Board 8 > Scarlet Ranks User-Created Superhero Teams II: Top Ten

(+) Yeah! (+)

Two teams remain:

From Snake... Sleepers
A stealth based team tasked with protecting the world's threats without any of the fame that comes with it.

- Black Widow
- Clayface (Basil Karlo)
- Catwoman
- Ghost (Marvel)
- The Question (Vic Sage)
- Plastique

From Wickle... Mephisto's Contracts
Mephisto wants to defeat Trigon, sending some souls after him

Mephisto (by command)
Ghost Rider
Spawn
Blue Devil
John Constantine
Daimon Hellstrom

Who will win? Find out tomorrow.
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I think wickle will win
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Yeah I probably would have ranked the detective team way lower. Just not something I really see the vision for. Like the interactions are potentially interesting but I feel like we don't often see a team of detectives for a reason. A team of detectives is like a team of golfers imo. They tend to work better alone with the other people giving them support in ways that aren't about detecting.

I guess the key for a detective agency comic to work for me would be carefully deciding cases in ways such that only one or two of the detectives actually is capable of taking the role of the lead detective. I feel like a dude like Constantine working with a dude like Batman will have a lot of potential cases where one can't solve the other's case, but like The Question or Jessica Jones I'm not sure they're able to do anything Batman couldn't do alone, you know?
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How do you think the quality of any of these Batman books would improve if we got to see his dick in them?
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I actually like Wickle's team a lot so I won't even be mad if he wins!
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Always seeing Scar's write-ups about Pantheons when it comes to characters makes me curious on trying to build a Pantheon based on a different medium. I think I've seen him do it with video games before. Maybe I'll work on one eventually.
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Lopen posted...

Yeah I probably would have ranked the detective team way lower. Just not something I really see the vision for. Like the interactions are potentially interesting but I feel like we don't often see a team of detectives for a reason. A team of detectives is like a team of golfers imo. They tend to work better alone with the other people giving them support in ways that aren't about detecting.

I guess the key for a detective agency comic to work for me would be carefully deciding cases in ways such that only one or two of the detectives actually is capable of taking the role of the lead detective. I feel like a dude like Constantine working with a dude like Batman will have a lot of potential cases where one can't solve the other's case, but like The Question or Jessica Jones I'm not sure they're able to do anything Batman couldn't do alone, you know?

Depth of character is way more important to me than quality of skills. I've read 80 years of Batman being the best detective. Even Poirot and Holmes are wrong or need assistance from time to time, and this would be a title about breadth of cases, not one case an issue. Like I said it's about a web of conspiracy. And I don't know how much more clearly I can explain that Batman can't be the detective that some of these others are.

Teams ONLY exist because of interactions. And every detective mind here is unique and different.
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That might have come off a bit harsh, sorry.
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It didn't really.

But I don't really think Batman and Robin or Holmes and Watson are really similar because it's not a team dynamic there as much as master and apprentice. In a team setting of 8 detectives you're going to naturally have the top dog rise to being the head detective, making most of the rest feel obsolete most of the time unless you're really careful with accentuating the strengths of the less versatile and resourceful minds there. Robin solving a case before Batman is a cool moment because it's such a role reversal and really puts Robin over. If you get that feeling when 70% of the members do it feels more like the 70% are jobbers.

Like I'm not saying it's as simple as "Batman > you QED" but I don't think the load is going to be balanced between the detectives there without writing that comes off as sloppy, nor is it possible without stronger personality (direct opposites ala Scully vs Mulder, but along many different axes simultaneously per character) or skillset divides. Like I envision a comic with these guys playing out like some nonsense like Criminal Minds with brainstorming sessions where everyone is unnaturally finishing each other's sentences in an attempt to try and make everyone feel like they're helping. I think you can make a detective team work but I think it probably needs to be smaller for it to really tick. With like 8 guys it's too much of a balancing act. Too many cooks.

I respectfully still disagree with you. It's not really something I'll cede due to less experience with comic book characters either, just a fundamental difference in how we see what makes good teams (more specifically, of this type, I suppose) really.
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You're missing that the team itself is a touchstone in a grander world of conspiracy, intrigue and mystery. On his best day, Batman is one man, especially one grounded in skepticism and disbelief. He's the opposite of a team player, one who has consistently proven himself wrong over the years by his refusal to adjust his worldview to account for even his closest friend's existence. And that alone makes Jessica Jones valuable to the team because Batman doesn't investigate Gypsy beating her live-in superhero girlfriend Mystek. And that makes Detective Chimp valuable because a three-headed fish being birthed on a leyline is something Batman would never consider important. And that makes Rorschach valuable because when you disagree with President Pete Ross' taxation plan, you dig and you dig and you dig until you prove you're right or you're incarcerated. Batman is the best at what he does, but the underlying message you're missing is that that makes him the worst at what others do. He doesn't shake the devil's hand to find a missing child like Constantine. And therefore he'll never find that child because studying butlers and bookshelves only gets you so far.

