Comic

Confuses aesthetics with message. I have no opinion to express about the artfulness of Lord CensorCurvyCartoons. From a certain aesthetic point of view, as examples of propaganda art, they may even have merit. That's all eye-of-the-beholder stuff. And I have no interest in calling someone else's aesthetic sense crap. I've not set a foot on that bandwagon. My issue is the call to suppress the creativity of the original artists of the original art. I acknowledge there's another issue -- one that I don't particularly have much interest in pursuing because it seems like no one is disputing that body shaming is going on, or that it's wrong -- closely related to the call for censorship, but I'll gladly accept the win by default on that point. Taken as a whole, with the indelible nature of Internet images, Lord PrefersBeardedHeroesOverHeroines's implicit call for mob violence, the elaborate efforts taken to make Wonder Woman look like a cross-eyed anorexic, Black Canary like a teenager in reform school coveralls, and Power Girl like a draftee -- beside being amply not fair use -- stand as a call for censoring their creators. We already have slim, gangly original Kitty Pryde, Jean Grey, and the characters of Next Men to represent heroines with those body images. Why do we need all female superhumans to be limited only to those shapes, if not to censor what these changes all have in common: liberty and self-respect.

Excusing an online call for mob violence as mere hyperbole or irony is a cop out, frankly when that call for mob violence is accompanied by pages and pages of inked, colored, lettered artwork carrying the point of the message over, and over, and over again. We can't accept that what Lord FergusonStyleRiot said was just kidding around. It piled invective on criticism on complaint with zero ambiguity. You can pause all you want to process that. A lot of people in denial take time to figure out an alternate explanation to plain facts as written on the page, while the Internet is full of people all too eager to charge ahead with no sense of irony at all. The most goodwill interpretation in the world still leads to the conclusion of open call for censorship of comics, and still is plainly body-shaming aimed against women. Which second part I note remains undisputed. Censorship doesn't just come from government authorities. Most of the time, it starts outside government with incidents just like this one seeding shame and outrage until some government authority jumps on the bandwagon. Waiting until the government is in on the action is waiting too long. Saying "silence through terrorism" is just another way of saying censorship; further, it's just one of the forms of censorship Lord Draws'EmScrawny engaged in through the very long and varied effort you can go to yourself and check out in detail before you defend it as innocent or harmless. I get that it's hard to look at someone who's using some parts of some plausibly sensible arguments that you can agree with and see that they've integrated them with a message of hate and intolerance. That's what propagandists do, it's how hypocrites thrive, it's how good people are manipulated into backing bad acts. Lord OhNoesNaughtyBits may have even been doing all this innocently out of good motives, striving to protect some values most of us can agree with.. But then, pretending that Wonder Woman's shoulders and Black Canary's haircut are worth going after for their sexism compared to the much, much, much more extreme commonplaces seen in actual pr0n and real exploitation smacks of hypocrisy. Depictions of strong women making personal choices are not exploitation. Attacking them is.

You've confused CENSURE with CENSOR. No shame in that. A lot of people see things in black-and-white logical extremes. The crappy art is just art. I've already said, and repeatedly, I have no issue with it as representational figures. It may not even be all that crappy, in other contexts. It's that I'm clarifying what the artist is representing by those figures: that women with curves are inherently shameful and wrong, and must have their proportions altered to fit that particular artist's ideas of what is right, and that representing women is itself best done in dull colors and full coveralls, preferably with prison hairstyles. Lord HatesCurvyLasses isn't being threatened with mob violence for body shaming women; the things written attacking free expression of art and diversity of the human figure in particular of females are being called out for how odious they are. I'm not saying Lord OhNoShe'sGotThingsIDon't should be censored -- I'm all for giving a fool enough rope to hang themselves. (By the way, that would be hyperbole; take with a grain of salt.) I'm just pointing out what a call for censorship looks like, and what body-shaming looks like, and asking people to judge for themselves if they're comfortable with those views, stripped of hypocrisy and persiflage. Lord Doesn'tLikeGirlsWithPower is none of my business, nor is the directed attack on DC; I'm not DC's lawyer, nor really a big DC reader or fan. However, it takes very little knowledge of the topics to spot that almost everything alleged simply wasn't true. There's a complaint that all the hairstyles are too similar and impractically long.. and then Black Canary is given Power Girl's haircut.. which has pretty much always been short, as was Robin's in Dark Knight Returns, Mary Marvel's, sometimes Ororo's or Kitty Pryde's, usually Rogue's. Mantis was bald. Medusa's hair filled the better part of a room. Barbara Gordon wore a wig as Batgirl. Peter Parker's female friends have always had as varied hairstyles as any of the women's magazines the comic is compared to. Go to Champions Online and look at the hairstyles available for females in the character generator, and claim there's too little diversity. And on, and on, and on it goes with claim after claim by Lord LikesLadiesBlushingAndBurka'd, straw man generalizations about a comicbook world that is not representative of the real whole thing, but mostly about the most fan-referenced few panels. And if comic publishers and artists have to answer for fan choices and fanfic, then JK Rowling and Arthur Conan Doyle have a lot of explaining to do.

