So, I just spent a whole blog explaining my history with Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and what I thought of each of the previous editions. You can see that in this blog, Prelude to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, if you need a history lesson on the game from my perspective. Now, the reason I posted all of that, I got a copy of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook from a game store that was favored with one of the advance releases before the official release date of August 19. Here is what I think of the game in two words based on this book alone: BUY IT.
I'll explain why, but first I want to say one other thing. I had a friend post about being worried about the schism that Fifth Edition may cause in the gaming community due to the existence of Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder (you can see some information on what that is in the blog listed above). Personally, Paizo started and caused any schism that will be created, so if blame should be placed for this, it should be placed on them. However, they made a good business decision, they took something they had legally and they improved it to compete directly with Wizards of the Coast (WotC), the producers of the Dungeons and Dragons game. That competition, I have no doubt, is what led WotC to go back to the drawing board as quickly as they did from Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons to produce the new Fifth Edition of the game. Competition is good, it has produced a much better product from WotC to bring back the fans of D&D. Let's see what Paizo can do now considering most of what they started with came from WotC and what WotC has now is better in every way and not an open to Paizo under an open gaming license agreement.
A few notes for short hand I am going to use:
1E = First Edition Dungeons and Dragons (including the original little paper books, Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and all of its optional rules through the reprints of the original hardbacked copies of the three core books)
2E = Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons
3E = Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons, its half-step iteration 3.5, and its red-headed step-child produced by Paizo Publishing, Pathfinder (3.75)
4E = Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons
5E = Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons
Now, the real meat and why you should go buy the Fifth Edition of the grandfather of all role-playing games.
If you played previous versions of D&D or read my blog above, you have an idea of what was wrong with the game in all previous editions no matter what company produced the version. I'm going to start with the basics of the fixes. The rules are codified as they were under 3E, but the rules have been greatly reduced and streamlined to a much more compact game that allows for role-playing to once again freely enter the game as the game judge or Dungeon Master (DM) once again gains a some of the need for officiating back and some more free-form to which type of check should be applied in various circumstances. Healing issues have been resolved in a fabulous method - no more characters with so much healing there is no fear of death or too little healing that they cannot recover from a fight in a reasonable amount of game time. Spellcaster lack of combat options at low levels have been resolved using the spell system that existed under all previous editions of the game before 4E. Feats have been redone and balanced in as well as the former paragon and epic tier character options. Skills are "gone" but not completely. Combat has been simplified and streamlined, but not at the rejection of codification of combat. The game is better by returning to its roots with modern twists from lessons learned over the years and editions.
Healing went from "how in the world do we keep fighting after taking that much damage when our cleric has blown all his spells" (1E/2E/3E) to "you can't kill us even if we don't have a cleric" (4E). Now, we get, "this encounter is rough, but we can survive it if we play well as a team and use our resources wisely." The second winds that pretty much spelled no-death in 4E is gone under 5E. However, the fighter still has an ability called second wind, which lets the character heal once in each combat similar to the way Second Wind worked under 4E, but it's depleted after one use in a fight. All other healing comes from the same sources it has always come from under the first 3 editions of the game - the cleric, the paladin, etc. This lets the character that is normally taking the brunt of the damage take care of himself at least to a degree without the cleric having to blow all of his healing on the fighter's injuries in the first couple of rounds. In addition to the magical healing of some classes and the fighter's single use ability, every character can heal herself during short rests, so no more eight hour rest required after each combat, but also no need to blow every healing spell and potion the party can afford during and after the first fight. It's a good balance between the party knowing they could have a character die in any given combat, but they are not completely screwed by a bad roll, a DM mistake, or other things they may have no control over. Yes, a party with no idea of tactics may still end up totally annihilated by an unforgiving DM, but that could happen under most editions, though I saw parties with a complete lack of tactics survive where they should not have under 4E due to its over the top healing system.
Spellcasters cannot blast with their spells through a whole combat, in a way. The 5E creators took the spell system as it has always existed since 1E and through 3E and used mechanics that already existed to allow this with slight modification. The cantrip is now an at-will spell for most spellcasters. Cantrips that do damage, now do real damage for low-level characters, and by real damage, I mean it does the same amount of damage as a shortsword or mace (1d6). These are the go-to weapons of the rogue and the cleric, so wizards are now on par with those two classes when their true spells (1st level spells and up) are gone for combat. To make sure, everyone understands the value of this, every traditional pure spellcasting class (bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard) has cantrips. Only the paladin and ranger do not have cantrips, and they have normal weapons to rely on at any time anyway. I know you don't believe me, but here's a simple list - bards have the vicious mockery cantrip (the worst at 1d4, but it gains as level increases and bards generally have decent weapons anyway), clerics have the sacred flame cantrip (1d8), druids have the thorn whip cantrip (1d6), sorcerers and wizards have the acid splash cantrip (1d6), and that is not an exhaustive list of choices. Each caster knows a minimum of 2 cantrips at first level, so she will even have some choices and most have 3 with one having 4. The rest of the spellcasting ability is much like what we are used to from 1E/2E/3E except at the higher levels. At higher levels for those massive damage spells, the mechanics have been changed slightly again to compensate for the high level caster's ability to devastate because she gets to roll 20 damage dice or 10 damage dice or whatever her spellcasting level is at the time. Damage dice for most of those high damage spells like fireball is now tied to its spell level and not the spellcaster's level. "Wait? What? I only get to do 3 dice of damage now with my most devastating spells?" you ask. No, yes, those spells are third or fourth level spells or whatever, but you can cast them as higher level spells by using higher level spell slots, so you can cast your 3rd level fireball as a 9th level fireball, but that's one less prismatic wall you get to cast today. This leaves the casters not just tossing fireballs out with no consideration at the higher levels as they may be sacrificing another more important spell for later for that massive damage output. Wizards and clerics now have to play smart with their choices of what to cast at any given time.
Feats have been integrated to the classes in some cases and made optional in others. Many of the commonly taken feats have been integrated in as class abilities for each class, like the meta-magic feats for example for wizards, which are now class features that they can take at certain levels. The rules have also made the combining of meta-magic a little more restrictive so no more double empowered, heightened, widened, miss my friends and only hit my enemies fireball changed to an ice ball, but you can still do most of that singularly and some of them can be combined. Also, every class does not get the same meta-magic since they have been made class abilities for example. The number of feats is also greatly reduced, for now at least - I'm sure we'll get more as time goes by. Each feat has been re-defined to work under the new mechanics of 5E though, which is much more balancing than all previous editions; more on that later. The feats that remained as feats, are, also, now optional for use, and if you think your character will be imbalanced because your friend used the optional feats and you didn't, you should also know that to get any feat, you have to give up something. Each class has gotten little ability bumps as they went up in level at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20th level for a while now. This still exists, you get a +2 to a single ability or +1 to two abilities at those levels unless you want a feat, then you trade out your ability point bump for a feat. That's a balance that I can appreciate, what's more important to you, what that feat gives you or +1 to what an ability score bump will give you. Feats done right and balanced from all I can see and from the friends I know who are trying to break the game still right now.
Paragon level class options from 3E are now integrated into the classes from the beginning. Epic level options are gone because we do not have epic level play at this time (the game only takes us to 20th level). All of the paragon options aren't here, but many of the more popular ones are, and where classes do not have their old paragon options integrated it's because something else was integrated into the class instead. Here's a brief rundown of examples, which will also tell you the classes that exist in the Player's Handbook to start (most choose at third level; cleric, sorcerer, warlock (all at 1st) and wizard (2nd) being the exceptions):
Barbarians choose from 2 primal paths (Path of the Berserker, Path of the Totem Warrior)
Bards choose from 2 Bardic colleges (College of Lore, College of Valor)
Clerics choose from 7 domains (Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War)
Druids choose from 2 Druidic circles (Circle of the Land, Circle of the Moon)
Fighters choose from 3 martial archetypes (Champion, Battle Master, Eldritch Knight)
Monks choose from 3 monastic traditions (Way of the Open Hand, Way of Shadow, Way of the Four Elements)
Paladins choose from 3 sacred oaths (Oath of Devotion, Oath of the Ancients, Oath of Vengeance)
Rangers choose from 2 archetypes (Hunter, Beast Master)
Rogues choose from 3 archetypes (Thief, Assassin, Arcane Trickster)
Sorcerers choose from 2 origins (Draconic Bloodline, Wild Magic)
Warlocks choose from 3 otherworldly patrons (the Archfey, The Fiend, The Great Old One)
Wizards choose from 8 arcane traditions (abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, transmutation)
There is some room for expansion here from what we've seen of the paragon paths in 3E, but plenty of the favorites are here to start.
Skills are still a part of the game, but not like they were. Skills are no longer based on your class, instead each character chooses a background like acolyte, criminal, or entertainer to name a few. Each background gives a character proficiency in two skills, proficiency in at least one tool (used with some skills) and some other features as well as some basic background suggestions and characteristics for role-playing. Backgrounds are where you get the skills you are proficient in (I'll explain the proficiency mechanic shortly). It should also be noted that there is a list of backgrounds and what they provide in the Player's Handbook, but they are examples, and backgrounds can be built by DM and players to reflect the nature of what a player wants for his character to be or the nature of the campaign as long as they follow the basic rules laid out in the book. As I said, the game reintroduced the need for the DM to once again take an active role in the game besides just running the bad guys for combat. I remember how in 2E this was how you determined skills that your character might have before the rules were codified - now, the rules are still codified, but backgrounds have importance again if the players and DM want them to.
Some mechanics changes that are definitely for the better:
The bonuses to hit based on class are gone for the most part. All classes have the same to hit bonuses at equal character levels, so a fighter is no better with his weapons than a wizard. The fighter does have a better choice of weapons that he is proficient with, but if a fighter and a wizard both pick up a dagger and have equivalent strength, they both have the same chance of hitting. The weapons that each class is proficient with are much the same as they have always been since that class's introduction to the game. This is where the other big mechanics change occurs, there is a new mechanic that goes with proficiency. If you are proficient with something, you gain a bonus to the use of that item, and what I just called to hit bonuses are actually proficiency bonuses. So, for example, at first level all classes have a +2 to checks with their class's weapons and with the two skills they are proficient at as well as the set of tools they are proficient with. When you make an attack or a skill check, you add your proficiency bonus to the roll (if you're proficient at it) and ability score modifier that applies and adjustments for other factors like advantage/disadvantage (more on this later), cover, etc. Everyone has the same number of skills, everyone has the same proficiency bonus at the same level - the only variation is now ability score or proficiency and other external modifiers. It should be noted that you can never add proficiency to a roll more than once even if it's from other sources; certain things can augment your proficiency bonus, but for example, you do not get to add your skill proficiency and your tool proficiency to a skill check to craft a new shield. It's a good system that balances all of the classes for probably the first time ever.
