Have A Happy Holy Day

Well, the season is upon us once again.

I've got no objections to that.

I just want to wish everyone a (belated) Happy Hanukkah, a slightly belated Slammin' Solstice and Cool Yule (they were yesterday), a slightly early Merry Christmas and Triumphant Sol Invictus (they both fall on December 25), a Super Saturnalia (it started on the 17th and ends tomorrow), a Good Kwanzaa (starts December 26), and a Blessed Boxing Day (December 26).

Tell me what I missed.

In Memoriam to Grandma W.

My maternal grandmother died recently. I'm going to miss her.

She had flaws and imperfections. I do not want to ignore that entirely.

I think her grandkids had a significantly different experience of her than her own children. To us, she was loving and attentive and probably sober.

One of my good memories, was that she was in a way my first employer. She had a paper route and hired me as her assistant. It was a rural route covering several miles of dirt roads, delivering a free weekly paper. She did the actual driving, and I folded and bagged the papers and put them in the tubes.

In a way, she was what I wanted in a boss. She didn't micromanage and she didn't intrude on my thoughts with a lot of empty chatter.

On the other hand, she didn't wait to make sure my arm was back inside the van before driving to the next house.

Anarchon- another Champions character sheet

This is kind of a placeholder post. I am working on something serious and with a bit of depth, but it's not finished yet. My maternal grandmother died a two days ago, and I am writing something to memorialize her. It's not done yet.


In the meantime, here's this, my second try at creating a Champions character:

Costumed Name: Anarchon
Real Name: Mikail Goldman
STR: 14 DEX: 20 CON: 15 BODY: 15
INT: 16 EGO: 13 PRE: 12 COM: 8
PD: 4 ED: 4 SPD: 3 REC: 6
END: 40 STUN: 42

POWERS (& Skills, they don't seem to have their own space on the character sheet):
Acrobatics, roll of 15 or less (14 Points)
Find Weakness, roll of 12 or less (15 Points)
Martial Arts, two extra *1/2 multiples (28 Points)
Climbing, roll of 14 or less (9 Points)
Stealth, roll of 13 or less (5 Points)

Shield: Armor Power for 9 PD, 3 ED, Obvious Inaccessible Focus, Unbreakable, Universal Applicability, Miscellaneous Limitation- Only Protects Anarchon's front and left flank. (10 Points)
Shield: 6D6 Energy Blast against Physical Defense, Obvious Accessible Focus, unbreakable, universal, Reduced Endurance cost twice (now takes 1 END) (30 Points)

Armor: Armor 3 PD, 3 ED, Obvious Inaccessible Focus, breakable, universal (7 Points)

Gun: 4D6 Ranged Killing Attack, OAF, breakable, universal, Charges: 6 (22 Points)
Knife: 1D6 Physical Hand-toHand Killing Attack, OAF, breakable, universal (7 Points)


CHARACTER DISADVANTAGES:
Hunted By NSA, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Hunted By FBI, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Hunted By Michigan staties, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Full time (comes up on 11 or less) (13 Points)
Goes Berserk (on a 14 or less) when the following words are mentioned: government, politics, political, party (in the political sense), Republican, Democrat, capitalism, mayor, governor, senator, representative, judge, cop, gendarme, police, bill (in the legislative sense), capitol, conservative, liberal, right wing, left wing, president, law (Common trigger); recovers on 8 or less. (30 Points)
Public Identity (10 Points)
Psychological Limitation- Hates Parking Meters, Very Common, will take Irrational Actions (such as attacking parking meters in preference to living foes that are actually trying to hurt him) (20 Points)
2 Dice of Unluck (10 Points)


Backstory, such as it is: Mikail Goldman grew up reading comics. At one time his favorites were the patriotic heroes, like Nazi Smasher and Yankee Commando.

Somewhere, his viewpoint began to change. He saw the people of America as wonderful and beautiful and worth fighting for, but the Nation/Government itself as an evil to fight. He started small: jaywalking and never putting coins in the parking meters.

One parking ticket too many put him over the edge. He decided to become a costumed vigilante dedicated to fighting the power and aiding the little guy. He wears a lightly armored costume and carries a shield that he sometimes throws.

He is on the run from the law. So far his worst crimes are Attempted Murder and Assault With a Deadly Weapon, along with a lot of vandalism and destruction of public property (his favorite targets for property crimes are parking meters).

