Would've had these up sooner, but Wraith had to go and do an awards' layout that I really wanted to rip off. Razzin', frazzin' superiority.
Best Character@Morden Man as
The Fantastic FourAs big of a superhero buff as I am and a fan of the Marvel Universe in general, I have to admit, I don't really ever go out of my way to delve into the First Family. I don't know what it is that I have trouble grasping about the concept, but it's just one that I don't think I could ever personally write. Morden Man, however, managed to both take The Fantastic Four and add an extra dimension to them that was organically strewn from the corpse of another game
and make all four of the characters particularly engaging to follow. I especially loved his posts as Sue whenever she was on her own mission to give Maria Hill a piece of her mind, culminating in her brief interaction with The Surfer just before the second MME. But his Ben is just as good, as is his Johnny, as is his Reed, and all four of them combined do a real service to the creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby by turning them into a concept that I would easily follow in a monthly book. I cannot give this enough kudos.
Best Character Development@Lord Wraith as
Thor/Blake DonaldsonI'll admit, I wasn't quite sure of what to make of the concept of a Thor who essentially blacks out and becomes Thor without any seemingly physical change. It was certainly interesting, but I just didn't know if I quite bought into it as well as the traditional version where Donald Blake and Thor are two entirely seperate entities. But as the season rolled along and Wraith began developing his own side of this world, I saw the line between Blake Donaldson and Thor begin to increasingly blur until they were completely of the same soul, despite being of vastly different histories. Seeing Donaldson come to grips with his plight as the vessel for The God Of Thunder was a hell of a thing to behold, just as seeing Thor make a name for himself as a hero for this world was something that got me excited for future storylines.
Best Season@HenryJonesJr as
Spider-Woman/Gwen StacyHaving played the PS4
Spider-Man game to completion, my thirst for Spidey related material was at an all time high as we got closer to wrapping up. But reading Henry's Gwen has more than satisfied my need to have the wall-crawler and his world come alive, only through the eyes of an entirely different character who feels as true to the webs as Peter Parker ever did. I can't think of a thing that Henry
didn't do that I wanted to see out of Gwen's initial outing, given that the symbiote saga and the Sinister Six coming together don't quite make sense for a Year One setting, but there was plenty of the expected melodrama and teen angst mixed in with colorful bad guys, a great budding relationship between Gwen and Peter with a tragic sting over everything, and the unexpected reveal that Gwen made to her father of her dual identity. Henry basically spent an entire season checking off everything great about Spider-Man and adapted it for his Spider-Woman stuff, and it was a great ride to go on.
Best Story Arc"Hooray For Hollywood", featuring
@Byrd Man as
John ConstantineByrd actually contacted me mid-season to ask if I would read this, given that I was still struggling to catch up with the IC thread at the time, and give him some constructive criticism on it. As I delved into this little morality play, however, I found myself having little to no problems with how it ultimately turned out and it has stuck with me ever since. Byrd's Constantine is some of the best writing he's ever done, in my opinion, but this arc has the three things he's best at conveying up front and center: the noir style grime, the twists and turns that you wouldn't have necessarily seen coming, and the supernatural colliding with the real world. To say that this arc reeked of sleaze would be an understatement, to say that it was tragic to see the fall of a man who literally sold his soul to the devil would be a disservice. It was a great statement on Hollywood in and of itself, and Byrd should be proud. He really got his L.A. Confidential on for this one.
Best Story Structure@Hound55's
Moon KnightI decided to add this category for one very specific reason: because if I had to go back and do my stuff all over again, this is almost exactly how I would've done it. Whenever I originally started the game, I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that it would do well for a couple of weeks and then burn out, and I would have scratched my itch to play Batman again until the next opportunity arose. So whenever I was writing those initial Batman posts, I did so with that in mind, thinking I would just have fun while the game was afloat. But as it goddamn turned out, this game became a
success and I was stuck with a Batman who was already pre-established, already had a dynamic set up with a few of his supporting characters, and already had the groundwork laid out for future villains.
But if I knew how successful the season was going to be, I would have tackled Bruce the way that Hound tackled Marc Spector: from the ground up, at the very start, gradually building up all of the expected tropes from a natural beginning point and doing so with a very,
very unreliable narrator. Hound knows that I'm a fellow fan of Moony, having read a couple of runs on the character, and reading Spector's slow-burn transformation from mercenary to werewolf hunter/masked vigilante was a really intricate, almost intimate experience. You got to see him mess up in the beginning, you got his resurrection, you got all of the business with Raoul Bushman, and you got Werewolf By Night. It was honestly like experiencing the Moon Knight Netflix series that has yet to happen, or a movie. Hound's love for the character shined through every post, and made me all the more envious that I didn't do the origin story with Bats.
Best Post"Surfer! I would have words." by
@Lord WraithIt's one thing to write a quality post, but to write a quality post that is both well timed in the heat of a mass interaction
and gets the reader to immediately hear Alan Silvestri's theme for The Avengers in their head? That's a feat that I didn't even know one was capable of pulling off. But Wraith's fateful intervention in the second MME was definitely something that I think all of us stood up and took notice of, given it was the ultimate "Aw, SHIT!" moment of the game, so it easily earns it's spot in the Best Post category. There's not much else to say than that, as the post speaks for itself.
