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I have always been interested in the background of superheroes—mainly in how each hero came to be an iconic figure. Superman is probably one of the most compelling; he was an alien raised by humans who came to represent all that was good about the human race. Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a more tragic tale. His youthful negligence led to the death of his beloved uncle Ben, which in turn led him to shoulder the responsibility of his phenomenal powers (if mostly out of guilt). In contrast to that, Batman’s story is equally tragic, but his was borne from the helpless victimization of a child. That led Bruce Wayne to adopt a mantle to protect the vulnerable and innocent from those who would do them harm.

Superheroes have a variety of backgrounds. As such, there isn’t a limited set of circumstances that we can expect to explain the origin of a hero.

Super villains, however, are relatively simple to identify . . . it’s all about the name!

Granted, this is not a universal standard, but it is pretty darn close. One of my favorite memories from the most recent PC was the Win-a-Box Sealed event on Sunday, where I caused Matt Meyer no end of grief. I was in a goofy mood, so every other minute or so, I tormented him with my inane babble about villain names. If you were anywhere in the vicinity, you probably heard me saying things like:

“Hey, Matt! Did you notice that William Zard is The Wizard? If you take the ‘lliam’ out of his first name, you get ‘Wizard!’ Isn’t that weird?”

“Ooh! Look at this, Matt! ‘T. O. Morrow!’ If you spell his name out, you get ‘Tomorrow!’ Pretty cool, eh?”

“Oh, wow! IQ is ‘Ira Quimby.’ Not only does that imply that he’s some sort of evil genius, but those are also his initials. Um, Matt . . . what are you doing with that sledgehammer?”

I have to wonder how some of these villainous names came about. I suppose that creating new villains for the heroes to fight can be a repetitive process, since every hero needs several villains to battle. I guess the question is whether or not the comic writers were legitimately trying to be creative or if they just ran out of ideas.

Some villain names are truly creative. Whoever thought of the name The Riddler, Edward Nygma was ingenious (though I have not ever met or heard of anyone with the last name of “Nygma.”) On the other hand, there are some villain names that are just plain weak. I would have loved to have seen the brainstorming session behind the Basilisk character.

Writer: Okay, we have a new villain for Spider-Man. He can turn people to stone with his eye beams. We call him “Basilisk!”

Of course, some villains are only sort of defined by their real names. It may only be a little intentional that the botanical baddie Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue has the word “wood” in his name. And it might be a stretch to say that Poison Ivy, Pamela Isely is odd because her real name and moniker share the same initials.

When attempting to identify potential super villains by their birth names, keep these three simple rules in mind:

1) If the individual in question has the name of an aggressive animal or weapon anywhere in his or her name, that person is probably going to turn out rotten.

2) If a person has a name that could relate to some sort of bizarre scientific procedure that could give that individual extraordinary abilities, then beware!

3) If a person has the words “Doom,” “Evil,” or “Leader” anywhere in his or her name, run!

Our featured card this week is another character that suffers from VNS (Villainous Name Syndrome). Dr. Harleen Quinzel was once a brilliant criminal psychologist. However, she was also young and overly ambitious. Thus, when she started working with The Joker, she was adversely affected by the Clown Prince of Crime’s crazed mentality. Her resulting mental collapse and reformation led to Dr. Quinzel adopting a new name: Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn became the sinister Gal Friday for The Joker, carrying out all kinds of nefarious tasks for her beloved master.

I have to wonder why the administrators at Arkham Asylum didn’t see this one coming. Harleen Quinzel? What kind of a name is that? I’m sure the conversation went something like this:

Arkham Administrator #1: So, who are we going to assign to do the psychoanalysis on The Joker?

AA2: Oh, what could possibly go wrong? Hey! I just noticed that Dr. Quinzel’s name sounds a lot like “Harlequin.” Pretty strange, eh?

AA1: That is bizarre! Okay then . . . now that we’re done with that, we can go play golf!

In the comics, Harley Quinn almost always played a supporting role. She usually assisted The Joker in his latest plot to create havoc for Batman. However, she occasionally worked with other super villains. But whatever thug she teamed with, the song was usually the same—Harley Quinn played second fiddle.

In the Vs. System, Harley Quinn plays much the same role that she does in the comics. She is all but useless by herself. However, she has two very potent effects that support other Arkham Inmates characters quite nicely. When she’s on the board, she can reinforce any Arkham Inmate defender, regardless of its position relative to her. When she’s in hand, she can power-up an Arkham Inmates character.

It’s that second effect that I’d like to consider. The new ally mechanic from the JLA set created incentives for powering-up characters. Obviously, a character like Harley Quinn could be very potent in an ally environment. However, I would really like to consider her synergy with one of the older, more established cards of the Vs. System, Lost City. Obviously, teaming up the Brotherhood and the Arkham Inmates could be very fruitful—the combo of Harley Quinn and Lost City would enable a player to give a +3 ATK / +3 DEF bonus to any character on the board!

