tonis

@rocketpig: hahaha, Reed and Doom playing chess for the win, love it!!!

congrats on the convention gig, best of luck man :)

@Ellocobruja: lol @ war is hex, that is good.

as always, really cool stuff :)

@PoachedPig: @LordRequiem: @Rockfall: I can't believe how perfect each choice has been with all of these. It's like you see them and you smack yourself in the head and say 'of course, why didn't I think of that' :)

This is definitely one of the most creative robins yet, very exciting stuff.

Although each member has admirable qualities that together make for a fantastic team, for me I'd have to say the ever loving blue eyed Thing has always been my favorite member of the group. He's their powerhouse and tough as nails but at the same time has shown he has a gentle and kind heart who really cares for his team mates. His big brother like relationship with Johnny has always brought laughs and entertainment as they bickered and he is a big reason why I enjoyed the early years of the FF so much. Most of all though, it's been his inner strength that's always impressed me the most. Being the most visibly affected by the cosmic rays he's constantly proven that although he may look like a monster he's very much human inside and that's always inspired me about him as a character.

@ZZoMBiE13: crazy cool design, I totally love the plasma hair, great idea and makes for a badass looking character :)

@Ravager4: yea I have no idea what they've done with her since the reboot, or for the past decade or so. My Starfire days go back to the Teen Titans of the 80's and early 90's before I stopped collecting them.

It's definitely a shame that they've messed with her so much, she was an interesting and fun character back then. I still enjoy seeing her in the cartoons, there she's very cute :)

@ZZoMBiE13: all you have to do is take a look at pretty much any national geographic issue and you'll see that there are still plenty of cultures out there not too caught up in wearing a lot of cloths. Be it a king or a tribal leader, what they wear or how they portray themselves is a result of their cultural beliefs, upbringing, and obviously surroundings.

Granted Starfire's sex appeal has been abused and exaggerated over time due to writers motivations to inject more sex into the picture but the creators who originally brought her onto the scene portrayed a beautiful and fierce warrior princess who came from an exotic world dominated by female influences.

to quote from vines bio:

Wolfman conceived the character as an exotic alien princess who was both sexy in appearance and a fierce warrior, essentially a "Red Sonja in outer space.

The people of Tamaran were portrayed as lovers as much as fighters:

The Tamaraneans are a passionate people driven more by emotion than reason. While they are unusually fierce warriors, their capacity for love is even greater than their capacity for hate; as a result, war and strife were for many centuries long forgotten on Tamaran. Instead, the people channeled their energies into creating a tropical utopia, a paradise where they could live in harmony with the wildlife and where battle skills were maintained largely for ceremony's sake.

look through history and see if you can find any examples of a tropical utopia or jungle paradise where the people covered themselves up in shame. You won't find any because once you get past our western mentality it just doesn't matter as much as we've made it out to be.

The writers in her early days did a very good job of making this relevant to her appearance and attitude, she clearly felt out of place on earth and was constantly being told to tone it down and it confused her constantly because of where she came from. On the Marvel side Storm too went through much of the same thing for a long time and she didn't even come from another planet but rather a different culture on earth.

I'll agree writers have gotten carried away with some of this over time but the initial reasoning behind why she dresses or acts the way she does comes from a very solid believable character background.

@LordRequiem said:

@tonis: Precisely. You are correct, and no one complains about all these movie stars and models flashing everything so why should fiction, where the reasons have basis which makes sense, be any different. Oh and that picture is absolutely amazing!!!!!

thanks, yea it's funny how we can hold fictional alien characters to standards we hold. Can you imagine if a human was thrust into an alien world where everyone was naked how they would be perceived. :)

@Hawkeye446: thanks buddy, yea her face was really important to me to get the cute look she has in the cartoons mixed with the angrier look she has in battles in the books.

@Blizaga101 awesome design, with the haircut like that it reminds me of the Black Widow redesign of the 80's which I always dug. Great job :)

@Roxanne Starr I experimented with the feet and bending the knees but it made her look shorter and more awkward. She tends to fly with a rather straight form and this worked best to show the costume. As for the wrists and forearms being out of proportion, the wrists are tight fitting gloves, the arms are a loose sleeved jacket that end in cuffs. They're supposed to fit like that ;)

It about 'context' when it comes to killing, Captain America certainly had to kill fighting in WW2.

realistically speaking, heros are in a war, and you certainly wouldn't hold it against a soldier who killed in battle anymore than you should a superhero. The expectation of a hero is that they have the moral ground to make that decision when necessary and that they don't let it personally overwhelm them.

It's about doing the right thing in the eyes of those watching.

If you are doing the right thing, then even killing is something that can be overlooked publicly because it's considered for a greater good which is what heroism is all about. If it's not, then you are vilified.

Any smart hero has to realize that going into the battle ;)

beautiful designs so far and it goes to show you don't have to be skimpy to still look sexy.

Kory catches a lot of crap for her outfits and how she acts but I think a lotta people have forgotten that it's part of her cultural upbringing. Storm was very much the same way when she first came to the X-Men. You can't really fault a person for acting naturally to what they were brought up in or hold it against them and assume she's a whore because of it or how she looks. (or at least you shouldn't)