Ironik

I hear this a lot: "There wasn't a character I couldn't identify with, so I hated it."

That baffles me, yet it's so common that I have to assume this is the default feeling for most people. However, being an INTJ, I'm used to not really comprehending people's behavior in some instances.

For me, I require that a story be logical and internally consistent given the ground rules. That's the bare minimum. For me to really like it, I need clever dialogue and an engaging plot, as well as cool ideas. This applies to movies and books. Games are a different animal entirely since casual games are just hand-eye coordination affairs while others are intellectual exercises. RPGs like CoH need a well-told story, but also fun game dynamics.

Some of my all-time favorite movies feature characters that I neither identify with nor feel like cheering on, but they completely satisfy every other criterion I have. I think Citizen Kane, Casablanca, A Few Good Men and Sunset Boulevard are amazing films and have watched them innumerable times, but there aren't any characters I'm identifying with or cheering on in those movies. That's not to say I never do it. I definitely rooted for Val and Earl in Tremors and I absolutely identified with Brad Pitt's character in The Mexican.

Thanks to Sho for alerting me to this book's existence.



Masked, edited by Lou Anders

A short story collection of 14 brand-new superhero tales written just for this book. Overall this is a terrific collection. There are a couple stories which aren’t as good as the rest, but they don’t detract too much from the general quality. A few of the stories have adult language and themes, so it’s not for little kids, but certainly fine for teenagers and up.

Everyone knows that Superman is a dick. There’s even a whole website devoted to just that. So it is en vogue to make fun of big-time overpowered superheroes and I expected a lot of that. There is some of that, but most of these stories are so good that I didn’t mind at all.

The specific stories:

Cleansed and Set in Gold – Matthew Sturges

A B-string superhero in a superteam like the Justice League or Avengers who has to face a monstrous supervillain alone after all the top-flight heroes (the equivalent of Superman and Captain America) have been killed or grievously wounded. He has an unusual power which causes him to have serious doubts about his worth as a hero, but once the premise is revealed, Sturges takes it to the logical and satisfying conclusion. Superb writing, excellently timed reveals, interesting internal conflict and a great battle.

Where Their Worm Dieth Not – James Maxey

Maxey pushes the comic book conceit of superheroes and supervillains coming back from the dead to the breaking point, willing to go all the way in the exploration of the idea. With superb results.

Secret Identity – Paul Cornell

From a writer of the Doctor Who series, this seemingly frivolous tale inverts the idea of a secret identity. It’s somewhat humorous but has a serious point to make about the differences between a superhero’s private life and his public persona… which isn’t all that different from how we behave, is it? That the story is also clever is a bonus.

The Non-Event – Mike Carey

This is a character piece, told as a police confession, about a robbery gone wrong. Sometimes the easy way isn’t as easy as one hopes, and when it comes down to it, you have to face the responsibility for cleaning up your mess. Brutally excellent.

Avatar – Mike Baron

This is essentially the good version of Millar’s “Kick-***.” A young guy realizing the difference between fantasy and reality, even though he had his head on straight from day one. That’s why he didn’t see it coming.

Message from the Bubblegum Factory – Daryl Gregory

This story seems a little too self-aware at first but as it goes along you realize why that’s so. Imagine if Robin were the ward of Superman but then turned on him and became an insane criminal mastermind. That’s pretty much the plot of this story. But the sidekick has a POINT. And the story I so much better than that simplistic plot decription.

Thug – Gail Simone

This is a heartbreaking tale of a simple man who is taken advantage of. It’s as if Charly from “Flowers For Algernon” could pick up a Sherman tank.

Vacuum Lad – Stephen Baxter

More way-out sci-fi than a superhero tale, it sort of bridges the two genres. It’s mostly a story about superpowers as an evolutionary step, but said abilities are based on science rather than flights of fancy.

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows – Chris Roberson

This is the only real pulp-style story in the lot. It comes across as pretentious, stilted and clunky. It’s serviceable enough, I suppose.

