recap led to her eventually remembering that she had an appointment, so they went to the park to meet the anonymous caller. Ali, Danny, and Pam stayed hidden in case there was trouble.

Eventually the whole gang was talking with dude, a skinny kind of hippy-looking dude with a brown ponytail, which reminded Jessica uncomfortably of Karl Malus. He said his name was Dr. Leonard Skivorski, which elicited a snort of laughter from Jess, and that he worked at the Raft as a biopsychologist. He had ensured her entry and escape (although his friend "Micro" had helped him out with the computer stuff) partly because he knew about her investigation of the Hydra.

Kilgrave's ghostly image was particularly agitated during this conversation, nagging Jessica to the point that she occasionally lashed out at nothing and almost punched Alison once. Skivorski revealed that "ESPer Units" at the Raft were using superhuman biomatter to try to tap into a kind of microbial intelligence that had recently begun to manifest. He said they had been able to trace the manifestations back to November 20, 2015. The date immediately dug into Jessica's mind, even silencing her purple ghost. It was the day she broke Killgrave's neck.

Skivorski apologized for not having more information, but gave her a contact number and left. Investigating further, the team (mostly Jessica) got a list of the people who were present when Kilgrave died: Vince Hayes, Basil Elks, Jackson Day, Joey Macone, Cassandra Means, Ripley Ryan, Patricia Walker, Earnest Miller, Ravelo Ramos, Madelyne Pryor, Dontay Jackson, Corwin Manson, Doreen Green, Kubur Killington, Jason Macendale.

She got pictures and vital stats for all of them. For possibly meta reasons, they zeroed in on Madelyne Pryor, who said she had been sick after the incident, but was better now. When she found out she was talking to Jessica Jones, she hung up.

Pam said Ravelo Ramos sounded hot, but not much else happened.

The Hydra

Session 5 Recap (01/11/20)

The holidays came and went. Jessica and Alison exchanged gifts (at Ali's prompting) but, with the threat to Dazzler's life gone, they didn't otherwise stay in touch. One morning in January, Dazzler stopped by Harry's office to check in on a job. Harry was closing up the office for the day. He was disheveled and had obviously been crying, and revealed that Hamilton Glatt (known to Dazzler and the crew as "Beefer") had died. He said they had tried to reach Alison, but Cassie said she wasn't answering her phone. 

According to Harry, Glatt's body had been burned black and there had been "some kind of flower" drawn on his spine. Ali took him out for a drink or ten, made sure he got home, and proceeded to get even more plastered. Eventually she called Jessica, intending to ask for her help. She wasn't communicating very well, so they both just got mad and hung up. Alison went to Jessica's apartment around 5:30 AM, but Jessica hadn't gotten home yet, so Ali lasered BITGCH, with the "G" crossed out, into her door and passed out.

Eventually they hooked up at Ali's place in Chelsea. Jessica did some research while trying to sober Alison up, noting the irony while she ordered Chinese food. Alison concocted a horrible mixture of champagne and wine coolers and kept drinking when Jessica wasn't paying attention. She called Danny Rand and, over Alison's shouts of, "Is he seeing anybody?" asked for his help with the mysticism-related elements of the case.

Meanwhile, using some "borrowed" passwords, Jessica found the crime scene photos. As Harry had said, the body was completely charred and shriveled up like a mummy. Along the spine were five identical symbols in white ash, with two more on the head – one on the back and another on top. The figures were shaped like flowers with lots of tear-shaped petals.

Danny showed up at about the same time as the food and identified the flower patterns as lotus. He confirmed Jessica's suspicion that the arrangement matched the seven main chakras and mentioned that he had come across references to similar psychic vampirism while researching ways to undo Davos's theft of the Iron Fist.

Jessica made sure Ali ate something, then asked Danny to look out for her while she followed up on an idea. The two went to a nearby bar, the Lava Lounge, where Ali subconsciously used her emotion-shifting aura to make everyone want to dance. Danny resisted the lightshow, but danced anyway. Then her thoughts drifted back to her dead friend and she accidentally made everyone else sad. 

