What is the deal with people not being able to accept something new? I was talking to my brother last night about Smallville & Superman movies, comics, TV shows...etc. He considers it all to be "crap", but what the hell is up with that? He loves the old Superman movies and Superman Returns, but not the newer stuff like Smallville for example or even the animated series of the 90's. In his opinion it's just crap because it's not what he knew as a kid. Apparently all the aliens (Braniac, Darkseid, Doomsday, Martian Manhunter...etc) & Supes shooting fire from his eyes instead of "lasers", blah, blah, blah is all "fake", therefore anything involving that kind of stuff is "not realistic". What he does not know is that these are not new things, he just hasn't saw them before, so he doesn't like it. It's very much annoys me off that people attack something that they don't understand and refuse to even try to understand.

Anyway, that's something I wanted to get off my chest. Tell me, what do you think?

Spud had some help today. TDB wrote a breakdown of how his deck wanted to play out this matchup; he suggests an intriguing strategy, and Spud will give it a shot to see how it works out.

This way, Spud can pass off the blame if it fails, but can still claim credit if it works.

It's a great system.

-Spud

********************************************************

Dark(seid) City (Gday) vs. Warp Factor 9 (Spud)

********************************************************

Gday wins the die roll and takes evens. Both players mull.

Turn 1 is uneventful; both players miss. Spud plays a Kindred Spirits during recovery to put Silver Surfer and Air-Walker on top of his deck.

Gday 50, Spud 50

Gday has the game's first recruit with a hidden Nocturne; Spud matches him with Silver Surfer, and then crosses his fingers in the hope that Gday won't have any way of pumping-- if he can cause one breakthrough, he can steal Surfer and nuke Spud's search engine.

Gday, however, does not have the pump. Spud searches his deck for Omnipotence and puts it on top of his deck, and both players take 2.

Gday 48, Spud 48

Spud has the turn 3 initiative, and puts Air-Walker on the board; he also plays Cannibal Tech to grab a Silver Surfer's Board, which he attached to its owner. The board taps to hide Surfer and restore his counter. Gday meets Spud's tap-tastic new threat with Dark Firestorm, also hidden, drawing a card.

Combat is uneventful; Spud uses Surfer to get Alias Investigations, and uses Air-Walker to tap Nocturne. On his swings, Gday can't get Firestorm over Air-Walker huge butt, so he passes.

Gday 48, Spud 48

Turn 4 is the start of Gday's "get a massive blocker on the board" gameplan, and he doesn't disappoint, hitting the optimal Darkseid - Apokaliptian Oppressor. Spud's recruit is Barry Allen - Crimson Tornado, who sits in front of Air-Walker. Gday flips Truth and Justice before combat.

Gday starts his swings by sending Dark Firestorm into Barry Allen; Barry taps and runs to the back row, negating the combat. This leaves Air-Walker unprotected, so Darkseid goes barrelling into him; Air-Walker exhausts Nocturne, and then goes down.

During Spud's attack, he simply uses Surfer to dig out the deck's second copy of Omnipotence, which he immediately draws by flipping and using Elemental Converters.

Gday 48, Spud 45

Spud has turn 5, and makes the most of it: he places a resource, then immediately plays two copies of Omnipotence. Gday looks for responses, and settles on Uncertain Legacy to grab 6-drop Darkseid - Uxas before passing. The Omnis resolve, and Spud names Ancient Throne and Ancient Evils, effectively cutting Gday off from ever having non-unique Darkseids. For his recruit, Spud activates Surfer to dig out Wally West - Fastest Man Alive, who he draws with the Converters before recruiting him in front of Barry. Gday thinks long and hard about his recruit-- he has a 5-drop Darkseid, but can't play him now without losing his 4. He ultimately decides to keep the 4-drop (as most of Spud's good cards come from his row), and passes his recruit entirely. Before combat, Spud activates Wally to stun Darkseid.

Spud passes his attacks. Gday declares Dark Firestorm into Barry Allen; Barry activates to negate the combat, Air-Walker activates to exhaust Nocturne, and Surfer activates to get Destroyer (Terrax would be the better play, but he was discarded earlier to flip the Converters).

Another combat phase passes by with little successful combat.

Gday 44, Spud 40

Gday has the initiative on 6, and brings out Darkseid - Uxas with an Nth Metal, flipping Lost City more to intimidate Spud than from any real expectation of getting to use it. Spud brings out last turn's searched Destroyer, and activates Wally to stun Nocturne. He forms with Wally in front of Barry, and Air-Walker in front of Destoyer, then passes.

Gday frowns-- Darkseid can't fly, and Spud can reinforce either of these attacks. He sighs and chooses the one that causes more damage, sending his 15/16 Darkseid into Wally West. Spud predictably reinforces, then uses Air-Walker to tap Firestorm; Gday passes.

Spud doesn't expect that Destroyer can accomplish much in combat, so he exhausts him to a discarded Jaime Reyes to get a Cloak of Nabu. He then searches out "something" with Surfer (I forgot to write it down), and uses Alias Investigations to draw whatever it is.

Gday decides he might as well use Darkseid's power while he can; he removes the cosmic counter to KO Wally and Nocturne. Spud weeps.

Gday 42, Spud 35

Turn 7 is Spud's, but he has a bit of a dilemma here-- he wants to do 7-drop Surfer directly into Galactus, but he has neither of them. If he searches out the 7-drop, he won't be able to get Big G next turn. Sighing, he simply searches out and plays a new 5-drop Wally. He's also got a full Fate suite on Wally this turn courtesy of a flipped Tower, but he's not excited about the play. Yaknow?

Gday determines that his only chance of getting past Spud's vast array of out-of-combat control effects is to swarm out with people NOT named Darkseid, so he does just that, recruiting Random and the MEX Pyro. With Random on the chain, Spud transfers the Fate gear to Destroyer, then activates Wally for a dual stun with Dark Firestorm. Random activates to reduce Air-Walker's DEF, and then Pyro burns Spud for 7 (yikes!). Gday pitches a card to ready Random, and then passes to combat.

Spud needs to get that huge Darkseid tapped down, so he declares his first real attack of the game: a 19/19 Destroyer into Random. Gday shrugs and reinforces with Darkseid (since Air-Walker's just going to tap him if he doesn't).

...aaaaaand that's it for combat. Dark Firestorm is lost to recovery.

Gday 36, Spud 23

Gday has turn 8, but he knows it won't be very productive. He uses Uncertain Legacy to search for the DLS 8-drop Darkseid, and then KOs his 6-drop to recruit him. Spud's deck has no 8, so he performs what he's decided is the deck's signature move: I Hunger, tap Wally for a dual with Random (only losing 2), new Wally, stun Pyro (gaining 3). Pyro burns for 8 as he goes down.

During combat, Gday... gets his Darkseid tapped down by Air-Walker.

...yeah.

Gday 36, Spud 16

Spud drops Galactus.

Gday recruits nothing. He taps Random to drop Galactus' defense, but Spud slides the Fate gear over to him to negate it. Pyro activates to burn for 9, which readies Random.

Spud figures he can just pass combat, but decides not to wuss out like that; he sends Galactus and Destroyer into Darkseid at a combined 44ATK (I wonder how many times Galactus has ever been declared as a team attacker? My money's on "less than twenty"). Gday does some quick math... and then, through a combination of search and recursion, powers up EIGHT TIMES to go to... 43. One pump short of dodging.

Spud listens to the lamentation of Gday's women.

Final Score: Warp Factor 9 on 36, Dark(seid) City on -17.

As soon as Spud got those Omnis flipped, the game essentially came down to Gday's ability to draw lowbies not named Darkseid (to get around Air-Walker's rather frustrating effect). He couldn't dig out enough of them, so he never got to make unreinforced attacks.

Sadness. :(

-Spud

[/caption]

Desde hace unos meses, se está especulando en gran cantidad de medios de comunicación sobre la posibilidad de que el funcionamiento del LHC (Gran Colisionador de Hadrones) acabe con la Tierra, y quizás con gran parte del universo. 