Remember how when a character would get knocked prone in 3E, they were pretty much screwed if a bad guy was standing next to them. That is over, and you do not lose all of your movement for it either. Standing from prone costs half of your movement basically, and you can still use the other half to move if you choose. Moving away from an enemy still allows for an opportunity attack, but you're standing up at least for it.
Advantage/disadvantage are the major bonus/penalty mechanics. Certain effects can cause you to be at a disadvantage or advantage over an adversary or just in a situation. What this means in both cases is that you roll two dice when required to roll and take the best/worst of the two. For example:
Sarai the rogue is fighting an orc, and the orc trips and falls to the ground prone; Sarai now has advantage over the orc, while the orc has a disadvantage to attack Sarai. Sarai tries to stab the orc with her shortsword; she rolls 2 d20's to hit..one is a 14 and one is a 10, she gets to use the 14 because she has an advantage. If the orc had been attacking her, and rolled the same dice with the same rolls, the orc would have to use the 10 to determine if he hit Sarai. Not a perfect system, but better than the flat bonus of old.
Conditions have changed in how they work in most cases and are not as brutal as they were under 3E. Prone being a good example of the changes.
All told, from the Player's Handbook, Fifth Edition D&D is an awesome game and the game we should have gotten instead of 4E, but at least WotC seems to have learned from the experience of 3E and 4E and given us what seems on par to be a great new edition of an old classic.
I wasn't going to play D&D anymore after my experiences with 4E and Pathfinder. This book has made me change my mind, so as long as the Monster Manual doesn't give us orcs that can destroy my first level character in one hit, I need to find a group that wants to play some old school home campaign style D&D. If you were set against D&D because of 3E or 4E or even if you went over to Pathfinder, this game deserves a look from you. It's got what you're looking for, and it is the game you want to be playing.
See you at a convention somewhere in the future I hope.
These are my opinions of the omniverse. The omniverse includes many comic book multiverses, some MMO universes, and our own real universe (or at least mine - maybe yours is different). If you like comic book reviews, MMO's, Christian views, political opinions (these will be minimal but will happen from time to time), or just musings on society, you might like my blog. If you don't, you probably won't, but give it a try, you never know.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Prelude to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons
Let me start this by saying that there is not an edition of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) that I have not played, that includes Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) and the more recent Neverwinter (two free to play MMOs). When I left California at the end of 2011, I also left role-playing at the time. 4th Edition D&D was quickly going in a downward spiral for me, and 5th Edition had already been announced. I was disillusioned with the game because of 4th Edition, which is saying a lot, considering I had been playing this game for 30 years give or take by that point. I had no intention of going back to the game. I also had tried Pathfinder once, so I will admit that I had never given it a real chance, but some of the problems that had been seen with D&D 3.5 (3rd Edition with some changes) were still present with Paizo's so-called D&D 3.75 known as Pathfinder. I will also say that what the people who have created these games over the decades have done should be lauded, their talent and desire to make a game for us all to enjoy far surpasses what most of us could have done on our own. I met and even got to game with Dave Arneson before he died, and he was a creative genius from all I could tell. I can say I saw E. Gary Gygax once, but never got to game with him. I got to game with the founder of Wizards of the Coast as well, and he struck me as someone with a love for the game and a mind for rules mechanics. I am doing this blog because I bought the 5th Edition D&D Player's Handbook, and I am going to review it in another blog after this one, but for those who are unfamiliar with the different editions or have not played them all, I wanted to give a bit of my perspective on each of them.
First Edition (1E) was a start with lots of problems, but the fact that it left many rules largely undefined meant that if you needed the rules to define your game, you were left with lots of problems while if you were more of a role-player who did not care about the numbers and mechanics as much as the fun, the game could work - if the whole group was playing the same way. It got us moving though, the first of all role-playing games (no, I did not do the research, so maybe there was some game before this, but this was the one that put role-playing games on the map) it moved us in a direction for gaming we had never ventured into before. It was a time when nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, and others who had a creative streak could come together and be something they only dreamed of in real life. Okay, maybe we were all nerds in the beginning looking for a way to experience something more with our friends, but it offered it to everyone non-discriminately. As evidenced by the fact that even Vin Diesel has admitted to playing D&D as a youth and even today on occasion.
Second Edition (2E) did little more for the game than make some optional rules from 1E official rules, and add some horrible terms to the game that everyone is still trying to wash out of their hair. To-Hit AC 0 (THAC0) for example, which was a different codification of to-hit rolls to make them simpler in reality, but was a horrible term. It made some minor rules tweaks and changes, but nothing major to the game. Both of these editions were crafted by the company that E. Gary Gygax (one of the co-creators together with Dave Arneson - both of whom passed from this world a few years back) started in the early years of the game (Tactical Simulations in Reality or TSR as it came to be known).
Third Edition (3E) brought huge changes to the game. Produced by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) who had bought TSR when it went through bankruptcy. 3E codified many things and added mechanics previously unseen and possibly not even needed to the game in some cases, but most were welcome changes when 3E was introduced. The rules lawyers and numbers guys were finally happy, the game had what seemed to be well-thought out rules and mechanics, so everyone could be held to the same standard of the game. In my opinion, this cost us some of the role-playing as number crunchers started working the numbers to maximize potential in every character they created, while those of us who just wanted to have a good time playing a fantasy warrior or wizard in a world of magic struggled to keep up with these number crunchers and make our characters viable as more than just window dressing to others. The glut of rules that came with expansions eventually began to cripple the game as more and more rules created more and more "cheats" like video games or more and more over the top abilities. The game began to destroy itself...and then came 3.5 the rules adjustment that was not minor enough to allow you to keep playing with 3E's books, but required whole new purchases, so it was a new edition in essence.
3.5 corrected many of the problems that had become inherent in the rules expansions of 3E, but it left the inherent problem of expansions that were released afterwards with no regard to the hard work the original 3.5 crafters had put into fixing the rules. And, some of the major problems were still present with the game that had always been there from the days of 1E.
Those inherent problems included the fact that wizards and other spellcasting classes were left with nothing to do for a whole "day" of in-game time once they had cast their two spells for the day. They were left to resort to weapons which they could only poorly use and which did very little damage to the monsters of the world compared to the martial classes. In addition, clerics were left as little more than band-aids for everyone else, especially at early levels of play, where there couple of spells were usually quickly used up in healing the martial classes, so the group could survive the first couple fights if not the very first fight. The game was very much a game of fight, sleep 8 hours (when all spells and abilities would reset) and press on to the next fight down the hall. Kind of silly from a mechanical standpoint of any kind of assumed reality within the fantasy, but we all learned to deal with it because we loved the game. At higher levels, wizards and other spellcasting characters began to dominate and martial characters were kind of left standing there holding their swords while whole groups of characters were decimated by powerful spells cast across the field of battle while the fighter was still trying to get to the bad guys to engage. 3E/3.5 thought it had the fix to this, but in the end just created a case of arms race between player (characters) and dungeon master (DM - controller of all bad guys) as those who wrote adventures or ran adventures tried to find a way to have their monsters survive the devastating effects that players brought to the table.
Into this mix came a new generation of role-players as the popularity was at one of its high levels of interest and play with 3E/3.5. This new generation had been raised on Everquest, World of Warcraft (WoW), and any of a hundred other video games that had brought D&D into a computer age. They had attention spans for the game that went with their love for video games; they wanted fast paced, heroic actions and combat. This led to Fourth Edition (4E) Dungeons and Dragons, the first of the editions to undergo any sort of true public play testing, and even that was relatively small for what was being done with the game. Maybe we all should have taken note of how little playtests for video games fixed those problems in the six month betas that took place for them and known we were going to have problems. The problems with D&D of course is that it was a table top, pen and paper game, so patches could not be pushed in to fix the inherent problems like with a video game.
4E arrived after roughly six months of playtesting by various groups across the world. I was one of those playtesters, and I can tell you some of our concerns were listened to, but others were not. We never got feedback during the playtests other than we would get rules changes for each new round of playtests and could see if something we suggested had been implemented at that time or not. 4E was a table top game that played like a video game. The role-playing was all but gone in theory, it lived on in spirit for those who enjoyed it, but everything was quantified as in 3E/3.5 as much as possible and if you did not have miniatures as with 3E/3.5, you were going to have problems. The ability to survive and heal through fights was fixed from all previous editions as each class gained an ability to heal during fights. Spellcasting classes were no longer limited in their use of spells per day as previously so their most basic combat spells were available for every fight without an 8 hour rest for the characters. Combat played like a video game. Each class had abilities called by many different names depending on if the class was martial, spellcasting, or something else. Each ability was broken into different categories, the basics of which were Any time, Once per combat, or once without a character sleeping for 8 hours of game time. These basically transmitted to video game recharge times for abilities. We all used little cards and markers to keep track of whether we had used our abilities or not and we looked like a bunch of Magic, the Gathering players (the funny thing is that that card game is what allowed WotC to have the money to buy TSR). I should also mention that by this time WotC had sold out to a well known company, Hasbro. WotC was left to operate semi-independently, but the fact that what started as a game made by two people who had very little to do with the toy and game industry when they started had been bought by a major company in the industry meant a lot to how things ran. 4E in my opinion sucked the soul out of the game in my opinion. We all could have sat at our houses and played Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games like WoW for as much as we were role-playing by this point. Yes, there were exceptions to the rules, and I participated in some awesome 4E games, but it just was not the same anymore.
Paizo's Pathfinder spun out of the open license for D&D 3.5. Paizo had once been a small publishing arm of TSR and WotC which was spun off at some point and became Paizo Publishing (I was living and working in Saudi Arabia when this happened, so I may have some of that wrong). Anyway, when WotC announced 4E, they shut Paizo out of the ability to continue in the relationship they had enjoyed under the open licensing agreements of 3.5. Paizo was none too happy about this I imagine, and the results were that Paizo took the 3.5 rules and refined them on their own to create what was initially dubbed D&D 3.75 and ultimately became known as the Pathfinder system. Paizo took the rules of 3.5 and refined them and fixed the major rules problems with the balance of the game. The problem is that some of the other inherent problems remained, like how to heal a character during a fight or even after a fight without "sleep" for your character, which made no sense. The one game I participated in using Pathfinder was horrible, a DM mistake and unwillingness to relent in the mistake he made led to the entire group of characters being slaughtered with no hope of escape. It was brutal and led to me never giving the game a chance past that. As far as I was concerned, it still had the worst of the problems that 3.0/3.5 had, and it did. Although I know many people who have enjoyed the game and still do.