An. Opinion. Calling. For. A. Riot. Against. DC. For. Drawing. A. Picture. Of. A. Woman. That has all sorts of power, historically. I get that you're substituting small sentences for small words. It's a fair try. Who calls for the act of call for mob rule does not change the act. Who calls for threat of mob rule does not make it less a threat, it just makes it less a risk. Take a close look at the art you praise. What's the weight of each of the slim girls -- and they are all girl's shapes, not full grown strong she-shapes -- would you say? Less than 100 lbs? Go back and read what Lord Echh wrote, not what you wish Lord Echh wrote. Think of how small it would make you feel, if it were aimed at your shape, the way you dress, who you are, and your right to choose how to dress.

"Honestly, I don’t know why women haven’t been a lot more angry and vocal about this kind of thing over the years. Like “Ferguson riot” angry. " Explain to me again, how is calling for riots against Marvel and DC over spandex not censorship. Use small words.

Censorship From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Madama Anastasie (allegory ofcensorship) by André Gill, June 19, 1874 Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.[1] Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is called self-censorship. Censorship may be direct or it may be indirect, in which case it is called soft censorship. It occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons includingnational security, to control obscenity, child pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel. Censorship has many broad and specific definitions, and this fits the mold. We may disagree how close the fit, but in my experience the start of every censorship movement is the same thin edge of the wedge: it's people, persuaded by some innocent-seeming comment or observation, to gang up on diversity and seek to lessen it. That this example is aimed in particular at traditional objects of censorship, achieving in particular the habitual ends of censorship is bad enough. That the artist further alters the actual bodies of his targets to force conformity, however, goes a step further. See also http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shaming

Soylent Green is people. So is censorship. This isn't a straw man, this is putting what's happening in blunt terms and calling it what it is. When I look at cosplayers, some of the ones who dress as Power Girl or Supergirl are actually real human females. And while not all of them are, and I'm sure some of them don't enjoy cosplay but are forced into it against their will by the tyranny of an oppressive cosplay system, some cosplayers seem to enjoy it and find it rewarding to wear clothes like the ones Lord Cover-Your-Eyes substituted drab formless coveralls for while strapping down anything that suggested femininity. So if there are people who like to dress that way in the real world, and you have cosplay as direct proof that there are, and that it is possible to dress that way, and that sure, it may be silly but it's no sillier than fashions from when your parents were young, and a lot less silly than some of the things they made you wear to grade school, but the people wearing those clothes like it and consider it an expression of who they are, then how much moreso for the comic book characters in the fantasy worlds they occupy? Cynically, sure, maybe there are some less than ideal reasons some of them look as they do. But so what? By accident of diversity, there are people who do look like that, and Lord Her-Proportions-Are-Indecent has clearly decided that diversity is shameful. This is not an innocent playing dress-up with beloved characters to explore what a world would be like if things were different. This is body shaming. The original Power Girl was no more extremely different or extremely dressed than the images in Cosmo magazine have been, and its editors and publishers have been strong, accomplished independently-minded women of financial power and business prestige, so I don't buy the argument of exploitation being implied by the costumes or looks of comic book women of any particular appearance. (And there are many different appearances.) Making Wonder Woman cover up so she doesn't scandalize Lord Her-Bare-Shoulders-Whisper-Evil-Thoughts-In-My-Head?! Why wouldn't that be offensive to a person? Put another way; if it were the thing you do recognize as censorship, would it bother you? If these body-shaming reasons I've set out above were the explicit rationale given for it to you, would that bother you? Well, that's what I see in this, and it bothers me. Maybe censorship and body shaming are just in the eye of the beholder.

