Then you don't know what you are missing

TRUTH...truth

Starting to decompress a little following what was essentially the final push of the work week. Enough things came into play to prevent me from leaving at 4pm, which had been my target (once it gets past 4, especially on a Friday, I tend to wait until after 6 or so as I don't want to sit in traffic), but I've just started to shift into personal time anyway.

The Lois & Lucy Superwomen pieces they posted on facebook (I'm sure someone's started a thread with local versions of the images by now) have their appeal, though I'm continuing to be running a little lower with the excitement as we're hitting characters I'm very familiar with, but not especially interested in. They're interestingly-handled, though, even the pre- and post-potion Lois clicks.

The more I see of the All-Star Superman-related character/story descriptions (as with the Lois, Superwoman background info on her card) the more it's clear that Morrison largely plundered Silver Age tales for partial re-imaginings in his All-Star run. It's nice work if you can get (away with stealing) it.

Playability-wise, both Lucy and Loise have very good spots in the game. But I absolutely hate that they gave a yet another Mystical character HSS...at 75 points. The boards are already overflowing with people talking about XYZ combination of HSS bricks and it makes me nauseous just thinking about it.

I tend to agree. With people citing the likes of Ultimates II and Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk and your own addition above, I can't understand anyone wanting them in the first place.

When I think of late comics I jumping back to the '80s, remembering how it took over a year for Ronin to go from issue 1 to #6, and the couple extra months that folded in between issues 9 & 10 and 11 & 12 of Watchmen. That wasn't as severe, but it felt like it at the time.

Another Moore series from the period that had long, long, long stretches between some of the issues was the Eclipse run of Miracleman. Nine, ten, eleven and twelve were each separated by about 5 months, with some subsequent gaps that were even longer. Much of that was artist-related, though, as Moore refused to ditch the artist, whose eye condition was gradually leaving him functionally blind for longer and longer periods. The gap between 15 and 16 was over a year, but that had more to do with Eclipse's HQ being effectively destroyed by a flood. Copies of #15 were pretty rare, though both of my suppliers dutifully came through for me so I ended up with an extra... that I sold on ebay to a guy in Hong Kong in the late '90s for over $85.

Yeah, I'm rambling.

No doubt about it, the Min/Max crowd will be far more excited about the Superman set than they were about Cap.

Easily come by, I've come to think of that as team- or guest star-Spidey, as it's a very effective piece but lacks the inherent cleverness (no Outwit or Perplex) I come to expect from Peter -- reminding me of how characters often lose much of their character when crammed into a team title where the writer is more interested in other characters.

The sculpt puts many off, as the proportioning gives him an odd appearance. Still, it's a terrific dial for 50 points -- Wildcard TA, 6 clicks, nice stats and appropriate mobility. He's a tie-up piece who won't be ignored (10 AV, 3 Damage with a built-in Flurry that may choose to deliver a token on the second hit if there's none on the piece) and between the opening three clicks of Super Senses and the closing three of Combat Reflexes he may not be so easy to swat away.

I need an opinion. Every October I gather all of the Horrorclix zombies, throw in the Marvel Zombies, and play them against a group of people playing smaller Heroclix teams that add up to the same point cost as the zombies. This year I'm adding the Black Lanterns and the Dirk Anger LE. Should I consider Solomon Grundy for the team. I don't know if he's enough of a zombie in the traditional sense to make the cut. Thoughts?

You're a subscriber to their online library? How's that been working for you?

I've held off because I haven't seen a formal commitment by them to keep filling in the library so that it's ultimately solid at least up to a point x months in the past -- I would understand them wanting to try to keep a focus on paper copies of items from the past 6 months or so, at least for now. Instead, I get the impression it's a spotty affair and, even worse (although it's important to note this was little more than a rumor) there was some mention that came my way of them considering pulling a Disney Vault approach to chunks of their library -- sealing it away for a few years so as to increase interest, and then (presumably) re-releasing it in hardcovers/trades.

He's a zombie in the sense of being an altered, reanimated dead man, which works for me. He's not someone who's traditionally looking to take a bite out of someone, though, (please, no one tell me some writer's done this while I wasn't looking) or otherwise steal their life energy.

Do you run this as a scenario where a zombie plague of some sort is in play? Someone who takes damage going into a torpor for a round or two before coming back as a member of the zombie force with blanket alterations to his dial?

Good luck! We'll presume you're at least looking in on us.

Wow... really?

I haven't been following the latest leaks -- I sort of zoned following the one-to-two paragraph series descriptions being run alongside the covers of the 52 new no. 1s -- but for anyone at DC to formally make that statement would seem like career suicide. Are you sure it wasn't just a cynical rumor? I know there are many who have been making pronouncements of doom over the new DCU, declaring it dead on arrival and something the company would abandon within a year or so -- much as others (and probably some of the same) did in the mid-'80s when Crisis rolled around. One could argue otherwise, but I'd say they were wrong back then (specifically when it came to everything new soon being undone and back to the way it was) and I expect they'll be wrong again now.

I've got to agree with Miraclo. He's enough of a zombie to be put on a Heroclix zombie team. Now don't go telling this girl I know that did her Masters thesis on zombies. I'm sure that'll be a useful degree. She's the absolute worst person to go to a horror movie with. She'll argue about undead vs. zombies vs. etc. as if they are factual real world beings.

Exactly. This set will be the least interesting for me from a character and playability standpoint. I like to actually build teams, not get pieces to plug into the same net-decked carp over and over. Sure, I can cheese it up for a big tourney like World's or what have you, but the other 99% of the time I like to...you know...actually play the game. heh So far, Silver Banshee is the only thing I really want.

To be fair, the concept of the brain-eating zombie is a terribly recent addition to the horror mythology. Romero invented it pretty much whole cloth, and it's only tangentally related to the Vodou "zombi." And anyone who dealt with First Edition AD&D turning tables could tell you that there's a huge difference between the different classes of undead.