WotC took up the gauntlet though this time around, Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons has been playtested for the past two years. Groups have been given feedback and seen their critiques taken into serious consideration as WotC showed no rush to push what was originally dubbed as D&D Next out the door. And now, the time is here, those of us who did not participate in the playtests get to see the results. A simplified version of the rules was released on July 15, so even more people could see what had been done and August 19 is the official release date of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. The most important book to the game since it has always contained 80% of the rules needed to play. All we need to play other than the Player's Handbook is the statistics for monsters, which normally comes in a book called the Monster Manual. The third core book for the group as long time players know is the Dungeon Master's Guide, which helps the game judge run the game and officiate, mainly though, it details magic items and treasure for us to collect for our characters. Be ready, Fifth Edition goes back to the roots of the game while moving forward to today.
First Edition (1E) was a start with lots of problems, but the fact that it left many rules largely undefined meant that if you needed the rules to define your game, you were left with lots of problems while if you were more of a role-player who did not care about the numbers and mechanics as much as the fun, the game could work - if the whole group was playing the same way. It got us moving though, the first of all role-playing games (no, I did not do the research, so maybe there was some game before this, but this was the one that put role-playing games on the map) it moved us in a direction for gaming we had never ventured into before. It was a time when nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, and others who had a creative streak could come together and be something they only dreamed of in real life. Okay, maybe we were all nerds in the beginning looking for a way to experience something more with our friends, but it offered it to everyone non-discriminately. As evidenced by the fact that even Vin Diesel has admitted to playing D&D as a youth and even today on occasion.
Second Edition (2E) did little more for the game than make some optional rules from 1E official rules, and add some horrible terms to the game that everyone is still trying to wash out of their hair. To-Hit AC 0 (THAC0) for example, which was a different codification of to-hit rolls to make them simpler in reality, but was a horrible term. It made some minor rules tweaks and changes, but nothing major to the game. Both of these editions were crafted by the company that E. Gary Gygax (one of the co-creators together with Dave Arneson - both of whom passed from this world a few years back) started in the early years of the game (Tactical Simulations in Reality or TSR as it came to be known).
Third Edition (3E) brought huge changes to the game. Produced by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) who had bought TSR when it went through bankruptcy. 3E codified many things and added mechanics previously unseen and possibly not even needed to the game in some cases, but most were welcome changes when 3E was introduced. The rules lawyers and numbers guys were finally happy, the game had what seemed to be well-thought out rules and mechanics, so everyone could be held to the same standard of the game. In my opinion, this cost us some of the role-playing as number crunchers started working the numbers to maximize potential in every character they created, while those of us who just wanted to have a good time playing a fantasy warrior or wizard in a world of magic struggled to keep up with these number crunchers and make our characters viable as more than just window dressing to others. The glut of rules that came with expansions eventually began to cripple the game as more and more rules created more and more "cheats" like video games or more and more over the top abilities. The game began to destroy itself...and then came 3.5 the rules adjustment that was not minor enough to allow you to keep playing with 3E's books, but required whole new purchases, so it was a new edition in essence.
3.5 corrected many of the problems that had become inherent in the rules expansions of 3E, but it left the inherent problem of expansions that were released afterwards with no regard to the hard work the original 3.5 crafters had put into fixing the rules. And, some of the major problems were still present with the game that had always been there from the days of 1E.
Those inherent problems included the fact that wizards and other spellcasting classes were left with nothing to do for a whole "day" of in-game time once they had cast their two spells for the day. They were left to resort to weapons which they could only poorly use and which did very little damage to the monsters of the world compared to the martial classes. In addition, clerics were left as little more than band-aids for everyone else, especially at early levels of play, where there couple of spells were usually quickly used up in healing the martial classes, so the group could survive the first couple fights if not the very first fight. The game was very much a game of fight, sleep 8 hours (when all spells and abilities would reset) and press on to the next fight down the hall. Kind of silly from a mechanical standpoint of any kind of assumed reality within the fantasy, but we all learned to deal with it because we loved the game. At higher levels, wizards and other spellcasting characters began to dominate and martial characters were kind of left standing there holding their swords while whole groups of characters were decimated by powerful spells cast across the field of battle while the fighter was still trying to get to the bad guys to engage. 3E/3.5 thought it had the fix to this, but in the end just created a case of arms race between player (characters) and dungeon master (DM - controller of all bad guys) as those who wrote adventures or ran adventures tried to find a way to have their monsters survive the devastating effects that players brought to the table.
Into this mix came a new generation of role-players as the popularity was at one of its high levels of interest and play with 3E/3.5. This new generation had been raised on Everquest, World of Warcraft (WoW), and any of a hundred other video games that had brought D&D into a computer age. They had attention spans for the game that went with their love for video games; they wanted fast paced, heroic actions and combat. This led to Fourth Edition (4E) Dungeons and Dragons, the first of the editions to undergo any sort of true public play testing, and even that was relatively small for what was being done with the game. Maybe we all should have taken note of how little playtests for video games fixed those problems in the six month betas that took place for them and known we were going to have problems. The problems with D&D of course is that it was a table top, pen and paper game, so patches could not be pushed in to fix the inherent problems like with a video game.
4E arrived after roughly six months of playtesting by various groups across the world. I was one of those playtesters, and I can tell you some of our concerns were listened to, but others were not. We never got feedback during the playtests other than we would get rules changes for each new round of playtests and could see if something we suggested had been implemented at that time or not. 4E was a table top game that played like a video game. The role-playing was all but gone in theory, it lived on in spirit for those who enjoyed it, but everything was quantified as in 3E/3.5 as much as possible and if you did not have miniatures as with 3E/3.5, you were going to have problems. The ability to survive and heal through fights was fixed from all previous editions as each class gained an ability to heal during fights. Spellcasting classes were no longer limited in their use of spells per day as previously so their most basic combat spells were available for every fight without an 8 hour rest for the characters. Combat played like a video game. Each class had abilities called by many different names depending on if the class was martial, spellcasting, or something else. Each ability was broken into different categories, the basics of which were Any time, Once per combat, or once without a character sleeping for 8 hours of game time. These basically transmitted to video game recharge times for abilities. We all used little cards and markers to keep track of whether we had used our abilities or not and we looked like a bunch of Magic, the Gathering players (the funny thing is that that card game is what allowed WotC to have the money to buy TSR). I should also mention that by this time WotC had sold out to a well known company, Hasbro. WotC was left to operate semi-independently, but the fact that what started as a game made by two people who had very little to do with the toy and game industry when they started had been bought by a major company in the industry meant a lot to how things ran. 4E in my opinion sucked the soul out of the game in my opinion. We all could have sat at our houses and played Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games like WoW for as much as we were role-playing by this point. Yes, there were exceptions to the rules, and I participated in some awesome 4E games, but it just was not the same anymore.
Paizo's Pathfinder spun out of the open license for D&D 3.5. Paizo had once been a small publishing arm of TSR and WotC which was spun off at some point and became Paizo Publishing (I was living and working in Saudi Arabia when this happened, so I may have some of that wrong). Anyway, when WotC announced 4E, they shut Paizo out of the ability to continue in the relationship they had enjoyed under the open licensing agreements of 3.5. Paizo was none too happy about this I imagine, and the results were that Paizo took the 3.5 rules and refined them on their own to create what was initially dubbed D&D 3.75 and ultimately became known as the Pathfinder system. Paizo took the rules of 3.5 and refined them and fixed the major rules problems with the balance of the game. The problem is that some of the other inherent problems remained, like how to heal a character during a fight or even after a fight without "sleep" for your character, which made no sense. The one game I participated in using Pathfinder was horrible, a DM mistake and unwillingness to relent in the mistake he made led to the entire group of characters being slaughtered with no hope of escape. It was brutal and led to me never giving the game a chance past that. As far as I was concerned, it still had the worst of the problems that 3.0/3.5 had, and it did. Although I know many people who have enjoyed the game and still do.
WotC took up the gauntlet though this time around, Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons has been playtested for the past two years. Groups have been given feedback and seen their critiques taken into serious consideration as WotC showed no rush to push what was originally dubbed as D&D Next out the door. And now, the time is here, those of us who did not participate in the playtests get to see the results. A simplified version of the rules was released on July 15, so even more people could see what had been done and August 19 is the official release date of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. The most important book to the game since it has always contained 80% of the rules needed to play. All we need to play other than the Player's Handbook is the statistics for monsters, which normally comes in a book called the Monster Manual. The third core book for the group as long time players know is the Dungeon Master's Guide, which helps the game judge run the game and officiate, mainly though, it details magic items and treasure for us to collect for our characters. Be ready, Fifth Edition goes back to the roots of the game while moving forward to today.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Love the Sinner...
I probably should not be writing this blog, but it has been bugging me for a little while now. I really do not know where to start this blog, so it may ramble a bit, but I hope it does not because I think there is an important message here for Christians and non-Christians alike. I pray that this comes across in the right spirit and that all who read it, read it with an open mind and an open heart. If you choose not to, then there is nothing I can do, if it does not read in the right spirit, then my writing skills are to blame.
Recently, it seems like the supporters of gay marriage are in an uproar over a statement by the COO of Chik-fil-a that the company does not support gay marriage. Here's what I think is a fairly unbiased article about the statements including two of the specific comments made.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chick-fil-a-admits-its-against-gay-marriage-2012-7
What's this got to do with the title of this blog? Everything in my opinion especially as I listen to people I know declare that Chik-fil-a hates gays. As they declare boycotts against the restaurant and as mayors and others declare their allegiance to economically harm Chik-fil-a for the COO choosing to make the statements he made as well as for Chik-fil-a funnelling money into groups that actively seek to stop gay marriage from being legalized throughout this country, some of which are even being called hate groups - here's a link to an article by the Huffington Post that cites some of the foundations that Chik-fil-a supports via their charitable donations:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-group-donations-_n_1644609.html
As a disclaimer, I am not sure I would consider Huffington Post a non-biased source, but the links to the groups are there, so you can always go read about them and decide what they are doing that makes them hate groups. They may be hate groups; I did not go read all of their web-sites yet.
