Classic Enemies: My Favorite Monster

Today, I made my annual pilgrimage to Comicpalooza, Houston's biggest comics/media con.  My personal highlight was meeting Walter Simonson and getting my "Thor" Omnibus and a reprint collection of his 70s "Manhunter" comic signed.  Along the way, I got to see a bunch of terrific cosplayers in action and generally soak up the positive geek vibes.  Good times.

And how about this illustration?

So it's fitting, I guess, that tonight features another one of my favorite villains in Classic Enemies, The Monster.  Created by the late Mark Williams, this guy is just so great.  He epitomizes the whole notion of "Your campaign will be different" that was so important to early Champions products, before the Champions Universe got codified into statuary.  On the surface, The Monster is a ravenous killing machine, extremely tough, extremely fast, extremely strong, and capable of generating 5d6+1 Hand-to-Hand Killing Attacks.  He is walking death and that's pretty much his entire motivation.  Which would be kind of boring, except...

No one knows why.  At least, no one outside of you the GM knows why for your game.  Is The Monster a supernatural horror? If so, where did he come from? Does he serve someone stronger/worse? What is his purpose? Or maybe he's a mechanical horror, created by a twisted genius with a flare for the Gothic instead? What if he's actually an alien probe, not from space, but from a dark dimension adjacent to ours (Ravenloft Champions, anyone?).  There's a multitude of possibilities, and Classic Enemies provides no correct answer.  And that's the way it should be.The GM should always have the last word about how something works in his or her campaign, and The Monster is the horrible, blood-drenched, maniacally cackling poster child of this philosophy.

Go forth, my Monster! Wreak havoc! Kill! KILL! KILL!