Captain America #35

The Red Skull and his allies are looking to burn America down from the inside, and the Skull has his best plan ever, involving a host of corporations he secretly owns, politicians and agents who don’t realize he’s controlling them, and a few supervillains here and there to tip the odds. SHIELD is crippled, the president is in danger, and people are rioting in the streets. What can Bucky Barnes, the new Captain America, do to stop the rising chaos? Well, there’s not a lot — a little shield-throwing, a little face-punching, it’s like trying to dam a river with a few stray sticks. But the roots of the conspiracy are beginning to show, and that means Cap can take the fight to the real bad guys. Meanwhile, what’s Arnim Zola got in store for Sharon Carter?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is probably the best and most devious plan the Red Skull has ever come up with, and I’m enjoying the process Cap is taking to uncovering what’s going on. Sure, a lot of the detective work involves hitting people in the face with an adamantium shield, but that’s just the icing on the cake…

 

Batman #674

Well, Batman has been resuscitated after his heart attack and captured by a maniac wearing a version of his own costume. Still hallucinating a bit, he sees a demonic Bat-Mite and remembers a time when the Gotham police trained three officers to be able to take over as Batman if the real McCoy ever went down. The Bat-Torturer is one of the replacements, either re-activated or driven mad — he shoots Bats in the arm with a crossbow bolt and tries to hack off his hand, but Bats manages to get loose and unleash a little whoop-ass.

Verdict: I don’t really know. Sometimes, I think Grant Morrison is way, way smarter than I’ll ever manage to be. Sure, I could easily keep track of everything he did in “JLA,” but this issue — what with the hallucinations, the weird Bat-secrets I’ve never heard of, the unreliable narrators, I just don’t know.

Just heard the news a little bit ago.

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragon and one of the fathers of tabletop role playing games, died today at the age of 69. He had suffered from heart problems.

The news was first announced on the message board of Troll Lord Games, the publisher of Gygax’s most recent works. It has since been directly confirmed by the company, which will post an announcement on its web site later today.

Gygax was best known for helping create Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and pioneered tabletop role playing games. The first D&D rulebooks were released in 1974 by TSR, Inc, and since then produced three full-fledged sequels, numerous revisions and updates, and dozens upon dozens of additional rulebooks, settings, and campaigns. While Gygax hadn’t had much direct involvement with D&D for many years, he developed and contributed to many role playing games, Troll Lord Games’ Gary Gygax’s Fantasy Worlds.

It’s been years since I played D&D — I think the last time was in junior high, where I ran with the world’s most obnoxious bunch munchkins and power-levelers around. (I got a magic user up to somewhere around Level 1,000, no kidding) But I’ve kept my old D&D books, including my old boxed set, if you remember that one. Looks like I’ll be digging the old books out tonight to read through ’em.

How ’bout you? Did you ever play D&D? And what are some of your favorite stories about playing?

UPDATE: Here’s the AP story…

Spider-Man Family #7

Well, it may not have a cast of thousands, but this 104-page comic is certainly crammed to the gills with guest stars. Basically, this is one of Marvel’s all-ages books, designed to be kid-friendly, but also good reading for grown-ups. And this particular issue was designed by Karl Kesel, Todd Dezago, and Mark Waid as a tribute to the late Mike Wieringo.

Our plot focuses on the Looter, a villain who gets his powers from a chunk of meteorite. Actually, he thinks the meteorite is alive — and he’s even fallen in love with the space-rock. Muy creepy, yes? Anyway, he goes looking for a second meteorite to boost his powers. Spidey gets involved, as do the Fantastic Four, Ka-Zar, Stegron, and Dr. Strange. After that’s over, we’ve got three different, full-length backup features, all of them reprints from earlier Spider-Man stories — the first from one of the “Venom” miniseries, one from “Spider-Man: Death and Destiny,” and the last is a Japanese manga about a kid who calls himself “Spider-Man J.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. The backup stories are fairly forgettable, but the main attraction is the story with the Looter. It’s very fun, lots of action, lots of actual jokes. It’s everything you ever wanted in a Spidey story. It’s too bad that ‘Ringo wasn’t around to draw it himself…

 

PS238 #29

Last issue, Poly Mer and Julie Finster, thinking their favorite teacher, Miss Kyle, was quitting her job, decided to follow her to Las Vegas and talk her into staying on at PS238. They brought along reluctant stowaway Zodon, and were followed by the Flea. Of course, Miss Kyle isn’t leaving — she just needed a vacation. They’re all being tracked by the evil Centurions, and the vigilante hero Revenant is providing the Flea with a cash card to cover his expenses.