La base de todas estas ideas catastrofistas apareció cuando dos científicos denunciaron ante un tribunal la puesta en marcha del LHC porque según ellos, existía un 75% de probabilidades de que la Tierra se extinguiera.

Como era de esperar, no se ha paralizado nada, y el día 10 se harán circular los primeros haces por todo el circuito. Las primeras colisiones tendrán lugar el día 21 de septiembre, fecha de la inauguración.

El problema de toda esta historia está en que la denuncia ha sido realizada por un científico, y ha aportado datos. Y cuando una persona con estudios aporta datos, la gran mayoría de la gente no se preocupa ni en contrastarlos, ya sea porque lo creen cual divinidad celestial, o sencillamente porque no son expertos en el tema.

Debido a esto, un grupo de expertos sobre seguridad del LHC (el grupo LSAG) ha realizado un comunicado donde nos explica de una forma muy sencilla las probabilidades de que el acelerador acabe con nuestro querido planeta.

¿Por qué no se ha dado tanto show a esta información como se ha hecho con todas las noticias sobre el fin del mundo?

Bueno, es lógico. ¿Qué vende más, el fin del mundo o la noticia de que todo seguirá igual? Aunque de hecho, los descubrimientos que se pueden realizar gracias a esta tecnología pueden dar un increíble salto en la física.

Pero claro, la física sólo interesa a los físicos, a no ser que acabe con la existencia del mundo en el que vivimos.

Para terminar voy a mencionar los nombres de los científicos detrás de este proyecto (y otras personalidades que lo apoyan), garantizándo que no existe razón de qué preocuparnos:

• Dr. Doom
• Agente Smith
• Lex Luthor
• Dr. Evil
• Al Gore
• Dr. Octopus
• Ra’s al Ghul
• Emperador Palpatine
• Galactus
• Barack Obama
• John McCain
• Darkseid

These things are rather distinct from the 'shared universes' of DC and Marvel comics, in that they serve to close rather than open up imaginative possibilities. 'Extended universe' stories are add-ons to a single main 'canon' - they're usually (all exceptions duly noted) attempts to replicate the feel of the original story or stories, but without the lead character that made them interesting. Even when these things are 'official', they never really work - all the Star Trek series post-Next Generation are 'extended universe' and far more concerned with Ferengi internal politics or the social structure of the Borg than with anything else - rather than seeking out new life and new civilisations, they were more concerned with examining the minutiae of life-forms we'd already seen many times.

The DC and Marvel shared universes, however, seem to be more organic - the characters in them were all (or mostly) created to function as separate 'story engines'. Superman, the Flash or Green Lantern don't depend for their existence on being part of 'the DC Universe' - but on the other hand, knowing that Sgt Rock, John Constantine, Dream, Detective Chimp, The Forever People, Plastic Man, Adam Strange, Etrigan the Demon, Batman and Krypto the Superdog are all part of the same 'world' enriches all their stories - rather than being a bolted-on extension to a single core narrative, the DC Universe (especially - the Marvel Universe was created more intentonally) seems to be more like a hologram created by the overlap and interference of all these different independent narratives (there's a reason the concept of Hypertime first appeared in DC Comics).

Having said that, I don't dismiss the idea of 'extended universe' stories entirely, and Doctor Who has a richer extended universe than most - bizarrely, given that the primary appeal of the series (to me at least) is its lead character - the perfect combination of Sherlock Holmes and Groucho Marx in one body, The Doctor is to my mind one of the great creations of all time. But there are audio series about Gallifreyan politics (which I actually listened to - it was OK), Cybermen, Daleks and so on, and there are also two ranges of novels based on characters from Doctor Who *novels* (rather than the TV show) - the Bernice Summerfield and Faction Paradox stories. I'm informed these are quite good, but I have only so much time in my life, and I strongly suspect that on my deathbed my greatest regret will not be that I never got round to reading a series of novels about a pagan archaeology professor who once met the Seventh Doctor.

But having just purchased the Davros box set, which includes the four-part I, Davros, I thought I'd give that one a go. I think Davros is a terribly underrated character - the conventional wisdom among Doctor Who fans seems to be that he was a great character in Genesis Of The Daleks but useless in pretty much everything after that, but I think Revelation and Remembrance hold up very well (I've not rewatched Resurrection since it was first broadcast when I was five, but I have fond memories of it and plan to watch it tonight). And while Terry Molloy, who played him throughout the eighties and in the audio adventures, is an appaling old ham, there's a sense of both fun and menace in his performance that I like. Michael Wisher's original Davros was pure menace and nothing else, while Molloy's Davros is both menacing and ridiculous, but I've always found that a little of the ridiculous fits Doctor Who rather well. Davros is equal parts Mengele and Strangelove, and as such should seem ridiculous - right up until the point you realise that this ridiculous ranting man intends to destroy your entire species.

I, Davros is very consciously modeled on I, Claudius, and tells the story of Davros' life from the age of 18 until the creation of his first Dalek, a few months before Genesis Of The Daleks. Unfortunately, the I, Claudius parallel causes one of the biggest problems with the series. At least three times in the audio series (Time Of The Daleks, Flip-Flop and The Last) we have seen female leaders who are absolutely insane and end up causing the deaths of many of their species, all of a similar type. They are probably taking this from the TV show, which had 'Helen A' in The Happiness Patrol as a very similar character type. At that time it could be taken as a none-too-subtle attack on the eminently attackable Margaret Thatcher (maysherotinhell). Nearly twenty years after Thatcher lost power, however, it starts to look like misogyny.

(Note, I am *not* suggesting that the people behind Big Finish, collectively or individually, are misogynist - just that their portrayal of women can be problematic).

Davros' mother, Calcula, while obviously based on Claudius' mother Livia (or at least the version of her that was created by Robert Graves and reimagined by the BBC) , and with quite a lot of the stereotypical stage mother to her characterisation, fits into this type more than is comfortable. She's a one-dimensional character, only concerned with her own advancement and that of her son, and with no other character traits.

The character of Davros is fleshed out much more - especially his Oedipal relationship with his mother - and it's strongly implied that he might be gay, although he also seems to have feelings for his colleague Shan (though not enough that he won't have her killed, partly out of pique, partly out of ambition, and partly out of jealousy). This inconsistency might be down to the fact that the four episodes have a total of five writers (all working from a plot outline by producer Gary Russel), but it might just be down to the fact that real people *are* inconsistent.

But the aspect that comes out most is Davros' huge survival drive, and his desire for self-preservation (and as a byproduct the preservation of his race). It's interesting to compare Davros with Darkseid - the two characters are both intent on remaking the universe in their own image, and exterminating every other form of life, so they can survive forever; their villainy comes from their near-infinite survival drive.

The difference between the two of course is that Darkseid already is a god, while Davros is trying to make himself into one, both by creating his own new lifeforms and by altering his own body. (In this context it's interesting to compare my thoughts on Darkseid, and to remember that the more Davros tries to perfect himself, the more he degenerates, from the healthy teenage boy we see at the start of I, Davros, through the hideously disfigured, disabled adult of Genesis Of The Daleks, to the ranting disembodied head of Remembrance Of The Daleks.)

Both Davros and Darkseid of course were created by men with very vivid memories of World War II - they're both Hitler-figures - and whether deliberately or not Davros' family background mirrors that of Hitler, with a domineering father who died while he was still young and a mother who thinks too highly of him. In fact Davros is surprisingly well fleshed-out throughout this series - he feels like a real person, albeit one whose only motives are scientific curiosity and self-preservation and whose only emotion (rarely displayed) is anger.

The plot, of course, is utterly predictable in its broad outlines - first Davros' mother kills anyone who stands in her way or in the way of her son in their rise up to the top of the political ladder, then when she dies Davros experiments on her body and continues killing anyone who opposes him, however mildly, while performing the experiments that lead to the creation of the Daleks.

