Master Bruce

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Bounce, @Byrd Man, and @Sep are all dead to me.

They don't realize what I bring to eye-bleedingly long paragraphs is nothing short of an art form.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

If anyone wants the cliffnotes for that mammoth response I wrote to Nightrunner...

I have a fanboy boner for Scott Snyder up until Robot Bat-Gordon became a thing.
Morrison's stuff is good but fucking weird and I'm glad it's over.
I think King's stuff is pretentious as fuck, but his Catwoman is exceptionally written.

There. There, @Byrd Man! I hope you're fucking happy!

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

We all have our passions.

Mine just happens to be about a fictional emotionally shut-off billionaire man-child who dresses up like a giant animal and beats the ever-living shit out of the mentally disturbed in order to make himself feel whole because of something that happened to him when he was 8.

So I could do without the judging... dammit!

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Forgive me for not being you when someone asks you literally anything about history, you bastard!

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Master Bruce would your rank your opinions of Tom King, Scott Snyder and Grant Morrison?

@Nightrunner

Oh, wow. My favorite kind of question!

I'll start with Snyder, since he's my favorite of the three when it comes to Batman. Snyder's Batman arcs, particularly The Black Mirror, The Court Of Owls, Death Of The Family, and Zero Year, are among some of my favorite arcs in the entirety of Batmandom. He blends the larger-than-life conceptual stuff that I only wish I could pull off with the psychological study of Bruce Wayne type of storytelling that, again, I'm very goddamn envious of. It's taking the best of both worlds in terms of my preferred method of telling Bruce's story and mixing it in a blender. Snyder's work had such an impact on me that for a couple of years, I've been wanting to write my own fan-scripts for entire 13 episode seasons of a live action Batman television show that re-arranges his work so that it starts with a Zero Year inspired origin season, delves into the Court of Owls in the second, and has The Joker wreak havoc in the third. He's one of my favorite Batman writers ever, honestly, for his ideas alone. The only criticism I have is of his dialogue, which can be too wordy at best and too repetitious at worst (never try to play a drinking game where a Snyder-written character ends a sentence with "Dammit!"), and that his run ran out of steam a bit whenever he had Gordon take up the mantle. I appreciate trying new things, but he went a little far with Robo Bat-Cop.

Grant Morrison, meanwhile, I have an immense love-hate relationship as far as Batman goes. His storytelling is absolutely incredible and he taught me so many things about the character's mythos that I never knew just by re-introducing them to the canon, such as the Zur-En-Arrh thing and the importance of the "Robin Dies At Midnight!" story from the Silver Age. There are quite a number of issues of his that I absolutely adore and cite as some of my favorites for the character, specifically "Joe Chill In Hell", which has Bruce remembering one of his earliest cases while in a coma that plays out like an episode of Twin Peaks. However, the hate part comes in whenever it comes to his actual characterization of Batman. He can be a little too out there and all over the place, at once playing Batman as the no-nonsense serious detective that he's been portrayed as for the majority of the modern era, but also really leaning heavily into the sillier aspects of the canon to create a more "rounded" portrayal that just comes off as inconsistent. His swan song with Batman, Incorporated honestly just read as Bruce doing his best Tony Stark impression, and I didn't really like that at all. Also, while I love a majority of what he did with the supporting cast, and I do really like Damian Wayne when written correctly, I never really liked how he made Talia a full-fledged villainess. She went too far down the rabbit hole and became too irredeemable, when the point of her character was always the conflict between her father and her love for Bruce. And lastly, the tone that he established with the stories that he told, even though they are meant to be way different from the Batman stories told since the 80's, got way too tiresome to keep up with near the end. I was so relieved when the book got relaunched with Snyder and that immediate feeling of tone from something like Batman: The Animated Series came back, because Morrison had made it a different, nigh incomprehensible animal for a long time.