The first Champions character I ever tried to build

Costumed Name: Brick Breaker (named before I read the sample characters and saw Brick)
Real Name: William Wallace Standard
STR: 38 DEX: 13 CON: 25 BODY: 21
INT: 6 EGO: 12 PRE: 12 COM: 2
PD: 8 ED: 4 SPD: 2 REC: 12
END: 76 STUN:60

POWERS:
Instant Change (5 Points)
Density Increase started at 40 Points for +20 STR, +20 CON, +4 Body, +12 PD, +12 ED, -4" Knockback; Reduced END cost to 0, which made it 80 Points; thinking about it a little more: added a couple limitations: Only In Hero Form, and Only While Berserk, which I figure cut it back down to 40 Points again.

CHARACTER DISADVANTAGES:
Hunted By United States Army, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Unusual Looks (people react poorly on 14 or less) (15 Points)
Goes Berserk (on a 14 or less) when attacked; recovers on 8 or less. (25 Points)
Goes Berserk (on 11 or less) when made fun of; recovers on 11 or less. (15 Points)
Public Identity (10 Points)

(Brick Breaker currently has a surplus of Points, will reballance later; In fact, will probably rework from the ground up later as system knowledge and willingness to make judgment calls increases)

Backstory, such as it is: Dr. W. W. Standard was a promising bioengineer, hired by the United States Military to run one of those biological weapons research programs we like to claim we don't have. Through an act of sabotage, he was exposed to his own germ bomb. He mutated into a hideous creature and smashed up his lab.

Now he's on the run from his former employers, allegedly because of the danger Brick Breaker poses to the public. It's simply a fringe benefit that General "Earthquake" Jefferson will have some measure of personal satisfaction in obtaining revenge on Standard.

Le Mot Juste Sparkly as a Drag Queen on Ecsasy

The French have an expression: "Le mot juste" a fairly literal translation would be: the right word. It means more than that, though. It implies a certain perfection of phrasing that is almost sublime. It encapsulates the idea better than any other wording could.

I am not certain this is an example or not, but the two ideas have gotten intertwined in my brain. Some words and phrases stick in my mind. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." "Now is the winter of our discontent..." "Alas my love you do me wrong..." "Once upon a midnight dreary..." "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"

I was at a meeting of Ways of the Earth, a religiously-oriented student organization at a local university. I was no longer a student, but this was a group worth making the commute once a week just to hang with.

One of the other students at the meeting was a twenty-something female who was into belly dance. She had along a costume she was hand-sewing sequins onto. She mentioned that she had an upcoming performance with her belly dance troupe that the costume had to be ready for. Then she uttered the following words: "This thing has to be sparkly. I mean really sparkly. Sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy, sparkly."

That phrase "sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy" burrowed into my brain there.

Now, when, let's say I look at a display of Christmas lights and tinsel and other sparkly things my internal monologue goes: "Ooh shiny! In fact, it's not just shiny; it's sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy."

Mnemonics and Pluto

I was thinking the other day.

Everything I remember from science classes is because of mnemonic devices. Unfortunately there is no mnemonic for remembering how to spell mnemonic. Until I googled it, my initial impulse was to spell it with a p as the first letter.

Anyways, most of what I remember from science classes is because of a mnemonic.

The spectrum of visible light: ROY G. BIV for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo, and Violet.

Taxonomic classification order: Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.

The Nine planets of our home solar system: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pumpkins for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.

Unfortunately Pluto no longer counts as a full-fledged planet, but has been demoted to minor planet. This rather spoils the mnemonic. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine is a sentence fragment.

So, Why Don't Bus Boys Get All The Girls

Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright): If this girl I'm seeing comes here, and she might, I wouldn't mind of you told her I was the kind of boy that does the dishes.
Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta, with a tone of derison and sarcasm here): Yeah, bus boys get all the chicks.
-The Simpsons, episode entitled "The Good, The Sad and The Drugly" written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Rob Oliver


So, as the above quote indicates, telling a girl you're a bus boy is not the best opening line. I am somewhat puzzled about the why of it. Being a bus boy, among other things, by trade myself, I think there's a good case to be made for bus boys.

Males and females are mysteries to each other. At least that's the gist of the vibe I get from books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, He's Just Not That Into You, and Bridget Jones's Diary. Part of it is until humans perfect telepathy, everyone is a mystery to everyone else. While an individual might get lost in thought from time to time, really foreign territory is someone else's brain. This foreignness increases exponentially when crossing gender lines, though.

So because we are alien to each other, males and females, who attempt to make the effort towards some form of heterosexual romantic relationship, have some complaints. Two complaints I have heard females make of males are:

1) He's not very domestically inclined; he's no help around the house; he never cleans up after himself.
and
2) He's got some BS macho attitude about being head of the household, the one in charge, etc. and so on, simply because he's got the Y Chromosome and higher levels of testosterone.

