Lord Liaden

I agree that this award is questionable. Still, being the only American Senator to ever vote to impeach a president from his own party does count for something.

Apples and oranges. Wakanda exists as a symbol of black Africa's potential. Pre-Muslim magic traditions aren't part of popular cultural consciousness in the Middle East, and even if they were, Nabu isn't from that tradition. It's like the Ancient One in the MCU. In the comics he was an Oriental male because that was the popular Western association with mysticism at the time the character was created. But those sorcerers practice comic-book style magic, not any magic tradition from a real-world culture.

I hate that attitude too, and it's been elevated almost to the level of folk wisdom in today's climate of anti-intellectualism in America. But I agree with tkdguy that what's "common knowledge" changes over time. Every generation defines its own experience. How many of us on this forum know how to plant crops, or skin a rabbit, or shoe a horse? All I'm saying is that the motivation of these reactors is the opposite of what you appear to ascribe to them. They want to know more, to broaden their experience. BTW over forty years ago, when Ringo Starr's dreadful Caveman movie was in theaters, I was riding a bus passing by a theater showing that film, with Ringo's name on the marque. A couple of teenagers were sitting behind me, and I heard one ask, "Who's Ringo Starr?" The other one replied, "Wasn't he in the band that used to back up Paul McCartney?"

As far as the comics go, the Avengers, as Earth's Mightiest Heroes, have fought nearly everyone who's anyone among Marvel villains on multiple occasions, including those who are nemeses of their individual members, like Loki, the Red Skull, and the Mandarin, as well as major enemies to other heroes, including Dr. Doom, Magneto, and Dormammu, not to mention existential threats such as Thanos, the Kree and Skrulls, and Galactus. But Ultron and Kang have been almost exclusive to the Avengers over the decades, and would be at the top of their personal Rogues Gallery along with Loki helped create the Avengers, but hasn't been a primary antagonist to them much outside his schemes toward Thor.

I know that the previous host for Nabu, the Lord of Order who possesses Dr. Fate, was technically from the pagan era of the Middle East, but Nabu and his magic have little to do with any real-world magical tradition. He's more cosmic entity than sorcerer. Fate, Strange and their ilk were just created in an era when the East was popularly considered the realm of the occult, while the West was the home of empirical science. That's despite millennia of magic traditions in European culture, up to the modern day.

Yes, we're old and the world sucks. 👴 And no few "reactors" to things like songs or movies are obviously faking their responses to try to be more entertaining. But the majority of them are exactly the opposite of what you describe. Those who are looking at older movies or listening to older songs do so because they do want to expand their horizons and get out of their comfort zones, and often say as much. Some of them are from countries where they aren't constantly bombarded with American pop culture. Others are just young, in their teens or twenties. For stuff that came out in the 1960s or earlier, often even their parents hadn't been born yet. YouTube has given them an opportunity to discover these classics, and I applaud them for taking advantage of it. And I have to say it's rather exciting to watch someone discover something great that I knew from my own youth. Experiencing it through them, it's like I reconnect to its special magic. BTW Top Gun came out thirty-five years ago. When you were a teenager, how many three-decade-plus-old movies had you watched, or even heard of?

Next to Ultron, Kang has probably the most personal history with the Avengers. Like Bane to Batman or Doc Ock to Spider-Man, he'd be the Avengers' nemesis if there wasn't one villain ahead of him.

We already have time travel and the multiverse is on deck, so Kang would be a natural step. He might not have been practical without laying that groundwork.

I have no idea where it comes from, but I did my best to try to enlarge it for you. I'll attach a couple of sizes so your player can choose.

I noticed that when the animated Justice League brought in Dr. Fate, they gave him a Middle Eastern accent. I acknowledge that Dr. Fate has far more versatile powers than Black Adam, but the magic of the Egyptian gods that powers Adam may not be something that Fate can just dismiss with a wave of his hand. If it comes down to a test of strength, Adam is one of the strongest in the DCU.

Darren Watts specifically credited The Invisible Ray for inspiring his use of Radium-X for Champions. Darren reportedly did even more with it in his Silver Age Champions campaign. This movie has to be one of the earliest uses of a radioactive mutagen as a plot feature in fiction.

My own country danced with this scenario back in 1995, when Quebec came literally within less than 1% of the vote of declaring independence from Canada. At the time of the referendum some of the aboriginal communities in the province, under federal jurisdiction, asserted they would remain part of Canada if the vote was for independence; but the Quebec nationalist government decreed that Quebec's territory was indivisible. There may be a practical population limit at which secession will be seriously discussed. Ultimately, though, in any political relationship it comes down to who has power, how much power in comparison to others, and how far they're willing to go in wielding it.

Ditto. I had never heard of this system under this name and assumed the title was literal and a joke. The 21st Century is really leaving me behind.

The following suggestion has been added to the main list at the top of this thread. Mythic Forces: Under the entry for "Divine" Intervention, above, is the story of how circus strongman Johnny Hercules received the Hercules Force in an amulet bestowed by Zeus. Johnny died in the Battle of Detroit, and his amulet, apparently powerless, was buried with him. But the Hercules Force continued to exist, and over a decade later "chose" another human vessel for its power, a student of Classical culture, who became the second and current Johnny Hercules. One of his greatest foes is the monstrous Typhon, once a bitter, angry archaeologist who was the recipient of the Typhon Force, a sort of balance to the Hercules Force. The PDF book, The Hercules Force, which fully writes up both characters, suggests that other "forces" could exist based on other gods, demigod heroes, or divine-level monsters. The examples imply that these would be mythic figures who are either dead or imprisoned, e.g. Achilles, Python, Baldur, or Ymir. Powers granted would be consistent with the legendary abilities of those entities. The forces are most likely drawn to people with personalities similar to the original source being and/or familiarity and strong attachment to the culture it comes from. They would differ from empowerment directly by a mythic god in that there would be no potential meddling in the character's life by their patron divinity.

Nobody sings Unchained Melody better than Bobby Hatfield did. This was one of the most perfect live vocal performances ever recorded. It's so fortunate that it was preserved. I've looked at quite a few YouTube "reaction" videos by young people encountering this song, and similar ones from the same era, for the first time, and the response is almost always the same. The men express surprise and admiration for genuine singing talent and beautiful songs, but the women swoon. It's like us old fogies always say, kids today don't know what great music is, but they respond when they discover it. I should probably put up the original video so it can be appreciated in its entirety.

That's exactly the comparison that DC has to overcome. Marvel Studios has developed a reputation for consistent entertainment. They've had very few outright clunkers, and at this point the audience assumes that a new Marvel movie will at minimum be fun, and may even be exceptional. But the DC theater audience has been burned more often than satisfied, and they've grown wary of spending their movie budget on new releases.

That there are many ignorant, gullible, petty, stupid people who vote didn't used to be something you could say in public. Then again, you couldn't say that people who vote for a particular party are evil monsters in public before, either.

I don't recommend watching this unless you've already seen the Snyder cut or don't care about spoilers. Otherwise I do recommend it.

I think that's what he's been trying to make all along.

No one who didn't already know would ever recognize Reeve's Superman in his Clark Kent. He made them look, sound, and act very different.

The first place I remember seeing Law and Chaos as defining divine factions in fantasy was in Michael Moorcock's stories of Elric, Corum, etc. In those the Lords of Chaos, by the way they were presented, were clearly Evil. We rarely got to see Lords of Order in his novels, but they were implied to be Good, as with Lord Donblas the Justice-Maker. That concept definitely influenced subsequent novels, comics, and role-playing games. Of course Dean's writing, inspired by William Blake, goes well beyond the concept's simplicity. That's the first I heard about Plutus, and that's really interesting to me, as the Roman Pluto was considered the god of wealth as well as the Underworld. The reason for that is widely held to be that as a god of the realms beneath the Earth, Pluto had charge of all the mineral riches within the Earth.

Considering that they were deliberately trying to carry on from Christopher Reeve's interpretation of Superman, it was logical for them to cast an actor who physically resembled Reeve, and could mimic his interpretation of Clark Kent. But IMO Brandon Routh in Superman Returns never captured the dignity, the nobility of Reeve's Superman. Maybe he was just too young at the time. But his return to the character in the Arrowverse crossover last year let him show that more experience and maturity has allowed him to capture those elements of Superman. The fan response was so positive, there have been rumors of him starring in a Kingdom Come mini-series on HBO. Don't know what the status of that is currently, though.

It depends on what someone is comfortable with, but there are differences. Luck can be good or bad, beneficial or harmful. But mythic Tricksters like Loki or Coyote deliberately stir up mischief to give people grief.

Mythology has plenty of examples. Instead of Wealth you could have such classics as Agriculture, Fertility, Hearth/Home and protection thereof, Love/Romance. Filth and Disease could be replaced with chaotic activities such as archetypal mythic Tricksters play, e.g. Theft and/or Lies/Deception. Or Disease could be subsumed into general Decay, or Disaster/Destruction along with fires, earthquakes, floods, locusts etc.

But at least those aren't contagious. Er, well...