Marvel vs DC: Chess

[Tomato]

So long story short, I've been struggling the last few months to find gifts for my family, and admittedly my luck in coming up with something pre-christmas was kinda eh. I got passable gifts, but nothing exciting.

Well, I just got a brilliant one for my dad. For those who aren't aware, my dad is the man who got me into comics in the first place: I wouldn't be the nerd I am without him. That said, he's also a big chess player... something I unfortunately don't have the same knack for.

As some of you know, I've been playing around with 3d printing. It wouldn't be all that hard to take some of our ff models, make some changes and bases, and print them as chess pieces. And what better characters to choose then those we both love... the heroes of Marvel and DC.

That said, I'm not a huge chess person, and I want to make sure the characters I choose for both sides are not only Iconic, but also work as the pieces I choose.

[Tomato]

Spoiler

Wanted to play around with things, get a feel for what I wanted to do. That's a mesh-smoothed version of Renegade's model, and I built a custom displacement map using C6's standard skin. I'll be adding a base as well, but I need to design it first.

[detourne_me]

I'm guessing:
Dc:
King - Superman
Queen - Wonder Woman
Bishop - Batman
Knight - Green Lantern
Rook - Flash
Pawns -DC Bullet? Or checkmate soldiers

Marvel:
King - Captain America
Queen - Ms. Marvel
Bishop - Spider-Man
Knight - Iron Man
Rook - Hulk
Pawn - Marvel logo or SHIELD Agents

This is a great idea Tomato!

[Tomato]

I was thinking of making it a bit more expansive... I'm looking for a full range of characters, not 8 of the same pawn or 2 of the same rook. I've got until September, so I have time to devote to each piece.

The question is, who do I go with? I figure the main 7 JLA + Cyborg cover the 8 back pieces on the DC end, and the Avengers cover theirs(Movie avengers+ a few others), but who should the pawns be? Sidekicks? More JLA/Avengers? X-men?

My thought process, currently, is as follows:

DC:
King:Batman - I'm really debating this. I want to make him black square knight, because "Dark Knight", but tactically he makes more sense as the King. He's not super powered, but he's the tactical leader of the JL. If you're trying to take down DC's heroes, he's the one you need to take out to do it.

Queen:Superman - All jokes about my using male characters as "female" pieces aside, the queen is piece that has the greatest range of movement, and the one that is the most damaging offensively.

Bishop:Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern -  The bishop is a piece with a certain amount of versatility, capable of moving diagonally across the board and through spaces the other pieces can't.

Rook:Wonder Woman and Flash - The rook is probably the most straightforward pieces on the board. Forward/Back, Left/Right. It covers a great amount of distance quickly, it strikes the enemy that's directly in its path, and it can quickly retreat back across the board for another attack.

Knight:Aquaman and Cyborg - While the knight may not have speed or range of the Bishop, Rook, or the Queen, the fact that it can basically jump right over every other pieces make the Knight one of the best tactically offensive pieces on the board.

Pawns: ???

Marvel:
King: Captain America

Queen:Thor

Bishop: Iron man and Spiderman

Rook: Hulk and Wolverine

Knight: Black Widow and Hawkeye

Pawns: ???

Also, another WIP of Superman. Because.

Spoiler

My rough idea for right now is that the company logo would be on the bottom (and before anyone says anything, yes, I know DC's got a new logo. But it's stupid looking, and there's no easy way to mesh it) and a graphic indicating the type of piece would be on the top. I may forgo the latter however, because it allows my dad to change things up if he disagree with the choices of piece placement.

I've got a second style of base (it's about half the height, allowing the back pieces to stand slightly taller) set aside for pawns as well.

[Cyber Burn]

I'm not a chess guy, but this is a great idea for a gift for a comic fan.

[Panther_Gunn]

A very interesting idea, and open to so many interpretations.  If you're willing to demote Vic down to pawn status, you could easily fill out the pawns with the "New" Teen Titans (Nightwing, Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash, Raven, Starfire, Changeling).  His position as Knight could easily be filled in with other JLA'ers, such as Green Arrow, Firestorm, Red Tornado, Black Canary, or Zatana.  If it were me, and I had the extra cash to throw at it, Hawkman & Hawkgirl could easily be added as subs for rooks.  I also feel like there should be some way to incorporate Atom, Ralph, and Phantom Stranger, as well as any of the others above that didn't take Vic's place.  Checkmate soldiers for pawns also isn't a bad idea, and if you didn't want to do them all the same, they could be combinations of different poses, ranks, and weaponry.

For Marvel, I'm just so tempted to say use Bishop for one of the bishops, but that's a bit obvious.  Pawns could easily be filled in from the ranks of the X-Men or New Mutants.  I also like the idea of Shield agents, again in different poses, different ranks, and different weaponry.  It's too bad there's not a way to fit the FF in there.

Depending on how much money you wanted to throw at this, you could consider redesigning the base to allow for a position indicator ring/base to snap onto the bottom (a simple ring, with the position/rank imprinted on front & back, or you could go fancy and denote the rank by the shape/design itself), to allow for modifying the line-up.  If you made the pawn  base expandable, then whatever characters you use for them could be used as the main pieces, and then perhaps the Checkmate/Shield option could be employed for pawns.

For line-ups and costumes, might I suggest silver/bronze age?  It might have more of an impact for him if he can immediately connect to it by them being representations of when he was either heaviest into reading/collecting or when he first started.  In that case, I would swap out the rooks on the Marvel side with Quicksilver and one of Hank Pym's incarnations.  Perhaps replace Black Widow with, of course, the Black Knight.  That would then make Spidey out of place, and I'm not sure who to replace him with; perhaps Scarlet Witch, but that somehow feels unbalanced.

And just to throw it out there, back on detourne's idea, it would be easy to do different incarnations for the bishops, knights, and rooks, as they've all had plenty to choose from.

That said, I like the idea of having the logo sculpted into the base, but as long as you're sticking with iconic characters, it may not be a necessary step, in case you're looking to cut something to save costs.