Assembling Avengers

I haven't done any real kind of collecting in a very long time. I used to collect comics - though now, I just read them. In high school, it was important to have every comic bagged and boarded and in mint condition, and to try to get complete sets of things. Back then, there was the belief that you could make a fortune one day selling your comic collection. That dream was part of it. But more, it was just the challenge and adventure of collecting. This was well before the internet. If there was a back issue you wanted, you couldn't just jump on eBay and pick it up. You had to constantly check the back issue long boxes at your Local Comic Store (tm), or check out other shops outside your area, or attend local conventions, or hit up garage or yard sales. In the end, though, the best thing about collection was setting a goal and reaching it - that feeling of accomplishment as your collection grew, and finally, if you were that vigilant, was completed.

But as I said, comics stopped being a collecting hobby for me and became about reading. This is why I much prefer the trade paperback over the individual issues. I no longer have the desire to bag and board, to worry over condition, to keep track of current values on each issue (values which mean little anymore in today's internet buying market). Give me a trade I can read and stick on a book shelf, and I'm fine.

But I recently found myself bitten again by the collecting bug. It wasn't for comics this time. Well...it sort of was...

I discovered a line of lead, hand-painted figurines, based on both Marvel and DC characters, created and sold in the U.K. by a company called Eaglemoss. The figurines themselves were cool enough - all between 3.5 and 4 inches, with great detail paid to every aspect of the character's look - but it was the overwhelming variety that blew my mind. As of this writing, there are 100 of the Marvel ones available, and the next 40 of them have been announced. As a fan of Marvel since I first stepped up from Richie Rich to super-hero comics, I was quite giddy to see that rather than just having the usual Spider-Man, Wolverine and Hulk figures you would expect, Eaglemoss was offering figurines based on the likes of Wonder Man...Quicksilver...Madrox...Doc Sampson...and the Scott Lang Ant-Man! They had a huge range of both heroes and villains (who doesn't want their own Galactus?), and it appeared that they planned to just keep on making more.

I tracked down their web site and browsed through the shots of all the available Marvel figures (as Marvel, not DC, is my primary interest). I found out these figurines are only available in the U.K., which surprised me. But, of course, I also found out quickly that different comic shops in the U.S. were importing and selling them. And I learned, also, how these things are marketed, and it's a really neat idea. Each figurine comes with its own magazine - a magazine filled with nothing but history, info and art on that specific character. The characters, in fact, are listed by issue number - Spider-Man was issue #1 of the magazine, Banshee was #100. Customers are able to "subscribe" to the magazine. Every two weeks (or, as they say in the U.K., "fortnightly"), you receive a new issue and its corresponding figure in the mail. That's a good deal for people who plan to "collect 'em all", and I can see that being a nice goal. But me? I had something else in mind.

Looking over the figures, I was happy to see how many members of my favorite era of The Avengers (late 1970s, roughly issues 140 - 200) were available. And I quickly realized that pretty much all of them were. It was then that I decided if I were to buy any of these, that would be my collection - the 70s Avengers. After a few days, I thought about it again, started looking at them on eBay, and found a good price on a Hawkeye figure. I went ahead and got it, figuring that if I was only to get one of these things, that's the one Marvel character I'd most want to have. Unfortunately, when it came in the mail and I saw how damned cool it was, and loved the not-too-small, not-too-big size of it, I started hankering for more. Maybe just one more, I told myself...

I am now fully committed to building my Avengers team. Though I'm also in no hurry, which is definitely a good thing for someone with...you know...no job. Yeah, not a great time to pick up a new addiction. But that's a good thing, I think. Just grabbing them all up at once wouldn't be any fun. I'm getting to experience that collecting rush again, and the patience and anticipation that comes with it. I can't afford to pay much for any of them, so I'm forced to wait to find good deals...the ones too good to pass up, generally. And the other challenge is that they're not all easy to find. Obviously, the more popular the character, the quicker their figures sold out. This means some are going to be harder to find, and if you can find them, they're going to cost you more. I can afford the occasional luck-out when I'll find a sale at on online store (like I did when I found some selling for $6 each), and the more typical price when I do have a little money available. I'm sure a few months ago if I'd discovered these, I'd have been piling them up and would need a display case by now. But thanks to budgeted living, I'm very pleased to have picked up five of my Avengers (of the twelve of that era that I consider "my" Avengers) and one Avengers villain, and look forward to watching "the old order changeth!" over time.