Here's where bus boys might be an improvement:
1) If you are a true bus boy and it has taken root in your soul, you will feel a natural inclination to try and pick up after yourself a bit because dirty dishes left on the table are WRONG in much the same way that a Christian would find a Satanic shrine WRONG.
and
2) Maybe it's different other places, but where I bus tables, most of my bosses are women. While, I think I've always been more or less a feminist, low on macho BS to begin with, following the orders and instructions of so many females has killed what little I had left. I am ready, willing and eager to accept a female as my equal or superior. If other bus boys are similar, then that's a second point in our favor.

So if bus boys might represent a slight improvement over the average male, why aren't they the most sought after mates on the planet? Or at least in the industrialized Western countries where bus boys exist... I have two somewhat inter-related hypotheses:
1) Money
and
2) Social status

Money, I'll try to be concise about. Bus boying alone will never get you rich. In the whole game of dating, mating, and relating, having some disposable income at your disposal is a help.

As for social status, that's almost another essay. A while back I read a book called Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies? It's one of those books of random facts that might be interesting. The whole book was sort of themed around sexuality and the whole weird mating dance that humans have built for themselves. I have since sold my actual physical copy of the book, so I am going from memory here, but this was a pretty memorable bit.

The book is presented in a sort of question and answer format. One question was something along the lines of, "why do women go for jerks?". The answer came from emerging scientific research. Among lower types of social mammals, like wolves and chimpanzees, females try to mate with a high status, as close as possible to the pack alpha, male. This ensures good genes for resultant offspring. Then the female will seek a lower status male to actually try to take care of her and her offspring.

There is no reason to believe these instincts and behavior patterns have entirely disappeared in humans. Now among humans, the type of aggressive behavior that allows one to rise to alpha status often comes off as jerky behavior.

Getting back to bus boys, we are almost certainly not the alpha of our local pack. We might not be the omega wolf, pushed to the fringes of the pack and forced to beg for scraps, either. The point remains that we are the guy approaching the alpha and asking if we can take away his salad plate so there will be room on the table for the main course.

Review of Rampaging Hulk Issue number 1

Rampaging Hulk #1 Review


What is it? A comic book. Indicia gives a date of August 1998. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior, color throughout. Pages have no visible numbering. Contains a long lead feature and a short back-up. Gleen Greenberg wrote both stories. Rick Leonardi did the pencils on the lead, while While Denys Cowan did the back-up. Dan Green inked the lead feature, and Tom Palmer inked the back-up. Tom Smith was the colorist on the whole book, while Bill Oakley lettered both stories. Jaye Gardner was the editor, and Bob Harras was the editior in chief.


Plot Summary: The lead story is a flashback to an earlier moment in Hulk continuity. A caption somewhere claims six years ago, but it's a very comic book-time six years ago. Marvel has been publishing Hulk comics for well over thirty years, and, yet neither Bruce Banner or the Hulk has aged a noticeable amount.
Here are the defining features of the moment of continuity that this story is being retroactively inserted in:

Hulk is dumb and talks in the third person. This is before the personality-integrated smart-hulk phase.
Hulk is green. This is after he was initially grey, but before he turns grey again in the Joe Fixit phase.
Rick Jones is not acting as his sidekick.
His former girlfriend, Betty, is married to an air force Major named Glenn Talbot.
Basnner's identity as the Hulk is known to at least, General Ross, Betty's father, and Ross's Hulk-Buster team, if not the general public. This makes Banner a fugitive.

So, at this moment in the past, that never existed before 1998, Bruce Banner is working at the Brand Corporation under an assumed name. He attempts to use the company's Gamma Accelerator to cure himself of the Hulk. The Hulk-Buster team burst in and captures him while he's in a not fully either Banner or Hulk mid-transformation state. He's stuck in this half-state for a while. The Hulk-Busters take him to Gamma Base, where scientists study him to better understand what's happening to him.

Meanwhile, in his head, the Banner personality and the Hulk personality are having a spirited debate/knock-down-drag-out-fight for control of the body. Hulk wins and completes the body's transformation into Hulk. He escapes his cell in Gamma Base in seconds. Thus ends the main feature.

This brings us unfortunately to the back-up story. It feels like a PSA or Very Special Episode with a painfully obvious moral, what they might call Anvilicious on TV Tropes. Basically a large jock bully nicknamed Hulk is threatening a nerd kid. The real Hulk comes up and scares off the bully and then has a laugh about the divisive ways of humans.

