Halt Evil Doer!: M&M Gone Wrong (Crisis part 1!)

[Charles Phipps]

The game opened with Black Wing doing a solo session for the fact he wanted to game, it was online though rather than face to face.

Black Wing had been imprisoned in the lowest levels of Castle Dracula even as he was being treated as something of an honored guest. Mostly, because they needed a "great hero" to sacrifice at Midnight in order to seal the power of the Castle over New Amsterdam forever. The more serious roleplaying occurred during this time since BW's player is actually fairly serious when not being egged on by his company.

I also incorporated the use of pictures into the game because it was a text based game.



In this case, I unbashedly stole from Castlevania plenty of images for the game with the start being Carmilla whom while the lesbian vampire of myth and the video games is the seductress of our poor hero in this game. In this respect, the player character for once actually played the part of Black Wing straight.

Black Wing's Player Behind Me playing Playstation 2: Alexander Kane is the epitomone of straight. Look at his love record!

Hardy har har.

The character RPGed basically a moment where they talked about the loneliness of superheroism and effectively managed to humor Carmilla a bit about considering the benefits of vampirism.

Black Wing: Well there is the whole eternal life business but there's the fact that you're kinda corpses and not allowed to have sex and...

Carmilla: Oh we can.

Black Wing: *gulp*

Surprisingly, he did succumb to the charms of the vampiress in this work even as he found himself possessed of tremendous physical penalties afterwards (gee, I WONDER WHY). This lead to a very interesting situation where the usually eptimone of human physicality in the group is forced to rely utterly on his wits rather than his physical prowess as he eventually locked Carmilla in her coffin with the words "Thank you but I like my soul where it is right now"

Another favorite quip...

Narrator: Though the coffin holds against her magical blows....since it had been prepared for you in vampire form, she sounds TICKED

Black Wing: One of my better breakups actually.

The character successfully managed to crawl his way up through Dracula's castle against many enemies that were fairly classic monster movie foes from Frankenstein's monster to a werewolf even as he used scenary and plenty of struggling moments to fight against them. Ultimately, the player character managed to get to the gateway of the castle to escape only to unfortunately be confronted with Dracula himself.



The player character was then knocked around a great deal more before narrowly missing stabbing the man through the heart with a wooden stake through some surprising ingenuity (specifically tricking me and thus dracula by petrifying a bunch of paper with the 'aging' spell he made to use as one of his weapons during the fight to make a wooden stake).

Nevertheless, Dracula put down Black Wing and his fate wouldn't be known until the next session.

[Charles Phipps]

The dialogue from the next session is almost entirely quotable. I might as well just transcript the game.

American Steel: If there's one thing about New Amsterdam I can't stand, it's all the damn vampires.

Lady Midnight: How long have you been saving that one?

American Steel: About Ten minutes.

Lady Midnight: Dis is a large pickle yes.

American Steel: What I want to know is why we had to get gigantic BADASS Dracula? I mean we could have gotten Lestat. Mess up his hair and the poof would have gone down.

Lady Midnight: Don't be politically incorrect.

American Steel: Blackula, the Lost Boys, ANYBODY but the Lord of Darkness Dracula. There's even plenty of crappy Draculas. We could have gotten the one from Van Helsing or Dracula 2000.

Divinos: I HAVE RETURNED!

American Steel: Are you still evil?

Divinos: Hmmm. *grabs a vampire nearby them and tosses them into the sun*

American Steel: I guess that means you're okay.

Divinos: No, I didn't realize they were undead.

American Steel:....fair enough. Okay, here's the plan, we're going to methodically weave from street to street destroying every evil creature we can find and then after a half dozen boss fights against Draculs, henchmen seek out the three magic keys to open Dracula's fortress, and then fight out way up from the bottom floor to the top until we confront Dracula. There, after an exhausting battle, he'll turn into his true form and we can finally beat him. At least until he's ressurected for a sequel a year later.

Lady Midnight: You've put too much thought into this.

Divinos: We could just fly to the top of the tower right now. I can take you there.

American Steel: Okay, lets' go with that plan.