Meanwhile (I love saying "meanwhile"), Jessica got a ride south and then jumped from ship to ship to eventually land on the artificial island prison known as The Raft. The prison itself was windowless concrete with only one entrance. Well, two if you count the yard in the middle. Avoiding searchlights and patrols, Jessica crept closer and jumped to the roof, then dropped quietly into the yard. She convinced a guard that she was a civilian inspector who wandered off and found Davos's cell. 

Davos was surprisingly accommodating and told Jessica about a series of similar murders in K'un Lun. He laughed as he told her that she was pursuing a hydra. In the incident in K'un Lun, the Hydra was group of telepaths working in concert, led by a controlling mind that never physically manifested. He asked for dust from the collapse of Midland Circle in return for his help.

Jessica went back to Manhattan and eventually Dazzler passed out. While that might seem like a decent end, the truth is that we expected to play a fair bit longer than we did. So some time passed, and a mostly-sober Dazzler put the moves on Danny, who mentioned earlier that he and Colleen were kind of on the outs. I think we were cutting back to Jessica when real life stuff ended the session.

I Want Your Cray-Cray

Session 3-4 Recap (10/26/19 and 11/16/19)

Dazzler created a distracting lightshow while Jessica made an opening in the far wall, then picked up Alison and jumped to the next building. The two split up and made their way across town.

Jessica went to Trish's place while it was still dark, but Trish wasn't home. She did some research and tracked down the woman Barrigan had called. After conning her way to the executive floor with trendy coffee, she made her way to Danning's office and confronted her. Danning wouldn't talk and was confident that Jessica wouldn't dare try anything because she'd never get back out. Jessica grabbed her, smashed a window, and jumped out to land on an adjacent rooftop.

Dazzler, meanwhile, was busy tracking down Flame, convinced that, despite having put the last person who used that name in jail, somebody with an agenda was burning down all her venues. The search led her to Turk Barrett and some Italian guy named Tyrone at Josie's.

Despite some awkwardness about her reason for leaving Harlem's Paradise (one of these days I need to post my after-the-series background stuff), Jessica called Luke and asked for his help with her captive. Luke, pleased to hear from her, agreed to help out. On the way, Jessica found out from Sugar that Luke wasn't currently seeing ("having coffee with") anyone.

While Jessica was interrogating villains and getting laid, Dazzler was trying to keep Tyrone on the hook. At some point the two got back in contact. Morbius the Living Vampire showed up for no particular reason. He had psychic illusion powers to which Jessica was immune, but every attempt triggered a Kilgrave vision. Unfortunately for him, he didn't much like bright light and Dazzler had plenty of it. They dumped him in Luke's quiet room with Sheila Danning.

Danning, eager to not be locked in with a vampire, gave up the location of Flame's HQ. As Dazzler and Jessica had suspected, it was an organization, not an individual. This turned out to be in a trendy gym over P.F. Chang's close to Times Square. Dazzler picked out some workout clothes for her and Jessica, who wasn't thrilled at being dressed in pink and absolutely refused to wear the leg warmers.

At the gym, Jessica went about distracting the jocks. Dazzler went off and distracted the staff. Everyone was distracted, but nobody was doing anything. Eventually Dazzler did lead the manager away from her office, giving Jessica the chance to break in to the locked rooms behind it. There she found files detailing the buildings Flame had burned down and several sets of Flame gear. She took pictures and sent them to Costa so he could get a search warrant.

While they waited for the cops, Jess and Ali kept an eye on the building from outside to make sure none of their targets escaped. Jessica saw the manager climbing down the fire escape in a Flame suit and grabbed her in a leaping tackle. Though pinned, Flame was able to activate her gauntlets and burn Jessica's legs. Jessica, in pain and angry about the whole situation, hit her on the hip as hard as she could, breaking the bone. Flame passed out and Jessica turned her over to the police with a warning that she had fallen from the fire escape and broken her hip.

