RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Vanguard Discussion

When I said it was funny, I had no intention to offend. In fact, as I said before, I am very happy to see Vanguard action.

Now I am even more confused. You sort of completed the Manhattan story to allow a story that doesn't exist?

Or did you mean "we haven't YET done it?"

yes.

Now I wonder why you wrote this:

Quote:

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Grimm said:
And the circle is now complete. Farewell, Heroes Revolution Universe.

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Methinks you think too much, Euro...

You should see the size of my head...

Uhhhh, dude... that's not how I roll...

so I guess since it doesn't matter anymore, I can tell you guys that the Grimm who appeared first in Pro's "Brave New Vanguard" story idea was actually the son of Grimm and Viluria (evil sorceress from Dark World). so he really was a new character and only knew what Prometheus had briefly told him before dropping him into the new reality.


yeah.

This is the kind of talk for which I started the nostalgia thread. To know unused or unfinished ideas we had for the stories.

For example, I would like to know who was that kid that Dirk saved in Doc's last unfinished solo.

And I could reveal that I was toying with the idea of having Hero joining up Vanguard only to reveal much later that Merlin had switched brain with him sometimes before the Murder Mystery... I even had Hero changing behaviour from the Strikeforce's thread to the Murder Mystery story...

Nice Vanguard/Tomb/MBL reunion, Grimm...

my own "misguided nostalgia". . .I was bored. . .

Since we're fessing up, I guess it's only fair that I tell you guys that Shirley was actually a dude. If you look carefully, you'll notice that in her first appareance (HR #0), her best friend calls her "Joe".

(not really)

I was sorta going to bring Texhek back in the form of a computer that he downloaded his memories into as a backup. The computer was going to use a remote controlled android that looked like Texhek wearing battle armor to go after Lykopis becase it blamed her for the real Texhek's death.

The character of Tiberius was going to be the ultimate traitor...a plant placed there by The Syndicate. He was going to kill Brianna...

there was a plot idea thrown out at one time to replace all but a few members of Vanguard with characters who would actually be traitors. this would be orchestrated by a character of chewy's who would have been Montag's nemesis and the title of the stories would have been changed to Blackguard for a whole issue as the traitors took over the business.

it was dropped (can't fully remember why), and soon after Danny did his bit with Hal taking over Danny and turning him against the team. soon after, TTT revealed that Mason was originally supposed to be a traitor as well.

seems it was a popular idea. . .

Well, Danny planned it that way from the beginning (years before revealing it).

At one point, Danny and I wanted to register Lobo-like alts with names like "Murder McKill", and jump into the main story only to meticulously murder everyone. Just to piss you guys off, no other reason.

He's the former Prophet of The Order. He was the first chosen to bear the title. Thus, his abilities are in the similar vein of Turkish...

Britannica, Chewy, and I had worked out a basic premise for a crossover between Vanguard and the JLR. it would have centered around the disappearances of CJ and Banshee and their respective teams searching for them.

He was the son of the man the Evil MBL was using to power Manhattan. By forcing an 'evolution' on him, he developed the same powers as his father but more unstable and volatile. That's why the MBL was going to use him as a nuclear bomb in a major west coast city.

Cool.

I was also about a story or two away from killing Dirk.

Oh, and the villains from that story were also representative of the Universal monsters: Wolfman, Frankenstein's monster, Igor, Dracula, and the Mummy.

What about stories hinted at in the past?

Like Grimm's Mandelovia story or Chewy's last EPS? I am curious as a cat especially about the latter... considering I loaned Chewy two or three characters for the EPS...

The Left Hand/Mandelovia thing. yeah. basically it was Vanguard would go into Mandelovia to free them from the Left Hand. (I didn't have any specifics for this, it was supposed to be a group story)

Baron Zero was actually a metahuman who's power was centered in his left hand (which is why he wore a glove over it). He could basically "cancel out" the abilities of other metas. So for the most part, Vanguard would be powerless against an entire nation. He'd encountered Ludlow in his past (and Ludlow joined the group) and they used recordings of Ludlow's voice to recruit new followers (and later help in their takeover of Mandelovia).

The MBL got most of their advanced tech from the Left Hand smuggling it out of Mandelovia and set it up before cutting off Manhattan from the rest of the US.

The old man who's son joins the Left Hand in the solo tale was intended to be one of Link Fox's many children and Link and his butler are the strangers at the funeral at the end of the story. S'true. The legend that Link sites near the end of Murder Mystery is directly from this story and was meant to be a precursor to Vanguard's return to the country.

that's about all I can think of.

oh, and of course it was the Left Hand/Baron Zero that hired Maxwell Wolfe to kill the descendants of the Rogues.

That's right! I didn't remember the link between MM and the Mandelovia plot. Cool stuff.

Ah... my unwritten EPS story. Had a couple of ideas for it and it was something Gooz and I were working on for a while. Lemme break it down for ya, Euro.

