Claimh Solais

Superman vs Batman

Superman is a creature of the Golden Rule. It's one of the reasons why so many artists want to draw Batman graphic novels or work on the monthly comics, because you know there's a certain amount of rage they have at the world they get to convey through the pages. Superman, despite the tragedies he's faced, is a man without much rage or hatred for people. So he doesn't necessarily play into the adolescent power fantasy as other heroes do. He's the adult superhero.
-Scott McCloud

OK. It's a bit of a dig against fans of other heroes, but I like this comment. I think Scott McCloud just into words one of the reasons I like the Superman character so much.

Kirk/Spock '04

The Ferrett has uncovered the shocking truth about the Kirk/Spock ticket. Given the proven evidence of Kirk's flip-flopping, I'm afraid that I will also have to vote for his Republican opponent, Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

Great stuff, Bill!

(I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed, but I knew every episode he referenced....)

Superman Movie News

Director Bryan Singer (X-Men, X2) has cast Superman and there's some good news. It's an unknown! The news is here.

Also, there are rumours that General Zod will be the big bad in the movie!

If they do this right, I will be one happy geek.

Green Arrow on CNN.com

CNN.com has this article about th ecurrent AIDS subplot in Green Arrow. The issue that revealed that Mia is HIV+ just came out. So far, she has not been said to have AIDS.

A lot of people are upset at (the author) Winick for writing these comics and bringing real life issues to the Green Arrow comic. It makes me wonder if they have ever read Green Arrow comics before. I think it can be a good plot for the comic, if it is done right. Winick is a decent writer, but I have also seen him write some horrible stuff. I hope he does this one right.

Gaming Resource: Egyptian Names

This site has short but useful description of Ancient Egyptian naming conventions that makes it pretty easy for a GM to create new Egyptian names that fits the character they create such as Sethotep, which means "Set is pleased."

Christopher Reeve

You don't have to know me very well to know that I would be sad about this news. It's not because he played Superman. It's because he played Superman so well.

When they were casting for Superman, they had many leading men of the time read the scene on the rooftop with Margot Kidder. In the scene, Margot Kidder (as Lois Lane) asks Superman why he does what he does. He says, "I want to fight for Truth, Justice and the American Way." The line is pure cheese. This is the classic kind of comic book line that filled the comics of the fourties and, out of tradition, still shows up in comics of today....but let's face it, it's complete cornball. When the actors read that line, they puffed up their chest and say it as the cheesy line it is, just like the voice-over from the old TV series......but Christopher Reeve was different. Instead of saying it like some cheesy voice-over, he said it like he believed it. His version of Superman was real. Sure, his Clark Kent was the classic clutzy, bumbling guy but his Superman was the hero we had read about in comics. He truly believed that mankind was worth fighting for and used all the powers at his disposal to make a better world.

I believe the first Superman made the IFL's list of top 100 American movies and this scene showed why. It wasn't because a special effects team made it so you believed a man could fly. The effects wer good, but they weren't THAT good. It was because Christopher Reeve made you believe that a man could be that good. When I was kid, Christopher Reeve was Superman. Yeah, I knew he was just an actor but he was how I imagined Superman would be and for years afterwords, I would read Superman comics and Superman would have Reeves' voice.

Christopher Reeve also did an amazing job in his other parts. In particular, I always think of "Somewhere in Time." Also, he starred in a B-movie remake of "Village of the Damned" a few years before his accident and was able to make such a believable character that you actually care about a character in a horror movie. Recently, he guest-starred on Smallville as Dr. Swann. Even with limited mobility and facial expressions, he brought such an amazing amount of intensity to the part. The episode where he appeared has been my favorite of the TV series so far.

Best of all, Christopher Reeve was an activist. Even before his accident, he was vocal about many social issues. (The idea to make Superman IV about the threat of nuclear weapons was his.) After the accident, it must have been very difficult for him to find the energy to attend and speak as many events as he did, but he was out there speaking for fellow victims of paralysis and against George W. Bush's ban on stem cell research. I keep reading things online where people refer to Reeve as a real life Superman. It sounds cliche, but it is fitting.

Christopher Reeve will be missed.

Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Don't sell out.
-Christopher Reeve

TV Show Box Sets

Amazon.com has a sale going on all of the first season box sets for their TV shows. They are only US$15 each! The shows for sale include Buffy, Angel, Millenium, Roswell, Simpsons, 24 and King of the Hill.

