|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 7, 2017 1:55:37 GMT -5
As always, comics are a wide and varied medium: If we go back to the Golden Age, we have some very violent titles like Crime Does Not Pay (just an example I've recently read) and the heroes took a pretty callous regard to human life.
Also you have violence and violence: Punisher MAX or Remender's Uncanny X-Force are both violent titles, just like their 90s counterparts were. But the first two clearly show that the violence is not actually solving anything and is actually making things worse. Also people are becoming more aware of disproportional violence in real life; the Punisher walking down the street and shooting a group of drug dealers has some different connotations now then it did in the 80s or 90s. I guess this is also the reason that more and more superheroes hardly deal with actual crime anymore instead focusing on supervillains only.
You still have the hyperviolent fringe titles (Image's Luther Strode for instance), but all in all, I think current mainstream comics are more diverse now than in the 90s (mostly because Image has went in a completely different path) and you have all-ages titles like Squirrel Girl to offset the violence of other titles.
So overall I think comics as a whole are a bit less violent now than they were 20-30 years ago, mostly because mainstream titles are a bit more diverse than they were, but also because the violence itself is put into context more. You can still point at individual titles as more violent than their counterpart of some time ago.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 7, 2017 1:22:50 GMT -5
This doesn't sound right to me but it seems that Ray can do it in 15 days by himself, Tom can do it in 30 days by himself, and Doug can't do anything at all and makes no contribution. I've written it out and I come to the same conclusion: These are the assumptions I made: The building is made of A(ll) walls, each wall is equally large and will take the same amount of time to paint. (No reason this has to be so, but it allows us to make everything into a nice formula) Ray paints R walls/day Tom paints T walls/day Doug paints D walls/day We can see that R>T>D from the times taken. I also assume that no matter how useless Doug is, he won't make matters worse for anybody he's working with, so D can't be negative. So 10days at R and 10 days at T is enough to paint all walls 10R+10T=A Likewise 15R+15D=A and 30T+30D=A So 10R+10T=30T+30D (30 days of Tom and Doug working is equal to 10 days of Ray and Tom working) 10R=20T+30D Simplifying it: R=2T+3D We also know that 15R+15D=30T+30D 15R=30T+15D Simplifying it: R=2T+D So 2T+3D=2T+D So 3D=D The only way this can be true if D is zero. If D is 0, then Ray works at 30 walls/day and Tom works at 15 walls/day 10 days of R and T gives 450 walls 15 days of R gives 450 walls 30 days of T gives 450 walls.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2017 12:17:31 GMT -5
The Wildstorm #6 by Warren Ellis (writer) and Jon Davis-Hunt (artist), Steve Buccellato and John Kalisz (Colourist) and Simon Bowland (letterer).
A short one this time, as this issue is pretty straightforward
The Cover: Michael Cray is fighting two IO agents who came to kill him. This happens in the first few pages and no references to old Wildstorm here.
Page 1-8: Michael Cray fights two I.O. Agents out to liquidate him. Christine Trelane, who is also present (and also armed), stays conspicuously passive during the fight (She might not want any investigators to later find bullets from her gun, is my guess, only interfering should Michael turn out to be outmatched?). Michael does note that she is not very useful, but accepts her job offer. The two agents sent to kill Cray are Casson and Destry, which Cray calls a Warblade unit. Warblade was one of the original WildC.A.T.S., a T-1000-like shape-shifter, but these killers just seem regular humans, though the larger one takes quite a few bullets to put down.
Page 11: After leaving Angie with Jacob Marlowe, Adri returns to her own room, where she takes off her face, wig and clothes, leaving a featureless metal humanoid and starts meditating. This is pretty much what Void was in the original WildC.A.T.s., where she was also once seen removing her face, leaving an empty metal shell behind.
