Astro City TV Series

Well here's one I missed in my offline time: Astro City is wrapping up as a monthly book and is being seriously attempted as a TV show. Of all of the "modern"? "Retro"? -whatever - comics out there Astro City is my favorite and has been for a while. A decent take on it would make a great show.

Between this and the word that Wild Cards is also in development as a show from a year or two back there are two super-universes that I really like making their way into new channels. Cool!

Comic Catch-Up

Last year I felt like I had let my superhero/comic book interests drop off too much so I resolved to dig back in this year. I've never been a guy with a bunch of subs at the local comic shop but I've made some effort to keep up with what was going on. The electronic age has made that much easier with the online option but I had let even that go. No longer!

One thing I wanted to do was read all of Astro City, from the beginning, in order. I've liked everything I've seen from the line so via the nice collected editions out there in the world I have been catching up. Slowly, but catching up. I like it enough that I want books in my hand, not pixels, and I've been very happy with this. If you haven't read them then I'd say take a look at the first volume, "Life in the Big City" and that will give you a pretty good idea of what it's about.

Second, I decided to dive into current DC with "Rebirth". I'm just getting started so I'll have more to say down the road but it seemed like a good place to jump onboard.

Finally with Marvel I've been looking at classic stuff - mainly Avengers and Iron Man - but my next round is the Dan Abnett Hercules book from a year or two back. I've heard good things about it and hopefully I can add to them in the near future.

Random Comic Reviews - Avengers: The Initiative

After the events of Civil War, with all of the heroes being registered, the idea was to have a government-sanctioned team of superheroes in every state.

The first thing that occurred to me: cool idea, right? If you were living in a universe with a bunch of super types running around, why not try to organize them? Seems totally logical to me.

The second thing that occurred to me: We only have 32 NFL teams and they struggle to maintain a pro-level of talent.They do have a much larger roster though. How about the NBA? They have 5 starters plus bench players for a total of 13 or so but there are only 30 NBA teams. So, depending on how common superpowers are in the universe, it might be feasible to have 50 5-10 man teams.

Back to the book: It ran for 35 issues + an annual, so about 3 years from 2007 to 2010.

So what about it? Well, I'll tell you - this is a terrible series. I was thinking we would be seeing the veteran Avengers training up a new generation of heroes - after all it does say "Avengers" in the title and one of them had the cover picture shown above. Nope! The only well-known Avengers in most of the run are Hank Pym in Yellowjacket mode who is in charge of the whole thing and War Machine who drops in for short runs. The main scientific genius in residence is "Baron Von Blitzschlag" a leftover Nazi scientist and also a totally new character made up just for this series who is treated as if he has some widely known history! He's totally not a cliche! The drill instructor is Gauntlet, another new character it appears we are supposed to know though he had all of one appearance before this series starts. So we have a command staff that's largely new characters training a bunch of new heroes, neither of which you probably care about a whole lot before the book begins and unfortunately you probably won't care much more after reading the 36 issues of this series.

Right in the first issue there's a training accident and one of the new recruits gets his head blown off and he's not the type of hero where it's going to grow back. Does everyone admit what happened and clear it up? No, where would the fun be in that? It's covered up by the dirty politician, the uncertain drill sergeant, and the former Nazi. The new recruits don't like it, but hey, they go along with it.

Most of the series is like this - a bad mix of dark and boring centered around a bunch of characters you don't know that well and don't care about all that much. Unimaginative names, unimaginative costumes, and so many new heroes showing up that they have to label them in the panel when they come in - there's not much good here.

One example: Komodo. I think we're supposed to care about her because when she doesn't have her powers turned on she reverts to her human form - and she has no legs. That's different and could be an interesting angle but I thought it wasn't used all that greatly throughout the series. I'll let Spider-man explain:

He's right - her signature power in the book is that she charges in with a team, gets an arm blown off, then complains while it grows back in a panel or three.She has no special skills or knowledge, she just regenerates lost limbs in seconds and doesn't like going back to her human form. Keep in mind this is one of the more interesting recruits. Most of them are even less memorable than she is. Most of them are more like "Armory"

Guess what her power is? She has a really big gun stuck on her arm. An alien gun, one strong enough to take out Ultimo in one shot! Her gun-arm is in the story more than she is and we learn very little about her other than this.

