TrueGentleman

Seconded, very much so. There's a design that is striking enough to surpass its polycount and the number of bits in its color palette. It's a prime candidate for updating without redesigning.

Hence my predilection for the Menders. Their eclectic character design, commingling retro fashion, utilitarian accessories, Asian motifs, and cryptic symbolism into a recognizable, if unplacable uniform, declares "Time travel patrol coming through!"

Statesman's faceplate is a nice piece of design, displaying both Classical and comic book influences. The Silver Age version's full-helmet look doesn't strike me as nearly so interesting. For purely personal tastes, though, I prefer his original costume, with its retro/pulp feel, and hold out hope for genuine time travel signature missions in CoH to see more of that design, particularly for my retro heroes. (Come on, the Steam Punk costumes are crying out for a new NPC group.)



As for NPC group, the Menders are my favorite, with The Pilgrim and Mender Tesseract coming up on top, and Mender Ramiel and Mender Silos on the bottom. I'd likewise love to see some signature arcs with them.




Incidentally, Going Rogue's Praetorians are also uniformly excellent, not simply as goatee/eyepatch variations on their Primal Earth counterparts, but as examples of what the CoX engine can be coaxed into pulling off. Here's hoping other NPCs can be upgraded to similar success.

On the contrary, if this decision stands, then it sets a legal precedent, and it becomes about all creative productions performed, however vaguely, as work for hire. Anyone who has ever signed a work-for-hire contract, whether in house or freelance, would be that much less secure in where their legal position lies. Companies would of course be quite happy with letting this ruling stand since it gives them broader license on how to define the work-for-hire relationship.

And now we reach the self-interest on the other side after the Kirby estate has been criticized for going after theirs.

Why do you think they'd be so spiteful, particularly given how successful Marvel Studios' movies have been lately*? Please cite interviews or sources that would suggest such a self-destructive level of animosity. It seems more likely that Kirby's estate want their father to be acknowledged as co-creator and a split of revenue. At worst, they might perhaps step in when a project is trashing the established characters (*cough*FantasticFour:RiseOfTheSilverSurfer*cough* ).

(The Siegel heirs, on the other hand, have no reason to be satisfied with the last few Superman movies. Since Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" movie has been pushed back to 2013, i.e. past the rights deadline, they now have a stake in that - unless that film undergoes even more rewrites just to cut them out of it.)

* That would include Captain America, Thor, X-Men, and Iron Man, as well as the upcoming Avengers - all of which were co-created by Kirby during his contract-less period. {EDIT: To clarify, Kirby brought his WWII-era creation Capt. America to Marvel in this period.}

Apart from the Kirby estate lawsuit involving copyright claims, creator rights, and contract law and the McDonalds one product liability, they're definitely both against big business companies.

More than just money. For a start, not only creative control over the characters he'd come up with, e.g. Captain America, but also the return of his original art, which was such a scandal in the 80s that Marvel eventually had to acquiesce and change their company policy so that artists would be guaranteed their original art would be returned. (Incidentally, this isn't over. Retired editor-in-chief Jim Shooter has been indulging in historical revisionism over this, among other topics, on his blog and has had to be thoroughly schooled by people who know better.)

Which is what creators like Neal Adams and Howard Chaykin had to start doing in the late 70s when it became clear that the big comics publishers were terrible places to work. Of course, it was an uphill battle, one that's still being fought, as industry issues over manufacturing, distribution, sales, etc. are dominated by said two companies. It's also a game for youngsters without too many real-world obligations (or loners, like Steve Ditko and Dave Sim). When you've got a wife and kids to support, like Kirby, rolling the dice on going into business for yourself is a drastic risk when the odds are that you'll either only break even or lose money.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what he was forced to do in the end. Of course, since DC and Marvel by then dominated the industry, neither one had any reason to treat him as anything better than a hired hand. (Remember what happened to Gardener Fox and other great Golden Age creators when they tried only to unionize? That's right, they got crushed and in some cases kicked out.)

Kirby was working without a contract.

That's getting shafted.

This isn't a case of "bad guys" vs. good guys, this is business - and comics has never exactly been a fair one. This case wouldn't have even made it to trial if Marvel, which in its early days was not exactly run as a professional company, had issued proper contracts to Kirby and the others instead of getting by on chutzpah and handling. The fact that Kirby never had a written contract from 1958 to 1963, when he helped create characters who are headlining multi-million-dollar motion pictures today, is shockingly unprofessional, even by the standards of the day.

While the judge based his decision mainly on Stan Lee's first-hand testimony, please bear in mind that this is the same Stan Lee who kept Kirby's name off the 1979 Captain America TV movie as a co-creator while making sure to get billing for himself as a "consultant", even though he had nothing to do with the character's creation.
Marvel has a history of downplaying the creative contributions of its great Silver Age artists, its executives going on record to imply that they were mere illustrators of Stan Lee's when in fact Lee would often give them as much freedom as they liked to create the issues. (See the "Marvel Way" of handing artists basic outlines for issues and adding dialogue and narration once the artwork was finished.) This was particularly true for Kirby and Ditko, who left Marvel on less than good terms after years of being portrayed as secondary contributions.

