Hi
Guys, Sorry for the long delay, but I’m back now and ready to get down to
business with a new Skullgirls character. But this one plays by a different
beat, that's right, this Skullgirls character, is a Dude. Oh and also he's
kinda a combination of Jazz, Noir and Mecha, so this should be fun.
Background
In
the troubled streets of New Meridian, there exists many people that wish to be
hero's and make things better. One such man, was Ben Birdland.
A
bright young city kid, Ben always has a taste for 2 things, music that touches
your soul, and justice. As a young man, Ben joined the New Meridian Police
force and started working to help clean up crime.
Ben
and his partner Irvin were like super cops, busting up all sorts of crime all
over the city, they were smart, tough and incorruptible, a true bane to the
cities infamous Medici Mafia. One day Ben and Irvin discovered that the Medici
were running an illegal gambling operation and reported it to their Sargent.
However
it appeared the department already knew this and had assembled a task force to
take these goons down that very night without them knowing about it. Excited to
bust more mob creeps, Ben eagerly asked when they gear up.
Strangely
though, Sarge quickly told them that the mob is already being handled, and
rushed them out telling them they are off this case and that there is no
shortage of other crimes that need solving in this city.
But
Ben wasn’t one to just give up on a case so easily. Knowing Sarge was acting
suspicious and the task force would need all the help it could get, Ben decided
to go stake out the gambling ring himself and wait for the task force’s
arrival. When Ben arrived he was thrown off by the task force being late, he
was about to go look into this when the Medici’s spotted him and he was forced
to take action.
Ben
went full on commando against these mafia fools, and after a long fought battle
he managed to single handedly take down the entire gambling operation by
himself. Then, finally, backup arrived.
Ben
expected to be praised as a hero cop, instead it all came crashing down. The
Medici police force was on the mobs payroll, the police weren't allowed to
touch them. Ben always thought cops uphold the law, it doesn’t work that way in
New Meridian. Guess what happened next?
As
punishment for upsetting the mob, Ben’s fellow officers beat him, brutally and
efficiently. They damn near broke every bone in his body, popped his lungs, and
left him just a bleeding crippled husk. They were sure he was dead, but turns
out, he's fulla surprises.
Ben’s
life was saved when his partner Irvin thankfully went looking for him, he found
him and quickly got him emergency medical attention. Unfortunately due to the
severity of his injuries Ben’s chances were slim, until of course he was
visited by Dr. Avian, the Director of ASG Lab 8.
After
some discussion, Ben was brought to the ASG Labs to be remade as an ASG Agent.
Once there, the 95 remaining pounds of Ben was presented to Stanley, a Dagonian
Shark Scientist who rebuilt Ben into a better, stronger, large and in charge
ASG Agent.
Stanley
gave Ben a whole new look, style and of course tons of awesome weapons and
powers, and after training with his new abilities, Ben got back on the beat and
teamed up with Irvin to take Sarge down. The two stormed Medici tower, and now
successfully took down the whole gambling operation, although Sarge escaped.
Afterwords
Ben officially became a ASG Lab Agent, choosing the fitting codename for his
new body, Big Band. Irvin similarly quit the police force and became a Private
Eye where he can help people free from any corruption.
Later
that same Evening, Lorenzo, head of the Medici Mob, had Sarge killed for
failing to deal with Ben the first time, and created the River King Casino in
response to their gambling operation being lost.
Over
the next 15 years, Big Band did great work as one of the most powerful ASG
Agents. He defended the kingdom from a variety of threats, including numerous
criminal activity and even fought in the Grand War, helping the armies bring
Down Queen Nancy, a Skullgirl who was so powerful she could reduce entire
countries into desert like wastelands.
One
day Big Band lead the ASG Agents on an all out assault on a Medici stronghold,
where they were holding refugees from No Man's Land hostage. After beating the
shit out of the mob, Big Band discovered a particularly brutalized little girl.
This
was Patricia Watson, an orphan who had been horribly mutilated by slave
traders, and everyone there including the Nurses of the Last Hope believed she
was going to die. Big Band however, would not give up on her, after all, they
said the same thing about him.
Big
Band rescued the girl and brought her to Lab 8 where Doctor Avian not only
saved her life, but made her better. Patricia was so inspired by Big Band and
the fellow ASG Agents that she decided to join their ranks, and she was rebuilt
as a fellow cyborg warrior named Peacock.