There are various sub plots about Baron Nazi cloning people and feeling all fatherly towards them, and various cover-ups and the resultant guilt that comes from them, but it is nothing special. There's a bunch of follow-up on the New Warriors if you care what happens to them after Civil War.  The series' best moments come when it's part of one of the big events: World War Hulk, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Siege. There is very little momentum for the series as a standalone book outside of these. Speaking of Secret Invasion ...

One of the new recruits is named "Trauma" and his power is to take the form of an opponent's greatest fear. That's pretty cool as far as a directed shapeshift power goes and they do explore it somewhat before they go off the deep end on his parentage but aside from that ... this Hank Pym is later revealed to be a skrull. The "real" Hank Pym, upon his return, notes that he never set foot in the training camp. So why is skrull-Pym's greatest fear a battered Janet van Dyne? I'm sure the internet had a field day with this kind of thing when it was happening but I wasn't paying attention just then so I'm raising my questions now.

Why would a skrull-Pym need Xanax for somethign he didn't do, as the returned "real" Pym later acknowledges that yes, that was him that did that. So even if the skrull-Pym knows about the history, he didn't do it and wouldn't feel bad if he did! If you're going to claim the glory of "we've been setting it up for a long time" then it seems you should also own up to it when there are holes and it's typical that this book has a big one.

I thought the best issue of the whole series was one where Taskmaster (who becomes the head trainer partway through the run) finds himself getting promoted beyond his comfort zone.

I don't particularly care about Taskmaster but he's been around forever and shown up in a lot of stories so it's interesting to see the world from his point of view as a 3rd-tier mercenary type villain. Especially when he gets bumped up to the big big leagues and realizes he doesn't fit in.

It's probably fitting that the most interesting part of this particular Avengers title is when it gives a villain's point of view.

One other note: You might expect some humor or banter in a modern superhero team book. It's part of what makes the Marvel movies enjoyable, and I've seen it in books in the past, so I was kind of expecting to see some here. Well there's not much - it's all deadly serious. Even with a bunch of f the characters being teenagers with superpowers there's not a lot of lightness. That's another big thing that I felt was a let down here.

Overall I never felt like the series was adding much of anything to the Marvel universe. It introduces a ton of new characters and most of them get lost in the crowd. It does nothing on it's own plot-wise to really stand out. Most team books focus on a team - this one focuses on a hero training camp and once a hero graduates they don't show up as much because they're all scattered around the country to different teams. Even the staff isn't consistent as they are transferred and replaced. Old characters do drop in and out but there's no real ongoing story. Finally, the art styles change dramatically back and forth throughout the run and the series has no real "look" to call its own. I had hoped this would be something new and different and interesting and well, "different" isn't always good.

If you've been wondering about this one, I wouldn't bother reading it as its own story. Read the big events instead and you will hit the high points of the Initiative as part of those.

Super Saturday - Random Comic Reviews: The Introduction

Sometimes I get an itch to go back and read a comic book run that I missed.  There's plenty to work with as I missed a lot of the Marvel and DC events from the last ten years or so. I am generally aware of what happened in most of them, but I didn't read them and with all of the animated shows & movies turning up on Netflix, the live action shows on the networks, and the big movies I thought it was time to go back to the source material. I am making a slow but continuing effort to catch up and as I do, I figure I might as well post my thoughts on them here.

Since there will likely be plenty of these kinds of posts in the near future here is my background - there are 4 long boxes in my closet:

• One is a nearly complete run of Iron Man from about Issue 100 to about issue 300
• One is a bunch of 80's-90's Avengers comics
• One is a nearly complete run of West Coast Avengers
• One is a bunch of 80's - 90's X-Men acquired somewhat by accident but still worth keeping

I've owned quite a few others over the years but these are the one's that stuck and formed the core of my formative years. Beyond them I was there when Secret Wars was new, when Crisis on Infinite Earths was breaking up DC's universe, and when the Ninja Turtles were a fairly dark black and white indie book.I was an on and off comic book guy from the late 70's to the early 90's so the 80's is my chronological sweet spot, with Marvel as my general discipline, and the Avengers and their related books as my specialization.

