Niklarus

A little more advanced notice would've been nice. Some of us have to give our supervisors two week's advanced warning or we're not allowed to take a vacation day.

You think it's bad here? Go to any news site that has a political section and read the comments after any posted story. Go ahead, I dare you. I double dare you. Hell, I triple-dog dare you! PolitiRage makes NerdRage look like a smiling Snoopy.

One of my favorites is "Upon the Psychic Plane." The first time I ran through it, the tragic ending of NOT being able to redeem Vanessa DeVore even after you'd dispelled the spirit of Giovanna Scaldi within the main Carnival mask just got me right in the gut.

My personal favorites:

So Firestorm is still Ronnie & Jason, right? Or is the reboot bringing the Professor back and having him & Ronnie be ol' flamehair again?

Anything produced, directed, etc. by the late Andy Sidaris.

With regard to After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn, here's my personal mini-review of it:

This is an excellent, just-released tale of the daughter of the world's most prominent superheroes, Celia West, who has been trying to get out of her parents' shadow since her teenage years (at one point, even joining their nemesis for a couple months). Now, years later, she's a forensic accountant (like the real people who brought down Capone) charged with tracking down the finances of that very same villain while dodging kidnapping attempts and uncovering a mysterious plot to put the city's heroes into disrepute. It's a fun, respectful romp written by someone who quite clearly has a love for Golden and Silver Age comics. Ms. Vaughn's characters and story put me in mind of the comics I read in my teenage years before The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen ushered in the Dark Age of Comics. I very much hope that, at some point in the future, she will return to this universe and tell us more stories about the heroes (powered and otherwise) who inhabit it.

So, am I the only one who's read this yet? Got it on my Nook earlier this week and blew through it in a nonstop reading session that night. A really fun, enjoyable piece of work that reminded me of my favorite comics from back before everything went all grimdark. Hoping that Ms. Vaughn will pick up further stories in this universe at some point.

Personally, I'd do a Flash/Green Lantern triology. Jay/Alan in the first one, followed by Barry/Hal and then Wally/Kyle for the wrap-up.

Loved it!

The Fusionette/Jimmy stuff was priceless.

Been a DS fan since the days when it was running on my local PBS station back in the 80s. Burton's involvement in this latest version has always had me...worried about it. He seems to be a one-note director, doing the same thing over and over again. Hopefully he won't bufu my childhood memories too much.

Pfieffer's an excellent actress to be sure, but is she really old enough to play Elizabeth convincingly? Guess it's wait and see time.

Well, that was certainly interesting. Definitely getting the "no one is safe" vibe going big time.

With only 5 minutes left, I gotta say I really enjoyed this. Hope it gets at least 1 full season.

Vince really needs to work on his armor.

Here's my favorite of all of mine.

Yeah, poor States. He's kinda become the Fusionette of the Freedom Phalanx.

Huh. Hope they find someone tech-related to fob his dialogue off on. Kinda sucks that tech-origin heroes no longer have someone to have an extended talk with.

Don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but I haven't been sent to talk to Positron about the Tech Origin on any of the last 4 or 5 alts that I've run the arc on. Are other people experiencing this or is it just me?

I'm going to agree (at least partially) with Sam here. Regular content SHOULD be awesome. And I think we could have had that in this issue, but that probably would have meant Paragon Studios hiring more writers.

What I envision is this: Imagine, if you will, that at the launch of I19 we had a Praetorian invasion along the lines of the Rularuu invasion back in I2. The War Walkers, some Praetorian AVs, etc. showed up in KR, Steel Canyon and two of the redside zones (PO and Cap, since they're in the same level range as Steel). This goes on for at least one full day or week, whatever and then, at the next server reboot after that period in time, we all log in to see that KR, Steel, PO and Cap are now mucked up. Or they could muck up each zone a little every day until the end of the invasion cycle. Basically, the four zones all end up looking like KR and Steel do in the Apex TF.

For the next however-long-until-Issue-20, we would still have Praetorians porting in on occasion to try and press the attack but the main thrust of it would have been blunted by our efforts on that initial day/week/whatever. Basically, the Apex TF would, instead of being a TF, take place out in the game world.

Where the extra writers/stories would come in would be giving extra story arcs to the contacts in those zones. Arcs that could involve such things as preventing looting by the various gangs that make those zones their home, aiding in the rebuilding effort, helping to gather the materials needed to take the fight to Praetoria or some such thing like that hero-side. Or using the opportunity to gain power for yourself, infiltrate Arachnos while they're reeling and bring portions of their organization under your sway, find a way to be part of taking the fight to Praetoria, etc. That would take a lot of writers and a lot of talent to make it all exciting and awesome, but it could have been done.

Heck, there could even have been a live event on each server, a summit meeting between Statesman and Recluse and their respective associates/lackeys where they announce that they'll stop trying to actively kill each other until the war is over. Prompting possible high-end story arcs where one or the other group tries to "Uriah" the other while still attempting to win the war.

The Tin Mage TF could still have gone in place as blue & red's first counterstrike, establishing a beachhead in Neutropolis in preparations for stories/TFs that would be part of the issues to come. And it could still have been tied to unlocking and slotting your Alpha ability so that you'd be better prepared for the war awaiting you in Praetoria. But in addition to that, you'd have all that other awesome stuff in the regular portion of the game.

To bring it back to Sam's wrestling analogy, it would not just be "save it for the pay-per-view." It would also be the long and careful "Sting vs the nWo every week on Nitro."

I think it would have been fun with a double-dose of awesome, but maybe I'm just weird that way.