Does anyone here even LIKE comic books?

No, they're not. They're condescending, judgmental, superficial, artificial creations intended to demonstrate the supposed moral superiority of the speaker.

That's the general feel I get out of them, myself, yes.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That's kind of like where I started, only I actually started with things like the Swat Kats, the Centurions, the Real Adventures of Johnny Quest and, of course, the 90s X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons. I was born in 1984, so the 90s is when I was watching cartoons the most. From that I moved on to video games, and in the early 2000s into anime, more specifically movies, such as Ghost in the Shell, Fist of the North Star, Spriggan, Armitage III and the Battle Angel Alita OVA, the latter two of which inspired one of my favourite characters way back in 2004.

I know very little about actual comic books, but given the feel of other games which cite themselves as being "comic book style," I can't say I regret it. I don't know what age, era and style of comic books these games seek to ape, but they always come off as corny, campy and silly, which is not something I look for in a game. City of Heroes, despite the occasional appearance of frankly out-of-place full-tights characters like the Statesman, seems to be written more like a live-action movie in the spirit of the 2000's X-Men, Spider-Man, Hulk and Iron Man movies, and that's nothing but a good thing.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'd say the "frankly-out-of-place full-tights characters" are lacking because the devs have yet to make any enemies that are just that.

Likely due to the use of minions, lieutenants, and bosses.

Those are typically the cannon fodder of AVs. They're not typically dressed in tights, or if they are they all look close to the same. Like the Longbow, then the boos(s) would have their individual flair.

What we need more of, is what they're less likely to give us. More missions with multiple AVs, and less minions, lts, and bosses, if any.

A mission where you take on the X-Men (well CoH equivalent) instead of a mass of the same looking types and then only one X-Men.

I actually know people who speak like that in real life *shudders*

Touche. I'm a child of the 90's so uh, yeah... I've had my fill of spandex already tyvm :P

Anyways, I just get irked when people get indignant (not you but others) about the lack of roleplaying in any MMO as if it is a requirement somehow. Roleplaying is just a hobby, one single facet of any game, online or otherwise. Personally, I chose to play CoX for the wide variety of costumes and alts, as well as the flexibility of being able to partake in end game content without being locked into a 12 hour raid. Roleplaying isn't even in contention as far as reason go. Those days are over for me some 15 years ago, when I dabbled in PnP D&D back in high school.

As for comics specifically, I've read them once in a blue moon at friends places when I was younger but never collected any myself. I've maintained more of a interest in anime and manga since I like their themes, artistic style and plot twists a bit more. To each their own I guess.

Except that mangas have many, many, many genres. First there are the primary genres of shounen, seinen, shoujo, etc. Under them, there are even more sub-genres such as magic girl, mecha, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, school life, sports, gekiga, etc. I hope you're not referring to a magic girl themed MMO :P

Speaking of manga themed MMOs, there is a certain Japanese console RPG game series (the name of which I can't mention due to forum rules) that has a online MMO varient so I guess that qualifies?

I'm old enough to remember when American comics were more than just the super hero genre. When I was a kid there were westerns, war, romance, humor, horror, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, educational science, religion, classical literature and super hero comics.

And to buy them we had to walk five miles, through the snow, barefoot, UPHILL BOTH WAYS....

Southern Louisiana does gender neutral?

Back in the mid 60's, they actually had comic book VENDING MACHINES in grocery stores. They were common place and part of the cultural scenery in the late Silver Age. Not ghetto-ized and hidden away like a shameful addiction. The "Comic Book Store" was definitely a bad turn of events for the industry

You're living up to your rabbit image

"They" and "their" work just as well, and don't cause any confusion - it avoids male bias, but doesn't make people wonder if the words are real or not

Spandex, capes and masks are never out of place in CoH - or any comic book game

Actually, you're probably wearing some now - almost everyone is - it's used in all kinds of everyday clothes - it's really only the patterned stuff that's not so usual outside comic books

Dunno about elsewhere, but there are still comic books in grocery stores around here, have been ever since I was a kid. Not in vending machines, mind you, that seems like kind of a silly concept, but they're with the rest of the magazines.

Actually I don't, at least not knowingly. The odds are pretty good that I'm spandex free since I don't wear any tight fitting clothes other than thermals. All my clothes, as far as I can remember, are 100% cotton, cotton/polyester mix, cotton/nylon mix, wool/cashmere, denim (cotton twill), or silk. So there :P

Never saw any comic book vending machines. Around here they were on those spinner rack thingees that were around 5 or so feet tall, and they were in grocery stores, drug stores, convenience stores, and book stores.

The ones in the grocery stores here nowadays are mostly reprints, and those other places don't have any at all. So, thank goodness for the local comic book shop!

When there is City of Hidamari Sketch or City of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, I will be there... for the absurdity if nothing else.

The English used to have genderless personal pronoun, actually.

It had a genderless personal pronoun, a self pronoun, a collective pronoun, an object pronoun and a female pronoun.

Note, I didn't say male.

"He", "him" and "his" weren't specifically male until the last couple of hundred years. Previously, the use of "he" for an unknown person could be used for either male or female.

However, the language is built around the assumption that being female is something other than normal. It is basically a marked state.

You have a person (which may be male or female) and you have a female person.

There was no marker for male because that was assumed to be the default.

However, now the language has shifted toward "he" being specifically male rather than a general person reference.

As a result, we have a hole in our pronoun grammar because of the fact that our neutral pronoun became our male pronoun.