The Road to Spider-Verse

I make no secret of my love for Spider-Man, in fact I practically wrote a love letter to him a few months ago. Since then I have actually managed to read some Superior with Doc Ock web-slinging. But now Peter's back in charge of his own body, Miguel has his own comic again, and Kaine's title might have ended, but he got to join the New Warriors by the same writer, so it's cheat continuation. All in all it's a great time to be Spider-Man.

Yet that's not all. For you see Dan Slott is building towards a giant Spider Event called Spider-Verse. It's been a long time since I've got all fanboyie about a big crossover but Spider-Verse has sent me back to that way of thinking.

Wolf Among Us - Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The first season of The Walking Dead was my game of 2012. What Telltale did with that game was astounding, and put a whole new spin on the adventure game that helped bring that beloved genre back to the mainstream of PC gaming. Combined with the fact I love the comics, and the TV show is pretty decent too, I was one happy chappy.

When Season 2 was announced I couldn't have been happier. The continuing story of Clementine was something I was looking forward to exploring. But we're over halfway through it, and while good, it's doesn't quite match up to the original season. Many could point at the fact that because it's a sequel it no longer has that freshness, and under normal circumstances I'd probably agree with them. Except we have one piece of evidence that says otherwise. The Wolf Among Us.

Vampirella: The interestingly dressed vampire slayer

It's been a long time since I read Vampirella. I tried back in my teenage years because of out of control hormones and Millar and Morrison having a stab at the vampire princess. It was good, but a second dip into older material felt almost at odds what the two Scots had done, and made their run seem like it was good thanks to the calibre of the writers.

This is the start of Dynamite's attempt to reinvent the character, although the plot seems very much a continuation of a previous series. I recognised quite a few of the references even from my very minor exposure to the character, which is an interesting choice.

The Last Phantom: My First Phantom comic

I've been a fan of The Phantom for who knows how long. I'm not even sure why. He was pretty boring in Defenders of the Earth. The Billy Zane film was campy fun, but not amazing by any stretch. I think it might be solely down Phantom 2040, the 90s show in the animated style of Aeon Flux. It was pretty epic. For all the love I have for The Ghost Who Walks, that's pretty much my entire exposure to the character. I've not even touched a comic, which for me is practically a sin. So it's about time I fixed that with The Last Phantom.

For those that don't know, The Last Phantom was a reboot by Dynamite Entertainment in a more modern setting (worryingly we're getting kinda close to someone doing that and it actually being 2040, and no crazy near future tech). The story of the Phantom always revolves around the Kit Walker, the latest Phantom, who takes over the mantle after the death of his father. But in The Last Phantom, that isn't what happens at all.

It's Been A Long Time

Wow it's been a long time since I wrote anything here. Sorry about that. Life's been pretty busy and the blog slipped through the cracks. Mainly because at the end of January I moved back to Dundee. Which is awesome. And my renewed social life is one of the factors.

Unfortunately, my mostly hermit lifestyle in Scunthorpe resulted in my return to hanging out with people giving me one all mighty cold that knocked me on my arse for most of a week. There's also the flat has needed a fair bit of DIY and various other things have needed sorting now I live here. The little time I have found for writing has gone on stories or a part time gig I've got. Also, it's pretty great having easy access to a comic shop again.

Apart from the Hawkeye - which I never stopped picking up and is still immensely brilliant - I'm also getting the new X-Factor because PAD. Black Widow as the art is gorgeous and Nathan Edmondson knows how to do super-spies, but I've only managed to get the first issue so far because I arrived too late and having to pick up second printings. Also New Warriors for more standard superheroics, and it basically being a continuation of Scarlet Spider. As I get into more of them I'll probably have a post about them individually.

TV wise, especially during my cold, has carried on as normal, except I finally finished Spooks. But that definitely gets it's own post. I started King & Maxwell, a series cancelled after ten episodes. But so was Firefly and that was amazing, and I love David Baldacci's King & Maxwell series so I at least needed to try. So far, after the first episode, I can see why it was cancelled. And that one was an adaptation of The Sixth Man, which was great.

Gameswise I've been mostly grabbing the odd half hour in Forza Horizon, which is a fantastic racing game and makes up for Need For Speed: Most Wanted. The one time I have sat down properly with a game was Resonance, a Wadjet Eye published point and click which was bloody genius. While a slow start I hit the halfway point and couldn't stop playing. Easily one of the best point and clicks I've ever played. I feel a bit guilty that has sat in my Steam library for so long untouched.

