Comic Books

[hauberk]

Speak no ill of G'Nort. He's funny as hell when handled byGiffen & DeMatteis.

Actually, better not speak of him at all. Greg Rucka might read it, and remeber that there're still some JLI characters alive.

In that case, G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort!

Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man!

(Been a while since I've looked at JLI - might need to review and chant a few more names).

[Nephrite]

In that case, G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort! G'Nort!

Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man! Elongated Man!

(Been a while since I've looked at JLI - might need to review and chant a few more names).

Nah. You pretty much covered it. Maybe Power Girl or Guy Gardner or Captain Atom. But they seem to be preoccupied with... well, not dying.

[RaceBannon42]

Ahh... I loved JLI and JLE

the Russian Iron man guy... Red Rocket?

Fire and Ice

Blue Beetle

Booster Gold

The French Fox chick... Vixen?

I'm really digging Giffen and DeMatties DEfenders Mini.

The art style is a bit different than i normally prefer, but It really grew on me.

I love their take on Dr. Strange.

[Nephrite]

Ahh... I loved JLI and JLE

Ditto.

Then again, somebody at DC doesn't love them...

the Russian Iron man guy... Red Rocket?

Dead.

Fire and Ice

Paralyzed and dead.

Blue Beetle

Dead.

Booster Gold

Alive, but waiting for execution.

The French Fox chick... Vixen?

Hmm, don't know.

I'm really digging Giffen and DeMatties DEfenders Mini.

The art style is a bit different than i normally prefer, but It really grew on me.

I love their take on Dr. Strange.

Yeah, I love that mini, too. Silver Surfer is brilliant.

Marvel announced that there might be a sequel.

[Ebenstone]

I am a big fan of the Batman/Superman comic and I have to say I really love the new Supergirl. I can't explain why...I think because it's pretty similiar to my book on the old writer's site.

[Ser Paladin]

The French Fox chick... Vixen?

I'm really digging Giffen and DeMatties DEfenders Mini.

The art style is a bit different than i normally prefer, but It really grew on me.

I love their take on Dr. Strange.

I'm fairly sure Vixen is dead.

I am digging the Defenders story, but I have a quick question for you all. Did anyone read JLA Classified over the Summer? I'm pretty sure that the JLI era team (Guy, Beetle, Gold, Fire and Mary Marvel) ended up in a leather and studs wearing parallel universe fighting their doppelgangers. Then, in Defenders, they face leather and studs wearing doppelgangers of the Marvel Heroes.

I think Giffen and DeMatteis need to stop reading BSDM Quarterly.

[RaceBannon42]

Ok, I'm glad that I re read Crisis on infinate Earths. Kal-L busting out and the end of Infinate Crisis 1 makes much more sense now. After 20 years, I had forgotten he Earth 4 Superboy, Earth 2 Lois, and Alexander Luthor of Earth 3 were in that Limbo Place.

[Zahir al Daoud]

Just wondering if anyone here has ever invented their own superheroes or supervillains? For Champions maybe? Or some other venue?

[Ran]

Zahir,

I did, for TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes RPG ... uh, a rather lame hero. Blindside -- which is actually not a bad superhero name, IMHO, but the thing was his powers had pretty much nothing to do with the name. Sonic-based blasts and various other tricks, except for some unspecified reason the blasts came via his hands (and he didn't have one of Klaw's sonic converters, either); I think I hand-waved it as the ability to produce wicked vibrations in his hands or something. (What can I say -- I was ... uhm .... 11-12?) And I had so much fun with the HQ building guide that I made him increasingly richer so that, by the end, his HQ rivaled (and then surpassed) the Baxter Building.

Good times. Did I mention I was 11-12? Oh, his costume was pretty much a knockoff of Sunspot's (from New Mutants).

Also a character called the Lynx (I had a snazzy logo design with pointed lettering ) who, IIRC, was basically a Wolverine knock-off. I'm sure I created others, but those are the only two I really remember.

[Nephrite]

Just wondering if anyone here has ever invented their own superheroes or supervillains? For Champions maybe? Or some other venue?

Uhm, yeah...

Nephrite

It's better then most of Liefeld's characters.

The racoon's name is Squeky.

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heroMac...eromachine2.asp

P.S.

And if you had the Power of the Cosmos at your disposal you'd be wearing a skirt, too.

(edited by Ran: Don't post images in threads please.

[hauberk]

Just wondering if anyone here has ever invented their own superheroes or supervillains? For Champions maybe? Or some other venue?

Yep. Have been involved (loosely for some time) in complete worldbuilding for a Champions campaign including a significant amount of background history and the origin of superpowers on that Earth.

My specific venue is the government super teams. One of my favorite characters is a projecting telekine similar to Popinjay from the Wild Cards books only with a variety of firearms. The other started out as a cheap ripoff of Bishop/Winter (an absorbing/redirecting energy projector) and built into a grizzled old emotional cripple with a relatively cool power framework.

[Zahir al Daoud]

Also a character called the Lynx (I had a snazzy logo design with pointed lettering ) who, IIRC, was basically a Wolverine knock-off. I'm sure I created others, but those are the only two I really remember.

OMG. I love that name! Can I use it? We've been designing the superheroes of Il Bethisad for some time and "Lynx" or some variation would be PERFECT!

If you wanna check it out... http://ib.frath.net/w/Superhero (you can even take part if you like)

Zahir

[Ran]

Zahir,

Sure.

[literally exaggerated]

SPOILERS FOR INFINITE CRISIS 2

Animal Man is looking for has Adam Strange space suit in a scene that is a clear reference to the Incredibles' Frozone asking his wife where his supersuit went. He says that the animals of the world are going insane. He bids fareweel to the kids, then gets transported to New Cronus, where Donna Troy has gathered together a number of heroes, including Starfire, Supergirl, Cyborg, Airwave and Red Tornado. They say they are travelling to the center of the Universe to fix it.

Earth-2 Supes narrates that Supergirl's heart beats in sync with Power Girl's. Power Girl is fighting Clayface, Psycho Pirate, and a couple villains I don't recognize. She is slowly losing, but Earth-2 Supes flies out of nowhere and saves her.

Cut to the daily planet, where they are talking about finding the remains of Dr. Polaris, and of how the bodies of the Freedom Fighters were strung up on the Washington Monument, the Pentagon has declared war on the Society. Lois goes to Clark, who is looking at a framed picture of the headline about his death. he says that Batman was right, that now is the time for action, rips open his shirt Chris Reeve style and flies off.

The Society are talking about how they need to find a member of the Marvel family to power some sort of crazy machine. Society Luthor says to bring him Black Adam.

The real Luthor is on the North Pole in his apokaliptian armor, remarking how his thought processes have been messed up, when he sees Earth 2 Supes and Powergirl fly past him and into a crevasse.

Powergirl meets with Alex Luthor and Superboy Prime. Alex Luthor explains that she, like themselves, is a survivor of the former multiverse. When the earths were merged, she somehow slipped through the cracks (Lots of explanation here about the original Crisis on Infinite Earths and Multiverse). Powergirl touches Lois' hand, and remembers everything about her former life. Lois is dying due to her lost connection to her real world, and Supes talks about how this world is far too dark.

Booster Gold is back from the future, having stolen historical records about what is going on, making him a felon in the future but giving him the knowledge necessary to save billions of lives. He is trying to bring back the Giffen Justice League, and is also looking for Blue Beetle's Scarab.

Joker has killed the car gang except for the King, who he is torturing. He asks why every single villain was asked by the Society to join except for him, and King says "Don't you get it clown? You're the only one...You're the only one they don't wan.t See, Everyone knows--Joker's too wild." Joker fries his face off and says thats not funny.

Bruce in the Batcave on the computer. Alfred comes down to treat his wounds, but Bruce angrily drives him away. Alfred says that Bruce's father never wanted to be alone. Bruce broods, then goes back to trying to crack Brother Eye. Explanation of what happened during the OMAC project. Eye says that it is simply trying to protect the world from people like WW (shot of her snapping Lord's neck).

Cut to Themyscira, where WW, Artemis and the Amazons are facing off with an army of OMACs (awesome splash page her).

Back to Earth 2 Supes and Powergirl. Earth 2 Supes is saying that this world is too dark. Corrupted. It lost its hope, there's no joy here. He had wondered why he was spared, for what purpose. He says he figured it out. In the first crisis, they saved the wrong earth. They need to destroy this earth in order to bring back the true one, a world where hope and joy still exist and where Lois won't die.

Whoo. Despite being in large part an issue designed to catch readers up on relevant continuity, a lot still happened. I love that Joker's back. Love that Booster Gold is back and trying to revive the Giffen JL. Loved the Animal Man bits (though I have a sinking feeling he's gonna die, which would suck). Most of all though, I love that Earth-2 Supes seems somewhat morally ambiguous.

I had worried before this that Infinite Crisis was simply going to undue everything that has happened post-crisis. If not in continuity, then certainly in tone, in favor of bringing back a Silver/Golden age feel. Now I have a feeling that won't be the case. Earth 2 Supes is right when he says this world has gone off the deep end, but he's wrong in saying that it has nothing worth saving. I think Infinite Crisis is going to be the mechanism through which the DCU finally finds its happy medium. Somewhere between the happy go lucky silver age and the current dark age, neither Earth-2 all over again, nor simply more of the same Grim and Gritty.

[Nephrite]

Yeah, it was pretty good issue.

Batman needs to get his shit together. Alfred didn't mind-wipe his snotty ass.

Also, I don't think Kal-L wants to erase the entire existence, that would be a genocide. You'd think that's a big no-no with capes&tights people. I think she just wants to bring back Earth 2 or multiverse.