Peacock
was one go getter of a new member, a bit of a wildcard that the scientists did
not entirely know how to deal with. Being one of the only two adult ASG Agents,
Big Band made it his responsibility to look out for her. He taught her how to
fight and trained with her to help her use her new powers.
You
see, Big Band and Peacock understand each other on a deep level, they both are
fully in the moment and appreciative of the subtle beats that occur in life.
The ASG Agents are very much a family unit so put quite simply,
Big
Band is kinda like her new fun yet protective dad. This actually makes them an
even stronger team, all be it when Peacock doesn’t charge off by herself, but
together not even a Skullgirl can take them down. And this was proven when
after Doc Avian was murdered by Valentine, Peacock irresponsibly ran off to
take those that did it down. Big Band followed her the whole way there and the
two brought her down together in an epic team attack.
New
Meridian is a dangerous city, those who want to protect it have to make several
tough calls, but as long as Big Band is on the case, you can be sure it will
never lose it’s light.
Personality
Big
Band is first and foremost a responsible, by the book enforcer of justice who
comes off as very calm and collected and prefers to rationalize and talk things
out, but also knows when he has to fight back. While he can come off as an
uptight upholder of the rules sometimes, he is actually pretty layback, often
openly having fun with what he's doing, making jokes, recounting stories and
being a very understanding father figure.
Big
Band is also a truly heroic person, who despite understandable issues of trust
is very optimistic. This is well shown when Big Band refused to listen to Brain
Drains orders to attack the Skullgirl while she was vulnerable holding up a
skyscraper as he wouldn’t risk it dropping on the city, there was a better way.
Then afterward he liberated Painwheel from Brain Drain’s control and took her
back to Lab 8 to join there much nicer family. Big Band loves a good beat, shoe
and brass polish, 4-part harmony, Autumn leaves, the flat 5th, the spirit of
the law, Gin, and neatness. He dislikes punks, corruption, unresolved
dissonance, carelessness, electric shavers, smoothies, and narrow spaces.
Intelligence
Big
Band is a very wise and experienced veteran fighter, and is considered to be a
professional operative, able to easily take down numerous trained assassins
even before becoming a superhuman cyborg. He is skilled in stealth and
surveillance and can read a room and gather intel quickly. He is very level
headed and always has his priorities in check even in the most desperate of
situations. The most notable aspect of his intellect though, is his detective
skills. Big Band is able to quickly look at and fully understand any crime
scene and know almost perfectly what happened down to minute details like the
type of scalpels used. He can use these to understand a perpetrators intentions
and experiences and is able to read someone's bodily language as well.
Acoustokinesis
Big
Band’s bread and butter is his advanced acoustokinetic abilities.
Acoustokinesis is the ability to manipulate sound and vibrations for any number
of different effects. Such Effects Include:
- Passive Awareness Immediate Area
Can
sense changes in the immediate area based on acoustics.
- Sonic Blasts:
Can
fire powerful concussive decibel blasts from pretty much any part of his body.
- Momentum Boost:
Big
Band can also fire some soundwaves out the back to drastically increase his
moving speed riding the sound waves for powerful bursts of energy. This can be
used in a similar method to increase the power of his attacks as well.
- Flight:
Big
Band can even take this a step further by blasting sound out with enough force
to allow him to fly with really no limitation.
The Ensemble
The
Ensemble refers to the enormous arsenal of musical weaponry built into big
bands new body and coat. There are over 100 giant instruments contained in
there through some form of spatial manipulation, which only makes it scarier as
you just plain do not know what he could ge pulling on you. Big Band uses these
instrumental weapons to literally Beat Box his foe into submission, both by
using these to blast powerful sonic waves, and also cutting out the middleman
and just bludgeoning them directly with the brass itself.
Some
of his more notable moves include:
- Brass Knuckles:
Big
Band rushes forward and gives his foe a hit with his devastating giant fist,
blasted forward by sonic waves.
- Kick Stand:
Big
Band swings his entire body into his foe for a powerful kick using a music
stand for balance.
- Bass Drop:
Big
Band Blasts sound from every part of his body at once.
- Sweet Clarinet:
Big
Band spikes a clarinet downward with drills his foe.
- Beat Extend:
Big
Band traps a foe in a giant tambourine which sends damaging sonic energy
throughout their entire body.