I'm not a snob about it - I have read some Marvel and Indie stuff recently and intend to catch up on my DC gaps as well. Over the last few years I started paying attention again and went back to Avengers Disassembled, the New Avengers, and Civil War with side trips to Planet Hulk and Annihilation. I also tried to keep up with DC's New 52 but dropped out after about a year.  For this exploration of history I've gone electronic unless I can find cheap trades.

Now this exploration will not just be the newer stuff - there were a lot of books I did not follow closely even in the 80's. I also have an idea about trying to read, say, all of the Superman or Batman books from, the year I was born onward.  It's a tall order but it should be fun. More to come!

The Champions - A Secret Marvel RPG Campaign

I decided to go back and read "The Champions", a bimonthly Marvel team title that ran from 1975-1978. There were only 17 issues, but it's an interesting run. It is the most-RPG-like superhero comic I've yet read. This is in the sense that it feels like some games I have run and played in. These could easily be 17 session reports of a superhero campaign presented in comic-book form. Once I realized this it became even more fun to read.

Classic...

The team is:

• Angel, having just departed the X-Men as that "new team" came along. He's rich now and wants to do his own thing. He starts off as the kinda-sorta leader and mainly serves the role of businessman who's trying to back the team like Tony Stark does for the Avengers. He comes across as having a player who can;t really make up his mind what he wants to do.

• Iceman - also fresh out of the X-Men and really just here to help his friend. In the comic he secretly plans to quit as soon the team is up and running. Angel and Iceman come across as being run by two players who have played together before in another campaign (X-Men!) and are starting up a new group, but Iceman's player is about ready to bring in a new character.

• Hercules - he just kind of wanders in and hangs around. He is impulsive and not afraid of anything. He comes across as being run by a player who has played this character before but not really in this campaign setting ("in ancient Greece" = "in my other campaign") or with these players. Maybe he's a converted D&D character ...

• Black Widow - She also happens to be in the right place at the right time and brings a boatload of sidekick/dependent NPC/hunted type baggage with her. Played by an experienced player who knows the system and takes it pretty seriously and wants to get on with the game. She ends up being the leader, though half of the team ignores what she says anyway. 

• Ghost Rider - He is in the initial adventures, comes and goes a bit, ends up being there full time, and freaks Herc out a little bit - clearly an alignment conflict, like having an assassin and a paladin in the same party. He's possibly run by the metalhead of the group (look at him!) and is clearly speaking in and out of character all through the run. His player has a wild concept and wants to play, he just can't make it for every session. 

Things begin with an attack on a college campus where all five of these characters just happen to be attending or passing through. It turns out to be Pluto who is after Venus who is teaching at the school in disguise. This turns into a 3-issue arc that brings the heroes together for an extended period and they decide to work together afterwards. This is also the most coherent part of the campaign and clearly the thing the GM had planned in advance as his big campaign kickoff. This team is not united because of a common origin or cause, nor are they chosen by some outside agency - they are thrown together by chance, which is as a good a reason as any for becoming a team, but seems especially appropriate if you think of it as an RPG kickoff.

Fun with Hercules #1

This run later covers the basics of getting a team together - picking a team name, setting up a base, training together, thinking about the teams goals, and having the introductory press conference - which is of course attacked by villains.

Leadership material?

In the beginning it feels like Angel is the team's leader, but things don't work out especially well. He decides to focus on getting the base set up but he fails at that too as the HQ equipment goes haywire or proves to be faulty all through the series. I assume this was going to lead somewhere but it does not within these 17 "episodes". It just makes him look like a far less competent version of Tony Stark.

No.

Black Widow becomes the leader - by team decision - and seems to work a little better but quite a bit of the time she either seems to forget to direct the others or when she does they ignore her anyway. Imagine making Batman the leader of the Justice League and you have some idea of how this works. Aside from these mixed results, in short order the Champions are fighting a whole Russian rogue's gallery like Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man and a variety of spies and assassins.

Fun with Hercules #2

To be fair they did start off with an Olympian entanglement, and later they do end up fighting sentinels, so most of the group's hunted's show up eventually. Other villains include Rampage, a sort of what-if badguy Iron Man, and Swarm, a human-insect hive mind. There are others but I'll leave those to individual discovery.

See, he really does care!

Black Goliath shows up a few times, as does a villain turned heroine named Darkstar. I like to think of them as drop-ins or possibly Iceman's player trying out different character options.

There's more interesting stuff here at the wikipedia page if you're interested.