Tom King... Christ. This is where things get alot murkier, because King is probably one of the most celebrated Batman writers of recent memory that I just absolutely loathe for some parts. I was down with his run at first, but immediately noticed something was off whenever he started sprinkling in his own little affectations (My Bruce is never going to call Selina "Cat" because I find it so goddamn annoying) into the story and started trying to make it a bit too much of his own thing. I honestly gave up on the book after the second arc because I wasn't feeling it, and felt like he didn't really have a good voice for Bruce at all. Then the book turned around for me after his supremely dumb "War Of Jokes And Riddles" arc, which I despised. Once that was over, he started focusing more on Bruce's relationship with Catwoman, bringing the engagement thing to the forefront. Now, while I was resistant to Bruce and Selina ever settling down at first, eventually I started to really love the idea as King wrote it. He writes an amazing Selina Kyle, way moreso than Bruce, and she easily became the best character of his run whenever she had to tackle the realities of potentially being Batman's wife. For a long time, I've been of the opinion that Bruce would always put his work before everything and never fall in love, but I always had that spark of something that wanted him and Selina to just say "fuck it" and marry for the sake of throwing aside the tedious love affairs Bruce always gets into. Selina is his true love, and I wholeheartedly believe that Batman's gotten to a point where he can reconcile that and still be who he is. They've done the dance for too long not to be soulmates. But, King's handling of Bruce's character just still reads as a little too off-script for my liking, and his dialogue is insanely pretentious. Reading an issue of his Batman really kicks off my Writer's OCD, if that makes any sense. He just gets too far up his own ass sometimes, which was basically the entirety of the War Of Jokes And Riddles arc.

But yeah. Snyder, Morrison, King. I wouldn't say those are my top three of the entirety of writers that have tackled the character. Paul Dini and Dennis O'Neil vastly outrank all three of them, for my money, and I have favorites like Chuck Dixon, Mark Waid, Jeph Loeb, and a few others that would probably round out my ideal list. But Snyder's up there, and Morrison's not too many notches behind him. King I'm alot more iffy on.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Wait, so Xavier is gonna die or Xavier is already dead? I'm confused, because your app states he's the current head of the school.

I do love the idea of Quicksilver leading the main team and, wow, your concept for Danny The Street as a sentient version of The X-Mansion is very impressive. Well done on that front.

But I do have to agree with Morden to some degree, Magneto should only be a good guy if there's a good enough reason in the story. I just want to know where that stands in terms of Xavier's mortality.

(You don't have to necessarily respond in the OOC thread if that's a spoiler.)

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Pretty sure you've got that one the wrong way round.

@ErsatzEmperor

Weirdly enough, the time-table between the two teams' first appearances (Doom Patrol being introduced in June of '63, X-Men being introduced in September) makes it highly unlikely that they were copying each other. They just managed to hit the exact same idea in the exact same year, making their co-existence one of the many amazing coincidences in the world of comics.

X-Men just had the luxury of being reinvented later on down the line by a prolific writer, while the Doom Patrol never really took off in the same way. Maybe it'll shift a bit whenever the TV show comes out - which I can't wait for, since we've needed some more obscure live action DC stuff for awhile.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Does anyone have any plans for Beast Boy?

@Nib

I very much doubt it, given the setting doesn't really fit characters like Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl or any of the other sidekick Titans. I'd say go for it if you have a solid concept. Gar fits into the same category as Vic/Cyborg, Raven, Starfire and others as being malleable enough to have pre-Titans adventures.

Gonna try to get another post or two up soon, I can see that I've kinda lagged behind.

@Simple Unicycle

Similarly, I've got a half-written post that I've needed to finish for a few days. Gonna tackle that in the immediate future.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Got room for one more?

Prospect

B L A C K C A N A R Y

_{N A M E}

---

Dinah Laurel Lance

_{A L I A S}

---

Black Canary

_{P O W E R S A N D A B I L I T I E S}

---

Black Canary is a naturally gifted hand to hand combatant. Remarkable balance, speed, poise, and grace combine with an intuitive feel for technique and form to create what could one day be a world class fighter. A lack of experience is her one great failing, but she’s working overtime on that. Nightshifts, mostly.

While lacking in the skills of detection and investigation that her father had her natural guile and intelligence goes someway in making up the difference. On top of that a misspent youth has taught her some less than savoury skills, such as how to jimmy a lock, and disarm a car alarm. She’s no world class thief, but she does have a talent for getting into places people would rather she’d stay out of.

No discussion of Dinah’s powers would be complete without mention of her ‘Canary Cry’, an ultrasonic scream so powerful that it can shatter glass, crack concrete, or disorientate opponents. It might even be capable of more, though Dinah is hesitant to experiment with it. Collateral damage is difficult to contain.