Because Stephen King, as the copyright holder of the body of his creative works, has been able to take full financial advantage of it and then arrange to pass along the benefits from it to his heirs as part of his estate, something that Kirby, who was stuck in an ambiguous state regarding his work, was never able to do. {Or on preview, what Smersh said.}

While I don't believe that copyright should be handed down from generation to generation like some kind of feudal title, Kirby is just one of many brilliant artists and writers in the comics field who was never treated completely fairly or adequately professionally in his lifetime. Awarding his heirs the copyright Kirby never received is no less fair than setting damages in a breach of contract case.

Congratulations on your anniversary and many thanks for all the videos. Here's to the art department coming up with a /videocam emote in light of your accomplishments.

But it's perfectly easy to release preliminary sketches in an art dump to read the temperature of players' reactions without having to take the official step of labelling them concept art. I've played any number of games in which the art department has opened their notebooks well ahead of time in order to guage the community reaction to their art direction. Of course, this has to be done with sufficient lead time, not in the middle of late beta.

Ordinarily, this would be the case. Unfortunately, what we have here is massive negative reaction to a preview that some players are suggesting is a done deal while the lead dev is promising only "subtle adjustments".

What tone? The overall reaction by the players has been to praise the art department's skill in rendering the costume pieces while laying out the reasons why they're not appropriate specifically for the Circle of Thorns villain group.

The drawback to focus groups and closed beta is they can turn into echo chambers unless the selection comes from a broad range of participants and factors in a random element. If "insider" players feel flattered enough to be chosen for one or the other, there's a risk they might flatter the devs back. If anything, Posi's surprised tone in his comment suggests that the devs ought to have polled more from the outside.

And the last thing Paragon Marketing should want is word-of-mouth that says to new players on the eve of COH Freedom, "City of Heroes is just trying to be {800-lbs. Gorilla} in spandex". The potential customers have probably either tried and quit that game or never bothered with it in the first place.

On the other hand, word-of-mouth that says CoH has a dedicated dev team that listens to the constructive feedback from their passionate community can only do the game good.

(I assumed that any previous link to it on these board had been lost in the Great Purge from a year ago.)

They couldn't just leave the NPCs with their standard greeting dialogue and remove the missions? What next, removing Ouro BAB? Are the devs deliberately trying to excise the old Galaxy City's character from the game?

Or rather, how well organized the Browncoats are online. This is just like the time River Tam beat out Batman in an IO9 Poll.

Also, Roj Blake and Professor Quatermass didn't even crack the top ten? Kids today, no respect for the classics!

Maybe in your temporal continuity, but around here, that winds up being the job of the overworked mods of the International Association of Time Travelers. The flamewars over killing Hitler on the Members' Forum Subforum for Europe – Twentieth Century – Second World War can get ugly.

Given that the "Complete Magic Costume Set" from the Magic Pack is listed as costing 400, the full range of boosters from that pack (a complete costume with multiple elements for each gender, five emotes, four costume change emotes, and the Mystic Fortune temp power) would easily total more than 1200 points. That's the equivalent of approx. $15, and the original booster pack cost only $9.99. That's the way a la carte pricing works.

Nothing succeeds like success, I suppose. I still say that the view of Atlas Park from the lounge in AE is one of the best city views in the game.

Then again, if the devs somehow screw up the revamp of Atlas Park - and messing with success isn't beyond them - we'll hear plenty from its admirers. Atlas Parkers (Parkists? Parkians?) have been silent so far probably because we haven't seen so much as a teaser yet. Let's see what happens once glimpses start leaking from Comic Con over the weekend.

Galaxy Citizens, after seeing their beloved Galaxy Girl statue up to its mini-skirt in flaming rubble, are understandably vocal.

Sure, why shouldn't it? The city hall-park area makes up a great nexus design that comprises useful buildings in its outer zone, viz. transport, hospital, AE, Vanguard, Wentworth's, Vault, and Ft. Trident. Atlas's statue is a highly visible landmark, much more so than Galaxy Girl's, and features a prominent raised staging area that's perfect for costume contests and other player events. (The outer neighborhoods, though, don't flow together as well or have the distinctiveness of Galaxy Park's.) All this bring back players at every level, which makes the zone the Times Square of Paragon City. Perhaps it's too bustling for many players to think of it as "their home".

And what's offered by Galaxy City, which has so much less than Atlas Park, that its rival zone doesn't? An arena, which, with the popularity of tournament PVP, isn't a strong selling point. The zone really got the shaft from the Paragon urban planning department. Its coming destruction just seems like the final insult after so much injurious neglect.

Nonetheless, the zone has genuine character and some nice lore, so it's unsurprising some players have adopted it and, in the case of its signature statue, made their own.

Excellent - thank you.

(Anyone else unable to load this twitpic? I've tried unsuccessfully from both my PC and smartphone.)

After the recent wave of superhero films that were either entirely skippable or headed straight for the Netflix queue, this sounds like it could actually make for a good time at the movies.

What makes you say that?