Ah, I know I shouldn't, but in reading the above, I have Cate Blanchett in my head, reminding me that "the world is changed."

Soon, there will be few of us left who remember those dark days and can tell the story of "The Great Hiatus" to these young 'uns.

But until then, my friend, it is the burden we all must bear...

You know, those things don't bother me too much.

But the poorly sculpted figures and incessant reuse/repainting of sculpts is starting to bother me. Once upon a time, Heroclix looked amazing. Fantastic Forces, Collateral Damage, Armor Wars and Origins had some truly beautiful sculpts that sat this game head and shoulders above anything else on the shelves. Now I find myself looking at the Handful of Hero figures in the clearance aisle at work and thinking how much better some of them look than Heroclix. That's just wrong.

Yeah but sculpt quality to some people was something we were supposed to grin and bare it. With statements like "remember when there was no heroclix". Well yeah I do remember that. I don't think we want that to happen again because of crappy product no one will buy either.

To be honest re-used sculpts don't bother so much as re-used characters. One Maxwell lord and maybe even Magog would have been plenty in Superman. I would have rather seen some other unclixed or need of remake figures.

Absolutely agree, 100%. At no point should they ever do two versions of a character like Maxwell Lord within the main set. You want a variant? Make him an LE. Magog was slightly more tolerable, since he really was two very different versions of the character from two very different time lines. But Max?

His two iterations felt like they were born of two dial designers who couldn't get a tie breaker vote as to who's dial was better, and it just happened to be both of their birthdays that day, so they both got their figure produced.

I might be in the minority here, but I have always looked at clix figures as essentially game pieces, some of which have better sculpts than most.

I got into the game with the release of Fantastic Forces and in trying to catch up, I found that a few Heroclix figures had extraordinary sculpts (the Kingdom Come versions of Superman, Green Lantern and Red Robin immediately spring to mind), but those were rare and exceptional. Most I could -- and did -- just toss into a tackle box.

On the subject of game pieces...I have a nice (for me, anyway) chess set with carved wooden pieces. But it's nothing compared to some of the sets I've seen belonging to people who prefer to play chess with pieces of a MUCH higher quality. As for me, I just need a set that's...decent.

So, I can appreciate and respect that some clix players prefer top quality sculpts --- especially if their interest runs more along the lines of collecting display-worthy figures.

But me? Well...again, "decent" probably covers it, tho' we're all likely to have our own ideas on what constitutes "decent" when it comes to the quality of clix sculpts.

I just know that if too many figures look TOO good, I'm gonna have storage-related problems the first time I double-clutch while aiming to toss them into a tackle box...

I kinda agree on Magog. Though it's not as if the unleashed Magog wasn't a good enough KC version of Magog. I don't see them revisiting all the other KC characters anytime soon again either. Doubling up on him was slightly bad form on their part.

I just hate how uneven the game looks at times. GSX Cyclops was a great looking piece. Especially for a common. His pose was good and he had a decent amount of detail. But then the set before that, DC75, was filled with nothing short of the worst sculpts this game has ever seen. Not only were they badly done, they were boringly posed.

Some point to Critical Mass as being a low point in sculpt quality, and sure, many of them were bad. Corsair was butt ugly. But at least his pose was dynamic, even if the end result wasn't ideal. But DC75 Superman? His sculpt is terrible and he's just standing there with his arms at his side.

I wouldn't mind if all the sub-R/SR sculpts were merely average. But to have some good and some god awful just bugs the heck outta me.

True. It sort of made a promise of more to come that will most likely go unfulfilled.

I will hear no words against Apathy Superman! That sculpt is a classic now!

I feel that a lot of creativity in the sculpts has faded since moving to the digital sculpting. It's just too easy for the designers to make the CUR figures more simple to save costs. The new design process almost lends itself to the new "average" sculpt being more lackluster than in the past.

What comes to mind is a comic book from the days when three eight-page stories were the rule. In this case, it would be a book with a Carmine Infantino cover and interior art by Jack Kirby in the first story; Steve Ditko in the next; and the last by the guy who made it a challenge to love those early JLA issues...Mike Sekowsky.

To which I say: more Kirby, less Sekowsky, please!
Funny you should mention Critical Mass, as I often hear folks speak of that set in a disparaging tone. Yet, I STILL prefer that Venom sculpt over all others. Wow. What a great figure.
Yes, I can see your point there and I agree. But in a weird ol' way, isn't it kinda interesting to see which will be gold and which will be, uh...something less than that?

Then again, maybe not.
All I know is: finding that KC Magog in the Superman set made me feel about as exuberant as a railbird who had just watched his longshot cross the finish line at the race track. 'Cause it was only a short time earlier that I had decided to surrender my original Magog as the linchpin in a pretty big trade.

How about that.

Hey Dana, happy birthday to your son.

It just so happens to be my little girl's birthday today as well. She's 7 today, and was very happy with the chocolate cupcakes with pink icing that I brought home last night. The full-fledged party is on Sunday.

Hearty congrats to two proud daddies and best of birthday wishes to their respective celebrants!

Jeremiah, your mention of the cupcakes brings to mind the continuing debate over whether to ban the bringing of birthday cupcakes to school. The movement started here on Long Island, NY a couple years ago.

I'm ready to raise my hand to show I agree that too many kids probably consume more fast food in a week than they should. But whenever I hear that some school district has voted to implement a ban on birthday cupcakes I figure the battle for wellness through nutrition has moved the line just a tad too much.

Free our cupcakes now!!!

Thus spake the aging '60s activist who still gets flashes of sitting in the street behind Shirley MacLaine.

Happy birthday to each of the wee ones!

Thread activity's picked up in a couple spots, but I have to get more work done... so I'm mostly scanning, skimming, and not jumping into the discussions today.

Thanks Jeremiah!!! Tell your daughter I said Happy Birthay as well!!!

We did Logan's party last night cause it was the only night the whole family was free. We had vanilla cupcakes with red, white, and blue frosting and every cupcake had a little plastic ring of Captain America's shield on them. I bought him that Skylanders Spyro's Adventures for PS3 and my family got him a few Skylander figures and some Lego Ninjago stuff. He had a blast!!!

Thanks Bill, I'll send him your reguards when he gets outta school!!!

Thanks Mike, I'll pass along the message to my boy!!!

Jeremiah, please pass Happy Birthday wishes along to Isabelle from Uncle Rob!

Happy birthday to Logan too, Dana!