Clone Wars Midnight Sale

Here was the scene just before midnight outside my local Toys R Us last Friday night. In celebration for the upcoming animated Clone Wars movie, select locations were having a midnight madness sale debuting the brand new toys. We arrived about fifteen minutes early, and as you see there was a good-sized crowd already. Another twenty or so people would show up before the doors actually opened.


Of course Vader's 501st Legion was present for the event, making their second appearance on the blog. The Fett outfit was top notch, and the rest weren't too shabby either. I question the scale on some of the characters though. For reference sake, I'm barely five and a half feet tall, so that makes for one incredibly tall Stormtrooper and one surprisingly short Jedi.


Once inside there was a sizable area and display dedicated to the new stuff. You had access to the whole store, but this was where all the action was.


There were more middle-aged men clamoring for the new figures than kids, heh. That's Andy in the middle with the dark shirt and bald spot. No, not him, the other one, ha. The figures looked cool, and if there were more of the animated style available, I might have picked a couple up, but I was there for the Legos of course.


#7676 Republic Attack Gunship: This was the MVP of the night. It also weighed in at the most expensive. I would've gladly snatched this up had I been prepared monetarily. It's a big set, and a nice remake of the first Gunship Lego set that came out a couple of years back. I gotta pick one of these up sooner than later.


#7673 MagnaGuard Starfighter: On the left, this spaceship was absolutely massive. It actually has some very nice lines and detailing that makes me want to pick it up eventually. The downside is that its mini-figs are based off the kinda lame Battle Droid frames. They do sport some interesting cowl/capes though.

#7674 V-19 Torrent: On the right, this is the set that I was hoping to pick up that night. This Clone attack craft just looks great, and borrowing a term from the Lego community, it's looks very "swooshable". I figured it'd be about a thirty dollar set, too bad I was only half right, sixty bucks, yikes. Instead of going in the shopping cart, it just got added to the wish list.



#7680 The Twilight: Wow, this one so underwhelmed me it's not even funny. It's giant, clunky version of a blocky B-Wing fighter, finished off in a very uninspiring monochromatic gray. Not only that, but if you look at the picture, there's not even a windshield for the cockpit, your figs would be exposed to space, 'sup with that? Throw in the equally unbelievable price tag, and you've got a set I'll be leaving on the shelves.


#7675 AT-TE Walker: This one completely caught me off guard, it was cool, very cool. It's a high dollar set though, but I see myself picking it up at one point as well. It's an early prototype of the AT-AT, obviously, and it comes with a nifty set of mini-figs, plus lots of parts and details. As with the Gunship, this version seems to look much better than it's predecessor.


#7681 Separatist Spider Droid: The cheapest set (so far) of the Clone Wars line, and at thirty bucks I don't know if I want to pick it up for the pieces, or for the two Clone figs alone. I'm really hoping there will be a good number of lower price point sets to come out, I'm a little surprised there's not any yet. I thought I saw a small set previewed from a toy show that was just three troopers on speeder bikes, but I can't seem to find it now.

Attack of the Sequels; Hellboy Dos

I've now got the Hellboy sequel under my belt. No, I haven't slept on it, in fact the least amount of time possible from viewing to writing has occurred. But it's kinda late, I'm kinda tired, and it was only 'kinda' good. Was I let down? A little. Did I have huge expectations going in and didn't think for a moment it would disappoint? Yup.

Okay, Ron Perlman is Hellboy, period. Yes, the makeup is spot-on and near comic perfect. Yes, the dialog is also spot-on comic perfect (which is a nice by-product of having the creator tagging along for the ride). But the way he wears the makeup, the way he delivers those lines; he is Hellboy. I know that's an incredibly simple way to say it but sums it up perfectly. The rest of the cast could use some work, although the pyrokineticist, Liz, was much better in this one than the first, but I still need to "feel" more from her character in terms of emotion. Abe Sapien was good too, I missed the original voice, but at least he had much more screen time this go-round, however the movies have painted him up to be more and more the nerdy scholar type. This is unfortunate, 'cause I remember him pulling some slick moves and harpooning a few key bad guys in the comics. The ectoplasmic psychic, Krauss made an appearance this time, but his role wasn't exactly aligned with the comics, which is fine, there's always a little wiggle room in the comic-to-screen translations.

