The Looter AKA Meteor Man

Posted by GenghisDon 
The Looter AKA Meteor Man
July 09, 2019 08:32AM
OK, from a poster having issues with how spidey beats this guy, I come to the stats here:
[classicmarvelforever.com]
and have to say...no

Great site, great stuff, and everyone has their own takes & the game makers certainly do not get it right all the time either. No worries. Still, he is obscure enough to look over all his actual comics (or most), and as chance has it...I read the majority growing up.

The BG from the link suffices well, lets look at Norton Fester, AKA The Looter, AKA Meteor Man (then back to "The Looter")

1966: The amazing spider-man 36 by Ditko & Lee (I read this one out of order, as a Marvel Tales reprint back in the day). Norton is mocked by the writers right from the start (a trend that will continue), but he clearly HAS more than enough brains & evidenced by his actions, and gadgets/weapons he makes. He is cooky, crazy or weird, but there is some ability in that noggin. His strength is impressive, but in truth, I see nothing to indicate it is greater than Spidey's, especially when one recalls how Pete holds back; and Norton clearly is not. Ditto for the leaping...he is superhuman, but he's not doing more than spider-man (less in fact) & if spidey's str covers him, then so would the Looter's (alternatively, if you ARE giving spider-man super leap powers, by all means, give the Looter that too, probably one rank less). I'd say I see no evidence of super agility/reflexes/speed, etc, but there is clear evidence of some extraordinary ability in athletics with little to no expectation of prior ability, so I'm giving some. He holds his own vs spidey pretty well, though his own thoughts reveal he cannot match the webslinger's battle skills. Zero evidence of invulnerability, but aside from the enhanced durability his strength is assumed to provide, his costume is a bit bulky, the "mask" could be a helmet of sorts...and he makes gear. He doesn't get stopped by guns, though we see nothing much on that. I'd assume he has made an "armored costume" of sorts, probably of sports equipment, bullet proof vest, etc. That's a speculation, but one that a) suits the character we are shown/presented with and b) would be pretty important. Popularity is always a guessing game, but he robs a bank, then goes on a one man crime spree, taking vaults, armored trucks, etc, & spidey comes looking for him. -10 maybe seems fine, right out of the gate. On resources, well, he has some sort of lab, but cannot afford to do his work, and cannot get any loans. He does score numerous robberies though, as noted, so he'd have bursts of $. talents: well, he clearly makes gadgets. he has some physics ability, though he seems more a weird/fringe science crank, and the meteor obsession only grows after his origin to me. Contacts: he clearly knows some scientists, in game terms he'd have just failed his contact/popularity rolls for resources.

OK, lets stat him

THE LOOTER (Norton Fester)
Fighting: Typical (6)
Agility: Remarkable (30)
Strength: Incredible (40)
Endurance: Incredible (40)
Reason: Excellent (20)
Intuition: Poor (4)
Psyche: Poor (4)

Health: 116
Karma: 28
Resources: poor (4)
Popularity: -10

Special equipment
Armored costume: provides typical(6) body armor
Balloon backpack: levitation (fly upwards only) 3 areas/round (feeble air speed?) with a typical weight limit (as Norton is), subject to wind & air currents.
Dazzle-gun: blinding light flash vs those in one area; use the Stun chart to determine blinding duration (white d10 rounds, green 1 round, yellow or red no effect).

Talents: Physics, Repair/Tinker, Trivia: fringe science

Contacts: Scientist

OK, last notes
Balloons & weight: Increased weights, slow, stop, or even reverse rate. A bit to work out there, but I'll only come back to this if anyone wants me too...I'd think good wt, ie 2 people, reducing to 1 area/r, and so forth. AS-M 36 spidey & he battle in the air
Blinding flashes: How one handles closing their eyes (agility), knowing what the weapon is (experience or reason), or guessing the danger/timing (intuition) for such types of attacks I leave to the GMs to think about (as I do!)

