Ult. Sunfire, Ult. Silver Samurai ideas

compound

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This is more like a collection of plot ideas, rather than a cohesive storyline. Please bear with me... :p

Ultimate Prophecy, Part 1

* A subway car moves at high speed beneath a prefecture outside metropolitan Tokyo. Suddenly, an ominous red mist passes through it, as passengers start coughing and throwing up, before falling to the ground. Patterns begin to appear in the gas -- fractals, psychedelia -- leaving massacred bodies in its wake. One commuter, foaming at the mouth, whispers "Thanatos", before hitting the floor.

The automated train arrives at its destination, like a morgue on railway tracks. The blank eye of one casualty is matched with...

* The shape of a microbe bacteria, under the microscope of young Reed Richards. He is at work in his laboratory inside the Baxter Institute, in New York City. The intercom buzzes incessantly, distrupting his concentration. He sticks his head out the door -- literally -- to find Sue and Johnny Storm running through the hallways at top speed. "Ross needs us, pronto. Emergency."

In a briefing room, Gen. Ross explains that colleagues in Japan have detected a possible N-Zone breach in Tokyo, several minutes before the deadly subway attack. They don't have any time to pack their bags -- they're headed for Japan to investigate.

* At the site of the massacre, Detective Takitane, a sullen professional forensics expert, is baffled by the cause of the passengers' deaths -- "Something right out of the X-Files". He worries that the government will send in "the freaks" to finish off the job for him.

A flustered young cop runs up to him. He has been patrolling the disused subway tunnels nearby, and there's something he NEEDS to see.

* Elsewhere in the city, mutant rights activist Shiro Yoshida looks out from a window, in his small, cramped apartment filled with legal petitions, briefing papers, and civic awards. Outside, a crowd of TV reporters wait patiently and diligently. He puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it... using his finger. "Baka!"

He switches on the television, to watch the ongoing report being filmed outside his building. The journalist mentions that Shiro has been investigated by local authorities, in connection with a series of recent fire-bomb/arson attacks against properties run by the Japanese Defense Department. The report mentions that Shiro has been outspoken about his opposition to the formation of the Big Hero 6, a team of super-heroes, who are the Japanese equivalent of the various international super-soldier programs.

* At JFK International Airport, Kitty Pride excitedly makes a verbal list of all the places she wants to visit in Tokyo -- the Imperial Palace, Shibuya Kei, Roppongi Hills, maybe even buy a gift for Ali and Ororo in the boutiques of Harajuku. Bobby Drake just looks on, feigning interest in his girlfriend's Japan-o-philia. He reminds her of the *real* purpose of their little trip -- so that Wolverine can repay a favor to his "old buddy", Shiro.

* Not far away, Wolverine sits at an airport bar. He is wearing an eye-patch. An inquisitive bar-tender asks him why he's wearing it. Wolvie just snarls menacingly.

* In the tunnels beneath Tokyo, in an unused part of the subway line, Detective Takitane inspects the bodies of seven dead Thannites -- members of a cult inspired by the strange, fictional novels of a reclusive, death-obsessed author, who uses the pen-name, Thanatos. The cult has grown in recent years, but their members are largely over-worked professionals looking for a sense of meaning in their lives. Much of their activities have been conducted in private, but nothing illegal has been reported, thus far... until now.

Takitane heads back towards the massacre site, to piece it all together.

* After he leaves, Sue un-cloaks the Fantasic Four (and their Fantasticar) -- they had been hiding nearby, throughout Detective Takitane's entire assessment of the situation. Ben Grimm is baffled why a "buncha yuppie goths" would be able to summon a creature from the N-Zone. Reed has some possible explanations -- "applied M-theory, orbifolding, superstring manipulation... there are plenty of ways to breach the N-Zone... The real mystery is what kind of technology they used to do it." Sue has one guess, but she thinks Reed won't like it...

* Back at the massacre site, Detective Takitane arrives to find Big Hero 6 about to make their grand, anime-inspired entrance (complete with speed lines and opening-credit-style captions).

The basic idea is that while other government-controlled super-groups like the Union are kept away from public eye as much as possible, Big Hero 6 are media-friendly, larger-than-life heroes in the classic Kirby-esque mold.

As such, they're fairly useless in the current situation, because they were trained to deal with bright, costumed super-freaks, not forensics investigations involving supernatural overtones.

Their leader is Silver Samurai, who has a special battle armor (similar to the Union and Cap). Like his 616 counterpart, he also wields a katana blade charged with some kind of energy. (It's left deliberately ambiguous whether SS has super-powers that charge the sword, or whether it's just a gimmicked/tricked-out weapon.)

* In a secluded cottage outside Tokyo, the author known as Thanatos awaits his unwanted 'baby' -- the death-entity responsible for the subway massacre. In fact, he never intended to inspire a cult, let alone unleash such a monstrosity upon the world-- he merely imagined the death-entity to be the embodiment of modern Japan's dehumanizing consumer society. Just as he prepares to slit his wrists in shame, the death-creature appears in his mirror as a Sadako-like young girl...
 
