HARDAWAY versus MUTANT LIBERATION FRONT
Liberation Through Subjugation (Marvel)
Where: X-Force #27 When: October 1993
Why: Fabian Nicieza How: Matt Broome
The Story So Far...
Sprung from the Roanoke Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary -- The Mutant Liberation Front has returned to serve the whims of a mysterious new revolutionary called Reignfire!
The first mission under their new leader is a demonstration of power and intent! The United States government has begun development of a new anti-mutant elimination program dubbed Project: Wideawake. The MLF will strike at its heart by kidnapping and assassinating program director Henry Peter Gyrich -- they just need to get to him first!
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Forearm 5 (Super-Human)
Intelligence: Draw 2 (Average)
Speed: Tempo 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Forearm 4 (Athlete)
Agility: Hardaway 4 (Gymnast)
Fighting: Moonstar 4 (Trained)
Energy: Locus 5 (Lasers)
Total: Moonstar 20 (Champion)
Basketball fans of the era might remember Golden State's Tim Hardaway for his killer crossover -- but this Hardaway is a golden killer of a very different kind!
He's basically the answer to what if the T-1000 came from the early nineties instead of the future? A prototype cyborg working for Henry Peter Gyrich; he was intended to be the first in a series of mutant-slaying "biosentries" that never eventuated.
Hardaway is fast and agile, despite a bulky torso encumbered by metal housing, and tubes that supply various cybernetic enhancements. He can evade sensory attacks with automated scanners, while shape-shifting liquid metal limbs offer him diverse offensive options including various blades and bludgeoning configurations.
The Mutant Liberation Front are: Wildside, Tempo, Reaper, Forearm, Moonstar, and Locus.
Although he is still human, Hardaway's cybernetics should negate the psychic weapons used primarily by Wildside and Moonstar. Their telepathically induced visions are easily seen through by circuits and electronic sensors.
Forearm might be able to outmuscle Hardaway's enhanced strength, while a well placed swing of Reaper's scythe could potentially cut through very prominent tubing extending from Hardaway's helmet and arms. That could presumably interrupt some of his cybernetic functions.
The real aces in this deck seem to be Tempo and Locus.
Flight and energy blasts give them equal maneuverability and ranged potential, but its their unique mutant powers that are the most compelling.
Tempo's ability to manipulate time in a focused area was usually used for speed and could severely slow Hardaway's processors. If that doesn't work: Locus could simply teleport him somewhere perilous -- or parts of him!
The Tape: Mutant Liberation Front Ranking: Moonstar (#609)
What Went Down...
Where: X-Force #27 When: October 1993
Why: Fabian Nicieza How: Matt Broome
The Story So Far...
Sprung from the Roanoke Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary -- The Mutant Liberation Front has returned to serve the whims of a mysterious new revolutionary called Reignfire!
The first mission under their new leader is a demonstration of power and intent! The United States government has begun development of a new anti-mutant elimination program dubbed Project: Wideawake. The MLF will strike at its heart by kidnapping and assassinating program director Henry Peter Gyrich -- they just need to get to him first!
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Forearm 5 (Super-Human)Intelligence: Draw 2 (Average)
Speed: Tempo 5 (Super-Human)
Stamina: Forearm 4 (Athlete)
Agility: Hardaway 4 (Gymnast)
Fighting: Moonstar 4 (Trained)
Energy: Locus 5 (Lasers)
Total: Moonstar 20 (Champion)
Basketball fans of the era might remember Golden State's Tim Hardaway for his killer crossover -- but this Hardaway is a golden killer of a very different kind!
He's basically the answer to what if the T-1000 came from the early nineties instead of the future? A prototype cyborg working for Henry Peter Gyrich; he was intended to be the first in a series of mutant-slaying "biosentries" that never eventuated.
Hardaway is fast and agile, despite a bulky torso encumbered by metal housing, and tubes that supply various cybernetic enhancements. He can evade sensory attacks with automated scanners, while shape-shifting liquid metal limbs offer him diverse offensive options including various blades and bludgeoning configurations.
The Mutant Liberation Front are: Wildside, Tempo, Reaper, Forearm, Moonstar, and Locus.
Although he is still human, Hardaway's cybernetics should negate the psychic weapons used primarily by Wildside and Moonstar. Their telepathically induced visions are easily seen through by circuits and electronic sensors.
Forearm might be able to outmuscle Hardaway's enhanced strength, while a well placed swing of Reaper's scythe could potentially cut through very prominent tubing extending from Hardaway's helmet and arms. That could presumably interrupt some of his cybernetic functions.
