In any MMO, the player may come to dislike something about their character (toon, avatar, etc…) well my character Funky Sunshine suffered this and got little play from me. I loved his background. Who could not love a 20 something young man, trained in the martial arts, who rebelled against his evil teacher, and sacrificed himself and be thought dead. Why would anyone not love a fellow who was not dead as thought in 1977, but just transported through time and had a massive Afro and mustache? Well the answers are me and his power set. A level 30 character was a good deal of work in CoH when I made Funky and played him more, but I just did not like the martial arts power set for a Scrapper. I loved his look and made a hard decision, Funky had to go.

Thanks to Going Rogue, Funky got to come back as a heroic Brute. I also replaced his Martial Arts powers with Kinetic Melee. The new class with the new power set proved to be much more to my liking and I am happy to report I enjoy playing him again and the Funk lives on. For you MMO players out there, have any of you ever deleted a character that you put a lot of time into and why?

Game Time: Assassin’s Creed 2(Xbox 360)

What a joy I had starting up Assassin’s Creed 2(AC2)!  Ubisoft put out one heck of a sequel to the original Assassin’s Creed. The fact that they started out with a re-cap of the events of the first game was a delight and got me back into the world of Assassins and Templars and free-running, oh my. The little touches like the database added a little extra cream on top of the package that a geek like me really enjoys. Also to a geek like me, the leap of faith could not get old. Over a two week period I played AC 2 and did not find myself doing anything too bizarre other than the way I dealt with the vile and annoying lute players (more on how to handle them in a future installment).  Since this is not a review, but a musing, I will just say it should be clear I cannot recommend this more and love the way the storyline progressed throughout. I will, however give some insight into the Achievements on AC2, because I did let my OCD take over and 100% this game. Oh yeah.

To be fair, most of the Achievements  were earned for completing the storyline / game. So I won’t be going into those. In my opinion, this is how most game’s points should be doled out. Instead of the random madness that I have seen elsewhere. I am not talking Dead Rising 2 here, because I will fight you if you try and knock that. Most of that game is devised for Achievement whores like me….I digress.

• Tip of the Iceberg – If a player cannot get this they are not trying.
• A piece of the Puzzle – Again, no trying if this is not achieved and the start of a really cool storyline.
• Myth Maker – If finding some statues in your base of operations is too much and the extra money you get is a problem, then play something else.
• Art Connoisseur – Again if players have no interest in buying a couple of paintings, peace out.
• Handy Man – Now I feel like a broken record (or glitched mp3); if the players cannot renovate some buildings for Mario, psssh.
• Podesta of Montergeriggionin – Now the casual players can be separated from those that love the game. Build build build!
• Victory Lies in Preparation – The only hard thing about getting this was completing all of the Altair Quests.
• Vitruvian Man – I would lie if I did not admit to using some online guides to find all of the glyphs and puzzle solutions, but it was well worth it to expand the story. In my mind, one of the most important things to do in the game.
• In Memory of Petruccio – This took some time and is a dumb thing to do unless you must 100% and like capes.
• Show Your Colors – See above….
• I Like The View – Just playing should yield this one.
• Fly Swatter – This would have infuriated me if I had not read about it in the first place. Its not a hard thing to do, but players must realize in advance to kick someone while hang gliding.
• Sweeper – This dumb Achievement took me a while to gather the guards and a big weapon to hit them with.
• No-Hitter – Smoke Bombs and timing.
• Messer Sandman – Rub dirt in it, just try and attack unarmed.
• Doctor – A favorite, come on who does not like poison and killin’?
• Red Light Addict – Easy; spend the florins on the pros from Dover.
• Street Cleaner – I call this, stinky hay stack… and its simple.
• Perfect Harmony is a dumb Achievement, just buy everything and the player will stumble onto it.
• Kleptomaniac – Steal.
• Man of the People…lead to a future story for me to tell…..
• Assassin For Hire – Another that you you will not get if you just are playing storyline missions.
• Mailman – KILL EVERY COURIER!
• Steal Home – I hate race missions.
• Lightning Strike – Run. Dumb.
• Macho Man – Do a beat up mission you dunce, its fun.
• High Dive – COME ON! Jump off of the tall building; can you see why I got 100%?

TV Time: Young Justice

In case this is your first time reading, I like comics and especially tv animated shows based on comics. The animation on this show is great, especially for a weekly show. “Downtime” was no different. At first this episode made me think their Aqualad was The Little Mermaid. Since he was a Mer-person whom gave up everything to be on the surface. Instead of a re-cap here are some Pros and Cons, which might get you to watch or avoid Young Justice.

