Lord Liaden

Savannah Uber.

The sculptor has confirmed the statement from his business partner that the statue was actually manufactured in China. A rather embarrassing bit of irony. It's almost breathtaking how thoroughly the truth is eradicated by contact with Donald Trump.

Intent is a key factor in determining severity of a crime. Ineptitude doesn't usually work as an excuse.

Honestly, I was kinda hoping one of the scientists here could explain it.

The Universe Might Be One Big Neural Network, Study Finds

I'm wondering if it might not be rather the opposite. Hero Games did quite a bit of updating of their books to 6E, but because the edition changes weren't earth-shaking, and most of the other stuff already existed for 5E, I got the impression from comments that the existing fan base wanted new material and weren't buying the updates in large numbers. I know that applied to me.

I'm not sure about that one. A great deal of what you're describing is dealt with pretty thoroughly in The Ultimate Mentalist. Obviously that's for 5E, but differences in edition aren't hard to apply. You emphasize a "normals with mental powers" campaign style, which of course is only a small part of what TUM covers; but to me that sounds like it would also limit the target audience. If you really wanted a heroic-level campaign of that type, I would suggest a smaller book specifically targeted to it, making references to TUM for more examples and advice. That way people who were interested in it wouldn't get extras they aren't interested in, and those who just wanted general advice on playing mentalists in various genres would know it's not for them.

Nah, he's just holding him as bait.

True, but problems with American policing are long-term, too. It's just that in recent years how deep they are has become impossible to ignore.

Low-end supervillains are mostly thugs, just performing a pumped-up version of what they'd be doing if they didn't have powers, because they lack the imagination for anything more. Doc Ock has tried to take over organized crime in NYC a few times, although revenge on Spider-Man seems to be a greater driving force. But Ock and the Riddler are psychopaths, pushing their motivations to more idiosyncratic extremes. Also, don't forget the, "prove they're superior" part. That's a big part of why Riddler plays his games -- he has to outwit Batman to demonstrate he's smarter. We see this among real psychopaths, like serial killers. In the case of the Wizard, IMO a big part of his fixation on Reed Richards is jealousy of his scientific genius. Wizard wants to clearly beat Mr. Fantastic on the intellectual front. Now, I don't know what's been done with the character in recent years, but in his classic supevillain incarnation the Wizard wasn't a one-trick pony. His technological "wonder gloves" had an array of offensive and defensive systems built in, and the Wizard created a variety of other devices. (BTW the official Champions Universe has a supervillain called Gauntlet, in CV3, very similar to that version of the Wizard. His artwork even looks rather like him.)

At the moment I type this, exactly 29 points separates each of the four top members of the forum leaderboard from the person in the next rank. I choose to believe that's cosmically significant.

Yes, Matt's "respectable" qualifier excludes a few large players.

Even if we accept the artist's stated intent as genuine, it's irrelevant. The end result is what matters. This is an icon of Donald Trump, many of whose supporters believe him to be a divinely-appointed savior, at an event where he was publicly worshiped.

Quite apart from the conventions of the comic-book genre, in which supervillains exist to give superheroes identifiable evil to personally fight; these kinds of people become supervillains because they don't want cash. They don't want simple luxury or social status. They want power. Not just institutional power, but personal power. They want to prove they're superior to the common ruck of humanity. They want the satisfaction, the glory, of personally crushing anyone who opposes them. They want the ego gratification of making their enemies, making the entire world, kneel at their feet. This kind of motivation is not uncommon among real humanity. Do you think Alexander or Caesar would have been content just to amass a fortune through mercantilism, or theft? You can't expect someone to act like a profiteer or a criminal if he believes himself to be a conqueror.

I'm not a gambling man, but I'd put good money down on that.

Well, that's the decision of a free market, so conservative Texans should be okay with that, right?

You forgot the mind-controlling cupcakes and fruit pies.

My brother collected high-end and antique razors for a while. That's when I discovered there's an online community for everything nowadays.

Maybe the real Roddenberry fans don't watch Discovery.

Or the Darkstars. Did they change the number from 3,600? Originally each Lantern's "sector" was supposed to comprise one tenth of one degree radiating from Oa, the center of the universe. But if it is bazillions, that would be a lot more practical for guarding the whole universe. It's like we've been saying. It's not the concept that's the problem, it's the execution.

This damn virus was bound to take one of us sooner or later. But that doesn't make it any less sad.

Sarcastic B@st@rd.

With that I can agree. I love the Green Lantern Corps. The idea of a small army of super beings chosen to bear one of the most powerful and versatile artifacts in existence, and charged with protecting the entire universe, is compelling to me. It opened the DC world into a whole cosmos of potential adventure. The diversity of sapient beings in the Corps, all united by dedication to an ideal, is IMO inspiring. I do have to disagree with some other objections raised here about the Corps. A Green Lantern is not "just a beat cop among beat cops," any more than a Knight of the Round Table was just one of a bunch of armored fighters. A Green Lantern is an exceptional being carefully chosen for a tremendous responsibility. And I remember multiple eras since the Silver Age when Green Lantern and the Corps were very popular. As you say, it comes down to execution. Overpowering is a chronic issue with DC. Every time there was a reboot to try to bring their characters down to a reasonable level, writers came along who wanted to move planets or rewrite time or cross the entire universe. In the case of Green Lantern, IMO it was a mistake to introduce continuing multiple GLs based on Earth, and to keep dragging the whole Corps into so many events focused there. It diluted what was special about the Lantern from Earth, and diminished the epic impact of the Corps. Again IMO, the GLC works best when individual Lanterns are looking after their own sectors, and the larger Corps only becomes involved in the most epic of star-spanning events.

It's Canada. We're magical. 😝 That's Parliament Hill, the seat of the federal government, overlooking the Ottawa River. The round structure in the foreground is the Parliamentary Library, with the Peace Tower over it in the background. The complex was completed in its present form nearly a century ago, in the Gothic Revival style.