- Pneumatic Slide:
Big
Band uses sonic energy to push his knee upwards in a devastating knee to the
face made worse by the extending trombone which hits twice.
- Bass/Baritone/Tenor Blast:
Big
Band Elbows into his opponent, and blasts sound out of either the Bass,
Baritone or Tenor hole on his arm.
- Air Mail Special:
Big
Band upper cuts you with a saxophone as his fist.
- Overblow:
Big
Band uppercuts you with the biggest horn in his arsenal! Wait…...is that thing
his….
- Heavy Toll:
Big
Band traps his foe in his bell and gives them a disorienting shake.
- Bagpipe Blues:
By
pulling out and jamming on the worst instrument ever made, Big Band removes his
limiters and allows himself access to more power, meaning he can perform longer
and stronger combos.
- Cymbal Clash:
Big
Band claps together two giant cymbals which generate waves of damaging sonic
energy.
- Giant Step:
Big
Band created a mini earthquake by smashing a giant soundwave into the ground,
this knocks foes off their feet and can crush them at short range.
- Take the ‘A’ Train:
Big
Band traps the foe inside of his own giant arm where they are bludgeoned
senseless without being able to defend themself.
- Satchmo Solo:
The
Satchmo Solo involved Big Band pulling out his trusty trumpet, not only can
this blast large bursts of sonic energy, but it can also legit stop time for
several seconds while he plays, giving him the chance to charge up truly
devastating combos.
It
also should be noted this is a real working Trumpet that you can play songs on
in game without limitation.
- Cymbal of Justice:
Every
character in the game has the ability to block in some form or another, but Big
Band is the only one that can parry, and that is thanks to this fantastic
shield, the cymbal of justice. Unlike other shields and blocks in the game that
still cause the combatant to take chip damage, this brass beauty vibrates all
the energy off itself meaning Big Band takes no damage whatsoever in a huge
display of shock absorption.
- Super-Sonic Jazz:
In
this devastating attack, Big Band rockets himself forward with as much sonic
energy as possible and crashes into them like a freight train before beating
them into a paste with dozens of rapid fire brass punches in what may be the
ultimate bumrush.
- Tympany Drive:
While
in the air, Big Band beats on a large set of drums, which blasts massive bursts
of sonic energy upon contact, these both keep him airborne and rain down
punishment on his foe. Afterwards he’ll rattle them further by trapping him in
his bell, this time banging so hard it shatters.
- Strike Up The Band:
Big
Band stomps his foot forward and summons up an entire barrage of trumpet
turrets from the earth below his foe, which fire hundreds of sonic blasts upon
his foe at once.
Skills
Height: 7’7
Weight: 5000 lbs
Age: 49
Big
Band is the largest character in the entire game, his massive body weighs 5000
lbs, though only about 95 lbs of it is human. This body runs on an experimental
oil mixture called ‘B♭’, while its advanced
weaponry and abilities are caused by its use of Theonite, a supply of Skullgirl
related energy crystals. This body also walks by actually rotating its entire
hips to that its legs move to the center in front and behind and grabs things
with numerous mechanical arms of varying sizes for different tasks. Big Bands
attacks are all very brute force focused, slamming into foes with high speed
and overwhelming power. But this doesn’t make him a slugger by any means, with
his high intellect and experiences he can actually be really strategic with
finding the right times to defend and the right times to pound his foe into
next week. He is so skilled in combat that even as a normal officer he could
take down a whole gang of mob goons armed with blades and guns, and he has only
gotten better since.
Feats
Strength:
- Can cause earthquakes not just with his attacks, but
with every step he takes.
- Easily Defeated Cerebella
- Beat Double as an Anti-Big Band
- Defeated Ms. Fortune
- Brain Drain states that he has enough power to destroy
the Skullgirls in a surprise assault. Brain Drain is a genius and he said
this While Marie was performing her 1.3 Megaton feat so there is no way he
was underestimating her.
- Defeated Painwheel
- Defeated Valentine and Double at the same time. Val of
which damaged Marie with her attacks during the battle with Last Hope
- Managed to Bring Down Marie with Peacocks Aid
Speed:
- Briefly Held his own against Peacock, who can outrun an
explosive blast.
- Defeated Valentine and Double at the same time. Val of
which can dodge point blank machine gun fire.