Divinos: Okay, but I have to stop to put up giant billboards that my lovable sidekick Billy Wolsen is actually a child molester. Then I have to tie Lana Lane my girlfriend to a set of train tracks and hopefully get over my evil early enough to rescue her. If not, ehhhhhh there's always Lisa Lang my hot Farm Girl.

American Steel: Evil you scares me.

Divinos: Eh. *grabs another person and throws them into the sun*

American Steel: I hope that was a vampire.

Divinos: Yeah of all the dumb luck. Reminds me how my home planet was destroyed, my father got ripped one night and pushed it into a black hole. They didn't believe him about Global Warming. Real guilt he felt.

American Steel: You're making that up.

Divinos: My father's lawyers say that the planet had faulty construction to begin with.

Narrator: The...heroes...and I use the term loosely, then finally arrived at the top of the tower of the Castle as a demonic swirling storm loomed above it. They saw the sight of their companion Black Wing suspended and looking like he'd been tortured in a crucifiction like position above the demonic ritual where he was clearly to be the sacrifice.

Divinos: Okay, now I'm going to rip your arms off Chewbacca style you Eurotrash B-movie Frank Langella rip off.

Dracula: I also brought this.

*lifts Annihilation Zone material Ring and proceeds to electructe him Emperor style*

American Steel: Damnit, I hate smart villains! CHARGE!

After a pretty nasty fight. Dracula was on his last legs even as he tore apart American Steel's armor and had drank some of Divinos' blood before using it to start wailing on him (they had gotten rid of the Annihilation Zone material at just the wrong point).

Some classic dialogue from this point includes..

American Steel: I should warn you that I'm a Minister of the Church of Life. I can bless my armor.

and

Lady Midnight: To think you were a prisoner of those horrible people Black Wing! Are you okay? *frees him*

Black Wing: Yeah, I was tortured...horribly. The vampiress drank my blood.

Lady Midnight: I don't see any bite marks.

Black Wing: She didn't bite my neck...

*SLAP from Lady Midnight*

Dracula then proceeded to blast American Steel unconscious (hero point to avoid death) and then absorbed all of the power of Lady Midnight to rejuvenate himself as it was Shadow based. More powerful than ever, Dracula laughed at them.

"It's not even totally DARK yet and I've defeated you."

Black Wing: Are you pondering what I'm pondering Divinos?

Divinos: I don't know, where WOULD we get a 12 year old girl and Anthraxian Donkey?

*Black Wing looks at Divinos oddly*

Divinos: Uhhh for scientiffic purposes of course.

Black Wing: I'm blaming the puce Annihilation Zone material for that. Take him to China.

Divinos then tackled Dracula and proceeded to win a contest of strength as he flew him above the clouds into the sunlight and then took him deeper into space where the light was rawest as ultimately Drac exploded in Divinos' hands.

Once more, the city of New Amsterdam was safe again even as they had to spend the next three months cleaning up monsters according to the epilogue.

American Steel also add libbed a politically incorrect conversation with the US government about their constant abandoning of New Amsterdam that I just can't bear to reprint here.

[mancerbear]

LOL...

Charles, I feel for you buddy, I really do. What have those players done to your carefully created campaign?

It would be interesting for them to face their characters that hail from another dimension... from the serious dimension, if you know what I mean Npc the characters as you invisioned them and let the players see that... not that should change the way they are playing them, but I feel you pain mate.. I feel your pain

Cheers,

[Helios-Re]

I'd be rolling on the floor laughing in a sea of my own tears if I wasn't at work right now.

It would be interesting for them to face their characters that hail from another dimension... from the serious dimension, if you know what I mean

I think this would be great to see, too.

[Ronin]

LOL...

Charles, I feel for you buddy, I really do. What have those players done to your carefully created campaign?

It would be interesting for them to face their characters that hail from another dimension... from the serious dimension, if you know what I mean Npc the characters as you invisioned them and let the players see that... not that should change the way they are playing them, but I feel you pain mate.. I feel your pain

Cheers,

He wanted JLA, he got JLI. Poor guy.

[VIRTUE]

This is some of the funniest stuff

It seems like everyone is having fun

The Art of the heros is awesome you picked a great artist Charles

[Libra]

<Snickers.>

You poor fellow Charles. You wanted Bruce Timm and you got Matt Groening.