It's not censorship? Respectfully, I disagree. Of course it's censorship. Making up other words for it doesn't make it not censorship. Saying it's an opinion is inaccurate: opinion is the thought; promotion of actions that suppress others' ability to express their opinions, that's not itself an opinion. That's a deed. Lord Don't-Look-At-Them performed a deed. The opinion, I have no problem with them holding. The deed, however, was promotion of censorship, and that is a touchy topic. Saying the reason that the proponent of the censorship was doing it was out of concern about silliness doesn't make it not censorship. After all, 'comic' and 'silly' are near synonyms; it's antithetical to comics to take the silliness out of them. Suppressing someone else's graphic images, promoting suppression of graphic images, for whatever excuse, is the definition of censorship. And if someone doesn't think censorship is worth getting worked up about, that's fine with me. Not everyone values freedoms the same way. But pretending it ain't an invasion of freedoms, that's just denial. I'm not even touching on the implicit and unavoidable issue of body shaming. Well, yeah, I already did, earlier. But I'm not further exploring why someone is so offended by the 'silliness' of some select humanoid body parts in scant decor (after all, almost none of the ladies in question are actually human, are they?) as to imply that those human body parts that correspond to them must be shameful, wrong and evil. Because that would be getting worked up about a big nothing. Since, after all, none of the people with parts like those matter much, right?

This is not about disrespecting heavy armor. This is not about respecting inane clothing choices made by people who end up in combat. On an ordinary human being, Peter Parker's spandex unitard and full face mask would be among the least plausible pragmatic costumes possible. But he's Spiderman, strong enough to lift a bus and quick enough to dodge automatic fire from multiple shooters. His costume is a work of imagination. Work of imagination. Property of the artist. There's a world of difference between knowing it's not practical, and shutting it down because it represents something for you as a reader you object to on some political or religious basis. And let's make no bones about this: Lord Whosit wasn't presenting aesthetic arguments, and the 'practicality' was clearly just an excuse, for imposing moral standards on others from a religious or political perspective. That is censorship. By the way, Ogress, the original Rogue, Mystique's Precog Oracle, every Morlock, the Brood, Superman's mom, and his bio-mom, pretty much every robe-draped priestess in pretty much every genre comic, pretty much every character in the roles of motherhood or authority or utterly alien.. like Alien. Those idealised sexy skin-tight, exposed female forms are the relative rarity. Etta Candy was Diana Prince's bestie, much like Lois Lane was to Clark Kent -- and while Lois Lane was remarked to be a looker, she rarely appeared in spandex, or anything that would draw the disdain of a nun. The original X-men uniform and most since the original did nothing to make Jean Grey into Dark Phoenix; Mastermind did that, and her change in clothes reflected her personality shift. How would Lord Blah's censorious worldview have illustrated Jean Grey's fall as Mastermind molded her: with a burka and veil? So Power Girl has a bust and isn't shamed by judgmental strangers into covering it up. So Supergirl wears a version of her cousin's suit: you think Superman isn't dressed to expose his physical features? That he's a physical ideal is kinda his whole point. Movie friendly is a great point. It's also a lousy excuse for censorship, which this is. My objection isn't the idea of people in quilted costumes with colors that make it easier to skulk in the dark. Those are imaginative, too. There's just no way that targeting people who dress differently and suggesting we'd be morally improved by not seeing them is going to fly, or shouldn't be challenged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Northern_Territory Just a few choice tidbits: 18 August 1983 – Douglas Crabbe rammed his 25 ton Mack truck into a motel bar at the base of Uluru, killing 5 people. 1999 – Rodney Ansell, inspiration for the 1986 film, Crocodile Dundee, killed Sergeant Glen Hutison before being killed by police. 2 February 2010 – A disgruntled customer used a trolley based device and bombed the Territory Insurance Office in Darwin City injuring 15.

*gasp* Cover art is the sacred source of all truth, and never misleads! How.. How dare you, sir!

So.. is the Hydra salute a tribute to Superman? I'd thought Namor was supposed to be Marvel's version of Kal El (according to some); would Namor interpret the other Invader's arm gestures as obeisances toward himself, or mockish tributes to the original? And on a side note: I can get that Red Sonya readers might wonder about a chainmail bikini and chaffing, but Namor's scale mail thong has got to top that, no? And how is it supposed to be heroic for three adults and two children to be attacking a lone woman? Or for the adults to turn the kids into child warriors? For android Torchie I suppose I can see the rationale as it's just a machine, after all. All kidding aside, it's fascinating to see the art of the period; much thanks for providing it.

