The NHL Guardian Project

[Ran]

This was announced back in October. For some reason, the NHL decided to let Stan Lee create for each of the 30 NHL teams. They've been releasing images of them for the past month. There is supposed to be an actual premier of them in action during the 2nd period intermission of the All-Star game on Sunday. It is pissing off a lot of hockey fans.

It looks like they basically ripped off existing superheros & comic book characters and put hockey logos on them. The Oilers are a straight copy of the Juggernaut. The Penguins hero is Cyclops in gold and black. Montreal's hero is Iron Man's body with Cobra Commander's head. This link shows comparison pictures of the guardian and the comic book character it was copied from.

Here is their official page. http://www.versus.com/tagged/the-nhl-guardians/1/blogs

Just out of curiosity, how isn't this some sort of copyright infringement?

[Diabolical]

I've only bothered to look at a couple. I gave up when I saw the Red Wing and it looked like a Transformer with a Speed Racer helmet.
They all suck, but coming from Stan Lee, who hasn't created anything decent since the 60s, I'm not surprised they're all derivative/blatant rip-offs.
Considering the guy is pushing 90, I'm shocked he's still alive.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'll play a little devil's advocate. Although some of them are blatant ripoffs like the Black Panther, many of them are just archetypes. I mean really, a guy with wings on his back? I think that one goes back father than an X-Man from the 60's. And let's face it, there are only so many different combinations of costume styles you can throw together before they all start looking derivative. Thowing a cape/pauldron/armor/shinguard/helmet on somebody and its going to evoke SOME other already created character. I mean look at any character DC or Marvel has created in the last 20 years and you can do the same thing this guy is doing.

I'd wager coming up with 32 wholly original characters for the NHL would be and is physically impossible.

[anarky]

They all suck, but coming from Stan Lee, who hasn't created anything decent since the 60s....

Ravage 2099 was actually quite good for the three or four issues that Stan Lee wrote. Course, that was still almost twenty years back at this point.

[Ran]

So I watched the game (which was being held in Carolina). When the 2nd intermission came around, they aired the "cartoon". Some bad guy appeared on the scoreboard saying things in a menacing manor. They pan to outside the arena. It was weird looking mix of cgi and real video. The guardians approached the building. The one I found funny was the Islanders guardian. He had a grappling hook and pulled himself on the roof, but he was also wearing a jet pack. Anyway, the guardians made it into the building and the bad guy made them fall through the ice, trapping them. He started bragging about how easy it was. Then the Hurricane (hometown hero) appeared and did something to free the other 29. The whole thing couldn't have been more than 5 minutes. Five very painful and embarrassing minutes.