Head Cases – Peter David and Kathleen David

This one is fine, but rather slight. It’s one of the weaker entries, but even Peter David on autopilot and with a co-writer is still pretty good.

Downfall – Joseph Mallozzi

A satisfying and complete story about the interconnections between heroes and villains. This reads like the best of stories from something like Busiek’s Astro City series.

By My Works You Shall Know Me – Mark Chadbourn

This is a really twisty – and twisted – tale of a hero and his arch-nemesis. It’s the kind you can’t really talk about without giving it away, but even correctly guessing at what the reveal will be doesn’t spoil it. Darkity dark dark.

Call Her Savage – Marjorie M. Liu

This story was okay, but it’s one of the weaker entries for me. It’s a bit vague on the superhero connection and why the titular character is considered such, and clearly takes place in an alternate universe where our natural laws don’t apply. It’s not a bad tale, but it just kind of sits there.

Tonight We Fly – Ian McDonald

Since I grow more curmudgeonly as I get older, I can relate to two older superbeings grousing about how crappy the world is these days. No action to speak of, but these are my peeps representin’. Now get off my superbase’s lawn, you damn kids!

A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too) – Bill Willingham

This is Willingham showing off… and I loved it. Not just because I’m the Alt Alphabet guy, but because it does a number of things at once: makes fun of DC/Marvel cross-over events, sends up the “comic book universe” type of publication, is witty, and manages to tell a complete story in vignettes, some small and some downright microscopic. This was an awesome finish to the book.

This was on Virtue? I've played with that guy. He's a 'tard and kicked me off his team because I wasn't doing everything the martinet dictated. I wasn't sad to go because he clearly had no idea how to play so I was getting fed up and started saying things like, "Less yapping, more Scrapping!"

Very impressive. How steep is the learning curve with Blender?

Very nice.

Nice write up. Tell Durakken for his Wiki Lore project.

Minor spelling nitpicks: "prodigal" should be "prodigious" and "counsel" should be "council."

I wondered why no one was there. I hope whatever it is that caused the re-sked is a good thing.

Unfortunately tonight was the last TF I can go on for a while. I gots to do a thing in a different place for a while. I'm ready to do your close-up, Ms. Desmond....

Grr, can't seem to get the boots just right, and I can't find a better picture of Manticore.

Edit: Ohh... it's Blend. Duh.

Okay, ready!

...why was this thread locked?

I'd send a PM but for some reason the board doesn't like that feature right now.

Other than the fact it was a necro post (which is better than yet another thread on the exact same topic), I don't get why it should be singled out to be locked. There's some interesting information in there, as well as helpful advice. The question comes up a lot, so the "burying this thread" comment comes across as flippant for no real reason. If anything, I'd think it would be stickied rather than locked.

I has the envy.

Necropost resurrects the thread from the dead!

Anyway... Vista (and apparently Win7) have utterly broken screen capture buttons. Either you get a black screen or a screen shot for several minutes prior to when you hit the Print Screen button. (Which is so weird I don't even know why that happens.)

So I do use Snipping Tool for the tailor and character creation screens. There's a slight delay between clicking on the tool and when it freezes the action so you can drag the rectangle around, so you have to develop the knack of anticipating an action when you click on the tool. A little practice results in getting your desired pic 90% of the time. Since in the Powers part of character creation the animation cycles endlessly, you can just wait for it to come around again.

So here are the steps I use to get screenshots in the Character Creator / Tailor window (this sounds complicated, but it really only takes a couple seconds once you do it a couple times):

1. Press Window button (between Ctrl and Alt) to open Start Menu
2. Find Snipping Tool, use it once to pin it to the Start Menu
3. Start CoH, design character
4. Re-color powers
5. Choose animation
6. Press the Window button to open the Start menu
7. Watch animation carefully for the "tell" right before the pose you want - about a second
8. Click Snipping Tool - this will freeze the on-screen action
9. Drag box around the character
10. Save As to a folder of your choice

PITA? Sure. But soon you'll be taking shots like these: