Kasoh

I actually like Bendis's Avengers, so I can't help you there.

Doesn't surprise me. A lot of Marvel's books are 3.99 these days, so people are dropping the lesser ones faster, which extrapolates into a thinner publishing list.

Of course, these kind of decisions are usually made a month or two in advance, so how odd is it that they decided to can the book with only 2 or three issues out?

The entire top floor of the building was the owner’s penthouse. Quite possibly more room than she needed, but it never ceased to amuse her to tell others that she owned the top floor. Well...she owned the building, but telling a person that wasn’t funny, it was pretentious. Sitting in her bed, reading a large book of limericks Celes O’Bannon, colorfully known to most as Doomtastic heard something coming from the balcony.

Taking the time to mark her page with a 2 dollar bill, Doomtastic rose, plucking a silk robe from the divan where she had casually tossed it in her excitement to memorize some bawdy Irish rhymes. While she wasn’t one of those stealth nuts, the blonde bombshell considered her approach quite silent, if she hadn’t stopped to giggle at her print of ‘Dogs playing poker.’

Peering into her office, she noticed that her balcony doors were still half open, just like she left them. The magnificient view of the Golden Giza was marred by two dark ropes dropped from the rooftop and the silhouettes of men checking for the kind of high-tech security systems they might expect from the owner of such an extravagant penthouse.

Fists clenched tight, Doom unconsciously held them by her chin and rocked them as she watched the first man give the ‘OK’ symbol to his partner. He pushed the door open, only to have the large bucket of bottled water and containers of hand soap fall onto his head.

Spinning around in a brief happy jig, Doom struggled to keep from laughing at the hilarity of it. Biting her fist, her guffaws were muted into muffled snickers, which weren’t overheard over the intruder’s curses.

“That ain’t right man…” the first man muttered.

“You need to be more careful,” his partner scolded, “That could have been a grenade bouquet, jerkoff.”

The idea came to her in a flash of brilliance. Quickly, Doomtastic shrugged out of her robe, and checked which negligee she was wearing. A little long, but transparent enough. Poking her generous bust, and seemingly satisfied with the result, Doomtastic pulled her reading glasses further down her nose and pushed open the door, letting out the kind of startled gasp she heard her occasional victim utter.

This was going to be SO FUN!

Her voice pitched to a high falsetto that would be dubious to anyone, Doomtastic pointed, while keeping her other hand clutched tight against her chest, “Oh no! What are you doing in my office?”

The first man cussed again, and pulled out a large pistol, pointing it at Doomtastic, “Don’t move!”

In her amateurish opinion, her shrill scream was the stuff Oscars were made of, but Doom had to cower to keep them from seeing her large grin.

The second intruder had crossed the room and grabbed Doom by her upper arm and hauled her up straight, “You. Keep quiet.” He turned and pointed to the gun toting thief, “You. Put that away.”

“Wh-w-w-what are you doing here?” Doom stammered, imagining the thunderous applause of an audience in standing ovation.

“Just here to do some business. No one has to get hurt if you just keep quiet.”

“…You’re not going to hurt me?”

“Not unless we have to. So why don’t you be a good girl and open the safe for us.”

“Safe?” Doom’s face faulted.

“We saw the plans, we know its here in the office. Just open it up and no one gets hurt.”

“You’re not here for my art? The jewels?”

“No. Just the safe.” His voice was placating, somehow missing how all the despair had flown out of Doom’s voice. He tried to pull Doomtastic towards the floor safe, but was stopped by her unyielding nature. She grabbed his wrist, and the first thought that they were now in over their heads was entering the thief’s mind.

“You’re not here for my original Star Wars VHS tapes? My sequined Elvis jumpsuit?”

“No, lady, we’re just here for the documents in the safe!”

Words could barely attempt to convey the rage welling up inside Doomtastic, “How. Utterly. Plebian.”

With a light toss, she threw the thief into her desk, and felt the sharp impact of bullets slamming into her battleship tough skin. She slowly stepped towards the younger and impulsive thief, glowering.

“You have no taste.” She grabbed him by the collar and threw him out the window.

The older thief had recovered by then, but there was nowhere for him to go. Doom picked him up too. “When you get some taste, you can come back and try again.”

With a twinkle in her blue eyes, Doom dropped the older thief on her balcony and closed the doors, locking them down with a force field. Opening her safe, Doomtastic pulled out a singular piece of paper with two columns. One labeled ‘Taste’ had three checkmarks, the other was labeled ‘Philistines’ and had considerably more. Putting two more checks under Philistine, Doomtastic went back to bed.

I kind of liked the Turian government from Mass Effect

Where there are people dissatisfied with the establishment, there is a music for them.

Recluse doesn't seem to regulate many things. Arbiters keep tight control of civilians entering Grandville, we know that he goes out of his way to keep the masses uneducated and hopeless, so Etoile isn't a place to find lots of high art, but with its reputation as a haven for pirates and ne'er do wells culture will seep in with them, especially something as portable as music.

Suppressing music looks bad however, and Recluse likes to play nice with the UN from time to time, so I doubt he does overt things like outlaw certain kinds of music. Perhaps he regulates live performances, keeping all music gatherings small, but to banish any kind of music would be something an anti Recluse group would flock too.

