Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Spaceopoly TRIAD: only for serious mindbending!

all awesome beyond belief?

but seriously...
talented people who have played second fiddle to other talented people?

Second fiddle? Please. There's only one person in this world that I'd ever play second fiddle to...

...and it's a particular facet of her life that's the key to this Triad.

All three associated with longstanding teams of a sort?

Is it something to do with each of your spouses? Are you all married to people who share the same birthday?

It is, indeed, something related to our spouses, though it's not something intrinsic to who they are, but rather something they do.

With regard to my particular wife, as a hint, I will say that I've alluded to this a couple of times on the MMB board in the last year or so.

Your wives are all belly-dancers.

And Eryk's got it!

Yep, following in the footsteps of Mrs. Perez and Mrs. Edge (?), Mrs. Nihil, a former ballroom dance instructor, has branched off into bellydancing over this past year, performing with a group called "Tribe Mayabelles".

The coolest thing - apart from, you know, being married to a bellydancer - is that every time I hear the group name announced, my brain does a quick leap and hears it as, "Tribe Mayavale". You do not want to betray those ladies.

Okay, then:

Mandrake the Magician
The Spirit
Captain Marvel

All three were ripped off by DC, in some manner? Zatara, Midnight, and the 50s lawsuit against Fawcett that led to DC having exclusine use of CM by the70s? Or even the early 70s Captain Thunder variant.

Midnight was actually by Quality, I believe, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a DC clone of the Spirit, since pretty much every other comic company had one.

Not what I was looking for, however.

Did they each have a sidekick which, in retrospect, is viewed as a racial caricature?

I know that Captain Marvel and the Spirit suffer this, but I'm not 100% on Mandrake. (I seem to recall a cartoon in the 80's that teamed Mandrake, the Phantom, Flash Gordon, and a fourth character that I think was African, so I'm thinking that might be an updated version of Mandrake's sidekick)

That's basically what I was going for.

The Spirit was often assisted by Ebony White and Captain Marvel by Steamboat, both of whom fall into the racial caricature category. For the record, I never thought Ebony was that bad, but have been pretty shocked reading some of the Captain Marvel stories recently.

Mandrake's crimefighting companion Lothar was an African prince who spoke in broken English for the first thirty years or so of his existence before being updated in the sixties to modern dress and fluency in the language. And, yeah, he was a main character in Defenders of the Earth.

Defenders of the Earth, yes! What a cool crossover idea. That was actually the first time I'd ever heard of Mandrake.


OK, how about:

Nathan Lane
Louise Lasser and
Matt Frewer

No takers? OK... a hint:

If I had to sub in a different name into this Triad, I'm not sure whether it would be more appropriate to replace one of the above names, or two - the reason being that the only other names I can think of that fit this commonality are a set of twins.

Hmm... this might be harder than I thought.

OK, clue number two... this being the second clue... and not at all a duplicate of the first:

The twins I was referring to in the previous post were Tia and Tamera Mowry.

They... guest starred on the same episode of Saturday Night Live?

I'm guessing that I have the answer after looking up Louise Lasser - a name I was familiar with but had no idea who she was.

They all starred in TV series whose titles were the same word or name or phrase repeated?

The twins starred in Sister Sister
Louise Lasser in Mary Hartman Mary Hartman
Matt Frewer in Doctor Doctor

I'm not actually familiar with the show for Lane, but that's my guess.

Yep, you got it.

The Nathan Lane one was a show that I don't think I ever even saw, called "Encore Encore"

OK, how about...

Stargate Atlantis
The American President
Lost

OK, small hint - the triad has nothing to do with anything external in the production at all. It's to do with something in-story in each movie / tv show.

Hmmm... never seen the first two, so this is just a wild guess:

Do they all have "acronym-ic" organizations associated with them, ala the D.H.A.R.M.A. Initiative?

Was Dharma an acronym? Anyway, no, that wasn't it. The connection had to do with something about characters from each show.

"Department of Heuristics and Research on Material Applications"... the more you know...

Hmm... so, still just blind stabbing here but, howzabout...

Shows with characters who secretly had a shared parentage (like Jack and Claire from Lost)?

Wow - I watched Lost but didn't retain that bit of knowledge (about Dharma).

No, it's not the shared parentage thing.

I'll give quite a big hint, but which still might not be helpful if you've only seen one of the shows / movies.

Matthew Fox in Lost
Michael Douglas in The American President
Joe Flanigan in Stargate Atlantis

Sorry that I'm still just guessing (I always try to get these through clues, not actually trying to look them up) but let's try...

Shows with a lead character that have prominent tattoos?