End of Phase Three

With masterful symmetry of reality, my journey through painting Marvel superheroes has sprawled in all directions, introduced increasingly obscure characters, and almost certainly lost all interest from the audience.

Still, I'm sure adding more phases can only improve things.

We're heading into the home stretch of miniatures I want to collect (simmer down, X-Men, your time will come) and, with that in mind, I started to fill some specific gaps in my rosters.

Mystical attacks are something I'm noticeably short on, so adding a couple of Dr Strange's pals will help (chosen mostly because I like the actors who portrayed them).

The Ancient One was a nice exercise in yellow-golden robes, and a salutary lesson in why you don't glue robed figures to the base before painting them. Manoeuvring my paintbrush between the tiny gaps (that were nonetheless, very visible), had me sobbing from here to Kamar-Taj.

Baron Mordo was much more straightforward, and one hell of a dynamic sculpt. I am concerned that his sculpt seems uniquely snappable, but I'll have to put my faith in the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr.

So ... while technically Storm is part of the X-Men, she also belongs to the Wakanda faction, which is going to be her role here. In fact, that was why I chose the alternate 'punk' look for Storm (an aesthetic choice to a quarter-life crisis in the 1980s, where she also briefly lost her powers), so I can keep the classic unform for later.

In game terms, I may run her as a proxy Shuri, since I don't have that Wakandan, and the 'de-powered' Storm fits her filecard quite nicely.

Rounding out the Wakanda affiliation is M'Baku, leader of the Jabari Tribe. He brings a strong filecard, another actor I enjoy, and the opportunity to use the word 'knobkerrie' during games.

Given that every franchise seems to require an underwater king, it's surprising that Marvel actually got there first. Namor the Sub-Mariner is one of the originals from Timely Comics, although his name recognition is basically 'oh yeah, like that other guy'.

That said, he's a powerful in-game piece, and brings the opportunity to run The Invaders faction (WWII superheroes), which should jam nicely with Captain Carter, the Hydra-Stomper and the Howling Commandos.

This was a 3D print that updates his costume from the classic 'green Speedos', although a wetsuit without a chest and back piece is no less eccentric.

On the other end of the costume spectrum is Luke Cage, who just showed up wearing t-shirt and jeans. The former Power Man is too low-key even for a codename these days, but still has his signature yellow. Since that was all there was to work with, I gave it a good go, with layering and glazes.

Still, the hardest part was having to freehand his beard - Sweet Christmas!

You don't see a lot of vehicles in Crisis Protocol, but I guess this one would look a bit odd as a pedestrian. Ghost Rider is a pretty nice sculpt (although hades help that fragile chain), but what I'm really looking forward to is a special tactics card he can use when KO'd - to essentially possess a team-mate (they don't get a say) and come right back into the game!

Speaking of underhanded plays, I couldn't omit Loki from my collection. This print is the movie version, and it made me realise how much more conservative real-life costumes are from their comic counterparts. Loki's costume contains a lot of brown leather, some gold and a hint of green (I had to double-check this a few times) - if I were painting a comic-accurate one, I'm sure it would be reversed.

Loki's Asgardian counterpart has no such reservations, since The Enchantress didn't really make it onto the screen (the closest is a lateral character in the Loki TV show). But she's an important villain to the universe, whose mystic powers should make a fun addition to Thor's hammer-based approach.

Last, but no means least, I wasn't going to finish off the collection with the big bad himself. This is the comic-accurate Thanos (the one who first won my heart) - and close observers will note that the colour of the infinity gems on the gauntlet matches the comics, not the infinity stones of the movies (hope I didn't blow my cover as a detail-obsessed nerd there).

That's it for now with the Marvel stuff. And having assembled such a collection, there's only thing to do...