I also have various plans in the fire for new projects, or returns to old ones. But more news as and when they happen.

Spider-Man: Does What Ever a Parker Can!

If you ask my friends who my favourite superhero is, I think you'd get a lot of different answers. Nightwing was prominent for a long time. One has told me his theory of Cyclops or Captain America because of my whole 'leadership' thing. However, there's one, and only one, who I consider to be my ultimate Superhero. He has been my favourite for as long as I can remember. His was the first comic I ever bought, as well as the first American comic I bought. If I got offered super powers tomorrow, I'd pick his without a seconds thought. It is, of course, Spider-Man.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has landed

Now I know I've still to address GTA V (barely stopped playing it), I've got about three more parts of Doctor Who at 50 half ready, but this week something happened that I thought I should cover first. Agents of SHIELD started.

I've been waiting for ages for this one. Whedon returns to television and regular instalments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes please. Spoilers AHOY!

The De-evolution of DC Comics

The parting of ways between DC and the Batwoman creative team of W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams is yet another sign that all is not well at one of comics biggest houses. Since the launch of New 52, it seems that there's always a writer or artist leaving because editorial is overbearing. We barely get any creator leaving because their story is finished. It's nearly always their editor wouldn't even let them tell it.

This time the Batwoman duo had their leading lesbian propose to her girlfriend, and were then told that they could never have the two women actually marry. The news of their departure led to another outcry from fans wondering just what is wrong with DC? What are the editors thinking? And more shouts that they were done with the publisher.

I read Cyberforce and Aphrodite IX

In the 90s, I was a teenager, so for my comics reading this meant two things. 1. My traditional reads of Marvel comics were of particularly low quality and 2. Top Cow's bad girl/cheesecake approach was just the thing for my out of control hormones. I became a big fan of Witchblade and Fathom, as well as the ultra violence that Darkness offered. I threw myself into their darker than Marvel universe, but I never got round to Cyberforce or Aphrodite IX. Both tech based comics would suit my love of Sci-Fi, but both seemed at odds with the supernatural world Witchblade and Darkness inhabited. Then I switched back to Marvel.

This of course meant I missed the rebirth of Top Cow under the guiding light of Ron Marz but that's another story. However, not only has the mystical side gone through a relaunch, but they well all out with Cyberforce and tried a Kickstarter. Which meant that the crowd funding paid for the first five issues so Top Cow could give them away for free. It's a bold move. They also gave away the first issue of Aphrodite IX's reboot for Free Comic Book Day. So naturally I gave them both a try.

The 12A/PG-13 Wolverine

Wolverine should not be a 12A (or PG-13 for the Americans). This is one simple reason, his claws. He has razor sharp claws that extend out of his hand. There is no way to make a character with that being one of his most defining features super kid friendly unless you make some serious short cuts, which is pretty much was Jason Mangold did. Every stab and every slice never draws blood, we only get told he kills someone with them three or four times in the whole film. He stabs someone just off screen so many times it's ridiculous. There's just too many concessions here to make the film suitable for the children.

His claws are also a big bone of contention in the story for me. The Wolverine is a story that finds a way of inhibiting his much vaunted healing factor, something that many writers complain about and is quite a tried and tested trope with the little Canucklehead. And if I'm quite honest, it works pretty well here. Except for one reason. His claws.

BeefJack: Injustice: Gods Among Us review

Last week I said I doubted I would get a blog post up and did. Today I definitely won't. However, once again I have a review. Back at BeefJack for this one

Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Seriously got to indulge my comic book fanboy here. Despite being very cautious about it when the game was first announced I ended up absolutely loving it. As to why? Well go read the review.

Earth 2: A DC Reboot done right

The obvious topic for this week's post was obviously Disney closing the doors on LucasArts. That's not what I'm going to talk about though. Why should become clear soon. What I'm going to talk about instead is DC Comics' Earth 2.

I've been pretty vocal about my unhappiness with DC's New 52 reboot. I'm not sure if I've ever made it clear as to why though. It boils down to the fact it's a mess. A reboot is a time to clean up, make everything work together brilliantly. Just like Young Justice did. The fact they let Batman and Green Lantern escape mostly undamaged is another factor. Trying to keep some stories in continuity but have details change is an exercise in futility. I stopped reading everything DC. Even Nightwing. Then last weekend I tried Earth 2, and it gets a lot of things right.