That should put us on the right foot for the rest of this blog, which while using Chik-fil-a as an example, but about Christian beliefs and the truth of those beliefs as the Bible defines them. I am sorry if you want to say the Bible is just a book and therefore a justification to hide behind for hate (your view by the way, not mine), but as a Christian, I can tell you that if I fail to believe the Bible is absolute truth from God, then I am not being a very good Christian, and in all probability I am not really a Christian at all, but someone who is doing exactly what you would accuse me of and hiding behind the Bible only when it suits my purposes.
So, I have given you Chik-fil-a above, but to really dive into this, I have to give you someone else, the Westboro Baptist Church. This is a hate group that claims Christianity as their basis; I do not have to look any further than the name of their web-site to prove that to myself nor should any other true Christian:
http://www.godhatesfags.com/
And their web-site continues with much more than just that; I never had to read it to know the hatred that is there though. I can completely justify that statement with Bible. I will start with the simple fact that God does not hate anyone, not a single person, living or passed on. Anyone can argue with a statement though, here is the relevant scripture which a Christian should accept as truth (and I am sorry, these will be long because I want them in context, so I include them with surrounding text as well):
Now, I am going to tell you that I am a Christian just in case you did not already know that. I am also going to tell you that I have sinned and I will sin in the future. I am no better or worse than any person who professes homosexuality - not because they are not sinners, but because being a homosexual in and of itself does not make anyone a sinner. We are all sinners, and we have been since the fall of Adam and Eve - if you are a Christian, you know this. The Bible tells us this, and it even states there is only one that is good and that is God, so why any group would think they have the right to say that God hates gays, lesbians, transgenders, etcetra is beyond me. God does not hate sinners, God loves us all. God does hate sin. He wants to see us live without it, but He came to earth as Jesus, the Messiah (the Christ) or any of dozens of other titles that belong to Him to save us from our sin. Nothing else does that. If you choose not to believe that, you have that right because He also gave us all the choice, and we have always had that choice.
Further, I have heard many people say that homosexuality is a greater sin because God called it an abomination. Really? Have you read the rest of your Bible? Proverbs 20:23 states, "Diverse weights are an abomination to the Lord, and dishonest scales are not good." So, a man who deals unethically when weighing out goods for sale is obviously just as wrong as any homosexual according to the Bible. This is a fact, sin is sin to God. No sin is greater than any other when you stand before God for judgement. You will either stand before God and say that you are saved by the Blood of Christ (there is more to it than standing there and saying it as any Christian knows) or you will be told by God that He does not know you and be cast into the Lake of Fire with the enemy of all mankind on the day of judgement. This is not me trying to convert anyone, so that is probably all I am going to say about that today; that is something I would do only face to face in order to truly share my heart and why I am a Christian with you.
On to the issue of hate because Chik-fil-a says they support the traditional concept of marriage between a man and a woman and not between gay men/women. If you read the statements earlier, I would like to know where you see that they have singled out gays specifically in their stance. The first quote from the COO, states that they believe in the traditional concept of marriage as defined by the Bible, not just that they are against gay marriage - they also think divorce is wrong (I am divorced and remarried, so they are not in favor of the laws that allowed me to do what I did), they believe cheating on your spouse is wrong (something I think even people in a gay marriage would agree with), the list could go on for a while. The point is they support the Biblical concept of marriage as God defined it - and do not get confused by the lack of contextual reference showing that God support multiple wives, etc. God says one thing about marriage ever in the Bible as far as I know other than when He talks about divorce to Moses or when He talks about divorce when questioned about it as Christ and that is this, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." - Genesis 2:24 NKJV. This is expanded by Christ, "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." - Mark 10:9 NKJV, which is the prohibition against divorce. I know many Christians who have been divorced, and not always for the singular reason that has ever been given for it to be okay in the Bible which is sexual infidelity. Chik-fil-a is no more saying they hate gay people than they are saying they hate divorcees; they are standing to their conviction that they will not support gay marriage monetarily or morally. This does not make them perfect nor does it make them a hate group, and, in reality, it does not mean they hate gay people. If they are true Christians, as the evidence would indicate so far, they do not hate anyone, they are simply standing up for their Christian beliefs - something more Christians probably need to be doing instead of allowing the Word of God to be watered down to cater to the whims of man, which is actually moving us in the direction of false prophets and the end of days as spoken of in Revelation (if you do not believe me, you have never read the last book of the Bible).
Now, if you want to see what a hate group that claims Christianity, but all indicators point to the opposite, go back and read Westboro Baptist Church's web-site title again or go further and read some of the articles on that web page. The name of their web-site alone in the way I read it is blasphemy, since God hates no one - the Bible tells us that, I gave you the passage earlier where it stated that God loved us all even while we were/are sinners. God cannot abide sin, the Bible tells us this over and over again, but on many occasions did Christ (God manifest in flesh) show his love towards sinners - the four gospels are full of these examples. The Bible also tells us we should not blaspheme the name of the Lord or take His name in vain - if attributing something to God that is clearly the opposite of all that the Bible says about Him is not doing that, then I do not know what is.
So, in closing, I will state this. I am a sinner, I have gay friends who are sinners - not because they are gay, but because they are human like me. God loves us all. God wants us all to repent and be saved and enter into His glory. If you want to do that, then seek out someone you know to be a true believe in Christ, they will be happy to share with you the way to do it. If you are happy with your life and your lifestyle, whatever your lifestyle may be, then stay there; on the day each of us dies, we will all know the truth. I have no doubt in my heart what that truth is, and I have no doubt that my atheist friends have no doubt in their hearts either even though we disagree. None of us hate the other as far as I know, and I think everyone who knows me knows that I have no hate for gays or anyone else as a group.
I think that those who are lashing out at Chik-fil-a because of their Christian beliefs are treading a thin line between standing up for something and hating a group of people for what they are. If you support gay marriage, then support their advocacy groups, do not hate a Christian because s/he does not support your belief and supports advocacy groups that support traditional marriage in opposition to gay marriage - Christians are called to oppose what the Bible defines as sin, including that in their own lives. I struggle with this every day as do many other Christians that I know, when we are asked our opinion about something though, we should state our beliefs whether they agree with popular opinion or not, anything else would be to lie. I would hope that even supporters of gay marriage could understand that and support other people's rights to their beliefs.
If you choose not to buy Chik-fil-a anymore because they support traditional marriage above gay marriage, you have the right to do so. You also have the right to use the language of hate that I have seen used in reference to Chik-fil-a since this "news" was announced, just remember that you may be guilty of exactly what you accuse Chik-fil-a.
In closing, I will say this, almost 400 years ago, the first Pilgrims and Puritans came to America seeking freedom from persecution because their Christian beliefs were too much for Europe. Their desire for freedom to practice their Christian beliefs is what led to our own American belief in freedom of religion and the separation of state and church (organized religion - or religious organizations). History may repeat itself today except instead of organized religions supported by the state persecuting the Puritans, it will be organized anti-religion supported by the state persecuting all Christians who speak out. That day will come, but I had hoped it was not going to start today, and I would hope it would not start over a single Christian based company exercising their right to do what they want with their monies.
Thanks for reading this, and I do apologize to anyone this may have offended, that was not my intention. My intention was to point out that if you read the statements by Chik-fil-a's COO nothing about it says hate - he even adds that he would pray for God's mercy on those he believes are on the wrong path - that does not sound like hate to me, that sounds more like love. Again I would point to the other group who is thankful for dead American soldiers and calls them damned with no knowledge of whether they are Christians or not as what hate sounds like.
I should also say that I do moderate comments to my blog. I will allow opposing viewpoints to be posted and I will not respond to any of them or to supporting comments for that matter. I have said what I had to say, and I have nothing more to add. I will not allow anything with words of hate or hatefulness to be posted though. I would actually appreciate people being civil if they choose to comment no matter what side of any of this they fall on; I know this is the internet though, and that is asking a lot. Also, while not hateful in and of itself, calls to boycott or patronize Chik-fil-a will also be disallowed.
Recently, it seems like the supporters of gay marriage are in an uproar over a statement by the COO of Chik-fil-a that the company does not support gay marriage. Here's what I think is a fairly unbiased article about the statements including two of the specific comments made.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chick-fil-a-admits-its-against-gay-marriage-2012-7
What's this got to do with the title of this blog? Everything in my opinion especially as I listen to people I know declare that Chik-fil-a hates gays. As they declare boycotts against the restaurant and as mayors and others declare their allegiance to economically harm Chik-fil-a for the COO choosing to make the statements he made as well as for Chik-fil-a funnelling money into groups that actively seek to stop gay marriage from being legalized throughout this country, some of which are even being called hate groups - here's a link to an article by the Huffington Post that cites some of the foundations that Chik-fil-a supports via their charitable donations:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/chick-fil-a-anti-gay-group-donations-_n_1644609.html
As a disclaimer, I am not sure I would consider Huffington Post a non-biased source, but the links to the groups are there, so you can always go read about them and decide what they are doing that makes them hate groups. They may be hate groups; I did not go read all of their web-sites yet.
That should put us on the right foot for the rest of this blog, which while using Chik-fil-a as an example, but about Christian beliefs and the truth of those beliefs as the Bible defines them. I am sorry if you want to say the Bible is just a book and therefore a justification to hide behind for hate (your view by the way, not mine), but as a Christian, I can tell you that if I fail to believe the Bible is absolute truth from God, then I am not being a very good Christian, and in all probability I am not really a Christian at all, but someone who is doing exactly what you would accuse me of and hiding behind the Bible only when it suits my purposes.
So, I have given you Chik-fil-a above, but to really dive into this, I have to give you someone else, the Westboro Baptist Church. This is a hate group that claims Christianity as their basis; I do not have to look any further than the name of their web-site to prove that to myself nor should any other true Christian:
http://www.godhatesfags.com/
And their web-site continues with much more than just that; I never had to read it to know the hatred that is there though. I can completely justify that statement with Bible. I will start with the simple fact that God does not hate anyone, not a single person, living or passed on. Anyone can argue with a statement though, here is the relevant scripture which a Christian should accept as truth (and I am sorry, these will be long because I want them in context, so I include them with surrounding text as well):
"For when we were still without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only by that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." - Romans 5:6-11 NKJV.