It's a really good deal. Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/543459/goodcowfilmsc-20/103-1000275-3082231

Star Wars Miniatures: A Review

I played the Star Wars Miniatures game with some friends a few weeks back and have since bought several boxes to start my own collection. Wizards of the Coasts has done an extremely good job with this game and I really want to support it, despite the raise in price from D&D minis.

The first that really interested me in this game was the quality of the minis. I had seen several pictures online and they had all looked light-years better than anything WotC or Wizkids (the makers of Heroclix and Mage Knight) had made before. This might be because of licensing agreements with Lucasfilm, since I've heard before that they are very involved with all Star Wars to make sure that everything they license is quality. (This also may be part of the reason you only get 7 minis in a pack instead of the eight you get in a D&D pack.) I have Luke, Han, Leia and two different Darth Vaders now and all of them are instantly recognizable as the characters they represent. Unlike previous collectible mini games, these minis have been sculpted very well so that all the minis are in scale with eachother. (Perhaps, the time of the giant human commoners is a thing of the past?) The only scale issue I've seen with this minis is the Snowtrooper who looks a little short for a stormtrooper.

The distribution of the miniatures has been my favorite thing about this game. In D&D minis there were several cases of minis that were very common to get being minis that you would only want to use one of in a game (or even ones that the rules only allow you to use one because they represent unique characters.) In particular, there was a goblin General named Snig the Axe in a recent set that was a common. So everyone who buys packs of the game would end up having lots of extras of a guy they could only use one of. Meanwhile, some minis that both mini players and RPGers would want lots of were made rarer. The worst case of this was the Gnoll from the original set that was uncommon, so most people only got a few of them. In Star Wars, they made almost all the rare minis characters like Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett and other named characters from the Star Wars movies. (Thanfully, this set only included characters from the original trilogy, so there are no Jar-Jar minis.) The most common miniatures are minis that anyone who is playing the RPG or the mini game would want plenty of, such as Stormtroopers, Rebel Soldiers and nameless alien thugs. Nameless characters that are slightly less useful are less common. The cynic in me originally thought they made all the characters rare to sucker the fanatic Star Wars collectors in to buying lots of packs, but now I think they realized how much better this would be for gamers.

Partially because of this, it is very easy to get a decent collection of minis to play with by only buying a few boosters. The fact that there are only two factions to collect (as well as Fringe characters that can be used with either faction) also makes it very easy to collect.

The rules are similiar to the rules for D&D miniatures, but they have been stream-lined. Characters stats have been reduced to four stats. They are: Attack (the bonus added to a roll of D20 to make an attack roll), Defense (the number that the attack roll needs to equal or exceed in order to be successful), Hit Points (the amount of damage a character can take before he is out of the game) and Damage (the amount of Damage the character does to a target when he hits). In D&D, they also had movement ratings for how fast a character could move, seperate attack and damage scores for ranged and melee combat, and the character or monster's level. Some characters also have special abilities that are described well enough on the stat cards that players of Star Wars minis should rarely have to look at the rulebook during a game.

The game rules have also been simplified, removing things like the rules for commanders (that required D&D minis to have a commander or they would not be as effective) and savings throws. (There are still things called savings throws in this game but they are rare and are not different depending on characters.)

Some characters in the game are force users and as you would expect, they have certain powers. The powers differ by the character. All force users have a number of force points at the beginning of a game. These force points can be spent for certain powers that will use one or two of those points. Darth Vader, for example, has a "Force Choke" power that allows him to spend one force point to do 10 damage to any opponent he can see.

Force Points can also be used to allow a character to re-roll a dice roll or move an additional 2 squares during the character's turn.

Speaking of movement, they changed that from D&D as well. All characters move 6 squares unless stated otherwise. If they do not attack on their turn, they can move an additional 6 squares.

The rulebook is colorful, well-written and contains lots of examples. After having read many vague rules in other miniature games, it was nice to read one where everything had simple, easy-to-understand examples. Of course, the game is also the simplest mini game I have ever played (even simpler than Heroclix, which has gotten very complicated over the years since it came out).

Anyways, I would recommend this game to any fans of miniature games, strategy games or Star Wars. It is a simple game to pick up and learn and a lot of fun.

Geek Test

I scored 1395 points of this Geek Test. How many do you score?