_{O R I G I N A N D B A C K S T O R Y}

---

Born to a murdered PI and a former punk rock queen, Dinah Lance led a mostly directionless adolescence, anything to spark some excitement and piss off her overbearing, controlling mother. Ted Grant, a family friend and something of a surrogate father figure inspired a love for combat and the martial arts, but without any real drive for the future she didn’t know what direction she should pursue her passion. All she knew was that she couldn’t end up fighting for fighting’s on sake. Ted had drilled that into her.

The Lance’s discovered they had a mutant in the family during a prank gone wrong. Dinah and some friends decided to break into her high school after hours, though got more trouble than they bargained for when the cops were called. The teenage intruders managed to scrape a narrow escape, but in the ensuing confusion a scared Dinah unleashed her sonic scream, shattering a police cruisers windows, and blowing the eardrums of the officers. Terrified at this turn of events she went to her mother, who decided that to keep her daughter safe they would have to hide her uniqueness from prying eyes. Part of Dinah was happy to go along with her mother’s decree, though another, smaller part worried that it was the wrong choice. That they were covering up something they should have been celebrating.

At the age of nineteen she met Oliver Queen, the charismatic and charming ‘Prince of Star City’. She quickly found herself falling for the older boy, though she retreated from him when she realised he was falling just as hard for her. Without any real idea of where she wanted to go in life, or what she wanted from the world, she couldn’t allow herself to become Olly’s. If she did, then let him down, she’d never be able to forgive herself. Better to let him cut himself loose early, she figured, than allow him to tie himself to her just for them both to drown in each other’s issues.

Drowning would prove to be a poor choice of words however, when in a few short weeks later a ship Ollie was on would sink, leaving everyone to believe the young billionaire had drowned at sea. Tragedy would be heaped on with tragedy when Dinah senior would pass away a few months later. Both these incidents together would conspire to make the younger Dinah realise how half-heartedly she’d been wasting her life. With one eye on the horizon she would leave Star city to travel America, to find that drive she’d been missing for so long. Ironically it wouldn’t be until she returned to Star five years later that she’d finally find that purpose she was missing. Seeing the poverty and crime rampant in her family’s old neighbourhood of the Glades made her realise what dire straits her home town was in, made her realise that she needed to follow in her father’s footsteps. She needed to become a lawman. Only she’d have to do it her own way.

_{W H A T M A K E S T H I S C H A R A C T E R " U L T I M A T E " ?}

---

In a lot of ways this concept is really just a streamlining of the various backgrounds and origins that Black Canary has been given over the long years since her inception. Dinah is still a legacy character, though her mother was never a superhero, rather a punk rock singer calling herself the ‘Black Canary’ who assisted her husband on his cases. Dinah here is a mutant rather than a meta human, which will allow me to explore themes and storylines that aren’t necessarily open to a DC meta. Most importantly Dinah is younger, angrier, and less experienced than she is usually depicted. Whether she develops into the calm, cool, and utterly commanding heroine she can and should be is the storyline I intend to pursue here.

_{S U P P O R T I N G C H A R A C T E R S}

---

[+]

Oliver Queen – Dinah’s ex. Once lost at sea, recently found.

Sarah Lance – Dinah’s younger sister. The only member of her family still alive, though somewhat estranged.

Ted “Wildcat” Grant – Former world champion heavyweight boxer, now a trainer at Grant’s Gym. An old friend of the Lance family. Taught Dinah how to box.

Kurt Pike – Dinah’s other ex. Older, worldly, and exciting, she met him during her travels, though called things off between them after Kurt proposed.

_{S A M P L E P O S T}

---

[+]

Once upon a time a man would think twice before breaking into Ted Grant’s home. They’d think to themselves ‘alright, there isn’t much in the way of automated security here, but the owners an ex-heavyweight champ. A flat screen and some loose change probably isn’t worth risking being tagged by the same left hook that flattened Ali’, then be off on their merry way.

But then that was all before that ‘quake had gone and sunk the Glades, and twenty-five thousand people along with it. Twenty-five thousand souls, all dying slow, their city doing its level best to ignore their plight, with no other option than to steal or starve. Yeah, if anything is likely to make a man break into a boxer’s home, it’s an empty belly.

