StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here is a great video preview video of the upcoming StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Expansion from Atomic MPC. Some of the changes look great, and I hope they breath some life into us casual RTS players.
Here we go. The beginning of the media maelstrom which a movie from Marvel brings. A new villain for Iron Man. But, more importantly, a very different Iron Man. Could be just what Iron Man needed. I found Iron Man 2 a bit disappointing. Especially the ending.
So I finally got around to reading the final issue of AvX. It was epic! It was amazing! The heroes saved Earth and defeated the Phoenix using the combined power of The Scarlet Witch and Hope, the savior of all mutants. And then things took the cheesy turn. Wow! Poof the power of the phoenix has now dispersed and there are suddenly a bunch of new mutants (no I didn’t say “New Mutants“) on the planet.
How Convenient.
So with all of the carnage and destruction that occurred,Marvel has an excuse to repopulate the marvel universe with a ton of new heroes and villains. But, at what cost? Here is where my issues lie. Very little damage was done to the marvel universe. OK a “rarely seen of late” Professor X was killed and some X-heroes are now on the run. Oh and the avengers realized that they should team up with the X-Men for the good of Earth. Contrast is important in comics, a hero is only a hero because of his moral comparison to the villains. Gains are measured by loss. And the Marvel Universe lost very little. A chance to sacrifice even some B-list heroes to usher in some new ones with the “Marvel Now” initiative would have made sense. Some gravity to offset the sudden creation of a bunch of instantly created mutants. Now here is where Marvel wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want the old heroes to still draw the veteran writers and artists and still have new heroes for up and comers to take a crack at on the cheap. And hey, who knows? possibly a movie in 3-4 years! Simply put Avengers went to their head. All business. Good for Marvel in the short term I guess. I know they are thinking “Hey a bunch of 13 year old kids watched Avengers and loved it so we need to freshen things up and get them buying comics and then buy tickets to the next blockbuster”. In my opinion they are sacrificing the loyal reader for this strategy. I have nothing against attracting a new younger audience. But, don’t come down to their level, bring them up. Make them feel empowered they are reading a book with some complicated and mature takes on heroes. This is an audience that could choose to grab Saga, Walking Dead, or Thief of Thieves, from Image Comics or just follow individual writers like Ed Brubaker (his Daredevil run was amazing) who are willing to do so much with character.
Well the Marvel Now reboot will either give me a chance to try something new or pare back my pull-list. To be determined…
It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.
Over the past few weeks Marvel has been slowly teasing the new direction of the Marvel universe post Avengers vs. X-Men. They have dubbed it Marvel NOW! and have explicitly stated that it isn’t a reboot rather a shaking up of the creative teams on many of Marvel core titles. It will slowly be rolling out from October to February so if you have been wanting to get back in to some of the iconic Marvel characters fresh beginnings are around the corner. Marvel teased the teams for eight titles last week and there is a great article over at Comic Book Movie that gives a quick rundown of all the teasers released so far.
Before I get into this weeks jumping on points I would like to point out that the spidery theme to this week is totally unintentional. On the other hand I would like to say that, in my opinion, thwipt is the greatest onomatopoeia known to man. Now, on to the good stuff.
It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points I have found from personal reads and around the internet. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you know of something I missed from either 7/4 or the other three previous weeks, hit me up in the comments. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine.
Wonder Woman #11
This has been one of the critical darlings of the New 52. Since the titles relaunch Wonder Woman has stopped mucking about in the mortal affairs of the rest of the DCU and has focused on the more mythological side. It’s good to see that the writers are taking a new direction with a tent pole character and sticking to their guns. It’s the kind of thing I had hoped they would have done with Superman. I was teased by the first four Action Comics but it went downhill quick.