Best Antagonist@Simple Unicycle as
The PunisherWhile I know that this one's a bit of a cheat on my part, given that Frank isn't strictly speaking a bad guy and that there are no real PC bad guys in UOU, I would say that beyond maybe The Silver Surfer, Simp's Punisher has had the most effect on the world of the game. He's started from the bottom as a lonesome vigilante and worked his way up to being a cautionary tale, inspiring fear out of practically everyone else in a very real sense, the way a school shooter or mass murderer would. He's a character that likes you to hate him as a person, but be completely enthralled to follow his journey. If Simp had visited Gotham, I'd have been glad to have Batman kick his teeth in.
Best Supporting Cast@Eddie Brock's
Captain America & Team 7/The AvengersI mean, it's really kinda hard to beat a supporting cast that consists of major superheroes in their own right, really, but Eddie not only expertly handled the introduction of each member and had Cap's initial struggles to get them to work under his command believable, he really gave all of Team 7 unique voices of their own. I was particularly impressed with how he handled bringing Diana Prince into the fold, given we had a Wonder Woman and Diana couldn't very well take the mantle for herself. The result was every bit the character that exists in the DC Universe, only really missing the costume. But I also loved Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Katana, Falcon, and the rest of the characters that encircled Steve's world, as they felt as if they belonged specifically to that side of the universe and not a bunch of throwaway cameos, which would have been easy to make it feel like. Even though Eddie didn't quite get a huge post count in the game, whenever he posted it was a worthwhile read.
Best World Building@AndyC's
MetropolisThis was a tough one to nail down, as alot of people have done alot of great things with their respective corners of the world. I never realized that I'd have affection for the fictional town of Marville, Oklahoma, for example, nor did I ever expect to see Los Angeles as the perfect breeding ground for John Constantine. But Andy's work with The Man Of Steel remains as much of a highlight as ever, and this particular version of Metropolis manages to be his best so far. I love the fact that it's so heavily technological based, as Lex Luthor would have The City of Tomorrow, but still manages to fit in all of the sci-fi weirdness that escorts Superman in very subtle ways rather than trying to forcefully cram them both together. And now that everything's connected via Brainiac as an advanced artificial intelligence app, which I still can't get over in it's brilliance, things are bound to get even more interesting for Clark's home town in Season Two.
Best Crossover@HenryJonesJr's
Spider-Woman versus
@Simple Unicycle's
PunisherOne of the earliest, if not the earliest crossover of the game, this one still resonates with me because of how diametrically opposed the two heroes (one hero?) are. Gwen Stacy is a snarky, fun-loving vigilante who does her best to keep things calm and maintain a level head in every situation. Frank Castle is a man who literally doesn't give a fuck who he hurts and how, as long as his target is taken out in the end. Seeing these two come to blows was tense, brutal, and best of all, very much like a well coordinated dance, where both players were on their game.
The Ultimate Breakout Character@Sep as
The Flash/Iris WestThe goal of Ultimate One Universe, as I saw it, was to introduce a character that was so off kilter from how the character is usually portrayed and make them just as valid as the hero that everyone is familiar with. I don't think any really expected much out of Iris West as The Flash, as it seemed like a weird choice to make Barry's traditional love interest into The Scarlet Speedster herself. But Sep quickly endeared me to Iris' journey to becoming a hero, through both the character's personality (which is why is was so easy to ship Iris and Clark before the latter became more heavily involved) and her dramatic face-off against The Reverse Flash, who echoed the audience's initial reservations by putting her status as The Flash into doubt and pushing her to earn it. I'd love to see this Flash crossover and meet, through some multiversal shenanigans, either Barry Allen or Wally West as The Flash for an arc in Season Two, as I feel like they'd have some great moments and it would solidify Iris as her own Flash even more by comparing and contrasting.
The John Lees Memorial MVP Award@Morden ManWhenever Byrd originally suggested adding Morden into the fold, I accepted blindly, not really knowing the dude personally or what he could bring to the table. He'd briefly appeared on the Hype and played a great Daredevil, as I was reminded, but I had never actually interacted with Morden on a person-to-person basis. That being said, were it not for Morden as a Co-GM, this game wouldn't even be half as successful as it eventually became. Not only is he insanely easy to work with and a fantastic, upper-tier writer in his own right, but he managed to solve problems within the game that I wouldn't even have known to exist. He brought his experiences from Guild games of the past into this game and took into account the prior games' shortcomings in order to build this game into a well-oiled machine, and I attribute the fact that it made it to a Season Two entirely to Morden. You, sir, have made Ultimate One Universe what it is, and I couldn't be more satisfied.
Best Sex Scene:This post by... @Byrd ManYep. I went there. Despite the fact that I've heard that
@Lord Wraith may have wrote a sex scene, I'm sure that his couldn't quite compete with the dirty, raunchy version that was thrown into this post. Sorry, Wraith. I guess you'll have to try harder next season.
8x Thank