The reason the Robin example matters is that Robin becomes Nightwing and then Batman himself. Bruce Wayne is the zenith of human fortitude, but he's not infallible. You're not filling a bench with second-stringers. If you read the current Detective Comics book, you'd see that Batman lines his cave with allies so that he can create a network of super-sleuths. Because one Batman is far from enough.

This team isn't in a room together all the time. In fact, the beauty of this team is that in each story they would come together once or twice as a full unit. From there, they would function like the Justice Society usually did - in pieces, as the only partners who understand a particular clique or mindset. An elite society focused on the matters of the mind. And the exploration of each of these minds - uniquely suited to this title since each one is vastly different from the next - plays a major psychological role in understanding how thought works.

It's a beautiful idea, and you're spending too much time breaking it down into the NCIS procedural schlock on television. The best comics laugh at that. Sandman, Starman, Planetary, DMZ, Scalped, The Massive, Low... none of them are hand-tied to perfunctory storytelling structure. They encourage a break from this concept of "one case". No. It's ALL of the cases. You don't put this book together to solve one problem. You put this book together and ask them to solve 10 problems simultaneously before drawing the camera back and showing that 10 problems is actually 1 problem if you have enough perspectives to draw it together.
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What you're describing sounds less compelling as an actual honest to goodness team and more compelling as something akin to eddv's team where he stylized it as a buncha guys meeting up at the farplane or whatever sharing their stories, which iirc you said you would've docked points on eddv for had you interpreted it that way.

Not a knock though. Definitely see some merit in a story that's structured more like that. Where they're sorta doing their own thing and then it all clicks together.

I still think it's a lot better with more direct contrasts, though. Like, Batman not picking up on a clue because he didn't bother to investigate Gypsy which happened to be a clue doesn't have the same oomph as Batman not picking up on a clue because his mindset directly opposed the method or point of investigation-- like Batman wouldn't necessarily be opposed to investigating Gypsy, he just didn't bother to cause he didn't notice it was potentially important at the time, which is a subtle difference that means a lot to me. Which is why, as I said, I did quite like the idea of Batman and Constantine as a team-up, because there are large swaths of investigative methods and beliefs with zero overlap there, it's very easy.

It's just when you line up all 8, it becomes tougher and tougher to juggle the idea that only Detective 7 out of 8 could have got this clue, and only Detective 5 out of 8 could have got this clue, and that all 8 clues were necessary to solve the puzzle. It may not literally be Criminal Minds if written well, but if not written exceptionally well it can easily become the actions not words version of it, if you're not careful.
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Lopen posted...

's just when you line up all 8, it becomes tougher and tougher to juggle the idea that only Detective 7 out of 8 could have got this clue, and only Detective 5 out of 8 could have got this clue, and that all 8 clues were necessary to solve the puzzle. It may not literally be Criminal Minds if written well, but if not written exceptionally well it can easily become the actions not words version of it, if you're not careful.

John Constantine isn't a great detective because of his mind. He's a great detective because he will in fact do ANYTHING to solve the problem in front of him. He will damn a family to save the son.

Jessica Jones isn't a great detective because of her mind. She's a great detective because she looks at the intimate problems and follows the trail of those things a Batman not only wouldn't consider but wouldn't follow. There's a different kind of detective work involved here. There's an emotional component most everyone else lacks.

Rorschach will see conspiracy in everything and then follow it, damn everyone around him. Damn the rest of the team if they can't see it. He'll prove his narrative.

Elongated Man is tilting at windmills and searching for a romantic notion of detectives. He's in the group as the soul of the team. He wants to believe Sherlock Holmes is an ideal and he is nurturing more than anything else. His value is to encourage a failing investigation by suggesting that not all is lost. In the single-minded approach of Batman, there's a toll that can be taken. When Batman is in the Justice League, he still needs J'onn to be there. Ralph is that J'onn.

The Question is a moral check because the Question himself spent so long wrestling with morality. If Ralph is a temper on the soul, the Question is a temper on the mind. He questions your actions. Not at any cost, he says. Some of these detectives are here to serve a story purpose. Batman and the Question are totally different as well. Batman doesn't have contacts in the way the Question does. The Question is a softer touch, and therefore where Batman is forced to try and reconnoiter an answer out of someone, the Question can just ask and maybe learn more than Batman ever would.

