Geekdom Madness 2017 - The Real Game: Rough Textures/Bronzed

This week: Burlap vs Leather, and Fur vs Scales







Let's reacquaint ourselves with the combatants:



MATCH 1: Rough Textures

CANDLEJACK

Candlejack was created by Bruce Timm and Paul Rugg for the 1995 animated series "Freakazoid!" Timm and writer Paul Dini were tapped by Steven Spielberg to create a new superhero show for him fresh off Timm's "Batman: The Animated Series". Timm and Dini created the idea and designs for Freakazoid, envisioning it as a serious adventure show with comedic overtones. However, Spielberg wanted a more zany, comedic show, so Timm and Dini amicably went their way, and producer Tom Reugger ("Tiny Toon Adventures" and "Animaniacs") brought his team on to retool the show using Timm's designs.

Candlejack was the focus of the second episode, titled after his name and written by Paul Rugg, and made minor appearances in only two other episodes of the show's short run. Nevertheless, he remains one of the most memorable villains from the show. More than a decade after the show's cancellation, Candlejack became an internet meme, where commenters would send in posts cut off mid-sentence after mentioning Candlejack's name (playing on his method of capturing people).

Candlejack was voiced by Jeff Bennett, who performed it as an impression of veteran actor Jack Palance.

THE LIZARD

Curt Connors/The Lizard was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for "The Amazing Spider-Man #6" in November of 1963.

Likely intended as a one-shot villain, given his initial location in Florida, he proved popular enough to become a recurring character in both of his forms. If Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Venom are considered Spider-Man's 3 A-list villains, Lizard is often seen as the greatest B-list villain.

Curt Connors/The Lizard has been played in various adaptations by (in no particular order): Gillie Fenwick, Corey Burton, Joseph Campanella, Rob Zombie, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kenny, Dylan Baker, Rhys Ifans, Joe Alaskey, Roger L. Jackson, James Arnold Taylor, Marc Samuel, and Steven Blum.



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MATCH 2: Bronzed

MILES "TAILS" PROWER

Miles "Tails" Prower was created by Yasushi Yamaguchi for the 1992 video game "Sonic the Hedgehog 2". Yamaguchi, the main artist and zone designer for Sonic Team, submitted the punny "Miles Prower" as an entry in an internal contest to create a sidekick for Sonic. The other developers loved the character, but wanted to call him "Tails". A compromise was reached and "Tails" became the nickname.

Tails debuted as a tag-along character in Sonic 2, where a second player could control Tails in a limited capacity during the single-player run, and two players could go head-to-head in two-player mode. A few years later in "Sonic the Hedgehog 3", players were able to take advantage of Tails' flight ability for the first time, starting a trend of different playable characters in the series gaining different abilities and mechanics.

Tails remains arguably the most popular and recognizable character in the Sonic franchise outside of Sonic himself.

Tails has been voiced across the video games and adaptations by Corey Bringas, Connor Bringas, William Corkery, Amy Palant, Kate Higgins, Colleen Villard, Christopher Welch, Bradley Pierce, Chris Turner, Lainey Frasier, Kazuki Hayashi, Atsuki Murata, Ryō Hirohashi, Takuto Yoshinaga, Nariko Fujieda, Hekiru Shiina, and Ryō Hirohashi.

CHRONORMU

Chronormu, or Chromie, was created by the quest design team for the 2004 video game "World of Warcraft". While information on who designed each specific quest is thin on the ground, the team for the original release included Alex Afrasiabi, Michael Backus, Suzanne Brownell, Shawn Carnes, Michael Chu, Jeffrey Kaplan, and Pat Nagle.

Originally just one of many colorful NPCs in the original release, the Bronze Dragon masquarading as a Gnome became memorable enough amongst both fans and designers that she was brought back as the Wyrmrest Accord's representative for the Bronze Dragonflight in the second expansion "Wrath of the Lich King", and began to play more major roles in the overarching storyline of the game going forward.

In 2016, Chromie was added as a playable character in "Heroes of the Storm", a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena featuring characters from all of Blizzard Entertainment's franchises.

In Chromie's appearences from the original World of Warcraft through the "Mists of Pandaria" expansion, she did not have unique voiced dialogue and, when clicked, used the generic Female Gnome greetings whose voice actor goes uncredited. From the "Warlords of Draenor" expansion on and in "Heroes of the Storm", Chromie is voiced by Karen Strassman (and has been patched into her older appearances).


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Final Verdict
Not as much creation backstory this week, which makes it slightly easier to write. Each match has a far more well-known character versus one that is more obscure but popular amongst fans of the work. It will be interesting to see how my readers skew.

As always, make sure you're viewing the WEB version of the site and vote in the polls on the right-hand side of the screen. Polls close Friday at 5:00 p.m., and results posted on Saturday. Feel free to discuss your picks in the comments below.