Dr. MID-Nite

Oh...I wasn't suggesting anyone is defending her. I'm just venting as it seems like there are no good candidates anymore....sigh.

She's anti human rights and a climate change denier. I'd like her to climb back under her rock and let the adults actually take care of things.

Like LL, I tend to dive more into comics than anything, and much of it depends on the campaign I'm working on. To get a bit specific, the list I commonly give my groups is:
The Judas Contract, New Teen Titans
Dark Phoenix Saga, Uncanny X-Men
Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Casting Call, Wildguard
Resurrection Day, WildCATS
Born Again, Daredevil
Fall From Grace, Daredevil
Guardian Devil, Daredevil
Longshot
Asgardian Wars, X-Men/New Mutants
The Target, Nightwing
X-cutioner's Song, X-Men
Mutant Genesis 2.0, X-Men
Kree/Skrull War, Avengers
Trial of Galactus, Fantastic Four
Man of Steel, Superman
Year One and Year Two, Batman
Year One, Nightwing
Court of Owls, Batman

There are many, MANY more. 
 

This was from my FB review of Marvels....
 
Movie review: The Marvels (2023). This sequel to the 2019 original links itself to other Phase 4 projects...namely the Wandavision and Ms. Marvel tv series. The plot involves the Kree trying to revive their homeworld while also taking revenge on Carol Danvers. This film works best when it focuses on the interaction between the three leads. The three actresses play off of each other fairly well and they provide most of the movie's best moments. The villain unfortunately isn't all that memorable and certain elements of the story delve into the silly. Still, this is reasonably solid. That end credit sequence though. NIIIIICE!!!!

The way to make the "smaller" threats impactful, is to make them personal. Things that affect the characters directly, people or ideals they genuinely care about. Comics have been doing that for generations. Saving the world, or the universe, didn't end the stories, and subsequent stories usually didn't try to top what came before.
 
Look at the Civil War movie. For all the framework of the Sokovia Accords, and fights among the heroes, the story comes down to deeply personal matters of love, trust, grief, guilt, and revenge. At the end of the movie the Avengers were broken, but the rest of the world did not significantly change. But I have yet to hear anyone argue that CW was not one of the most impactful MCU films.

I honestly thought the MCU did a pretty piss poor job with Thanos overall. Introduced in 2012, they had 6 years to build him up as the big bad...and all they do is a brief throwaway scene in GOTG. The thrown together backstory and motivation is so poorly thought out that it makes Thanos come off as a complete idiot for not seeing the obvious flaws in his "50% plan". He's an impressive foe in Endgame, but as a character still a bit lacking. I know he was never going to be as good as in the comics, but it was still disappointing. I mean...even the cameo version from GOTG felt more like Thanos than what ended up being the final version in Infinity War.

Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab

A look into why everyone loses their mind over Halloween here (one of the largest nighttime parades in the country):
 
 

So the House finally named a Speaker.
 
Unfortunately, it's Johnson.  Which means the hard right won.
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/politics/mike-johnson-house-speaker.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5Uw.foCa.PsS8VYklud-3&smid=url-share

Rudy has always been....questionable. Like Reagan, he had the benefit of good PR to cover up his many deficiencies.

I have no words really. Absolutely disgusting. America creates this. Sigh....

I'm going as an alien. Better half is going to be Superman. Pups are going as Loki and Man Bat respectively.

I guess I just like villain masterminds leading a group...like Magneto and his Brotherhood or the various Brotherhoods from DC's Doom Patrol. Muerte's considerably less overpowered, but still fills the same role. He also feels a lot more like Doom to me (if you remove his hero worship complication) than Destroyer ever will. Destroyer also has zero personality beyond "being evil".  He's so over the top asshat that ANYONE working for him seems beyond belief. Muerte is basically a toned down version that I feel is more in line with Silver and Bronze age comic eras.