I SAID "THE SWARM"!
Haven't you heard of me?

The whole thing feels disjointed. There were multiple writers and artists on the book during its brief run and that's probably part of it. It takes time to bring an ensemble cast together, much like the first season or two of a TV series can be weaker than what follows. Despite this, it's a fun (and short) read. It also makes a lot more sense if you read as an RPG campaign.

DC Adventures Heroes and Villains

I know these books have been out for some time now but I only recently acquired the second one and I wanted to spend a little time talking about just how great they are.

I think of myself as a more casual DC fan though admittedly that's grading on a scale with other people who spent time reading comics. I am more of a Marvel guy when it comes to superhero stuff. Most of my recent DC knowledge comes from the animated shows and specials and the movies. If you are a more casual fan then these books are stuffed full of info about the characters of the DC universe and are an interesting resource even if you're not into the game. You're not going to find a bunch of "in issue x this thing happened" kind of references, just a general rundown of the character and some history and noted on gadgets, sidekicks, vehicles, and lairs. My kids spent quite a bit of time just flipping through them and going "hey, that guy!" -  so much of these universes are visual that you may not know a characters name but you recognize the look when you come across it - this is where a book has some advantage over Wikipedia. This aspect of it is why I went with books over PDFs - I want books on the shelf my kids can flip through when they're interested. If it was only a game resource for NPC's and villains I find PDFs work pretty well for me, but these are more than that. 

There are over 500 characters presented in these two books. Superhero games run off of a steady diet of interesting characters and these volumes provide an immense reserve of characters to draw from. Even if you don't run explicitly in the DC universe there's no reason you can't use the stats and schticks from these to populate your own universe. Change the name and alter the costume a bit - a simple color change may be enough - and you have usable game stats with whatever personality and background you choose to give. It's a very useful set of books for the practical GM.

I hesitate to even call this a review as I really have nothing negative to say about the books. These are good, solid, useful, nice-looking books. If you're a fan of Justice League and the related shows these are cool. If you're a fan of DC in General these are great. If you're running a game of M&M 3 these are as useful a resource as you will find for actually keeping a campaign going.

Super Saturday: Comic Book Stuff for May

I've been reading a lot of older stuff via the magic of the iPad.

In March I went back and read the entire Civil War event.

In April I went back and read Planet Hulk. I skipped it when it was new, but I really liked it after reading the whole thing. Watched the animated version with the Apprentices too. It's alright but it leaves out a lot.

For May I decided that I needed to work in some DC so I started back with Crisis on Infinite Earths, Death of Superman, then Reign of the Supermen. I'm working on Knightfall and Zero Hour.

What other, newer, DC stuff are the high points of say the last 20 years? Down the road I want to read some longer runs of individual books but there are a lot of the "Event" type things I missed and I want to fill in the gaps. Any suggestions?

Super Saturday - Civil War!

Since I put up a post about Annihilation a few weeks back and had some mixed feelings about it as an event and as a game book for MHRP I thought I would also post my thoughts on Civil War. The short version: It's a great event but a less great game resource.

The Comic Event

 As a comic book event it's great, spanning 100+ issues and involving all of the major characters (except Hulk - I know) and most of the minors and the teams and organizations and a lot of the villains as well. We have a core plotline involving certain groups of heroes and side stories involving a lot of smaller groups or solo heroes. It's truly an epic event.

Additionally, and just as important, it revolves around an interesting question, one that goes beyond the traditional "good vs. evil" or "save the world" adventure stories that have made up the bulk of comic book stories. It's possible to see both sides of the question as "right" on some level, at least as far as why they think the way they do.

Finally, there are serious consequences to the outcome of the story. Depending on which side comes out ahead, things may continue almost as they have, or they may be altered in a huge way - not as with the simple "earth/mutants/magic are destroyed - or not" type of scenario but they are just changed in significant ways. The final effects of the conflict are a step above most comic stories and even some other events.

These are the things that elevate Civil War to a higher level. Which makes it great as a comic book epic but how does it fare as a Superhero RPG?

The Game Supplement

The Good:

• This is a big, complex event that can involve any hero in the Marvel-verse
• There are lots of hero datafiles
• There is a lot of player choice as to side, and both room and precedent for changing sides partway through the adventure
• The outcome will upset the status quo, opening up room for new heroes to make a place for themselves and take a significant role in the post-war universe.