The story could have been better done - in particular, it would have been relatively easy to make the story have more connection to real-world issues. Davros orders all babies in the Kaled city to be handed over to the government for genetic experimentation in order to save the Kaleds from the environmental devastation of war by turning them into Daleks - one could, for example, with a few subtle changes make this parallel the question of to what extent government interference in reproductive freedom would be acceptable in order to prevent the environmental damage caused by overpopulation. As it is, these scenes are merely an echo of an echo - Nazi eugenic experiments after a game of Chinese whispers over several decades.

Ultimately, I, Davros is closer in feel to the Star Wars prequels than to I, Claudius - and feels similarly inessential. But it's still an entertaining way to spend a few hours, and if you buy the Davros box set (and you really should, if you like Doctor Who at all) you should definitely take the time to listen to it.

Next week's Big Finish A Week will be another actual Doctor Who story though - probably Storm Warning

Personally, I'm all for it.  Bryan Singer is a superb director, but I'm not sure he, nor the script, understood the essence of Superman.  Now, I want you to know, I'm no die-hard Superman fan, but even I have some basic needs that must be satisfied when dealing with the Man of Steel.

Superman needs to be courageous, noble, charismatic, and respectable.  Superman Returns gave us a Superman that was a stalker, an illegitimate father, and a deadbeat dad with an unhealthy messiah complex.  Furthermore, Superman Returns basically offered the same real-estate plot as the original Superman when it came to his foe, Lex Luthor.

I loved the Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner Superman - loved it! - and it will forever have a soft spot in my heart, but its time is over.  We still have it on DVD; let's begin anew with our cinematic Superman mythos.

The Superman reboot should NOT rehash his origin - we all know it.  Let's pound straight into the action.  Let's have Superman with a worthy opponent such as Brainiac, Mongul, Metallo, or, what the heck, how about the daddy of all baddies: Darkseid.  Please, please, please don't fall into the cliche of the "opposite hero" such as Bizarro and if Lex Luthor must be present, let it only be peripherally such as on advertisements and in headlines.  Save his actual appearance for a later movie; make him something we dread.  In other words, build him up as the ultimate villain and not a rabid real-estate developer.

Along with big action and giving something super for Superman to do, give us a love story where he and Lois Lane actually seem to like each other.  Half his appeal is the love of an equally super woman.  I don't care if she knows Clark Kent is Superman or not (it seems kind of insulting in this day and age that an award-winning journalist couldn't put that little ditty together), the dynamic could work either way.  Just have them actually be in love for this old romantic. 

Superman is the best of our fictional super heroes - he is the beacon of light in the sea of despair.  He is the one who never gives up on his morals, his belief system, who always strives to do the right thing.  Please don't darken him and make him "grim and gritty."  What works for Batman does not, and never has, worked for Superman.

Finally, sorry Brandon Routh, but in my opinion, you just don't have the spark in your eyes necessary to play the Man of Tomorrow.  When we look at Superman, we should see confidence, strength, intelligence, and ironically enough, humanity.  I'm afraid Routh never looked comfortable in the role.  Reeve had those things.  Finding another actor to so perfectly fill those red boots will be difficult, to be sure.

I'm excited about the reboot.  I'm excited to see a fresh approach to Superman that isn't tied down to past continuity.  Again, I loved the old Reeve movies, but it's time to do something different.

Just remember, the "S" on the chest isn't what makes Superman so super, it's all those things he is that each of us admires and aspires to become.

I've been thinking a lot about Darkseid recently, partly because of Final Crisis... some of what I've got to say here will be familliar to people who've read some of my previous writing about the character, but I'm trying to get to the bottom of why I think he's a great character, possibly the best villain in comics, even though you could count the good stories in which he's appeared on the fingers of one hand (Kirby's original Fourth World comics, Rock Of Ages, Seven Soldiers, Final Crisis (and those three are all really 'Morrison's DCU story'), possibly The Great Darkness Saga, and that's about it (I'm not counting his appearances in Ambush Bug here...)).

While I was away in Oxford, I picked up a copy of Michael Bywater's book Lost Worlds from a remainder bookshop. Bywater's book is a collection of short humorous essays on things that have been lost from the world, be they meerschaum pipes, Bywater's maternal grandfather, Proper Doctors or attitudes to life. It seems at least in part to have been inspired by Bywater's thoughts about the then-recent death of his friend Douglas Adams (who is only mentioned very occasionally, but whose ghost haunts almost every page), and the conclusion it comes to, in so far as it comes to one, is that without loss we would never know true happiness.

That in turn brought to mind a few other things, but it made me think of a book I read a couple of years ago, which I've wanted to post a review of ever since, but couldn't formulate a proper response to - The Singularity Is Here by Ray Kurzweill.

For those who don't know, the concept of the Singularity has been accurately described as 'the Rapture for geeks'. The idea is that we are incredibly lucky to live in a time when a bunch of Baby Boomers who are terrified of their own mortality will not have to face it, as somehow just before they would be expected to die according to the actuarial tables we're going to invent artificial intelligence, life extension and nanotechnology, so they'll be able to turn into immortal robots and just keep growing and expanding til they become the entire universe.

My first reaction on reading this piffle was "Well, I can see why he wants that, but he's an idiot". Immortality and omniscience seem to me like the only rational goals which humanity should be aiming for, long term - to go for anything less would be rather pointless - but Kurzweill seemed both unimaginative (he assumes that 'intellectual property' either could or should be protected in a world in which every problem of scarcity had been solved) and, frankly, so blinded by wishful thinking he's become functionally stupid. In particular, he seems to think that all straight-line trends you can draw can be extended out to infinity, without ever taking account of limiting factors.

But then my second thought (and I *am* getting to Darkseid, I promise) was "WHY do I think this is a rational goal?"

Kurzweill, of course, takes it as read that most people want to become, in essence, gods, but I don't think it's true. There are a large number of people - Bywater apparently amongst them - who actually take comfort in the fact that everything is transitory. But in my case, and apparently Kurzweill's, two realisations caused me quite major trauma as a child. The first was that I, like everyone else, would eventually die. The second - and I can remember exactly where I was when I realised this - was that there was no way I could ever possibly know *everything*. I was about seven, and it horrified me to think that there were things that I could never, ever know.

It's quite probable that many people have had similar reactions. After all, one of our primary instincts is to survive, and evolution has consistently favoured those organisms that could best process information about their surroundings. But most people have learned to deal with it - either through religion, or through acceptance.

Darkseid, however, (I told you it was getting to him) hasn't.

To quote from Rock Of Ages - "I will remake the entire universe in the image of my soul, Desaad... and when at last I turn to look upon the eternal desolation I have wrought... I will see Darkseid, as in a mirror... and know what fear is."

Darkseid has looked at the Second Law of Thermodynamics and thought "fuck that". Or, more likely, "Bother not Darkseid with your 'entropy' and your 'universal laws' Obeisance to laws, made by man or nature, is the morality of the slave. The morality of Darkseid is conquest. Darkseid is all."

Because Darkseid has taken that childish realisation and decided it doesn't apply to him. He's going to be everything. Because this, ultimately, is what an attempt to deny entropy means. It is entropy that prevents any tyranny from being absolute - Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety (one of the fundamental scientific discoveries of the twentieth century, but never as regarded as many others) states that control requires as many options open to the controller as there are degrees of freedom in the thing being controlled, so complete control is impossible. This is because entropy always increases - freedom and death are, ultimately the same thing. You can't have one without the other.

So Darkseid takes this to its logical conclusion. Remaking the entire universe into himself - getting control over every last quark and meson in it - is the only way he can beat entropy, so that's what he sets out to do. In this way he's far more direct than the cheap photocopy Thanos - Thanos *sublimates* his desire - he wants to have sex with Death. Darkseid just wants to destroy death, along with the universe itself, and exist alone, changeless and eternal.

(As Woody Allen put it, "Some people want to acheive immortality through their children. I want to acheive immortality by not dying".)

But of course, existing changeless and eternal, unaffected by time, is the same as death, isn't it?

Kurzweill talks in his book about how, once the entire universe has been turned into an information-processing machine in service of immortal human intellects, we'll have to create new universes in order to keep growing.

This is ultimately why Darkseid is such a compelling villain - because he's so human.