Detective Chimp is your comic relief but also your common sense (which helps reinforce the comic relief). You need the drunken dwarf to speak truths sometimes. Batman is so in it. He has tunnel vision. He doesn't see White Martians invading Earth, he sees J'onn's cousins attempting to conquer the planet Darkseid attempted to steal out from under Superman and his mom and dad are dead and and and.... Detective Chimp is the voice saying, "These are alien super-cops and they said a New God died, Batman." You have no real POV in this title, so bursts of clarity have to come from a sobering source, and nothing is more sobering than the drunk who spouts truths.

And that brings us to Bigby who has the super-vision and the super-hearing and the super-smell. Logistically, top that. He's also the story of redemption. He can't clean his hands. An opportunity for each team member to save someone. Because when you see a kicked puppy, that's what you do.

I look at this cast and I see a group of people vastly different from one another, tied together like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Drawn from across the world by common purpose, a fraternal order of sleuths that can only relate to each other because they are the great investigators of a generation trying to, like archaeologists, make sense of the hidden mysteries of the 21st century.

This isn't stories told over campfire. This is the support group that doesn't exist in comics. They're colleagues, they're veterans, they're philosophers. It's the noble and romantic notion of the West Wing - smart people, coming together because the world's problems are solved by brave, smart people in darker times.
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Also these are the discussions that pique my passion for the comic narrative so thanks for that, Lopen.
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I'm betting on Snake to win, it feels like it's got a bit more variety in personalities and power sets.
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I guess what I'm not saying clearly here is that my problem with the team is less on this particular execution of the team and more on the idea that 8 distinctive detectives all being able to contribute something unique, in any given execution, just because with each thing one guy contributes you need the guy to be fully unique in your way to have them contribute otherwise it comes off as dumb luck that this dude came across this inspiration and this dude came across this one. For me, they need to be the best at it and it needs to be something that you couldn't fathom any of the other guys doing on their own.

Like you have, specifically, a member devoted to the team's "soul" and the teams "morality"-- keep in mind each of these characters are capable of having moral qualms where others may not, or being the encouragement where others may not. Is The Question literally the only guy on the team that isn't morally bankrupt? Is Elongated man literally the only guy on the team that is optimistic and encouraging? And does every case require morals and optimism at some point? I'm not saying they're not distinctive-- I'm saying it's impossible to be distinctive enough that you don't have some guys coming off as third wheels without some real hamfisted writing that shoves it down your throat, or freakin amazing writing that I haven't seen.

I think what it really boils down to is the fact that personality and "super power" in some senses with this group are linked. It gives you less wiggle room. Like if say, the X-Men was a comic about detectives working together, I would say Gambit and Wolverine would largely contribute similar things to an investigation (let's not get into whether either one would be a particularly adept detective to begin with) with their lone wolf type attitudes. Wolverine might literally smell a clue, and Gambit might be able to seduce a clue out of a witness or whatever, but ultimately, they're going to be more similar than not. In a comic that isn't about being detectives, the similarities in how their personalities approach an investigation matter less and they're more distinct characters in terms of what they're contributing to any individual conflict, because the conflict isn't always chiefly about solving some puzzle. Never mind the "one dude charges things up and makes them go boom and the other dude cuts things with the sharps and is impossible to kill" element.

I mean I guess it's possible that this can be done. You've convinced me to at least think about it. But I'm just very skeptical. If you had a comic series/arc to recommend that you felt came close to something similar to this kinda meshing I would be extremely interested to read it in any case.

Regardless, I appreciate your patience and attempts to explain why the team worked for you better either way-- like obviously you know more about the details of all 8 of the component characters and can more easily find distinctions between them, but this was more of a theoretical issue with 8 detectives contributing in a way I like in that kinda genre than anything.

As for right now I still kinda feel like you'd have a better team with like... Batman, Constantine, Rorschach, Question and Chimp, cutting the other 3. Which, admittedly, is probably more than you would've convinced me of coming in.
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Also sorry if I came off as like I was trying to have an argument there. I was just trying to explain my position of why that team rubs me the wrong way. I felt more at ease discussing it since it was something I had a problem with conceptually vs something I felt needed a high degree of familiarity with the component characters (since I don't even know half the component characters in a lot of these high ranked teams)

It rubs me significantly less the wrong way now that you've unpacked it a bit, though, so there's that I guess.

