SKJAM!

Apparently Cracked.com has someone known as "Headline Guy" who picks the titles for all the articles and comes in for a lot of stick for badly chosen headlines.

The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu. Sequel to The Lives of Tao. Tao is a non-aging alien who must piggyback on native lifeforms to live in Earth's atmosphere. He and his fellow Quasing arrived on Earth millions of years ago, then a long while later began guiding the protohumans to develop a civilization capable of letting the Quasing get off this hellhole. Some time back, the Quasing split along philosophical lines--are humans just very bright animals to be used by their Quasing gods, or full sentients who should be treated as equals? Tao chose the second path, and now he and his human partner Roen Tan must battle the majority Genjix in a secret war. In this sequel, Roen and Tao have discovered most of the puzzle pieces to the latest Genjix plan, one that could mean the end of independent human existence. http://www.skjam.com/2015/07/25/book-review-the-deaths-of-tao/

Yep! Had a decent independent comic series titled "Elementals" which slowly went off the rails as it got more obvious what Mr. Willingham's politics and thoughts on gender roles were--not helped by the publishers going under and having to restart several times. He eventually moved over to the writing side full time.

Not getting into the specifics of this case, or the wtfness of the public document thing...In the past, blanket prohibitions on discussing salary and bonuses, etc. with co-workers has indeed been used to conceal gender and racial bias, and perhaps more importantly to the corrupt bosses, favoritism based on things other than merit. (For example, the boss' relative gets compensation well above the office average for the position because nepotism.)

Non Sequitur was formerly Adam Lilithski, a scientist known for his inability to explain his advanced theories in a linear order. As you might imagine, he got laughed at a lot. His power is being able to alter the order or action of causality--making things happen in reverse order, making correlation equal causality, producing illogical results from standard procedures, etc.

Empire of Sin by Gary Krist, a history of New Orleans' seedy red light district "Storyville" from roughly 1890 to 1920. Shows what happens when reformers think racial egalitarianism is one of the bad things they need to fix. http://www.skjam.com/2015/06/25/book-review-empire-of-sin/

Invidious is Oleander Heff, who had a decent career as a cat burglar before getting caught one too many times and sentenced to a long jail term. He volunteered for experiments designed to reduce criminal impulses--they backfired and gave him the ability to make people irritable and quarrelsome. He often uses this power to distract guards and police officers while he commits his thefts unnoticed.

Obligate is a pony from a dimension where horses are the dominant species (see the One-Trick Ponies) who was shunted to the Earth dimension and immediately became disgusted with the evil meat-eaters. Her ability is to change any living being into an obligate herbivore; their teeth, digestive system and metabolism adjusting accordingly. It isn't terribly combat effective (except on enemies who rely on carnivore teeth for attacks) but is heck annoying.

Sweet Pea is Persimmon Saladin, a young woman from Indianapolis. She's a very good driver, and loved racing. But when she wanted to go pro, it was learned that she was a mutant. And mutants are banned from most professional driving circuits, despite the fact that her powers have zilch to do with her driving ability. So here she is in an illegal race. She has no plans to commit extra crimes along the way, she just wants to test her skills and hopped up auto against the others. Oh, her powers? Sweet Pea has the reflexive ability to erase negative emotions towards herself. No one can stay angry or sad or fearful towards her--in fact, they forget why they had such emotions in the first place. Sadly, it does not defend her against unemotional enforcement of regulations. New Group: Bitter Spirits After an evil spirit was released from the bottle a clever pirate had sealed him in a couple of centuries ago, it found that it had taken on a pirate-like appearance and the ability to steal the abilities of any drunk person in the vicinity. Calling itself Demon Rum, the spirit has gathered five other villains named after alcoholic drinks to loot and plunder. Again, that's five more villains, named after booze of some kind (puns preferred.)

The final issue of Multiversity features a good "Thor"/"Aquaman" team-up.

Own Goal is a bald little man in very good physical shape, who clearly has been training in martial arts most of his life. But the thing that makes him dangerous is the ability to momentarily override another person's nervous system, causing them to attack themselves or allies. He's especially hated by teams with dangerous ranged combatants.

