More (better) Justice

Just when all seemed bleak with the upcoming Justice League set, things get a bit better. WK has posted pics and stats for two more figures in the set, and these two are as appealing as four of the previous were disappointing.
First off, we have what I believe must be the first (and maybe the last, until and unless WK gets a hard on for the Bug Eyed Bandit)Atom villain ever done in clix form, Chronos.

Now, I'm sorry, but if you're going to be a reader of The Miserable Annals of the Earth, you are simply going to have to accept that Chronos is cool. Yes, yes, you are. Because, yes, yes, he is. Okay, he's an Atom villain, and okay, he's basically a burglar with a clock fetish (well, he starts out that way; later on in his career, he actually sells his soul to a demon in exchange for time travel powers and becomes slightly more formidable) but, nonetheless, he's an old time Silver Age villain, long time Injustice League member, he has a really awesome (in an utterly retarded way) Silver Age costume, and, well, he's just really really cool and I cannot tell you how happy I am to see him included in a HeroClix set.
In terms of his clix incarnation itself, I confess to some minor disappointment that WK didn't have the balls to give us the true glorious Silver Age Chronos costume, with the incredibly fucked up pinstripe tights, red underoos, and really bright bright BRIGHT yellow cape, boots, and gloves, preferring the somewhat more cleaned up and subdued version from the early Modern Age. Nonetheless, I'm so happy to see a Chronos, and one with useful HeroClix abilities at that, that I'm willing to forgive what would otherwise be an enormous transgression against, well, against what I want in a Chronos figure.

In clix form, Chronos suffers from Maximum Attack Value of 9 Syndrome, but, well, he's a goober who routinely got beat up by a guy the size of a pencil eraser, so I'm okay with that. He's a fabulous support piece and will quickly become an essential part of any Injustice League or Society theme teams, with his three opening clicks of Probability Control, several slots of Incapacitate, and, most of all, his Transporter movement mode, which will allow him to automatically move and attack all the way down his dial (with a negative modifier to Attack Value) under WK's rules, and which will make him considerably more useful than that under my House Rules.

He does have a Special Power, which is, essentially, just Probability Control, with its effects restricted only to dice rolls that directly effect Chronos. It's not a spectacular Special Power (nothing like Doomsday's Unstoppable), but it fits the character fine. All in all, I'm very pleased to see this figure in the set.

Happy as I am about Chronos, that's a pale shadow of the joy I feel about this next figure, The Phantom Stranger:

First off, the Phantom Stranger is a character who's been around for forty years to date, and one I honestly never expected to see done as a HeroClix figure. And if somebody was to do him in clix form, I would never have expected him to have this good a dial, in terms of both appropriateness to the character and overall effectiveness.

I could quibble a bit about powers that aren't on the dial -- both Probability Control and Perplex would also be extremely apropos for the Stranger -- but I'm generally so pleased with what we've got here that, again, I'm just not going to quibble. 171 points will be a big chunk of any build total, but the Stranger will be well worth it if only for being a piece with the ability to heal your other pieces after they take some damage. Throw in a decent range and two range targets combined with the two powers that work best with multiple targets -- Incapacitate and Energy Explosion -- consistently high stats, good defensive powers to keep him in the game awhile, a lot of Outwit, and the Quintessence Team Ability that will allow the Stranger to act two turns in a row without taking damage, and that will prevent enemy Outwitters from countering any of his powers, and you've got one of the best support pieces WK has given us yet.

The Stranger is, alas, not a piece that will be available in boosters, but rather, one that I'll need to buy a brick and then mail away the enclosed coupon to get... which means, I guess, that somehow or other, I'll have to buy a brick of Justice League. I just hope the characters in the set continue getting better. Too many more figures like that crappy Superman or that horrible Aquaman and I may have to just resign myself to getting a Stranger off of E-bay...