MARVEL PLOT: ALPHA FLIGHT #2-4

I spent last weekend trying to write a MARVEL SUPER HEROES adventure for Alpha Flight based on the second plotline in the series printed back in 1983. I named it MH-12: MASTER OF THE WORLD and it featured, you guessed it, the Master! (My first adventure was MH-10: DOOMSDAY! and my second was MH-11: RAGE ACROSS THIS LAND). This was the Master's first appearance in Marvel Comics, but it would not be his last. Oddly enough, Byrne seemed to introduce Marrina in issue #1, then it seemed like he was getting rid of her in issue #2! She suffers from the same problems that Aquaman and Sub-Mariner have - no water = useless! It was so obvious that this was the case in issue #1 when she had to swim at excessive speeds and drag a water-spout THREE MILES inland to where the others were fighting Tundra. All this without even knowing what they were facing or where exactly she was to go. Seemed to be a stretch....and it was!

By the way, the waterspout power for Marrina was never actually mentioned anywhere in the game, and I don't think it was ever reproduced in the comics. Just a way to make a non-useful character contribute SOMETHING to the story. But why even include her in Alpha Flight to begin with? She wasn't in the debut in X-Men, and was only casually mentioned in reference to Beta Flight in issue #1 before she was "activated" as a member of Alpha Flight. I would have simply left her as a Beta member and had the others foster her for a while since she had nowhere else to go. Puck also was more of a "why the hell do we have this useless runt in the group?" kind of character. He's also taken out in the beginning of issue #2 (by Marrina the other useless character!) and spends the next 3 issues in the hospital (being even more useless). They should have kept the team as the originals and not added these two into the mix.

OK. That aside, the plot for the adventure is a bit thin (as most John Byrne plots seem to be; great artist, not-so-great writer). More time was spent seeing Snowbird showcase her powers and Aurora going bat-shit crazy on Sasquatch than any real meaningful plot developments. The inclusion of Invisible Girl and Namor at the end seems gratuitous. Snowbird's appearance and rescue of Marrina at the last second is forced. And worse, there is no true confrontation between the Master and Alpha Flight. The only ones who even know what he looks like are Marrina, Namor, and Sue Richards since they were the only ones in the chamber when he escaped! It seems I picked the wrong plotline to convert to a module.

The adventure, however, has several classic comic elements that did translate into the game rules. For instance, the sudden shooting of the omni-jet as it passed over the buried spacecraft perfectly showcased the Vehicle rules for Control, Body, and Speed. Some of the traps showcased the use of smashing through materials, adjudicating slam results as an unintentional charge, and Intuition and Reason checks to figure things out or detect things.

I used two groups of characters for this scenario: group #1 consisting of Guardian, Sasquatch, Shaman, Northstar, and Aurora (with Puck and Marrina as NPCs); group #2 consists of Guardian, Sasquatch, Snowbird, Northstar, and Aurora (Shaman and Puck are out of the picture, and Marrina, Invisible Girl, and Sub-Mariner are NPCs). Ideally, the person playing Snowbird would play Shaman for the first half of the adventure.

The first chapter has the heroes fighting each other in a training practice in teams. This is when Marrina nearly disembowels Puck with a surprise attack and takes off swimming (having received the signal from the Plodex ship). Unfortunately, according to the comics, Northstar and Aurora speed after her, and according to the game rules should have caught up to her in no time, but plot demanded that she escape.

The second chapter deals with the team getting Puck to the hospital, Shaman saving his life, and Snowbird taking off to assist when she senses Shaman's prayer to the Great Spirit. How Snowbird knows where to go without contacting the rest of the team is unknown...since Shaman is in Fort Albany, Ontario, and she somehow shows up in the far north of Canada's islands. Several pages here are devoted to Guardian explaining the origin of Marrina (boxed text for the chapter, 'natch). The omni-jet (using Quinjet stats) leaves Fort Albany on the trail of Marrina's signal which is leading to the north magnetic pole. In 1984, this was located between Victoria and Ellesmere Islands. Some calculations using the game rules would have them take 20 hours to make the 4,660 mile trip! Scratching those and going to the Mach 2.1 speed of the Quinjet from the Marvel Universe cut that down to 3 hours, so I went with that. The chapter ends with the omni-jet being shot down and the team's survival (which is not guaranteed in an RPG) as it crashes. Exposure rules did not exist in the basic MSHRPG. They were added in the Advanced rules, so I adapted them. Silly heroes in their flimsy unstable molecule costumes.

Chapter three showcases the Plodex spaceship and the various traps executed by the Master to detain the heroes. Snowbird also arrives late to the party, can use her postcognition to figure out what happens to the others, and follows them inside. (Yay! the Snowbird player gets to play again!!) While inside it is quite possible for Aurora to go schizoid, and for Sasquatch to go bestial. Ideally, this chapter ends with the heroes making their way to the Master, although Sue Richards and Namor might bump into them. Why are they here? Because something was forcing the barbarians of the Arctic Ocean to raid south into Atlantis. Apparently, the ship sucks out essential elements from the environment to grow and begin the colonization process. I noted that this was molecular reconstruction by neutron absorption, creating something from something else! Therefore the water was debilitating to Atlanteans and the ice itself was changing consistency, so Snowbird would sense the unnaturalness of the situation. Lots of little plot points that, if missed, lose the heroes in the midst of the adventure!

Chapter four is the confrontation with the Master, which will be anticlimactic if certain things were not discovered during chapter three. For instance, although it is only hinted at, I assume there are still eggs on board the ship. The Master wants the Plodex destroyed, but I'm pretty sure the computer won't allow him to do that himself. So he tricks the heroes into doing it for him. If Guardian fails to connect to the alien computer and learn this little fact, then they never blow the place up. It is also hinted that the Master must remain in his seat to control the place. What happens when he disconnects? Does he lose his immortality? Are there other ships on the planet? None of this is known or explained.

It's important to note that the Master spends most of his time over Marrina (who is being poked, prodded and probed) telling her the history of the Plodex and himself. Over three issues that's a lot of backstory, which is never learned by the players in the actual adventure since they never even meet him! They only learn the details of his history when, and if, they rescue Marrina!

So, I get to the end of the adventure arc and, like the heroes in the story, I have no follow-up clues or hooks on what to do. So all the heroes just fly off home. Marrina leaves with Namor to head to Atlantis and figure out what's up with her powers and alien nature, but they could have done better work on her at Four Freedoms Plaza! Again, weak plot. I might have to scrap the adventure or completely re-write it so that it makes more logical sense. It seemed to be much more epic in scale than what was presented here. But then again, when you're a 13 year old boy reading about this for the first time and just loving all the John Byrne artwork, you sorta gloss over the details.

A re-write might have Sue alert the rest of the F.F. to the Plodex menace. If the Master does not trick the heroes into blowing the place up, it continues its colonization procedure until it summons the remaining Plodex eggs to it and continues to drain the environment of essential elements. The follow up adventure could be a Fantastic Four adventure featuring Namor and Marrina as they seek out any remaining Plodex eggs (or ships), encounter the Master again at a new base, and pit his ancient intellect against Reed Richards'. Perhaps removing the F.F. presence in the first module is the way to go, but keeping Namor since he is the link between the two teams, and has a reason to be there.