The fact that he’d went and gotten old could also be a contributing factor, it had to be said.

Still, old man or not, he wasn’t about to roll over and let some stranger root around his valuables. You have to draw a line. A man’s home was a castle, and these intruders were about to find out just how hostile this king could get when under siege.

He slipped down his stairs, silent as you like. Ghosts or shadows, mice or sneak-thieves, they could all learn a thing or two about skulking from old Ted Grant. Room by room, he whispered through the house, until he was standing outside the kitchen door. He could hear them inside, rummaging through his drawers. Maybe they were just hungry waifs after all. Only one way to find out. He kicked the door open, a roar on his lips, and hit the lights.

You get surprise on your side and nine times out of ten you’ll win any fight you get yourself into. That’s a lesson Ted Grant learnt early, and he’d stuck by it’s wisdom all these years. When he realised it was Dinah Lance in his kitchen, looking at him like a kid who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar and bleeding all over his clean floor the fight just fell out of him. Surprise. It’ll do that to you.

They stood staring at each other for the longest moment, a greying man in a threadbare bathrobe, and young woman leaking more red stuff than is strictly healthy. He broke the silence first, but only because all that blood loss was making her sluggish. At her best she was faster than he’d ever been.

“Sit.” He grunted, nodding at the breakfast nook. His tone brooked no argument, so she didn’t offer any. He pulled a first aid kit down from a high shelf, retrieved needle and thread, and sat down next to her.

It took him the best part of twenty minutes to stitch her up. In that time, she didn’t make a peep. Dinah Lance had always been tough, but he had guys in his stable who weighed more than two hundred pounds who at least had the decency to wince when the suture needles went in. She was like a statue carved out of marble, staring at the table top, waiting patiently for the seamstress to finish his stitching. It wasn’t natural.

He was finishing up the work, pulling the stitches tight on a nasty gash above her right shoulder, when she finally piped up.

“So, aren’t you going to say something?” Sounded like there was the edge of a wince in her voice, a tailing up of the syllables that spoke of pain bitten back. Good. He was getting worried she wasn’t all human there for a moment. He tied off the stitch before replying.

“Like what?”

“I dunno, that I was stupid, that I need to stop before I get myself killed. You told me it was dangerous in the Glades, and I went anyway.” That unvoiced wince was giving way to unspoken weariness, a bone tiredness that sunk deep. He knew that feeling. Knew it every time a fight went to the twelfth round, and you felt like you didn’t have another one in you, and you knew that if that bell rung and you had to haul yourself back into the centre of that ring your heart would give out. It was the kind of exhaustion someone feels when they know they just can’t take another fight, not yet.

“You want an ‘I told you so?’” He packed away the first aid supplies as he spoke.

“No!” She barked, a bit of colour back in her voice. Some people stand tallest when they feel like somethings trying to hold them down. Dinah Lance was one of those people. When she next spoke she was quieter, she hunched her shoulders, she stared at the floor. “But, I guess I do kinda expect one.” She never liked to admit she was wrong, never liked to say she was sorry.

“And would it stop you going out again?” He felt a grin forcing itself onto his features, looked away before she spotted it.

“Fuck no!” Real fire this time. Some people need you to push them, just so they can push back. Dinah Lance was definitely one of those people.

“Well then, way I see it is whether I like it or not, you're gonna keep traipsing into the Glades, looking for trouble?”

“Looking to help people Ted ... But yes.”

“Well then. I've got no choice. I'm gonna have to help ya.”

“Is that right?” She looked up at him and grinned, and it lit his whole damn world up.

“It is. After all, you need me. What kinda idiot tries to fight in fishnets?”

@BlackSam3091

With the Speed of a Jungle Cat

T’Challa Udaku

_{”I will admit this to you: Wakanda must change. I will not say what, or how--not now in the midst of war--but I know there must be change. But I cannot do it alone.”}

_{P O W E R S A N D A B I L I T I E S}

---

_{THE HEART SHAPED HERB} An herb native to Wakanda that is blessed by Bast which grants the current Black Panther all of their enhanced abilities.

_{ENHANCED STRENGTH} While nowhere near strong as any powerhouse, T”Challa is capable of wrestling rhinos, gorillas, lions, tigers, and is able to subdue them.

