You wouldn’t think that a contest with such simple rules could be so hard. Yet, the “G7: Fight Music” tournament was just that–very hard. It was actually too hard for some people, to the point that our host, Spacebooger, had to respond to the complaints.  I notice this is the time when the number of competitors began to go down. I had hoped they would come back afterwards, but they never did and now only a few of us survive. What effect this will have on the “Best of FNF” here at the Spotlight I can’t say. However, the weekly collaboration of comic-reviewing article writers could use some more members. This is why I drop the encouragement to join up at the end of my entries as of late.

The rules were actually harder this round: in addition to finding a good fight it had to fit the theme of a song or include music as a factor in the fight. That’s more difficult than you would imagine unless you are as big a music junkie as you are a comic junkie. So let’s see what we pulled off in our next instant replay. Remember, I’m judging the fight itself, not the song chosen.

The Best of

rounds 1-6

ROUND 1

• If you really have to kill off a female character, you better do it right! (See also male characters.)
• Hulk and Abomination like to play rough.
• I don’t remember when rock was young, but I do remember when Captain Marvel was cool.
• Jimmy Olsen is no Bluegrass. (SilverHawks reference.)
• Captain America and Balroc are surprisingly fun to watch fight.
• I think Tony just scored a home run.
• AND MY ENTRY: Shockwave is a terrible music critic. And I promise I don’t write like that for the entire tournament, although I did try.

ROUND 2

• Oh, Hawkeye, will you never learn?
• The fight itself is kind of “meh”, but you have to give credit to the unique layout.
• The obligatory “stop hitting yourself” line goes here.
• AND MY ENTRY: Since I “had” to cover E3 that year, I threw together something quick.

ROUND 3

• No horsing around here.
• Cage beating up Doom never gets old.
• Dino fight!
• Thor’s stand on rock & roll.
• AND MY ENTRY: Hey, I finally based one on a song.

ROUND 4 (complete with lame pun)

• When losing to a blind man is nothing to be disappointed about.
• Well, she called it. I wonder if she’s that good at pool?
• I wonder if this is how the Iron Man anime worked?
• Now that’s our Nova! I’m assuming that’s not our Red Skull.
• One of the reasons my favorite Iron Man writer is Kurt Busiek.
• AND MY ENTRY: When you can’t think of a song, go for the heartstrings.

ROUND 5

I didn’t have a fight entry thanks to computer problems. So these are just my favorites.

• Shang-Chi fights a giant turtle. That is all.
• Superheroes and supervillains playing baseball. That’s MY DC Universe.

ROUND 6

My “entry” wasn’t in line with the rules, but I wanted to do something special for Independence Day. Here are the actual competitors.

• And I like Iceman.
• She better do stuff like this in the relaunched Animal Man or they fail.

That’s only the first six rounds. Next week is the Grand Championship for “Repeat, Rehash, Revenge” (which I will be competing in this tourney), and in two weeks the second half of our musical assault. (For what songs still have working links and videos.)