[Charles Phipps]

BIZAARRRROOOOOOOOOOO Heroic Universe

In one of the more amusing scenes where the player characters further laid claim to the NPCs of Heroic Earth, the game starts with Black Wing visiting his daughter whom apparently is a super genius named Chloe Sunshine. It's amusing because Black Wing's player pretty much set the scene for a twelve year old ultra-genius' laboratory that she claimed had been entirely paid for by daddy.

Lady Midnight: You have a supergenius illegitimate child?

Black Wing: Don't say the illegitimate word. Just because I wasn't married to her mother doesn't mean she's less of a person.

Lady Midnight: I'm sorry. Who was her mother?

Black Wing: I think a vampire or a princess.

Lady Midnight: You don't REMEMBER?

Black Wing: Meh...it was twelve years ago. I mean, that's THOUSANDS of...

*SLAP*

That was when I hijacked Girl Genius (BW: She got it from a webcomic)'s laboratory to provide the adventure hook where the player characters discover that there is an alternate universe identical to their own in EVERY RESPECT except for...

American Steel: Let me guess, good is evil and vice versa.

Chloe Sunshine: How did you know?

American Steel: Just a lucky guess.

Divinos: BY GOD, we have to go to this world and FREE IT FROM ITS TYRANNY!

American Steel: So your solution is to go invade a sovereign nation, destroy its existing government, and hope that somehow it all works out?

Divinos: YES!

American Steel: You're going to be President someday, even if they have to amend the constitution.

Divinos: I agree!

FYI- Girl Genius has shown up in several other games as she's essentially the immature form of Gadget from the M&M handbook. In other words, if we ever do see the adult form of Gadget then it's because she's yet another of Alexander's kids from the future. He should form a collection at this point in the game.

American Steel: Okay, let's get going then. It beats having the Tyrants (he actually guessed their name before I gave it to them) invading our world first.

Divinos: I was hoping we'd go to my home planet of SACRED RED MARS this week.

American Steel: I thought you were from Mithran.

Divinos: I am, but I adopted the Red Planet as my new homeworld. I sort of just visit Earth.

American Steel: Great, you're on a lifeless red world. Pick up Landrover while you're up there.

Divinos: Ares god of Mars is offended by your perifiddy! You can be court-Martianed for this!

American Steel: Black Wing, you've been showing him episodes of Sealab again haven't you?

Black Wing: Yes, unfortunately they don't seem to be a comedy show to him.

They arrived then in Villain Earth when they discovered immediately it was in a section of town filled with nothing but brothels, pornography, gunshops, pawnshops, and strip clubs.

American Steel: So far I notice very little change from the regular United States.

Lady Midnight: We teleported into Canada though.

American Steel: OH MY GOD!

Divinos: Bizarro Toronto. You will never find the more wretched hive of Scum and Villainy.

Black Wing: What do you call regular Toronto?

Divinos: As a proud dual US-Canadian citizen, I say you will never find a more wretched hive of Tim Hortons and places that show up in American science fiction television shows.

Black Wing: ...okay.

Divinos: I suggest we promptly start beating on random citizens under the implicit assumption they're evil.

Black Wing: Are you sure the Puce AZ-material has worn off?

Divinos: Of course....*player mimes him doing Mr. Burns movement of his head to 'villain monologue' and clasp of fingers* Do they suspect? Can they understand I'm plotting against them? Should I just KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY?

American Steel: Black Wing?

*Black Wing puts on AZ-material ring and PIMP SLAPS Divinos*

Divinos: Thank you, I needed that.

American Steel: I suggest we take over Australia first.

Black Wing: Why?

American Steel: They'd never see it coming. Also, I'm anxious to try out how EVIL beer tastes in Melbourne.

Divinos: Since everything is opposite, I imagine it'll be weak and non-alcoholic.

American Steel: I hate this world already.

I then took the unique device of having the players take over the role of RPGing their opposite doubles and doing their own takes on their behavior. Tyrant apparently channeled Serpentor from the GI Joe Cartoon, Black Wing the Flaming Prince from Van Von Hunter, Lady Midnight just tried to play Bizarro Emma Frost, and American Steel more or less played as usual except even more of a dick.