Page 12-16: Jacob Marlowe explains pretty much everything that has been going on so far and we get a timeline: 1986: Jacob saves Skywatch operative Adrianna when she gets turned into Void. 2007 (assuming the title takes place in the current year): Jacob saves Cole Cash. He also adds that Kenesha and he have been working together "forever". Jacob founded Halo to bring about the future faster, pretty much the plot of Wildcats 3.0. He also explains that Skywatch and I.O. are the two de-facto rulers of Earth, two rival organisations (though for a short while Skywatch was part of I.O., even though Skywatch is the older organisation of the two) that have a ceasefire going on: I.O. gets everything on Earth, Skywatch gets everything in space. Both think they have the better deal: I.O. thinks space is empty and dangerous, Skywatch (in the form of Bendix) hates Earth and wants to expand into outer space. We get a few shots of IO (Craven, Cray, Baiul, the unnamed analyst and two Black Razors), Skywatch, Bendix/Lauren and when Jacob mentions that Mars (as an example of the hostility of outer space) is the most habitable place in the Solar System outside Earth and it's still a terrible place to be, we get a shot of Jenny Spark's "Mars Expedition 1955"-lighter. We also get a shot of Voodoo, but she is not mentioned in Jacob's speech and her role is still unknown. Jacob also explains that while Skywatch does not want to rule the Earth, it would like to have its resources, while I.O. doesn't want to have outer space, they still would like to have Skywatch technology. So tensions are running high, even though outright war is still off the table.
Page 17-19: Jacob changes the subject: he asks why Angie fled from the bunker, even though it should be clear that the CAT would be able to protect her. Angie lies at first that she was afraid of the gunfire, but Jacob does not believe her. She then reveals that she scanned the CAT (her suit is a medical tool first and foremost): she saw that Cole was normal, Adrianna's scan "didn't make sense" (and from what we saw a few pages ago, we can understand that), but the one that scared her was Kenesha: she looked human, but internally was anything but. Jacob asks Angie to scan him and she does: we see the scan and Jacob's skeleton and internal organs are completely alien (a little resemblance to how Jacob looked at the beginning of Wildcats volume 2.) Most of his bones resemble fishbones. Jacob tells her that he is an alien and the CAT is fighting both Skywatch and I.O. (and several smaller operations) to fix a world they are no part of. He asks Angie if she wants to help.
Pages 20-22: Lauren shows Bendix images of Angie's suit and its transformation and Bendix recognises the shape, just as Lauren did. Bendix realises the suit is based on their Breslau II type spaceships and that somebody stolen their technology. He sends out 3 fighter jets/spaceships and with that the war starts.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2017 7:38:48 GMT -5
I've seen Dr. Strange birthday listed as November 18 1930 enough times that I'm trying to determine the source.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2017 7:02:42 GMT -5
Ah cool, the Spirou par... was brought out over here, I've seen a Suske and Wiske door... and a Lucky Luke par... in the same spirit though they have only a few issues or one issue each. But I didn't know there was a Valerian par...
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2017 3:11:30 GMT -5
Shortlist of what I want to eventually getting around to playing: Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. I have the original for PS2 and loved it. I remember essentially getting everything in the game. The new HD touchup with bonus features/new music looks great. I forgot the story so I think this would be fun to revisit. Vagrant Story I am Setsuna Catherine PS3 (bought it a while ago, haven't played) Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster PS4 (bought it a while ago, haven't played) Tomb Raider Definitive Edition PS4 (bought it a while ago haven' played) Dragon Ball Z: Gokuden (series of role playing games on the NES) Final Fantasy 7 (played, never finished) Final Fantasy 6 (played, never finished) Uncharted Trilogy (came with PS4, haven't started) Batman Arkham Night (haven't finished) I've been cut off from my PS3/PS4 for months now because of my living situation. Once that changes hopefully I can go back to this escapism from time to time. FFXII is my favourite after FFVI. Vagrant Story and reboot Tomb Raider are also great games. I'm currently playing Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Chapter 2. I like a lot of JRPGs and this series (never knew it till it came to Steam) has become one of my favourites For those interested: 1. Shin Megami Tensei (including Persona): haven't played all of them, but the combination of mythology and modern/near-future scenarios really appeals to me. 2. Legend of Heroes: More classical JRPG, but the world is fully realised (lots of cities with NPCs each having their own dialogue, which changes as events happen), a relatively low-level story (no