It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic so to help you out I have listed some jumping on points from the previous week that I have found from personal reads and around the internet. This isn’t an exhaustive list so if you know of something I missed hit me up in the comments and I will add it to the list. Previous weeks lists are also posted at the bottom. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week but don’t want to heavily invest in trades consider picking one of these up. If you need to know what the title or character has been up to previously and don’t mind spoilers then I highly suggest hitting the wiki over at Comic Vine. Their wiki helps me immensely with filling in the gaps from my ten year hiatus from comics.
Amazing Spider-Man #688
Spider-Man has just saved the earth from Doctor Octopus and now the scope of the book gets turned down a little bit. Spidey returns to being a New York City centric book after hopping around the world (and above it at one point) in the Ends of the Earth arc. This arc titled No Turning Back as he squares off in the comics with his current movie nemesis The Lizard. Marvel tying its comic in with a soon to be released movie? No way!
As a new weekly Tuesday feature of the site I will be bringing you jumping on points from the previous weeks comics. It’s hard to know when it’s a good time to start in on a new comic. Last year Marvel started the point one(.1) initiative to signal to new readers that a new arc is starting. It has come across with limited success especially since new readers don’t even understand what the .1 means. I will commend Marvel on their effort though because the other comic companies aren’t even doing that much for new readers, hence this weekly column. If you are looking to add a little flavor this week, but don’t want to heavily invest in trades, consider picking these books from last week that started new arcs.
Winter Soldier #6
Former Captain America sidekick, Bucky Barnes, was found by the Soviets in WWII and programed as a sleeper agent known as the Winter Soldier. He has since regained his memories and is now working as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Currently, he is tracking down the former fellow sleeper agents that he once trained. I have been reading this book since issue one and I love it. It is noir style cold war era espionage. If you are into that sort of thing give this book a try.
So I watched Avengers for the second time this weekend and something caught my attention that is giving my obsessive nerd brain fits. It’s Hawkeye’s bow. I can believe that he has a system for selecting custom arrow heads in his quiver. I even found that clever when I first heard about it. The fact that it’s collapsible is a bit of a stretch but he works for S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m sure they can easily develop the tech necessary to make that a reality but a laser sight? Are you f’n kidding me?!?! I even have confirmation of this “ingenious” addition right on Marvel’s own wiki.
Laser sights on a bow are as useless as tits on a bull
My beef goes beyond the obvious “If he is such a good archer then he doesn’t need a laser sight.” The only way a laser sight would do any good is if it was an actual harmful laser. Hawkeye is a normal human being with normal human strength limitations. There is in no way that his bow could produce enough force to propel an arrow at a high enough velocity to cancel out the forces of wind and gravity in the same way a bullet does. Someone who has spent at least a little time with a bow knows that the pitch necessary to get on target changes rather drastically at different ranges to compensate for gravity. Hawkeye himself knows. He pulls off some pretty dramatic shots in the move that no stupid laser sight could have helped make. You’re telling me that not ONE person saw that design and said “Hey, that laser sight is stupid.” and brought up either of the two valid points I just made? The only thing that would have disapointed me more was if he pulled out an arrow with a boxing glove like the pansy, green leotard wearing, Errol Flynn wanna be counter part Green Arrow.
It's either use this or slap them like a sissy
There is even talks that Hawkeye could get his own movie. What useless flourishes are they going to put on his bow then? Spinning hubcaps? Mint flavored bow string? an iPhone dock? I get that they want his bow to feel high tech so it doesn’t seem out of place in a world with flying aircraft carriers, Norse gods, and power armor but for the love of Stan take two seconds worth of research to see that what you strap on that bow is complete and utter garbage.
I understand that the title of “Best Comic” is mostly a matter of opinion and not everyone has the same tastes, but hopefully I can sway you to agreeing with me when I say the current run of Daredevil is the best comic on shelves today. There are multiple facets to the genius of this book which is highlighted by its five Eisner nominations. While the covers are something I would be happy to hang on my wall and the interior art is gorgeous and fits the theme of the book perfectly I believe that the lions share of the praise has to go to writer Mark Waid.
What makes this comic genius is Waid’s ability to craft a long form story arc but at the same time tell insular short stories within that arc.