The movie itself just didn't feel like a Hellboy comic (or movie). Yes, the character Hellboy was perfect, but it felt like he had wandered onto a neighboring set that was filming a crazy sci-fi/fantasy movie. The visuals, as lauded, weren't a letdown, it was a pretty colorful palette of imagery, all fantastic and unique. But this might've been a problem as well; it was almost too fantastic, and at the sake of the story too. The 'underworld' inhabited by fairy tale denizens was painted on such a grand scale that the unbelievable seemed real, err, surreal, but still occupied a forgotten space in our own world. There were some minor hiccups with the story's continuity itself, or little hang-ups involving the characters, but all these things were easily overlooked in the bigger picture.

Was it good? Yeah, it was a good flick, and it did its job by adding more depth to the Hellboy mythos. It could've been tweaked a little here and there for some of the minor stuff. Larger expanses of the movie could've been given a bit better of a once-over, but it still worked out just fine in the end. A couple of one-liners that come to mind are "whimsical" and "comical" which are two words I normally wouldn't think to put at the top of a list to describe what I would think would be an "excellent" Hellboy sequel. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go retcon the heck out of my comic book top five list, haha...

Earth Elemental

RUSH on the Colbert Report

My all-time favorite band, Rush, recently made an appearance on the Colbert Report. I only found out about it after the fact, a shout out goes to my buddy Spectre for the heads up. I don't watch the show, but it's definitely worth posting here. The first clip is of them playing Rock Band backstage, to their own song, ha! The second clip is of their actual appearance on the show, while the link is still good, it's been getting pulled quite a bit lately due to copyright issues. Enjoy, and rock on...

DnD 4e: Second Look

Technically this is not a second look, maybe a third look...but a lot more in depth. Last month we all got together, and rented a cabin in the mountains and geeked out all weekend for my Master's graduation, it was cool, and come to think of it, I should do a post on it. Anyway, while we were there, of the many games we played, one was a quick run of the new 4e DnD run by our buddy Rucht. It was a cursory look at best, but did illustrate a lot of the new changes going down with the new set. We were a little pushed for time, I would've loved to have played more.

Well, Andy (do I really need to keep putting in links for this guy, it's freakin' Andy!) and I have been trying to get some more gaming lately, but with our core group being pressed for time, we reached out to the Wizards website and found a local RPGA group getting ready for a 4e campaign, Forgotten Realms at that. This week they were running a Forgotten Realms preview adventure, the third one so far, titled Death in the Skyfire Wastes. The action took place in Almraiven, which was cool because my longest stint as a 3rd edition DM in the Realms centered around this very city. Before posting this entry I tried to find a map I had made of it, but couldn't for the life of me; too bad, it was a killer map!

Anyway, it was neat to see, first-hand, finally what had become of the Realms for the new edition and post-Spellplague, officially. Apparently Calimshan, the "Arabian Nights" metropolis of the Realms was ransacked and taken over by the Djinn that had been imprisoned there forever. This is a pretty serious turn of events for the once bustling city of the south. Well, it's neighbor, Almraiven is now besieged by Djinn armies, but it won't fall. Through a series of portals and mythals it maintains minor trade and contact with the outside world. Well, a long lost relic has been uncovered in a desert tomb and if the bad guys get to it first (a pair of nefarious merc Tieflings) the city is doomed, so us heroes are called in to snatch it first.

About the system. It's great, plenty of options and feels more charged or energetic than ever before. I will say this though, when it's time for combat, the game turns into a miniatures tabletop affair, no bones about it. This is a good thing though, combat is not bogged down at all, it is streamlined, fast, and very intuitive. It leaves little room for roleplaying, but it's up to the individual player to interject a little of their own character into their actions. Plus, combat is over quicker, which allows more time for roleplaying anyway.

Combat doesn't get old either, with all of the new abilities (at-will, encounter, and daily) you have a host of things to do that are different every time. No more, "I swing, I hit/miss, rinse, repeat...) you've got 'powers' that do all kinds of cool things; and every character class has them. There is the whole notion of 'roles' in the party, like strikers, controllers, leaders, etc. I'm a bit fuzzy on it, but basically every character has a specific role to play in the party. If you know what that role is, and how to utilize your powers to facilitate said role, then the party functions on a level of efficiency like never seen before. It wasn't just combat either, we entered a whole 'skills challenge' phase too while trekking through the desert. It was kinda like a mini game by itself where we were sort of in combat, but it was all skills related with checks being rolled. It was cool, and just added a nice mechanic that didn't exist before.

The other thing I like is the way they handle magic items now; everyone, they're no longer impossible to obtain at low levels. Mind you, they're not great items, but they do add a little extra something to your character that sets them apart and makes them unique. There's also a great way they do magic item 'levels', basically if you're an 8th level character, you'll probably have an 8th level magic item. This also means you'll have a handful of lower level magic items too, but you won't be uber-powerful, because everything is scaled. A 20th level character isn't sporting an edge because they still have their 3rd level magic weapon.

