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Forums > Home› Champions Pen and Paper RPG

Menton?

Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
edited September 2013 in Champions Pen and Paper RPG
I have to ask...why was Menton's appearance changed for the game?

His original look is so much better.

Why change something that is already good?
Post edited by Archived Post on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    Neither the CO version, nor your attachment, are the original.

    Long live the Classic Enemies Menton !
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited December 2010
    Ashen_X wrote:
    Neither the CO version, nor your attachment, are the original.

    Long live the Classic Enemies Menton !

    That's from the most recent Champions Villains Volume One.


    What was his original look?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    The only thing I don't like about Menton in CO is the purple psy brain. I don't like the grey Mr. Fantastic clone going there in your clip.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited January 2011
    Ashen_X wrote:
    Neither the CO version, nor your attachment, are the original.

    Long live the Classic Enemies Menton !

    Hear, Hear! Well I could without his mullet, I guess.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    As I understand it, Cryptic wanted a Menton that was more visually dramatic and distinctive, and would make a more obvious opponent for PCs in a stand-up fight. OTOH in the Champions PnP game history Menton is the epitome of subtle, exercising widespread control behind the scenes, so Hero Games asked Cryptic to let them keep a more normal appearance for his incarnation in that game.
    VitalityPrime wrote:
    That's from the most recent Champions Villains Volume One.


    What was his original look?

    Shoulder-length hair (light colored, as if blonde or silver); long, flowing robes with wide shoulders. I often heard that look referred to as "glam-rock."

    Very comic-book, but again, not very subtle. ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I second Lord Liaden's comments. Both the 5th/6th Ed Hero and the Cryptic take on the character's look have merit.

    Cryptic's Menton-as-Urkel take makes a certain amount of sense. If you've had the ability to make people like you and think you are awesomesauce since you were a kid without the use of fashion sense or social skills, how much effort would you put into learning those things? For Menton, color-coordinating his outfit is simply redundant, and the swollen cranium, while hideous, drives home the awesome mental power thing.

    In the Pen-and-Paper universe as it currently stands, Menton-as-Louis Jourdan also makes sense. In the Hero System mechanics, Mind Control powers don't simply replace social skills, they enhance them, with the difficulty of a "breakout roll" working as a function of how repugnant a thing the mind control is making you do. Paper Menton is supposed to be a very slick operator even without his psi powers, a natural salesman and/or politician. (In current continuity, he once briefly took over a small country in a democratic election and nobody could prove he used any powers to do it). When you combine his natural persuasiveness with his powers, he is a character maximized for mind control.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I like the Champ's Online look, when he doesn't have the pink glowing brain.

    Is he in this? cardboard cutouts - master villains
    I found that in via google image search, pdf is part of some stuff for sale at watermark.rpgnow.com
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    He is indeed. :) Those figures use the artwork from Champions PnP Fifth Edition, which was current at the time Cryptic bought the IP (the latest releases are Sixth Edition). Menton is the one in the top row on the right, next to Dr. Destroyer on the left.

    FWIW the other villains on that sheet, from left to right and top to bottom, are: Mechanon, Takofanes, Gigaton, Teleios, Rakshasa, Samhain, Gravitar, Holocaust, Istvatha V'han, and a Destroid robot. In some cases they look much the same in the newest edition and in CO; in others they look very different.

    Than you for providing that, skeeterbarnes. :cool:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    [
    Epiphanis wrote:
    In the Pen-and-Paper universe as it currently stands, Menton-as-Louis Jourdan also makes sense. In the Hero System mechanics, Mind Control powers don't simply replace social skills, they enhance them, with the difficulty of a "breakout roll" working as a function of how repugnant a thing the mind control is making you do. Paper Menton is supposed to be a very slick operator even without his psi powers, a natural salesman and/or politician. (In current continuity, he once briefly took over a small country in a democratic election and nobody could prove he used any powers to do it). When you combine his natural persuasiveness with his powers, he is a character maximized for mind control.

    In some ways, Menton frightens world security agencies more than Dr. Destroyer. He can pull the deepest secrets from someone's mind from hundreds of miles away; and his power of control is so great, not only can he make most people do anything he wants, he can make them forget they were under his control, or even believe their actions were voluntary. (Heroes are generally strong-willed enough to resist that level of influence, but practically no-one is totally immune.)

    Menton is also a major scumbag, using his powers to indulge any whim or petty impulse that takes his fancy. In one telling incident from the PnP game history, an American senator concerned about the vilains' security risk began pushing for the government to commit more resources to finding and capturing Menton. Rather than attacking the senator directly, Menton sent him a video of the villain having his way with the senator's wife and daughter.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    BTW if I were casting PnP Menton for a movie, since he's a Spaniard I think of him as Antonio Banderas.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Actually, probably the best casting for Paper Menton would have been Fernando Lamas, about ten or fifteen years before he died.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Are you talking about in the champions books or in the game?
  • centcomm01centcomm01 Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    I really hate the "silly" look they gave menton in the CO game. he looks rediculous. although it does make me wantt o smash him even more as a abomination. I have no idea what possessed them to alter the original. it was a poor design choice.
  • enixonbbenixonbb Posts: 126 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    Look at the bright side at least they didn't randomly make him a cyborg. :biggrin:


    ...poor Drifter :frown:
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    I always imagined the game designers wanted Menton to be more visually distinctive, so as to be better suited to a MMO. His PnP version is pretty normal looking, albeit handsome and charismatic. But Cryptic did take it a little too far IMHO.

    As for the Drifter... to be honest, some of the character changes made for the game seem rather arbitrary.
  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,028 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Drifter was Forced to become a Cybor Cowboy (even through he was a GHOST Cowboy, WTF CRYPTIC?) not for Lore but JUST to advertise the CyberPunk costumes from Q store!

    Really low tecniche
    POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
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