_{ENHANCED SPEED} Fast as his namesake, T’Challa is capable of north-south speed of around 60-70mph. His top speed is not sustainable for long periods of time and he often opts to use the surrounding area to capture whoever/whatever he is chasing.

_{ENHANCED REFLEXES} T’Challa’s raw reaction time coincides with how quickly he runs. Already a peak athlete, the boons afforded him by the Heart Shaped Herb have made it possible for him to evade and react to most manner of superhuman being. Those faster than him prove difficult to detain.

_{ENHANCED AGILITY} Light as his namesake, T’Challa can change directions quicker than many. He transitions from low surfaces to high surfaces without much issue, and his body goes through its kinetic chains with less rigidity than many. Scaling trees, jagged surfaces, and any manner of natural divit and contour is no arduous task.

_{ACCELERATED HEALING} His body’s ability to recover from injury is several times faster than the average human. This is not to be confused with regeneration; he cannot regenerate lost limbs nor instantaneously heal from bullet or knife wounds. He can recover from major injuries in around half the time it takes a normal human to do the same.

_{ENHANCED SENSES} Acute sensory abilities pervade the whole of his five senses. He can see from around a mile and a half away with some focus, but mere sight affords him the ability to see from around a city block away. His smell allows him to collect a scent within a crowd of a few hundred people. His hearing allows him to intercept sound from within the next room. Hs touch allows him to feel the thinnest cracks and subtle shifts in air pressure and temperature.

_{ENHANCED DURABILITY} Muscle tissues and bones thickened and strengthened, T’Challa can withstand greater punishment than normal; it is harder for bones to break or ligaments to tear.

_{ENHANCED STAMINA} It takes him longer than the average human to tire as his body produces less lactic acid. Where the average human can become tired from rigorous physical exertion after a few hours (and sometimes a few minutes), T’Challa can expend energy continuously for a day at maximum before he tires and must rest.

_{MASTER MARTIAL ARTIST} T’Challa is--among earthbound, human-born combatants--one of the best hand to hand martial artists in the world. Boxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, these and more are members of his arsenal. His duties as Black Panther require mastery of a wealth of styles that will allow him to attack and counter most foes he comes across. Those with superior physical advantages can prove a challenge for him to subdue regardless of his depth of technical skill.

_{BLACK PANTHER HABIT MK.II} The ceremonial garb of the Black Panther’s religious and militant Habit has seen a myriad change over its lengthy existence. In its most recent incarnation that his sister designed, the Habit can store and expel kinetic energy and materialize over T’Challa’s person at whim. A Vibranium mesh weave, the foremost properties of Vibranium: sound absorption, kinetic energy absorption, enhancement of magic, are present within this recent incarnation.

Projectiles of any natural type, including lasers, are absorbed into the suit (up to a point) before they must be expelled lest the suit forcibly release the energy with violent results. A set of small retractable Vibranium claws are present in the hands and feet of the Habit. The suit has yet to be tested against magics or extraplanetary energies.

_MONEY Wakanda is quite rich, one of the richest foreign nations in the world. T'Challa, as the King's son, has access to Wakanda's amassed fortune.

_D.O.B.

---

03/15/1992.

_{ORIGIN AND BACKSTORY}

---

Born to King T’Chaka and Queen N’Yami of Wakanda, their eldest son, T’Challa, grew up under the loom of kingship. All his life he has been raised to take the reigns of leader and protector of Wakanda. Bred from solitude and his body strained beneath rigorous martial training, T’Challa had no normal childhood and it manifested in him a distant and detached sense of his own being in relation to to others.

By the time T’Challa was in his early twenties, his duties as aspiring Black Panther--leader of the Panther cult and military leader of Wakanda--careened his focus toward the martial part of the two mantles he is planning to assume (that of king and Black Panther). Yet to become King, T’Challa oversees all military operations within Wakanda.

_{WHAT MAKES THIS CHARACTER 'ULTIMATE'?}

---

This T’Challa does not stray from who he is in 616 in terms of personality. He has yet to become King in the Ultimate universe; his father, T’Chaka, still occupies the throne and so T’Challa has recently required the mantle of Black Panther as his elderly father can no longer fulfill the physical tax the role takes on the body (even with the aid of the Heart Shaped Herb). This first arc will focus on the duties of the Black Panther and I will try and add some flesh to the various tribes and the other cults around Wakanda, something that does not often happen in T’Challa’s own books.