Not a book, but Analog Science Fiction and Fact just reached its 1000th issue! http://www.skjam.com/2015/05/27/magazine-review-analog-science-fiction-and-fact-june-2015/ Or you could just run out and buy it.

Steel Maiden didn't start out with that name. Originally, she was Victoria Excalibur, an agent for Her Majesty's government. And quite a good one too. Until she fell in love with one of her fellow agents, ignoring his nickname, "the Black Widower." Things were going just fine until they were surrounded by Dr. Destroyer's minions, and she learned how he earned that name--by abandoning his lovers to die. Except that she didn't die, just lost an arm. As it happened, Zerstoiten had nothing better to do that day, so he replaced her arm with an experimental prosthetic. She no longer has it, as it was programmed to self-destruct should she ever cross Destroyer. Her attempts to get revenge on Black Widower earned Steel Maiden the enmity of British law enforcement, also, more missing parts that were replaced by cybernetics (none ever quite as powerful as the first, but with less self-destruct sequences.) She's now more than 80% metal and wires, replete with useful weapons. Most of her money earned from the Magnificent Seven goes into maintenance.

And even a sweep doesn't put me in the semi-finals. Enforcer tried hard, but I was spending points like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and a couple of my team were genuinely popular. Think I won't be carrying over Nemesis Kid to next season, though--I've used up all the push I care to on him.

Spider-Girl's experience gives her a squeaker over Sapphire!

I do know that sexual harrassment used to be much, much more acceptable at SF conventions. Isaac Asimov was notorious for this, but the majority of male fans laughed it off as "he's such a dirty old man."

What I didn't mention in my tag team match is that Magneto was coked to the gills on Mutant Growth Hormone (aka points).

Line-up in! The Rose might actually win a week, for a change.

Shoddy was "Leonardo" Qin, a Chinese entrepreneur who specialized in cheap knockoff products; mockbuster movies, buggy copies of popular video games, fake designer purses--but his downfall was "near-milk" which was sold to impoverished mothers in Third World nations. The formula was tricky, and the slightest mistake by workers would make it poisonous; Qin had not invested in training his underpaid factory hands. Children died. As a result, Leonardo was cursed to forever be an imitation human; he can look sort of like anyone he wants (except himself; he can never look like himself again), but the colors will be slightly off, and the powers (if any) won't work quite the same way, being inferior in some manner to the original. New Team: The Day Jobbers (five members, but always recruiting): Recent college graduates, they suffer from heavy student loans and are unable to find paid work in their chosen fields. Each has powers related to their "useless" major--which they are now using for crime!

NSG, I'm sure you mean well, but "appeal to worse problems" is commonly used by "concern trolls" to dismiss actual but relatively small parts of a larger issue. The idea is to force feminists or other civil rights activists to waste time establishing that yes, they are also working on the big things, and derail the discussion of the smaller problems that perhaps could be fixed more easily.

That comes across as "Appeal to Worse Problems" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppealToWorseProblems ; we can care about all those things, without having to pretend the small stuff doesn't matter.

Quite a Three or four. It seems like more because he actually had several books published before he got tapped to do Wheel of Time, and they've been re-released now that Sanderson is a known name.

Brandon Sanderson novella The Emperor's Soul, picked up because he was a GoH at MInicon 50. Fantasy involving an imprisoned art forger asked to repair the title object. http://www.skjam.com/2015/04/26/book-review-the-emperors-soul/

President Jon Terra wasn't a villain in the original Jet Justice series, being a fairly benevolent father to Melinda, and a pompous blowhard to Jet. However, something happened on the way to our world that has twisted his mind, and he now seeks to become President of Earth again, no matter what it takes. He's also gained the power to control bureaucracy so that government officials are always on his side unless mentally shielded.

Note that current day newspapers have been cutting staff like *whoa* which has had consequences in depth of reporting and missed stories. Awesome Guy may find his secret identity as a reporter harder to get away from if he's expected to cover twice the stories due to half the journalists being laid off. If he was lucky enough not to get laid off himself for his notorious habit of disappearing for hours or even days at a time.