Remember those triplets you imagined dating all at the same time, and how awesome that was? Or how about that triple-scoop sundae at the ice cream shop -- awesome, right? Good things come in threes, my friends, which makes this announcement even more fantastic:

Friday Night Fights 3 has arrived!

That's right, the time has come again for an all-out, knock-down, drag-out fight pitting your creativity directly against other HeroMachine faithful in a week-to-week slugfest.

Here's how it works.

You have two weeks to come up with five HeroMachine creations. Starting on Friday, September 23, I will post all of the "Play In" entries in one big cage-match poll. On Friday, September 30, the top 16 vote getters will face off in a series of head-to-head matchups in traditional tournament bracket fashion. On Friday, November October 7, the eight winners of each bracket will face off in another round of head-to-head matchups, and so on until we have one overall winner.

Everyone has a shot at getting into the tournament. Who actually does will be decided by the community at large, removing me as the gatekeeper.

Which brings us to the subject of "Theme". Your challenge in this Friday Night Fights is simple:

Create a Classic Five-Member Super Team With Unified Costume Designs

The concept here is that you're assembling a super team long the lines of the original "X-Men" or the "Domino Dynamo Five", but who should share some sort of identifying team identity. Maybe they all have the same colors, or share a logo on the belt or chest, or have some sort of common fashion design like a high collar. Something so that when you look at them in a group, you can clearly tell they're all on a team and not just super-powered people who happened to be caught standing next to each other.

In terms of the team members, they should fit into the following five broad character archetypes, all of which must be present on your team. I'll use the X-Men as examples.

1. Gadgeteer (Forge, for example);
2. Martial Artist (Beast, for example);
3. Energy Blaster (Cyclops or Gambit, for example);
4. Mentalist (Jean Grey or Professor X, for example);
5. Brick (Colossus, for example).

That's also the order the contest will go in -- Gadgeteer is the play-in round entrant, followed in order by the rest, one per week.

Here are the rules:

• By the close of business on Thursday, September 22, you must provide to me via email (afdstudios@gmail.com) five character images created via HeroMachine 3, that meet the following criteria. Note that your entry must include all five characters; incomplete character sets will be disqualified and will not be eligible for entry later on.
  1. Characters must include a Gadgeteer; a Martial Artist; an Energy Blaster; a Mentalist; and a Brick;
  2. Images must be in JPG or PNG format;
  3. No outside manipulation by any image editor other than HeroMachine 3 except for basic cropping;
  4. Each submission must also include a brief description of the team name and concept the characters appear in, and a brief bio of each character.
  5. Please name the files with yourname-archetype-charactername.jpg/png. For example, Kaldath's Brick might be "kaldath-brick-Basalt.png". That just helps ensure that I get the right characters in the right week for the right person.
• On Friday, September 23, all qualified entries of the Gadgeteer archetype will be posted on HeroMachine.com in a single poll.
• On Friday, September 30, the top 16 vote-getters in the Gadgeteer poll will face off in a series of head-to-head match-ups featuring the Martial Artist entries, with the #1 vote getter being matched against the #16 vote getter, #2 going against #15, and so on.
• On Friday, November October 7, the eight winners of each Martial Artist contest will again face off in a series of head-to-head match-ups, this time featuring their Energy Blaster entries. Brackets will not be re-seeded at this time; we're going with a traditional bracket set-up this time around.

  The eight entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Energy Blaster entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.

• On Friday, November October 14, the four winners of each Energy Blaster match-up will face off again in a series of head-to-head contests, this time featuring their Mentalist entries. Brackets will again be re-seeded according to overall vote totals from the previous week.

  The twelve entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Mentalist entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.

• Finally, on Friday, November October 21, the last two contestants standing will clash with their Brick characters, with the top vote getting as of Friday, November October 28 being the overall victor, joining the previous FNF winners Kaldath and Imp in the Ring of Honor, and receiving a custom color character sketch of whatever they like (within reason!) by Jeff Hebert. The runner-up will receive a custom black and white character sketch.

  The fourteen entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Brick entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.

Hopefully that makes sense. To clarify a bit, here is the bracket, along with each week's character (not including the "Gadgeteer" play-in round):

If you have questions, please speak up in the comments. And good luck!

(Image ©Marvel Comics.)