Just for kicks, I threw together a page showing my goal and where I'm at in completing it:

Avengers Assembling

I'm just a fan of checklists. They're both a good motivator and a great way to measure completion of a goal. Not doing too bad so far. Obviously, the bigger-name Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man) are going to be tough to track down. I saw a Cap out there for around $30.00, and that's definitely more than I want to spend on this hobby at this time in my life, so I'm waiting until I find a better deal somewhere. Besides...Cap would be more satisfying to pick up at the end of things. Same with Iron Man...and I'm sure I'll have to, as I've yet to see a single Iron Man out there (the regular Iron Man...there's a special "movie" variant that's the gray armor from the start of the film, so not what I need for my team). If I was going to Comic-Con this year, I'm sure this is what I'd be spending my time and cash on. But looks like I'll be sticking to Comic-Con: The Home Game for my Avengers shopping.

The only one marked off there that I don't have in my hands yet is the Falcon. That's on its way in the mail. The rest you see checked are sitting here in front of my computer monitor on my desk. While I'm looking forward to getting them all, the only one that disappoints me a little is the figurine for the Beast. They based it off the latter-day, Grant Morrison Beast, and I was hoping for the Avengers-era Beast...the more gorilla-based, less kitty-cat-based one. Plus, the modern costume? Really lame. But, that's the only Beast available, and I can't have a 70s Avengers team without a Beast. Who would Wonder Man have to go out and get drunk with? And it looks like my checklist is going to have to grow down the road, as I've found out since that they're putting out a Jocasta figure (who makes a Jocasta figure?! I love these guys!), as well as one for the coolest 70s-era Avengers villain (to me) - the Taskmaster! I might also have to pick up the Scott Lang Ant-Man, even though he technically just guest-starred with my Avengers team. But I still got the love for the Lang (may he rest in peace...sniff...). I figure after I've completed "my" Avengers, I'll probably move on to adding all the additional Avengers from over the years - though part of me does hope, if that's the case, that they don't get around to making a Starfox figure...

If you're a comic fan, I don't see any way you can not love these things. There's something in both the Marvel and DC collections for everyone. Chances are one of your favorite characters, good or evil, is available, or soon will be. You can take a look at all the visuals of the available characters at the Eaglemoss sites, here:

Marvel Figurines
DC Figurines

If you want to take a look at the full current list of available and forthcoming figures, and their order, there are good lists for both on Wiki:

Marvel List
DC List

If you want to see them in person, check out your local comic store, as some do carry them, but most stores only have a handful. Or do an eBay or a Google Shopping search for "Marvel Figurines" or "DC Figurines" to find online options. If you're like me, you'll find a new hobby...and assure that another portion of your home outs you as a big nerd.

The upcoming Black Knight figurine

Shang-Chi will whup your ASS.

Madrox - with modern costume

That's Bat-tastic!

In blackest night...!

A New (Expanded) Hope

I've made no secret - to anyone - about my, shall we say, "disappointment" with George Lucas this decade and what he's done with the Star Wars franchise. This strikes some as being ungrateful - after all, it is George who first birthed this universe that I've loved so much since that first time, as a kid, I sat wide-eyed and stunned by the original film back in '77. But this universe has turned into something both embarrassing and, frankly, offensive to lifelong fans of it. Lucas has not only turned it into a kiddie property, but has turned it into a completely crappy one, too.