The new edition sports all kinds of other bells and whistles too, I won't go into too much detail here on them. You've got new races, news classes, new ways to heal yourself for everyone; no longer just divine characters, and all kinds of other things we haven't seen before. It's not a rules update, it's not even a rules overhaul, it's a completely new game built from the ground up.

For the Skyfire Wastes preview adventure, we used pre-generated characters. Andy and I coincidentally ended up as a pair of Dwarven brothers (imagine that). He was a Cleric of Moradin and I was one of the new classes, a Swordmage. It was certainly a fun dynamic in the game, with our two characters having a little extra backstory. I could go on about how the Swordmage class was new and different, but with the new rules even the standard Cleric is "new and different". Did I like it? Yeah, now that I've got a little more 4e under my belt I have certainly "drunk the Kool-aid". In fact I was inspired to whip up a character portrait, which is a rare thing, drawing has been on the backburner for me ever since I went back to school and I haven't got back in the swing of things; I'm certainly out of practice. So here he is, Murtun Ironnblade the Dwarven Swordmage, shown with Surge Armor and a +1 Defending Longsword. Oh yeah, don't you just love pre-gen character names?

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Top Five Comic Book Movies of All Time

After seeing the Dark Knight yesterday, and Iron Man earlier this summer, it was high time to put together a "top ten" list for comic book movies. Of course, a top ten list leaves way too much wiggle room to add movies that were merely good, just not great (sorry Swamp Thing). So I'm making mine a top FIVE list. Also, my criteria is that the movies have to be adaptations taken directly from actual comic books themselves. Furthermore, it has to be "super" in nature; either science fiction, fantasy, or otherwise (sorry History of Violence). I'll do a separate list of superhero movies taken from original material later, and that list doesn't disappoint either. Obviously you'll never have 100% agreement on what the "coolest" and "best" really is, but here they are...according to me, with twenty-nine years of comic book reading under my belt! I should also add, this was not an easy task and may hold more than a couple of surprises for some. The very nature of a top five list puts them in ranked order, but this could have easily been one gigantic five-way tie for first.

5. X-Men / X2




I'm already cheesing out by including both movies under one slot, heh. Bryan Singer's X-Men movies have aged rather well and are both quite good. This goes without saying, since it's a "top five" list and all, duh. I'd put the sequel above the original even, but that would mire the top five list with just two or three franchises. As a single entry, you get two solid movies that do everything a good comic movie should, and leave out the usual pitfalls that most suffer from. Patrick Stewart is Professor X, and 'Huge' Jackman owned the role of Wolverine. I'm admittedly bias too, 'cause the X-Men were my favorite team book growing up. Cumming's Nightcrawler in the sequel was equally good. As a side note, completely avoid the third one.

4. Iron Man




What?!?! I can hear it already, Iron Man is just number four? Hey, this is a top five of ALL TIME, number four ain't too shabby, and just goes to show that the top three must really be something special. Robert Downey Jr. is just about the best cast superhero ever, edging out Reeves' Superman even. The effects, and I shudder that such a thing even has bearing, were amazing and no matter how good the story might be, twenty years ago this movie wouldn't have been the same without them. It was serious, funny, poignant, action packed, beautifully rendered, and superbly cast (and acted). This one raises the bar to new heights.

3. Hellboy / Hellboy 2




Hellboy edges out [most] others because it embodies the original comic book more than the rest, well, as much as the number [three] slot allows anyway. The X-Men were great films, but remade with slick, all-black costumes and a storyline chosen piecemeal from the forty plus years and scores of authors the multiple series had. Batman remained mostly true to its origins, but was updated, darkened, and given a new look similar to, but not the same as, the ancient sixty years of Batman comic history. Hellboy has a single creator and a single director, both with a non-mainstream approach to their respective art mediums, and both with a passion to translate their art forms as true as possible to the original. This movie has remained as true to the comic on every level as possible; the look, the feel, the humor, the script, simply all of it. Mignola was heavily involved with the movies themselves and the result was nothing magically short of a comic book come to life, frame per frame. [Now that I have] actually seen the sequel, [it's with a slightly heavy heart that I know the title won't raise too much higher in rankings]. The Hellboy comics fill a niche in the spandex-wearing hero genre in that it embraces the occult, and what lurks beyond human sanity, rippling on the edge of the waters of a vast Lovecraftian sea.