Our challenge is to create a deck that can consistently utilize the combination of Harley Quinn and Lost City. Given the support for the Arkham Inmates in the JLA set, that should not be a difficult task.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. We certainly need four copies of for maximum abuse potential. Of course, Harley Quinn would only be one-third as good without Lost City, so we’ll need four copies of that, too. Finally, we’ll want the requisite four copies of Avalon Space Station.

Now let’s work on our character curve to support our build. Obviously, we need a good complement of both Arkham Inmates and Brotherhood characters. Since we already have four copies of an Arkham Inmate at the 1-slot with Harley Quinn, let’s offset that with four copies of Brotherhood characters. I brought up my fondness for Destiny in one of my earlier articles; while she isn’t much of an attacker, her burn effect merits at least two copies in this deck. The other two spots belong to a potent attacker. Thornn is a great choice for the deck, not only because she is a Brotherhood character, but also because she has an effect that can utilize excess cards in hand. Finally, we’re going to toss in a single copy of Mikado and Mosha. Since most of our power won’t come online until later turns, it might be beneficial to have a card that can fend off oversized weenies in the earlier turns.

At the 2-slot, we have a couple of prime choices. Toad has long been a staple in Big Brotherhood decks for his ability to “leap” back to your hand when stunned. However, our real star at 2 is one of the newest incarnations of the lovely Ms. Isely, Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose. Since any Lost City variant relies heavily on having Lost City and Avalon Space Station in play, having a strong 2-drop that can bring these locations directly into play is certainly beneficial. The character KO requirement might seem a little steep, but she does have the potential for some nifty little combos with that KO effect. For example:

Needless to say, there are some interesting possibilities for abuse with Poison Ivy. Best of all, the character she KO’s doesn’t have to be non-stunned. So, you could KO a character that is going to be KO’d at the end of the turn anyway to fetch a free location.

We don’t need a lot of help at 3 because we will probably be under-dropping on that turn to use Poison Ivy’s effect. However, it might be beneficial to have at least one character available, just in case we draw into all of our needed locations. Since we are playing a Team-Up deck, having a character that can fetch Team-Ups might be handy. Moonglow is just the gal we need for the task. As you will soon see, all of the Team-Ups we’ll be playing have the Team-Up version, so she’ll be able to fetch any of them. And thanks to her other effect, she can fit in with either the Inmates or the mutants with equal aplomb.

At 4, we’re going for all the power we can muster—and 4-drops just don’t get any bigger than Sabretooth, Feral Rage. While we need to ensure that we have a Brotherhood character available for his discard cost, his natural ability to attack as many as two spots up the curve is a force to be reckoned with. Of course, the Arkham Inmates have a pretty good 4-drop of their own in The Joker, Headline Stealer. He may not be as beefy as Sabretooth, but he has a nice disruption effect to back his stats. Besides, what would a Harley Quinn deck be without at least one version of Mr. J in the mix?

Turn 5 continues our trend of big bruisers. One of the cards everyone has been raving about from the JLA set, Scarecrow, Fearmonger, is sure to make the cut in our deck. It’s really hard to argue which of the Arkham Inmates 5-drops is the best (as they have some really good ones). But given his ability to grow bigger and his utility against the much-despised Nimrod, I think that Scarecrow is our top pick. Of course, we probably should consider a backup 5-drop that has a little more finesse—something to deal with those decks that like to swarm the board. Having the double-attacking goodness of Quicksilver, Speed Demon can be just the ticket for gaining back lost board presence.

Turns 6 and 7 are where we really plan to dish out some hurt with the Arkham bruisers. If we have to play defensively, then there’s none better in Vs. System than Mr. Freeze. A hefty 13 DEF, bolstered by an effect that makes Titans players cry, makes Mr. Freeze a great play when you want to shut down any pesky readying effects. However, you’ll usually want to be the one laying the smack down in the later turns, in which case, Charaxes, Killer Moth is a very strong play. Since we will undoubtedly have several characters in the KO’d pile by the time turn 6 rolls around, Charaxes can ensure that your opponent’s big guys won’t stay on the board for too long. And since his effect works on either offense or defense, he’s not a bad off-initiative play, either.

Turn 7 presents a tough choice for us. Obviously, the Brotherhood has one of the best 7-drops in the game in Magneto, Master of Magnetism. Not only does Magneto possess impressive stats, but he also has an effect that is absolutely devastating to your opponents. However, Arkham has a 7-drop that is just as big and might even be better than the leader of the evil mutants. I am, of course, speaking of Two-Face, Split Personality. He doesn’t have the flight that Magneto has, but his exhaustion effect can be absolutely amazing for disrupting reinforcement and activated effects. In addition, his mulligan effect can be handy when we don’t feel like tossing all of the cards in our opening hand.