I was there opening day for Episode I, and I was deep into fan nirvana. I'd waited for twenty years. Finally, more Star Wars! And I was also one of the people who, because of this, lived in denial for a long time. I saw it several times in the theater - because that's what us old Star Wars fans do - each time convincing myself that it wasn't the garbage that it really was. I held out hope that things would get better with the next one. I ended up practicing the same denial for that one. By the third film, I had finally become jaded. I only saw this one once on the big screen. And by that time, no amount of Kool-Aid-drinking fanboy obsession could hide the truth. Lucas had lot it. He was a terrible director. He was a terrible storyteller. And he was ruining the franchise.

One would assume, based on these films and the animated things that followed, that all hope was lost.

"No. There is another."

(You see what I did there?).

What few people in the mainstream know is that the Star Wars universe is much, much bigger than just the six movies. There's something out there called the Star Wars Expanded Universe. This began when it didn't look like any more Star Wars films would be coming in our lifetime. And it was realized that film was not the only venue to tell tales of this enormous universe that we all craved more of. Star Wars novels began. Most dork franchises have novels to go with them, often just throwaway things to make money that sell in supermarkets and severely lack quality. But the people at Lucas' empire decided to do something different. They created novels that picked up after Return of the Jedi left off, and continued the story of all these beloved characters and explored all the different parts of their universe that we only ever got glimpses of in the films. The first big hit was Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, and the fan response was enormous.

Not so much for me. I tried them. I really tried. But I'm just not enough of a fan to be able to overlook bad writing to get the stories I want. To me (and a lot of people disagree, and I understand that), Zahn is just a crappy writer. I forced my way through the first book - after a couple of attempts - and started the second one, but I couldn't finish.

Due to this popularity, more books started to be produced. I would occasionally try them when my Star Wars jones got too frantic. I don't think I ever finished one of those, either. Again...bad writing. It seemed I wasn't able to share in this new movement and follow along with the future of Star Wars like so many others.

But in the year 2000, a year when I still hadn't quite accepted what Episode I truly was and was still in a place of renewed Star Wars love, I read about a new series of books called the New Jedi Order. I was intrigued to discover that the books coming out had been building a timeline all this time (as had the Star Wars comics that had been coming out), and that this big, epic story, which was to take place over nineteen novels and be published over five years, was one that took place twenty-five years after Return. I was very curious to see what happened to my beloved characters, ones who, in some cases, now had kids. And I was more intrigued by the idea that instead of using the same crap writers they had been (again, just in my opinion), they were pulling in veteran sci-fi and fantasy novelists to tell the monster tale. I was intrigued enough to grab the first book, take a deep breath, and plunge in.

Wow.

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but it wasn't this. This was a great story. The first book, Vector Prime (written by R.A. Salvatore), really blew me away. It was dark. It was violent. It was actually scary. There was no Jar Jar, no exclamations of "yippee!!", no poodoo jokes. This book began the tale of a war - a real war, with all the horrors and death and destruction that came with it. And right in the first book, a major Star Wars character died (I won't say who in case you missed the news), something I wish I hadn't been spoiled on in the article where I'd first heard of the series. I loved seeing all the old characters again. I loved seeing them having to react to this devastating series of events. And I loved the fact that I knew enough about this Expanded Universe to know that the books were pulling in characters from all the previous Star Wars novels. Even if I didn't want to read many of those books, I loved the fact, from a fan perspective, that they were sticking sternly to ongoing continuity and using everything that had come before. I was completely hooked.

And I followed the whole story, waiting for each new novel with great anticipation. In fact, I even heard about a contest on the official Star Wars web site where you could win a chance to get the next novel in the series well in advance ("Edge of Victory II" by Greg Keyes) and get to review it on the site, and I entered it and won (how THAT for fanboyishness?). As you might have guessed, I'm really picky when it comes to novels and writers - but in this series, there was only one novel in nineteen that I didn't enjoy. Not bad at all. It was epic - huge things happened, characters changed, characters died, the whole face of the Star Wars universe changed. It was immensely satisfying - and yet, published all during the time that George was screwing everything else up with his prequel fetish, a tale about whiny, emotionally infantile people in the middle of a war between clones and wacky robots.

