If you haven't looked at the new Skulls, please do.

Moreover, it basically retcons all the in-game information about them to date:

http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/game_i...ret_skulls.php

Note that the backstory explicitly gives the supervillain names of the Petrovic brothers (Rado "Marrow Snap" Petrovic and Emil "Marrow Drinker" Petrovic), and also explicitly says that the current Skulls also contains former members of local rival gang the Shadows (which the Skulls mostly destroyed), meaning there are locals in it, not just Eastern/Central/whatever Europeans.

Since none of that will apply anymore in I24, the Skulls will essentially become an entirely new group that happens to share the name of and some design similarity to the previous Skulls.

GR made a few tweaks to the original Praetorian lore - most people seemed ok with that

I've always considered the Skulls and Hellions to be the "rats" found in the fantasy MMO genre. As in "kill 10 rats", or more specifically "kill 10 brown rats/kill 10 black rats". They were just filler street trash that low level heroes with no travel powers could interact with as they jogged between missions (Rule #1 - Cardio).

At some point Hellions got "Girlfriends from Hell" which spiced up the group a bit from just setting you on fire all the time. So Skulls now get a retcon into a Eastern Eurogang death cult. They were due to be made more "interesting".

And they really need to add a Boris and Natasha to the named bosses.

Exactly what is the huge retcon? They go from a death cult that dresses in black and white, to a more interesting death cult that dresses in black and white and has some Slavic leaders.

The big problem here is that this is a step backwards, not a step forwards.

Let's imagine that the original Skulls were all from a neighborhood that was primarily Central/Eastern European refugees. (Interesting to try to imagine what housing situation led to these people all settling near Perez Park and turning the area into a gangland warzone.) The Shadows were the local ethnic gang running roughshod over the neighborhood, so having the survivors join the Skulls wouldn't make it any less of an ethnic gang.

Then the Rikti War happens. The neighborhood is laid to waste. That's part of the reason that the War Wall is placed where it is placed. That was the battle lines where the No Man's Land existed between the Rikti and the Terrans. (Granted, that's generic lore, not specific to any particular zone or wall.)

What isn't leveled by the War is abandoned to the gangs and the aliens. The suvivors are scattered in a diaspora that dissolves whatever remained of the original ethnic neighborhood. Unless the Petrovics had some really deep hidey-holes, they lost most of their members to the Rikti. If they're going to rebuild then they have to look to more than just their ethnic brethren. They have to embrace all of the disaffected and displaced and there are thousands to embrace, who are just as lost and forgotten as the original refugees were. These are people that the Skulls know how to attract and manipulate because they've already been there.

Hell, the trick they're pulling in Atlas Park is not a new one for them. It's the same one they pulled in King's Row when the City lay in ruins and people were scrabbling for any kind of a life to reclaim from the wreckage. It's how they got a foothold in The Row and laid claim to it.

That's what they should be, not a throwback to a past from ten years ago, historically speaking, that is long gone due to time and the War.

One of the irksome annoyances to me about the War is the way that it gets glossed over so frequently and this is just another example. We should not be getting "new" Skulls who are based on what they might have been before the War. We should be getting "new" Skulls that expand on what they have become since the War.

The whole "ll of them are Slavic" thing is a mess and innacurate. I'm not gonna argue for the stupid accents to remain in everyone, especially when it is clearly stated in the new mission line that they are simply recruiting anyone who they can get addicted, or anyone who has no where else to go and is on their last legs. Mostly refugees. Nowhere do they say they limit themselves to those of Slavic origin.

As for the look of the leaders... that isn't a retcon. IIRC te leaders had never made an actual appearance before, so it isn't a change. They are just adding their looks in.

So aside from the stupid accents that are stupid, I'm still not seeing the huge change.

So much unnecessary tsuris and/or agita over a relatively minor gang.

The loss of diversity in the gang is annoying, though.