AND
"Jesus answered and said to him, 'Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he Who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God.' " - John 3:10-21 NKJV.Okay, that sets everything in the right tone for me. Now, one of the verses that the Christian stance is based on; I would point out that both Chik-fil-a and Westboro Baptist Church are using this verse and others that basically say the same thing in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible:
"Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness as long as she is in her customary impurity. Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife, to defile yourself with her. And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shally any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion." - Leviticus 18:19-23 NKJV.This statement tells every Christian that homosexuality is a sin. It should be no surprise to anyone when a company whose owner claims Christianity tells you that they do not support sin. The Bible both Old and New is full of passages telling man to abstain from sinful acts and mankind's sinful nature. Paul tells the Christians in the New Testament on several occasions to put away the flesh and its sinful desires. So, why Chik-fil-a making these statements is suddenly creating an outpouring of rage towards them is unknown to me - the company has never been open on Sunday because it believes in the Christian values of the Bible, which includes a day of rest. You can argue that it should be on Saturday (the original Hebrew Sabbath and still the Jewish Sabbath as far as I know) or some other day, but the fact is that God commanded that we should set aside one day a week for rest. Originally, it was the last day of the week, which would have been Saturday and Christians shifted it to Sunday, which is the traditionally believed day on which Christ rose from the dead. In the end, that is just all hype to move away from the actual fact that Chik-fil-a is owned by a Christian family that has never made any bones about that fact. They have even made statements that this is why they are not open on Sundays - for their employees, this has translated into a day off always every week on Sunday whether they were Christians or not, which I always thought was a good thing, but no one ever protested them over this.
Now, I am going to tell you that I am a Christian just in case you did not already know that. I am also going to tell you that I have sinned and I will sin in the future. I am no better or worse than any person who professes homosexuality - not because they are not sinners, but because being a homosexual in and of itself does not make anyone a sinner. We are all sinners, and we have been since the fall of Adam and Eve - if you are a Christian, you know this. The Bible tells us this, and it even states there is only one that is good and that is God, so why any group would think they have the right to say that God hates gays, lesbians, transgenders, etcetra is beyond me. God does not hate sinners, God loves us all. God does hate sin. He wants to see us live without it, but He came to earth as Jesus, the Messiah (the Christ) or any of dozens of other titles that belong to Him to save us from our sin. Nothing else does that. If you choose not to believe that, you have that right because He also gave us all the choice, and we have always had that choice.
Further, I have heard many people say that homosexuality is a greater sin because God called it an abomination. Really? Have you read the rest of your Bible? Proverbs 20:23 states, "Diverse weights are an abomination to the Lord, and dishonest scales are not good." So, a man who deals unethically when weighing out goods for sale is obviously just as wrong as any homosexual according to the Bible. This is a fact, sin is sin to God. No sin is greater than any other when you stand before God for judgement. You will either stand before God and say that you are saved by the Blood of Christ (there is more to it than standing there and saying it as any Christian knows) or you will be told by God that He does not know you and be cast into the Lake of Fire with the enemy of all mankind on the day of judgement. This is not me trying to convert anyone, so that is probably all I am going to say about that today; that is something I would do only face to face in order to truly share my heart and why I am a Christian with you.
On to the issue of hate because Chik-fil-a says they support the traditional concept of marriage between a man and a woman and not between gay men/women. If you read the statements earlier, I would like to know where you see that they have singled out gays specifically in their stance. The first quote from the COO, states that they believe in the traditional concept of marriage as defined by the Bible, not just that they are against gay marriage - they also think divorce is wrong (I am divorced and remarried, so they are not in favor of the laws that allowed me to do what I did), they believe cheating on your spouse is wrong (something I think even people in a gay marriage would agree with), the list could go on for a while. The point is they support the Biblical concept of marriage as God defined it - and do not get confused by the lack of contextual reference showing that God support multiple wives, etc. God says one thing about marriage ever in the Bible as far as I know other than when He talks about divorce to Moses or when He talks about divorce when questioned about it as Christ and that is this, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." - Genesis 2:24 NKJV. This is expanded by Christ, "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." - Mark 10:9 NKJV, which is the prohibition against divorce. I know many Christians who have been divorced, and not always for the singular reason that has ever been given for it to be okay in the Bible which is sexual infidelity. Chik-fil-a is no more saying they hate gay people than they are saying they hate divorcees; they are standing to their conviction that they will not support gay marriage monetarily or morally. This does not make them perfect nor does it make them a hate group, and, in reality, it does not mean they hate gay people. If they are true Christians, as the evidence would indicate so far, they do not hate anyone, they are simply standing up for their Christian beliefs - something more Christians probably need to be doing instead of allowing the Word of God to be watered down to cater to the whims of man, which is actually moving us in the direction of false prophets and the end of days as spoken of in Revelation (if you do not believe me, you have never read the last book of the Bible).
Now, if you want to see what a hate group that claims Christianity, but all indicators point to the opposite, go back and read Westboro Baptist Church's web-site title again or go further and read some of the articles on that web page. The name of their web-site alone in the way I read it is blasphemy, since God hates no one - the Bible tells us that, I gave you the passage earlier where it stated that God loved us all even while we were/are sinners. God cannot abide sin, the Bible tells us this over and over again, but on many occasions did Christ (God manifest in flesh) show his love towards sinners - the four gospels are full of these examples. The Bible also tells us we should not blaspheme the name of the Lord or take His name in vain - if attributing something to God that is clearly the opposite of all that the Bible says about Him is not doing that, then I do not know what is.
So, in closing, I will state this. I am a sinner, I have gay friends who are sinners - not because they are gay, but because they are human like me. God loves us all. God wants us all to repent and be saved and enter into His glory. If you want to do that, then seek out someone you know to be a true believe in Christ, they will be happy to share with you the way to do it. If you are happy with your life and your lifestyle, whatever your lifestyle may be, then stay there; on the day each of us dies, we will all know the truth. I have no doubt in my heart what that truth is, and I have no doubt that my atheist friends have no doubt in their hearts either even though we disagree. None of us hate the other as far as I know, and I think everyone who knows me knows that I have no hate for gays or anyone else as a group.
I think that those who are lashing out at Chik-fil-a because of their Christian beliefs are treading a thin line between standing up for something and hating a group of people for what they are. If you support gay marriage, then support their advocacy groups, do not hate a Christian because s/he does not support your belief and supports advocacy groups that support traditional marriage in opposition to gay marriage - Christians are called to oppose what the Bible defines as sin, including that in their own lives. I struggle with this every day as do many other Christians that I know, when we are asked our opinion about something though, we should state our beliefs whether they agree with popular opinion or not, anything else would be to lie. I would hope that even supporters of gay marriage could understand that and support other people's rights to their beliefs.
If you choose not to buy Chik-fil-a anymore because they support traditional marriage above gay marriage, you have the right to do so. You also have the right to use the language of hate that I have seen used in reference to Chik-fil-a since this "news" was announced, just remember that you may be guilty of exactly what you accuse Chik-fil-a.
In closing, I will say this, almost 400 years ago, the first Pilgrims and Puritans came to America seeking freedom from persecution because their Christian beliefs were too much for Europe. Their desire for freedom to practice their Christian beliefs is what led to our own American belief in freedom of religion and the separation of state and church (organized religion - or religious organizations). History may repeat itself today except instead of organized religions supported by the state persecuting the Puritans, it will be organized anti-religion supported by the state persecuting all Christians who speak out. That day will come, but I had hoped it was not going to start today, and I would hope it would not start over a single Christian based company exercising their right to do what they want with their monies.
Thanks for reading this, and I do apologize to anyone this may have offended, that was not my intention. My intention was to point out that if you read the statements by Chik-fil-a's COO nothing about it says hate - he even adds that he would pray for God's mercy on those he believes are on the wrong path - that does not sound like hate to me, that sounds more like love. Again I would point to the other group who is thankful for dead American soldiers and calls them damned with no knowledge of whether they are Christians or not as what hate sounds like.
I should also say that I do moderate comments to my blog. I will allow opposing viewpoints to be posted and I will not respond to any of them or to supporting comments for that matter. I have said what I had to say, and I have nothing more to add. I will not allow anything with words of hate or hatefulness to be posted though. I would actually appreciate people being civil if they choose to comment no matter what side of any of this they fall on; I know this is the internet though, and that is asking a lot. Also, while not hateful in and of itself, calls to boycott or patronize Chik-fil-a will also be disallowed.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Culling (New 52 Crossover in the Young Justice titles)
The Culling is a crossover event in what DC refers to as its Young Justice titles. Yes, again, this review is a bit behind schedule. I am still catching up, and I have about a month's worth of comics to go. Note that there are spoilers in this review because it is so late.
The Young Justice titles include the following titles: Superboy, Legion Lost, and Teen Titans. I am not sure why Blue Beetle does not fall into the category as well, maybe he does and they just chose not to use him for this crossover. The cross over is preluded in Superboy 8, Legion Lost 8, and Teen Titans 8. The main story takes place in sequential order in Teen Titans Annual 1, Superboy 9, Legion Lost 9, and Teen Titans 9. There is an epilogue in the new title, Ravagers (1).
This event has been building in Teen Titans and Superboy since the beginning of the New 52. An "evil" organization known as N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has been kidnapping teenaged meta-humans (superheroes in the DCU) for some unknown reason. Superboy is an experiment from one of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s labs as a part of this scheme. The story finally culminates in the three prologue comics when the Teen Titans, Superboy, and our lost Legionnaires from Legion Lost are captured by N.O.W.H.E.R.E.
During the course of the story we get a full introduction to the man (monster) behind N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Harvest. He claims that his motives are altruistic in nature. That he is trying to prepare this generation of meta-humans to stop a great threat that is coming in the future. His story might be believable by the heroes if he weren't experimenting on some of the youth, and forcing all of them to live in an underground ghetto of his creation where they are forced to fight for survival against one another until he decides to have a culling (the point of this whole story).
The Culling is a point in time where Harvest has one of his loyal Ravagers (those meta-humans who have survived past cullings and thus been recruited by Harvest to help him in his plan) incite all of the other meta-humans into a state of aggression where all they wish to do is fight. Harvest then dumps all of the meta-humans into an arena dubbed the Crucible for a battle to the death. Those who survive are offered positions as one of Harvest's Ravagers. Why not just train them and prepare the youth for the coming threat instead of this way is the question by the reader and the heroes involved.
A new team of Ravagers is born from the end of the Cullling, but they are not loyal to Harvest. They are actually escapees from the complex. They are led by the scientist Caitlin Fairchild from Superboy for now, and her goal for them is to teach them how to survive with their powers and as heroic individuals or at least not as villains.