world-ending threats) and power-level (you have magic and abilities, but you are not fighting dragons and gods), but fun and likeable characters. It has a lot of charm to it. 3. Final Fantasy: I like individual Final Fantasies a lot, but the series is such a mixed bag, that I can't place it higher. I put Vagrant Story in the FF-series BTW. 4. Shadowhearts: The third one made laugh so hard: Boilerplate Disclaimer in the title "All characters herein are fictional and any resemblance to real people is coincidental." Yeah, I don't think you can use that sentence if you place your game in pre-WWII USA and make Al Capone and Elliot Ness characters in your game. Anyway games set in actual historical timeperiods (even if they have little to do with the actual time period) have bonuspoints with me. (See also Shin Megami Tensei's Raidou series, set during 1930s.) plus Lovecraftian themes. But too silly to commit to its Lovecraftian themes, so it's not at the top of the list. 5. Valkyrie Profile: Love I and II, never played III. Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross are great games, but 2 games, I won't call a series. I tried the Tales series, but found them disappointing, same with Grandia and Wild ARMs. Breath of Fire was good, but I played too little of it. Souls-series: Like them a lot, I don't really see them as JRPGs. More like Action games with stats; the main attraction for me is the fighting system. Parasite Eve: I like both I and II, but by II it's no longer an RPG, but a survival horror game. The rest of the series, I haven't played, but apparently they are terrible.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 1, 2017 4:30:02 GMT -5
So cross-posted from another forum I visit: So just back from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I'm going to compare it to the source material, because I'm *that guy* (Deal with it). Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is not based on the issue "The Empire of a Thousand Planets", but on "The Ambassador of Shadows", which is the better choice, because it's a better issue, but weird to take the name of another issue then (and slightly change it), also kinda weird to pick an issue which basically didn't have Valerian in it (he is in the beginning for 5 pages and the end for 3 pages, but basically in the comic he's kidnapped with the Commandar (the Ambassador in the comic) and Laureline goes through most of the things you see in the movie (Rihanna's part is filled by 3 hot guys dressed in loincloths). I quite liked the movie, but everything they changed from the comic, they changed for the worse. Comic spoilers In the comics Central Point (Alpha) is not created by humans, humans are just the latest species to join Central Point. It's even generally unknown which species started Central Point.
Valerian's personality and his relationship with Laureline is very different in the series; they are both agents (no ranks for Time-Space Agents, they are basically 007 with time- and spacetravel*). Valerian is not a womanizer, any conflict he has with Laureline has more to do with him being more willing to go along with Earth's hierarchy, having been born into the place and Laureline being an Outsider and more distrustful and rebellious. The two love and respect each other, but Hollywood can't have romantic relationships based on mutual trust and respect, so never mind that then. Laureline gets closer to her comic part, but spends a lot of time either grumpy or emotionless (the scene where she shoots one of the Shingouz (the Pteroducktyls) is so off for her, she always managed to deal with them by charming and outmsarting them. For that matter, both are rather violent compared to their counterparts who tend to are closer to Doctor Who than Commander Shepard in their problem solving (not completely, but closer). The two original personalities do come through from time to time, mostly when they interact with third parties (so if there comes a Valerian II and Luc Besson wants to continue this way, then my tip for him is "Never leave Valerian and Laureline alone." The Pearls only appear at the end and turn out to be the creators of Central Point, being once the most powerful empire in the universe, but then they decided to just go back to simpler lives and be happy. Still willing to interfere whenever somebody is willing to mess that up. Case in point: The Ambassador.
The Ambassador, like the Commander, is basically the bad guy, though in the Ambassador's case he's not a war criminal, he wants to take control of Central Point to unify all species into one strong order with a bit of help from their military. Alien species, after interference by the Pearls who let humanity know that the military option is definitely off the table, basically decide "Fuck that!" and humanity is banned from Central Point.
*=Yes, I know Bond has a rank. It never matters though.
Visually, the movie is pretty on point, too bad they couldn't follow the writing of the original more. Edit: Movie trailers were good though, we got Thor: Ragnarok (the first trailer) and The Last Jedi (a teaser trailer, which I actually hadn't seen yet).
