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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 3, 2017 17:08:54 GMT -5
Started on the Battle Chasers RPG, it's very much a classic JRPG (of course it has a fishing mini game) and it continues where the comic left off. Pretty early on and so far not brilliant or anything, but entertaining enough.
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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 3, 2017 7:08:07 GMT -5
Since Thor's mother was Gaea, Balder can at best be a half-brother. But if the God of Light is indeed a Son of Odin, why didn't Loki ever express the same brotherly loathing for the Big B that he traditionally has for Thor? And isn't it funny that in more than two decades of continuity (which is as far as my knowledge extends), the relationship was never alluded to once, not even in the first two Official Handbook series? I'm with RR: Retcon, I say! Retcon! Cei-U! I support my Canadian brutha! Thor was quite the bully as a child, so it's logical that Loki (one of his usual targets) felt loathing for him while the more gentle Baldur just got the general level of Loki-loathing. But I'm a mythology purist, so any change (dare I say... retcon?) of the original material, especially for no good reason, irks me.
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Post by Dizzy D on Oct 1, 2017 9:41:38 GMT -5
Is it really a retcon if they just reveal something that was formally unknown ? A few years ago it was revealed that Balder the Brave is actually Thor's brother. Is a retcon if it was part of the original mythology for centuries?
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 30, 2017 13:27:54 GMT -5
who's "light boy" supposed to be? I believe he's called Eclipse. I've never heard of the character before and think he might have been created for the show but I'm not entirely sure. He's basically Sunspot, but they didn't want him to be a rich kid, so they created a new character (also Sunspot is also in the upcoming New Mutants movie, so it was easier to create a new character). I'll give the series a shot. Trailers for Legion were bad and I loved that series.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 30, 2017 13:22:42 GMT -5
Read volume 4 of Sex Criminals (and I really need to reread the first 3 because I had trouble remembering some of the sideplots).
Also read volume 7 of East of West and that keeps on trucking along nicely.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 28, 2017 10:56:59 GMT -5
To me, these are pretty recognizable. Superman is definitely number 1 and I feel like most people, comic fans or not, would pick it out. After that, might be a toss up between the Bat and Spider-Man. I wouldn't have known that was the Spider-man logo just seeing it in isolation like that. The Spider-Man costume I'd recognise, of course, but not that spidery silhouette. Agreed, especially as that logo has changed quite a lot over the years as well (Ditko's version is a lot simpler than that) and the logo lacks any colours that would make it recognisable like Superman and most of Batman's logo's. Spider-Man's belt lamp that shows a logo that resembles his mask is probably more recognisable. Not to say that Superman and Batman's logos haven't changed. In case of Batman I think the yellow circle with black bat inside logo is the most recognisable, even if he hasn't had it on his costume for years now. Superman's S has also changed from the original which had a regular letter S to the more stylized version that we usually see.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 28, 2017 10:45:03 GMT -5
I was hoping for some mathematical explanation as to why that was the cut-off! So was I. As Tom Magliozzi would have said, that answer was bo-o-o-o-gus!I googled it to see if anybody had a mathematical answer and this is what I got (paraphrased from Wikipedia): According to Schur's theorem, any sufficiently large integer can be expressed as a linear combination of three relative primes (relative primes are numbers that share no common. so this is not correct for this example as 6 and 20 do share another common divider: 2, but close enough for our purpose). So it's a matter to find the lowest integer that can not be expressed as this number (the largest non-McNugget number. In Maths this is known as the Coin Problem). As we've seen from the answers that is 43. Now to prove that 43 is the highest possible number, we can see that the next 6 numbers *are* possible to express in a combination of the three numbers: 44 = 6 + 9 + 9 + 20 45 = 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 46 = 6 + 20 + 20 47 = 9 + 9 + 9 + 20 48 = 6 + 6 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 49 = 9 + 20 + 20 So any larger number from then on than can be expressed as one of these numbers + x boxes of 6. For combinations of 2 numbers, we can find the largest "McNugget"-number through a formula, but for combinations of 3 numbers, there is no formula (yet) and it remains trial and error. Now McDonald's has issued boxes of 4 as well, so our largest McNugget-number now has become? (See spoiler for answer) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 28, 31, 34, 37, and 43 were our previous numbers. It can't be a number higher than that, so we'll start to look for the first successive row of numbers that is equal to the lowest number we have (4).
