The Book of Grim Reaper

[IAmBatman]

Does Grim Reaper have ties to HYDRA?

[Xael Raymand]

I know he did in the Avengers EMH show, but I don’t remember ties to Hydra in the West Coast Avengers Run.

Edit: I do remember him being killed and coming back as a zombie where he had to use his scythe to drain life force from people.

[Dr. Jekyll]

He and Space Phantom (as Viper and later Supreme Hydra) ran a HYDRA army yes. In the animated series Avengers EMH he is a lieutenant to BVS along with Viper.

[IAmBatman]

Gotcha. There were some questions elsewhere as to whether he really made sense in that faction based on comics history, which is why I was asking.

Would you say that Terrorist is faction that best describes his "lunchbox" identity, then?

[Dr. Jekyll]

Yes, I could also see him as a Master Mind as well

[Soundwarp SG-1]

On the Space Phantim stuff, I've read those issues and basically it's just Space Phantom mind controlling a few random Hydra goons while he and Grim Reaper do some inane plot against the Avengers. Reaper only shares like one panel with the Hydra goons were he tries to order them around after the plan stops working and they don't listen because they're keyed only to listen to Space Phantom.

And this is all of three issues (out of 90 something he's been in) and he didn't have a Leathal Legion at the time. So if that's his only connection to Hydra in the comics (what the TV show one does doesn't matter) he doesn't have a connection to Hydra

[IAmBatman]

See? And that makes me think the Lethal Legion is (factionally) something other than Terrorists.

[Dr. Jekyll]

My original write up was just a Lethal Legion build, making Criminals not Terrorist and no ties to HYDRA.

[IAmBatman]

Is that worth revisiting? I don't recall what it looked like exactly.

[Yodaking]

The EMH run does matter to me, you're lying to yourself if you think none of our designs have been influenced by media other than comic book panels. We have a whole CW Team Flash wave coming out soon. If this was year 2 or 3 of C3G and the position was we should first do a purely comic version first and then later someone can do a 2nd card that is influenced by other things I'd be perfectly fine with that. In fact that is exactly what happened. I recall talking about a Grim Reaper card with Bats way back when I first joined up with C3G some 9-10 years ago. I set it aside because people wanted a comic accurate version and I didn't know much about his comic runs. No one has worked on him since. The 10,000 card view is great for guys who already have a card, but realistically Grim is only going to ever get 1 card and that is it. So for this character, a lunchbox design that can fill multiple roles is exactly what I'd want to see out of it.

[MrNobody]

I think what we learned with the CW Flash designs was that tap-dancing between two fairly different versions of a character on the same card muddles the design a lot. I think all those designs were improved when we dropped trying to make them fit both the comics version and the TV version at the same time.

Don't know what Jekyll's passions are here, but I say pick a lane and stick with it. I'm cool with seeing either version of the character, but it seems like trying to mash them together is just going to leave it where neither side is getting the love it deserves.

[IAmBatman]

Yes, I agree. My problem here isn't the Terrorist ties specifically -- it's the feeling that it's trying to do too much at once and its focus feels muddled as a result and most of the proposed versions would potentially have large metagame impacts that just feel unnecessary to me.