Dazzler went off for a hookup with Ward (once she got Danny to leave) while Jessica, hating herself for seriously injuring someone by letting her anger get the better of her, tossed back a few more drinks and headed over to Trish's place. She opened up to Trish about her frustrations and how Dazzler is "all rainbows and unicorns," and "she made me wear PINK!"

and credits.

Defenders Session 2

We had a bit of player-shuffling from last time. Danny and Jessica's players dropped out because they were just in it to help me test the convention version. (One of them hates Marvel. The other one has a thing about only playing "original" characters and maybe some Scrap Pile related hangups.) Trish's player switched to Jessica. Dazzler is still Dazzler.

This session officially makes it a campaign instead of a one-off, and I'm loving it. I'm getting that same buzz that I used to get with the old campaign. I've only got two players, but they've turned Ali & Jess into the coolest buddy cop duo ever, so it's working. If there are more players later, that's great, but it's totally not necessary. 

Session 2 Recap (10/12/19)

A few weeks passed. Cross's lawyers got him and Croit out of jail, "pending further investigation" Superhuman incidents were becoming more frequent. During a break in Dazzler's gig, she and Jessica saw a news story pop up about another one, a gray-skinned man named Bruce Landers who was taken down by "heroes" armed with CTE's new anti-superhuman stun guns.

Meanwhile, a fan approached Alison with flowers and then tried to shoot her. Jessica threw a chair at the guy, lifted him up by his belt, and asked him what he was doing. After a little friendly persuasion, he revealed that Bo Barrigan (the mobster from last session) had put a price on Dazzler's head. Jessica kept his belt. Also, there was a fire.

Wondering if there could be a link between the attack, the wave of berserk superhumans, and Cross's "undertaker" machine, the two decided to check out the scene of one of the recent incidents. At a nearby park, they poked around in the dark and, at first, didn't find much. Jessica suggested a new use for Dazzler's ability to absorb sound and she tried it. Absorbing all the sound she could and doing her best to tune into the flavor of it, she was able to trace the effects of a low-frequency sound pulse to a nearby mailbox.

Jessica tore open the mailbox, only to find that the device they were looking for was actually taped to the bottom. It was a metal box, held closed by screws. Jessica gathered up the letters and took them to another mailbox while they considered whom they might know who could help with tech stuff.

As three o'clock closed in, they decided to call Danny Rand. Danny was groggy, but willing to help out, so they brought it to his apartment on Fifth Avenue, where they also found a slightly put-out Colleen Wing. Apparently they were getting back together, but she still lived in Chinatown and was just here for tonight. Danny couldn't reach any nocturnal scientists, so Ali and Jess slept in the living room so they could hand the gadget over in the morning.

In the morning, Danny called Ward for help finding the right department. He came by to take them there and flirted with Alison a bit. Jessica left on a personal errand while Ward and Alison went to the lab. While the scientists did their science stuff, Alison visited her manager to discuss her uber expenses and Jessica's bar tab.

Jessica, meanwhile, took a cab to Jersey City, where Trish had been hiding out since the night she escaped Croit's lab. Trish was a little on edge from the whole fugitive thing and did not at first realize that Jessica just wanted to spend time with her sister and make sure she was okay. Eventually they hugged it out and talked for a while.

The lab discovered that, as expected, the box contained a sonic aggression booster. It also had a simple radio-controlled on/off switch. Shelving that for the moment, the two followed up on Alison's suspicion that the mercenary, Flame, was involved with last night's chaos, but he was still in jail.

Dazzler's next gig was a few nights later at The Glass Door, an industrial bar on 37th street, across from Fogwell's Gym. It was a rough neighborhood and not a great bar, but she still had a reasonable crowd. While Dazzler played her first set, Jessica began to notice that everyone was being really obnoxious. The bourbon tasted like it had been watered down, the stools were uncomfortable, and something smelled bad. She was just about to punch some guy's head off for spilling a drink on her when she realized what was happening.