Tyrant: FOOLS! BLUNDERERS! WE POSSESS POWER GREATER THAN ANY ON EARTH YET OUR CONQUESTS ARE...

Unamerican Iron: Yeah yeah, we know. Pass the booze and call my hooker. I'm ditching you losers.

Pink Wing: But...but...Divided we fall. We must CRUSH OUR ENEMIES LIKE THIS TISSUE!

*tries to crush a tissue both at table and in game*

Unamerican Iron: You keep doing that why don't you. We need some real heroes to kick the butts of. All of our worlds are either dead, insane, or converted to the Dark Side.

Pink Wing: I know! We can brainwash a bunch of people into heroism so we can fight them!

*giggly girl laugh and clap*

Unamerican Iron: I can't believe I left the toughest, meanest, and cruelest province on Earth...Ottawa...for this.

Lady Midnight: We could bomb Europe again then I COULD SELL THEM THE MEDICAL SUPPLIES AT AN ENHANCED RATE! I love money! Bwhaahhaha.

Tyrant: Bah! We shall seek NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER! New vistas and all will be brought under the Glory of Pax Tyrannica! Keep your own god! I suggest you pray to him!

OOC: At this point we couldn't help ourselves since Divinos' players M. Bison was spot on.

It was then the Tyrant alarm blared as they found out the player characters were cleaning up the environmental devastation in Australia's harbors and had organized a Maori invasion from New Zealand. I don't know where they got that one but they described it that way.

Tyrant: How dare they defy us?! That's almost as bad as when Great Britain defeated us in the War on Terror!

Unamerian Steel: To be fair, the Beefeater and the Scottish Commando had the alliance of Mexico. The Mexican Hat Dancer has been helping people flee across the border to them for years.

Pink Wing: Gosh darnit! PREPARE THE LASER AND BLOW UP AUSTRALIA!

Unamerican Steel: We need to work on the whole...blow up everything tendency you have. Remember, we LIVE on Earth recall?

Pink Wing: Oh no one liked Paris...or Brussels....or....Los Angeles.

They just kept going on with this weird history for some time.

Ultimately, I had made up this adventure somewhat on the fly and it ended up in a fairly big rumble in Australia. I ironically had the adventure spill over into regular Australia as the devices used to transport them back malfunctioned and took the Tyrants over too.

I had a guest appearance by the New Watch at that time too. I said "Australia's premeire superhero team arrives to see the groups rumbling in the Outback as a tourist attraction Mesa is devasted by Divinos beating the Tyrant with it"

Outsider: You think we should join in?

Andromeda: Hell no. Have you seen the news reports about those guys. Those people are insane.

Midknight: A dark tremor in the Weave tells me we should wait.

Kid Rush: The pink one is kinda cute though.

Ultimately, they managed to capture and defeat their fellows in this short adventure but not before the New Watch then promptly arrested them and forced them to repair the damage they'd done to the continent.

American Steel: Ahhhh sweet Australian beer. I'll never leave you again....mostly by the relaxed rules of importation.

Black Wing: I swear, I'm not. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Lady Midnight: None of the others were gay yet YOURS was.

Divinos: On my planet, men and women have different norms than yours. For example...

Divinos Player: Now, I'm going to tell you only this. He describes something so utterly messed up, everyone looks at him oddly for the rest of the night and prays he's kidding.

Black Wing: Whatever, here, I'll go ask Andromeda out.

Narrator: Black Wing would spend the rest of the night unconscious on the bar floor....noting that no one seemed to take him to the hospital or interrupt their fun.

OOC: This I did recently, the Khan Kong flashback was the next game after the Dracula one but I'll type that up soon.

[mancerbear]

LOL...

Charles this was gold. I read out the New Watch parts to my players, and we all had a good laugh. We're assuming that Blackwing spent the night unconscious on the bar floor because Andromeda took offence at his invitation for date...

Cheers,

[Charles Phipps]

LOL...

Charles this was gold. I read out the New Watch parts to my players, and we all had a good laugh. We're assuming that Blackwing spent the night unconscious on the bar floor because Andromeda took offence at his invitation for date...