The real aces in this deck seem to be Tempo and Locus.
Flight and energy blasts give them equal maneuverability and ranged potential, but its their unique mutant powers that are the most compelling.
Tempo's ability to manipulate time in a focused area was usually used for speed and could severely slow Hardaway's processors. If that doesn't work: Locus could simply teleport him somewhere perilous -- or parts of him!
The Tape: Mutant Liberation Front Ranking: Moonstar (#609)
What Went Down...
Wildside mocks the lifeless flesh & bone of the freshly killed security guard he's holding in his hands. Even his own teammates Tempo and Forearm react with scorn, but Reaper would rather his bloodlust be sated by someone other than him.
Forearm is settled by the relief of only finding human security guards standing in their path. He doesn't notice the shadowy figure watching from the treetop above.
Observing from his own vantage point in a surveillance room: Henry Peter Gyrich orders the activation of his prototype killer -- a cyborg called Hardaway!
Hardaway bares his long talon-like claws and leaps into action -- slicing through Forearm's exposed back just as the so-called liberator is remarking on expecting better security.
Forearm is settled by the relief of only finding human security guards standing in their path. He doesn't notice the shadowy figure watching from the treetop above.
Observing from his own vantage point in a surveillance room: Henry Peter Gyrich orders the activation of his prototype killer -- a cyborg called Hardaway!
Hardaway bares his long talon-like claws and leaps into action -- slicing through Forearm's exposed back just as the so-called liberator is remarking on expecting better security.
Reaper is the first to react, but he doesn't even see who hit him!
Hardaway announces himself as the first of an army of biosentries who will end mutant life. His metallic cyborg limbs shift and twist, reshaping themselves into a giant fist and long scythe! Reaper drops, narrowly avoiding the blade's swing!
Tempo activates her temporal flux in an effort to slow the cyborg down, and orders Wildside to attack his senses. Psionic assaults Hardaway can adapt to by switching to machine-controlled cybernetic systems!
His bearings restored: Hardaway extends a liquid-metal arm high into the sky and snares the airborne Tempo with a massive hand! It proves a temporary measure.
The cyborg's metallic skull erupts with energy as a neural arrow suddenly pierces his mind! An attack that signals the arrival of Moonstar and Locus!
The perfect timing saves Tempo from being crushed by the cyborg's discomforting grip.
Hardaway drops face-down on the ground, wracked with the horrifying agony of reliving his wife and son's deaths. The torturous living nightmare of Moonstar's neural weapons!
Locus steps in to end the suffering in the most violent way imaginable.
Hardaway screams a bloodcurdling duet only possible of a being who is both part man and machine, his body and cybernetics sliced in twain as Locus teleports part of him to another location!
The Hammer...
If it seemed like Hardaway might be an exciting new find you'd never heard of -- I'm afraid I have some bad news...
By teleporting the lower half of his body someplace else: Locus ended the "biosentry" program before it ever really started. A textbook one hit wonder who made his first & last appearance in X-Force #27.
I didn't really expect to find myself talking about the Mutant Liberation Front, but Marvel's recently announced X-Men Vote got me enthusiastically rummaging through back issues for something a little bit different.
The fan survey will decide the final member of a new Krakoan Age X-Men team based on the most popular choice from: Banshee, Forge, Polaris, Cannonball, Sunspot, Boom Boom, Marrow, Strong Guy, Armor, and Tempo.
There are a few characters there we haven't featured at the time of this writing, but of all the options on the poll: Tempo ranks as the most unusual.
The image they used is what I presume to be a more recent design. It kinda looks like one of Moonstone's old castoffs - a tight gold helmet with fin. A pale shadow of the joyously absurd buckethead from her original appearances!
My clearest memories of Tempo have always revolved around that helmet. I didn't even fully realise the nature of her powers. It almost seemed to be she could fly and move fast. Like a human bullet. I didn't realise she was manipulating time.
The bullet-like helmet reminds me slightly of the ridiculousness of Juggernaut, but its flat base gives it even more clunky charm.
For a while it seemed like it existed purely to be crumpled. As if every artist was keen to render a human head inside geometrically dented metal. That kind of thing seemed to reoccur in X-Force a lot, but maybe I'm exaggerating.