Una de las particularidades de la serie fue el apego a los diseños de los personajes de comics, si bien todos incluían cañones, armaduras, etc... podías prescindir de ellas y tener una figura bastante fiel al personaje y su vestimenta.

Veamos las figuras:

La serie 2, incluyó menos personajes pero no bajó la calidad de los personajes elegidos:

La serie tres incluyó a personajes menos populares, pero compensó todo con la inclusión de Parallax, uno de los villanos más populares de los 90's en el universo DC.

Existió un serie 4, pero fue cancelada. Posteriormente fueron lanzadas en packs dobles: DC Superheroes 2-packs

Hasbro se quedó con la linea y salieron algunos refritos y figuras nuevas bajo el nombre JLA.

Eso por ahora, Saludos!

• Batman YTB: Total Justice
• Cool Toy Review: Total Justice
• Toy Otter: Total Justice
  

Looking over the the Gamblin' Circle, the most popular division has been Rose, and the overwhelming majority of pundits seem to think that
Dark(seid) City is the deck to beat. Lots of pumpage, a reasonable degree of consistency, it's looking to be a combat juggernaut of a deck… but you know, it's amazing how pretty much any deck can crumble like a house of cards to a bad draw…

For this matchup, I took the reins for the Darkseid's Elite/Brotherhood combo, while the Eponymous Pablo glared at me across the table with his Shadowpact/Horsemen of Apocalypse concoction. The raw manliness of his beard alone countered the initial confidence the community had in Flashback81's deck, and as we rolled the dice for initiative I could feel a cold chill creeping slowly up my spine.

Winning the dice roll (a rarity in the Gdaycave, I assure you - normally I'm intimately familiar with the sides of my dice with but a single pip), I opted to take odds…

Turn One:
Gdaybloke: No recruit
Eponymous: Madame Xanadu saunters into play, exhausting as Jaime Reyes wings his way to the discard pile, kicking an Amulet of Nabu out in the process.

With no ready characters on the board, turn one ends without further ado.

Dark(seid) City: 50
Horse Conjurer: 50

Turn Two:
Eponymous: The Horsemen ride out with Havok, who rings the doorbell at Dr Fates Tower. He's answered with a bucket of slop over the parapet, but he covers himself with a Cloak of Nabu that he finds in the garderobe. The Amulet of Nabu gets clipped on, since they complement each other so nicely.
Gdaybloke: Cackling maniacally, Dark(seid) City gives me… nothing I can recruit. Bah.

Havok, all decked out in his Cloak and Amulet, swings through to the face. Biff!

Dark(seid) City: 44
Horse Conjurer: 50

Turn Three:
Gdaybloke: ZOMG! A character! Dark Firestorm soars into the hidden area and improves my hand size a little.
Eponymous: Conjuration brings June Moon into play, and a quick visit to Dr Fate's Tower has her nabbing the Cloak and Amulet from Havok.

Firestorm unleasehes a fire… um… storm at Madame Xanadu, but she see it coming and ducks off to the shops to get a Transmutation instead.
Firestorm readies in confusion, but espies Havok looking all… blonde and stuff. Another fiery outburst leads to a dual stun, followed by June Moon kicking to the face.

Dark(seid) City: 32
Horse Conjurer: 31

Turn Four:
Eponymous: Whaddaya know, it's A Day Like Any Other, but a dodgy weather report has it flipping up and down until Eponymous is down to the 25 END threshold. Detective Chimp scampers out of the game to get Abyss.
Gdaybloke: Finally, a Darkseid! The 4-drop hits the board, Ancient Evils flips up for the teamup.

Havok and June Moon barrel into Darkseid with the fury of something really, like, mad. Lost City flips up in my resource row, and the power-up war commences. Two pumps mean Pablo either transmutes the Lost City, or doesn't get the stun. Forcing hands is fun. Transmutation rears its ugly head and the Lost City gets morphed (into a 2-drop Destiny, btw); the stun goes through.
Capitalising, Abyss hits to the face and then removed Darkseid from the game in the Recovery phase..

Dark(seid) City: 21
Horse Conjurer: 22

Turn Five:
Gdaybloke: Time to get medieval… 8th Century Darkseid picks up his Nth metal flamberge.
Eponymous: Xanadu exhausts to get Tranmusation, no further recruit; missing your five sucks.

Firestorm is still ticked at Havok, and flicks him on the nose for a dual stun before Darkseid swings into June with his pointy sword, happily avoiding a stunback.

Dark(seid) City: 18
Horse Conjurer: 14

Turn Six:
Eponymous: A new Havok and Madame Xanadu? Looks like the Horse Conjurer's imploded, missing both 5 and 6...
Gdaybloke: Uncertain Legacy promises to go and get a 6-drop, but it's halted by a Conclave at the cost of 4 more END from Eponymous. I have to satisfy myself with the other 5-drop Darkseid, Destroyer of Life, non-unique thanks to Ancient Evils.

June takes off her hat and tries to whap Destroyer of Life with it.
Sounds like shenanigans, so Lost City gets flipped not necesarilly to get the pump out of it, but rather to put Eponymous in the once-more-unenviable position of being forced to Transmute it; there goes another 3 END, but a power-up on the chain gets Darkseid to 12/12 and June splats, leaving Eponymous with no real options.

8th Century Darkseid cries havoc at Havok, punching Eponymous into the negatives.

There's no need to rub it any further into his face, so I pass and let it end there.

Dark(seid) City: 18
Horse Conjurer: -4

Dark(seid) City advances to round two.

In a game that very easilly could have broken a lot of hearts in the Gamblin' Circle, Dark(seid) City makes it through to round two pretty much on the basis of The Horse Conjurer missing both their 5-drop and 6-drop.

Not so much of a sure thing after all, is it fella's...

... and thus my regular posting schedule goes all out of whack. I can't be the only one who's realised that I completely missed doing a new caption contest thus Thursday just gone.

On the plus side, Summer of Love seems to has not only garnered for itself teasers on the #1 VS System podcast on the entirety of teh interwebs, The Ring Has Chosen, but it's even managed to eke a post out of one of my favourite VS personalities, Aaron Mead, over at It's A VS Life.

Is Aaron right about his deck's potential to win it all? It's fighting in a pretty tough bracket, including popular favourites such as Flashback81's Dark(seid) City, HomerJ's "Hi Everybody!" "Hi Dr Spectrum!", and of course, Baldman's Shake 'n Bake...

This could very well be your last chance to get a bid in over at the gamblin' circle for you free chance to win an entire freakin' set of MUN...

I'll also take this moment to tip my hat and say thank you to everyone who's made a pick for Summer of Love's Prom over at VSRealms. Only one deck can give us our prom king and queen, and Jackson352's certainly shown himself to be a man of discerning tastes when choosing his preferred royal prom couple. I'm not saying he stands much of a chance, I'm just saying the dude's a class act ;)

Lost Hemisphere's Summer Of Love entries can be found here
The full bracket, including decklists, can be found here
The general discussion thread can be found here

Last time  I gave you a pretty comprehensive breakdown of the Easter eggs in Marvel Universe. I thought about going further back in time and doing the same for Marvel Legends, Marvel Team-Up and Heralds of Galactus… but, it felt like too much of a “phone in”. So, I decided that this week, I’d still make that apathetic phone call, but in a less obvious way. I hope. Crap, telling you kind of defeats the purpose…

Inside jokes, or “skill testers” as some of you like to call them, are about the most fun thing to design when thinking up set skeletons. There are plenty of skill testers in MUN that are all very obvioys, so I want to rewind back and point out some of my favorites from my time in Vs. design. Let’s start with one of the most infamous:

The Chair Deck

The “what” deck? Some of you may remember a little 10K in LA where yours truly made his feature match coverage debut. If not, click the links. Since that was a lifetime ago, I guess it’s finally time to come clean on one of our lamest inside jokes ever. “The Chair Deck” was an idea that kind of blew up into nothing if you were a casual player, or something if you were a Pro Circuit player around that time. The joke began well before that 10K, but it was at that 10K where the joke spread throughout the community. I remember multiple threads about the deck popping up on VsSystem.com the weekend of that 10K. Why all the hysteria? How did it happen? How did we do it? I’ll tell you! Patrick, Antonio and I began seeding the 10K coverage with references to the mysterious and powerful “Chair Deck” on Day 1. What was in the chair deck? None of the players could figure it out, and we sure as hell weren’t telling. The only thing they did know was that it was very powerful and if anyone managed to figure out its intricacies, that person would be well on their way to winning the next PC!