Cheers,

And you would be correct I liked portraying Andromeda as a bit of a rough and tumble tomboy Wonder Woman. Worked well.

Glad your players enjoyed it.

[bubba242]

This is comedy gold. Can't wait to read the King Khon story! Keep them coming, please.

[Charles Phipps]

Khan Kong

The game opens with the facing down of the Mexican Hat Dancer (ironically, making his first appearance here). In this respect the fellow wielded bomb marracas, a robot horde of Poncho Villa gang like robots, and his sombrero opens a gateway to an imprisoning crystal underneath his poncho (yes, the Mexican Hat Dancer is actually "Doctor Dungeon" with the entire stickhe changed). Divinos gets sucked in even as the players barely manage to defeat the fellow in what oddly proved to be one of their toughest fights since I overcompensated with his minions.

Lady Midnight: What did he want anyway?

American Steel: Hell if I know.

Black Wing: I believe he wanted to steal the grand prize winning chili.

American Steel: Here's an idea. HE CAN *@)@_@ HAVE IT!

The players are then summoned by the United States government to go to a secret conference where they are promptly introduced to the Chinese ambassadors and asked to help in a matter of National Security.

Henry Masterson, Semi-Evil Government Liason: Gentlemen! New Amsterdam is in Danger!

American Steel: New Amsterdam is always in danger. Usually the government cordones it off or declares it a no-man's land or offers it to the villains.

Henry Masterson, Semi-Evil Government Liason: That was last year. It's an election year now.

Black Wing: What's the danger now?

Henry Masterson, Semi-Evil Government Liason: GIANT APES!

*crickets chirp*

Lady Midnight: Can we go now?

Henry Masterson, Semi-Evil Government Liason: Giant MONGOLIAN Apes...from SPACE.

American Steel: Okay, I gotta stay for this one.

Divinos: MY GOD! This could be our greatest challenge ever!

It is then revealed that the Giant Simian race of the Orangotros long ago came to Earth and provided Ghenghis Khan and his company with super-advanced technology to take over the world.

American Steel: I thought he just had good calvary and bowmen.

Henry Masterson: Or so history would have you THINK. Unfortunately, the Mongol Empire collapsed and now the 1000 year return for the Orangotros to return to the Earth to serve as their slave planet has come to pass. Earth must surrender 10 million of its people to serve as a food source for the massive apes or they will reduce the planet to ashes.

American Steel: This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life and that's saying something.

Divinos: We are at your service!

Lady Midnight: How is this a danger to New Amsterdam specifically?

Henry Masterson, Semi-Evil Government Liason: At my recommendation, if you fail, we're giving the apes New Amsterdam. The bottleneck will be made up by the Chinese whom need less people anyway.

American Steel: Damnit, I KNEW the government would end up screwing New Amsterdam again.

Black Wing: You're not even hiding your disillusionment anymore?

American Steel: I do a hundred commercials a year to "Buy American" I'm doing my part.

The player characters then sneak onboard via a strange teleportation device at Area 51. They then end up on the Giant Monkey-Space ship even as Khan Kong in all of his giant metal helmet glory then laughingly captures them in a force field as he said that he'd been monotoring Earth's primitive communications to begin with. Then Black Wing successfully exploits Khan Kong's one weakness in that he's a titanic egomaniac and convice him that they were merely coming to join him and that they should be set free. Well, the players do and immediately wreck the ship as they run away with giant apes chasing them before crashing the ship into the moon....

I had some fun with the way they won that fight.

Narrator: Having damaged the ship, Khan Kong tries to reach his escape pod as he reaches a maintainence shaft many floors above you even as they're all damaged and you can see a criss cross like pattern to the top of them. He starts throwing barrels of equipment down them. The artificial gravity has been broken and everyone finds they can jump very high.

Black Wing: Hmmm any VERY LARGE HAMMERS around?

Narrator: Coinicidentally...yes.

Eventually, Khan Kong does escape and lands in New Amsterdam where he starts rampaging through the city.

American Steel: The best thing to do is get Godzilla to slug it out with him.

