For my first collumn, I think I'll center on what is obviously the central part of the FPL: Characters. Over the course of the history of the FPL, some truly great characters have been made. To be honest, many of these characters are easily on par, if not superior, to any established, copyrighted creations. Sure, some people may consider such a statement heresy, but its my honest, educated opinion. I'm going to take you through a tour of the current Character Gallery and through the Hall of Fame and talk a little about a few of the characters that I feel are among the elite of the elite of FPL characters. I won't point out the obvious choices. You won't see Mr. Graves, or Forte, or JOE BIGG GUNNS in this collumn. Instead, I'd rather point out some of the more obscure characters that I feel are just as great as the more popular characters in the FPL, yet haven't quite gotten the same attention.

Easily the best current character in the current FPL lineup is One Million Total, created by Number2. Typically, mysterious "no one knows who he is" characters utterly bomb in the FPL, usually because of their very nature. Most people convey mystery with ambiguity and a lack if knowledge, and thus we just get... nothing. Just a character taking up space in the gallery awaiting a fatality or Godsmack. But with One Million Total, we aren't given the usual speil. Instead, we're given knowledge about minor details and exploits of the character. Nothing concrete, nothing that gives us a proper image of the character, just obscure facts and nuances that convey a great deal about what this character is about, but tell us nothing about who the character truly is. We know the history of his guns and equipment, we know how he can see without eyes, and we know many of his great deeds and many of the names of those who want him dead, buy one question is totally left out: Why? Never once is this question even hinted at being answered. It's that lingering question which will likely never be answered-- that question that in all honesty shouldn't be answered-- that makes him a great character.

Let's call The Girl With Big Guns, created by Austin, one of my personal guilty pleasures. She does have a rather quirky background. Possessing the Big Guns of Athena, she now acts as some sort of Avatar for the now-fallen Goddess. Just the very fact that, well, a Greek goddess opts to creat guns is odd enough in and of itself to garner some attenion, but Austin's style of writing adds to this bizzare mixture. I'm not sure if it'd classify this particular style as some sort of John Woo bedtime story, or a Home Ec book for potential assassins, but the style works out perfectly and makes her far different than your run of the mill gun toting, chaos spreading vigilante. She's easily the best "big gun" character since the original JOE BIGG GUNNS.

I'm bringing up Old Ned of the Hill, created by Darth Maxx, not only because he's a great character, but because of his recent appearance in Darth Maxx's excellent Apocalypse fic. Go read it, puny mortals. Now! Anyways, Ned is probably the best example of the classic archetypical hero. I don't mean Superman or Captain America here, I'm talking about your real old school heroes. Beowulf, Odysseus, Heracles, and other heroes of myth and legend. Good olf fashioned epic heroes. He fits the mold of all great epic heroes: the greatest warrior of his land, utterly flawless save for one hubris, which brings about his ultimate fall at the hands of angered gods. His hubris, though, is unlike that of Odysseus and his great ego, or Achillies with heel. His hubris is devotion to a ruler that has defied the gods. He has chosen where his loyalties lie, and it is with mortality. A far more noble hubris than any other I can think of, and thus a far more tragic fate for Ned. But if you've read the Apocalypse, you know that, as in all tales of heroism, that tragety comes full circle...

Typically, parody characters suck. Seriously, most parody characters are one joke, gimmick characters that loose their appeal a few days after being posted and rightfully get fatalitied or receive their third loss quickly afterwards. That is not the case with Evil Malpractice Hologram, created by ThreeDark. There have been more sucessful parody characters, and there have been a few better parody characters, and because of this, Evil Malpractice Hologram doesn't quite get the respect he deserves. Maybe it has something to do with a slobering fanboy getting obliterated in the bio, or maybe its how his lack of ethics is more than made up for with his Deadly Accuracy, to paraphrase his Marksman descrption. Most likely, though, its just the general twisted yet lighthearted take that the character has on these sorts of characters. Usually such fan characters have that aura of "fanboyism" about the character that does too much to play upon injokes and nuances of the series, and forgets to just have fun in general. Rarely is a parody character made that can be appreciated by people unfamiliar with the series. Evil Malpractice Hologram is the perfect example of such a case.

This list is hardly an exaustive list of my personal favorite obsure characters, but its certainly a good start. Some time in the future, I'll most likely return to this topic and give credit where credit is due yet again.