What's good about it? It hearkens back to an earlier day of Hulk storytelling. I like Peter David's take on the Hulk a lot, but there is a virtue in the simplicity of "Hulk Smash!" stories. The artwork on both stories was good.

What's not quite so good? The back-up story. It makes its moral point in a rather ham-handed way, anvilicious as I've said before. It's also preaching to the choir. Comic readers are geeks much likelier to be bullying victims than bullies themselves. There's also no letters page or this-would-be-a-letters-page-if-we-had-any-letters-book-specific-text-page that books use in the first issue.

What the ....? moments: Once the Hulk's transformation is complete, he busts out of his "Hulk-proof" cell in seconds. This is the best that the government can do?

Who should get it? Dedicated Hulk fans/completists.

Rating: Averages out to two stars. The back-up story and lack of a letters page brings it down.

Method Of Acquisition: Possibly, the twenty-five cent bins at Gold Mine, either that or the fifty-cent bins at Apparitions or the seventy-five cent bins at Tardy' Collector's Corner. All of them are somewhere in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area.

Review of Ravenloft Carnival

I reviewed this one over on rpg.net the other day and thought I'd x-post it here.

What is it?

A 64 page softcover with a color cover and a black, white, red, and grey interior. It's not quite an adventure (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It's not exactly a setting book (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It contains a lot of NPC stats, but it's not an enemies book/rogue's gallery (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...).

It describes a sort of organization/ pocket domain known as the Carnival. The Carnival is over-all a benevolent organization: In fact, it's run by a celestial.

This book refers the reader to the following products/accessories: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends. You can live without them, of course, but for the fullest full story...

The book is constructed as three in-character narratives with the relevant game-speak off in sidebars. In the Carnival setting, a phenomenon called the Twisting makes a long-term resident's outer appearance match his inner nature. Besides already being reflected in the NPC descriptions, twenty examples for how to use the Twisting on PCs are included.

The first chapter is narrated by Tindal, the main barker. He likes the Carnival and conisders the Twisting harsh but fair. He is completely loyal to Isolde. This chapter covers most of the Carnival's more or less good guys among the regular troupers.

The second chapter is narrated by Madame Fortuna, the Gyspy fortune teller. This chapter discusses the Vistani's role in the Carnival. Fortuna is also on Isolde's side. She posits the theory that Isolde is literally an angel.

Chapter three is narrated by Professor Pacali, the barker for the Hall of Horrors. This is the chapter about the Carnival Troupers who could outright be called villains. Pacali hates Isolde and plots against her. He believes her to be a fiend.

The last chapter contains five scenarios.

Finally the absolute last page, gives stats for Isolde. She's a Ghaele, a variety of Greater Eladrin, a Chaotic Good Celestial. As a powerful extraplanar being in Ravenloft, she's effectively a demi-Lord with her own travelling pocket domain.

What's good about it? It's an entertaining read. As I said earlier, most of the book is in-character narration. Also, the chapters open with quotations from literary sources intended to set the tone. In a way, and I mean this mostly as a compliment, and it is not an accusation of anything like plagiarism or unoriginality, it feels as if WotC here took a page from White Wolf of this era's playbook in how to present a supplement.

What's not quite so good? The alleged adventures are more like long adventure hooks. There is a distinct lack of maps or special boxed text meant to be read aloud by the DM attached to the adventures. In this way too, it's like they took a page from White Wolf's playbook on how to present a supplement.

What the ....? moments: Cover copy that downplays Ravenloft nature of the product despite references to: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends.

Who should get it? Ravenloft fans; dedicated AD&D 2nd edition DMs looking for something novel to do to the PC group (check out the list of suggested Twisting effects starting on page 27); fans of the carnival noir subgenre of horror (I'm not sure how widespread the term is; I got it from a Nancy Collins column in White Wolf's Inphobia magazine).

Ratings: Using RPG.net's rating system I gave this a 5 out of 5 for style and a 3 out of 5 for substance. On my personal five-star system for over-all quality I give it a 4.

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14946.phtml

http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8497

A review of Quasar Issue #38

Quasar #38 Published by Marvel
review by JustiN Taylor

What is it?
A comic book. Glossy Cover. Non-glossy interior. Color throughout. The last story page is numbered 30, but the page numbering system is also including ad pages, so probably around twenty-some odd story pages in actual point of fact. Indicia gives a date of September 1992. Cover has a small logo in the upper right corner indicating this is an Infinity War crossover. Credits are: Mark Gruenwald-- Writer, Greg Capullo-- Penciler, Hary Candelario-- Inker, Janice Chiang-- Letterer, Paul Becton-- Colorist, Kelly Corvese-- Editor, and Tom DeFalco-- Editor Extreme.

