Chaosmancer's post reminds me that by the time of Tactics, the Freedom Five have a more distant relationship with the government.
With their revealed ties and relationship to FILTER it doesn't surprise me
I've decided I don't hate the name Luminary as much as I did at first, but mostly because I was able to come up with a logo for his oversized hero card that feels right to me. The logo uses the same font and colors as the villain, has a thin line of red along the bottom intimating there's still some evil buried deep down in there, and it has a moon icon behind it in case we forget he's the guy who tried to smash the moon into the Earth. That all helps it feel to me like it's still the same guy, regardless of the new name.
I don't think there's ever been a question of whether there's room in the game for a hero who's only barely a hero. I think we're all down with that. The only question is whether the name "Luminary" feels right for a Baron Blade who's breaking good. It definitely does feel like he's ruining his own branding with such a complete name change, but I like that hero card enough that I think I can live with it now. :)
Believe me, I am fighting the urge to begin a thread about it. The Baron was expeted since the base game, for me (it fits too well his archetype to have a temporary go at beign a "hero") but I feel there are too many heroic villains now 
. But, well, it's the last expansion, let's go crazy !
I really really like what you did with the Name design aspect Spiff. That seems a lot better to my eye than what is on the KS page right now.
Do me a favor and redesign Fuge State Parse next because that text is super bad
Some of the official logos are really great and I would never touch them. Captain Cosmic is a great example. But I 100% agree about Parse (I wasn't a fan of the original Parse's logo either), and it's definitely on my list. I've got some ideas for a few others as well.
If I could get clean art for all the new heroes (art without their text already covering things), I could go to town with the new stuff, but I still don't have art for VotM, so Oblivaeon art is likely still a ways away.
@GtG, if you ever wanted to use any of my logo designs, that'd be fine with me. Just let me know and I can tell you what fonts I used so you can make sure you can use them for commercial products. I just do this for funsies, so there'd be no question of having to pay me or anything.
Here's where my mind went with the whole naming convention thing:
During the OblivAeon crisis, the heroes receive some much needed support from someone just calling themselves, "The Luminary". This help proves integral in buying the heroes the time they need to regroup and form a plan of attack. When Luminary finally shows himself, it is of course, none other than Baron Blade. Blade professes a desire to leave a legacy of his own, and a distaste for anyone else killing Parsons. Legacy doesn't trust this newfound heroism of Ivan's, but he appears sincere, at least in his hate. The other heroes choose not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Luminary joins the side of the angels and after a time, is instrumental in giving them even a ghost of a chance against OblivAeon. Eventually, even Legacy comes to trust Luminary as they launch their final combined effort against the Great Destroyer. The battle is brutal and not without it's casualties. When it comes time to deal the final blow to the seemingly godlike being, OblivAeon launches a fierce countermeasure against Legacy and Beacon. At that moment, Luminary interposes himself in between the two forces and seemingly disintergrating into nothingness.
Reeling, Paul Parsons galvanizes the heroes into a final push against OblivAeon. The combined might of the Freedom Five, the Prime Wardens, the Darkwatch, the Southwest Sentinels and heroes from all over the world deal a mortal blow to the invader. A blinding light erupts from the center of OblivAeon's chest and the heroes race away from the ensuing Earth-shattering explosion of energy. OblivAeon is no more. Nothing remains of where he once stood. Nothing except a small blinking device.
OblivAeon was a being of immense power. The amount of energy such a being could produce would be stronger than any force we could imagine. Stronger than the moon that gives us the tides. Stronger than the luminous sun. If someone could harness that energy they would become more than a man - more than a title. They would become...
THE EMPYREAL BLADE!
Spiff, that logo is tremendous. It made me realize that he should probably have a slight name change, too: Lune-inary!
… Daughter? His daughter is not involved in this, at all. The female Luminary is HIM, just genderswapped. I don't know why people keep assuming she's his daughter!
Probably an assumed symmetry with Legacy and Young Legacy? Plus Blade looks plder than Luminary. Probably from the beard.
I'm not assuming anything, just stating what I think makes more sense to me as a storyline that encompasses having Luminary as a hero in a regular battle.
Regardless, I can’t wait for the Mad Bombshell variant (of the variant).
EDIT: That would give Blade a regular card, promo lady version, and WWII version just like Legacy!
... do we have a Baron Blade I promo?
Fyodor Ramonat and his Zeppelins/Robot soldiers of Doom?
Too awesome for a promo. He deserves a full deck, and a cool environment to go with it.
I always saw Baron Blade as a Dr. Doom Charater. Having Super science, a country and an army.
Lumanary is probably just phase for him, Big bad comes down, my country is in trouble (he magicly cares now, forget about that moon thing), Might as well be a hero to my people. (I like the whole WW2 story someone posted) going to join the heroes to beat a big bad.
He did Science to Sky-scaper that is risky, stuff that Tachy will not do. I doubt he has a moral compas. Who know what other things he have done "for the greater good*" Lumanary will be good for as long as the story needs him to be, then be bad there after. I mean Lex Luthor does that time to time.
*Good form his point of view.*
Also any of the Villian that are human can totaly help. Wraith is just a human, why can Ermine go steal something important. I will remind you that Hawkeye saved the world many time because he was human. See example. He also did something with thanos when he had the infinty gantlet that let Adam win. Classic comic book troope. So us human can relate to the "non Powered ones" and cheer for humany's power.
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/01/10/a-year-of-cool-comic-book-moments-day-10/
Promo Luminary is a Heroic Female Baron Blade form a differnt multiverse. Please lets not forget that, I Think it rocks. I want my gender bended Chrono ranger Please.
Sure, but Doom and Lex don't take on new identities for those five minutes of teaming up.
(Although, really, I'm not even sold on that much for Blade - what we've seen of him so far is much more the cackling silver age Lex than the scheming businessman who aided the Justice League in Destroyer. Ah, well - I've been wanting a dedicated mad science deck, so this will still be all to the good.)
I kinda feel like this about some of the others, too - Harpy is a bona fide hero, sure, Benchmark, Lifeline and maybe La Comodora, but Bluminary, Thriya and Stuntman are all totally villains who are going to go back to being total villains as soon as all this blows over. Having them as heroes irks me somewhat, and I'd much prefer to see Ivana and parallel Stuntman as the base characters for just that reason.
This is also why I'm so vociferously against having an Ennead hero deck, as some have suggested. At least the others presumably had a few issues or maybe a mini-series in which to be heroic - the Ennead had about two minutes between 'heroes' and 'dead'.
I'm not bothered by these temporary heroes becoming villains again after the crisis is over. More that they never stopped being villains, they just acted in their own best interests to save the multiverse from annihilation.
I still have issues with Luminary/Baron Blade being okay with causing extinction level events but wanting to stop Oblivaeon. I know people are like "He wants to be the one to do it" but it just makes his face turn a stretch to accept. How nihilistic do you have to be to attempt to wipe out humanity, and how narcissistic do you have to be to insist that only you get to do it?
I mean I'll ultimately be fine with it overall because hey, a hero deck, and I love hero decks and I don't have issues with the name or the logo.
Lifeline is the same person he was before. He hasn't changed his viewpoint, just his operational objectives.