No offense intended to JONA either of course. It's just one rando reader's opinion here.
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#2 - Sleepers Created by: Snake

A stealth based team tasked with protecting the world's threats without any of the fame that comes with it.

- Black Widow
- Clayface (Basil Karlo)
- Catwoman
- Ghost (Marvel)
- The Question (Vic Sage)
- Plastique

This is a goddamn team. A fantastic mix of personality and visually dynamic, I can taste the potential storytelling quite palpably. Reminiscent to me of the brief Gotham underground team introduced in the Dark Knights: Metal event last year, this group follows in the vein of a Secret Defenders or Secret Avengers or even an Uncanny X-Force. A sucker for a team that's less about bricks and more about subterfuge and skulduggery, I think there's always room for a SHIELD-less SHIELD. Sleepers is a team that I think has the potential to really live into its name. On the surface, these characters could band together as double agents working undercover in various organizations, pooling shreds of information and discovering a larger looming threat that requires them to work together. Clayface could pose as almost any character you want, Plastique could sneak into the Injustice League, Black Widow could return to her Kremlin roots to effect change. Catwoman could manipulate the Bat-Family if necessary.

But at the same time, these sleepers could very well be sleepers within Sleepers itself. Imagine that the backstabbing and manipulation exists on two fronts. We could create a metahuman cold war where every character is unreliable and you can't even trust the panels of comics in front of you. It reminds me of great movies like The Usual Suspects or The Game, stories where the twists and turns just never stop. The fact that the "sleepers" in the group name can be either good or bad for the group's purposes really makes this potentially juicy. Top that with the fact that everyone in this group has the capacity to flip like a switch and play for the other team, and you have this gray area group where you'll find yourself investing in one theory as a reader and distrusting everyone around you.

Overall, this is the sort of Alias-meets-Game of Thrones that coics could really use, and I applaud Snake's effort in putting together an intricate concept that seems like the sort of comic which will demand re-reads.
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#1 - Mephisto's Contracts Created by: Wickle

Mephisto wants to defeat Trigon, sending some souls after him

Mephisto (by command)
Ghost Rider
Spawn
Blue Devil
John Constantine
Daimon Hellstrom

I think I knew from the moment this team was nominated that it would be the roster and concept that won. I immediately saw the vision for this group, and not only that, I wanted to write a book like this. I see Mephisto sitting on high, the Chief, the Professor X of this group, commanding a collection of comic's most famous Faustian bargain buyers to suit his own agenda. The group is forced to work towards achieve the pursuits and ambitions of a villain and yet you can see that every step of the way, they will try to work around the directives at every turn. Much like the last title, there is a cold war within this group. This time, however, it's clearly Mephisto vs. the team. Mephisto's goals would be simple: claim souls in the name of Mephisto himself. And the group, all individuals who have faced the raw end of the soul-selling racket, would be loathe to manipulate or cajole someone down that route. The series would clearly open with a little nod to Sandman, as Mephisto steps in to usurp the reign of the hells of a full multiverse. You could set up Lucifer as a great occasional guest star who, in retirement, has no horse in the race. Instead, from time to time, the team members might seek his assistance by posing to him "thought experiments" where, if he was tickled by the proposition, Lucifer could occasionally provide aid by suggesting how to beat him were HE the devil.

The team will spend time not only regretting their own decisions of soul-selling thanks to this fate where they have to physically carry out the will of Satan, cursing their respective weaknesses that led them down this route, and in point of fact, it seems on the surface that there's really nothing they can do to override the commands of Mephisto. But, and I think this would happen at the end of the first major story arc, John Constantine would eventually reveal to the reader that his deal with the devil was made null and void in Dangerous Habits. But Mephisto isn't omnipotent, and he likely didn't realize that the deals Constantine made with three different rulers of Hell effectively ruled each obsolete, leaving his soul free. So Constantine can walk a dangerous line of foiling Mephisto's plans while also protecting his extremely dangerous secret. Now the group would have just enough of an edge that they could start playing the deadliest game imaginable - quietly combating the greatest threat in the history of the known multiverse.

I love the interactions we could get. Constantine is almost a man amongst monsters, and the rest of the group would have their individual quabbles with one another. Every personality is different here, and while there's a supernatural element to every character, they are all visually so dynamic and in terms of personality varied. Meanwhile, Mephisto will sit atop the throne of Hell and continue to keep the stakes of this series urgent.

Consider the potential for this team. Will they attempt to corrupt the soul of young Billy Batson for Mephisto? How do you tempt the Dark Knight to turn away from his potentially dangerous investigations without playing your hand? Will you regret carrying the soul of a murderer like Bullseye to Hell?