- Escaped the catacombs of the grand cathedral as it
was collapsing.
Durability:
- Can more than take the force of his own attacks, which
involve acoustic explosions.
- Was able to immediately get up after a defeat from
Beowulf.
General:
- Even Before he became Big Band, was able to single
handedly beat a squad of medici goons.
- Is the 3rd most powerful ASG Agent
- Fought In the Grand Wars battle against Queen Nancy,
the most powerful Skullgirl on record
- Has over 30 years of combat experience.
- Survived being brutally beaten until all of his bones
were broken
Summary
Advantages
- Small City Level
- Hypersonic
- Very Intelligent and Experienced
- High hand to hand combat skill
- Flight
- Sonic Manipulation and Projectiles
- Timestop
- Shock Absorption
- Stat Boosts
Disadvantages
- Big Band is an older model of ASG agent, and thus
doesn’t have access to more advanced technology like Synthetic Parasites
more modern models like Peacock and Painwheel do, this means he is much
more limited in his abilities.
- Big Band is also the only character in the game that
had assistance when battling Marie.
- Other characters with great hand to hand skills have
bested him before, such as Beowulf
- Also, as you might imagine, Big Band is a very large
target, and it is difficult for him to evade speedy and or surprising
attacks because of it.
- He also has damaged and sensitive lungs, if his suit
loses power he will struggle to breath.
Recommended Opponents:
Scratchmen Apoo
This
battle seemed pretty interesting; both being heavily instrumental based sound
manipulators of similar stats and abilities. The really cool thing about this
fight is it's a classic Cops and Robbers battle between a pirate and a
detective.
Next Time
Yup,
finally back to predictions, but guess what, now I’m deciding predictions to do
by poll, click the link below and cast your vote, vote for as many that
interest you.
Amazing job Thor! You're always so in-depth! Big Bang seems like a really cool Lawful Good type character and his relationship with Peacock is really cute! He kinda reminds me of Order from Freedom Force. I was not expecting a time stop or such a powerful summon (sorta) move :O!
ReplyDeleteMusic Themed characters are pretty rare, so it's interesting, even for someone not very musically inclined to see how it can be translated to powers and I'm glad you were able to find a matchup that was so thematic and even for Big Band! Big Bang also has a really interesting history as a police, though really the biggest plot twist is still that Irving didn't die tragically for motivation. What even is this?!
DAT NEXT TIME!!! I am so excited! :) :) :) Though what are the chances we are working on two people from the same verse at the same time? Crazy! I like all your next time options though I picked the ones I wanted most.
Your Skullgirls blogs are my favorite blogs of yours and this is no exception! Have I said that about a previous blog? Probably. It's still true! I came for the mecha and stayed for the jazz. Seriously, the music in this one is amazing! Fitting for such a musically-themed blog. The first track perfectly set the tone/mood, made me feel like I was all comfy at a corner table in a dimly lit jazz/blues club. I really dug the noir backstory. Brutality happening to such a good soul trying to do the right thing always tugs at the heartstrings. Really great job on conveying the story, I felt like I got the whole thing in a very digestible manner. Speaking of backstory, hey, Peacock! Cool to see a strong connection between these two. Oh, and last thing about that part of the blog. The "95 lbs" part really appealed to me as a gorehound and body horror enthusiast (read: sicko :P ).
ReplyDeleteLove the detailed section on his moveset, the pictures and clips are fantastic visual aids here. I really like any of his moves that involve his big fists (especially Take The "A" Train) and the ones that involve the saxophone, my favorite instrument.
I feel like these sorts of games make characters and feats tricky to analyze, but it looks like you did an excellent job of listing every possible relevant thing, making good comparisons of BB to other characters and such too. I know he doesn't have one of those cool parasite weapon thingies but I dig his more old school tech. I don't know the character you have down as an opponent for him but by the sound of it, it sounds like a perfectly fitting idea for a fight! Great job on this blog man, I really enjoyed it. Music's food for the soul and this blog is too!
P.S. Another trailer! And you made it for yourself, finally :) At first I thought you might be doing another collab with Imp. Are you? Because you and her doing MKR fights next is one heck of a coincidence!
Considering the Poll doesn't work anymore, mind if I ask what were the choices on there? (Well, outside of Mandark VS Mojo of course.)
ReplyDelete