My geekier scores on the test (that I can admit to because I'm quite comfortable in my geekiness):

Been paid to paint miniatures 70
Actually a co-worker gave me a collection of Warhammer Orcs to paint his Lizardman general. I think that's close enough to getting paid.

Know the episodes of Star Trek (Plot and names) 45
Although I only know the original series and some Next Generation. Maybe I should have only gotten partial points.

Have gone to a Star Trek convention 60
It was years ago, but I've been to a couple. They were fun.

Quote from RPG books 100
Only a couple. Mainly the funny ones like Paranoia. "Happiness is Madatory. Be happy or I'll shoot you." I also will always have a soft spot for the Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook's description of the leadership skill (that could only be bought up to 10): "Captain Kirk had a leadership skill of 11, but you never will."

Played an all night gaming session 10
On New Years Eve 100
Yeh, one year my friends and I decided to RPG all night on New Year's. We were feeling a little partied out at the time because we were at parties every weekend anyway.

Played the Amber RPG 30
Yeah, our loyal devotion to the supposedly dead system has earned us a special place in geekdom. Even D&D players didn't get additional geek points.

Own a Final Fantasy soundtrack 50
They are cool soundtracks!

Have played a video game for more than six hours in one sitting 25
That would have been Wednesday..... :)
I normally can't sit and play the same video game for more than an hour or two, but City of Heroes has been an exception.

Having long hair if you’re a man 5
I wasn't sure if I qualified for these points any more or not. :)

Where I Have Been

It has no doubt been pretty obvious that posting has gotten pretty light here lately. Well, for those of you who may have been wondering where I have been, here are some pics.

This is my main character in City of Heroes, Grey Harbinger. He uses an Assault Rifle, Devices and his super-stealthy abilities to fight crime in Paragon City.

This is another of my characters, "Healer Xorn." Xorn is my homage to one of my favorite comic characters from the X-Men, Xorn. Xorn is a Chinese Buddhist whose mutation developed a star in his head. The metal helmet stops the resulting black hole from destroying the earth. For some reason, he has the power to heal people and joined the X-Men after Scott Summers (Cyclops) enlisted his help to heal Professor Xavier. In the game, I gave him healing powers, Radiation powers and flight. Contrary to what many think, Xorn is NOT Magneto.

Here is a rare sight. Dorian Graham (an NPC from the Gillian game that I made in City of Heroes) dancing in the streets with Gavin Black and Amy Nguyen. None of them can dance well, apparently.

Elric Movie Revisited

Every once and a while it is cool to see someone post a message on some topic from a while ago. One of the ones that has gotten the occassional post was my post on what I thought (and still think) would make a cool Elric movie. "Thistarin" posted some pretty cool idea for how to do a cool movie and I agree with most of these ideas.

Thistarin: My opinion - An animated series of 6 films contracted out to PIXAR now that they're free of Disneys 'Family-Friendly' rules.

Directed by Tim Burton because he knows animation better than most do (Dare I say Nightmare?).

Nuadha: I completely agree that an animated version of Elric would have a better chance of capturing the feel and epic-ness of the books and before the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would have said that a live action Elric that captures the imagery of the books was impossible. Now, I think a live action movie could be done. However, Moorcock's descriptions of the setting are much more alien than Tolkein's and the imagery is a lot less earthly. This would make it very difficult (and expensive) to create sets, as well as the huge expenses of creating the battles (which the battles in "Stormbringer" were a lot bigger and had a lot more going on than even those in Return of the King).

Perhaps the technology used in Sky Captain (which I say again is one of the coolest movies I've seen in ages) will give us another option for an Elric movie.

Thistarin: Voice overs -
Elric - Steven Jay Blum (English version of Cowboy Bebop) or Tim Daly (Superman TV series 96-01) The only A listers with the kind of voice I think Elric should have are either Viggo Mortenson (yeah, whatever but he has it) or Casper Van Dien (I'm still debating the merits of the accent).

Arioch - This was a tough one - its either booming and deep like Sean Connery or high pitched and a bit whiny like John Leguizamo can do so well. Other options got a bit weirder and would be tough to pull off. I guess it really depends on the personality you see in the character.

Others in the casting I would leave up to the CSA's.

I haven't really thought about who could do Elric voices.

For Arioch, I think it would be best to have a child's voice (or a child-like voice). It adds to his creepiness.