And I have a bad feeling about Booster Gold.

[Xanrn]

Yeah, it was pretty good issue.

Batman needs to get his shit together. Alfred didn't mind-wipe his snotty ass.

Also, I don't think Kal-L wants to erase the entire existence, that would be a genocide. You'd think that's a big no-no with capes&tights people. I think she just wants to bring back Earth 2 or multiverse.

And I have a bad feeling about Booster Gold.

Bah Booster Gold is going to be chosen by the Blue Scarab Beetle, duh anyone can see that coming.

So what the Real Luthor is the one in the Power Armour, who made Superboy go nuclear and the Society Luthor is a clone/alternate reality?

I am more interested in Donna Troys little war party, Starfire, Jade and Donna are hot as hell and Firstorm/Shift are my two favourite DC Super-Heros.

Also more evidence why Batman is an idiot and should have killed Joker ages ago.

[KinSlayerImp]

I hope nothing happens to Booster but I also have a bad feeling...

[Nephrite]

Bah Booster Gold is going to be chosen by the Blue Scarab Beetle, duh anyone can see that coming.

I hope not. Because Booster Gold is DC FIRST post-Crisis hero. Changing him to Blue Beetle would be like turning Kal-L into Hourman.

So what the Real Luthor is the one in the Power Armour, who made Superboy go nuclear and the Society Luthor is a clone/alternate reality?

Yup. Battlesuit Luthor was the president, and CEO.

The one that now pretends to be him is (my guess) pre-Crisis Luthor. Kind of ironic. The pre-Crisis guy pretends to be a businessman, while the post-Crisis dresses like the pre-Crisis one.

Apprently you can see it in their eyes.

Pre-Crisis = blue

Post-Crisis = green.

And to add a bit more indepth opinion on IC#2...

It was a pretty good issue. What really interests me is how on many message boards people are saying how Kal-L is going to be the villain. Because he's gonna destroy reality or somethin'. Yet, what we got here is a nice twist on one of the most used super-hero conventions. I read a bunch of stories where the heroes come to a reality where things are bad compared to there own. For example in "JLA - Rock of Ages" when Aquaman, Flash & GL come to Earth's future where Darkseid is in charge. So what do they do? They decide that they need to fix it. And, lets face it, in the process they destroy that reality, and many innocent people who lived in that reality cease to exist.

So here we got the same thing except it's "our" reality that's the shitty one. And Kal-L decides to fix it.

The only reason many fans take it personally is because they invested time and money into it for years, and now it turns out that some pre-historic dude wants to mess with it. Like I said it's a nice twist and one that I didn't think Geoff Johns had it in him.

[Ser Paladin]

Just wondering if anyone here has ever invented their own superheroes or supervillains? For Champions maybe? Or some other venue?

My brother has a fine arts degree and wanted to create Superheroes, so I came up with some concepts, and he drew up character sheets and a few dozen pages. I'll have to go dig them up and scan them in. This is a good 20 years ago, and we were reading things like JLI and X-Men, so the heroes are more low-powered, no "Superman" or "Sentry" worldbeaters.

My personal favorite was a guy I called "Drone." He had a "machine affinity" power that lets him communicate with and direct simple robots. The robots have to be so simple though, that each one can have only one primary function (spy, attack, etc). He always has a dozen or so of his specialist drones buzzing around in a cloud over his head (thus the name), ostensibly ready for action, but subconsciously reflecting his moods (buzzing angrily when he's agitated, drooping down when he's depressed, ogling the superheroines when he's horny).

Another one was a combination of economy. I knew that a team needed a defensive player on it, and that a speedster is useful for a last second save, so we combined the two into a guy who has a frictionless forcefield around him. He "skates" on ice skate blades embedded into his costume, and has similarly styled blades in his gauntlets. I think we called him Iceblade. In my defense, we both played hockey, and it was the late 80s.

Now I really want to dig this stuff out again.

[Miryana Storm]

I'm kind of newish in the world of comics, so I have a quick question!

I really want to get into the X-Men, but I don't know what's good!

I have Joss Whedon's lovely Astonishing X-Men, but beyond that I don't really know too much.

Anyone have any reccomendations?

Uncanny X-Men and plain X-Men aren't worth reading at the moment. UXM in particular can be too heavy on history. Astonishing's second arc was rather weak and it's currently on hiatus, will return next year. New Excalibur, history again. New X-Men: Academy X has been revamped to become teen action.

I think Ultimate X-Men, the alternate universe line, might actually be the best choice. There's only a single title with 11 trade paperbacks so it's easy to give them a look and choose what seems to be most interesting. There's also far less extra characters and the relationships are still easy to follow (no 25+ years of backstory).

I'd also recommend Essential X-Men 1 & 2. They collect the best years of X and the first two volumes include some of the most famous storylines.

The talk here seems to be DC-heavy.