In that Invaders cover, is Captain America giving the infamous half-Hydra salute in response to Torchie's full Hydra salute?

That's an internal creative process of a creative team. I'm not really chuffed by it one way or the other. This is external to the creative team, so there's a difference. It's imposing judgments from a narrow worldview to seek to curtail the creative expression of others. So that's a difference. It's not even honest enough to admit that's what it's doing, so that's a hypocrisy. I have no interest in reading comics where everyone dresses like Chairman Mao because someone thought it 'empowered' someone else -- who by the way didn't ask for the 'help' -- somehow threatened by the simple creative actions of pranksters. Comics don't bully people by saying superhumans dress different or have different proportions. Comics are already empowering by presenting those with differences as heroic, as having self-worth, as being entitled to their differences. At least, that's what this Comic is about; and that's very much not what this implied censure by Lord Drably Same represents.

True enough, but not the point. Ben chose to go, let's be blunt, practically naked. His human body had been monstrously mutilated into a mockery of life. He had an emotional reaction. That response is part of his personality. His character. It was a statement. Wonder Woman should be restricted to a standard we don't apply to The Thing, because someone's afraid teenage boys might get ideas? That's an attitude I can't see Wonder Woman embracing. Or Supergirl. Or anyone male or female with a shred of self-respect. I don't want to tell superheroes what to wear. That's for their creators to do. There is no difference between what was promoted in these redesigns by some random illustrator and that type of censorship. And censoring what heroes wear, for any reason, is censoring the comics. You can see why someone who chooses the name 'Comic' might find that wrong.

The real question will be when you have Juggernaut's "Limitless" 'Unstopability' run into Hulk's "Limitless" strength, which one wins. Which is one of the original questions discussed in the first edition of Champions, IIRC, and why "Limitless" isn't part of the design. I'm okay with a Hulk whose strength is limited to below the 165 or so that would destroy the world with a single kick. To me, that's an okay level of strength for storytelling. Going beyond that is of course feasible, but.. why?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslaug

I'm never going to bust on someone else's creativity, really. I think it's great that people with talent share it, and spread their vision of worlds and people who never existed, to bring life to their stories. Even when the creativity is tribute to the original, or recasts originals in ways to make a point vividly flaunted by the original. Dress Wonder Woman up as a meek footsoldier? Sure, why not, if that's your take on the character. Dress up Supergirl in sensible drab her local pastor could find no fault with? I have no issue with that. Oh. Wait. Actually, I do. Hulk wears purple freaking pants, or nothing. Galactus wears headgear that makes no sense in any context. Reed Richards was super enough to invent costume uniforms to cover three of the Fantastic Four, but Ben Grimm wore short shorts. The costumes, the clothes, the gear, the appearance of comic book characters, while subject to interpretation in other media, carry meanings and messages and tell stories of their own. It's pure plagiarism to reject their story and substitute a line of your own and retain attribution to the original character. You want to tell a story invoking originals, then accept them whole or don't abuse them, or at least have the decency to call them a reboot. There's nothing stopping a person from inventing their own original characters and dressing them any way they want.

What are they guarding against? From the point of view of Canadian geography, most of Canada's population lives in the south. Southern Guard would be the dominant team, in that sense. Sure, during the Cold War, a Northern guard set against Soviet incursions into NORAD airspace -- a practice carried on to this day by Russian fighter pilots -- had some import. And right now, as the Arctic melts and drillers and shippers ply the most dangerous waters in the world's oceans seeking private gains, will this group be some Canadian government-funded team, or a mercenary rescue company? Or will it be truly national, capable of covering the second largest country by area to serve a population one tenth the size of America's? Or will it be truly global, somehow, in a Canada governed by a rapidly xenophobic party with a history of actively sabotaging international cooperation on global issues? However it works, in the current Canada, I don't see the name 'Northern Guard' as a particularly relevant name from a Canadian sense.

Well, it could be Grab Two Limbs, as a martial maneuver, if your villain is really good at it. Of course, if they're really bad at it, it could be "Mind Control, single telepathic command "Shoot Me First!", no range".