Throw in the Trickster as a consistently recurring character who has incurred the wrath of the devil by tricking him once before, and I think you have the sort of unique, exciting series that would bring in a dedicated readership. This is a story worth telling, a tale of morality plays patched in and among a chess match with stakes not unlike The Seventh Seal, all of it with a handful of souls hanging in the balance.

Good stuff.
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Wickle wins lol
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I like the Sleepers team. My only real nitpick is Clayface. I don't think shapeshifter types make for interesting storytelling as protagonists particularly in a highly deception based team-- like I briefly considered Mystique for my trick question team and yeah I dunno I think they just make things too easy. Granted Loki can shapeshift but it's not really his gimmick as much as something he sometimes does-- I also think with that teamcomp he would generally be goaded into solving problems without abuse of shapeshifting due to his competitive peers because it is really kinda cheating. Also could see things Loki being involved with being able to just see through deception so direct as shapeshifting, whereas this is a more down to earth kinda group in terms of power scale where that would be less common.

That's not to say they don't have a place in stories but I think they generally are much better suited to villains. Have no such nitpick for the Mephisto team and love the concept so yeah good winner I think.

Definitely two solid teams at the top though. I think top 2 aside I was a bit more mixed on the top 10 but the top 2 would definitely be comics I'd be interested in. Out of Time and Geriatrics also jumped out at me as interesting.

Do you still have the link to the entries? I kinda wanna do a brief top 10 of my own at some point before this topic purges.
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Clayface is my favorite member on the team simply because he's a malformed tragic monster who has always been on the cusp of a redemption arc, much like in recent Detective Comics. Nothing better than a story like Spider-Man 2, where the villain can find a little bit of solace in brief heroism. Clayface is such a great choice too because he's a professional actor, and he would get lost in the role he was playing. The concept of identity plays a major role in the concept of Sleepers, and it's a different turn on that theme.

I don't have a document with the link anymore. I was cutting them from the Google doc as I went.
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Ah. Shame! Well those are my top 4 of the top 10 at least in any case. There were a few others I thought were pretty cool as we went but topic 1 purged so they've slipped my mind. Whoever wrote em probably knows which ones they were though cause they were the ones I talked about more.
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Before this ultimately placed, I was of the opinion that if I won... it would likely be because of the fact that you gave me a higher grading curve due to my knowledge of comics being lackluster, as you made mention of in the first topic.

I don't still doubt that helped a close race finish in my favor, but I also see the simple line that you'd love to actually write my storyline yourself, and that makes me ecstatic. Some pieces of it might not be my intent, and it really does feel like all I did was pander as you only ever mentioned Mephisto and Constantine by name in the write-up. I'm not sure how serious some of these quabbles get, how much each individual besides Constantine takes their contract to Mephisto. Does the team fall apart later because Spawn will want to go back and try to kill Mephisto after the contract is complete? Do multiples unite in that goal to try and take him down? That's one thing I was curious on.
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The role of Spawn is to be the Wolverine or Hulk of this group. He's going to have to be constantly held back and serve the function of letting characters give exposition from time to time. "Spawn... we have to do X, Y, and Z, and here's why."

The first thing the group would try doing is taking Mephisto on in a frontal assault. Well, everyone but Constantine because he's no dope. And it would fail. From there, it becomes a story where alternative solutions become paramount.

I wouldn't say that you pandered with just a couple characters, more that in the overview of my team, I have to focus on the biggest story elements. On LOST, Sawyer is a main character, but if you were recapping the series in 1 minute, you'd maybe mention him once. That's sort of the issue here. Blue Devil is honestly the most important character because he's going to be the normal in swirl of chaos.
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Really happy you liked Sleepers!

Wickle's team is great though; I can see a lot of crossover potential with a few other teams on the list, namely the Detective Agency and even my Skull Force team with Chapel and Crossbones (Spawn and Hellstrom connections respectively). Besides Constantine, Hellstrom is actually the most interesting character on the team for me, with connections to Dormammu and the Hood bringing some neat angles into the mix too.
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Hmm my teams were big n small, brute force, Cold War, magic might, badass normals...
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So I just wanted to thank everyone for giving me nominations and participating along the way on this topic. This project was a lot of fun and you all threw out a ton of interest groups.

I'd like to, as always, continue making these Scarlet-related topics since they really help fill those 10-15 minute gaps at work that pop up quite often. So if you have any ideas for future projects, let me know in my next thread. Thanks!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77043800
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