Alison also caught on, and immediately started absorbing all the sound in the bar except the music, also broadcasting calming light patterns. With the device still active, it was much easier to locate, even though it gave her a headache. She pointed Jessica to its location and Jessica destroyed it. Then they noticed that the building was on fire.

While they were helping people get clear of the building, someone tried to taze Jessica. She pulled up a parking meter and threw it at him, instantly knocking him to the pavement and unconsciousness. They found out that people were getting these stun guns from a guy named Tommy Forkbeard (a Barrigan flunky) at a honkytonk bar in Red Hook. Alison confronted Forkbeard (who did, in fact, have a long, forked beard) while Jessica came in through the back. After another brawl, they found out that Forkbeard didn't know much beyond Barrigan's location in another part of Brooklyn.

 

They knocked out Barrigan's guards and strong-armed him into talking. He got his supplies from someone named Sheila, who he only knew as a voice on the phone. They got him to call and set up a delivery, but he could only leave a message on her machine because it was the middle of the night.

Shortly after, sirens blared, blue and red lights flashed on the windows, and a voice over a loudspeaker demanded that they come out with their hands on their heads.

Defenders: Project Undertaker

Session 1 Recap (9/21/19)

Alison Blaire (Dazzler), worried about her safety after having tangled with a local mobster, hired Jessica Jones to protect her at her performance for retro night at The Plank, a run-down club on the 41st street pier. Danny Rand (Iron Fist) had been tracking a red motorcycle which had been seen at several arsons across the area. He found it outside an old warehouse next to The Plank. Ali's set and Danny's surveillance were interrupted by a thunderous explosion which shook the building.

Jessica ran out to see what was going on while Ali made sure the audience and staff got out of the building safely. Danny saw a man in a sci-fi looking costume with tubes and stuff (Flame) running out of the now-burning building towards the cycle and shot it, blowing it to pieces. Jessica, looking from a higher vantage point, also saw four people running off in the other direction. While Danny fought Flame, Jessica ran into the building to see what was going on. She found Trish Walker fighting with some sort of mutated human. Putting aside her surprise for the moment, Jessica took hold of the man and led both of them out of the building.

The man said his name was Marcus Daniels and he had been abducted by a Doctor Abner Croit and experimented on with genetic material taken from enhanced humans. Trish revealed that the same people had a deal with private security contractors at The Raft to experiment on powered prisoners. As part of this deal, she and others had been taken off-site to locations like this. Jessica agreed that, at least for now, she couldn't send Trish back to that.

While everyone was comparing notes, the police arrived. Trish slipped away before they saw her and watched from the shadows. A bunch of uniforms showed up, along with Detective Costa. Some of the uniforms had funky taser-looking devices. One of them muttered, "We don't have to be afraid of your kind anymore," to Jessica. The police arrested Daniels and "Flame" and asked the others to come in for a statement. From her outside vantage point, Trish noticed that a sphere around one car (the one Daniels was in) was getting darker.

Jessica managed to hang back and talk to Trish. While the cops pulled away, they saw the car with Daniels in it rust to pieces. Daniels got clear and looked like he was about to attack them, then screamed and shriveled into a mummified husk.

After the police interviews, they did some detective work separately and then got together to investigate Doctor Croit, They went to his apartment in the Chelsea, where Jessica figured out his password (SelfishGene) by looking through his book collection. She found some information about his employers, Cross Technological Enterprises, ("Where tomorrow begins today") and several emails from the Director of Environmental Compliance, William Cross, that just said things like, "see me" or "we need to talk now." Danny found a key with a handwritten tag that said, "Rudy's." On the way out, they spotted some cops watching the area, so Trish slipped away and stayed in hiding for the rest of the night.

At Rudy's they had a few drinks, ate some free hot dogs, and tried every door in or next to the bar, but the key didn't fit anything. Eventually, they noticed the old building across the street with the art deco entrance and the top three stories that looked abandoned. The key fit there. As they were entering, a Jessica was shot from behind. She told the others to go on while she dealt with the sniper.