Finally, we’re going to place a lone 8-drop in the deck to deal with any late game threats. Martian Manhunter, Manhunter from Mars has a card drawing effect that can be really good. Unfortunately, it’s absolutely useless in this deck. But we’re bringing him on board for his other effect . . . you know, the “discard a card to power-up a character” effect. Given the deck’s theme, it might be slightly useful.

As far as plot twists go, our additions are relatively simple. Our first pick in the plot twist department is a viable character tutor. The Brotherhood has Rise to Power, but it is only helpful in the late game. What we need is a character tutor that can give us access to either Brotherhood or Arkham Inmates characters without the necessity of a Team-Up. That’s where Straight to the Grave comes in. With Avalon Space Station in play (a simple proposition with Poison Ivy on the board), the brainchild of Alex Shvartsman is a simply phenomenal character searcher. Not only does it give you access to any character, but the card advantage of Avalon Space Station essentially makes the search free.

Of course, we mustn’t forget about our Team-Up cards. Fortunately, the new JLA set presented us with a neat new Team-Up for the Inmates in Justice League of Arkham. While the Team-Up lacks the draw effect that is so popular in most Team-Up cards, it does have a nifty discard effect that can make your opponent’s early turns difficult (especially if he or she has no way to get back cards from the KO’d pile). Since we’re on the subject of Team-Ups, we’re also going to include a single copy of Stormfront-1. Without the Thunderbolts team in the deck, this card essentially performs the same function as Metropolis. However, since we’re only playing a single copy, we don’t have to worry about uniqueness issues. In addition, having the Team-Up version means that it can be searched out by either Poison Ivy or Moonglow and that it is not susceptible to replacement by cards like Foxfire and Quakemaster.

Our next plot twist is a personal favorite of mine. If you haven’t listened to Dylan “DocX” Northrup’s “Tech Upgrade” interview with Gary Wise on VsRealms, then stop reading this article, go listen to it, and come back when you’re done; you’ll thank me for it.** If you have listened to it, then you’re aware that Gary Wise called Kidnapping one of the most backbreaking cards in the Vs. System. Its full potential has been held back by the fact that it is stamped to a less popular team. Well, not any longer! Imagine the fun you’ll have when your opponent is forced to under-drop on turn 4 with a couple of 2-drops because you sent his or her Hank Hall ◊ Hawk back to the top of the deck with Kidnapping. I’ve done it before; it’s dastardly, but in a good way!

Our final plot twist choices are a couple of cards we need to include to prevent certain specialty cards from pummeling us. Obviously, a deck that relies heavily on Lost City and Avalon Space Station is very vulnerable to cards like Unmasked and Global Domination. In addition, having a power-up war with another Lost City deck can be a tricky proposition. Fortunately, these are all cards that we can remove from the board with a well-timed Have a Blast!. Most of the threats to our deck will be sitting in our opponent’s resource row, so we might as well pack a weapon to deal with that.

Finally, with the recent popularity of rush decks like Squadron Supreme and GLEEvil, we could use a card that punishes our opponent for attacking up the curve. It’s a good thing, then, that the Brotherhood has one of the best off-curve punishment tools in Insignificant Threat. For the simple cost of an exhaustion, we can bludgeon those weenies who get a little too big for their britches. And if we get lucky enough to catch our opponent in an ill-timed team attack, we could potentially stun two weenies without taking a stunback ourselves.

That’s it. Ship the loonies off! It’s time to see what happens when the Inmates are allowed to take over the Brotherhood stronghold.

If you’ve ever played Big Brotherhood (as I am sure most players have at least once), then you’ll find the build relatively straightforward. The preferred initiative is odds because Quicksilver and Two-Face are far more effective when you have the initiative. However, the initiative is not a major issue. Once you can build your hand with Avalon Space Station and gain board control with Kidnapping and Charaxes, you should have no problem putting your opponent away.

So ends another week of Breaking Ground. If you have any comments, suggestions, or therapy advice, you can send them my way at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. I admit to being very bad about responding to email (primarily because my employer is making every effort to make my work-week hours reach triple digits). However, I do read every email and appreciate the feedback that you give me.

And one day, I hope to respond to each and every one of your wonderful messages!

* Fortunately, we also have Vs. System heroes to protect us from those who would do us harm: Tim Batow ◊ Aqualad, Defender of TCG’er Freedom.

** This is not a shameless plug! I am a big fan of Dylan’s audio interviews and want to promote them as much as possible so that people will listen in and he’ll continue to do them.***

*** Listening to “Tech Upgrade” is the one bit of joy I get in an otherwise bleak work week. That, and I one day hope that he’ll interview me. That is a shameless plug!