2. Batman Begins / The Dark Knight




Yes, I've done it again (twice in fact), put one of the 'best' all time comic book movies in a "paltry" slot, and made it a two-for-one deal at that. Just yesterday I pontificated on how amazing the sequel was to an already amazing reboot of our favorite brooding, masked vigilante (unless you count Rorschach, ahem). Batman Begins, even without the masterful sequel is going to stand the test of time. Even though my buddy Brian detests 'origin' movies, after the train-wreck that eventually became of Burton's stellar start to the franchise, they really needed to start over from scratch. Just like the X-Men movies would've failed without Singer at the helm, this new vision of Batman would've never been possible without Chris Nolan's direction. And yeah, it's "just" number [two], mwahahaha...

1. Akira




I said it wasn't easy coming up with this list, but the number one slot came easily enough once I sat down and truly looked at the scope of comic book movies over the long haul. Before manga was all the rage, replacing Captain America and Superman in the eyes of American youth in the late nineties, this little import snuck in under the 1988 radar. Years before then it was one of the most popular Asian comic titles around, so popular Marvel's sub-line of alternative and mature content titles, Epic, brought it over for translation. By then, the comic was ready for film status back in Japan. You really have to see this one to believe it, it is powerful, visual, visceral, and emotionally thought-provoking. A few years back we were graced with a newly dubbed and mastered copy which is infinitely better than the battered VHS copy most people will remember. Today it still holds its own amidst the powerhouse of comic titles and nine digit budgets.

Holy Cinematography, Batman!

"What kind of world is it that we live in when we are so blessed with choice that it has become impossible to determine the best comic book superhero movie?"-Andy

The above quote couldn't be more true. Batman Begins is squarely in the top five comic book movies of all time, and the sequel was even better. Frankly, I'm more excited to see the Hellboy sequel, but with all the Batman hype, I figured I'd make it a go first.

I'll start with the bad, sure it was a freakin' amazing movie, but it did have a few hiccups. First off was Batman himself, and Bale is usually a great actor, but he was a bit one-dimensional. I know, it's Batman, there's either a lot of depth or none at all, I would've preferred some depth though. Also, I know Batman is all about the gadgets, but they were a little sparse and mostly relied just on combat, like his spring-loaded arm blades, which were kinda dorky. Also, the overall movie was a tad long, and was already good without the Harvey Dent / Two-Face sub-story, they could've dropped it altogether. Or, better yet, put in Harvey Dent, even lead up to his accident, but don't introduce the Two-Face character until the next movie. But, whatever, just hiccups to an otherwise amazing movie, and the Dent character/performance was good, speaking of characters...

A lot of hype was built up over Ledger's performance, his last performance as it turns out, but it wasn't wholly unfounded. He was good, in fact very good. To say his Joker was the best isn't fair; but he added some grit, depth, and surprising creepy realism to the character. He pretty much stole the show. Of course Michael Kane is good in anything he does, but Alfred's a small (yet poignant) role, same with Freeman and his character. Then there's Gary Oldman, who is one of my favorites, and as expected, he was 100% spot-on. At the end of the day, character-wise, the film was solid.

You can't have a summer blockbuster, superhero-comic book movie without fisticuffs and explosions, and there it didn't disappoint either. I said Bale's acting was a tad flat, but his bone-crunching Batman punches were not. In the suit he was on fire. Batman wasn't invulnerable either; he took as good as he gave, making for one refreshingly weary and beat-up Batman by the end. I do long for the Dark Knight of the original Frank Miller title, and there were a lot of hints/homages dropped in the movie that showed where we're headed; all good things come to those that wait...

Check Your Six!

All right, last Friday night Andy and I got in on a Check Your Six! game run by a mutual friend, Brian, and a group of peeps we regularly game with. Brian, in turn, was running this particular scenario as a warm-up for when he runs it at Historicon later this month, so we were happy to be his guinea pigs. Check Your Six! (CY6!) is a World War II air combat game, and it was a freakin' blast. The rules were chunky, but played in a very easy-going and intuitive manner. It could've been completely quagmired in charts, diagrams, and confusion with very little effort, but it wasn't. I felt comfortable enough by the second round that I was able to plot my moves and get a feel for what to do without a bunch of hand-holding. In a convention setting, it's pretty much perfect. I could see myself playing a lot more of it in the future, it was that good.