PROS

• They made up an Atlantean Language and subtitled it
• Service paid to long time fans, by including Garth, Mera and Tula
• Batman seemed to be very much the Bruce Wayne of Batman, Inc. in terms of his attitude towards Robin
• The Flash family
• “I summon the power of the Tempest!”

CONS

• Aqualad’s powers can seemingly do what ever the writers need them to do
• Miss Martian as a telekinetic
• Advertisements for The Clone Wars(just FYI, I cannot stand this commercial for Star Wars toys, and its Mary Sue fan fiction style; I am looking at you – Invented Padawan!)
• ….The Clone Wars….

Next time: More on my Italian adventures, WWE All-stars, Steel City Convention, THINGS!

This DC title by Paul Cornell and illustrated by Jimmy Broxton has not disappointed me at all. The entire run has been entertaining and lighthearted with some underlying darkness. This title is one I look forward to since it sort of sits on its own in the DCU. Issue #5 played out the chivalry of the titular characters as Knight and Squire’s actions could be considered unheroic from one way of looking at them, but from a more humanitarian viewpoint they are heroic to the core. The other main character in this issue is Jarvis Poker, “The British Joker”. This fellow is not necessarily evil like the Joker, but sort of mischievous. Towards the end of the issue, things get really spiced up and the book looks to be going down a very dark path, and I cannot wait until next month to see where this is going (Which is what I want from every title I read, but often this is not the case). Another endearing quality of this title is its consistently British point of view which Paul Cornell takes the time to define things the non-British readers may not “get”. A fantastic idea and a great comic!

Game Time: City of Heroes: Going Rogue (PC)

Back to City of Heroes (CoH) for my poor neglected toons. My choice to play was Deigh Laoch (pronounced Jayee Laoch). My history of CoH has been littered with deleted Tanks here and there. I usually end up deleting them because I am more of a solo/small team player and have more fun with every other character type. She is my latest attempt. Deigh is an Ice/Ice Tanker and tanks some patience to play. She is like most tanks, slow to defeat enemies, but not easy to kill.  Deigh is also a legacy character; her father is one of my friend’s characters. His character is unaware of her existence, in a very complicated storyline involving Praetoria, magic, and amnesia (typical comic fare…). I cannot encourage this type of thing in character creation enough, its all in the details with CoH, which in my opinion makes it special as an MMO. Have a ball just making your characters!

I played with Deigh because she was still running her initial arcs in Praetoria. I wanted to complete her missions there to get her to Primal Earth and into our supergroup, so she could begin earning Prestige for the group as well as have its functions for her disposal. She started out at 18th level that night in the Praetorian location of Neutropolis. I was all business so no real silliness ensued. I ran solo and after several missions and a few hours I achieved my goal and got Deigh to Primal Earth as a hero and level 20 at that. I could have cut the time down if I teamed up, but Tanking is a responsibility and I just don’t feel she can handle the job yet. The two enhancement slots I got and new power, Ice Patch, will help, but I am just not confident with her yet.

Game Interlude: City of Heroes

Call it OCD, call it organization, call it something, but I have a slight madness with CoH. I took the time long ago to invest the influence (money) and time to achieve the Field Crafter Badge. This is done by completing a lot of other Invention Badges. The benefits, as I saw them, were great. The character gained the ability to summon a table to invent enhancements on the spot and in the process the toon memorized the generic invention enhancements. Which then allowed the character to save some serious money when crafting those types of enhancements. This coupled with “the book” is why I may be mad. The book is a series of printouts that detail how to make every Invention Enhancement, with the amount of in game money and materials needed. I consult it frequently. Am I mad or do other people actually do this? By the way the pages are in slip-sleeves (of course!).

Next time: A 70′s Hero returns, Assassin’s Creed 2, more Young Justice.

My DVR was eagerly awaiting my attention to catch up on the latest episode of Young Justice. DC comics has started another television series based on their characters and this time they have taken a different approach than they did with the with Batman: TAS, Superman, Justice League, JLU and Batman Beyond. Young Justice like Teen Titans before it, take place outside the DC animated universe (DCAU). This worried me at first, but I have learned to wait to pass any sort of judgment on this show and just let them tell the story, as they have taken their time to develop the characters and those characters are on their way to possibly being the deepest depictions I have seen in a DC animated show.

The current line up has already added members since the first episode. Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Superboy have been joined by Miss Martian and Artemis. At this point, Artemis seems like a unique creation for the series, but as the show has progressed small details have been given about each character, so the audience may learn more as time goes on. Initially no one knew which Robin was being portrayed on screen, but eventually it was revealed to be a young Dick Grayson. Little things like that keep me interested and the fact that this show is taking place on its own “parallel Earth” / reality allows me to be more welcome to changes the show is making with the “known” facts about these characters. Since the creators of the show are heading out in their own direction, there is a great sense of “what will happen next.”

