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December is here and we have all eaten ourselves silly on turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing/dressing, and green bean casserole and then went out and spent a bunch of money we don't have on stuff that we may or may not need. Let's look at the past month and see what all happened.
Spoiler Alert
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I looked at a spoiler for Transformers: Regeneration #85 out last month, and all I have say is, Megatron you bastard. Good art on the issue though. Borders on what I would call the pretty. Much better art than the re-launch of GI Joe, and to me GI Joe artists can do no wrong. Of course Megatron could be lying about the whole thing, but older brother, who was a big reader of Marvel Comics' Transformers series, said that they set this up somewhere around issue #60 or so. I'll believe him. I can't believe I waited for this series when something like this has come up.
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Scuttlebutt
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The rumor mill has been all fired up since Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in October, and the latest thing to come out is that Disney is trying or in the works of buying the toy company Hasbro. Frankly I don't much care what happens at this point. Unless the toys go down in price if Disney buys Hasbro, which I doubt, then I'm not buying the new stuff anymore. Ten dollars for an action figure is entirely too much to ask me to spend on one figure. I'd much rather play the crapshoot that is the secondary market for the Kenner figures rather than try to get out into the stores and try to find the new figures. I'll have to pay more for the old figures, but at least I'm not going to have to wait all year for a Target or Wal-Mart to get the stuff that came out back in January or February out of the system so they could get the new figures. Sure I could go to an online dealer and buy the new ones, but they ask entirely too much than what I would pay at retail per figure.
This has since been shot down by someone close to both Hasbro and Disney, but companies have been known to lie to the public to cover things up. That's the problem with companies these days; they constantly lie about things so you don't know who to believe and are just left in the dark.
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Constantine
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The DC Comic's Vertigo series Hellblazer is wrapping up in February 2013 with its 300th issue. Then in March they are starting a New 52 series called, wait for it . . . wait for it . . . , Constantine with John Constantine as the central character. I heard talk back awhile ago that they were going to take some of the Vertigo titles and integrate them with the New 52 universe, and I guess this is the start of that. I wonder what they will cancel to bring this new series into the fold. Let me just say that Hellblazer was a good name for that book because of what little I have seen of it the book breaks about all of the commandments and some not written yet, and I guess he's going to hell along with the rest of us. It was probably the best comic book that does not involve a super hero put out by DC.
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Is MLP:FIM really that popular?
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The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP:FIM) comic already has a print run of approximately 100,000 issues and is going back for a second printing. The comic's first issue was out in November, and the reprint in December is going to have a second print not only of the single comic, but also of the boxed set of six first issues.
It boggles my mind that something like MLP:FIM is that popular. I mean there have been memes about it all over the internet, there are sites of Fan Fiction about the characters from the show. I have not tried to watch the show and nor do I want to. I don't need to get sucked into something like that. I have been sucked into thinking other shows were cool because of the Internet (Lost I am looking your direction), word of mouth and advertising, but now I just make determinations on what I like in terms of TV shows based on a unbiased synopses or just stumbling across it one day, watching it and liking what I see. This is how I got hooked on Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel.
I know liking the show is no worse than when I used to like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but most boys and men are supposed to like Star Wars. The color palate used on the MLP show with its vivid colors and cutesy big eyed characters make me think it is more anime aimed at girls, rather than American Animation.
Just looking at the cover for the first issue, two things happened. First, my pancreas shut down due to it being too sweet, and second the question popped into my head, "How do the ponies walk without knees?"
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Stuff on Television
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I was flipping through the channels on the TV one Thursday night and happened to stop long enough on the local NBC station and it was running the elimination episode of The Voice. They were going through the back stories of the contestants and one of them was singing a ballad in Spanish. I said, "I bet I could get onto that show singing the opening theme to the anime Outlaw Star in Japanese." That got my older brother onto YouTube and seconds later he had a video of the opening theme to Outlaw Star playing with the lyrics on screen in both Kanji characters and English letters. I have since tried and failed to find that video. He's got some sort of finding stuff on YouTube mojo that I don't have. I like to think that I could get onto The Voice doing the theme to Outlaw Star, but would never have the guts to actually try it.
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The Hobbit at 48 fps
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This link to Bleeding Cool has a list of every movie theater in the United States and Canada where you can go to see it as Peter Jackson intended; at 48 frames per second. I have this odd feeling that this will either be the next 3D or just something that Peter Jackson wanted to do and we will never see it used on another film after The Hobbit trilogy. I have no idea what double the frame rate will do for the film, but it's supposed to be something special.
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Fight Klub?