1,2,3 still are, because they are lower than our lowest number. 5, 7 still are, because they are lower than the sum of our two lowest numbers (2x4) 11 still is. And then we get to the string of 4 numbers that can all be expressed as groups of 4. 12=6+6 13=9+4 14=6+4+4 15=6+9
So any higher number than 11 is one of these combo's + x boxes of 4.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 27, 2017 5:47:33 GMT -5
Not very much. It had the annoying Ahmal Farouk* in it (under his ridiculous name of "the shadow king") and the artwork had a fill-in quality to it. On the other hand, the book was finally rebuilding itself in those days, after years of constant angst and agony and lack of supporting characters. In his first appearances, Gambit showed a lot of promise. * That guy was awesome in X-Men #117, but he really should have stayed dead. All his later appearances were disappointing. He was like a walking plot device, being able to do whatever was required by the story, and also being vanquished by whatever means the writer came up with at the appropriate time. Likewise, I hate the Shadow King, because he's always used as a vehicle to get X-Men fighting X-Men, but has no goals or personality to speak off. I did like his version on the Legion TV-show though, which is pretty impressive. As for the issue itself, I'm not sure how it works as a standalone as you're in the end of Claremont's run at that time and it's just part of a longer story.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 27, 2017 5:05:22 GMT -5
Farrar takes the prize! Here's the official answer from Ray: You can clearly buy six, you can clearly buy nine, you can obviously buy 12, 15 we've established, 18, 20, 21 you can keep going. Now, if you can buy 15, of course you can buy 30, 45, and you can buy 90. And if you can buy 18 you can buy 36 and 72. And if you can buy 20, you can buy all the multiples of 100: 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, a million, etcetera. I kept working upwards, and there were some holes. I couldn't buy 31 for example. I couldn't buy 37, I couldn't buy 43, but then a strange thing happened. I found out that I could buy 44, 45, 46, 47. Now if I could buy 46, I could buy 92. Once I got to 43, I realized that was the largest number that I couldn't buy. I was hoping for some mathematical explanation as to why that was the cut-off! Not that kind of quiz, I realise. Yeah, me too. I was trying to make a formula myself, but couldn't prove that 43 was the highest and not some random prime number further along.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 26, 2017 7:50:55 GMT -5
Started on the first episode last night, but had to switch it off due to real life stuff. (So happy that it's on Netflix over here). I'm not a big Star Trek fan (I love DS9, but don't have any strong feelings for the rest and never even saw a single episode of Enterprise), but I'm giving this a chance.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 26, 2017 5:16:22 GMT -5
There are really people committing actual crimes (threats of bodily harm) over comics? Darn, I'm starting to understand the old cranky guys who used to say "them $#@ youngsters; what they'd need is a good war". Remember H.E.A.T.?
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 25, 2017 13:56:53 GMT -5
It's that time of the month again!
The Wildstorm #7 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer). (And I got the variant cover by Bryan Hitch).
The Cover: The Hitch-cover displays the Engineer in mid-transformation, looking a lot more like his version did, except she now has wings as well. I googled for the Jon Davis-Hunt cover, and it's the WildC.A.T.s.: John Colt, Cole Cash, Kenesha and Adrianna.
Page 1: A 3x3 grid, showing (from left to right and top to bottom): Lucy Blaze with the red bloodsmear on her forehead from issue #1. The second I assume is Angela Spica, even though she is also in the fifth picture. 3rd is Priscilla Kitaen aka Voodoo. 4th is Cole Cash, 5th is the Engineer escaping from the bunker from issue #4. The sixth image is Adrianna. The seventh is Henry Bendix, the eight Jacob Marlowe and the final one is Michael Cray and Christine Trelane waiting for the I.O. assassins from last issue. I was looking for a theme in these images, but I can't find any. They are not the main players, because we're missing Miles Craven and Kenesha. They are not the characters from the previous covers (even if we subtract a few because we have more images than covers), because we don't have Jenny or a Daemonite. I find it curious that we have the Engineer twice. In the end, I assume they are just nine pictures with no theme here.
Page 2-6:Finally the unnamed woman that was working with Miles Craven and Ivana Baiul is named in this issue: it's Jacklyn King. She obviously is this world's version of Jackson King, but, including her gender, many things are different, so it's understandable I didn't make the link before: Jacklyn is I.O.'s Chief of Analysis. Jackson was primarily associated with Stormwatch (he was basically the main character of early Stormwatch volume 1 and always one of the main characters in the series. He was romantically linked to Christine Trelane, but the two don't seem to have a link in this world. Jacklyn also seems to lack Jackson's psionic powers so far. Her assistant is Mitchell Saunders, another character that was a Stormwatch member in the original universe. Mitchell Saunders was known as Canon and had energy blasts as his power, but he was not a very important character and generally a bit of a joke. Mitchell here is an analyst, a lot less muscled than his counterpart. The rest of the team doesn't ring any bells yet, but we lack names and appearances can be pretty different between universes. (Finally, Jacklyn's cat is named Streaky, an obvious reference to Streaky the Supercat.)