OK, now we get to the probable problem area, the appearances that might lead one to consider him much more potent. Marvel Team Up # 33 & 34, by Gerry Conway. 1972. Norton is WAY more formidable here than he ever is elsewhere/when; he's similar, though more vicious & yet more passive/crazy/out to lunch to begin as well. Nighthawk is handily beaten & spidey across both issues is really on the back foot vs the now "Meteor man". I'd still not say he is stronger than spidey (at least not in rank terms, lizard & scorpion were "stronger" than him too...10 tons vs 12 tons & 15 tons), but he is way more agile & frankly, spidey can almost never avoid his blows, even surprise attacks/ambushes (spider sense or not). There is something weird here, in social commentary context, to the combat, and so on. Still, I'd not dismiss Conway, but in the scope of things, this is really an odd man out in the terms of power levels for MM; although not as extreme as some makeovers have been. At the end, Valkyrie pops his balloon & he takes a big fall (impact crater, comic book style). He is not killed, but taking Val's guess Norton is partially invulnerable is a big leap...she doesn't know humans, Norton, etc all that well at all. Still, we have game terms...max fall rate 20 areas/round & concrete is 80 health damage (or less). He doesn't need high body armor to be put in the hospital for a month (months plural despite Val's initial guess as it turned out). Characters with high body armor would just get up/walk away, or else be stunned (Colossus, Thing, She Hulk, Rogue, etc).

METEOR MAN (Norton Fester)
Fighting: Remarkable (30)
Agility: Incredible (40)
Strength: Incredible (40)
Endurance: Incredible (40)
Reason: Excellent (20)
Intuition: Poor (4)
Psyche: Poor (4)

Health: 150
Karma: 28
Resources: poor (4)
Popularity: -5

talents, powers/gear: same as above. science contact is gone.

notes: he's been in jail, pop reduced. If you want, go ahead & give him good rank body armor as an innate power, but he doesn't need it IMHO. Still, the above still doesn't quite cover his spidey "domination"; one might go with amazing agility &/or incredible (45) in Str &/or End...but that's gotta be it. Spidey was also in a bad place, far from at his best per the time/story. Shrug.

First & only time he would be like this anyway.

Now we move onto other appearances:
Peter Parker: the Spectacular Spider-man # 41 (1976): Tom Deflaco
Norton does quite well, turning around an ambush from spidey & then giant man (Foster) coming into the fray & then escaping. Perhaps it was a bit of influence from marvel team up, maybe not.
The key to note after that though is a new backpack microwave enhancer gadget Norton cooks up (SM:" Fester, the danger!" MM: "Negligible!My basic designs were stolen from an old copy of popular mechanics.")tongue sticking out smiley...crackpot cred is back in full effect...but it DOES make him more powerful, and he gets bigger, and bigger...and of course it/he eventually blow up. Dead as doornail, but no body or the like, so he must have spent Karma for "mysterious death", as eventually he comes back...

I'm going back to the first stat block, but :
power booster (microwave based): Growth at +1 CS per round, adds to str
R1 feeble 8' str 41 +1 cs to BE hit
R2 poor 10' str 43
R3 typical 12' str 45
R4 good 14' str 48
R5 excellent 16' str 56
R6 remarkable 18' str 66 +2 CS to BE hit
R7 incredible 20' str 76
R8 amazing 22' str 86
R9 monstrous 25' str 103 +3 CS to BE hit
R10 unearthly 30' str 126 (capped)
R11 shift X 40' str 126
R12 shift Y 50' str 126
R13 boom (monstrous 87 damage to all in one area)

contacts: none

We see Norton again only in Web of Spider-man 39, 1985, Fabian Nicea. He's a homeless alcoholic here. He survived somehow, but is obviously not well (if he ever was right in the head). His powers never did fade (he was worried about that right from his first appearance), though he is more in line with the non marvel team up appearances. The art shows the costume as mere (filthy) cloth, but whatever. It's been decades. He is pathetic, yet formidable & powerful still, but after he goes after Aunt May & other seniors directly, Pete just beats him up, such that Norton begs to surrender. Remember the holding back notion from my start? Yeah.

Lets be charitable, he's got the same stats as entry one, but lacks all his gadgets/weapons. One might even strip him of some, but nah.

This is running way long, so I'm going to wrap this up.

One can note a "superior" looter gets broken by superior spider-man (Doc Ock in spiderman's body) in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #11

He comes up with a few other weapons, and at one point, used various other villain's tech: Shocker, Stilt-man, the Mauler Armor, etc
Re: The Looter AKA Meteor Man
August 28, 2019 07:58PM
avatar
Thanks for the write up. Not sure if i recall him, but I can look thru the treasure trove and see!!
 
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