Together with this new team, we also get "new" characters from DC's old universe and the Wildstorm universe introduced to the new DC universe. Warblade from WildCATs is here. Grunge from Gen13 is here. Beast Boy, Terra, Thunder, and Lightning from DC are all here as well. They all have interesting new looks and in Grunge's case even had a temporary upgrade to his powers, which I am sure will get reinstituted if he returns after this crossover.
The whole crossover is well done for the first major event. The lead ups brought the reader to where he needed to be for the event and even the prologues properly set the final stage for the Culling. There are still plot threads that have ran out of the crossover for all of the individual series, while still leaving the major threat of Harvest and/or his upcoming threat intact. The story as a crossover even added to the events for each of the individual titles. Superboy grows more towards his heroic destiny. The Teen Titans finally start bonding together as a true team. And Legion Lost learns that there is more to what's going on for them here and in the future then they all knew, which will no doubt have many repercussions for them in the future.
If you did not pick up the serial comics, I recommend the trade paperback when it is released (as I am sure it will be eventually) or even going out and picking up the crossover issues and reading the event straight through as I did. Even if you have not been reading the three separate series, the event from the prologue to the epilogue can be enjoyed on its own.
Thanks again for reading.
The Young Justice titles include the following titles: Superboy, Legion Lost, and Teen Titans. I am not sure why Blue Beetle does not fall into the category as well, maybe he does and they just chose not to use him for this crossover. The cross over is preluded in Superboy 8, Legion Lost 8, and Teen Titans 8. The main story takes place in sequential order in Teen Titans Annual 1, Superboy 9, Legion Lost 9, and Teen Titans 9. There is an epilogue in the new title, Ravagers (1).
This event has been building in Teen Titans and Superboy since the beginning of the New 52. An "evil" organization known as N.O.W.H.E.R.E. has been kidnapping teenaged meta-humans (superheroes in the DCU) for some unknown reason. Superboy is an experiment from one of N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s labs as a part of this scheme. The story finally culminates in the three prologue comics when the Teen Titans, Superboy, and our lost Legionnaires from Legion Lost are captured by N.O.W.H.E.R.E.
During the course of the story we get a full introduction to the man (monster) behind N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Harvest. He claims that his motives are altruistic in nature. That he is trying to prepare this generation of meta-humans to stop a great threat that is coming in the future. His story might be believable by the heroes if he weren't experimenting on some of the youth, and forcing all of them to live in an underground ghetto of his creation where they are forced to fight for survival against one another until he decides to have a culling (the point of this whole story).
The Culling is a point in time where Harvest has one of his loyal Ravagers (those meta-humans who have survived past cullings and thus been recruited by Harvest to help him in his plan) incite all of the other meta-humans into a state of aggression where all they wish to do is fight. Harvest then dumps all of the meta-humans into an arena dubbed the Crucible for a battle to the death. Those who survive are offered positions as one of Harvest's Ravagers. Why not just train them and prepare the youth for the coming threat instead of this way is the question by the reader and the heroes involved.
A new team of Ravagers is born from the end of the Cullling, but they are not loyal to Harvest. They are actually escapees from the complex. They are led by the scientist Caitlin Fairchild from Superboy for now, and her goal for them is to teach them how to survive with their powers and as heroic individuals or at least not as villains.
Together with this new team, we also get "new" characters from DC's old universe and the Wildstorm universe introduced to the new DC universe. Warblade from WildCATs is here. Grunge from Gen13 is here. Beast Boy, Terra, Thunder, and Lightning from DC are all here as well. They all have interesting new looks and in Grunge's case even had a temporary upgrade to his powers, which I am sure will get reinstituted if he returns after this crossover.
The whole crossover is well done for the first major event. The lead ups brought the reader to where he needed to be for the event and even the prologues properly set the final stage for the Culling. There are still plot threads that have ran out of the crossover for all of the individual series, while still leaving the major threat of Harvest and/or his upcoming threat intact. The story as a crossover even added to the events for each of the individual titles. Superboy grows more towards his heroic destiny. The Teen Titans finally start bonding together as a true team. And Legion Lost learns that there is more to what's going on for them here and in the future then they all knew, which will no doubt have many repercussions for them in the future.
If you did not pick up the serial comics, I recommend the trade paperback when it is released (as I am sure it will be eventually) or even going out and picking up the crossover issues and reading the event straight through as I did. Even if you have not been reading the three separate series, the event from the prologue to the epilogue can be enjoyed on its own.
Thanks again for reading.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Scarlet Spider 5, Grifter 9, and Deathstroke 9
Okay, it's been a while. Sorry, life happens. I moved back home to Louisiana in December 2011 and it's been one thing after another since I've gotten here trying to get resettled. Because of that I'm way behind on reading my weekly supply of comics, but I read three today that I really wanted to share my opinions about; they're from May 9, so spoilers will be present, but it should not matter to most of you. One is a Marvel title and the other two are from DC (part of the almost one year old New 52).
The Marvel title is Scarlet Spider, written by Chris Yost with pencils by Neil Edwards, inks by Karl Kesel, and colors by Edgar Delgado. This book is still in its infancy, and I am loving it so far. The premise of the series stems from the Spiderman clone saga of years gone by. From that story ultimately came a failed clone of Peter Parker who somehow survived the degenerative effects that all the other clones had. This clone took the name Kaine, and, for a time, he hated Spidey and wanted to kill him. Something happened in recent Amazing Spiderman stories though and things have somewhat changed I guess (I stopped reading Spidey about a year and a half ago - the stories just weren't the same to me with the changes from the One More Day storyline). Anyway, Kaine was leaving New York and running from his past to Mexico when an unexpected stop in Houston went all the wrong way for Kaine. Now, he's a superhero (though you should not tell him that; he does not like the idea much) with the press dubbed moniker of Scarlet Spider.
This Spider is billed as having all of the power and none of the responsibility and Yost writes the serial in a way that brings that out regularly. Kaine is a man with a bloody past. In this most recent issue (#5), he's trying to help a friend(? I am not sure Kaine has friends yet) on the Houston Police Department stop a dirty bomb from going off. His methods do not include asking nicely; instead he prefers torturing the perps and threatening to kill their whole families to get answers to where the bomb is. In the last issue of this series (#4), we actually learned of a prior problem Kaine ran into with the Assassin's Guild of New Orleans (ran by the X-Man Gambit's ex-wife, Belladonna) which led him to make a deal to do one job for the Assassin's Guild if they would leave him alone from this point on - I'm looking forward to when that tale gets told. Kaine is definitely doing good as you can see if you read the series, but Yost does not let you forget that Kaine used to be a deadly killer and that past is still there as well as at least a hint of his former hatred for Spidey.
The penciles by Neil Edwards in this issue bring out the franticness of the situation as much as anything without detracting. His pencils capture the essence of the story being told and although I have not seen a lot of his work yet, I like it already. When the shadows are added by Kesel with the inks and the colors applied to make the images complete by Delgado, the images stand out to relay the story that Yost wants told. This is a fun book for anyone who remembers the anti-heroes of the nineties and wants to see a new one in action. I recommend it highly even if you have never been a Spiderman fan.
Grifter has been a part of the New 52 since DC's relaunch of the DC Universe. I've been a fan of Grifter since the Image days with the original limited series of WildC.A.T.s - I still have that series somewhere in my collection. Anyway, this issue (#9) changes the team on the book and we get a writer that I am not a fan of by any stretch of the imagination (in fact, I am kind of disheartened by the fact that Jim Lee and Geoff Johns are putting this guy on any titles, but I guess it is just business at the end of the day and the guy has a few fans somewhere, although I have never met them). Grifter is now being written by Rob Liefeld. Pencils are by Scott Clark with inks by Dave Beaty and colors by Andrew Dalhouse. While the story is by Liefeld, the dialogue is being done by Frank Tieri, which may change the way I feel about this whole thing, since I did actually like this issue of Grifter still.
In this issue, Grifter is on the one from the Daemonites still (the aliens who are possessing humans here on Earth as a precursor to invasion - you can see them lurking about in a few other New 52 titles as well - Voodoo, The Authority, and recently Superman. Grifter is joined during the new issue by a new character, Nico, who seems to swing a sword pretty well in order to help Grifter get rid of a few of his Daemonite friends - I thought we might be seeing the new version of Zealot at first, but no luck in this series. At the end of the issue though, we do get another Wildstorm character introduced into the new DCU as Deathblow shows up as a member of the resistance against the Daemonites that Grifter has just been recruited into. That puts us 2/7 of the way to Team 7 being present in the New DCU.
The story itself is not badly written. I think Liefeld did a good job of framing the story and moving it in a way that maintains the groundwork that had already been laid in this series. If this is what he's capable of, I might be able to continue with this series. This was mostly a fight issue though with brief introductions - no real character building though, so I am still not sure that Liefeld is a good choice on any book as a writer. Given that Hawk and Dove was probably the worst of the New 52 series, we will see how this plays out before I change many of my opinions on Liefeld. Tieri's dialogue seemed to be spot on for how the one existing character appearing in this issue, Grifter, should behave and the few lines we get from Deathblow at the end definitely show it to be the same Deathblow attitude and character from the Image/Wildstorm days. Clark's pencils seem to be hit or miss to me - there are panels where the detail and lines are great, while there are others where it seems like he has gotten lazy and just gone for a broad brush. Maybe this is intentional, but I did not appreciate it. The inking is fabulously done and does a wonderful job of bringing out the darker edginess of this title with the colors being toned down just enough to show that this is not a book about the lighter side of the DCU.
I will probably follow for a bit and see how the Liefeld work goes. I like Grifter and Deathblow, but I do not see Liefeld writing these characters in a way that keeps me coming back for any long term period of time.
Deathstroke is the final title of this trio. I was already losing interest in the title before this issue, and the change in writer and penciller to Rob Liefeld has all but killed my interest. Deathstroke was a title I really enjoyed back in the nineties, but the stories so far have been fairly lackluster and would have worked just as well as backstories in a Titans book (although I guess there is no Titans book where Deathstroke really belongs right now). I am sure fans of Deathstroke have liked this stories; for me it has pretty much been one mercenary assassination after another and Deathstroke seeking to prove he is the best there is in the mercenary world of the new DCU - even the fight with his son that finished out the issue before last (#7) was anti-climactic when coupled with the issue before this one (#8).
