I Need This, You Need This.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/21/idw-star-trek-legion-super-heroes-crossover/

Oh, I need to get this. I'd pick it up for Jeff Moy's artwork alone.
CHRIS

Comics Review: Age of X

So, this week I picked up the Age of X trade paperback.

My first thought is that it’s not as good or as emotionally satisfying as Second Coming (reviewed a couple of months back), but it’s still a pretty good graphic novel.

I’m a sucker for alternate world stories, because they offer creators a freedom to cut loose with the characters and their world. The old series, What If? Was a favorite comic of mine back during the early 1990s, and Age of Apocalypse (which is a thematic precursor to this story) was mind-blowingly good. I suppose since I’m comparing Age of X to its predecessor Age of Apoc, it comes up short. Then again, comparing anything to a bad ass sci-f story with art by Joe Madueria at the top of his game, most things would come up short.

On its own merits, though, I’d give Age of X a solid 7 out of 10, maybe even 8 of 10 if I’m feeling generous. My biggest problem was despite the huge cast (pictured at left) the story only focused on a few characters: Rogue/Revenant, Mageneto/The General, Cyclops/The Basilisk, Wolverine, Cannonball and Legion. All the rest of the characters had glorified cameos, and quite a few characters had no speaking role at all.

This left me feeling a bit unsatisfied, and there were a lot of tantalizing questions posed by the excellent Clayton Mann art that the script left unanswered. In no particular order: what the hell happened to Collosus’s arms, and can he turn back human now? Where exactly did Gambit pick up the musket? Who the hell was the red haired telekinetic with the X scar on her check? She wasn’t Jean, nor was she Rachael, and I don’t think she was identified by name any where in the entire storyline. She was a cipher, which is a disappointment, because I really liked her bondage-harness costume. It was kinky enough to catch my eye.

Also speaking of ciphers, I find it really disappointing that the creative staff decided to include Avalanche, give him a redesigned costume, and not give him one single line any where in the book. I’ve been reading since the Claremont days, and Avalanche has always been the thug in the back of a crowd scene- a soldier with a cool power and neat helmet but no discernible personality. I figured we’d finally get to see some humanity from this guy after 30 years of being a non-entity. Nothing.

Anyway, the wrap up was a bit quick and considering it involved the alteration of reality a bit too easy, but based on what I’m seeing in current issues of X-Men: Legacy the repercussions will continue to be explored. I gottta say one thing though: why hasn’t anybody in the Marvel Universe come by and smoked Legion like he’s a Polish sausage?

Seriously, this guy has broken reality twice now. The Scarlet Witch only fucked up reality once, and everybody was ready to kill her. And the Scarlet Witch, for most of her career, was a cute, cheerful superhero. Legion, by contrast, has been a selfish, twitchy little dweeb since his first appearance. Letting him live just makes the X-Men seem too dumb to live themselves.

Anyway, I’ve only got two pieces outstanding on Otherverse America, which means that this beast will be ready to go soon. I’m also working on a short companion PDF to Fursona, that uses the same basic character generation system to build robotic heroes and villains. It should be a fun one.

Blessed Be,

CHRIS

Species of the Otherverse

Species of the Otherverse just came out. This 70 pager sourcebook was originally going to be part and parcel of the revised Otherverse America corebook, but got moved to it's own release because of page count concerns. With Sexually Transmitted Future, Tactical Upgrade 2107, and the Powered Hero Basic class, it forms the core of the Otherverse America character builder. It's a pretty sweet release- lots of art, not very much of which is stock. Inside, you've got 13 of the most common alien and post-human species found on Earth, including racial feats for each species.

A listing of the species found inside:

Courier	Medium Humanoid (Psionic)	2030s, United States Military	Teleporting military psions
Dreamborn Mau	Medium Humanoid (Psionic)	2079, Coven of Bast	Cat like children of a goddess
Fluxminx	Medium Humanoid (shapechanger)	2034, Sanger Genomics and other meta-porn companies	Seductive shapechangers
Full Conversion Cyborgs	Large Monstrous Humanoid	2030s, various corporations and militaries	Heavily armed and armored bionic warriors
Half Grey	Medium Humanoid (Psionic, Lifechained)	2011, alien	Stealthy, predatory refugees
Mechanics	Medium Humanoid (Psionic)	2050s, various corporations and militaries	Psions able to manipulate plastic and metal
Mediators	Medium Humanoid (Psionic)	2090s, United States Military	Logical, atheistic geniuses
Nanofeasters	Medium Humanoid	2060s, Lifer Army of God	Predators designed to feed on nanotech
Neverborn	Medium Undead (Lifechained)	2080s, Lifer Army of God	Zombie-like activists
Shy Minutemen	Medium Humanoid	2040s, United States Military	Predators designed to hunt Lifechained superhumans
Softling Healers	Medium Humanoid (Psionic)	2040s, Sanger Genomics and the Covenant	Psi-capable healers
Stonecutters	Large Monstrous Humanoid	2020s, alien	Wealthy, advanced shapeshifting giants
Ubasti	Large Aberration	2079, the Coven of Bast	Sentient combat trained lions

Cover: Otherverse America Unlimited Edition

Cover for the upcoming Otherverse America Unlimited Edition, by Alex Garcia.

