Writer: Judd Winick
Pencils: Doug Mahnke
Inks: Tom Nguyen

Lately, it seams like more and more Bat writers are trying their best to lead Batman down the path to becoming Frank Millers Dark Knight. They turn him into a loner, without any sense of humour, someone that pushes all the people close to him away, and solves crime by beating people up more than he actually does investigative leg-work. I was thrilled with the “Murderer/Fugitive” arc because, whatever its other failings may have been, the storyline made an effort to move Batman away from being a loner and reconnected him with the people around him. He came to realise that he needs them and that Bruce Wayne isn’t just a mask for Batman, they’re 2 parts of a whole. But soon after that arc ended all of these developments seam to have been forgotten and we started to see the thugish loner again. Then “War Games” happened and he got given a reason to push Oracle away and I thought “Oh crap, here we go again. All the good work done in Murderer/Fugitive is going to waste”.

But then a ray of light appeared out of the dark. Winick’s “Under the Hood” storyline. There Batman stands (on top of a building looking out over the city, as usual) in the beginning of issue #636, thinking about how he’s lost Oracle and how he can’t rely on anyone anymore, when all of a sudden Nightwing appears behind him with a lame conversation line about the weather. The rest of that issue and #637 have the 2 of them fighting side-by-side almost like old times, Batman playing the scary, silent one and Nightwing all smiles and jokes. You have Nightwing thinking about why they fight crime that way and Batman getting all nostalgic about their partnership. Hell, you even have Batman cracking a joke… And here I thought Joe Kelly was one of the only writers these days that seams to remember the fact that Batman does have a sense of humour. It may be dark, it may be dry (as in dessicated dry), it may be rusty and very rarely used, but he still has one, and its nice to see a writer remember that. The plot? so far it seams to be going ok. The characterisation is great, the action is good and it doesn’t seam to be all about beating people up to get answers. I have to say this is quite possibly turning into one of the best Batman arcs I’ve read recently.

Writer: David lapham
Pencils: Ramon Bachs
Inks: Nathan Massengill

Well, this “City of Crime” arc seams to be focusing on the detective side of the Bat, which is exactly what some ‘tec writers tend to forget every now and then, so I’m glad DavidLapham hasn’t forgotten that. His writing also seams to have a somewhat dramatic edge, which is something a little different and I can’t say it doesn’t work for this plot. But my one real complaint with the arc so far is the portrayal of Robin. I’m not too sure which Robin exactly Lapham is writing about, but it doesn’t seam to be Tim Drake, least not the Tim that I know. The scene in the Batcave in #802, where he was carrying on about the “hot babysitter” and acting completely blase about the people that died in the fire made him seam a lot more ditsy and heartless than I’m used to seeing him. Then there was the bit where he couldn’t remember Haddie’s name or anything about her, telling Batman to “ask Alfred”. Let me get this straight, he took the time out to notice how hot a passed out babysitter was in a building that was burning down around their ears, but he couldn’t remember anything about an even “hotter” girl that came to the mansion a few days ago? This from the kid that both Batman and Nightwing say could make a better crime fighter than them someday? This from the kid who through his self-trained detective skills managed to figure out who Batman really was? GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Who kidnapped Tim and replaced him with an airhead? Is that the real story here? Is this whole thing about the underground baby trade just a decoy for the real story about who’s impersonating Robin and where the real Robin is?

I’ve waited all this time for the Peacekeeper Wars to FINALLY get to the land of Oz and what happens? A storm that the weather bureau has been unsucessfully predicting for the last 2 to 3 weeks decides to show up in the middle of it… WHEN THERE WASN’T ANY BAD WEATHER FORECAST FOR TODAY!.. Aaaand since I get Foxtel’s satellite broadcast, this lovely weather (that I would have welcomed with open arms at any other time, since we desperately need the water) interrupted my reception leaving big blank gaps in my knowledge of the events that transpired during the course of the show. .. Well, not quite big “blank” gaps, there were also quite a few instances of very interesting Picasso-like freeze-frames where everyone was wearing parts of other people and all the colours were beautifully displayed in an oil-painting format.

Anyway, from what I did get to see, it looks like everything was tied up into a nice, neat little “happily ever after” ending. Kind of dissapointing to see something so Hollywood from a show thats been so different from the usual Hollywood drivel, but at least we got an ending, rather than having to live with the way the show was left hanging when it was cancelled. So I shall just be happy about that, and go bug my local video store guys until they get the DVD in so that I can watch the miniseries in its entirety.

