Mightiest Issue 4

The Avengers of Earth 926:
The Beast
The Thing
Loki, God of Mischief
Colossus
Wolverine
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Iron Man, Black Widow and Hawkeye are searching for James Rhodes and Kitty Pryde.
Thor and Ant-Man are involved in a special project, analyzing the Tessaract and try to find Captain America.

• The team is gathered at their new headquarters, the X-Mansion in Westchester, NY and have decided to attempt to interrogate the Red Hulk, who is unconscious.  Loki, decides to enter the creature's mind and finds himself near a lake in the northern wilderness, as a mindscape.   Loki spots the Red Hulk staring at the water and circles to the other side of the lake, across from the monster.  He tries to draw it's attention, but the Rulk merely turns his back on the asgardian.  Loki, is startled by an old man, who quietly approached him.  They speak for a few minutes and the Prince of Lies decides to approach the Red Hulk, once again.  He circles the lake and the Rulk stands and confronts him, while the old man steps out from behind the monster and then fuses with it.  Loki learns the Red Hulk is a mercenary and is working for a client to determine the response time of the Avengers Initiative.  The asgardian feels Rulk is hiding things and uses his staff to force more information from the monster.  He learns that the Red Hulk works for and was created by Advanced Idea Mechanics and this version of the hulk is no mindless brute, but he doesn't reveal his true identity.  Loki uses his sorcery to share this information with the rest of the team.

•  Meanwhile, Karma notices that their airspace has been breached and gets a visual on a young man flying over the area.  Loki teleports himself and Wolverine to the roof and launches the mutant at the flying man.  Wolverine notices the young man is under 20 and probably of south american origin and that he has cybernetics that allow him to fly at high speeds.  The youth avoids wolverine easily, but slams into the canadian mutant and a vicious battle ensues.  The young mutant ends up dropping Wolvie and fleeing.  Colossus catches Logan and Karma manages to track the young man's flight path.

•  The Avengers track him to the Massachusetts Academy and as their Quinjet lands Wolverine is shocked to see Deathstrike charging at him.  Moments later, Iceman, Sasquatch, and Bevatron joined the battle.  Wolverine was shocked to see Deathstrike had survived their last encounter, and from her movements it appeared her body had assimilated the additional adamantium.  Iceman was able to calm Deathstrike and explain to Colossus and Beast that Jetstream, the young mutant had like to fly close to the mansion when he wanted privacy.  He didn't realize anyone was using it and also quickly confided that he had accepted a teaching job here to help these mutants, cope with Rogue's decision to give up her powers and temper Emma Frost's lesson, as she was the school's headmistress.  Once the fighting had ceased, Deathstrike approached Loki and demanded to know where William Stryker was, because she smelled him on the asgardian.  Deathstrike was adamant about finding and killing the man who enslaved her for over a decade.  After much confusion and threatening, the Avengers realized that the Red Hulk must be William Stryker.  Iceman promised to keep in touch with his old X-Men comrades.

•  Returning to the mansion, the group determines from file photos that the old man Loki met in Red Hulk's head is Colonel William Stryker, former head of Project: Pegasus, presumed dead.  They alert Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D because Stryker is wanted for Treason and numerous other crimes.  They also begin parsing satellite data of the 4 Hydra bases they uncovered from the HERBIE robot and are beginning to formulate a plan to investigate the base in Nova Scotia, a superyacht named Leviathan.

•  Meanwhile, Wolverine slips unnoticed to the holding cell to kill Stryker but when he opens the door, Stryker is awake and asks, "Do you still want to know about your past?" before attacking the mutant.

•  The rest of the team arrives and seem to be slowly winning, when a dazed looking Karma comes into the fight and attempts to mind control Colossus.  Loki manages to remove whatever has brainwashed her and she tells that the Leader and AIM Intelligencia are on the premises.  Loki and Wolverine teleport to the entrance hall and into a group of AIM Intelligencia agents and the Leader, himself.  Loki quickly finishes off the agents and Wolverine, in full berserker rage, cuts the top of the Leaders skull off only to be snapped from his red haze as he watches the Leader's skull regenerate, while the gamma-spawned genius laughs in his face.  The duo manages to overpower the Leader, while simultaneously the group below them overpower and stun the Red Hulk.

•  As Wolverine and Loki pause to get a situation report, Magneto drops through the ceiling wearing a strange exoskeleton and hurls the mutant and asgardian in opposite directions and through the building to the outside.  The issue ends as Colossus pleads for his teammates to report their status.

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I took the plunge and converted the game to Classic Marvel or FASERIP.  It wasn't an easy decision, but it turned out to be the right one.  It caused some stress for 1 player and I'm not sure he's 100% on board, but he's giving it a try.

I felt far more comfortable and this was the most fun I've hard running FASERIP.  It's amazing that a game designed close to 20 years ago had so many groundbreaking ideas.

I've gotten rid of Karma penalties for violence and doll out Karma like FATE points or PLOT points.

The big difference is that I'm not dreading the next session.

I don't want to focus on system over the game, but Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is not the game for me, much like its cousin FATE.