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Ultimate Prophecy, Part 2

* The death-entity bonds with Thanatos, forming a Lovecraft-by-way-of-Akira (or is it Overfiend?) type creature. This hybrid being is, unofficially, Ultimate Thanos. In fact, it's just a huge ugly monster that has Thanatos' human form levitating at its core.

* Wolvie, Kitty, and Bobby meet with Shiro. He keeps calling Wolverine "Patch". Their meeting is interrupted when...

* "Thanos" goes on a Godzilla-like ramapge.

* Basically, all three sets of super-heroes -- the FF, the three X-men, and the Big Hero 6 -- end up tracking down the monster, for their own purposes. Huge fight ensues.

* Iceman ends up flirting with Big Hero 6 member Opal Tanaka, a former J-Pop star. Cue teenage lover's quarrel with Kitty.

* Silver Samurai makes a sinister reference to Wolverine as "that damnable soldier of fortune from the Battle of Manila", claiming they have met once before.

* Still working on this part. Bottom line: Shiro scores the crucial blow against "Thanos", with the reluctant aid of Big Hero 6.


Ultimate Prophecy, Part 3

* The Japanese government initiates a massive crackdown against the Thanites, in the wake of "Thanos'" havoc. They sieze documents proving that the cult were responsible for the fire-bomb attacks on the Defense Department facilities. Apparently, Thanatos' novels stated that a "national champion" would rise to the challenge of the death-entity. The Thannites believed it would be Silver Samurai. In fact, it proved to be Shiro Yoshida.

* In Shiro's hospital bed, Wolverine gives the injured hero a copy of one of Thanatos' novels ("I was always more of an espionage thriller kind of guy, myself, but I figured you'd appreciate this.")

* The FF meet with Thanatos, who has made a 'miraculous' recovery from the big fight. Reed is skeptical about the writer's philosophical view of the situation, with all its quasi-mystical overtones. But Sue is more open to the idea of 'magic' as the practical application of theoretical concepts which have not yet been validated by empirical science.

* Wolverine admits to Bobby and Kitty that the reason why Shiro calls him "Patch" is a reference to his guilty pleasure -- the game of Pachinko (Japanese pinball)! He decides to treat them to a few rounds, in a nearby pachinko hall.

And the eyepatch? He just wears it because it "looks cool", and he can get away with it in fashionable Japan.
 
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This I actually really quite like. I'd prefer the "death-entity" to be defined more clearly in the end, although to preserve the Reed and sue differences, just have it explain itself as a concept over reed's head.

Question though, what DID the Thannites use to get the death-entity here?
 
Caduceus said:
Question though, what DID the Thannites use to get the death-entity here?
Truthfully, I haven't properly given it any thought. It will definitely be a quasi-magical process, but I don't want to use a sense of mystery as an excuse for lazy plotting, either.

One possible suggestion is that Thanatos is not actually a baseline human. He has some latent reality-warping ability, so that whatever he imagines as fiction -- in this case, the death-entity as the embodiment of "soulless materialism" in contemporarly Japan -- comes into being, in a parallel reality, accessible via the rifts between the "stacked-up realities" that Reed (or was it Nihil?) elaborated on in UFF.

The strength of the cultists' beliefs allowed them to perform the summoning, pulling the creature into their reality, by way of the N-Zone.

Yeah, that's a bit much, I know. :p

I'm very open to more simple explanations. Any takers? :)
 
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Another great idea compund. Nice job.
 
compound said:
One possible suggestion is that Thanatos is not actually a baseline human. He has some latent reality-warping ability, so that whatever he imagines as fiction -- in this case, the death-entity as the embodiment of "soulless materialism" in contemporarly Japan -- comes into being, in a parallel reality, accessible via the rifts between the "stacked-up realities" that Reed (or was it Nihil?) elaborated on in UFF.
That would be fine

compound said:
The strength of the cultists' beliefs allowed them to perform the summoning, pulling the creature into their reality, by way of the N-Zone.
I'm sure with a little digging, you'd be able to find a character who can tap into belief or fervor or emotion as a source of some kind of power. I know Caliban could do it with anger at one stage and Polaris had a variation with negative emotions but maybe there's someone more accurate. That person (Lets call them Bleh), Bleh gets their powers ultimized so they can tap into the belief of the cultists perhaps to teleport. The cult contains scientists who are aware of the layered realities and are trying to use the mutant to get to somewhere where the fiction is real. Since its not really a power you can practice a lot with, the mutant screws it up and instead of sending them there, brings the death-entity here. It is responsible for their deaths and so on.

The only thing I'm worried about is that its a little cliched. So many bad movies have used the phrase "Something got in" that its not funny.
 

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