Eyendasky80

Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man...

I'm not positive, but considering how weak comic sales are, it's probably not so much the pay that entices creators but the opportunity to work with the characters. And for people like Joss Whedon and Bryan Singer, they probably savor the freedom from budgetary constraints.

Also, I'm pretty sure if you're nominally famous you can call up DC or Marvel and get a book within the span of a five minute conversation.

Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man...

Ultimate Iron Man had his "origin" revealed in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, but most people thumb their noses at BMB's origins and act like it didn't happen. Except Mark Millar, who goes out of his way to make Ultimate Marvel Team-Up canon. I think their going to chalk up the UMTU origin as Iron-Man's cover story. Which is utter crap as it was related via interior monologue.

"Most... reminisce... about cover story, in case... any.... telepaths are... wandering by." Uttered as Iron-Man lies disabled by high-tech thieves about to kidnap him to steal his armor.

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever?

That was supposed to be real Marvel angel. It was an Exiles story set in the true Marvel Universe. Chuck Austen is a tool.

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever?

Boy, he's so popular around here I think it may be time for him to get a run in Exiles with all these new improvements. Beak did, why not Cypher? Someone start a petition and we'll send it to Marvel.

Re: Angel, the worst original character concept ever?

And that's okay. I think it's a good system. The editorial staff is supposed to act as a check on the truly bad ideas, but they shouldn't stifle new (and possibly controversial) ideas.

About Cypher, what if he learns to communicate with electronic devices like Mitchell Hundred from Ex Machina? Or computers? Or everything? That'd be cool, it could be a secondary mutation.

About Angel, I've had the same problem trying to write a character sheet on him for a standard point value. I can barely spend 300 points on him before feeling like I'm breaking away from canon.

Re: The Authority: Revolution #3

Is that fruit still alive?

Re: The Authority: Revolution #3

I'm okay with them being psycho fascists. This is the first Authority book I've bought in three years.

Re: The Legion Thread

Doesn't it give them life support as well?

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Re: Orson Scott Card To Write Ultimate Iron Man...

Here's my idea for a better Iron Man back story....

Pretty good, but Tony shouldn't be a soldier or a "hell raiser." He's an aristocrat, if he is part of the military, it should be intelligence or research, but I'd stay away from it entirely.

Re: The supporting cast - in the limelight

Thanks for saying it was short for Alexander - I went back and forth and it doesn't help that others have misspelt it, so I'm perpetually confused. Now that I know it's actually for a longer name, I will remember properly!

 

Yeah, didn't mean to leave that out so much as tried to be (too) brief.

 

PS - it was also a big maturity episode for him, as he starts out wanting to be cool "car guy" with a vintage car image to uphold, before realizing how superficial and meaningless that is.

The first half of that episode had me grinding my teeth as Xander got his ass handed to him by a scrawny little "tough guy" with a knife. I was literally screaming at the tv, "He fights vampires every single night! This is an outrage!" By the end of the episode, "Best Xander Ever." I was impressed that a writer/director/actor could put something together that could make me do such a huge 180.

Re: Edna "E." Mode!

Her costumes granted (in HERO terms) powers so she could have a major transform. They had resistant defenses, Violet's offset her power's disad and they had locator devices.

Or, she could just be an origin of powers that hero's buy with their own points.

Re: Jet City Champions Campaign Log

I second that.

Re: Jet City Champions Campaign Log

Did Arsenal get his eyes back?

Re: Iron Champions

That's okay, tangents are usually more interesting than the original topic. Which is way they happen.

Re: Iron Champions

Stay on target.

Re: Iron Champions

Who plays in an "Iron Age" style campaign?

Re: Until

Looks like I already gave Lord Liaden rep lately so I'll just have to say, Thank you!

Just curious, when did UNTIL form and what does UNTIL stand for?

Do you think there's room within the Champions setting for a Super Group that uses lethal force against villains to operate on a worldwide level? Or would they get shut down by other hero teams?

Re: Speeding things up

I was actually reacting to HoustonGm's advice...

Whoops. Sorry.

Re: Speeding things up

I don't see how lowering PC speeds changes anything. All it does is give normals and agents more phases relative to the PCs and that can't do much to speed things up...

 

The best advice I can give is: Don't let slow players play complicated characters.

 

$0.02

No, no, I said keep SPD relative. I tell my players they can have between 3 and 6 but if they pick 6 they have to have some form of super SPD/reflexes or such in their conception to justify it. 3s are usually heavy hitters and I encourage them to bump it up to 4 unless their concept is slow and strong.