I became such a huge fan of the novels after this, and was able to fill in the gaps of my Expanded Universe knowledge with handy Star Wars Guides to characters, races and planets (all of which is more easily available online now). The problem with this love was trying to share it with other fans of the big SW. You see, even amongst nerds, there are lines in the nerdy sand. I'll know someone, for example, who'll be completely into the films, and will even collect action figures and all the Star Wars Legos. But the minute I mention I'm reading Star Wars novels, that same person will look at me like I just told him I play with Barbie dolls. Any attempts I make to try to convey how cool I think they are hit a big "loser!" brick wall and fall on deaf ears. It's an interesting contradiction. And one that generally means that I'm a Star Wars fan who'll be taking this Expanded journey without most of his fellow Star Wars fans. So be it. Embrace your Count Dooku, you nerf herders!

What makes the novels work is all this post-Return stuff clearly holds no interest to George. Yes, I'm sure all this stuff has to get run by him at some point. But he seems (gratefully) to just rubber stamp it and go back to playing in his Clone Wars era where droids say "roger, roger" and kids get to be Nascar champs. Couldn't...be...happier with that. The less his hands are on this part of the universe, the better for all of us. I know...it's sad to say that. But I just can't continue to defend a guy who's so clearly lost it and refuses to listen to critics (and why would you if you had millions of Stormtrooper-costume-wearing fanatics telling you that everything you touch turns to gold?). I respect the man for what he created. But it's what he created that I love, and watching him, year by year, contaminate and dismantle it is something I can just no longer stomach.

So let him, I say, keep making properties for the kids. I hope the kids love it. I really do. But for those of us who grew up with Star Wars and are now grown-ups, who realize that stories can be told FOR grownups within this vast world, there are, thankfully, the novels. Which I will continue to read as long as the quality is there. It's not always. I tried my best to read the trilogy that took place after the New Jedi Order, but couldn't get through the first book. The story being told there just had no interest to me. The nine-novel series that followed, though, did interest me, so I was able to find a web site that summed up the bizarre bug novels that I couldn't stomach, just to be up to date on what happened to the characters, and jump into the first book in the Legacy of the Force series just recently, written by one of my favorite Star Wars writers, Aaron Allston. The good news is that I haven't had time to read in so long, the series is now over. So now that I'm unemployed, I've got all nine novels ready to be enjoyed. And I guess I'd better hurry, because another series, apparently, has already started after THAT one.

If you're a Star Wars fan, and I mean a fan of the original trilogy, I'd highly advise getting past the stigma and trying the novels out. There are plenty of places online where you can find a chronology so you'll know where to start. And chances are you won't have the same overly-picky writer problems that I do (I have issues...), so you'll be able to enjoy a lot more of them than I have. If you've ever found yourself wondering what happened after Return of the Jedi, there are thousands of pages just waiting to answer that for you. Not only can you watch your favorite characters grow (and grow old - the current book I'm reading is up to 35 years past return), but you experience their children being born and follow along as THEY grow into adulthood and become the newest heroes of the Star Wars galaxy. And you'll meet plenty of fantastic new characters along the way, too. Give one a try, see what you think. The grown-up Star Wars universe awaits you.

Unless you're into poodoo. If so...well, may the poodoo be with you. As long as George keeps calling the shots, I guarantee you that it will be.

The Finding of Fray

Okay, so recently, I realized that there was Jossness I’d never experienced before. For some reason, I’d never gotten around to reading Fray, Joss’s Dark Horse comic mini from 2001-2003. I even had the trade. For a long time now. Maybe it was the close of Astonishing that made me think about it, I don’t know, but I realized I was way overdue. So, because I despise comics in print form now, I left the trade alone in my closet and downloaded the issues for hot laptop reading action.

Answer me this. How, after all this time, did I NOT know that Fray was a Buffyverse property?

I had no idea! I got through the first issue and was in full-on holycrappity mode. And then, I think, less than an hour after I finished that issue, I found out the next Buffy Season 8 arc is going to be the (apparently long-awaited, though I didn’t even know enough to be awaitin’) Buffy/Fray crossover. More crap, even holier.

