FurbyFrank, please delete some of your stored PMs so I can send you some information about your X-men Academy team.

Sorry to see you go ALC. I had quite a few fun games versus your lanterns. Don't worry, I put down Heroclix 5 years ago, and I came back. Good luck in the future!

sorry about that gargan, long weekend

Anybody going to see the Avengers tomorrow? I'm going in for the all-day marathon. This is pretty much the movie event of the decade for me!

I will be viewing it Friday at 3:15 PST. Which means that starting tomorrow at 12:00 EST I will be avoiding this site like the plague in order to avoid spoilers.

I hear ya. I've been doing pretty good at avoiding spoilers so far. I haven't watched any trailers (except the one after the credits of Cap), only seen a few pics, and overheard a couple plot points. I think there should be quite a few pleasant surprises for me when I finally see the movie tomorrow night.

Tough to lose you, ALC. You were a great player and a huge help to me when I needed it while balancing matches. I can completely relate with your comic problems - virtually nothing in the new DCU appeals to me very strongly, and many things are just flat-out dealbreakers. It's hard to maintain excitement about the genre when the characters you love so much are so badly mishandled.

Though if I might, I highly recommend the comic Invincible. It's everything I wish DC comics could be, and my favorite Superhero comic ever made. Now available in several fine TPB collections wherever books are sold.

That said, I always had a great time writing GLC for you. There were ups and downs and times where you were nervous about my ideas, but you stuck with me even then and I hope we had more good times than bad. I'm tremendously proud of the stories we told together, and thankful for the opportunity to dig into the characters and mythology that has been my favorite in all of comics since I was a little kid.

It's looking like these annuals will be a real end-of-an-era. I'll be curious and excited to see where our DCU goes with Jack at the helm.

In other news, I saw Avengers today and GFEUIALFI!!1!111!!!!! It was amazing. Having seen not a single advertisement, trailer, or promotional ANYTHING besides the tidbit at the end of the Captain America credits, I was blown away on every level. Academically, there are some nits I could pick with certain decisions... but it isn't worth it because they were so small in comparison to the things it got right. This one jumped right up to being my #2 favorite comic "adaptation" of all time and never looked back. I'm already dying to see it again for deeper reflection and analysis, and hope you guys get to see it soon. I really don't think you'll be disappointed.

I enthusiastically agree. It was a little slow getting started, but once it did start, it never stopped (in a good way). The action was great, and I think this was one of the funniest scripts Joss Whedon has ever written. Obviously, there can't be a huge amount of personal character development with so many heroes to juggle, but he still manages to work in some good personal conflicts and thought-provoking discussion on the nature of heroism, etc. I thought there were more than enough character moments and personal stuff for this not to be just "action-porn."

Ditto for me. There are no perfect movies, and I do think the beginning could've been blocked out differently, but the one major plot point that I really hated, the more I thought about, it really did work and was a crucial, integral part of the story. That's another really big plus of the movie; in 135 minutes, there's very little wasted. No dead air or time spent on things that don't really matter.

I'm afraid to ask what your #1 is, because it's probably one of the inexplicably popular ones that I hate.
I think this has to be my #1, if only because the scope is so much huger than anything else. I'd have to say you've got more total screen time of costumed heroes than any other comicbook movie, even if you count the X-Men in black leather as "costumed."
At the risk of being misinterpreted, it was almost like if you just cut together all the action scenes from every previous Marvel movie, but still magically managed to have a coherent plot and meaningful character interactions. Every time I go to see a superhero movie, I'm always wishing for more of the actual superhero. This one gave me more, and more.

Heh, forget analysis, I'm dying to see it again so that I can hear all that lines that I missed the first time. In my theater, all the good laugh lines caused the whole audience to crack up, so nobody could hear whatever lines followed them. I had to get on the internet to see what the Hulk said, because the preceding visual gag produced uncontrollable paroxysms of laughter, both in my theater and one that a friend of mine went to. It was a very convivial atmosphere, and I don't begrudge the laughter at all, but it'll be nice to see it a second time in a more quiet setting where I can hear everything.