A base is an infinitely vulnerable dependent susceptible to everything that endangers your SID, exposes you to new weaknesses, and it still costs you CP? I never understood why Bases weren't complications that you got points for taking on the burden of owning.

So.. how do you know it's really just an online multiplayer game, and not merely aliens tapping the strategic genius of humanity to build actual stellar empires? And do you have a link to examples of your templates, which IIRC are teh awesome?

I've always found simpler is better. 15 2d6 HKA vs rED 'Light Sabre' (30 AP) OAF (-1) [END: 3] 3 Bare Advantage 1/2 END on 30 AP HKA ' Jedi Combat Training' (7 AP) OAF (-1) [END: -2] 3 Power Skill (Int-based): Jedi Light Sabre Feats 14- 3 Power Skill (Dex-based): Jedi Light Sabre Feats 14- 12 +4 CSLs Power Light Sabre Feats There you go: a lightsaber is very hard to wield, described by George Lucas like holding a jet engine; without their intensive training in skill, will, and use of the Force, even someone as fit as a Jedi would rapidly tire and could never achieve the effects of a Sith or Jedi combatant. Cunning trained Jedi adapt their weapons to their personalities, tasks and situations by wit or agility or both, capable of achieving the impossible even without overt use of the Force. We've seen other weapons used by trained combatants in the movies, novels and comics, and it is likely Darth Vader mastered at least some of these. We've seen the martial art used to bind opponent's weapons, part of the whole dialogue while dueling thing. We've seen extraordinary leaps and sprints integral to the combat style; Jedi combats cover a lot of ground: movement maneuvers are necessary. Crucially, the pivotal combat maneuver Anakin was defeated on to become Darth Vader, the flying lunge, has to be considered canonical. Also, it's madness to have a martial art usable only with one focus, especially when facing weapons that cannot be blocked if one cannot dodge, even with defensive options in the style. The lightsaber is not a thrusting weapon; thrusts are mainly depicted as improvised in the films. Likewise, it's silly to pay 5 points for a maneuver that adds damage to a weapon element that has the no damage adder limitation. Martial Arts: Jedi Lightsaber Dueling Maneuver OCV DCV Damage 4 Cut +0 +2 Weapon +2 DC Strike 4 Disarm -1 +1 Disarm; +10 STR to Disarm roll 5 Force Dodge - +4 Dodge All Attacks, Abort; Full Move 4 Parry +2 +2 Block, Abort 4 Lunge +2 -2 +v/5; Full Move 4 Bind +1 +0 +10 STR to Bind Opponent Weapon 3 Weapon Element: Lightsaber, whip, staff, unarmed Force powers can be described to taste, though in Darth Vader's case I'd limit it to a 60 pt VPP.

Aematlon would want to get the whole story. To understand the motivations, the nuance, the.. He'll base what he does next on what does his telescopic X-ray vision tell him about the dodgy fireworks and the workers and technicians setting up, to ensure innocents are safe, of course.. But he'll _investigate_! And maybe call around to superheroes with knowledge of demolitions and fireworky stuff, to see if they're able to take a look, too.

Buddy Ebsen nearly died from a reaction to the makeup for his Tin Man costume in the Wizard of Oz. Actors have it far worse than superheroes. Burt Ward wrote that he was given estrogen shots for the filming of the Batman TV series by the studio doctor to ensure those short shorts he wore didn't underscore that a man in his late 20's was playing the supposedly preteen Boy Wonder. Actors playing superheroes have it twice as bad. I have no objection to a principled approach to pragmatic superhero costumes. After all, what could more define the sort of person who puts on a mask to become a vigilante than commonsense? I just object to the designs looking significantly worse than what a teenager's dad would buy her to wear her first day of high school. Our superheroes almost universally represent disdain for convention. Who wears modest uniforms in comics uniformly? Evil Hydra soldiers, Skrulls and priests of unspeakable cults. Who appropriates uniforms and makes them individual? X-Men and anyone under Nick Fury's command. The prurience of dressing Wonder Woman, an Amazon based on a myth of naked women warriors by a naughty psychologist, 'modestly' by the standards of the patriarchal society her people despise? Of forcing a standard on Power Girl -- a woman from an alien world as unlike the slim slice of puritan America as puritan America is from the rest of the planet Earth? What the heck is this preoccupation with abridging stories and censoring looks by the petty standards of a frankly less literate generation?