The Wakanda of the Ultimate universe will not be one of peace and will be a country torn by war and betrayal and insurrection as it is in the comics, but these will bellow beyond simple uprisings within the nation’s borders as is often the case and will scale more as full fledged wars between Wakanda and one, two and sometimes three other neighboring nations at a time with political implications abound. I do not know if I will have T’Challa become king of Wakanda in Year One. Wakanda’s members will all be much younger than their counterparts and all of them will have to adjust to their roles as the next generation of leaders for their country.

T’Challa’s story is one of political turmoil, leadership, failure, triumph. All of these are things I hope to accurately represent in a mini Nation RP scale story.

_{S U P P O R T I N G C H A R A C T E R S
T’C H A K A}

---

T’Challa’s father and current king of Wakanda. Age 55.

_{N’J O B U}

---

Present prince of Wakanda and N’Jadaka’s father.

_{Z U R I}

---

The king’s longstanding hulking bodyguard.

_{S H U R I}

---

T’Challa’s younger sister who is around a decade younger than he is in 616 canon. For my purposes, she will be in her early twenties.

_{D O R A M I L A J EI}

---

Though adherent to the whim of the incumbent king of Wakanda, the Dora Milaje are also at the disposal of the Black Panther in times of war. The Dora Milaje number in the thousands, though the Black Panther and the king tend to interact only with the group’s general and her immediate underlings. Upon their creation, they functioned as ‘ladies-in-wait’, girls from each tribe would be selected as part of this harem in order to appease tribal relations as each tribe had at least one representative within the king’s quarters. These women were raised to be married off to the king but later the Dora Milaje were repurposed into the royal guard that they are today.

_{O K O Y E}

---

A fierce, loyal, and rising member of the Dora Milaje, the king of Wakanda’s elite personal bodyguard and fighting force. She is not the Milaje’s general in Year One.

_{W’ K A B I}

---

Wakanda’s resident security officer who is also rising through the ranks of Wakanda’s national defense division.

_{M’B A K U}

---

Leader of the Jabari, an antagonistic mountain tribe who worships the Ape God Ghekre that, like the Panther God Bast, grants the Jabari otherworldly abilities (namely superhuman strength and durability).

_{N A K I A}

---

A spy and former member of the Dora Milaje. T’Challa’s main love interest.

_{Q U E E N R A M O N D A}

---

T’Challa’s stepmother and the woman to whom he goes for guidance and wisdom.

_{H U N T E R, T H E W H I T E W O L F}

---

T’Challa’s older adopted brother. He is a zealot who was adopted by T’Chaka after his parents died in a plane crash in Wakanda. Hunter’s relationship with T’Challa is tumultuous as Hunter’s love for Wakanda more intense than some native Wakandans. He will go to lengths no one else in Wakanda will. Hunter leads the Hatut Zeraze.

• Hatut Zeraze: Or the War Dogs, Wakanda’s resident and longstanding secret police, spy, infiltration, and assassination force. They are some of Wakanda’s best warriors and mercenaries. Many are installed in rival nations as spies.

_{A Y O}

---

A member of the Dora Milaje.

_{A N E K A}

---

Another member of the Dora Milaje, known for her temper.

_{U L Y S S E S K L A U E}

---

Wakanda’s most persistent villain next to Killmonger. One of the few men who knows Wakanda’s true value to the world from which it hides and seeks the nation’s precious metal for himself.

_{N’ J A D A K A A K A E R I K K I L L M O N G E R}

---

Lifelong antagonist of T’Challa and T’Challa’s equal in martial ability and intelligence. Whether or not he will show up in this season I do not know, but his motivations will be a mix of those from the MCU and 616.

_{D J E M B E}

---

Leader and dictator of Niganda, a larger rival African nation to Wakanda’s west. He is also aware of the Vibranium in Wakanda and seeks to get his hands on it.

_{N A R O B I A}

---

Ruled by Princess Zanda, Narobia and Wakanda’s tenuous relationship results in persistent tension between the two nations which often sees its ruler at odds with Wakanda and often allying with its enemies.