Game Time: City of Heroes (PC)

Since I had been devoting so much time to getting the Achievements in Dead Rising 2, I had been neglecting my City characters so I logged in rotate my characters. This process involved logging in with each of my 24 characters in order to see if anything sold on the market and collect that currency (influence, information or infamy depending on which City game the character is located in). Then I moved the characters to other Day Job locations (if necessary) because if you could not figure out from my Xbox Achievement behavior, I like collecting things in my games and City has plenty to collect in the form of badges.

Day Jobs are a part of the resting system so you earn this badges by logging off the game in various locations. For example the character can earn badges for logging off in a marketplace, subway station, store, or by a base portal. Some badges in conjunction with others earn temporary powers. Most of my characters had all of their badges, but I had some switch sides, which lead to there being some new badges they could earn. Once I had everyone rotated I logged off to continue my mad quest of the destruction of the Zombie menace.

Game Time: Dead Rising 2 (Xbox 360)

My music was serving me well and I had many zombies left to kill. My brains were slowly leaking out of my ears from the repetitive nature of the Achievements, but I at least had the repeated sweeps of playing Sam the Butcher (without bring Alice any meat) broken up by playing the storyline. On day 4 at 5:20 pm in game time, the familiar dink of an earned Achievement went off and woke my hazy brain a bit. Chuck and I celebrated our accomplishment of Z Genocider 2 by me putting in some eye drops. I was confident but knew that the Zombie Genocide master would take cracker jack timing. Needless to say, this confidence was misplaced. At games end, I had killed 69, 238 filthy flesh eaters. By my feeble calculations only 4 more trips would have completed the achievement…alas I had no way back machine to find more time, so that was that. Failure. I won’t be trying that again.

Next time: An Irish legacy super hero and a comic book break.

INVINCIBLE #72

For those that have been reading this book from the beginning, it’s pay off time.  We get to see the actual Viltrumite War begin, and Invincible fighting along side his Father (go back and read the first few arcs and you see how bizarre this now is).  The book is good fun and with a rematch with Conquest, it also promises to be bloody.

Sweet Tooth #10

Even though this book is another in the long line of Post-Apocalyptic tales, Sweet-Tooth is really a mystery against this backdrop, and with the Deer-boy close to becoming a victim of vivisection, we seem close to learning about where Sweet-Tooth came from.   Get on board with writer Jeff Lemire now, before everyone starts riding him as the new writer of Superboy (Conner Kent).

Scalped #38

Still the best book being published today, I am now becoming repetitive in my praise of Jason Aaron’s masterpiece. Do yourself (and all of us) a favor and give the book a shot.  If you like Breaking Bad or the Wire, this mature drama will definitely be to your taste.  If anything, you’ll look cooler when you walk out of your LCS with this on top of your stack than Deadpool #900.

Unknown Soldier #20

And then there were 4.  After this, only #20 more issues of Dysart’s groundbreaking title, so get it while you can.  Also, check out our interview with Joshua Dysart if you are unsure about picking up the title., as Josh explains what makes this book so unique.

American Vampire #3 (Scott Snyder, Stephen King, Rafael Alburquerque)

Combining two genres, Vampires and the Old West, was a stroke of genius and by splitting the story about Skinner Sweet into two timeframes, the narrative of the two stories is woven into a larger tale.  Both Snyder and King are in top form and Rafael is putting his ankle in it when it comes to art duty.  Definitely a book to read the same week Red Dead Redemption comes out.

The Walking Dead #72 (Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard)

In keeping with this horror theme, we have the preeminent zombie book here again.  This arc focuses on putting this extremelywounded (both physically and mentally) group in a ‘normal’ setting and the build up to the pay off should be worth it.

Batman #699

Too bad comics aren’t worth more when they have errors like baseball cards, because the artist on the cover is not the artist that drew the book.  Sandu Florea’s name is on the cover but it’s Guillem March on the inside, which is a good thing from my perspective.  March draws some really original ‘bat-poses’ but overall the issue feels like a rushed second half to a two-part story that only serves to eleveate Firebug and possible redirect for the Riddler.  If you have been holding off like I have on Batman (I started again at #697 in anticipation of #700, but there really is no lead-in) then holding off here won’t hurt.