As to the culture of the Isles, I imagine the stereotype for a Isle's Citizen is that you can't trust them, but they are tough and survivors. Probably because the only people to get out of the Isles are tough and too independent to be crushed under Recluse's heel. They're streetwise and the kind who keep track of who enters and leaves a room. They don't trust anyone until they've shed blood together, (metaphorically perhaps) or they might never.

No matter what kind of art it is; poetry, art, or plays there will be subtexts of violence, despair, and to endure. These are not a hopeful people, but they are determined.

A giant alien squid passing by the earth took the free will of every being on the planet except Deadpool because of the alien armor he was wearing, the entity was speaking through Captain America. The decision point was everyone could be mindless and happy, or free will and potentially miserable. Deadpool chose free will for the planet.

The end of "The Departed" had a lot of cheap defeats in my opinion.

The entire film was a deconstruction of Scott Pilgrim. He was a loser with no prospects and he treated women terribly. The video game motif explained why Scott was fighting for Ramona, because he *thought it was expected of him*. He was treating Ramona like the Princess in the damn castle. An object, a quest related item. Not until the end of the film where he gets a little self respect for himself and he realizes just how much a jerk he's been does he apologize and tries to do it right.

Its not a Romantic comedy, its a coming of age story in which the principal images of immaturity are that of video games. No wonder geeks aren't going to see it.

In the Empire comic, there was a character named Lt. Sunber who was a decent officer who wanted to do good. At least in his early appearances, when Empire became Rebellion things got awkward.

The first few arcs were amazing, pretty much the Vaughn stuff. By the end it was a mess and I was glad it got taken out back and put out of its misery. At least I hope its been taken out back and put out of its misery...

Since the first movie would be an origin story anyway, it shouldn't be horrible, depending on casting.

The original comic book script was written by Jeph Loeb, who also wrote the Public Enemies comic.

Take that as you will.

Something to consider is that in the DCU, there are already cybernetic, genetic, and other enhancements available to Bruce Wayne and he chooses not to use them.

A major conceit of Batman's character is that he is the pinnacle of human training: a product of hard work, nigh unlimited resources, and an obsession. The pentiultimate human as it were. If that is missing, its not Bruce Wayne's Batman--it might not even be a Batman.

If in the next hundred years the definition of what is baseline human changes so much, then it is possible to see Batman availing himself of such tech, but given the concept of the character as he exists today, it would be impossible.

If Barbara Gordan is still in a wheelchair, then Bruce Wayne isn't going to be augmenting his body with artificial muscle fiber.

I really don't care what its called. My own apparantly improper terminology aside, a publishing strategy where Batman ages is doomed to be hit with a reset button.

The only thing DC would accomplish by going to a progressive timeline as opposed to a sliding one would be provoking another Crisis in ten to fifteen years when the hooligans writing Batman want their characters to be young and tell stories like when they were growing up.

Same reason we're going through a Silver Age revival at DC now.

Bruce Wayne will be still be a thirty something man in an ineffectual crusade against evil. His gadgets will change with the times, but the essential character remains the same.

Because when the power goes out, and you need to know when 'discombobulate' was first used in print, by god you'll be glad have it.

...yeah...

I love my reference books. I love having them on hand, with easy flippable pages, but I can completely understand why they'd likely never print it again.

I'm going to miss devoting entire rooms of a house to a library.

No city deserves to be terrorized, and Posion Ivy doing something nice does not forgive her previous felonies.

That someone attempted to murder her without due process is another matter entirely.

Really dissapointed that its Dick Grayson again, but otherwise it looks like fun.

Any system that has options allows for Min/Max because mathmatically, one option is always superior to the other. If it isn't, then it isn't really a choice. If you've ever bought a larger box of cereral because its cheaper by the ounce, congratulations you've just min/maxed your shopping list.

Any non casting class gets screwed in power comparison to a superhero--especially without a fighter's signature magic sword. All he'd be is a really good fighter, probably only with a singular specific weapon. Without the skill points to be good at anything but 2 things, probably only one since INT is a dump stat for Fighters.

Rogues might fare better, but without that full BAB, they're kind of SoL.

Compare to a Wizard, who by the mid teens is rewriting reality to fit his needs. Clerics, Druids, and Wizards dominate but anything with 20 caster levels destroys the challenges put before them. I've seen a wizard defeat the Tarrasque in one round with one spell. (Though more a fault of the Tarrasque monster design, but regardless)

If Superman (Or Captain Marvel, to ignore the magic weakness) and a 20th level wizard got into a fight, Superman better win Initiative, but it wouldn't matter, since the wizard would have time stop on Contingency...

This is from some message board, not my own individual research.

Green Lantern and Nova are Technology Heroes, as they recieve their powers from unqiue devices, Silver Surfer might be Science as he was imbued with the Power Cosmic changing him from what he regularily was.

Erfworld is both fascinating tactical rules lawyerness and entertainment. http://www.erfworld.com/

Three Panel Soul is good too. http://threepanelsoul.com/index.php

DM of the Rings: in the same vien as Darth and Droids, a gaming group going through LoTR as a campaign.

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612

Assault and Battery (thousands of charges)

Any number of anti-Terror charges.

Though he doesn't do it often, he has hit police officers in the past, so assaulting an officer

Likely several different charges depending on the contents of the Utility Belt at time of apprehension, say explosives, most lockguns are restricted to LE officials, and etc.

Endangerment of a minor, doesn't have to be wreckless, he just has to do it.

The Batmobile probably isn't street legal.

Almost everything Batman does in pursuit of his mission is illegal.