_{A Z A N I A}

---

Bordering Wakanda to the East, Azania is like Narobia, sometimes an opposing force to Wakanda’s welfare. A remnant of Apartheid Africa, its members and its leaders are a nation whose governing body is a group of superhumans. Its leader, General Magnus Moore often dispatches the members of his team, the Supremacists, to invade Wakanda and levy political favor from its other enemies.

• Barricade: A metahuman who can erect massive shields and barriers around himself and his allies.
• Captain Blaze: A metahuman who can eject heated plasma from his body, specifically his eyes and hands.
• Voortecker: A trained spy and infiltratiotor. Whether or not he is enhanced is unknown.

_{W A K A N D A D E S I G N G R O U P}

---

WDG for short. Led by his sister, Shuri, it is the heart of Vibranium licensing, trademarking, selling, mining, refining, and weaponry manufacturing for Wakanda. It is the nation’s largest homegrown corporation and has upwards of several thousand employees. It is headquartered in Birnin Zana, the capital city of Wakanda, but the corporation also has operations in Mena Ngai and Birnin Bashenga.

_{N E C R O P O L I S}

---

The City of the Dead, where all of Wakanda’s past Panther’s souls rest, guarded by the Panther God, Bast.

_{C R O C O D I L E C U L T}

---

A group of arcane worshippers who pray to the Crocodile God, Sobek. He is brother to Bast, the Panther God of Wakanda. They are practitioners of sacrificial magic.

_{H Y E N A C U L T}

---

Unlike the other cults of Wakanda, the Hyena Cult are nonreligious. They are scavengers, hunters, and robbers who reside on the furthest reaches of the nation’s borders. Through use of a teleporter built by their ancestors from scraps of Vibranium, the Hyena Cult steal and pillage from neighboring tribes. Their accrued wealth make them one of the richest and largest tribes who reside outside of the Golden City (Birnin Zana).

_{O R IS H A}

---

The Gods of Africa: Thoth, God of the Earth; Kokou, God of War; Mujaji, God of Sustenance; Ptah, God of Shaping (creation, molding, etc); and Bast, the Panther God. Their role will be secondary until much later in the plot, and Bast is the only one who will play a major role throughout Year One.

_{S A M P L E P O S T}

---

Across the Wakandan hills rolled the ethereal looking sun as it smiled over the nation. On the edge of a cliff stood T'Challa, gaze fixed on the sun's annexing of the firmament. There was silence all around him. Today of all days, the country was quiet--no luminous reds could be seen from across the border where rebels were staging their insurrections toward the border armies, no news yet another usurper had graced his ears. On this day, the nation bubbled with anticipation for today was the day that the royal throne was on the line. Today was challenge day.

These were his final moments before he had to prepare. The challengers were always random, and several times did contenders try and cheat. One even tried to attack T'Challa while T'Challa's back was turned. Zuri dispatched the competitor swiftly. Each of the surrounding border nations under Wakandan rule showed up, as usual. The River Tribe from near Nyana Lake, and the finest warriors from Birnin Bashenga, Birnin Azzaria, and even stragglers from the Lion and Hyena cults from the furthest mountains on the edge of the border. Atop the hallowed Warrior Falls is where the challenge would take place--many a men had lost their lives atop that mountain. T'Challa had not yet been one of them.

Just as he always did, he got ready in silence. Each challenge day was more laborious than the last, T'Challa knew it was less the weight of having to conquer one's own people to retain a throne that was not truly his but more that the mounting duty that came with a prolonged reign made him feel stretched thin, like butter spread too far over warm rolls. He spent all day stuffed in the palace dealing with internal matters: potential rebellions, budgets, foreign diplomats who dressed their lust for Vibranium as "foreign policy improvement."

It was all beginning to grate T'Challa's nerve--he realized now why on those nights when he used to sneak around the palace and could hear his father crying: it was not because he was weak, it was because he was tired. The stories T'Challa's father told him about the Greek tragedians and their vaunted, faulted kings who crumbled beneath the pressure of the crown were all beginning to make sense now.