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A long time ago the game company Decipher was known for having two of the three biggest CCG's in the world. Then things kind of fell apart when they lost the rights to those games and had money embezzled from them. They came back about six months later with a new game and a new distribution system. A lot of people looked at the distribution system as a multi-level-marketing (MLM) scheme because you as a player had to find out about the game and then find someone who plays it and get them to give you a code to enter the web site as well as order cards from them to build your deck. To grow the game, you had to go out and recruit people who want to play the game and hook them up with your contact so they could get cards to play with. Now that I think about it, it is a lot worse than normal MLM and is bordering on Mary Kay level of MLM. Now though you can buy the game from the Decipher web site with a credit card for about $35 with shipping.
I figured when the game came out several years ago that the game would not last. Here it is about three years later and it is still around, but according to Wikipedia, there has not been a new expansion released for the game in about two years. With that in mind, I think this game is dead as a doorknob and they are just keeping up the web site for the sake of trying to get people into the game.
Fight Klub seemed to take elements of Fantasy Flight Games' (FFG) Living Card Game (LCG) model for its first set, but made subsequent sets kind of, but not quite blind boxed and randomly packaged. Personally I think FFG did the whole thing better and they started about two years before Decipher did.
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Quick Notes
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Back in November, Fantasy Flight Games announced the release of the first "expansion pack" of the Star Wars Living Card Game (SW:LCG). It is called The Desolation of Hoth and is due out in the first Quarter of 2013. I guess Fantasy Flight Games are so on top of things that they can announce an expansion to the SW:LCG without having the starter set out first. Granted the starter set should be out this month and hopefully you preordered it. The first expansion is also making me wonder if they crammed all of A New Hope into the starter set and are starting with Force Packs (what they call expansion packs) of The Empire Strikes Back. Looks like only time will tell.
In other Fantasy Flight Games news, I learned early last month that the first expansion for the companies X-Wing Miniatures game has been delayed until February 2013. So it looks like it is going to take a little while longer to get our Millennium Falcon and A-Wing on for the game. That's okay because my birthday is in February and I can get more good stuff for the game that way.
The last thing I want to mention on the FFG front is that they are producing a special beginner version of their Star Wars Role-Playing Game that is due out this month. From what little reviews I have been able to find for the Beta Test of the game it seems well put together and does not have half as much abuse potential as the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG's. It also seems to have a lot of the elements of the old West End Games Star Wars RPG I want to recommend to anyone looking for a Star Wars RPG to play to fill in the time until Episode VII comes out I would start with the beginner game. Not only do you get a great game to start with, but you also get everything you need in terms of special dice to play the game when you are ready to move on to the full book.
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Really Dan Slott?
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Having read spoilers for issue #698 of Amazing Spider-Man that came out last month, the "twist" you pulled makes me think you had nothing and pulled it out of your ass. Otherwise you are going to tell me that Dr. Octopus has been in Peter's body the entire time since Brand New Day started and everything will be status quo come the first issue of Superior Spider-Man in January 2013. I also think Dan Slott did the right thing going into hiding from rabid fanboys on the internet because of this stunt he pulled. He got the internet worked into a frothy lather about Amazing #698 and that drove the book to be ordered massively, and there are also massive extra orders of #700 that is coming on December 26th. Whatever ploy you pulled Marvel; bravo! Now you have guaranteed that I will only buy older trades of your books and not bother with the new stuff that has to do with the "Marvel Now!" reboot.
(Joe Q. and the others can insist that Marvel Now is not a Reboot of the Universe, but let's face it the thing is a universe reboot only 15 months later than DC's, and DC did it better.)
I'm going to treasure all the Spider-Man trades I can get my hands on of the older stuff. Back then it was all about the storytelling by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and not so much about pulling shitty stories out of a hat and throwing it on the wall and hoping it sticks.
Its stuff like this that made me glad that I am getting as few Marvel Comics trades I can. Mostly because comics have been ruined for me because of every writer was trying to one-up the writer before them and stories just not making a lick of sense.
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Ok I am Wrong.
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A few months ago I started getting all the New 52 Trades from Amazon in Alphabetical Order and reading them. I kind of procrastinated on the whole reading them thing, but on Thanksgiving this past month I decided to crack open the first one alphabetically, Action Comics, and read it.
I was having serious regrets about reading this because it was written by Grant Morrison. Yes the same Grant Morrison I have railed upon for years saying he owes me money for the on-ending of Final Crisis. Then I sat down and read the first issue of Action Comics, and it is not Grant Morrison's stuff I came to know during Final Crisis. This was an actual well thought out Superman story that had me latching onto certain elements of it like it was a Spider-Man story. I like Spider-Man as well, but the older stuff (Before Brand New Day) not the newer stuff.
I would like to say this right now to end the year. Mr. Morrison, I apologize for wanting $28 from you for Final Crisis. Instead you keep it and just crank out more quality stories like this and all will be forgiven.
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Copyright © 2012 Mathew "thehammer" Bredfeldt
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