I wasn't a faithful reader, so it might be coincidence that every time I found an issue accidentally in my possession, it involved one of the MLF -- usually Reaper -- losing a body part. A Liefeldian trope presumably held over from the boyhood trauma of seeing Luke Skywalker's hand severed in The Empire Strikes Back.
By 1993 Rob Liefeld had long since departed for the co-founding of Image Comics, but the first page credits of X-Force #27 promise "AN X-F 911 IYF JAM" that feels very indebted to him.
Even a new creation, like Hardaway, seems like it would be right at home in any Extreme Studios Rob Liefeld series. It kinda smacks of something you might see in Silvestri's CyberForce too, though.
Locus is one of the only other characters in X-Force #27 that hasn't been directly touched by Liefeld. She's another new creation, making her first appearance not only in this issue, but in the fight featured in today's article.
She isn't given any special introductory consideration. She just shows up with Moonstar as if an already established character. That might imply a frivolity to the action and a general indifference to storytelling, but it also speaks to the wild and fast-moving times of the early nineties. It's kind of a nice way to do it. Pair the newbie up with established characters and sort out the detail later.
Locus might not feel particularly Liefeldian as a design or concept, but her abrupt introduction does. The original MLF kinda showed up out of nowhere, too. A late afterthought to an out-of-place Vulture appearance in New Mutants #86.
I kinda like Locus. She's an upgrade from the MLF's previous teleporting transport character - the blank-faced Zero. She also provides a distinguishing flourish for a new era of the MLF: re-formed under the directive of new mastermind Reignfire.
I like the general idea of a "Mutant Liberation Front", but in any of their incarnations they seem to largely function as a stock-standard troupe of sadistic super-villains. The idealism seems lost beneath the carnage and eviscerating, even when their target is a notorious mutant-hater like Gyrich.
At some point in the future we'll return to look more closely at the MLF and their extreme brand of mutant mayhem. With introductions out of the way, we can see how they perform against X-Force themselves!
This unlikely spotlight has brought us racing to the major milestone of ranking our 1000th character! You can see where all of today's players finished a little further down. You can also see more from last year's Countdown to 1000 by becoming a supporter on Patreon!
Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured over 650 fights and ranked 1000 comic book combatants! You can become a patron for $1 a month to support the cause and gain access to extra updates and polls. Higher tiers will unlock your choice of custom articles and generally help keep myself and the site infinite.
If you'd like to see more from today's battle you can check out this issue collected in X-Force: Toy Soldiers via the Amazon link provided. By doing so you'll not only get a good deal delivered to your door -- you'll also be supporting the site at no extra cost to you!
Explore links throughout this post to discover more from your favourite comics and characters. Or deep dive into the Secret Archive for a complete index of every featured fight in order of publisher, series, and issue number!
Subscribe and follow on Twitter and Facebook to get free daily links to superhero smackdown inspired by the topics of the day! The Mutant Liberation Front is just a sample of the weird and wonderful topics you might see!
Winners: Locus & Moonstar
#207 (new) Locus [+1 kill]
#358 (+251) Moonstar
#602 (new) Wildside [+1 assist]
#603 (new) Reaper [+1 assist]
#604 (new) Tempo [+1 assist]
#605 (new) Forearm [+1 assist]
#947 (new) Hardaway
This unlikely spotlight has brought us racing to the major milestone of ranking our 1000th character! You can see where all of today's players finished a little further down. You can also see more from last year's Countdown to 1000 by becoming a supporter on Patreon!
Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured over 650 fights and ranked 1000 comic book combatants! You can become a patron for $1 a month to support the cause and gain access to extra updates and polls. Higher tiers will unlock your choice of custom articles and generally help keep myself and the site infinite.
If you'd like to see more from today's battle you can check out this issue collected in X-Force: Toy Soldiers via the Amazon link provided. By doing so you'll not only get a good deal delivered to your door -- you'll also be supporting the site at no extra cost to you!
Explore links throughout this post to discover more from your favourite comics and characters. Or deep dive into the Secret Archive for a complete index of every featured fight in order of publisher, series, and issue number!
Subscribe and follow on Twitter and Facebook to get free daily links to superhero smackdown inspired by the topics of the day! The Mutant Liberation Front is just a sample of the weird and wonderful topics you might see!
Winners: Locus & Moonstar
#207 (new) Locus [+1 kill]
#358 (+251) Moonstar
#602 (new) Wildside [+1 assist]
#603 (new) Reaper [+1 assist]
#604 (new) Tempo [+1 assist]
#605 (new) Forearm [+1 assist]
#947 (new) Hardaway
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