I shot through all eight issues in the mini. Damn! It was really, really good! All this time I’d been thinking it was just some other project of Joss’s, some futuristic thing, self-contained. How did I get through all this ‘Verse living and go to all those panels and hear people whine about wanting more of it AND read Whedonesque semi-regularly and not NOT know this was his future-slayer book?! Like Shakespeare’s Dogberry – I…am an ass!

I seriously dug it. Probably more so because I read them all at once. Apparently, being Joss, he took, like, three years to get eight issues out (what, was he busy writing TV shows or something? Psh! Oh…actually, he was working on three…). I also did this, FYI, before I read Big-Ass Astonishing X-Men – I realized I was totally lost on the plot, so I went back and read the whole arc from “Oops, we’re in space” onward, or from #19 on. Made a HUGE difference when I got to the finale. This comics-once-a-month stuff is tough enough. The way JOSS does it? I’m surprised I remembered who Colossus was.

Running through the whole Fray, I found it so, SO Joss. I could even hear Buffy/Angel ass-kicking (or tear-jerking) music going off at just the right points. It was a little over-the-top in its wacky futurism from time to time, but hey…I dig six-shooters in space, right? And I had no idea how much love from this got carried out the “real” projects. Case in point – the scythe. The freaking scythe from the Buffy TV finale first appeared in Fray?! No kidding? And this also ended up being the first place where Joss ever used the word “rutting” (at least as far as I know. Maybe he talks like that in letters to his Mom. “Yeah, mom, I’ll be home for ruttin’ Christmas!”). I’m ashamed to say I TOTALLY misread what this series was all about. I thought it was just Joss trying comic writing for the first time. I had no how much pure Whedon love was pumped into it. It’s a really great story. Well, no doubt there, sure…but it’s a Buffyverse story, and a damned fine (and, in its own small way, epic) one. I found myself emotionally hooked, and Joss played the aging, dorky violin that is me just perfectly, leading me one way, surprising me when I least expected it. Melaka Fray was a rockin’ character. One I ended up caring for.

And the best part of my ignorance and slowness of clue-having is that now that I’ve just finished totally loving Fray, I find I just have to wait a couple of months to see her 5-year delayed return to comicness. I am so damned ready. And I’m quite excited to see that the same creative team (Joss and Karl Moline, whose art just got better and better with each issue (which happens over three years of your life, I suppose)) will be doing it up. Wow. I knew I was a Joss fan, but I never knew I was a big enough Joss nerd to be totally psyched about a comic character slayer meeting a TV slayer for the first time. Damnit, Joss! I am TRYING to be cool!

By all means, go out and grab that handy trade for yourself. Or, if you want to learn more, you can check out this page from a guy (guess I’m just assuming it’s a guy) who makes me realize I’m not THAT big of a Fray nerd. Take caution – he actually summarizes the whole series in text. Because that’s SO much more exciting than actually reading the comic… Guess that’s a nice community service for people too poor to buy it. Hell, they could just download it. Wait…are you talking to me about .cbr files on a cellular phone? I don’t know you. Prank caller! Prank caller!

The Company of (My) Heroes

Just a few of my City of Heroes characters during my time with the game.

You Belong to the City (Of Heroes)

Man, did I ever get a flashback last night. I was working on something else, but I got a call from A.T. He was trying to get his old City of Heroes account started back up, and couldn't remember his username or password. He thought I might have them somewhere, since the account was set up here at my place. Long story, but he couldn't really play at home, so any playing he did was over here on my other computer, so the account was set up while he was here.

It was while trying to aid him in this that I ended up restarting the City of Heroes software...for the first time in forEVER. I got the game back in 2004. I'd never played one of the big online games before. I had a few friends trying to push me into trying this one. It did sound like fun, but it also sounded like a lot of time to spend, and I was trying to spend more home time on writing and such back then. But, finally, I'd given in and grabbed myself the game. I got home, did the install, set up the account, and jumped into creating my first hero. And what a lot of fun hero creation turned out to be. You could totally create your own costume. Choose your own hair! Control your height and weight! It was definitely more creative freedom than I'd seen in other games.