The Chair Deck was promoted as the best, most broken deck to ever come out of R&D… unfortunately, as some would soon discover, it was the exact opposite. It was total BS. The chair deck was actually the derisive name given to one of the worst decks ever created in R&D, or so I’ve been told by the paragon of honesty, Patrick Sullivan. The deck’s creator? None other than “The” Ben Seck! Hey guys, this was back when TBS was first hired by UDE, when he still sucked and long before he was good enough to dominate players in Super Crossover Sealed at Vs. Worlds. So we know who created the deck, but who was originally responsible for spreading the hoax? As I said, the chair deck as a concept first broke through to the mainstream player community when the unlikely combination of myself, Ant and Sully were tossed together for some 10K coverage. I was still relatively new to this UDE scene, so that weekend was definitely a “get to know you” event for me. Sully, Ant and I hit it off right away. We hated the same things and laughed at the same kind of inappropriate “Nazi” jokes that we snuck into the coverage which were later removed by our crafty editors. Anyway, it was during this meeting of minds that Sully and Ant told me about TBS’s ridiculous creation.

We had so many laughs at his expense that we just couldn’t help ourselves, and despite calls from editing for us to “cut it out”, the chair deck jokes made it into the coverage. Now, to be clear, we never intended these jokes to develop into the hoax that some of you accused us of. We were just being immature and cliquey, taking advantage of our responsibilities as writers to poke fun at a colleague. We never thought it would be such a big deal... it it even was. The mind loses track. Anyway--

Now that I think I’ve pretty much covered all the explanations, maybe it’s time I told you what was in the chair deck and how it got its name. The deck is designed around the much-maligned Mobius Chair.

Yes, that POS New Gods legacy card from the Justice League expansion. For some reason, TBS thought this was a good card to build a deck around. I remember how earnestly he tried to explain the deck’s endgame to me after the 10K. Unfortunately, I don’t recall exactly what that endgame was. If you’re interested, be sure to ask TBS about it at Gen-Con next month.

Wait, that’s not all! The chair deck wasn’t just about the Mobius Chair, the joke was also all about cards with art that depicted characters sitting… in chairs! Cards like: Thanos, Protector of the Reality Gem and Cosmic Order and later, Darkseid, Apokoliptian Oppressor, Ancient Throne and Curse of Darkness (TBS loves him some chairs!). There are literally hundreds of cards in Vs. that fit this description. I dare you to research it and name them all!

Okay, to explain even further, chair in this case doesn’t actually mean “chair”. The use of the word chair is a synonym for another word or words, depending on the scope of your vulgar vocabulary. Look at the art on Cosmic Order:

What does it really look like The Living Tribunal is doing? Now read the flavor text. Who or what do you think he is really addressing with the statement, “Final judgment is upon thee.” You remember that scene from the first Austin Powers, the scene with Mike Meyers and Tom Arnold?

“Who does number two work for!” – Mike Meyers

…exactly! That, in truth, is the heart of the “chair deck” joke… or, at least what it ultimately transformed into. I kick myself everyday for not including D-Man in the Marvel Universe release.

*sigh*

I had planned on writing about three other topics like my disdain for the New Defenders, cards based on TCG personalities and other nonsense, but we’re sitting at about a thousand words, plus pictures, and my lunch is getting cold. I’ll be back next Friday (the new home of ORIGIN STORIES!) with Part 2 (I SWEAR!!!). Until then, crack open those dusty DJL boxes and build a deck around everyone’s favorite latrine.

BEN SECKS!!!

As a special treat, a piece of unused art starring Rick Jones taking a #### in the Negative Zone.

For those of you who have been enjoying my Fantastic Four Omnibus reviews, I apologize but that has to take a back seat for a while. However, if you're looking for old school Kirby, look no further because I will be reviewing these omnibus books for a while. If you've been paying attention to DC lately, you'll notice that they are drawing heavily on Kirby's Fourth World. I've never read these stories before and so I thought it'd be very topical to read and then review them on here. Oh and same deal, these are classics so no stars. Go out and read them!

This was one jam packed issue! Jimmy hangs with the Newsboy Legion. They have a new Whiz-Wagon. Morgan Edge has control of the Daily Planet. The Newsboy Legion enters the Wild Area. They take out a dude and then Jimmy is the new leader of the "outsiders", no not the Batman ones.  Oh yeah and Superman is in it too! Like I said this is a bunch of good stuff. I'm also enjoying the subtle things in here. The Wild Area is Vietnam. Kirby is commenting on youth with the Newsboy Legion. Superman is the old man who is adjusting to the times, he even runs into a hippie like character. I love all the crazy gadgets and you can tell Kirby is responding to technology. If this any indication of the upcoming issues, it's easy to see why these are classics.

I still love this stuff. This probably wasn't as good as last issue, but it's more important. Yes friends, this is the first appearance of Darkseid. It's in a little T.V. device so you just see his head. Still, it's a pivotal moment in comics to me. Darkseid is one of if not supes’ best villain so that alone is awesome. Darkseid also inspired Thanos and Mongul, two other villains I like. Also, I didn't mention it in the previous issue, but Kirby's visuals on this book are stunning. As I mentioned, Kirby is drawing lots of technology and gadgets and some of them are pure gorgeous. There are two pages of visuals in here using a technique that I've never seen in a comic before and they are mind blowing. This is truly an impressive issue.

While we're patiently waiting for the BYOT kit to turn up, it's no surprise that our thoughts start to drift towards just what we can play. For myself, this isn't such a big deal because, well, almost every deck I build is BYOT legal. I rarely toolbox, I occasionally team up, but I'd say 80-90% of my decks are mono-affiliated and rely heavilly on their stamped stuff.

That's just how I roll.

So now the question is, what should I play for BYOT. Do I go back to my beloved Fantastic Four? Do I try out X-Men? Darkseid's Elite serves me well, and we're once more looking at a format where my Morlocks are legal, as are my beloved (and much-maligned Manhunters). Marvel Knights are a force to be reckoned with, Kree retain all the tricks I normally use, Inhumans have oomph, I could even go back and look at Defenders and try for that Dr Strange Legend deck I've been wanting to build.

... well, once my trade from Kamiza arrives, since it has three Essence Of Zom in there for me. Yay Steve!

I'm going to take Avengers off the table for now since I'm still a ways from getting all the stuff I want/need from MUN for them, but there's always the Crime Lords as well, if I can settle on a build for them...

Oh, the indecision!

Come out a couple of years back and always wanted to read these. Going to read the first one soon and I'll post and tell what I think. Anyone else read these then comment and tell me what you thought ;).

  Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg) was the co-creator of the X-Men.

  He also created or co-created such heroes as Captain America, the Hulk, the Mighty Thor, the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. He also had some involvement in Iron Man's creation and was lurking about the genesis of Spider-Man too.

  In other words, Marvel Comics would not have existed if not for Jack Kirby.

  And how much money has the Kirby Estate got from these creations? Peanuts! In his lifetime, Jack Kirby saw more money from a few minor appearances of his villain Darkseid in the Super Friends cartoon and action figures in the Super Powers toyline than he did from creating all these big Marvel heroes.

  So, it's not that surprising while movie audiences can spot Stan Lee's cameos in films like 2008's Incredible Hulk - the average person, even the average superhero fan has never heard of Jack Kirby.

 Captain America, for example, was created by Jack Kirby and his 1940s partner Joe Simon. And yet I've seen article after article claim that Stan Lee (who joined Captain America comics during its early run as an assistant to Simon and Kirby) was the sole creator of Captain America. For years, the title pages of Marvel Comics could proclaim "Stan Lee presents...". So, it's not surprising that most people don't remember the other people who created these comic book icons.