Young Justice is served

Young Justice has finished. The show based around the sidekicks of the DC Universe and Batman setting them up to be some black ops division of the Justice League. A brilliant show, with adult themes that just happened to be animated. After two seasons it was talked about with reverence, and got a fairly decent audience to start with, but Cartoon Network did everything they could to kill it. And being the channel that shows it, they have final say.

BeefJack: How other superhero games can replicate Arkham City’s success

or What can other Superheroes learn Arkham City and Rise above the Dark Knight?

Yeah that was my title, I love it but it was way too long.

But here it is. The feature I may have been born to write.

Bonus blog paragraph. It was cut because it was really the same argument as the bit about Superman but from a slightly different angle.

Another example is Green Lantern who is only limited by his imagination, which works brilliantly in comics or in movies (his powers, not the movie itself you understand, that was tripe). In a game that is next to impossible to pull off though, he's limited to the objects the developers give him. In a team up game that is going be massively limited, but give a studio the time and resources to create a variety of animations and context sensitive creations and you're getting close to a cool sound Green Lantern game.

The Darkness: From page to polygon

Over at BeefJack my latest feature has gone up, The Darkness: From page to polygon. This one was a lot of fun, not often you get to combine two of my favourite things and get it published. I even got to drag out my old Darkness comics out and read of some good 90's comics. My collection was a lot fuller than I remember, I always thought my Darkness collection was patchy at best, apparently not.

Stuff that didn't belong in that article was how much of Ennis is in the first few issues, a writer I'd never really sampled until after my Top Cow phase. And the art, wow I'd forgotten how exploitative the 90s was with women, practically every female present looked like they're about to go do a shift at the local gentlemans club.

Pricing the Digital Ink

To keep a theme running I'm once again going to go on about comics. Yes OK I'm missing my weekly trip to the store to pick them up, and then get home and devour them over a coffee.

Moving at the end of August means that I've not been in a brick and mortar store since DC's whole new 52 kicked off. Just in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, DC has rebooted their entire universe and every single issue was a new number 1 from the very beginning. Sort of. OK it's not that simple but I'm not interested in that right now. What I'm here to get at is Digital Comics and pricing.

Ben is BACK!

My very first proper American Comic was an issue of Spider-Man. I was on my first holiday to the US with my parents and I managed to badger them into buying me quite a few that trip. But the first was part 1 of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ - a storyline that featured a certain clone as the main star. Yes, my first proper comic had Scarlet Spider as the main star during what is widely considered one of the worst stories in Marvel's history, the Clone Saga. From that moment on I always liked Ben Reilly. I followed him through most of the saga, his stint as Spidey and his eventual death.

His was one comic death that never seemed like it was ever going to be reversed no matter how much it was wanted. This is comic books though and only Uncle Ben stays dead, so it was only a matter of time before the guy who took his name from him rose from the grave. While we may not have that yet, 15 years is long enough for Marvel to finally start admitting that Peter Parker's test tube brother existed. While a storyline in Amazing addressed the character in-continuity, we were also given an out-of-continuity story covering the Clone Saga that was to cover how it should have been told, instead of the mess it turned out to be.

Well that's what Marvel claimed anyway. The six issue mini series isn't really taking that stance. It's odd what the writers have done. They seem to have taken beats from the whole saga and are half retelling and half re-imagining. For instance, in the original saga Ben had a very 90s mullet and looked a lot scruffier to Parker's usual look. It was only after he took over the real Spider mantel that he decided to dye his hair blonde and tidy it back up. To distance themselves, in this clone saga Ben is blonde and working at the coffee shop while still running around as the Scarlet Spider.

Also Peter is the usual jokey Spider-Man, but part of the reason for the original story was that Parker had gone through so much he'd become dark and brooding. Editorial wanted the single, fun loving Spidey back, a problem they'd pursue another 10 years before getting to grips with, and that's a whole other rant. Having both Ben and Peter working in the same way does spoil some of the magic of the original series. Well, at least before it got out of hand.

That its now looking like Norman Osborne's behind it all again just goes to show that this is just them telling certain parts better than how it was originally. Osborne was originally only revealed to be back from the grave and the mastermind behind the saga when editorial sat down and tried to figure how to reverse the 'Ben is the real Parker' problem. The former Green Goblin was not even in the original plans.

The fact issues two and three cover about 4 different story-arcs within the original Saga just proves my point. One of those arcs was one of the Saga's lowest points. The God-awful Maximum Clonage, a SIX issue story, now part and parcel of a two issue story covering far more ground.