But getting online was when it got interesting. Oh, man. That first time I showed up at Atlas Park. These days, City of Heroes isn't as popular as it once was. World of Warcraft took care of that (and emptied out a lot of other games besides CoH, too). But back then, it was jammed. My character jogged up toward the big statue of Atlas up front (and I had to pause and look up at it in awe...and appreciate the graphics), heard the heroic music playing (that always comes up when you get near the city hall area), and saw dozens and dozens of other heroes gathered there - chatting, leveling up, dancing (yes, dancing...not something you often see super-heroes doing, I know), taking part in costume contests, looking for teammates to go off on missions with... It was this huge community. And what a sight! Costumes of every color in the rainbow, character names, one after the next, that made me go "Man, why didn't *I* think of that one?! That's hilarious!".

I really got into the game for a while, and spent most of my evenings heroing. I finally understood the addiction factor of online gaming. There's so much to do! So much to explore! So many goals to reach! And so many new characters to try. I don't know if character-making is as fun in other MMOGs, but I just loved making new heroes. It was tough sticking to one - which, of course, is the only way to really progress in the game. My first one that really stuck for a while was Dr. Redstar, a big, cool Russian dude (pictured above). He was my go-to guy for quite a while. And while playing him, I learned about the social aspect of the game. I started getting together with teams of other players to do missions. Sometimes it was just one group for one night, and that was it. But I did find some regulars, and found we worked well together. In particular, I met a lawyer and his wife, both of whom played (each of them in a different room in their home). We made a great team, and met up regularly for a while. We'd draw in other folks. Some were lame. Some were okay. Some were quite good, and, more importantly, were fun to chat with between the combat moments (they could actually use the English language, in other words). Dr. Redstar racked up quite a burgeoning little career, and I even got far enough with him to FINALLY attain flight! You can't just choose flight as a power in this game, you see. Your movement power is something you choose along the way, and have to build up to with experience. There is nothing like that first time you level up to just that right level you've been waiting for, spend your experience, and get to turn on that flight power and float up into the sky. The first time you stop looking up at the big Atlas statue and soar up and stand on the globe on his shoulder and look down over the whole city.

My solo playing on the game wasn't to last, though, as soon, several of my friends decided to try it out. Now THOSE were the good times. We'd hook up online some, but for some reason, everyone preferred to be playing on the same home - MY home. On the weekends for a while, the guys could come over, some dragging their own PCs or laptops (I had my PC and one in the living room to share). A.T would quickly wire up everybody to my network (amazing how fast he can do that stuff) and boom...the "LAN party" was on. We would spend hours running around with our heroes as a team, ordering and eating pizza (in the real world, not in the game), yelling stuff back and forth between rooms ("Dude, where are you? We're at the END of the tunnel! Hurry up!" - "Focus on the master! Focus on the master! Now!" - "Run!!! Everyone out! RUN!!!" - "Oh, man, did you die again?" - "Everybody wait, I gotta go level up"). We'd sometimes do this until the sun came up. And sometimes our timing sucked when doing it, too - like the time my hot neighbor decided to drop by to introduce me to her two hot friends before they went out clubbing - and walked in on an apartment full of guys on computers fighting crime? It simply does not get much funnier than that.

That lasted for a while, but soon, people started playing less, dropping their accounts, moving on to other games. I kept it going for a while. But I started playing less myself and focusing on other things. And then, once, I tried to get back on, and a software error (or something) kept me from completing the sign-on...even after reinstalling. Couldn't figure it out, didn't care enough to pursue it too far at the time. When that PC crashed and I got this new one, I went ahead and reinstalled it, but didn't actually do anything with it. I didn't jump back into good ol' Atlas Park until last night.