  The Marvel style of writing was for Lee to give a few plot ideas, and then the artist would go away and do his own thing, and Lee would dialogue the comic. Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko managed to get a co-plotting credit in his later issues. I don't think Kirby ever did, although important characters like the Silver Surfer never appeared in Lee's brief to the artist.

  And that's his superhero stuff. Kirby also worked on westerns, war comics and pretty much created the once-popular romance comic genre. Most comic creators with even a tenth of Kirby's output and influence would rightly be considered masters of the medium.

  Today I just finished reading Mark Evanier's new coffee table biography/artbook "Kirby: King of Comics". Admittedly, Evanier was too close to Kirby and his family for a wholly unbiased account and I gather this is only a tiny bit of larger work on Kirby that Evanier has planned. But still Kirby's life and work deserves to be celebrated, and it's wonderful to see Kirby artwork blown up to coffee table size.

  Kirby's art was dynamic. Heroes were bursting out of the pages. All superhero artists either imitate or consciously distance themselves from Kirby. And as for his work ethic, not only was Kirby's art gorgeous, but he could produce four times as much as the comic book artists of today. In the 1960s, he carried Marvel Comics - drawing most of the important books and often being assigned to coach the other artists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mister_miracle_%281971%29_1.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Avengers4.jpg

 Here's classic science fiction writer Harlan Ellison waxing poetic on Kirby and an interview with comics' grandmaster. It features images of much classic Kirby art. No, it's not realistic. But it bursts off the page with energy that few comic book artists even come close to.

 If you're not familiar with Darkseid (who has since become a major bad guy in DC Comics) and the New Gods, well Darkseid is a helmet-wearing villain who controls a planet with a giant hole in it. He, and his antagonists on New Genesis, are powered by something called "The Source". And his main enemy is his heroic son, Orion - who was fostered by the good guys. In case this mythology sounds at all similar to a certain movie franchise. Darkseid and the New Gods characters first appeared in 1970-1, and Star Wars came out in 1977.

 I love comics. I love the artform, the medium. I think it is more interactive than film and TV, and I doubt its true potential has been reached yet. Even if most comics are admittedly crap, that does not mean the medium is stupid, silly and childish.

 And so it infuriates me that the average person has no idea who Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko or Will Eisner or Bill Finger or Curt Swan or Carmine Infantino or dozens of other names I could mention are. It bothers me that when Stanley Kubrick died, there were pages of tributes to his life and films. But when Eisner and Kirby died, they just got a few token articles.

 So, that's the reason for this entry. The foolish hope that maybe a few more people will know and care that a man named Jack Kirby once existed, and that he spent his life giving pleasure to millions of people who will never know his name.

  Now I'm hoping to find the new book on Steve Ditko - original artist and co-creator of Spider-Man. Ditko's a very different artist from Kirby but also deserves to be revered (well, for his art. Not so much for his Ayn Rand-inspired politics, although that certainly helped fuel some extremely well-drawn comics.)

  PuckRobin

Written by Bob Gale
Covers and Pencils by Mike McKone

It's been a long, long time since I've bought an Amazing Spider-Man book. I've ranted a great deal on this blog and elsewhere about my displeasure with the giant cop out storyline that erased Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane, his revealing his secret ID to the world, amongst other things. But what's done is done. I had to at least read a few issues to see what has resulted from that black mark in modern comic history.

As I expected, I liked the results. I was never a fan of Peter Parker getting married to MJ, his revealing his identity was a stupid, stupid idea. Hell I don't even like the idea of him being a part of the Avengers, too bad they didn't erase that while they were butchering up his background. I love having Peter Parker as the loveable loser, scrapping for rent money, cracking wise while dealing with local NYC crooks and criminals. This two parter story with the introduction of the Bookie character, and coming back to the super villian hangout the "Bar With No Name" was awesome. The story was fun, both the Peter Parker storyline with him trying to find photo assignments after being black-listed by the current publisher of the Daily Bugle and the Spider-Man storyline where he tries to figure out who is placing bets on his crime fighting activity.

This is the kind of Spider-Man stories that I love. And I'm happy they've moved him to just one book. And I'm happy I didn't even hear a mention of the Avengers or Skrulls in this book. So I'll just chalk this up to making lemonade out of lemons....NO NO I hate how we got to this point, BUT I'm glad this is the type of Spider-Man book that Marvel is putting out. Damn it, just because I like this doesn't mean I agree with what they did. I still feel guilty about enjoying these couple of issues, almost dirty.

Final Crisis #2 - DC Comics

Written by Grant Morrison
Art and covers by J.G. Jones

Okay, I liked the issue. I wasn't sure about Final Crisis after reading #1, but this second issue really gets things moving. I only half paid attention to the Seven Soldiers groups of mini series a couple years ago, and didn't even crack open any of the Countdown to Final Crisis issues. But jumping into this cold its only taken me 2 issues to get into it. Maybe I'll pick up the past stuff for 50 cents a pop at a convention next year.

We've got Martian Manhunter's funeral, time traveling bullets, the ongoing investigation of the New God Orion's death by the a representative of the universal police the Alpha Corp, a group superior to the Green Lantern Corp. We also get a glimpse into the current superhero scene in Tokyo where Mr. Miracle is recruiting heroes to assist him in fighting the immergence of Darkseid's forces on Earth. Loads of other great (return of Barry Allen) and some skin crawling scenes, some scenes are downright brutal (specifically the total beating of the Mad Hatter).This issue is down right dark to put it mildly. Once again DC really goes to the dark end of things for their summer event. A couple years ago we had DC going to the dark side in Identity Crisis where we dealt with issues of rape, murder of the innocent, and immoral use of powers.

While I enjoyed the writing and artwork is this issue and am looking forward to the next... I still have that voice in the back of my head asking why DC has to always go so dark in their storylines. Maybe they'll get it out of their system when this Crisis ends. Meanwhile I'm squashing this goody-goody voice in my head and enjoying the ride.

Listen: Just because Grant Morrison wrote it, it doesn't mean it's automatically good.

Don't believe any of the pretentious reviews out there that praise this book. They're mostly written by Grant Morrison fanboys who will love anything he writes - even if it's crap. Believe me, I enjoy most of Morrison's work, but Final Crisis is just an incoherent mess. Make no mistake, the man makes it abundantly clear time and again that he knows lots about DC lore, and because of this, the reader is constantly challenged (and/or frustrated). I'm not saying I don't enjoy being challenged or I'm a lazy reader, but this story will prove to be just too much for most readers. Final Crisis is basically porn for the DC historians.

As a casual DC reader, I'll freely admit that I was lost for 80% of the story. Now, imagine someone who's read about the hype surrounding this book in say, The New York Post or Entertainment Weekly, do you think they'd understand what's going on? Me neither. Final Crisis shouldn't be a summer mini-series. Heck, if it can't be told in a coherent fashion in which casual comic readers can understand it, it shouldn't be a series at all - big continuity shake-ups or not. Any comic that forces me to go to other websites for annotations just so I can get a grasp on what's going on is crap. And I'm sorry to say this, but Final Crisis is crap.

For the 10% of comic book reading populace who "gets" every reference and can follow the story without "help" gets my admiration and applause. I honestly wish I could comprehend this story and I wish I could enjoy it. I'm a fan of the creative team, and J.G. Jones handles the monumental task of drawing a billion superheroes (and villains) almost effortlessly. Alex Sinclair also deserves kudos for his coloring work here. Unlike the boring, moody palettes he brings to Jim Lee's artwork, the colors he uses here brings the world to life. It's just a shame I couldn't enjoy the story as much as the artwork, because the art is, quite frankly, the only criteria that prevents this book from getting an "F". (Grade: D+)

- J. Montes

Between the major two, Marvel and DC, we have the requisite universe spanning crossovers that are supposed to affect the majority of their respective titles and continuity for decades to come.  At least they always say that in Wizard, but you know how these go.  They'll shake it up for a few months, maybe even a year or two, and then its back to the status quo.