Plot Summary: Quasar and a character known as Contemplator are in a place called the Dimension of Manifestations. Quasar returns to Earth; Contemplator elects to stay behind. Upon his return to Earth, Quasar checks in with the Avengers.

The Avengers are off to fight a cosmic disaster of epic proportions (the whole Ininity War thing). Cicrumstances require them to call in extra help from Alpha Flight and the various X-teams plus the Hulk. They mystically teleport to an alien planet.

Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch are there teamed up with Thanos, a known villain, in order to combat the bigger threat of Magus (the whole Ininity War thing). Things degenerate into the inevitable two-super-teams-meet-each-other-for-the-first-time-and-get-into-a-fight scenario.

There's also a side plot about Quasar's girlfriend stranded on an alien planet.

Tangent: I have a comic box that I labelled Box Infinity. This is not a comment on the size of my collection: Rather, it's the box I use for Marvel-published "cosmic"-flavored books. For example, Silver Surfer, Quasar, Infinity-event (Gauntlet, War, Crusade) crossover issues of any title, and everything Adam Warlock, especially Warlock and the Infinity Watch. One of the reasons I picked up this issue was because it belongs in the Infinity Box for two reasons simultaneously.

What's good about it? There were a few nice little twists on a fairly standard scenario, like Quasar using a force field bubble to delay the almost inevitable fight. Some of the dialogue struck me as decently clever.

What's not quite so good? It's a fairly standard scenario. It's a little bit confusing. Every bit of plot in the book is continued from somewhere. None of these multiple plotlines are resolved completely either.

What the ....? moments: It's a 90's D-list Marvel title tied in to the big crossover event crammed with guest stars, and somehow they manage to leave out Spider-Man, Punisher, and Ghost Rider.

Who should get it? Quasar fans, Adam Warlock fans, and those who absolutely have to have every Infinity War tie-in issue.

Rating: Three stars (on a five star scale).

Method Of Acquisition: Fifty cent box at Apparitions.

Review Of Hardware Issue #1

Review of Hardware Issue #1 Published by Milestone/ DC Comics
Reviewed by JustiN Taylor aka khyron1144

What is it? A comic book. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior. Color throughout. Was originally available in deluxe bagged edition and non-bagged regular edition. Bagged version included a poster, trading card, and other extras.

Plot Summary: Curtis Metcalf is a genius. He works for Edwin Alva. Alva paid Metcalf's way through college, in exchange for him agreeing to work for Alva Technologies.

Curtis finds out Alva is corrupt and tied to organized crime. Curtis builds a suit of super armor and becomes a superhero fighting Alva's criminal enterprises.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention that Curtis Metcalf is black, and Edwin Alva is white.

What's good about it? Adding color diversity to superhero comics is a good thing. The script is engaging. Curtis's dialogue is not the exaggerated picture of blackness that say, Marvel's Luke Cage's is.

What's not quite so good? It feels like all set-up for the future and no real action.

What the… ? Moments: Just the basic problem of super armor’s implausibility. Not technologically or physically, but legally and socially. If Bill Gates built what is in effect the next generation of fighter jet in his basement workshop, there is no way the government would let him keep it for his own private use.

Who should get it? Anybody who likes a good story told in comic book form.

Rating: 4 Stars (of five)

Method Of Acquisition: The seventy-five cent box at Tardy's Collector's Corner on Burton Street in Grand Rapids, MI

Review of Youngblood Issue #1 Published by Awesome Comics

Youngblood #1 (published by Awesome) review


What is it? A comic book with a glossy cover and interior and color throughout. Alan Moore is the writer. Steve Skroce is the penciler. Lary Stucker is the inker. Richard Starkings & Comicraft did the letters. The colors were provided by a company called Awesome Colors.

Plot summary: A secret government organization is scheming to get ahold of an alien from another dimension. An alien wiht no physical form of its own that possesses people. It works.

The alien possesses a soldier guy in the secret underground base and escapes. Youngblod, a superhero team gets involved. Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off, gets possessed. There's a fight. The good guys win and Suprema gets unpossessed.

What's good about it? It's done-in-one rather than kicking off a multi-issue story arc.

For a fairly cookie cutter superhero story, it is executed well.

The attempts at witty dialogue actually made me smile.

Steve Skroce's artwork vaguely resembles Rob Liefeld's without being a slavish imitation.

Rob Liefeld's personal involvement with the book seems to be minimal. He simply owns the characters, and he drew one or two of the twelve variant covers.