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 31, 2017 4:22:50 GMT -5
Played and finished Hard West the last few weeks;
it's a relatively short game (15-20 hours or so), an independent, turn-based weird western (for those who haven't played Deadlands: Weird Western is a genre that combines westerns with some supernatural elements. In case of Hard West, curses, magic cards, the Devil, clairvoyants and more). Gameplay is most like the X-com series on battle maps with a worldmap that has some text-adventure type gameplay (you pick places on a map, chose one from several predefined options and occassionally you'll enter a battle map).
There are several scenarios (with some characters returning from other scenarios) and most scenarios have their own gameplay gimmick on the battle map (a scenario with an inventor has a bit of gameplay where you can develop weapons, items and other bonuses by collecting blueprints and building them in your lab, a scenario with an expedition has you manage food and laborers and so on).
I've played mostly on medium (one map I turned to easy, because I was seriously outnumbered and kept losing). You have the option to turn on Wounds (damage may cause a disability in your characters, which have to be healed by a doctor or so on the worldmap.) or Iron Man (if you lose a critical character, you'll have to restart the whole scenario). I played with Wounds, but not Iron Man.
The scenarios are relatively short, 3 or 4 battle maps per scenario, 8 scenarios total. You usually have 3-4 characters, some battle maps can be completed with stealth, but usually you'll have to fight at some point and you can just use the stealth part to make sure you are positioned correctly for the inevitable fight. Occassionally you have some optional objectives that'll get you extra money or weaponry.
Completing a scenario unlocks up to 3 weapons/items per scenario that will be available for sale at the Fate Trader that is on most world maps. You also unlock playing cards. Each card gives a special ability or a bonus and you can assign up to 5 cards to a character. If you make poker hands with those cards, you get extra bonuses (weirdly enough, I don't think the higher hands give better bonuses, just different ones. Can be my style of playing though, where I prefer glass cannons to tanks).
Combat is turned-base, though if you step into an opponents sphere of influence (a small sphere around each character), they can get a free shot at you. Characters get 2 actions each turn (actions are moving, reloading, shooting, using an ability or item). Shooting a gun usually ends the turn for that character, though there are guns that can be shot twice. Each character also has an amount of luck; luck helps to avoid enemy fire. Shots that miss you deplete your luck, shots that hit you give you extra luck. Characters usually have few hitpoints, so make sure you stay in cover, because 1-3 hits are usually enough to take out your character and healing is limited.
You get some moral choices, but I don't think they mattered that much playwise (maybe some bonus/penalty to luck).
Overall a game I quite enjoyed. It's short, a bit rough and quite difficult (to you can manage difficulty a lot with options and once you get the better weapons, the game can become really easy. In the final fight one of the characters had a rifle that was basically a guaranteed one-hit kill). Downsides: not al game mechanics are explained well and characters sphere of influence could be a bit larger (X-Com uses line of sight for the same thing), the sphere of influence would be like 3 feet in all directions, so a quite useful tactic against isolated enemies is to use your first action to run up to them, stay at 4 feet and shoot them point-blank.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 26, 2017 1:47:57 GMT -5
So not only did this suddenly appear and is starting in a few weeks... DAVID TENNANT is Scrooge? Sign me up... they actually have some crazy good voice actors.. though I'm kinda skeptical that they seem to be saying they're going to mix Darkwing Duck in somehow. With Launchpad McQuack (or Turbo McQuack as he is known over here) as a major cast member in both titles, it fits to have him appear at one point or another.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 25, 2017 12:27:25 GMT -5
Read the second Volume of Wonder Woman Rebirth (collecting the issues by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott forming the Year One arc). It was just ok. The story just felt there. Scott's art was good though I didn't really like the coloring. I know this was a dream job for Scott, but all things considered, I would have preferred to see more Black Magick from these two, which I thought was a hell of a book with both creators firing on all cylinders) instead of them putting the book on hiatus to do this arc. This just felt like been there done that before and it was better the first time around. This just felt like watching a recap of something I had seen too many times already rather than a fresh story that needed to be told. It was well done for what it was, just felt flat and unnecessary for me. -M I wonder if the creators have to do work for the Big Two to fund their creator owned work. The sad reality that people would rather buy the 25th iteration of a 70 year old character than something new and interesting. I know some of them have to. At least Sejic is with DC now, because solo-work (except for Sunstone) just wasn't paying the bills. Peter Panzerfaust and 5 Ghosts were put on hiatus, while creators went on to do other work so they could fund those books.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 25, 2017 12:26:10 GMT -5
Legion and Fargo were both really good, so I'm kinda optimistic, otoh Doom is not interesting to me unless he has somebody to play off.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 25, 2017 4:03:42 GMT -5
I've noticed that I just blindly copied it from my booklist: I already had the first 3 novels when I made the list, so I didn't put them on, Citadel of the Autarch is the 4th novel and Sword and Citadel combines the third and fourth novel. There are four books (though I believe there was another one added years later (quick google gives me that yes, there was a fifth book.), but later editions combine the first two books and the last two books. There are also some bundles of short stories set in the same universe, but I never read those.