However, I'm loving having Ben Reilly back in comics. Especially in the Scarlet Spider costume. One of my all time favourite comics will be the issue where Ben first puts the costume together and fights Venom, all the way through saying he's worthless while proving the very opposite. It was Spider-Man through and through and I hope I don't have to wait another 15 years to see him again.

Muted?

I have to admit I'm getting really pissed of at myself for not posting more often, its not like I'm short of topics either. Plenty of major comic stories going on, and I'm even reading some. Sooo many good games coming out in the run up to Christmas its ridiculous. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero 3 and Mass Effect are all subjects I can talk about. I think that's the main problem, I'm trying to complete so much that the bit of time I'm on my computer is spent trying to catch up on the sites I regularly visit. So a quick run down of recent events is in order I think.

Halo 3 rocked and I spent one Hell of a lot of time playing multiplayer. I was kinda disappointed that the campaign was so short but with the way the trilogy finished I feel quite happy with. But I left Halo 3 MP way before I was ready to and there was one reason for that.

Call of Duty 4, my God this game rocks. Right now I'm pretty tempted to label this one as my Game of the Year but we'll wait and see. Multiplayer is immense and the Baboons are one nasty team to come across. Is quite likely to take the thrown from Halo 3 and Rainbow 6: Vegas as my most played online.

Guitar Hero 3. Boss Battles are SHIT! At least in single player anyway, I've yet to play one in multiplayer. Overall I'm happy with it, but it's Guitar Hero so you can't really go wrong. I can't shake the feeling that Neversoft haven't quite got it and 4 will be the one that really shows that, 3 comes across as the "We need an engine that matches Harmonix's". Co-op career was very nice though.

Mass Effect I'm gonna leave a bit longer before I talk about it because I'm about halfway through and liking it so far. Assassins Creed I'm getting for Christmas so that can wait too.

On the comics front Messiah Complex is shaping to be a good X-Men crossover which I nearly didn't bother with due to too much other stuff going on. Sinestro Corps continues to impress but is starting to dwindle with the infrequency of the titles recently. Booster Gold's new title is great and another I nearly missed out on. Top Cow's First Born and Pilot Season are both something I really wished I hadn't bothered with.

Intergalactic Space Nazis

This week starts yet another reality altering universe defining comic crossover. After Infinite Crisis and Civil War both hitting my wallet in a big way I said I was out for the foreseeable future. That didn't last though. Shortly after Crisis I started picking up Green Lantern just in time to see Batman fail recruitment and Amon Sur get inducted into the Sinestro Corps. In the past few years my interest in GL has been slowly growing and I've read most of the important points of the mythos but I wasn't that bothered about this crossover. However, the backup stories detailing some of the more important members of the Sinestro Corps was slowly getting me hooked and then I read the Ion maxi-series which not only was a great look at Kyle's new place in the universe but offered a hint of things to come so I signed up. From here on in expect major spoilers.

The first issue, a one-shot, landed this week and the story kicked off in a major way. Hal and Kyle have both been following up their own investigations into the Yellow Rings and they meet up on Oa, the Green Lantern base world, just in time for the first frontal attack by the Sinestro Corps. Kyle gets taken and many GL's bite the big one and things look bad. However, things look at lot worse when you find what happens to Kyle now that he's in Sinestro's clutches. Mentally tortured and stripped of his defences we're shown that his new expanded powers are thanks to benevolent entity, basically the new Parallax's opposite. This now gone and Kyle scared out of his mind leaves him open to possession by the fore-mentioned opposite and we have a new Parallax. The reveal of the rest of the higher ups of the Corps is more power than the bad guys in Infinite Crisis ever showed.

What really impresses me is that Johns seems to have been building towards this since his first Green Lantern script, the entity of Parallax was questionable but at least made Hal redeemable, making it not the only entity out there makes perfect sense. He's also tied in his own work from Infinite Crisis while also pulling from Crisis on Infinite Earth's and the entire history of the Green Lanterns. I'm glad I'm reading this crossover because it was easily my favourite of the week, and a week that included Iron Fist and X-Factor that is saying something. To be fair Sinestro Corp has always been billed as a Green Lantern story and so far I don't see this being untrue. After the last few pages I had to check the cover to check the name was "Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps" and due to the amount of power there has me worried for the characters which are fast becoming my favourites.

I'm with Union Jack

Because everyone's doing one.

[EDIT] It has come to my attention that Marvel's UK does indeed have a Superhero law, but our superhero's didn't have a hissy fit over the whole thing. So I'm still with Union Jack.