What's not so good about it? You remember that cookie cutter comment? Well I meant it. This book could have been done almost as well with any of DC or Marvel's superteams, like the JLA or Fantastic Four.

In fact, I think variants on this theme have been done with the Fantastic Four.

The other problem is this is Volume 3, Issue number 1 of Youngblood. Besides being a bad example of the chromium age tendency for excessive first issues of a single property to increase after-market value, it opens with action and contains very little exposition to explain who these characters are and what they do. I have a vague memory of having reading earlier versions of Youngblood, where the team was government sponsored. Now it appears to have gone private. Only two of the team members are at all familiar to me: Shaft and Suprema.

What The...? Moment: Twelve variant covers. That's just excessive. Now aren't we all glad the 90s are over?

Who Needs It? Youngblood fans. Suprema fans. Anyone who wants to see an Alan Moore superhero comic with no obvious element of irony or deconstruction or commentary on the genre.

Rating: 2 stars (on my five-star scale)

Method of Acquisition: 79 cents from the cheap comics bins at The Outer Limits in Wyoming, Michigan

Review of Sidekicks: the Substitute one-shot

Review of Sidekicks: the Substitute one-shot


What is it? A comic book. Glossy color cover, non-glossy black and white interior. Published by Oni Press. Indicia gives a date of July 2002. Written by J. Torres. Art by Takeshi Miyazawa. Lettered by Brian O'Malley.

Plot Summary: There's a high school for super-powered kids. The new substitute teacher is a reformed supervillainess doing community service. She is is initially distrusted and students try to prank her. Hi-jinks and hilarity ensue.

What's Good About It? The dialogue is clever and is where most of the humor comes from. I also like the artwork. The manga-inspired look isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I think it works here.

What's Not So Good about It? This is my first exposure to these characters and I feel it does not make a great jumping on point. I have no idea who these characters are and what their powers and personalities are. I also had some trouble telling them apart visually at times.

What the... Moments: Why manga-style artwork? An indie humor book has enough going against it to not want to limit its audience further, and there's a certain amount of irrational dislike against anime and manga out there.

Who Should Get It? People who like the movie Sky High or the comic PS 238 are likely candidates. Archie fans who also like superheroes. Superhero fans who aren't averse to the high school comedy genre.

Rating: 3 stars (on a 5 star scale)

Method of Acquisition: Part of a five comics for $2 grab bag at 21st Century Comics and Games in East Lansing, MI

Review of Darkseid one-shot

Review of New Year's Evil Darkseid One-Shot


What Is It? Single Issue of a comic book, glossy paper for both the cover and the interior, color throughout. Cover dated February 1998.
Plot summary: Darkseid is missing, presumed dead by some. Desaad is trying to hold together an interim government until Darkseid returns. Virman Vundabar attacks this government, hoping to usurp Darkseid's throne for himself. During the inevitable fight, a giant statue of Darkseid animates and holds the combatants in place, while delivering a stern lecture about how New Genesis is the true enemy.

What's Good About It? The artwork, layouts by Sal Buscema, pencils by Keron Grant, and inks by Ray Kryssing, with letters by John Workman and colors by Noelle Giddings; looks rather sharp. John Byrne is the credited writer and he delivers some dialogue that has wonderfully cheesy melodramatic comic book villain qualities. It also showed off two Apokolips natives, that I'd heard of from Who's Who entries and RPG sourcebooks and similar, but had never actually seen in action: Virman Vundabar and Kanto, the Assassin.

What's Not So Good About It? I have no idea where this Darkseid is kind of, but not really dead storyline comes from. Other than cover date of February 1998 giving me a clue to an approximate era to start looking for back issues from. Nothing in the book mentions what longer-running series this one-shot spins off from or ties into.

What The... Moments? It's a one-shot titled Darkseid, yet Darkseid himself does not make an in-the-flesh appearance onscreen, as such.

Who Needs It? New Gods completists. John Byrne fans. People that want a slightly less complicated take on the New Gods character's than Grant Morrison's handling of them in Final Crisis.

Rating: 2 stars

A Few Short Thoughts on relatively recent political news

I wake up most mornings to NPR news on my clock radio. One of the places that I work, the bartender like to turn the TV to Fox News at about the time that Glen Beck is on. I have heard a bit about the health care debate from both ends of the political spectrum, I think.


Here's my take:

It reminds me of the second verse of the Underdog theme song:

When in this world the headlines read of those whose hearts are filled with greed,
Who rob and steel from those in need,
To right this wrong with blinding speed goes
Underdog!