Black Wing: I have a better idea! *spends hero point* I have a suit of armor that I've designed that is composed of five seperate individual lions that JOIN TOGETHER into one gigantic robot man.

American Steel: Has your company caught on to the billions you're wasting on projects like this?

Black Wing: It'll all be a tax write off when I save the city with it....and I'll still have a Voltron of my very own.

The story ended then with the damage being tremendous in the resultant Voltron versus Khan Kong fight as Khan displayed numerous special abilities over weather control and trashing much of downtown. Divinos finally flew out to engage him before Khan Kong said

Khan Kong: I also have super strength...

and stepped on him unconscious.

In the end, he was beaten by a gigantic neck dart that gave the poor giant ape a heart attack.

[Charles Phipps]

Next: A nod towards M&M continuity. The world where Damocles shows up to steal superpowers is the HEROICVERSE!

Can the player characters get their powers back by visiting the Dark and Gritty Universe of Protonik, The Pugilist, and others?

[Jongluer]

Hahahahaha, I am loving every moment of this story hour.

[Charles Phipps]

Journey into Metaphor Part 1 (serious game)

Ironically, this was one of my most serious adventures despite its universe jumping origins. Now, everyone whom has first edition remembers the story of Damocles the Power Stealing Robot. A quick refresher for those unfamiliar with the concept: Basically, an evil scientist tries to take over a parralel reality and ends up getting defeated by his 'home team' before the home team goes home. Then the planet is invaded by aliens and the scientist is turned to in order to stop the evil monsters. The scientist proceeds then to make "Damocles" to go back to his home universe and steal superpowers (especially from heroes) to return to help repulse the alien invasion.

I took this basic concept and ran with it using a lot of fun concepts to make it a more deep premise for the adventure.

Basically, the first major change is that the evil scientist was in fact defeated by the Patriots in one of their earlier adventures (when they were time travelled back to WW2). I continued to change the facts of the Damocles adventure to the point that it bears little similiarity save in broad strokes but it worked very well. I also made the setting of the 'powerless world' into Meta-4. Effectively, the scientist in question (Iron Cross from Villains) used his time in imprisonment plus his studies to trigger the transformation of his new homeworld into the superpowered "hellhole" I termed Meta-4.

The whole concept of the adventure is based around the idea that Heroic Earth is very 'Silver Age' while Meta-4 is very Iron Age. The Patriots are disgusted by the behavior of both the heroes and the villains on Meta-4 and frankly end up facing down their erstwhile allies several times. It's a somewhat depressing adventure in some places but also has a somewhat heroic ending. I warned my players of the theme well before the adventure started.

The game opens with a somewhat nasty cutaway as we see a group of super-powered thugs tearing apart a mall before ripping to shreds a group of armed soldiers and then executing their leader in cold blood while he begs for his life. Then we find out the super-powered thugs are the government Superhero team lead by the Pugilist.

Its then we cut to the super-powered heroes in the Patriots battling a group of robots that have come out of nowhere and successfully defeat them despite the fact that they manage to remove the powers of several before they are destroyed (restoring the powers to the player characters). Black Wing reconstructs the destroyed machines in order to find out where they came from even as they find out that there have been literally hundreds of attacks by these sorts of machines ever since WW2 where superpowered heroes have their abilities stolen. The victims have been both heroes and villains. One is even identified as Antaeus, the Golden Age Superman equivalent.

Black Wing makes an absurdly difficult knowledge: Technology roll and I tell him about Iron Cross as they flashback to one of their WW2 battles that we re-inact. In Heroic Earth continuity, Iron Cross was a traitorous German-American soldier whom was part of an effort by Black Wing and Divinos to try to restore the dead superheroes of WW2. Infused with much of Divinos' power with gene therapy, he promptly turned against the planet in hopes of eventually getting a Nazi government for the USA. I RPGed two encountrs with Iron Cross with the last one taking place when he attempted to steal their prototype Time Machine and ends up in the start of WW2 where the players lay the smack down on him as he's about to destroy all of America's war machine.

