#1) Team's Average Guy turned Hero: Bill Murray's Peter Venkman from "Ghostbusters". The tone of 80's Bill Murray films (Comedic action/adventure with absurd undertones) was pretty much my guide for all of my early PV stories. Especially influential were "Ghostbusters" and "Stripes". I was reluctant to put such a huge, mainstream-loved character on my list, but in the end skipping him would have seemed somehow dishonest. Besides, I think all Parodyverse heroes need to have this reaction to insane plans:




#2) Team's Scientist: Agatha Heterodyne from the webcomic "Girl Genius". Many know that Phil Foglio was a big artistic influence on me, and that I'm a fan of most things he's done. The storyline for the comic might get bogged down from time to time (it keeps returning to characters that I barely can remember as if it wasn't years ago that they last appeared), but I do love the general "world overrun by mad geniuses" concept. I could almost go with the Team Fortress Medic instead (from the video posted in reply to Jason in the nonsense thread), but Agatha's better looking. Bonus points if I can slip in a Jägermonster to assist her.





#3) Team's Bruiser: The Tick is probably too obvious for the Parodyverse. I mean, he's clearly the right choice, but still. I'm going throw a Disney character in here and go with Stitch from "Lilo and Stitch". He's a genetically engineered, unstoppable weapon of mass destruction. Kind of like a little, furry alien Wolverine. Well, littler and furrier. I admit, I like characters that look cute but are bad-ass. And I'm going with the movie version, especially as seen in the opening of the film, before he went all soft:





#4) Team's Pain-in-the-ass: Ash, from "Evil Dead" and "Army of Darkness". The chainsaw wielding demon slayer is the archtype for characters who are all bravado and little brains yet somehow get the job done. Think Trickshot with less actual talent.



Runner up: Spike the Vampire from "Angel" and "Buffy". I love characters that exist within a team to push buttons and make sarcastic comments.


#5) Team's Crazy: Harley Quinn. No surprise here, as she's always been a favorite of mine to the point where I wasn't about to pass up the chance to use Parodyverse knock-off Mary Prankstar.

Not the best quality, but some good Harley moments:




#6) Team's Magic-User: Twilight Sparkle. See my response to Shrike for why Dr. Orpheus didn't get this role (which he'd totally own), but I also figured that people would be expecting me to put at least one pony on my team, so I slotted one in here. Why disappoint?

Besides, as I admitted before, I do like the character, and she does seem to meld well with a "G" rated Parodyverse. Generally the straight-man (pony), she's an introverted, bookish magic student forced to make friends in order to save the world. She's not one to give up, which is an admirable quality when she's leading others to overcome obstacles but more of a problem when it dovetails with her swings towards moderate to severe O.C.D. Then it can lead to manic breakdowns. I like characters with traits that can be both flaws and strengths depending on the situation.

Plus she can recover from anvils and pianos to the head, which would likely come in handy in the L.L. Anyway, she's the purple one in the music video below.





#7) Team's A.I.: Man, this was a tough call. Here's the thing... Hands down, "Portal I & II's" GLaDOS is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. She's just awesome. It's just... well, she's also a wee-bit murderous, and that could cause problems on the team.

So I'm going to go with "Portal II's" Wheatley instead. Sure, he was designed to be a moron in the hopes that attaching him to GLaDOS would make her slightly less effective at pumping the Aperture Science Enrichment Center full of deadly neurotoxin, but he does at least try to help. Well, up until he goes a wee bit murderous too.

Note: the video's long, but you can get a good idea of him from just about any point within it.





Oh, and a couple of honorable mentions:

I would have loved to have worked Death from "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" into the mix. For whatever reason, that take on the Reaper just always seemed perfect to me.

From a more classic, off-the-wall pick, I considered the Pirate King from Gilbert And Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". I always loved that character (Kevin Kline did a great job portraying him on stage and screen), and think those light operas are still pretty damn funny to this day. Of course, he'd have to be a Ghost Pirate by now to still be around, which I think is just extra bonus points for his consideration.

I seem to like a lot of supernatural/crazy characters, don't I? Huh.


Anyway, what I did manage to put together is one freakishly messed-up team. That doesn't work at all. Or, at least, I wouldn't want to be the one to have to meld all of those characters into something that seemed to naturally go together.

But then, really, should the mix of characters in the existing Parodyverse work? We mix sweet, cartoonish characters with dark, brooding vigilantes and everything in-between. So, I don't know... maybe that hodge-podge above is decently accurate.