What I find this does, is keep everyone involved and the momentum moving forward. If you have a super speedster with a SPD of 9 than the brick with a 4 is going to get sleepy while this guy runs around in circles. I just like everyone to have equal turns so no one wonders off. If we need a break, we all take a break together. Before I did this, slow characters would go to the bathroom, grab a drink, whatever and it amazed me how these guys could have twenty to thirty minutes to plan their next action and still say "huh?" when I call thier name. So I basically adopted a turn based combat system that still uses the SPD chart and has a little room for variation. I swear it sped up combat at least %100. It made it more fun, too. My group may have been a little extreme, though, that example I gave above was true. Except the speedster was SPD 10 and he wasn't a speedster, he was a ripoff of Ash from Evil Dead. After that, I decided to come up with some strict rules for SPD because min/maxing SPD is a gamebreaker.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

He said killing characters is cheap heat.

...we call stuff like killing charaters "cheap heat" since it has an immediate, visceral impact but has absolutely no substance or impact otherwise.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

Re: Hugh Neilson's post.

 

Hugh, I think you put your finger on the problem, exactly, but the question shouldn't be "what 2 characters should die?". Rather ir should be, "why do 2 characters have to die to tell this story?" "Isn't there some other we can tell it and be effective?"

 

Up here in Cowtown, I co-own a pro wrestling promotion and in the business we call stuff like killing charaters "cheap heat" since it has an immediate, visceral impact but has absolutely no substance or impact otherwise. It's the comic book equivalent of wrestlers blading themselves.

 

So, what I see is a failure of DC's editors to provide direction and to lead effectively. You just know that stuff like this wouldn't have happened when Archie Goodwin was at the bat helm.

 

Vigil

This was the post I was referring too. It calls the act of killing characters itself cheap, not calling cheap deaths to task.

I'm not advocating wholesale slaughter, I just think each death is unique and should be judged on its particular merits. Sometimes a senseless death is very effective at elevating the threat level of an antagonist.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

Have you read 'War Games'?

 

I have. The story was distinctly sub-par, the death in no way was required to tell the story, /and/ the legacy the character has been given post-death... in the character voice of Batman and several others... has basically added up to 'She got killed because she was stupid.'

 

This was not comics growing as a medium, this was simply the editors taking advantage of the first excuse to kill off a character inherited from the prior editorial staff that they (for reasons which were entirely beyond me) despised(*), and then to indulge themselves in pissing on the grave.

 

This is not 'growing as a medium'.

 

 

 

 

 

(*) The fact that the character was so despised by the editors isn't in much doubt, however -- interviews and such

So you are judging the story on its merit as opposed to its including the death of a character. That's good. That's all I'm advocating. I didn't read War Games, I don't read Batman regularly, just the occassional trade.

Now, making a blanket statement that the killing of characters is dumb and shouldn't happen, that's what I won't do. You read the story, you didn't like it, okay.

Re: Iyo: The Most Underrated Or Underused Character In Comics

I'm not sure if we want to go in this direction because for comic fans, this is like politics and religion.

BUT: Why does it have to be so polar? Does every death have to be of epic event proportions? Is every death that isn't pointless? Can't we evaluate each story on its own merits regardless of body count?

My opinion (and I've heard this echoed by Pros or maybe I'm echoing them) is that comic audiences are maturing and the same escapist fantasy that pre-teens love regurgitated for the millionth time isn't going to thrill them for very long. So the industry is at a point where they must change or die. The industry has resisted this for years and we've seen a steady decline (dying) in comics as a medium. Now they're expirimenting with different kinds of stories, no longer catering to die-hard fans. Making their characters fallable and human. I believe that people who've made a strong attachment to the characters of these stories at a young age fear this change. There seems to be a contingent (usually a very vocal one) of people who, if they cannot recognize the story as something comfortable and familar, will cry foul no matter how well executed/written/drawn it is. It seems to me, they don't want to give it a chance.

I don't want to pigeon hole comics with the kind of mentality that limits them to children's entertainment. I believe they can run the entire spectrum of fiction, from iconic to human. Uplifting, tragic, funny, senseless, epic. I think comics can do all this and I'll lay my own personal favorites on the chopping block for a good story. It doesn't even have to be great and certainly not epic, just good. If I enjoy it, it was worth it.

The day comic books stop growing as a medium is the day I stop buying them. Because I've read all these stories before.