Anyways, I think both the liberals and the conservatives would relate those words to the health care issue, but have strongly different definitions of need, greed, and rob.

Review of Solo Avengers Issue #14

Two notes:
1) These are mostly finds from the cheap comics bins, so they are from many years ago, sometimes.
2) I am copying the format I use for reviews of RPG productson rpg.net, except instead of the five-point style and substance scale, I use a more generalized five star scale where zero is horrid; one is bad; two is acceptable; three is good; four is great; and five is amazingly awesome.

Anyways: review of Solo Avengers #14



What is it? A single issue of a comic book published in 1984, color throughout, glossy covers, non-glossy interior. It's sort of an anthology format book with two stories. A Hawkeye story is the lead feature, as it always was in Solo Avengers/ Avengers Spotlight and a She-Hulk story is the backup feature. Both stories are around 11 pages once you subtract ad pages.

The stories briefly: In the Hawkeye story, Black Widow infiltrates an A.I.M. base and just before she is captured phones Avenger's mansion. Hawkeye is the only one home to get the message and he goes to rescue her. Hawkeye fights the A.I.M. goons and rescues Black Widow. The heroes find out A.I.M. has a strange elaborate plot that involves collecting brains in jars. The alleged cliffhanger ending involves a giant robot activating and being about to attack the heroes.

The She-Hulk story involves She-Hulk arguing a case before the Supreme Court because besides being a superhero, she's also a lawyer. She-Hulk is arguing that the Mutant Registration Act is unconstitutional. Titania, a superstrong and nigh-invulnerable villainess, is on a rampage outside the courtroom. Since She-Hulk is the only superhero nearby, she has to go fight Titania.

What's good about it? It was cheap, only 75 cents. The She-Hulk story was funny and sort of clever.

What's Not So Good? The cover was bit deceptive regarding the Hawkeye/ Black Widow story. I was expecting more of a true team up, but Black Widow was out of the action for a large bit of the story.

What The... Moments The basic format of Solo Avengers. Who thought splitting a normal length book in half and giving the first half to Hawkeye always and then a random Avengers-related backup story was a good idea?

Rating: The Hakweye story is two stars, the She-Hulk story is four stars. Together they average a three star rating.

Review of Ravenloft campaign settign boxed set

This is an x-post of something I wrote for rpg.net: a review of an old campaign setting boxed set for the pnecil and paper RPG version of Dungeons & Dragons:

What is it? A boxed set containing: four full color maps, one clear plastic hex overlay, 24 cards with color art on one side and black and white text on the reverse, and a book. The book is a soft cover with a color illustration on the front cover and a black, white, and red interior. It weighs in at 144 pages length with the last seven pages being Monstrous Compendium-style monster stats pages.

Most of this review will concentrate on the book. The cards and such are nifty and nicely done, but the meat of this product is the book.

The book starts with an overview of gothic horror as a genre, including a suggested reading list. White Wolf did this fairly routinely in their original World of Darkness line, especially Mage: the Ascension, but this is somewhat out of character for TSR of this era. Recommendations include Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau but misses The Castle of Otranto and The Monk.

The next section is a broad overview of the Demiplane of Dread, another name for the Ravenloft setting. Includes the Tome of Strahd, an excerpt from the setting's premiere vampire's journal. Also a timeline and suggested means for getting into Ravenloft and hints of possibilities for getting back out again.

Following this is a chapter on how characters change in the Ravenloft setting. It is not a friendly environment. Paladins can't detect evil in Ravenloft. A Domain Lord's control over the local wildlife is stronger than a ranger's influence on his animal buddies. Turning undead is harder. Demi-humans face xenophobia from natives of the Demiplane of Dread.

And then there's the Powers Check. Evil acts may attract the baleful attentions of the Demiplane. This takes the form of a simultaneous blessing and curse, like a minor spell-like ability accompanied by a disfiguring physical change. Enough failed Powers Checks can turn a character into an NPC under the DM's control, possibly even the lord of a new domain.

Up next are Fear and Horror Checks. Fear for your life against long odds may make you drop your weapon and run away: that's a fear check. Seeing something disturbing can have a long-term effect on your mental health: that's a horror check.

Not too surprisingly, this horror-oriented setting has something to say about vampires and werewolves. Werewolves and other lycanthropes have a higher chance of transmitting their disease in Ravenloft: 2% per point of damage inflicted, rather than the standard 1%. Suggestions for changing weaknesses to things other than the standard silver and magic weapons are also made. Vampires in Ravenloft get stronger with age, gradually losing weaknesses. Suggestions are also given for customizing a vampire's powers and weaknesses.