Yes we have had great times writing the GLC. And I did hang with you when you got a bit out there, to my thoughts on the GLC at least. It did have a lot going for it and I hope that one of the new guys steps in and keeps building the team. With the new GL figs you should be able to do a lot more team variations than I could.

I just saw the Avengers movie also and my goodness I was blown away. They did such a good job of weaving a bit of characterization for everyone into the movie. To not be a spoiler I will just say that scene with Hulk made me bust out laughing. But we had a small audience and could hear the response which just made me laugh harder. See this movie is more what I want out of comics.

I did pick up a copy of The Thanos Imperative at the library and was surprised at how into it I got in just a few pages. So I borrowed it and enjoyed it, even if it was a bit too 'save the universe' the characters made up for it. Rocket Racoon cracks me up.

I will take a look for Invincible at the library. I tend to get most of my comics there nowadays as my wife is starting to get a bit annoyed at the large number of boxes around the house.

I'm on the third Invincible trade. Great book.

I enjoyed Avengers a bunch, too. Had to switch theatres and wait 2 hours because of all the shows being sold out. I think Iron Man might have been an overall better film but Avengers is probably number 2 in terms of the Marvel movies.

I'm looking forward to the new Spidey movie. There were some good things about the last Spidey series but overall, Pete was too old to begin with, not funny and a lot of the plot points were really ham handed.

I was pretty excited about this, but I'm not anymore, ever since I saw the latest trailer where he talks about how I think there's a little room for "reimagining," but when you go that far, you're really getting to the point where it's basically just a different character (in a costume with patently unnecessary changes). And that doesn't excite me in the least. [End rant.]

I'm almost at the end of an ARC and I intend on selling back Paladin. Please let me know if this is correct, Paladin has over 10 xp but is level 1 so he will sell back TXP at his current point value which is 30. So I will get 30 TXP? Thanks.

You can sell a member of your team back into the figure pool at a rate contingent on their experience level, or the amount of IXP they’ve gained since they came on your team. This is done at the end of the arc before upgrading.

- If a character has been promoted one level or currently has 10 IXP you can sell them for an amount of TXP equal to their point value.
- If a character has leveled up twice, or currently has 20 IXP you can sell them for TXP equal to %150 of the point value.
- If a character has been promoted three levels, or currently has 30 IXP you can sell them for twice their entire point value.


So yes 30 points. Shame though, I like paladin with your team. But I do understand how hard it is to get points for some character though.

Watched Avengers again this morning thanks to a good friend who was dying to see it his first time. I like it even better. Was able to nail down its thesis and watch how it played with ideas surrounding that core idea, how so many of the arcs pegged on it as a fulcrum. It was a very tightly woven film that came out shockingly seamless considering it's taking all those solo characters and weaving them and their individual supporting casts and baggage together in one piece.

I'd also disagree that there weren't character arcs. One of my biggest, happiest surprises was the development given to Black Widow. Though subtle, she had real development through the film. A website tallied up the total screen-time of all individual Avengers and she came in #3 behind IM (#2) and Cap (#1). They made her a real person, FAR moreso than her "I'm just a walking ad for Avengers" part in Iron Man 2.

On the whole, I think it's just barely edging out Iron Man for me. It's a little more balanced a film, where there are parts of Iron Man that become just a hair too one-note. Let it never be said that RDJ isn't a delight to watch on screen, but watching him matched with the personalities of Captain America and Bruce Banner really made him shine all the brighter, while providing contrast of tone and character.

My favorite comic movie is entirely too popular to bring up here, so I'll skip it.

In DC News: The ending to the GLC issue is posted, but my REAL final words on the Green Lanterns won't come until the epilogue to the big Annual hootenany. On that front, all the annuals are written and I'm just balancing the matches now. They should be posted within DAYS! I seriously can't wait; they've come out so much better than I'd hoped.

Anyone need a villian for any of their games? I'm down to just one game and I'm available for being a villian.

Thanks,