The arc starting in this issue (#9) has some promise only because Deathstroke has been hired to hunt down the last Czarnian (and we all know Lobo is the main man and not to be trifled with by anyone short of Superman). This story may be well suited to Liefeld's storytelling and art styles in that this stands out as the type of arc that will be mostly fight scene after fight scene with very little character development taking place - something I have always found lacking in past Liefeld works. This is Lobo's introduction to the new DCU, and I am interested to see how that develops. Also, on the Image/Wildstorm front for characters here, we do see Zealot finally introduced to the new DCU in this issue of Deathstroke. Her look is the same, her attitude seems familiar although not exact so far, and I would like to see how they will develop her from here.
The artwork in the book is typical Liefeld. His style has not really changed since the ninteties, which makes it well suited for this story - big guns, big fights, big muscles on his men. I did not like the way he drew Zealot at all - it was almost like he did not want to draw her and someone made him include her. Also, as always with Liefeld, the shoulder pads have been added to Deathstroke, and they just make no sense. The inking by Adelso Corona and Jacob Bear was fine as were the colors by Travis Lanham, but I still had a hard time getting past Liefeld's style (as I said, I am not a fan). I really do not recommend the book past this point unless you are a huge fan of Lobo, Deathstroke, or Liefeld. If you are a fan of Zealot, I would still not recommend the book for you as I do not think this is going to be the Zealot you want to read.
Well, thanks for reading again, especially if you're still sticking with me or looking for these after my hiatus. Hopefully, I will get the next 5 weeks of comics read soon and start posting regularly again as well as talking about more up to date issues...
Okay, it's been a while. Sorry, life happens. I moved back home to Louisiana in December 2011 and it's been one thing after another since I've gotten here trying to get resettled. Because of that I'm way behind on reading my weekly supply of comics, but I read three today that I really wanted to share my opinions about; they're from May 9, so spoilers will be present, but it should not matter to most of you. One is a Marvel title and the other two are from DC (part of the almost one year old New 52).
The Marvel title is Scarlet Spider, written by Chris Yost with pencils by Neil Edwards, inks by Karl Kesel, and colors by Edgar Delgado. This book is still in its infancy, and I am loving it so far. The premise of the series stems from the Spiderman clone saga of years gone by. From that story ultimately came a failed clone of Peter Parker who somehow survived the degenerative effects that all the other clones had. This clone took the name Kaine, and, for a time, he hated Spidey and wanted to kill him. Something happened in recent Amazing Spiderman stories though and things have somewhat changed I guess (I stopped reading Spidey about a year and a half ago - the stories just weren't the same to me with the changes from the One More Day storyline). Anyway, Kaine was leaving New York and running from his past to Mexico when an unexpected stop in Houston went all the wrong way for Kaine. Now, he's a superhero (though you should not tell him that; he does not like the idea much) with the press dubbed moniker of Scarlet Spider.
This Spider is billed as having all of the power and none of the responsibility and Yost writes the serial in a way that brings that out regularly. Kaine is a man with a bloody past. In this most recent issue (#5), he's trying to help a friend(? I am not sure Kaine has friends yet) on the Houston Police Department stop a dirty bomb from going off. His methods do not include asking nicely; instead he prefers torturing the perps and threatening to kill their whole families to get answers to where the bomb is. In the last issue of this series (#4), we actually learned of a prior problem Kaine ran into with the Assassin's Guild of New Orleans (ran by the X-Man Gambit's ex-wife, Belladonna) which led him to make a deal to do one job for the Assassin's Guild if they would leave him alone from this point on - I'm looking forward to when that tale gets told. Kaine is definitely doing good as you can see if you read the series, but Yost does not let you forget that Kaine used to be a deadly killer and that past is still there as well as at least a hint of his former hatred for Spidey.
The penciles by Neil Edwards in this issue bring out the franticness of the situation as much as anything without detracting. His pencils capture the essence of the story being told and although I have not seen a lot of his work yet, I like it already. When the shadows are added by Kesel with the inks and the colors applied to make the images complete by Delgado, the images stand out to relay the story that Yost wants told. This is a fun book for anyone who remembers the anti-heroes of the nineties and wants to see a new one in action. I recommend it highly even if you have never been a Spiderman fan.
Grifter has been a part of the New 52 since DC's relaunch of the DC Universe. I've been a fan of Grifter since the Image days with the original limited series of WildC.A.T.s - I still have that series somewhere in my collection. Anyway, this issue (#9) changes the team on the book and we get a writer that I am not a fan of by any stretch of the imagination (in fact, I am kind of disheartened by the fact that Jim Lee and Geoff Johns are putting this guy on any titles, but I guess it is just business at the end of the day and the guy has a few fans somewhere, although I have never met them). Grifter is now being written by Rob Liefeld. Pencils are by Scott Clark with inks by Dave Beaty and colors by Andrew Dalhouse. While the story is by Liefeld, the dialogue is being done by Frank Tieri, which may change the way I feel about this whole thing, since I did actually like this issue of Grifter still.
In this issue, Grifter is on the one from the Daemonites still (the aliens who are possessing humans here on Earth as a precursor to invasion - you can see them lurking about in a few other New 52 titles as well - Voodoo, The Authority, and recently Superman. Grifter is joined during the new issue by a new character, Nico, who seems to swing a sword pretty well in order to help Grifter get rid of a few of his Daemonite friends - I thought we might be seeing the new version of Zealot at first, but no luck in this series. At the end of the issue though, we do get another Wildstorm character introduced into the new DCU as Deathblow shows up as a member of the resistance against the Daemonites that Grifter has just been recruited into. That puts us 2/7 of the way to Team 7 being present in the New DCU.
The story itself is not badly written. I think Liefeld did a good job of framing the story and moving it in a way that maintains the groundwork that had already been laid in this series. If this is what he's capable of, I might be able to continue with this series. This was mostly a fight issue though with brief introductions - no real character building though, so I am still not sure that Liefeld is a good choice on any book as a writer. Given that Hawk and Dove was probably the worst of the New 52 series, we will see how this plays out before I change many of my opinions on Liefeld. Tieri's dialogue seemed to be spot on for how the one existing character appearing in this issue, Grifter, should behave and the few lines we get from Deathblow at the end definitely show it to be the same Deathblow attitude and character from the Image/Wildstorm days. Clark's pencils seem to be hit or miss to me - there are panels where the detail and lines are great, while there are others where it seems like he has gotten lazy and just gone for a broad brush. Maybe this is intentional, but I did not appreciate it. The inking is fabulously done and does a wonderful job of bringing out the darker edginess of this title with the colors being toned down just enough to show that this is not a book about the lighter side of the DCU.
I will probably follow for a bit and see how the Liefeld work goes. I like Grifter and Deathblow, but I do not see Liefeld writing these characters in a way that keeps me coming back for any long term period of time.
Deathstroke is the final title of this trio. I was already losing interest in the title before this issue, and the change in writer and penciller to Rob Liefeld has all but killed my interest. Deathstroke was a title I really enjoyed back in the nineties, but the stories so far have been fairly lackluster and would have worked just as well as backstories in a Titans book (although I guess there is no Titans book where Deathstroke really belongs right now). I am sure fans of Deathstroke have liked this stories; for me it has pretty much been one mercenary assassination after another and Deathstroke seeking to prove he is the best there is in the mercenary world of the new DCU - even the fight with his son that finished out the issue before last (#7) was anti-climactic when coupled with the issue before this one (#8).
The arc starting in this issue (#9) has some promise only because Deathstroke has been hired to hunt down the last Czarnian (and we all know Lobo is the main man and not to be trifled with by anyone short of Superman). This story may be well suited to Liefeld's storytelling and art styles in that this stands out as the type of arc that will be mostly fight scene after fight scene with very little character development taking place - something I have always found lacking in past Liefeld works. This is Lobo's introduction to the new DCU, and I am interested to see how that develops. Also, on the Image/Wildstorm front for characters here, we do see Zealot finally introduced to the new DCU in this issue of Deathstroke. Her look is the same, her attitude seems familiar although not exact so far, and I would like to see how they will develop her from here.
The artwork in the book is typical Liefeld. His style has not really changed since the ninteties, which makes it well suited for this story - big guns, big fights, big muscles on his men. I did not like the way he drew Zealot at all - it was almost like he did not want to draw her and someone made him include her. Also, as always with Liefeld, the shoulder pads have been added to Deathstroke, and they just make no sense. The inking by Adelso Corona and Jacob Bear was fine as were the colors by Travis Lanham, but I still had a hard time getting past Liefeld's style (as I said, I am not a fan). I really do not recommend the book past this point unless you are a huge fan of Lobo, Deathstroke, or Liefeld. If you are a fan of Zealot, I would still not recommend the book for you as I do not think this is going to be the Zealot you want to read.
Well, thanks for reading again, especially if you're still sticking with me or looking for these after my hiatus. Hopefully, I will get the next 5 weeks of comics read soon and start posting regularly again as well as talking about more up to date issues...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Voodoo #5, The Mighty Thor # 10, and Aquaman #5
3 comics in today's blog. I was trying to only do 2 at a time, but since it's Tuesday and there were more I wanted to talk about then days I blogged, I decided to do 3 of them today.
Voodoo #5 is a fantastic story as the first arc moved to a twist that I never saw coming. Voodoo is a daemonite (alien race and very evil) half-breed - the other half being human. She is being used by the daemonites to gather intelligence on the inhabitants of Earth as a precursor to invasion. In this issue, she flees to a daemonite ship in an attempt to upload her intelligence and complete her mission. When she gets there, she encouters a pure breed daemonite who is not fond of the hybrids (what the pure daemonites call the half-breeds) who tries to kill her before she can complete her mission. She wins the fight in a very brutal fashion and proceeds to upload her intelligence only to find out a very significant fact about herself (this is where the twist comes in).
Josh Williamson (writer) is doing an excellent job of telling the tale of Voodoo as she's been introduced into the mainstream DC Universe. At first, I wasn't sure how much I would like this story, since Voodoo is in actuality the bad guy of the story, but it has been a great read and a great way to introduce this former Wildstorm star to the DC universe.
Sami Basri (artist) does an awesome job depicting the story. The look of Voodoo is dead on with what she should look like in human form from the old Wildstorm days and the new form that she regularly takes when she shapechanges into her hybrid form is absolutely fabulous. The depiction of the scenes all around are fantastic and the look of the daemonite in this issue is wonderfully well-done as well as the whole fight scene between Voodoo and her daemonite brethren.