Nonetheless, his duty was his duty. Besides, his people were waiting for him and he certainly couldn't defeat his opponent by waiting for him to starve to death. He got dressed: white war paint, red dots peppering the cheek bones and the eyebrows, traditional Wakandan loin cloth, spear and shield. Outside he went, the cloaked Nightangel ship awaiting him. Okoye, his most trusted Adored One awaited him,

"My king." She greeted him with the customary Wakandan salute.

"Okoye." T'Challa reciprocate the gesture.

"You will not freeze this time, will you?" Okoye grinned through her full and wide lips.

"I never freeze." T'Challa revealed his pearl white teeth.

"Nakia says oth--" T'Challa gave her a stern look, he couldn't help but laugh internally. Okoye shut up.

The Royal Talon Fighters lifted into the air and unfurled her many small wings, in a matter of minutes the two had arrived at Warrior Falls. When the jet landed, T'Challa stepped off to the song of some hundred Wakandan natives awaiting his arrival; Burundi drums beat a war rhythm, their cadence an anapest. Women, men, and children all danced and sang the kwai. As T'Challa descended the Royal Talon fighters ramp and stepped atop the waterfall's crescent, he was greeted by Zuri, former warrior and now instituted shaman charged with conducting challenge day among other duties. He was adorned a purple floor length cloth with black stitch, white odigba ifa beads and his face too was caked white with war paint. Before T'Challa people from all different ethnicities stood--their faces colored with reds, oranges, purples, limes, pinks, greys, blacks--all symbolizing different beliefs and walks of life, but all Wakandan. All unified. It was the most beautiful thing T'Challa had ever seen.

Zuri stepped forth and gave the ceremonial rights, "Do any tribes wish to bring forth a warrior to challenge for the throne?" and without missing a beat,

"I, M'Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe, challenge King T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda!"

There was silence. The Jabari tribes had been exiled long ago for their fanatical worship of the White Gorilla cult that preceded them. It was on the whim of several "visions" from their revered leader, M'Baku, that the Jabari had tried to usurp the throne. None of their attempts succeeded and a wedge was driven between the Panther clan and the Jabarri which spanned centuries. The only time they ever came down from those snow tipped mountains was during challenge day, the day that all people from every part of Wakanda could offer up their finest warrior to challenge for the throne no matter that tribe or nation's diplomatic standing with the king. It was the law, and all respected it.

This was the second time M'Baku had challenged for the throne, the first occurring before T'Challa had ascended to the throne was but but a teenager. T'Chaka, T'Challa's father, defeated M'Baku then and T'Challa would defeat him again. M'Baku was a man almost a foot taller than T'Challa and inhumanly muscular. T'Challa would not win this with sheer strength, and so when Zuri removed the power of the heart-shaped herb from T'Challa (which gave him all of his superhuman abilities) and T'Challa and M'Baku crossed blades--a ceremonial show of respect even if the two disliked one another--there was no turning back.

M'Baku quickly gained the upper hand, for possessed deceptive speed in addition to his raw strength. He overwhelmed the much smaller and lighter T'Challa with heavy shield bashes and body shots. It was T'Challa's agility which saved him from being knocked unconscious all but five minutes into the fight. T'Challa made another crucial error and let his rage get the best of him where he charged M'Baku head on and was nigh-immediately lifted off his feet and over M'Baku's head where T'Challa was powerbombed back into the jagged rocks below.

M'Baku wrapped his gargantuan hands around T'Challa's throat and hoisted him once more off the ground,

"Not as skilled as your father! You place this child upon your precious throne! BAHAHA!" and as M'Baku gloated, T'Challa went for his eyes. M'Baku wailed a banshee song and dropped T'Challa, who landed wobbly on his feet. Blinding M'Baku worked long enough for T'Challa to attack M'Baku's knees with a series of oblique and teep kicks.

M'Baku dropped to his knees without much resistance, and T'Challa finished him with a few hooks. Adrenaline is all that let him forget the fact that he had two broken ribs, several contusions, and a concussion and a slipped disk. He blacked out soon after--but he retained the throne. . . for now.

@Afro Samurai

Black Canary and Black Panther are...

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

That universe's version of Superman doesn't have a secret identity because Clark Kent flexed too hard at The Daily Planet once and it ripped open his shirt exposing the costume underneath.

There, Sep. Is that what you wanted?! Is that what you wanted to hear?!?!