Firstly - as you know - El Buitre, the Cavallis, and Col. Nemo weren't really dead as Walker had led Euro to believe in "The Odyssey". They were actually just added to the EPS, as that was always Walker's M.O. more than just blatantly killing. This new, beefed-up EPS would start assembling other metahumans to join their cause - a couple of unused characters for an all-female meta-liberation team I once eluded to (called F.E.M.M.E.), named Arial (an idea I loaned to CJ that became Brianna way back when who would be Brianna's polar opposite) and the Sunbird (a pyrokinetic who was pretty much a female Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction - I put her in my latest "Pantheon" post because I liked that character so much) and some others I don't recall at the moment.

Once assembled, the pieces were set for the ultimate chess game between him and Dr. Paragon - pitting both Vanguard teams against Walker's EPS. Stuff would happen, people would fight... characters you'd thought were gone would make cameos simply because I wanted them to (undoubtedly pissing off their creators). Eventually, Lochlan (Avatar's old character who I, for some reason, kept around) would turn on the EPS and it would be up to Turner (whose actual meta-abilities - in addition to the energy manipulation - were shutting on and off other meta-abilities) to put him down. Which he would.

Then Walker's endgame comes into play. He's been gathering information on the metagene all these years in order to effectively negate it. All across the board. No more metahumans at all. (Like "House of M" before there was "House of M". Had I actually written it, I would've been able to sue Bendis. Now... nothing.) He'd been working on a machine to shut down the metagene by amplifying Turner's power to broadcast it across the world. (Okay, I'll admit... that bit I stole for Morrison's JLA 'WW3' storyline.)

In the final brawl, Turner is hooked up to the machine and already beginning to neutralize the metagene all over the place, effectively killing both metaheroism and metaterrorism in one masterstroke. Then, Turner has a change of heart and decides to turn everyone on the planet into a metahuman. Looking back, I don't remember why, but Gooz wanted Turner to die a hero and not a monster. I hadn't really worked out the ending much, which is why I never wrote it. But, as you're reading this... you're probably glad I didn't.

Also, in order to answer a question I know you've been asking for about six years, Euro, I originally wanted the aliens in order to do a story about two alien races who have been warring for millennia, leaving planets ruined in their path. Naturally, they come to Earth and out entire planet is caught in the crossfire. It's up to Vanguard (then the MBL) to literally save the planet, something not really on the scale of anything they'd ever done. Tired plot? Maybe... but I think it would've been fun to see how it all played out.

I'd completely forgotten about this! I know we tossed the idea out there a few times, but I never thought you were actually into it. wow!

You basically reserved the aliens to do the same story I would have done, Chewy! Didn't I set up that with Basilisks and Boulls (or goulls, I don't even remember the name) in the posts where Euro and Danny where at Doc Quantos lab?

I wholeheartledy (how is it spelled?) agree it would have been a hell of a fun.

As for Turner, once Gooz told me in a chat that you and him at some point would have done the "last HR story" having the metas of Earth fighting the aliens, and in the end Turner would have turned all of the Earth population into metas to win the war, but he would have died before switching back everyone.
Probably it was an earlier stage of the plotting of an event that then became two, or maybe I just plainly got it wrong.

In any case, knowing that it was in the plan since the beginning of the HR stories, six years ago, makes it impressive. I wouldn't be able to keep such a plot in waiting for so much time...

This place is getting busier lately! I'm glad to see all the writing that's happening. Maybe we can get some healthy competition going with the active stories.

I wasn't too much at first, but it definitely grew on me. The idea of those two powerhouse geniuses going toe-to-toe was just too good to pass up!

I also had a really good scene for that one, where Gaunt faces off against EPS's 'Glow Worm' (who has the power to illuminate his flesh... and levitate - I know, it was lame, but I was a college freshman when I created the character and he was supposed to die anyway). Reynolds is shining on Gaunt, but, since he can't create light from all directions, Edmund still has a shadow behind him. So, the good Chancellor crosses his arms and falls back into his own shadow... and into the Shadow Realms, coming out only when Andy has stopped glowing and delivering a knockout blow to the back of his head. It just seemed really fun and cool and that scene, more than any other, is one that I'm sad I never got to write (though I suppose I kinda just did...).

No, that was part of the initial plan. I still wanted that sacrifice, but it was difficult to work into that last EPS story... though I knew it would have to happen there. Yeah, Gooz and I had a lot of stuff planned - some of it good - that we just never got around to.

For example, Priest was supposed to be the descendant of Andy "Glow Worm" Reynolds from the EPS. We hinted at it at the end of "Leave the Past Buried," but I dunno if we ever made it obvious... or if we eventually just retconned it out. The original plan was to have Priest kill Reynolds when Vanguard finally faced the EPS, but by that point, Priest had been given his happy ending and Gooz, no longer under his sadistic obsession to make his characters suffer immeasurably, didn't want to ruin that. So, Reynolds lived and we made no more references to their connection (aside from that first one).

Oh... and on the advisement of Gooz, I never revealed Walker's metahuman ability. And I'd never planned to. In fact, I don't even know what it is or even what it was supposed to be way back when.