(The players use this opportunity to grab Hitler's entire cabinet and frame them for aiding Iron Cross. It effectively heads off WW2 in the Meta-4 verse with only some isolated encounters with Furher Rommel's forces and the Soviet Union)

The player characters then journey across the Time-Space vortex to the universe of Meta-4. The United States only recently has recovered from its Great Depression as they immediately end up fighting a bunch of super-powered thugs whom ironically get executed before their eyes by the government's Gestapo-like Meta-4 team. I drew a contrast as the Meta-4 team were not meant to be Bad guys but dealing with an impossible situation. It was a great shock to the team (used to being a feared and dangerous group of superbeings) easily had their ass handed to them by the Patriots. The fact the players delivered a righteous Sermon before giving the beat down also made them go "What the hell?"

The player characters also promptly defeat the United States army backup that's put New Amsterdam under martial law and after a display of their powers, have to rescue the city from being nuclear destroyed by the government out of fear of their powers. Its a humiliating moment for the desperate government whom then contact the Patriots and try to bargain for their country's' life.

Explaining they want nothing to do with extorting the planet, they discover that the planet has been at war with Sovereign and his fores for approximately 40 years and superbeings are their only weapon even as they pretty much do as they damn well please. I think American Steel summarized it best.

American Steel: I find it difficult to be sympathetic to a President that would murder ten million people just to protect his illusion of power.

Divinos: Let us defeat this Sovereign and go home. This place reeks of corruption and evil.

Pugilist: How dare you talk to us like that. You have no idea what its like being under this kind of oppression.

Black Wing: we gave your world a chance to avoid the greatest conflict in the history of the world and save millions of lives. Instead, you waste it and become obsessed with your godhood. I've seen oppression in the trenches. They never fell to what you've done.

Lady Midnight immediately picks up on the fact that this can't be so simple as aliens vs. humans and questions where the hell all these superhumans came from since I made it pretty clear there was none before their arrival. American Steel uses his armor to hack into the US defense grid where they find out about Iron Cross.

Black Wing fiddles with the Damocles power removers a bit as well even as they stop several times in American Cities to remove the powers of superpowered thugs even as they usually have to end up saving them from angry mobs soon afterwards. The entire feeling from the Patriots was disgust with the planet.

Eventually, they reach Iron Cross' Castle in California even as Minotaur joins them just as they're attacked by some of Sovereigns' Robotic minions and trash them. This of course is the first major clue as they're no different than Damocles in make. Minotaur is sympathetic to the player characters even as they're very much the comic book heroes that inspired him to become a hero even though he's not terribly of the mind their way of fighting could work.

They confront Iron Cross but instead of finding him the huge threat they expected, I found it better to show him as a bedridden old man....his powers not slowing his aging but merely keeping him alive as the super-intelligent old man is dying of numerous cancers he's kept at bay only by force of will.

Iron Cross proceeds to happily admit the truth the player characters have already begun to expect in that the entire war with Sovereign is a sham. The Aliens could have wiped the planet clean at any time and the battles with the robots are actually the equivalent of gladiator entertainment for Sovereign. Iron Cross provides Sovereign with Heroic Earth technology (much more advanced than his own) and in exchange, Sovereign keeps humans in a state of perpetual fear and dependence on Iron Cross' 'supermen.'

Minotaur is totally blown away by this whole thing even as he cannot wrap his mind around the fact that their planet trusted this man and he was the source of all their problems.

Black Wing: Of course he was, he was evil. You don't expect people to not turn upon you just because you give them what they want do you.

Minoatur: Uh no.

Black Wing: No wonder this world blows.

Iron Cross has his plug pulled by American Steel even as the two of them (Jewish national hero versus Nazi one) stare down each other. Iron Cross tries to state his death is a warrior's death even as American Steel simply said the vicious....

American Steel: All I know is that you're a sick bed-wetting old man and all the suffering you've caused doesn't change the fact I'm standing over you as you die friendless and alone with all your legacy about to burn.

Minotaur goes to inform the government even as Black Wing and American Steel suggest the government's possible responses even as they both agree that they'll either simply try to surrender to Sovereign or think this situation even worse.

That of course is when Sovereign finds out his "benefactor" is dead and intends now to invade the planet fully to harvest for its raw materials (humans for food)