#MakeThisBattle Feedback - April 1st (Patreon)

New MakeThisBattle feedback is finally here! Thanks for your patience. Both Peter and Lloyd have been super busy writing battles throughout March, so we decided to have a guest provide feedback this time. Our editor Josh Best jumped in to the ring to offer opinions on a bunch of your ideas.

This round the theme was 'Three's A Crowd' and there were a load of match-ups submitted featuring three characters. It's rare so many suggestions fit the theme. Well done.

Hercules vs Sun Wukong vs Kratos [submitted by Fishbulb & ThomasSMcDonald]
I love mythological match-ups, and I love the cross cultural element that this match-up has. One thing to think about is that Hercules and Kratos have a lot in common, beyond both being Greek they have similar strengths, similar stories, and even the same father. In my mind this would be posed as a battle between Hercules and Kratos and then Sun Wukong comes in with his super strength, speed and transformation ability and shows them who is boss. In the end though I would love to see a battle that matches different cultural mythologies like this.

John Rambo vs John McClane vs John Wick [submitted by GlenOck]
I think this is a fun match-up. Three independent, callus, tough guys duking it out.  The opportunity for one-liners I think has me most excited. Between them there are 14 movies to pull inspiration from, so I think that there is a lot that could come out of this idea. We would need a special budget for all the guns that would surely be used. 

Galileo vs Carl Sagan vs Neil Armstrong [submitted by Dragonsblood23]
I love the idea of all of these people in a battle, but I’m not yet convinced they are ideal to go against each other. I my mind I like battle match-ups where the characters might have some genuine beef with what the opponent stands for. In this case (and I’m no expert so I could be very wrong here) all three of these people were on the side of science, furthering human understanding of the universe and in turn our understanding of ourselves.  Now they may have some personal beliefs that I’m unaware of that makes this particular match-up more multifaceted and interesting, and their individual contributions to astronomy might be enough as well. Either way I think all of these people deserve a battle of some sort, especially since Carl Sagan has made cameo appearances twice without his own full battle. 

Karl Marx vs Henry Ford vs Adam Smith [submitted by Kung]
Marx vs Smith, seems like the main matchup here, as they seem more rooted in the philosophy and theory of economics, though Ford would certainly have plenty to say on the matter. I like that this match-up can have a real focus on a topic, in this case economics, and it has the potential to get really detailed and make people look things up and learn a thing or two. 

Marco Polo vs Ibn Battuta vs Leif Erikson [submitted by theformerprez, Sweg & Swan]
I love a good match-up that makes me google a character, I had no idea who Ibn Battuta was, but after a little digging this is a great match-up idea. Explorers and adventurers make for very interesting visuals that would be cool to make. I like that this is cross cultural as well as involving both more main stream and less well known characters (at least to an American audience). One of the things I love about ERB is that we can secretly introduce people to new ideas or historic characters and this seems like it checks all those boxes. The only thing that could make it even better is if we included a female explorer as well.

Johnny Knoxville vs Tom Cruise vs Evel Knievel [submitted by AJ Quenell]
Lots and lots and lots of stunts. This battle would be fun and these people definitely have big enough personalities to make it interesting, my only actual concern with it would be the amount of stunts we would want to do in order to make it as epic as it has the potential to be, though I think it would be a really entertaining challenge to take on.

Florence Nightingale vs Alexander Fleming vs Hippocrates [submitted by Sweg]
This is intriguing, I love that it involves a woman and reaches across large swaths of history. Similar to Galileo vs Sagan vs Armstrong, they may be all on the same side, which can make finding legitimate disagreements more tricky, however I think that the immense scale of time between the characters could help lead to enough differences that the battle can have some depth.

======

HeadMonk offers some further thoughts...

An action hero battle involving Rambo, McClane & Wick is appealing to me but I think I'd go Rambo vs Wick with McClane as the third party. We could try to get Markiplier to guest as John Wick perhaps. Jesse Wellens as Rambo. What's not to like? I can imagine Lloyd as McClane dropping in uninvited saying yippee ki ay mother f*****, and we'd all wind up happy.

I like the idea of Hercules in ERB a lot. As muscle bound characters go I think he'd be my first choice. He offers a lot story wise, his name is deep rooted, I think he's very worthy. And Sun Wukong could be a good choice for opponent. I'm not sure we actually need Kratos involved in this one. [I think I currently prefer Kratos paired vs George S Patton]

Karl Marx deserves to be in ERB one day. But we've been saying that for a while now. There's a whole bunch of viable opponents. I think I've always been fond of Marx vs Robin Hood just to make it whole lot more playful. But, Henry Ford is a strong alternative although I think I'd prefer that as a straight 1vs1 rather than bring Adam Smith in.

I've always been a fan of Galileo vs Armstrong. In a recent live stream Pete acknowledged science based characters have always been a good fit for ERB. So, I am not sure why he seems so reticent against Armstrong. [Thanks Dragon] I will keep quietly supporting Gus Johnson as Neil Armstrong until it happens. It's written in the stars. ;)

An explorer battle of some form or other could be great, and it'd be a sort of sequel to Columbus vs Kirk. It might actually help involving a bunch of characters rather than a 1vs1. So, Polo, Battutu and Erikson are great options. Neil Armstrong could even fit in here. And you have the likes of Ferdinand Magellan, Francis Drake, Zheng He, Roald Amundsen or maybe even the conquistador angle of Hernan Cortez. A lot of options in this field.

It'll be interesting to see how the polling goes on this batch of match-ups cos there are lots of good ideas, chock-full of worthy characters. [Please do remember to vote in the poll that has been uploaded]

======

A brand new round of MakeThisBattle now begins...

The theme this time is... "Medieval Times". We are looking for matchups that feature one or both characters that existed in the medieval era - basically between 500 to 1500 AD.

You can always ignore the theme completely if you prefer. But, when selecting the match-ups for feedback we will select 2 or more suggestions that match the theme.

Same rules apply. Seven match-ups in total will be selected. Three suggestions per person. You can post them in the comments below, email them to erbpatreon@gmail.com or post them on the Discord server in the dedicated '#make-this-battle' channel.

Deadline for submissions is... 5pm PT on Friday 16th April