The Mighty Thor #10 continues the story of Thor after his death as well as the tale of Asgardia's new rulers (the All-Mother) to bring all of Asgardia together in a democratic rule. This story is working really well with the new status quo for Asgard since Fear Itself ended. Although, I have been waiting since Thor's death to see him finally return to his glory, which begins at the end of this issue. I am really liking the rule of Asgard under the all-mother versus the rule of Odin as the all-father. Their attempts to be benign and give more freedom to the residents of Asgardia than the previously iron-fisted rule of Odin is a brilliant contrast. The contrast also illustrates very well why Odin never allowed for democratic rule by his subjects, since the All-Mother has also been incredibly duped by the trolls of Asgard with Tanarus as the replacement Thor while no one remembers Thor and thinks Tanarus (who is actually Ulik the Troll in disguise) has always been the god of thunder.
Matt Fraction (writer) is doing a wonderful job of redefining Asgard and its denizens in the wake of Fear Itself. The story is well crafted and even the magnificent use of young Loki as the wayward hero adds to the tale.
Aquaman #5 starts the next arc of Aquaman, and I am looking forward to it as much as I did the first arc with the first issue of Aquaman. I am truly enjoying the way Geoff Johns (writer) is redefining Aquaman as a meta-human who is as powerful as Superman or Wonder Woman and truly deserves his place in the legends of the DC Universe. This arc starts with a mystery left behind by the end of the last arc, a mystery that seems to stretch to the early days of Atlantis before the fabled continent ever sunk beneath the waves of the ocean.
In all, I would definitely recommend going out and picking up these titles if you're not already - in the case of Aquaman and Voodoo, I would definitely say try to pick up the first 4 issues as well. In the case of Thor, I would say try to go back to the issue that started this arc at the end of Fear Itself. All three of these series are wonderful and deserve a read.
Thanks for reading.
Voodoo #5 is a fantastic story as the first arc moved to a twist that I never saw coming. Voodoo is a daemonite (alien race and very evil) half-breed - the other half being human. She is being used by the daemonites to gather intelligence on the inhabitants of Earth as a precursor to invasion. In this issue, she flees to a daemonite ship in an attempt to upload her intelligence and complete her mission. When she gets there, she encouters a pure breed daemonite who is not fond of the hybrids (what the pure daemonites call the half-breeds) who tries to kill her before she can complete her mission. She wins the fight in a very brutal fashion and proceeds to upload her intelligence only to find out a very significant fact about herself (this is where the twist comes in).
Josh Williamson (writer) is doing an excellent job of telling the tale of Voodoo as she's been introduced into the mainstream DC Universe. At first, I wasn't sure how much I would like this story, since Voodoo is in actuality the bad guy of the story, but it has been a great read and a great way to introduce this former Wildstorm star to the DC universe.
Sami Basri (artist) does an awesome job depicting the story. The look of Voodoo is dead on with what she should look like in human form from the old Wildstorm days and the new form that she regularly takes when she shapechanges into her hybrid form is absolutely fabulous. The depiction of the scenes all around are fantastic and the look of the daemonite in this issue is wonderfully well-done as well as the whole fight scene between Voodoo and her daemonite brethren.
The Mighty Thor #10 continues the story of Thor after his death as well as the tale of Asgardia's new rulers (the All-Mother) to bring all of Asgardia together in a democratic rule. This story is working really well with the new status quo for Asgard since Fear Itself ended. Although, I have been waiting since Thor's death to see him finally return to his glory, which begins at the end of this issue. I am really liking the rule of Asgard under the all-mother versus the rule of Odin as the all-father. Their attempts to be benign and give more freedom to the residents of Asgardia than the previously iron-fisted rule of Odin is a brilliant contrast. The contrast also illustrates very well why Odin never allowed for democratic rule by his subjects, since the All-Mother has also been incredibly duped by the trolls of Asgard with Tanarus as the replacement Thor while no one remembers Thor and thinks Tanarus (who is actually Ulik the Troll in disguise) has always been the god of thunder.
Matt Fraction (writer) is doing a wonderful job of redefining Asgard and its denizens in the wake of Fear Itself. The story is well crafted and even the magnificent use of young Loki as the wayward hero adds to the tale.
Aquaman #5 starts the next arc of Aquaman, and I am looking forward to it as much as I did the first arc with the first issue of Aquaman. I am truly enjoying the way Geoff Johns (writer) is redefining Aquaman as a meta-human who is as powerful as Superman or Wonder Woman and truly deserves his place in the legends of the DC Universe. This arc starts with a mystery left behind by the end of the last arc, a mystery that seems to stretch to the early days of Atlantis before the fabled continent ever sunk beneath the waves of the ocean.
In all, I would definitely recommend going out and picking up these titles if you're not already - in the case of Aquaman and Voodoo, I would definitely say try to pick up the first 4 issues as well. In the case of Thor, I would say try to go back to the issue that started this arc at the end of Fear Itself. All three of these series are wonderful and deserve a read.
Thanks for reading.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Alpha Flight #8 and Justice League Dark #5
Well, another limited series comes to an end after having been changed from a limited series to an ongoing series and back to a limited series. Also, the first arc of Justice League Dark comes to an end. Both were good reads, although I think I liked Justice League Dark more than the Alpha Flight series.
Alpha Flight #8 comes to an end with the final battle between Alpha Flight and The Master (anyone else think they stole his name from Dr. Who?). Heather even finally pulls it together when she realizes The Master will sacrifice her daughter to save himself or just to hurt Mac.
Van Lente (writer) did a great job on the series. The writing brought out the old Alpha Flight that I loved with these fan favorite characters (even if they can never sustain sales well enough to get an ongoing series again) and at the same time introduced some newness to them at the same time. Marinna as a goth punk alien was an awesome take on a character that I think had grown fairly staid by the time they killed her off in the older series. Additionally, the final breakdown and what may at last be a cure for Jeanne Marie / Aurora was a fantastic bit of writing. The only issue I took with the writing is that it became pretty evident early on that The Master was going to be behind the whole debacle - while this did not detract from the story, I do think a new villain would have made a better story here.
Greg Pak's artwork was impeccable and the character's looked spectacular as did the scenery around them. I always like Pak's work though.
If you missed the series, watch for the trade that will no doubt be released and pick it up. If you're an Alpha Flight fan, it's definitely worth it. If you're not an Alpha Flight fan, I still think you can enjoy the story and the villain will be fresh for you, so you may not fall into the same trap that I did of knowing who it was before the reveal - unless of course you just read this.
Justice League Dark #5 closes out the first arc of these new 52 title with a twist. If this were a normal super hero team book, this would be the issue where all the heroes come togehter finally to form a team and stand united at the end. Considering the nature of these characters and this series though, the arc closes with the world saved and John Constantine voicing the feelings of everyone in the group as he tells Mme. Xanadu to sod off and storms out; the rest of the "team" walks out right behind him. It's interesting to finally see the reason Madame Xanadu seemed to be working for the opposite side at the end of this tale. Apparently, there is a dark future she is trying to prevent, and to do so, she needs this mystical version of the Justice League to come together as a team and be prepared to do what it takes to stop that dark future. Too bad she's not the tactician that Batman is, the inspiration that Superman is, or the people person that Wonder Woman is. It will be interesting to see how this non-team comes back together again for the second arc or if Madame Xanadu's cards lead her to organize a different team to try and halt the dark future.
Peter Milligan (writer) did a wonderful job crafting this tale and capturing the essence of these newly remodelled characters personalities, while Mikel Janin (artist) did a spectacular job depicting this dark side of the new DC universe. The two worked well together to tell a tale that bordered the creepy and helps to redefine magic in the new DC universe with artwork that made you feel how nasty that dark world of magic is without heroes to shine some light into it. The fact that the story wraps back around to reverse what Madame Xanadu did originally to trigger the events of this arc just adds even more of a twist to the whole tale and the dark and twisted nature of Justice League Dark.
I definitely recommending going back and picking up the series or if they do a trade, which I think they should, go pick it up and read the whole tale at once.
Thanks for reading!
Alpha Flight #8 comes to an end with the final battle between Alpha Flight and The Master (anyone else think they stole his name from Dr. Who?). Heather even finally pulls it together when she realizes The Master will sacrifice her daughter to save himself or just to hurt Mac.
Van Lente (writer) did a great job on the series. The writing brought out the old Alpha Flight that I loved with these fan favorite characters (even if they can never sustain sales well enough to get an ongoing series again) and at the same time introduced some newness to them at the same time. Marinna as a goth punk alien was an awesome take on a character that I think had grown fairly staid by the time they killed her off in the older series. Additionally, the final breakdown and what may at last be a cure for Jeanne Marie / Aurora was a fantastic bit of writing. The only issue I took with the writing is that it became pretty evident early on that The Master was going to be behind the whole debacle - while this did not detract from the story, I do think a new villain would have made a better story here.
Greg Pak's artwork was impeccable and the character's looked spectacular as did the scenery around them. I always like Pak's work though.
If you missed the series, watch for the trade that will no doubt be released and pick it up. If you're an Alpha Flight fan, it's definitely worth it. If you're not an Alpha Flight fan, I still think you can enjoy the story and the villain will be fresh for you, so you may not fall into the same trap that I did of knowing who it was before the reveal - unless of course you just read this.
Justice League Dark #5 closes out the first arc of these new 52 title with a twist. If this were a normal super hero team book, this would be the issue where all the heroes come togehter finally to form a team and stand united at the end. Considering the nature of these characters and this series though, the arc closes with the world saved and John Constantine voicing the feelings of everyone in the group as he tells Mme. Xanadu to sod off and storms out; the rest of the "team" walks out right behind him. It's interesting to finally see the reason Madame Xanadu seemed to be working for the opposite side at the end of this tale. Apparently, there is a dark future she is trying to prevent, and to do so, she needs this mystical version of the Justice League to come together as a team and be prepared to do what it takes to stop that dark future. Too bad she's not the tactician that Batman is, the inspiration that Superman is, or the people person that Wonder Woman is. It will be interesting to see how this non-team comes back together again for the second arc or if Madame Xanadu's cards lead her to organize a different team to try and halt the dark future.
Peter Milligan (writer) did a wonderful job crafting this tale and capturing the essence of these newly remodelled characters personalities, while Mikel Janin (artist) did a spectacular job depicting this dark side of the new DC universe. The two worked well together to tell a tale that bordered the creepy and helps to redefine magic in the new DC universe with artwork that made you feel how nasty that dark world of magic is without heroes to shine some light into it. The fact that the story wraps back around to reverse what Madame Xanadu did originally to trigger the events of this arc just adds even more of a twist to the whole tale and the dark and twisted nature of Justice League Dark.
I definitely recommending going back and picking up the series or if they do a trade, which I think they should, go pick it up and read the whole tale at once.
Thanks for reading!
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