Wow.
CHRIS

Major Release Plans

I just thought I'd follow up on the last post and give you an idea of the schedule (at least as far as major releases) looks for the next year or so. For minor releases, those come out as I have ideas for them. I've got a good backlog of 10-30 page short PDFs on file, some for Pathfinder, others supporting Otherverse America, Psi-Watch and Galaxy Command.

1. Otherverse America Unlimited Edition. This huge book should be out by late August or early September. The Game Master's Guide will release at roughly the same time.

2. Pirates of the Bronze Sky. At this point, I don't have a firm release date that I can promise with the authority I'm promising Otherverse America Unlimited, but I'd expect this lavish Pathfinder RPG Campaign Setting sometime either in late winter or (more likely) early Spring 2012. You know, just in time for the Mayan Apocalypse. Make sure to print out a copy so you can play in the ruins of civilization after the power goes out.

3. I have a mid-length D20 Modern PDF in the pipes. Think of it as a campaign overlay for playing sentai characters, dramatically expanding the old advanced class I did for Skortched Urf Studios: Sentai Spectrum Ranger. That one's pretty much done and I just need to buy some art for it. Look for it around the time Otherverse America comes out.

4. I want to revamp and revise the Guide to the Known Galaxy, and I'll be buying up art and taking a second look at the text over the next few months. Expect alot of the profits from Otherverse America Unlimited Edition to go here. I'll also probably put out a 'monster manual' type book with the new art that converts the Lifechained monsters in the Guide to the Pathfinder PRG ruleset, sorta doubling my sales! Look for that in late spring or early summer 2012 as well.

5. I've decided to go ahead with the Otherverse Modern revamp of the D20 Modern ruleset. That will probably release in late fall 2012, unless I hear anything that makes me decide to scuttle the project. (Namely, Paizo finally doing a Modern RPG of their own).

6. Finally, when I originally solicited Sexually Transmitted Future, I had planned to include alot more information on 2107's meta-porn culture. However, the published PDF didn't have much metaporn content in it. That's because I want to make the eventual meta-porn sourcebook much sexier and much wierder, and it will need lots of good art to make it stand on its own. This unnamed sourcebook, when it comes out will draw on these three major inspirations: classic William Gibson style cyberpunk, the Playing D&D with Porn Stars blog, and Grant Morrison's "World" introduced during his X-Men run. Make of that what you will.

Talk to you later,
CHRIS

Final Days Before the Release

Okay, I just sent out a mass email to all my artists still working on the Otherverse America core rulebook. I should have all the illustrations in by the last week of July at the latest, and I'll begin layout on the Otherverse America Unlimited Edition by the first week of August. That means, it should be up for sale before September!

I also found out something about one of my artists. Turns out, Felipe Gaona is also doing work on the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, one of the highest profile, most venerable franchises in gaming, and something alot of gamers consider the definitive fantastic-Japan game. Very cool.... I'm happy that I've got somebody with that level of resume on my game.

ALSO- I just popped over to RPGnow, and noticed that somebody tagged Sexually Transmitted Future with a 5 star review. Awesome! I'm glad you liked it, and wait till you see Species of Otherverse America, which should be coming out in the next few weeks.


Talk to you all later,
CHRIS

Comics My Mom Likes

Okay, something a bit different. My mother is more a fan of Jane Austin than modern comics, but raising me, and then just being around, she’s been exposed to quite a few comics over the decades.

First and foremost, she’s proud I’ve been published but mostly baffled by what I write. She under stands the basic concept of roleplaying games well enough, and has seen me run games for my friends and/or my kid brother when I was in high school. So unlike most non-gamers, she understands what D&D is and basically how you play it, though she’s never had an interest in trying it herself. As to Otherverse America…. she knows what it is, knows the basic conflict, and likes most of the art I’ve commissioned for it. Her opinion on abortion is that men shouldn’t have an opinion, and shouldn’t speak or preach publicly on it, since its an inherently female issue. She says she gives me a pass because as a pro-choice man, I’m a nice counterbalance to all the right wing asshats out there.

Anyway, other stuff. Her favorite sci-fi movie is Soldier. She liked Kurt Russell’s transformation from emotionless killing machine to real person. She’s also a huge fan of Tank Girl, just because she thought Laura Petty kicked ass in that movie. She likes strong female characters- she loved the scene in T-2 where Sarah Conner racked the shotgun one handed, and had me ask some of my gun-nut buddies at work if you could really do that. She’s been thinking of buying a shotgun specifically to recreate that scene. Not kidding there.

Knowing how much she loved Victorian era literature- like I said, she’s a huge fan of Jane Austin, so I turned my mom onto League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I bought her the hardback edition of the first volume, she loved it, and its’ the only graphic novel on her bookshelf. I sorta warned her away from the second volume though…. And she’s seen the movie, though like anyone with a soul, while she thought Sean Connery was awesome, she didn’t like the rest of it.

The Beast is one of her favorite characters- she knows him best from the 90s X-Men cartoon. She likes the mix of gentleness, intelligence and sheer physicality- to her Hank McCoy is like the perfect man. Yes, my mother is a furry.

She’s also flipped through Coleen Coover’s Gingerbread Girl and will probably read it at some point. At one point she saw this spread of the Legion as the background on my lap top. She instantly pointed to Saturn Girl and started asking me questions about her- she was fascinated. I asked why, and she said she liked Saturn Girl’s more realistic physique and militaristic uniform and hair style- she looked like a credible, professional hero.

Anyway, talk to you later,

CHRIS