Anyway for Marvel, their follow-up to last years Civil War and Initiative events, they have the Skrull Invasion.  A nice side mini-series that goes with it (but not mandatory reading) is the time traveling 'Secret Invaders' which brings back Captain America to life (dead in current era?) in a time-travelling yarn.  But I'll leave all that for another post.

Today, I bring you Final Crisis #1, by DC.  It all started over two decades ago with the masterful 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' which was supposed to tighten the reigns on the DC multiverse into one cohesive universe where there would only be one Batman, one Superman, one Wonder Woman, and one history.  The reason being was at the time, those over at DC had a plethora of multiple main characters and parallel histories which often made the casual reader confused on which 'history' or 'origin' was the correct one.  When you have 50+ versions of Earth, each with its own brands of metahumans, including multiple Supermen and the like, you can see that eventually chaos reigns.

Anyway, the original Crisis, at least in my opinion, did a great job in condensing all the multiple histories and characters into one large DC universe.  Sure, there was some growing pains, some disgruntled readers and the like, but in the decade to come readers accepted this and all seemed right.

Fast forward to 2004 when DC decides to give writer Brad Metzler the green light to launch 'Identity Crisis', a 7 issue series that would lay the foundation for bringing back the multiverse to DC after almost 20 years.  Brad's tale (along with Rags Morales on art duties) crafted yet another wonderful tale in which former B-list and even C-list villains raise there way to the top and make a name for themselves.  You see they discover some of the secret identities of the super heroes and begin to target their families, resulting in the death of Robin's (Tim Drake) dad, the murder of Sue Dibny (wife of Elongated Man), the stabbing and eventual death of Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond), just to name a few.  In these 7 issues, the DC universe as we had been now been accustomed to began to change....and it was good.

These events then led to other events such as Countdown, The OMAC project, Villains United, and 2005's 'Infinite Crisis' (7 issue series by Geoff Johns).  It's here that some of the original heroes thought dead from the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" story, (Superboy Prime, Alex Luthor of Earth 3, Superman and Lois Lane from Earth 2) escape a pocket universe they have been living in and hatch a plan to restore the multiverse in which Lois Lane (Earth 2) will live once our Earth has been replaced by a more perfect Earth 2.  Superboy Prime reveals a disturbed side and begins to kill off even more heroes (Conner Kent, multiple Green Lanterns) and villains alike.  His psychotic nature leads him to the planet OA where he is captured by the Green Lantern Corps and imprisoned in a Sun-Eater.

While all this is happening, events begin to break down in the weekly published series 52 in which all the gloves come off.  It's my opinion that 52 started pretty darn well and for the most part was a good weekly read, although some story elements seemed a little lack luster or used for filler material.  The best aspects that came out for myself was the emergence of an all powerful Black Adam and the World War III series.  After events of World War III, DC then begins its final push to by the new 52 week 'Countdown to Final Crisis' (May 2007) series which in fact now reveals that the multiverse is back in full swing with 52 varying versions of earth.  The Monitors are back and want to correct all the out of place 'aberrations' of both heroes and villains that have displaced over the years.  Of course Darkseid wants in on the action, some New Gods (Orion being one of them) end up dead by the hands of his father Darkseid, and Jimmy Olsen inherits some New God powers.  A Monitor visits the 'Source Wall' and learns of a looming 'Great Disaster' in which only our Atom (Ray Palmer) can stop, and oh, Superboy Prime has escaped and on the rampage once again to destroy all the sub-par earths in search of the perfect earth.  All the chaos once again brings us to 'Final Crisis' after other events suchs as Amazons Invade (Wonder Woman) and Death of the New Gods.  While Countdown had some entertaining moments, I found it to be sub-par as a lead into Final Crisis.  There were some silly moments, some confusing ones as well, and some loose ends that never were tied up...at least not yet. 

Suffice it to say, the saga of the multiverse is much, much more complex than I can espouse here is a simple post.  This post was supposed to to be about Final Crisis #1, so let me get into it...

Metron appears to give fire to the first boy of our Earth who defends his village against Vandal Savage, thus making the boy out to be the first superhero, if you will. 

Darkseid's human avatar form Boss Dark Side reveals that he has given the anti-life equation to some recently abducted metahuman children.

The skies of earth turn red and OA send the Alpha Lanterns not only to investigate the death of Orion, but to put our Earth on lock down.

Meanwhile, Libra (I know...who?) calls together all the villians, both A-listers (Lex Luthor, Vandal Savage, Gorilla Grodd) to name a few, and some lower tier ones (Dr. Light, Mirror Master, Human Flame) and kills a captured and drugged Martian Manhunter in front of their eyes showing he means business.  To me the death of Martian Manhunter came across very weird, and I highly doubt he will remain 'dead' for any stretch of time.  As a matter of fact, I don't even know how he was drugged, let alone captured.  supposedly this all happened during the events of Salvation Run.

The most mind-numbing portion of the story is the supposed trial of one of the Monitors for his role in the destruction of Earth 51.  It just seemed ill-thought out as it unfolded...the trial, that is.  Perhaps it will make more sense in upcoming issues, but so far other than Martian Manhunter being killed, and our Earth (with its red skies) on lockdown by the Alpha Lanterns of OA, I wasn't to impressed with Final Crisis's first offering.  Compared to the Skrull Invasion over at Marvel, I really think it fell short, with the only real meat so far provided by Libra and his newly resurrected Secret Society.

This was the appeal of the Squadron No-Break deck, the Avengers Leader build, and the Morlock No-reinforcement build. So sue me, I like Marvel decks.

When Darkseid's Elite was refeatured in DLS, it didn't take long for peeps to jump on the substitute bandwagon, but what about the Furies?

DLS gave us a pretty solid suite of Granny Goodness's girlie goon squad.

At 1 we have Mad Harriet, with the delightful advantage of being useful both as a 1-drop recruit and also as a resource-locking tool should you not draw her for the first turn.

At 2, Malice Vundabar replaces resources, while Speed Queen has solid 3/3 stats out of the gate and ties in with locking your opponents resources. Considering the number of locations, etc, with a threshold of 3 or more, you should get at least one use out of her self-readying ability, even if your own resource lock theme isn't behaving.

At 3, the aggresively stat'd Gillotina causes burn depending on how well you've locked your opponent, while Lashina further enforces the resource lock by placing cards from your hand into your opponent's row. Oh, and burning while she's at it.

Obligatory bikini shot

At 4, Knockout comes out with a hefty 10 ATK while also helping you remove those little breakthrough magnets from the first couple of turns by, you guessed it, tossing them into your opponent's resource row. Stompa, the only rare amongst the Furies, is a slight variation on Lashina's ability, the most notable variance being that she can target those pesky team-up locations...

At 5, Bernadeth gives another means of clearing away those lowbies (or indeed, a reason to underdrop next turn) to provide some lovely pumps, be they while attacking or defending.

At 6 we have.. well, no furies. Good thing Darkseid: Evil Reborn fits in with the "effects that trigger off your opponent's face-down resources" theme.

And at 7 we close out with the 16/14 Kara Zor-el, who doesn't really fit the theme at all, but since she shares the Female Fury version, she'll still be able to take advantage of cards like Furious Assault.

The Mockeries are beautiful, yes. The multiple-Darkseid deck is lovely, yes. But isn't it about time we got a littl Furious? Before it all comes to an end?

Here's a sneak peek of the first 5 pages of DC Comics Final Crisis series beginning this summer. Everybody's been waiting for this for a long time (two years to be precise). It seems like there's been a lot of delays at DC this past year, including the Action Comics storyline co-written with Richard Donner. I hope the addage that "good things are worth waiting for" holds true.

I particularly like the reveal of Orion lying in the trash pile.

At the time of writing there's no less than 46 entrants in the rankings. A couple of these are regional fora (*waves hi to VS-Chile, Expertforum and Skillze*), and others haven't been updated in over a month (*shakes a fist at Emo VS, Just Grazing and Phoenix Rising*) [NB: examples chosen at random], but there's some solid, regularly updated blogs out there that just don't seem to be getting the attention I think they deserve.

