I wanted to start this article with a few awful puns about persuading you to attend your local Legion of Super Heroes Sneak Preview tournament, but my conscience persuaded me otherwise. Instead, I will let the character himself do the convincing. No one will be able to refuse The Persuader.

The Persuader is really strong. He was born on a planet with such excessive gravity that he had no choice; when your wallet weighs 500 pounds you can’t help but build up muscle mass. Simple physical might, however, is not what The Persuader is best known for. He wields the Atomic Axe, one of the most powerful single weapons in the entire DC Comics universe, and it has kept The Persuader going since the 31^st century.

One day there were five Legionnaires studying the five most wanted intergalactic criminals when all of a sudden a threat to the entire universe appeared: the Sun-Eater was floating through space, surrounding whole solar systems with its gaseous cloud and obliterating them with gusto. The threat to Earth was imminent, and the Legionnaires couldn’t handle it alone. Usually the Legion of Super Heroes would have had two or three handfuls of help in the clubhouse, but this time the other fifteen Legionnaires were busy in Dimension QK-51, so there was no choice when it came to recruiting.

The Legion split up, which became a common theme in The Persuader’s myths. Cosmic Boy convinced Tharok, Superboy engaged the Emerald Empress, Ferro Lad had a man-to-man with Mano, and Sun Boy befriended the beast called Validus. The Persuader was finally won over by Princess Projectra, and the team-up was complete.

The Persuader’s Atomic Axe can cut through anything. Usually when someone says that, they’re only talking about physical structures. Not this time. This particular Future Foe has the ability to chop his way through ideas, words, or intentions. He can slice scenarios, sequences, or science. Give him something to cut, and The Persuader will do it. . . for the right price, of course.

This time the cost of refusal would have been their own destruction, so the Fatal Five agreed to join with the Legionnaires in the battle against the Sun-Eater. The Persuader was a key to their plan. Since the Sun-Eater was too powerful for a single attack, they needed our Atomic Axe-man to dice the demon into sections. Tharok used his Intensifier to boost everyone’s powers before the battle, and then The Persuader cut the thing into eight pieces.

It didn’t work. One eighth of the Sun-Eater was still stronger than each member of the Legionnaires/Fatal Five team-up. After it beat them down individually, the cloud monster simply re-formed and got stronger; it was time for Plan B. Tharok quickly constructed an “absorbatron” bomb that would evaporate the threat. There was only one problem—the bomb would also erase whoever detonated it inside the Sun-Eater. Superboy valiantly argued that he should be the one allowed to martyr himself. Then Ferro Lad suddenly turned into iron, punched Superboy square on the jaw, and flew off with the bomb to destroy the vaporous villain. Pow!  Another Legionnaire was lost and the universe was saved once again.

But that was not the end of the story. The Fatal Five were just too evil to live happily ever after, and with the sigh of relief still fresh in the air they locked the remaining Legionnaires in chains and prepared to remove them from the galaxy. Tharok used his mind-control device to unleash Valdius, who got set for the big beats and got out of control. It took everyone in the room to hold him off.

 

Princess Projectra hooked up with The Persuader one more time, when she deflected a lighting beam from Valdius toward the Atomic Axe. When our preview card character swung back, he cut an energy fissure so strong that it sucked the entire Fatal Five away into another part of the future.

 

It took months for the team-up of super heroes to vanquish the duplicated villains. The virtual victory wreaked havoc on the actual existence and timeline of each team, and made for some of the coolest comic-book covers of the 21^st century. Check these out:

Just as the battle for the future began two years ago for the Fatal Five Hundred, the conquest of kitchen tables and convention halls will now be cut down to size by Vs. System’s version of The Persuader. His sizable strength is captured in a whopping 14 ATK / 14 DEF body. His Atomic Axe skills are portrayed in a necessary drawback to that much beef: the Persuader brings characters back for more punishment by placing a parallel pawn into play.

It seems a steep price to pay for such a sharp knife. Stunning opposing characters is one of the main goals of the game. The Persuader’s stats are so strong that he gives them a second chance, since they may not be able to stun him back. As an attacker, he might tune in to the Helm of Nabu and listen to the things that Fate Has Spoken, or attempt to Press the Attack and swing on the same character twice. He may just tag in another dastardly villain from the Fatal Five to bully a hapless defender on the second sitting. I feel sorry for any turn 6 underdrops against this character; they are getting stunned twice, and that’s gotta hurt. The recovery only triggers once per turn, however, so The Persuader’s combo potential cannot enter Fatal Five Hundred territory. This doesn’t mean he isn’t deadly dangerous, though.

The Persuader’s influence is spreading like wildfire as we speak. He appeared with the Fatal Five this past Saturday morning in the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon and almost made me spill my cereal. His Atomic Axe looks better than ever on television. He almost got to chop the Legionnaires into pieces in front of a national audience, but then Matter-Eater Lad took a bite out of crime and snapped the weapon in half. I’m sure it will not be the last we hear of The Persuader. I can’t wait to swing that axe myself at my local Sneak Preview tournament—not only is it featured prominently on the intense visual assault of our newest Vs. System playmat, but it’s also a cut above.

Rian Fike is also known as stubarnes and he would like to apologize for the pun. If you can persuade him to refrain from such pain-inducing prose in the future, please send your plea to: rianfike@hattch.com