Siege #4

Wow, what the hell.  I think Marvel learned it’s lesson that having a super powerful Superman-like character doesn’t work well in the Marvel U, and not to state the obvious by now, but there is one less Sentry to worry about now.  It most of these event comics, especially the Bendis’ one, there seems to be a strong build up with a limp, quick finish.  It’s like they just flipped a switch an now everything is OK.  I understand that they are setting the stage to mine this material for years until they move to the next phase, but this whole event seemed unnecessary and poorly thought out.

Black Widow #2

I picked up the first two issues on a whim and have to say they have been pretty enjoyable.  Props to Marjorie Liu for crafting a sharp opening act that showcases the alter egos of some of the Marvel U’s biggest names and weaving a mystery that draws you in.  The art by Daniel Acuna fits the story and with the thick lines it pops off the page.  I suggest picking this up and giving at least the first arc a try.

Don’t forget about your favorite national holiday tomorrow. No, it isn’t Flag Day (why do you like that so much?). Saturday May 1^st is Free Comic Book Day, a special time where comic book fans and fans of free stuff can come together to celebrate their shared interest, if only for one magical moment.

Each participating company publishes their own book(s) specifically for Free Comic Book Day, and while many are important new stories or samplers (such as last year’s Blackest Night #0), a few this year are reprints of popular books that are literally bribing you for your interest. For a full list of the comics and a handy participating store locator, check out <a href=”http://www.freecomicbookday.com”>www.freecomicbookday.com</a>. (Yes, there’s a Lady Gaga comic. No, the comic industry does not have any shame.) The event is great advertising for shops, so many will have sales and creators present to share in this most holy day.

Of course, Free Comic Book Day is just that; Free Comic Book DAY. So while you may be inclined to stroll into your local shop on May 12^th and expect a hand-out, don’t be surprised if the Jedi Knight behind the counter pushes up his glasses and snorts in amusement at your misguided antics. Despite the delicious misnomer “Free”, FCBD books actually cost retailers as much as $0.40 each (plus shipping), which is why they don’t order infinite copies, and thus usually impose strict limits on how much you can pilfer. In fact, you may just want to bag and board these little treasures. Who knows? Maybe next year your Sonic The Hedgehog FCBD book will be going for a sweet $0.75 on the back issue market. In this economy, that’s too much to ignore.

Thor #609

I picked up the Iron Man By Design variant which says “Iron Man does not appear in this Issue” on the back.  Neither does Thor.  Much like Gillen’s ‘Loki’ one-shot, he shows a deft touch and dealing with the god of mischief and finally resolving story arcs set up by JMS.  Recent previews have shown the Fractions debut on Thor has been pushed by a an issue or two, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Walking Dead #71

Again, I have to heap more praise on this book.  Kirkman delivers a pretty wicked twist and not one zombie appears in the issue.  Evil really is in the eye of the beholder and we finally enter a phase were we get a new perspective on the crew we’ve been following and  just what sort of toll these people have paid.  For the first time you realize just how deeply affected Rick and his son really are, and it’s a brutal scene.  TWD is easily my second favorite title after Scalped, do yourself a favor and don’t miss this issue.

Iron Man #25

As much as I love what Matt Fraction did with this volume of Invincible Iron Man, it seems a bit odd that what took several issues to undo is practically redone in a few pages.  Worse, the best part, the new armor (Mark MMXVIII?) is all a ‘secret’, Tony just has an epiphany and rolls to Reed Richard’s lab and now has Super Extremis Armor, but we are invited to keep reading to see all the new capabilities of the armor.  As a huge Iron Man fan, new armor is something you look forward to, and I feel shortchanged on what we are given in this oversized issue.  Stark’s new company direction (I like the fact that Stark turns down an Asgardian bail-out) harkens back to the Circuit Maximus days and the whole issue feels like an homage to the late 80′s Invincible.  Hopefully, Fraction is only using some of these rehashed beats to set the table before he sets off in a new and fresh direction.

Ultimate Comics Avengers #6

Say what you will about Mark Millar, but this was one of the better books out of the Ultimatum fiasco.  I came this far, so I have to see how this all wraps up with Father Cap vs. Son Red Skull.  This incarnation of Red Skull is pretty brutal, and Millar seems to be juxtaposing how far a moral man like Cap will go against a nihilistic and amoral man like Skull.  If Cap kills Red Skull, you have a pretty good idea of how a Millar Batman/Joker finale would end up.

X-Factor #204

Peter David has long been one of the better writers around, and his X-Factor has been consistently one of the better X titles.  While the other books recycle the race war story line (which is stupid, since humans would be worried about any metahuman, regardless if they were born with the power or had a freak accident), David was doing his own thing and it was very entertaining.  Well, they have sucked him into the latest X-event, but it’s worth taking a look at to see how David puts his own unique signature on it.