@CaptainYama:
The blackbeard pirates are the coolest villains i've ever seen in anything, I've been deeply in love with them as antagonists ever since I read Jaya. It's so, so cool to see them shaping up to be these crazy dudes.
And Blackbeard's Pirate Island makes SO much sense. His love of partying is like a dark, twisted version of Shanks or Luffy's, or even Buggy's.
Whole-hardheartedly agree. Nothing in One Piece impresses me more than the slow development of the Blackbeard threat.
From the Drum Island Arc being a direct result of Blackbeard sacking their kingdom
to Ace telling Luffy that he is hunting Blackbeard down
to Luffy and Blackbeard finally meeting each other without knowing who the other one is in a goofy slapstick scene, and the Bellamy pirates acting as almost a red herring to the greater force that is Blackbeard, followed by a bookend scene with Blackbeard where he gives Luffy an encouraging speech that seems to chill Luffy to the bone (my favorite scene in One Piece so far)
and his entire base crew members each getting their own interesting introductions - Van Auger shooting the bird onto Merry; Doc Q offering Luffy apples (and introducing the Blackbeard luck/fate theme); Burgess being the wrestling champion that aaaaalmost lures Luffy and Zoro into a fight; and finally Lafitte crashing one of the earliest between-arc-info-dump-scenes
to Blackbeard creaming Bellamy and revealing his identity before announcing he'll go after to Luffy and juuuuuust missing him
which leads to Blackbeard resorting to fighting Ace (after Ace's hunting Blackbeard cover story - also important) and capturing him
and then becoming a Warlord
who breaks into Impel Down and meets Luffy in a new fully-menacing context
gets a new hardcore crew and baller first mate in Shiryu from a prison break
then shows up at the end of the Paramount War to bump off the strongest man in the world
and cements his status as a new Pirate Emperor
that lives in the house that Jack bui- wait, no.
Just so cool.