In X3 news, Empire Online has an interview with Avi Arad, where he confirms that one of the new mutant appearances in thsi movie will be Angel (please god, please help them make him look good). He also states that the Dark Phoenix will only be a small part of the movie… What? Her story isn’t complicated enough to devote a full movie to it? Thats Marvel for you, “simple” is not a word that can be found in the Marvel vocabulary… He also says ” it is probably philosophically the most interesting and provocative for all of us” and follows that up with “this has to be an action drama’ and it was music to my ears, because that’s what X-Men is. That opens the door for a concept for this movie that will be disturbing and fascinating and controversial. It will be an interesting debate – should we or shouldn’t we?â€?… A “philipophically interesting action drama” that will be “disturbing and fascinating and controversial”? This movie is beginning to sound more and more complicated the further I read. SIMPLIFY PEOPLE!!! You’ll get a much better and less confusing story that way. Of course, since the script hasn’t even been completed yet, this could just be Arad pulling words out of his ass to make the movie sound as exciting and attractive as he can (that is his job after all). I certainly hope thats the case, as I thought X2 blew its precursor out of the water and I would hate to see X3 destroy this upwardly mobile trend that X2 established. Other new appearances that are roumoured for this movie are Mama McCoy’s bouncing blue Beast and Gambit. Neither appearance would surprise me as one got a cameo and the other got a name mention in X2. As with Angel, I sure hope they manage to get Beast right. I would hate to see him played by someone in a blue ape-suit.

Heres one of the kickassest (I think I just made up a word) movie posters that I have seen in a while (probably since the Reign of Fire posters… Funny that. Must be something about Bale ) for what I’m hoping will be one of the kickassest (I’m liking this word that I might have made up) movies of the year, Batman Begins. Also, the latest Fantastic Four movie poster, this one with powers on display. Johnny Storm looks so cool and I will watch this movie but my hopes for it aren’t anywhere near what I expect from Batman. (To view larger versions, right click on the image you want and select “view image”)

In more superhero movie news (thanks to Superhero Hype), Whedon has been heard saying that he wants to make a “younger than the traditional idea” Wonder Woman and she will probably be played by someone in their early 20s from outside the Buffyverse. Sounds like he’s sticking true to form and may end up casting a realtive unknown. Must be a bit of a blow for all the Charisma Carpenter, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sandra Bullock and Lucy Lawless fans out there tho. These four actressess have long been the fan favourites to play The Amazonian princess.

Another RPG-first for me. Had my first Mage session yesterday. Between me creating my character and the other gamers’ 5 second attention span, we didn’t get much actual game-play in, but it was an easy session for me to start off with so I’m not complaining. My character is the youngest daughter of a minor aristocratic family in ancient Rome. Her name is Minerva and she’s an entropy mage, with a couple of points in the correspondence sphere. She’s dedicated herself to life as a priestess of Pluto (hehe what better god for an entropy mage then the god of death?) and has specialised her studies in the areas of cosmology and the occult. Her studies have indicated that there are some extremely unusual goings on in the world of magic right now and so shes set out to investigate. Her journey north has brought her into the company of a band of mages (for protection from mercenaries and such) and thats how she came to join her party. Should be an interesting party. An entropy mage, a life mage that doesn’t appear to like death and destruction at all, and a vampire (who appears to have been somewhat open about his nature and is now hated by all the others for it) are 3 of the 5 party members.

Anyway, bringing it back to the title of this post and the poem, my luck with dice continues to be unimpressive. The first somewhat important roll she’s had to make, to detect the presence of a mage using correspondence magic, she came up with a big fat zero.

That would certainly explain this image (from the set of the latest Superman movie) of the pod that brings baby Supes to Earth. What is that thing? At first I thought it looked like one of the Shadow Fighters from Babylon 5 (thus the reason for the title… Duh!). But upon closer inspection, it looks more like a nightmarish, mutated version of the Empire State Building. I know, I know, I’m knitpicking. But you have to admit, that thing is nothing special… “What if the Empire State Building was shaped like a big black shuriken?”

This image was obtained from Superhero Hype. It is one off a set of three.

Any other opinions about what this thing looks like?

Ok, you 3 or 4 people that read my blog and haven’t already joined nation states are hereby ordered to do so. Go to the site, set up your own nation and then move it to the Psychotika region. Its an easy but interesting game that won’t take more than 10 minutes or so of your time, and even setting up your nation probably won’t take more than 20 mins. My 2 nations for you to view are below

The Holy Empire of Bourbonland

The Rogue Nation of Ravnsrealm

Whatever you do, please don’t join Bourbonland in the Krallndrunk region. The region belongs to someone else who wants to keep it strictly for people he knows. I set up Psychotika for everyone I know, so join me there. K@os, Priss, the rest of the freakshow crew, Iceman Group #2ers, I’m looking at all of you.

Oh, and once you’ve created your nation and moved it to Psychotika, post a message to your neighbours to let us know who’s who.

I had my first real D&D (3rd ed) session yesterday. I say first “real” session because I have played it once before but it was with only 1 other player, and the DM, and I was a complete newbie to the world of role-playing, so I tend to consider it more of a training run than an actual full-blown game… Not that I’d consider myself an old pro now, especially not amongst the bunch of guys I’m playing with (*lol* although the “old” part at least would be somewhat accurate), but at least I have a vague clue about what I’m doing. That having been said, this is my first time playing a paladin and the innitial verdict is… WHY THE HELL DIDN’T I PLAY A CLERIC??!! My clerics may be dumb but at least what they can do they do well. Little miss shiny-sword-of-vengeance however appears to be so distracted by her pretty flaming sword that she can’t seam to hit the side of a barn (read that as bugbear…bugbear, barn, whats the diff? They’re about the same size aren’t they? ) with it. Ah well, its her first combat. Maybe my dice will like me/her more next time. I’ll just have to try and play her better.