Monday, December 12, 2005

Ethics are for LESSER men!












<


Near the top of my list of "things I really regret that I haven't gotten around to," is to do something major with "Angry Frank."

Angry Frank is a villain I came up with to oppose the Adventure Team, a Lex Luthor to their Justice League. The idea came from a Soldiers of the World figure that attracted some notice a while back. I really liked the head-sculpt, and many people thought it resembled an young (and angry) Frank Sinatra. I thought he'd make a good villain, and I decided to make him kind of a businessman. My bash wears a suit from a Star Wars Cantina band member over a white tee-shirt. I was going for a kind of retro-Miami-vice drug-lord thing. He wears an AT-style shoulder holster, but while he sometimes carries an automatic, he just as often uses it to store his flip-phone.

As I see it, Angry Frank is the head of a shady business empire that skirts the edge of legality. But though Frank carefully hides the connections, he's also in charge of a vast criminal empire too, and not just any kind of crime. Angry Frank Inc. is the evil flip-side to the Adventure Team. He deals in poaching, sales of endangered species, stolen artifacts, toxic-waste dumping, smuggling, and unethical and illegal science.

I see Angry Frank as a guy with money and power, but no taste, and a massive insecurity streak coupled with an explosive temper. Angry Frank hates it when people tell him he looks like Sinatra. That's a very quick way to get a gun pointed at your head. Of course, with Frank, there are lots of ways to get a gun pointed at your head. He's irrational when he's angry, and even his own goons know enough to stay out of his way. His mansion is decorated like a low-rent Explorer's Club, and he has no idea that his Miami-Vice look is outdated.

In contrast to his red-hot temper, his right-hand "man" is, literally, cool as a snake. "Mr. S." is a mysterious killer with dark, scale-covered skin. He dresses in black leather, wears ammo-belts crossed over his chest, and carries an M-60 as a hand-gun. But while he is dangerous and without mercy, Mr. S. is also calm, cool, and collected. He doesn't kill without reason, and sometimes actually serves to moderate Angry Frank's more irrational impulses.

Mr. S. is a "Bio Constrictor" from the Max Steel line. He wears the leathers from an old Toy Biz "Ghost Rider" 12" figure. His weapon and ammo-belts are Hasbro cheapies, and the grip on the gun fits perfectly in his oversized hand. When I first came up with the character, I only had one Bio Constrictor, but now I have seven of them, each uniquely kitbashed, giving Mr. S. both a gang, and a family.

The Snake gang refer to each other as "brothers," but it's not clear that they're literal brothers, or even if they're human. Given some of the stuff Angry Frank has been mixed up in, they could be the result of illegal weapons programs, chemical mutations, the result of illegal weapons mutations, aliens, evolved dinosaurs, or even demons or lost-gods released from some ancient artifact or lost tomb. When anyone on the Adventure Team makes a crack about their appearance, they act hurt, and chide our heros for making fun of their "deformity," but that seems to be the least-likely reason for their appearance.

I've got some general ideas for the personalities of some of the various Snake Gang members, but not all. The one with yellow hair is a loner, partial to the isolation of rain-forests. The one with the gray-streaks is the respected elder of their gang/clan/family. He's a martial-arts user with a sense of honor that often runs contrary to his younger fellows. He could almost be a good guy. Almost.

Angry Frank has other minions as well. He has a mad-scientist who keeps his own head in a jar, a cyborg mercinary, and an updated 12" Intruder that he keeps as a house-servant.

The sad thing is, Angry Frank has never even met the Adventure Team in a photo shoot. It's time. It's well past time.

1 comment:

Brigadier Graemon said...

Yep, that's one of So/tW's better head-sculps, Steve! It was originally done to represent Napoleon and was resurrected on later WW 2 and modern figs in the So/tW line. I have several of that particular one and I like it.

Your Angry Frank makes for an excellent villain and I hope you do other things with him, as you have done with this short introduction of him!

I like his "home," too. Neat back-drop and furnishings!