I guess I just like villain masterminds leading a group...like Magneto and his Brotherhood or the various Brotherhoods from DC's Doom Patrol. Muerte's considerably less overpowered, but still fills the same role. He also feels a lot more like Doom to me (if you remove his hero worship complication) than Destroyer ever will. Destroyer also has zero personality beyond "being evil".  He's so over the top asshat that ANYONE working for him seems beyond belief. Muerte is basically a toned down version that I feel is more in line with Silver and Bronze age comic eras.

I guess I just like villain masterminds leading a group...like Magneto and his Brotherhood or the various Brotherhoods from DC's Doom Patrol. Muerte's considerably less overpowered, but still fills the same role. He also feels a lot more like Doom to me (if you remove his hero worship complication) than Destroyer ever will. Destroyer also has zero personality beyond "being evil".  He's so over the top asshat that ANYONE working for him seems beyond belief. Muerte is basically a toned down version that I feel is more in line with Silver and Bronze age comic eras.

That's totally fair. I did find good things in most of those projects minus Love and Thunder...which was just a huge miss. (I wasn't fond of the overly silly Ragnarök either so no surprise that leaning into the humor even more was...bad.) I actually liked the first episode of She-Hulk, but then it went almost completely off the rails in terms of narrative.

If I decide to bring a "Doom" type mastermind into my game, I'd probably just rather use Professor Muerte. "Shrugs"

I can appreciate that, but when one side wants to legislate minorities out of existence...I'm not seeing much room for compromise. I'll reference the  "Paradox of Tolerance" for my general views on that. The simple fact of the matter is that nothing will fundamentally change until we substantially reduce money in politics....and that's not going to happen in our existing system. You do the math. The change that is needed is not going to organically happen without strong outside influence.

I'll never use Doctor Destroyer as written. He's written as cosmically powerful with a concept that isn't.... UGH!

I'm curious as to what you consider to be big misses. Not saying it isn't true...just curious. Lately, it seems like every Marvel project is bashed to hell before it even comes out. In that environment, nothing is going to be satisfactory. I thought Age of Ultron was garbage, but I didn't assume everything was going to be crap going forward...which is what people seem to be doing now. Not everything is going to be Avengers (2012) or Thor: Dark World. Most things are going to be somewhere in between. Secret Invasion was definitely a miss, but I thought Wandavision was pretty good. I guess as a fan of monster films, I'm just used to quality being up and down and I don't dismiss the genre based on any one film or even a group of them. "shrugs"

I can appreciate that, but when one side wants to legislate minorities out of existence...I'm not seeing much room for compromise. I'll reference the  "Paradox of Tolerance" for my general views on that. The simple fact of the matter is that nothing will fundamentally change until we substantially reduce money in politics....and that's not going to happen in our existing system. You do the math. The change that is needed is not going to organically happen without strong outside influence.

I'm curious as to what you consider to be big misses. Not saying it isn't true...just curious. Lately, it seems like every Marvel project is bashed to hell before it even comes out. In that environment, nothing is going to be satisfactory. I thought Age of Ultron was garbage, but I didn't assume everything was going to be crap going forward...which is what people seem to be doing now. Not everything is going to be Avengers (2012) or Thor: Dark World. Most things are going to be somewhere in between. Secret Invasion was definitely a miss, but I thought Wandavision was pretty good. I guess as a fan of monster films, I'm just used to quality being up and down and I don't dismiss the genre based on any one film or even a group of them. "shrugs"

I'm curious as to what you consider to be big misses. Not saying it isn't true...just curious. Lately, it seems like every Marvel project is bashed to hell before it even comes out. In that environment, nothing is going to be satisfactory. I thought Age of Ultron was garbage, but I didn't assume everything was going to be crap going forward...which is what people seem to be doing now. Not everything is going to be Avengers (2012) or Thor: Dark World. Most things are going to be somewhere in between. Secret Invasion was definitely a miss, but I thought Wandavision was pretty good. I guess as a fan of monster films, I'm just used to quality being up and down and I don't dismiss the genre based on any one film or even a group of them. "shrugs"