Jessica spotted him withdrawing from edge of a building across the street and leaped to tackle him. She noticed once she got close that nothing near him made any sound. After a couple of acrobatic throws and some of punches, Jessica took The Silencer down.

Meanwhile, Danny and Alison proceeded into the art deco building. They pressed five in the elevator and, near the top, started feeling a little dizzy. When the door opened, a man wearing a skull mask said, "Senior Muerte welcomes you to your doom!" Their last thought before passing out was that "Senior Muerte" was a terrible name.

They woke up in a concrete cell. Danny's guns and Alison's radio were missing. A monitor screen lit up, showing Senior Muerte, a man in a business suit, and four armed guards. The suit identified himself as William Cross and bragged that he had taken Alison's "light show device," along with the guns, so she was powerless. He also said they were about to be the final test of Project Undertaker.

He checked a comm screen and turned to Muerte. "Montoya, the other one is here. Get down there and take care of her." Cross flipped some switches on a panel and a low rumble spread through the room, buzzing in their skulls. Danny and Alison began to feel inexplicably angry at each other.

Jessica, arriving in the lobby and noticing that one elevator was on the fifth floor, hit the call button, then opened another one across the hall pushed the five button, and stepped out before the doors closed.

Meanwhile, Alison, recognizing that Cross was using a sonic weapon on them, started absorbing the sound, negating its effect. She used the energy to laser through the door and escaped with Danny. They followed a tunnel to a stairway and found themselves backstage in an abandoned theater. They found Danny's guns and Alison's radio in the work room. After wandering around a bit more, they got to the stage, where there was a bunch of equipment set up. Cross and some guards were there. Alison dazzled the lot of them, but Cross activated something on his chest and suddenly revived, eyes glowing. He picked up one of the obviously heavy machines and threw it. They dodged, and Danny used the Iron Fist to wreck Cross. Then they tricked Muerte into returning and ambushed him.

They took the villains to the police and had a nightcap at Rudy's.

Carnage 2019 Events

I'll update this post as stuff develops. The Carnage registration page is: https://tabletop.events/conventions/carnage-22

Defenders Again
Icons Assembled
Friday 7PM
Event 91, Snowshed Ballroom, SBL13
For some crazy reason I haven't settled on yet, the street-level heroes from the Marvel Netflix shows end up fighting crime together again. I'll write up a bunch of characters from the shows (and a pre-X-Men Dazzler) and let you pick the ones you want. There may be opportunities to tag in unused ones, too. This version of Dazzler is more in line with the early issues of her own series, before she developed the ability to store the sound energy she absorbs or started doing the constant "solid light" blasts. She'll have to rely more on immediate sound sources. Here's the list of potential characters: Jessica Jones, Hellcat (Trish), Luke Cage, Daredevil, Iron Fist (Danny), Misty Knight, Colleen Wing, and Dazzler.

Mountain of Mirrors
Moldvay/Cook Dungeons & Dragons
Saturday 1PM
Event 93, Snowshed Ballroom, SBL13
The Pass of Shanafria -- the Mountain of Mirrors -- is cut off by forces unknown. Climb to the high mountain pass, put a stop to whatever malevolent forces are at work, and reopen the vital link to the lands beyond before it's too late. Inspired by the Endless Quest book of the same name. If you've already read it, don't worry, the adventure is mostly my own stuff. If I have the physical books in hand, I'll be using Old School Essentials to run this. The rules are the same so it won't really matter. Since the books aren't due out until October, though, there's a good chance I'll be using the originals instead.

Dungeon!
Board Game
Saturday 7PM
Event 111, Oscar Wilde Ballroom, OW14
Play a Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, or Wizard searching for lost treasure in a dungeon filled with monsters. Wizards of the Coast edition of the classic TSR board game. This usually only takes an hour or so to finish. I'll be happy to stick around for two or three sessions to fill up the time if everybody's into it.