Page 7-14: We get introduced to John Colt, the final member of the WildC.A.T.s. He looks quite different too. John Colt in the original was a red-haired white male, here he is a black male. The suit he's wearing has an I.O. logo (specifically an I.O. Hightower logo) with the phrase "Lux Mentis, Lux Orbis", which basically means "Light of the Mind, Light of the World." (Orbis actually means circle or disc, but I feel safe with this translation). John has infiltrated an I.O. installation, but is made. When he's engaging the enemy, Cole tells him not to use his strength, but use a gun instead. John turns out to be quite capable with the gun, easily defeating multiple opponents (and appearing to be incredibly agile and coordinated). Entering a supply closet, Adrianna teleports him out, leaving their cover intact.
Page 15 Angela wakes up and she is bleeding heavily again from her side.
Page 16-17: John, now a smoker and a drinker, explains what the point was of I.O.'s Hightower installation: they are researching machine telepathy (preparing myself for an appearance of Planetary's Drummer in a later issue). Angela scans John and while she not directly says it, it's clear that John is not human.
Page 18: Jacob Marlowe dreams of alien vistas. They are not named, the first one is a building, appearing to be ruined, on a planet with 2 suns. The second shows a ringworld, heavily damaged, in outer space.
Page 19-20: Kenesha gives John the short version of what happened and assumes that I.O. know that Jacob Marlowe is alien. John dismisses this idea (he also quickly sums up everybody's function in the CAT: Cole is the gunfighter, Adrianna is transport, Kenesha is the tinkerer and he is the "systems guy.") He claims that if I.O. knew that Jacob was an alien, they wouldn't have tried to poison him, because poison means autopsy and an alien body turning op for the world to see would not benefit them. If they were trying to kill him, they would do so in a way where they could take the body with them. But Michael saw Jacob use his "spur" (the alien weapon implanted within him) and survived that, so if he reports that to I.O. they have a problem. John has to think on the information that Cray set of the xenobiological scanners and had superhuman powers himself (and most interestingly wasn't aware he had them).
Page 21-22: Cole sends Jacob to talk to Angela. The things that interests me the most is that Angela mentions that she sees that Kenesha, John and Jacob are all alien, but that they are all different from each other. Jacob flashbacks to two other alien vistas: an alien species surrounding craters that expulse blue gas. These aliens look rather like a combination of the original Wildstorm Daemonites and the new52 Daemonites, but not like the Daemonite seen in this series. The second image is that of a spaceship approaching a nebula.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 21, 2017 16:02:05 GMT -5
Is this specifically for superhero comics? If not, I would definitely have both Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez on there, and Daniel Clowes. Probably Peter Bagge and Julie Doucet as well. Maybe Seth. I'd like to say Chester Brown but I really haven't read as much as I should have. From the Syfy list, the only names I would give an unqualified nod to would be Ellis, Ennis, and Morrison. The rest I either haven't read enough of to have a strong opinion, or I haven't liked what I've seen. If we're talking about anyone who wrote and published great work in the last 25 years, I'd have to include Alan Moore and Steve Gerber as well. Don't think it's for superhero comics, cause Aaron, Brubaker, Lemire and Azzarello best works definitely are not their superhero work. Vaughan probably neither (he's on this for Saga and Y, I guess?). Stephenson has done primarily Lumberjanes which is not superheroes either (great title though). Don't know Jody Houser and can't find little about her (an adaption of the Orphan Black TV-series?). Same for Telgemeier. Definitely not a fan of Jeph Loeb. I haven't read anything by Palmiotti that would put him in a Top 25 list (don't actually dislike the things I've read, but there are so many better writers around). Kinda missing Kieron Gillen (Journey into Mystery, Darth Vader, Phonogram, Wicked and the Divine etc.) and Matt Fraction (Casanova, Hawkeye, Iron Fist etc.) here. Personally not a fan of Kirkman, but the success of his series probably should have earned him a spot as well. Same for Bryan Lee O’Malley.
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 21, 2017 15:46:08 GMT -5
I quite like the Mike Carey TPB God War (which basically is FF meets Fourth World).
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Post by Dizzy D on Sept 19, 2017 9:36:21 GMT -5
I wanted to say none, but I'll always give a new Spirou creative team a shot (on the upside, the experimental ones are nearly always done-in-one's.) and on the main series they tend to be very conservative with new creative teams.
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