It was great to see all the old sights, hear the old sounds, and let the memories come flooding back. Memories of long (and pretty creepy) night spent in the Hollows. That thrill of leveling up to a point you'd never achieved before. Getting that new power you've been dying to try out. Dealing with that complete idiot who joins up with your team, has no idea what he's doing, and just runs around messing things up and getting you all killed. That long, long run back to the mission you were on after you die and end up back at the hospital, while your whole team sits and waits for you. Getting into an epic, massive fight with your team, feeling like there's just no way to win, and somehow coming out alive on the other side - and that victory gathering when you all teleport back outside (and at this point it's like 3am because the mission was so much longer than any of you had thought it would be), talking about what happened and all the close calls, and that parting when people say it's time for them to go level up...or just go to bed! That is a strangely fulfilling night's sleep when you've won that big battle and leveled up as your reward before signing off. You sleep the sleep of the victorious hero.

But the memories that DIDN'T come back? They were ones like...how to play the game!!! Oh, my God, was I lost. I didn't even want to do anything, really, just jump around Atlas Park a little. And I couldn't remember any of the controls! They used to be second nature to me. I used to have all the cool emotes all dialed in (the ones that let you dance, flex your muscles, salute, sit down, read a newspaper, etc). Now? I can't figure out how to even DO them anymore. And since I've been gone, they've added SO MUCH to the game! There's stuff on screen now where I don't even know what it means! What the hell is "salvage"? There was never "salvage" before! I was just lost. Talk about a reminder of what limited (mental) hard drive space I have. I used to be a master (in MY mind, at least) of this game. Now not only can I not find my way around without a map...I can't remember how to find the map!!

I really no time in my life to mess with the CoH right now, but it was a lot of fun stepping back in, just for a few minutes. I know a couple of people still playing. Most have moved on to World of Warcraft addiction, or to EQ2 or one of the other new ones. But I know at least two guys still getting it done, and I know they've both achieved that magical 50th level (the highest you can reach in CoH. At least is used to be. Who knows anymore?) with their long-time characters, and there's still enough of a closet hero in me to applaud that victory and appreciate all they went through to get there (I don't think I ever even hit level 20 with a character. 16 might have been tops for me). I've been on the battlefield enough myself. As Dr. Redstar. As Doc Killarney. As Heatspell. As Doctor Jackal. As Knightmare. As Mr. Moonrock (name aside, he was one of the coolest-looking characters I ever created). As Helix. As Nightsable. And as a handful of others...some, only for one night (as much fun as I had annoying other players with my character "Retarded Ninja", he just wasn't built to last), some for a few runs (my robot pirate - "Aye Robot" - was badASS).

So, maybe one of these nights (or weekends), I might have to dust off one of my old heroes, get in touch with my CoH guys, and see if they're willing to pal around with an amnesiac newbie like myself and go lay down a little justice together. See if the old magic is still there. See if I still have the touch.

See if I can even figure out how to punch a bad guy when he's standing right in front of me...

I'm a Famous Geek, Eh?

I was just talking my friend A.T. about Alpha Flight, for some reason, and I remembered my little claim to comic came in the early 1980s. Back was I was president (I'm trying hard not to brag) of the Sacramento Marvelite Association, I wrote a letter, on behalf of our group, to Marvel Comics to express our feelings on the first issue of John Byrne's Alpha Flight. Well, turns out they got so many letters that, in issue #4, they just posted the names of some of the people that had written instead of actually showing letters. Unfortunately for the S.M.A., they didn't list our organization's name...they just took mine off the signature. Oops! So, to the displeasure of the others in the group, my name got into a Marvel Comic in 1983, and theirs did not. Sorry guys.

I wonder if John Byrne still remembers me from that? I'll try to bump into him next Comic-Con and ask....

Pirate Corp$ Cover Art

As detailed in the previous post, I just loved Evan Dorkin's "Pirate Corp$". This are the covers to the original Eternity Comics issues, but the book got picked up later by Slave Labor, and the name of the series got changed to "Hectic Planet", and that's when Dorkin's work on this really hit its stride. All of the issues--original and later--are collected in three different Hectic Planet trade paperbacks (and there's one additional one--"The Bummer Trilogy"--that collects three Hectic Planet short stories Dorkin did in Dark Horse Presents), and they're all available for sale at the Slave Labor site. If you're looking for something fun and different--a little space, a little ska, a lot of angst--I highly advise trying them out.