The Bad:

• As the first big event for a new game system this is not a traditional superhero adventure scenario. Sure, heros fight each other fairly often, but not like this. Some players may not be all that fired up about a heroes vs. heroes campaign over philosophical differences and the role of government. It's an interesting situation, but if you're looking for a silver age type of game where talking gorillas are a regular opponent and throwing bulldozers at an enemy is a common and fun activity, lectures about keeping people safe and registration ultimatums are going to get old quickly.
• The huge scope can make it difficult for a new group to find their place in the world before that world starts changing. If your group is going to be playing established Marvel heroes that's less of a problem, but if you have at least a few home made characters you may want to give them a chance to start off with something else and then move into the main plot. Also, it doesn't seem all that appropriate for new hero #23 to move into a leadership role on one side for the war when all the Marvel heavy hitters are available
• This is a storyline that rewards knowledge of the Marvel universe. The more your players know the more they will get out of it. This isn't automatically a negative, but in a campaign like Annihilation, for example, there's an obvious threat and a clear direction to take even if you're not a comics expert. Here it helps to know how a lot of the heroes well as you interact with them and not everyone will.

Well, I suppose there's not a lot of "Silver Age" in this anyway ...

Overall I like Civil War as a game book, but not as the kick-off to a new campaign. All of the upheaval and loss and sacrifice will mean a lot more if your players have a chance to get to know things as they are, and then get to pass thru that time of change and come out on the other side. Let them build up some rivals and enemies and allies first, then make that scene where a friend chooses the other side a big one. Same thing when an enemy they've jailed before shows up with a badge for the first time - history gives us context and some meaning.  I suppose my ultimate take on it would be "go run your game for a year, THEN run this, for the ideal experience.". Given this I would have liked it better if this had been the third event book, rather than the first, but the answer here is to make your own. There are a fair number of homemade events on the net for inspiration and structure - take a look and get to work! Then run the Big Book. 

That's about it for Civil War. The next big thing is supposed to be Age of Apocalypse and I will be all over that one when it arrives. 

Super Saturday - Marvel Annihilation

I admit - I didn't read this one when it was out. A lot of people thought it was a big deal, and it's the next Event book for Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, so I thought that I should. Short version: It's not really my thing.

It's well done, but intergalactic war stories are not something I am short on - from Star Wars to Warhammer 40,000 to the Lensman series I've read a lot of space war stories, and I realized after reading this that I don't particularly care for them crossing over into my superhero stuff.

Summarizing the story: The Tyranids from 40K invade the Marvel Universe. Sure, they're led by Annihilus but they're a swarm of near-infinite biological life forms that are wiping out entire planets as they advance. A lot of things die and the story is particularly hard on Galactus' former heralds as they are targeted specifically. Galactus himself is also targeted and that part of it would make a pretty cool movie. There's some stuff with Drax the Destroyer running around killing bugs while keeping a pre-teen earth girl out of trouble (still not sure why) and there are a lot of things blowing up and organizations and empires being wiped out but there's so much of it that it seems kind of pointless. It's a big reboot to the "cosmic" part of the Marvel Universe.

Part of the problem is the cast: This all happens so far from earth that none of the Marvel poster children are involved. Your leading lights here are Nova (the Judge Dredd/Shogun looking guy, not the female herald of Galactus), the Silver Surfer and the various heralds, and Drax and ... not a whole lot else. So for the casual fan this is a lot of "who dat's" and no Avengers or X-Men or the like.

So, to the RPG: I don't know if I will get this one. I really like the game but I don't particularly care for this event. I like most of what the company is doing and I want to support them but I don't think this one is for me. I may just go back and pick up the supplementary books for Civil War since those may finally be available in print.Other than these I suspect my next pickup in  the superhero RPG department will be something for M&M (Emerald City?) or ICONS.

Iron Man, Year 2 - Part 2 - Tales of Suspense 57-62

So after our big Manadarin two-parter we get ...

First appearance! Hawkeye? Whatever happened to that guy? You know he's Hawkeye because he has a letter "H" on his head. Oh and ...

The more things change ...

Yes we are - for about 8 months until he joins the Avengers! In the meantime he happens to run into the Black Widow purely by chance and she helps him beef up his arsenal. Then she asks him to take out Iron Man and of course he agrees.