Curses are the subject of the next chapter. Curses can be created by the power of the Demiplane itself without the need for a spell to be cast: possibly in response to an evil action or as a response to someone's desire for revenge. Curses are powerful, yet limited.

The next chapter is on gypsies. The Vistani are a group of gypsy-like people native to Ravenloft. Vistani can lay curses, divine the future, create potions, and travel freely.

The next section is on fortune telling. Suggestions are given on how to use it without railroading the players. Also a broad overview of some fortune telling methods is given.

The next two chapters are spells and magical items. Alignment detection doesn't work. Creature summoning and dismissal work differently, in general, the summonig goes fine, but whatever is summoned gets stuck in Ravenloft and isn't happy about it. Undead are easy to create and hard to control. Some spells and items require a Powers Check to use. Three new spells and about seven new magic items are presented.

Following this are Lands of the Core and Islands of Terror. These cover the geography of the setting. The Core is the Demiplane's main continent and then there are various islands floating around off of it.

Who's Doomed of Ravenloft is the next chapter. This contains bios and stats for a number of prominent NPCs. Mostly Domain Lords and other villains, but a few good guys too. One I didn't remember from previous readings is Gondegal, a Chaotic Neutral warrior. Others are like old friends, like Strahd, Ravenloft's first Domain Lord and sort of the iconic character for the setting. Or Rudolph Van Richten, the fearless monster hunter and author of numerous guides to hunting the nastiest of beasties. And Victor Mordenheim, Ravenloft's answer to Dr. Frankenstein and his twisted creation, Adam.

The next chapter is a few pages of family trees for the setting's prominent NPC families.

After that is Techniques of Terror. These are tips for the Ravenloft DM or really and horror game. Suggestions include: isolation, loss of control, and body horror.

Adventure ideas are the last thing in the book before the monster pages. This presents ten very short adventure seeds for an ambitious DM to flesh out himself.

And closing out the book are seven monsters. The geist is barely a monster; it might cause a Fear or Horror check. The Gremishka is a gremlin variant. Loup-Graou are a werewolf variant. Odem are a species of possessing undead. Strahd Skeletons are Strahd's beefed up skeleton soldiers. Strahd Zombies are Strahd's beefed up zombies; they lose their heads and arms easily but the severed parts keep fighting on their own. The Nosferatu is a vampire variant.

What about the cards? Three have a nice full color picture of Strahd on one side and reproduce charts from the rulebook on the other or similar information, like a list of monsters most appropriate to Ravenloft. Five have a family portrait of one of Ravenloft's important NPC families on one side and stats for an NPC from that family on the other. The remaining sixteen are pictures of and information about various Domain Lords's homes and fortifications and other important buildings.

What's Good About It? Techniques of Terror was a good idea. Other horror games could use GM advice this good. Strahd is another good point. It helps to be able to put a face on a setting, like Elminster for the Realms or the Companions for Dragonlance and Strahd certainly does that for Ravenloft.

What's Not So Good About It? Most of the following isn't really bad, so much as things that feel too thin or that don't seem incredibly useful: The Bloodlines Chapter, the Fortune telling chapter, the Gypsies chapter.

I'm not sure what purpose the Bloodlines chapter serves. Maybe a DM could tease a few adventure hooks out of it, but it would take some real work.

Fortune telling is such a big concept that it needs its own book or to be ignored entirely.

The gypsies chapter was thin. It feels like a warm-up to tease us a little before Van Richten's Guide to Gypsies or the half-Vistani race in the Domains of Dread book.

I would gladly have traded all three of these chapters for a full-developed adventure, even one as short as three pages.

What The... Moments? Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau showing up on the recommended reading list. Hill House is twentieth century. Dr. Moreau is an early SF classic, but not exactly a gothic. Moreau was probably included because of Ravenloft's knock-off character Frantisek Markov.

Who Should Get It? Dedicated AD&D 2nd Edition DMs who have a thing for vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Fans of gothic horror. GMs for any horror-game looking for good staging tips. As far as I can tell, the Domains of Dread hardback reprints almost all the good bits from the book, so unless you really want the cards or maps, owners of Domains can skip this.

Fortune Cookie

This is kind of a placeholder/ filler until I have something deeper and more interesting to share.

I went out for Chinese/Thai last night for dinner (most Thai restaurants I've been to have also served American-Chinese-restaurant food too, like general chicken and chicken with broccoli and similar things).

I got a fortune cookie as is the custom at this sort of restaurant.

The message was:

Success comes in cans, not can nots.