Today I'd like to bring to your attention:

This wonderfully visual blog is put together by Neil04... I have no idea what happened to Neils 01 through 03, but 04 seems to have his act together.

Striking a balance between comics and cards, Neil04 not only gives is his opinion of titles he's reading, but he actually goes to the effort of scanning the damn things so that he can walk us through, giving us a running commentary. Now, I don't know about you, but I didn't pick up a single issue of Countdown, or anything related to the Death of the New Gods - but I still had a passing curiosity as to what was going on. Thanks to Neil04's work, I'm "in the loop".

From the VS perspective, Neil04's been burning through the preview cards as fast as they come up, with insightful, personalised thoughts on each. It's always cool to see someone else's thoughts on these cards, not only because they help you understand the card better yourself, but also because it gives a reflective insight into the type of person and VS player Neil04 is.

To add to the niftiness, Neil04 is also the power behind the only dedicated VS server for MWS, Darkseid.servegame.com. For keeping this server running, for opening it up for the scores of VS players who play on MWS and have had enough of being hassled by MtG players who can't understand "VS System Only" in a game description, Neil04 deserves a hearty slap on the back... not to mention a round of applause for his providing easy access to updated MWS files for all the new stuff in a timely manner. 

In the end, Darkseid Revenge is a blog I visit almost daily to see if Neil04's given us anything new to read, or any new thought-provoking posts to otherwise help me through my morning with happy VS musings.

If you can't (or just won't) vote for Lost Hemisphere on the rankings (Bill's on the button up there on the right hand side), then why not give Neil04 a little appreciation?

I'm a fan, why aren't you?

Back in November, the UK had a series of Silver Age Elite Series tournaments dotted around the country. Myself and fellow London based VS enthusiast Amit (aka Amitverse on various forums) decided that the opportunity to play in some official tournaments was too good to pass up and vowed to attend as many as possible. An endeavour aided by the fact that they were all scheduled for different days across a 3 week period. There were 5 to attend, and I really wanted to test a selection of the decks that I had been toying with over the previous months.So I started making up a list of the decks I wanted to use. At the first one, I went with a Villains United team up version of the Jugg/Mags deck I used at the recent UK Nationals. It bombed slightly and I finished with a 2-2 record and 4^th place out of 5.

However, my love of Juggernaught had been re-affirmed. So when we were heading to Sheffield for the next tournament I knew I wanted to use the big guy again. As it was a Silver age Legend format, I also wanted to feature my favourite DC legend Darkseid. When I realised that they both wanted to break people’s resources I decided that it was something worth looking at. So I present to you the big two.

Darkseid/Juggernaught Legend Deck – When Worlds Collide!

Characters: 29

2 Drops: 7

4x Malice Vunderbar

The deck wants to reach the late game, and this girl has a good defence and a resource busting effect. What is not to love?

3x Dark Manhunter

Substitute in for an un-stunnable attacker. Flight, Range and a solid ability make this a decent card.

3 Drops: 7

4x Juggernaught

Ok, so the downside is a pain. But he has big stats and enables the later game plays. So that has to be a good thing.

3x Dark Firestorm

Another strong substitute card, that maintains hand size and can get the low drop out of the way to avoid replacement on turn 5.

4 Drops: 4

4x Darkseid – Apokoliptian Oppressor

More big defence and a great card draw ability.

5 Drops: 6

4x Juggernaught

He has solid stats and an ability that works excellently in conjunction with the resource control theme of Darkseid Elite. (4 copies to meet the Juggernaught Legend requirement)

1x Dark Superboy

I needed a Substitute Character to replace out Juggernaught and if I have just re-set their resource row, this guy is powerful on turn 6. On or Off initiative.

1x Darkseid – 8^th Century

Another Substitute character and one that benefits from the other support cards in the deck. It also counts towards the Darkseid Legend count.

6 Drops: 2

1x Dark Kryptonian.

The deck has two potential game plans. Option 1 is for dealing with short curve combat decks. Jump to turn 8 and own them with a scary 8 drop. Option 2 is for late game stall decks, and for that see the 7 drop.

1x Darkseid – Omega

This guy has decent stats, a potentially useful effect and is called Darkseid. A triple whammy of good stuff.

7 Drops: 2

2x Juggernaught – Weapon of Mass Destruction

There are few cards better at stopping stall decks from winning the game than this one. Decks designed to hit turn 8 or 9 will often scoop when this effect goes off.

8 Drops: 1

1x Darkseid – Nemesis

A fearsome 8 drop that definitely ends the game if Juggernaught has started to whittle down their resources. He can simply remove any remaining 7 drops from the game, providing that you are able to bypass the uniqueness on Darkseid.

Equipment: 2

2x Juggernaught’s Helmet

See my article about the Juggernaught/Magneto deck. This card is awesome!

Locations: 6

3x Dark Matter Drain

Keeping those key locations and plot twists face down in the early game is extremely useful.

3x Ancient Throne

This card allows you to put multiple Darkseids in to play and re-use key plot twists.  

Plot Twists: 23

4x Enemy of my Enemy

Useful for hitting that key character on most drops. This is the standard search card for any deck featuring multiple teams.

4x Created from Hate

One of the better team-stamped search cards in the game. This card allows you to hit those all important Darkseids

4x No Match for Darkseid

An awesome defensive card when the visible defender is named Darkseid. Especially if they are looking for a lot of breakthrough from the attack.

3x Insignificant Threat

This card can end games. In the tournament I actually played in, this card won me two games. If they don’t play around it, and as I only team-up at the last moment they rarely see it coming, then this is a nasty surprise.

4x Price of Treason

Defensive attack pumps that draw you cards are good. It is not as consistent as Nasty Surprise, but potentially just as useful.

4x Flying Kick

One of the great attack pumps in the game, and I don’t have much flight in the deck.

This was a resource hating deck that looked to stall out combat decks and simply stop stall decks getting to turns 8 & 9. It went 2-1 on the day. Beating a Punisher deck and another Darkseid deck, but losing to a short curve Brotherhood deck that managed to hit something like 3 Savage Beatdowns and several Flying Kicks on turn 5. (Didn’t have either Insignificant Threat or No Match for Darkseid that would have kept me in the game.)

If I was to update the deck for the new Silver Age, then I would only change a couple of things. (Assuming that I didn’t need to hit the Legend Status on Juggernaught)

-4 Juggernaught 3 drop

+1 Dark Firestorm

+2 Dark Thangarian

+1 Lashina

This is a more versatile spread of 3 drops that also allows me to alter my choice of search cards.

-4 Enemy of my Enemy

+4 Hero of the Two Worlds.

I really like this new search card, and it allows me to go find Darkseid or Juggernaught. It also reduces the chance of drawing multiples of low drop cards. The higher threshold is less of a concern, when you have 7 3 drops and 4 search cards that can dig for them.

-4 Flying Kick

+4 Lord of Apokolips

A versatile +2/+2 pump that can be used on offence or defence is a nice trick to have in your arsenal. It can only be used on Darkseid, but I think the focus should be on that character. As you want the game to drag out, a hyper offensive attack pump is probably less useful than one that can maintain field advantage on either turn.

-3 Ancient Throne

+3 Ancient Evil.

Being able to give Darkseid the Brotherhood affiliation makes the Insignificant Threats less of a dead card. Both cards allow you to get round uniqueness, and that will be hugely useful for this deck.

 Ultimately I do not think it is a tier 1 deck. But it is capable of beating a lot of the key decks in the format. An early Dark Matter Drain or Lashina could well give you an out against Quicksilver. Your resource row control will make life difficult for Ahmed.

Most of all it is fun to use, and that is all that really matters to me.

Diseño: Walter O'Neal

Esculpido: Ray Villafane

Dimensiones: 12,5" Alto x 9" Ancho x 10" Profundidad.

Precio: US $ 225,00.-

Lanzamiento: 17 de Diciembre de 2008