In this issue, the Flea uses his card to stock up on flashy Vegas-wear and candy. Everyone ends up in the Masquerade Casino, a casino just for superheroes. Zodon tries to win a bunch of money by cheating at blackjack, but gets caught by casino security. And everyone else tangles with the Centurions.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was prepared to dislike the Vegas issues, but they’ve been excellent. Sure, we’re not following all the kids back at the school, but we’re getting some great characterization of the Flea, Poly, and Julie. The Flea’s spending spree is good and funny, as is Poly’s “chewing gum.” And in addition to Julie’s angst over her powers being unoriginal (she’s the 84th person on earth to manifest super-strength, super-speed, flight, and indestructibility), she’s also too poor to afford a really nice super-costume and is starting to question whether she wants to be a superhero at all. All that plus an announcement that Hero Games is going to publish a pen-and-paper RPG based on “PS238.” So there’s lots of stuff going on, and it’s still a darn good comic. Pick it up.

 

Click here to read the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages.

Background: Weirdo freak gets on a webforum on guns and pretends he’s (A) a mall cop and (B) armed to the teeth. Because he’s Special Forces. And a ninja. And because he saved both the mayor’s nephew and the local SWAT team. Never has overwhelming ignorance been combined so perfectly with embarrassing overcompensation issues. An excerpt:

I am in a high-risk job. It is not the Mall of America, but Ill tell you what its no podunk mall either.I am a responsible citizen who has made the choice to carry at all times. I defend others. If something happens at the Mall then I would be the hero, not those of you who are making fun of me for no reason. Yes Im not a Green Beret but guess what neither are you and unlike you I have to face unruly shoppers every day.My REAL problem is that, like any LEO, I have enemies because of my job. They may have access to high-powered rifles. My job starts and ends at the same time every day. Although I use four rotating routes to drive to and from work, I am still vulnerable during the walk to and from my car. This is the time that I load up on the trauma plates because I DO NOT WANT TO BE SHOT DEAD!Also, someone said that my Tac Team doesn’t get training. Not true. We meet at the range every night and shoot 400 rounds each through weapons that closely resemble our duty setup. We also practice unarmed combat. I am a Master of three martial arts including ninjitsu, which means I can wear the special boots to climb walls. I don’t think any of you are working as hard as I am to be prepared. I asked a serious question about tactical armor and I wanted a serious response. If you want to laugh at somebody, try laughing at the sheep out there who go to the mall unarmed trusting in me to stand guiard over their lives like a God.

Go read the whole thing. You don’t even have to know that much about ninjas or weaponry to catch all this guy’s idiocy. It’s hilarious.

(Via, almost simultaneously, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Neil Gaiman)

Ya know what sucks? These two comics suck. Let’s get reviews of them over with in a hurry.

She-Hulk #26

On the one hand, the issue starts out with people actually throwing bears at each other, which ya gotta admit is pretty cool. But after that, you’ve got She-Hulk, still insisting she’s not a superhero anymore, fighting an alien bounty hunter, even after she realizes they’re on the same side. You’ve got Jazinda the Skrull dying but coming back to life. You’ve got Cazon the evil mass-murdering prettyboy taking a completely useless hostage solely for the purpose of — actually, there’s no purpose. He didn’t need the guy as a hostage, and he’d already killed the guy’s girlfriend. And the girlfriend gets brought back to life, too, but only temporarily. You’ve got five pages of She-Hulk holding onto the side of a speeding spaceship — which really shouldn’t be boring but nevertheless is. You’ve got She-Hulk improbably losing her pants for the sake of clumsy and ineffective smirk-and-wink geek-giggles.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Good gravy, remember when this book used to be good? Shouldn’t a guy like Peter David be better at writing a comic book than this? Could someone please get Dan Slott back to writing this one so maybe it can stop sucking?

Teen Titans #56

Kid Devil really does have it rough. The other Titans come up with a plan to stop a bad guy, don’t tell him the plan, and then blame him for not knowing what the plan is. Wonder Girl’s a jerk, Robin’s a jerk, Ravager’s a jerk. Miss Martian’s getting all set to turn evil. Of course, Kid Devil’s also dumber’n dirt, so he throws a giant party at Titans Tower when everyone’s out, and sure enough, everyone who shows up breaks stuff, steals stuff, and prank-calls Batman. And after the rest of the Titans show up and act like jerks again, he runs into the only cool guy from the party, and it turns out he’s a supervillain named Dreadbolt, who’s working with a group called the, um, Terror Titans, run by, um, the Clock King. Oooo, scaaaary.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This comic is just absolutely inept. Why am I still reading it? Partly brand loyalty, I think, and partly because I want to see just how bad this one is going to get.