I believe this is the first time we see the word "repulser" (OK so the spelling is off) in association with a ray from IM's gauntlet. We also see the side-pods pretty consistently in this issue - they were not present in 55, they appear in parts of 56, and they are in just about every shot of IM in 57. So many firsts!

Anyway IM defeats Hawkeye who escapes with the Widow in a boat. I wonder if we will ever see them again?

Things you could steal: The villain/hero rogue type character is a classic at this point. Having him deceived by a beauty is too. Jealousy as motivation is perfectly fine and pretty understandable in a superhero world.

Whoa, that ain't supposed to happen - here's my 12 cents!

We start off with Kraven the Hunter and the Chameleon sneaking back into America - alright, kind of a crossover thing going on there. Anyway the Chameleon's power proves to be extremely effective and Cap & IM spend quite a bit of time in a scrap until they figure out what's going on. Giant Man and Wasp show up too so we get a little Avengers flavor in the mix as well.

Things you could steal: The master of disguise would have to replace an NPC hero to get any real use out of this but it could be fun.

So after the fight in the last issue they made up and decided to move in together. Note that we have pretty much arrived at the classic Golden Avenger armor that will carry us from 1965 right on thru 1985. As a kid this is pretty much what Iron Man looked like for me.

In this issue the Black Knight breaks out of jail and seeks revenge on Shellhead because the Avengers put him in jail. They have a nice long fight and (Spoiler Alert!) Black Knight ends up back in jail. Stark's heart continues to have problems and in this issue he ends up claiming that Stark had to leave but left him in charge, causing Pepper and Happy to be very suspicious. I like that they worked in this angle to the story - it's a step up in sophistication and could be fun in the future.

Things to steal: DM's, make sure players truly pay for those complications!

Tony Stark is still trapped in his suit to stay alive and his story comes apart rather quickly. Of course Hawkeye and the Black Widow choose this time to strike. Iron Man pulls out a victory but he's still stuck in his suit. Also, the Widow gets kidnapped by Russian spies, presumably to be taken home and punished for her failures.

Things to steal: Recurring villains are handy, especially when mixed in with other complications.

Tony Stark invented the ipod in 1964

A month later we have Issue 61:

Happy and Pepper quit, forcing Stark to make an appearance. Then the Mandarin tries to blast him - from orbit, with a satellite-mounted laser! That's a serious grudge. Everyone thinks Stark is dead so IM flies off to the Orient to deal with the Mandarin. This doesn't go so well and he ends up tied down and threatened with an origin story! Another two-parter for the Mandarin!

 So, issue 62, completing two years of Iron Man stories, and we get the origin of the Mandarin. The first one anyway, as I believe we have had several over the years. In this original origin he finds a wrecked ship once flown by an alien dragon and the ten jeweled rings that powered the ship soon become his source of power. I like it and it does explain the somewhat random nature of his powers and his knowledge of other things.

Getting back to "now" the villain plans to start World War 3 and then step in to rule after the East and West exhaust themselves - not a bad plan, but one Iron Man cannot allow to succeed! He escapes, recharges, foils the plan, then goes toe-to-toe with the Mandarin, fighting pretty much to a draw. Afterward each returns home. Even at this early stage the Mandarin is consistently the one opponent that can fight IM straight up.

Things to Steal: Starting WW3 is a solid villain plot and should get your players going. If it succeeds, well, there's always time travel ... 


So that's the end of Year Two - we've had more Crimson Dynamo, lots more Mandarin, fewer goofy one-off villains, and the first appearance of Black Widow and Hawkeye - that's a pretty solid year and it lays a lot of groundwork for the years to come.

Iron Man Year 2 - Part 1 - Tales of Suspense 51-56

I worked through Iron Man year one a while back and figured it was high time we got to year two! We begin with ToS 51:

 So this Scarecrow is a stage performer, a contortionist, who has some trained crows. He decides to start committing crimes after helping Iron Man stop a robbery - I don't think that's how it's supposed to work! He ends up stealing some of Stark's plans and tries to sell them to the Cubans.

Iron Man intervenes and saves the day, punching them all senseless and then sinking the gunboat where the meet was happening. It is interesting that he's concerned here about facing bigger guns than small arms. The armor is clearly not solving all of his problems yet. Also, in this issue we see nothing about him running out of power - he seems to have that one figured out now and thank goodness for that.