The list should read: The Shadow of the Torturer The Claw of the Conciliator The Sword of the Lictor The Citadel of the Autarch and then as epilogue The Urth of the New Sun
I don't think that you can read them independently.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 24, 2017 9:22:34 GMT -5
Books (from my old booklist I took to every book market I went to to cross things off, these were recommendations by friends and family) Asimov, Isaac - The God Themselves Bear, Greg - The Forge of the Gods Bester, Alfred - The Stars My Destination Blish, James - Cities in Flight Brunner, John - Stand on Zanzibar Effingerm, George Alec - When Gravity Fails Farmer, Philip Jose - To Your Scattered Bodies Go Gibson, William - Neuromancer Haldeman, Joe - The Forever War Harrison, Harry - The Stainless Steel Rat Heinlein, Robert - Starship Troopers Keyes, Daniel - Flowers for Algernon LeGuin, Ursula - The Left Hand of Darkness Lem, Stanislaw - Solaris Lewis, C.S. - Out of the Silent Planet McMaster Bujold, Lois - The Vorkosian Saga Miller, Walter - A Canticle for Leibowitz Morgan, Richard - Altered Carbon Niven, Larry - Ringworld Niven, Larry - Lucifer’s Hammer Pohl, Frederik - Gateway Reynolds, Alistaire - Revelation Space Scalzi, John - Old Man’s War Smit, E.E. “Doc” - Grey Lensman Stephenson, Neal - Snow Crash Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris - Roadside Picnic Vance, Jack - The Dying Earth Vinge, Vernor - A Fire Upon the Deep Vonnegut, Kurt - Cat’s Cradle Vonnegut, Kurt - The Sirens of Titan Willis, Connie - Doomsday Book Wolfe, Gene - The Fifth Head of Cerberus Wolfe, Gene - The Citadel of the Auturch / Sword and Citadel Wyndham, John - The Chrysalids
Over the year I've read many of them, but not all. I really fell in love with William Gibson and Neal Stephenson through this. Iain Banks, one of my favourite authors was not on this list though. There were also a few that didn't click with me, Grey Lensman being the main one. Many of these were already named, but there maybe something for you in there.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 24, 2017 1:14:59 GMT -5
The real question is why he Cap fighting a bunch of guys in Night Thrasher outfits. Ha, the joke I've seen was wondering why he was fighting all those Netflix Daredevils.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Jul 24, 2017 1:05:25 GMT -5
>Best New Series: Black Hammer, by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston One of the few series I didn't try out. Liked Lemire on Descender and Moon Knight, not so much on Hawkeye, so I'll check it out later.
>Best Limited Series: The Vision, by Tom King and Gabriel Walta This was a pretty good series.
>Best Continuing Series: Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples Saga has been winning for years now, maybe give somebody else a chance (I know, I know, that's what best new series is for).
>Best Reality-Based Work: March, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell Was book 3 last year? For my feeling I've had this series for ages.
>Best Coloring: Matt Wilson (Cry Havoc, Paper Girls, The Wicked + The Divine; Black Widow, The Mighty Thor, Star-Lord) Usually something people don't pay that much attention to, but I've noticed the colouring on Wicked+Divine and Paper Girls. Well deserved.
>Bill Finger Award: William Messner-Loebs and Jack Kirby Really? It took them this long to nominate Kirby?
|
|