Things you could steal: Well, I'd probably have the crows as a visible, physically present telekinesis power. Also, if you play D&D, here's an example of the creative use of "unseen servant" or "mage hand". Cubans as bad guys is also entirely appropriate for a 60's adventure.

Next up is ToS 52:

Here we have the return of the Crimson Dynamo AND the first appearance of the Black Widow! The Russians are still smarting from the defection of the original Dynamo so they send a male agent named Boris and Natasha Romanov the Black Widow - see what they did there? - to get revenge against Stark, Professor Vanko the defector, and Iron Man.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Scarlett Johanssen!

Boris subdues Vanko and steals the Crimson Dynamo suit while Natasha distracts Stark in the most effective way. This second Crimson Dynamo defeats Iron Man and captures him by draining his electrical power, which at least makes sense and is something we haven't seen for a while. Iron Man recovers, escapes, and has a knock-down drag-out fight with Boris the Dynamo. In the end Vanko sacrifices himself to destroy Boris and the Widow escapes in the confusion.

Things you could steal: There are a lot of classics here - stealing someone else's power armor, the beautiful distraction, Russians, the self-sacrificing scientist, and a good solid rematch fight to wrap up. In this one the Widow is a complete non-combatant and not some super-martial artist - a good reminder that combat prowess is not the only way to contribute to a super-story.

This time Tony invents an anti-gravity ray and the Widow comes to take it to find redemption at home. We get to see an angry Senator scolding Stark for the first time - but not the last! Things eventually work out and Iron Man stops the communist plot. We're also back to some power concerns again, even with the new suit. Also, once again, the Widow escapes.

Things you could steal: There's not much new here, although the one-off unrepeatable gadget can be fun if used very sparingly. The redemption angle also makes it easy to explain a return appearance.

IN THE FACE!

Stark redesigns his helmet then gets called to Washington and sent off to Vietnam to check out problems with some of his missiles. This leads him to a second encounter with the Mandarin and a pretty one-sided fight follows. I did like that the Mandarin shows a growing respect for IM during the fight - it's a cut above the more typical criminal/communist opponent we have seen before. This is the first cliffhanger storyline as the issue ends with Iron Man out of power (Yep) and trapped in the Mandarin's lair. Also, we have another first appearance:

Heelys circa 1964

I've always loved that amongst the many super gadgets in the super hi-tech armor Tony Stark has roller skates! He's also removed the pointy-topped faceplate for a more integrated-looking one and we are almost to the classic Golden Avenger armor from the 70's & 80's.

Also in this issue: the origin of the Watcher, if anyone is interested.

Our story begins with IM captured but we learn that he now has a built-in generator which can "recharge his transistors" given a little time. This time we have a much more even fight and IM recovers his missiles, defeats the Mandarin for the most part, and leaves with his dignity intact. We also get our first all about Iron Man section of how the armor works and what kind of gadgets he has in it.

Stuff you can steal: Take a tough villain, put him in his home base, then give your heroes a reason to go there - then make them glad they got out alive. Also, unexplainable powers - why rings? How do they do what they do? No explanation is sought or given.

To start this one off Stark cops an attitude, smashes a bunch of stuff while feeling sorry for himself, treats Pepper and Happy poorly, blows off the Avengers, and heads out for a date. Meanwhile a new villain attacks one of his factories, using the "irresistible power" of his unicorn horn to "sabotage America's military production" - oh my. He's also looking to fight Iron Man so he trashes the place, beats Happy senseless and kidnaps Pepper. The horn appears to be a multipower/array that can perform ranged blasts, magnetically move objects, and form a shield around him as a strong defense. He and Shellhead tussle for a while while Stark feels guilty for getting Happy put in the hospital. At the end the Unicorn appears to have won but Iron Man manages to pull an upset and the Unicorn slinks away to possibly return again.

Stuff to steal: The "Uncanny Unicorn" is from behind the iron curtain and the original Crimson Dynamo scientist helped design his suit, so we have a connection to a previous enemy with the ongoing theme of "communists everywhere hate Tony Stark". That's a useable idea in a campaign. Also the Unicorn is goofy enough I may have to have him show up in a game of my own, perhaps after being frozen or something for 50 years.

That's all for the first half of Year 2 - more next time!