Now the above pics pretty much say it all. It was a great game, on a huge table, with some neat little planes that were painted very well (click on the above pics). There were five of us altogether. In all honesty, I'm not traditionally a historic gamer, not that I'm adverse to them, I just haven't found a period that I can sink my teeth into (well, maybe FIW) and I do love my sci-fi. I know the major players of WWII, mostly I know the equipment used, but the particulars, the nitty gritty I'm a bit slack on, fortunately that wasn't a factor for this game or group of players.

The basic scenario was that General MacArthur and some other allied big-wigs were touring the countryside with their awesome P-38 escorts, and then were ambushed by Japanese forces. I controlled a couple of P-38 Lightnings (one was an 'ace' pilot) as well as all three of the bombers. Two of the bombers turned tail and got out of the fray as fast as they could (which wasn't saying much), but I ran one bomber as a 'wildcat' that tore through the enemy fighters as best as it could, it's exterior bristling with machine guns and cannons. The bombers claimed a kill, and my Lightnings took out four more.

There is a lot more to it than this, obviously, but how do you do a game report when there's already one done on the exact same game? I already borrowed his pics, so I'll just refer you to Brian's gaming blog for the full details, you should definitely check 'em out. His blog, Repple Depple, is listed over on the right along with Andy's as well as some other noteworthy ones.

The Very Large Array (VLA)

I could go on and on about the details of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA) located just west of Soccoro, New Mexico, but the above link will do a better job than I ever could have dreamed of. For those who can't be bothered with clicking on such distractions, here's the gist of it; the VLA consists of twenty-seven large radio telescopes (which look like giant satellite dishes) that "listen" to the stars, not for literal radio transmissions, but for naturally occurring radio emissions from stars, planets, quasars, and the like. Using so many (relatively) smaller dishes in unison makes it virtually as if it were a single dish twenty-two miles across. Again, for the click-inclined, this link will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the subject.

The VLA was a must-see on our recent trip to New Mexico, but it looked like we would miss out. I said it was "just" west of Soccoro, but really it was more like an hour west of it in the opposite direction of where we were going, literally in the middle of what seemed like nowhere (that'd be the beautiful Plains of Agustin). A change in plans put it back on the itinerary, and we were off! Here's some pics, unfortunately it was a tad cloudy, but it's all good.


The short clip up top was supposed to be this pic. It was one of those cases where you have 'movie' setting still turned on the camera, oh well. Anyway, if you look in the distance you can see them out there. At first, my heart sank 'cause I thought this would be the closest we would be allowed; always read the signs.


I do own other shirts, but any time I post a pic of myself I'm in this one apparently. This was supposed to be my 'confidence in science' look.


A small handful of the dishes on the drive in.


The grounds were surprisingly rampant with wild snakes, rabbits, and desert hares. The look on my co-pilot's face is from listening to her Dad ramble on about these freakin' radio telescopes for the last hour, haha.


Even the tiles in the bathroom were cool, heh.


We didn't have a ton of time on our hands, so we had to skip the walking tour that would take us for hike around a majority of the telescopes themselves.


I think this one was being repaired, it was isolated from the others, maybe it was just in timeout.

The Sons of Bartemaeus

With the release of an apparently "fixed" fifth edition of Warhammer 40k on the horizon, I decided to throw in my lot with a new army. Before I jump in with what and why, a little background information is in order as well. Back in the day, especially the Rogue Trader day, which Ray and I both played during, homemade chapters weren't just a trend, but almost a necessity if you wanted to play Marines. What follows is just that.

During the thirty second founding of the Adeptus Astartes the Sons of Bartemaeus were born. They were a successor chapter of the Crimson Fists and shared their gene seed and organizational parameters with at least a dozen other such successor chapters of the time. The Sons of Bartemaeus were named for their Chapter Master himself, who was said to be a direct descendant of the Primarch Rogal Dorn of the originating patriarch chapter, the Imperial Fists. The Sons of Bartemaeus served with all the resourcefulness and honor as befits any loyal Space Marine chapters, but they would soon become lost over time and all but forgotten.

[It should be noted that the original title of this 32nd founding chapter was the Disciples of Borris. The actions listed herein, at this point in the timeline, were when the chapter was still identified as the Disciples of Borris. With Imperial records being so hard to uncover, and taking so much time to decipher, much information is confusing, if not outright lost. Furthermore, the chapter master Bartemaeus is often denoted in Imperial records as 'Bartimus'.]


Raw footage of the Sons of Bartemaeus on the Plains of Ka-Zath, during the Battle of Nocturne on the Imperial Agriculture world of Iocanthus. Note the early model MkVII armor alongside an even more archaic MkVI missile launcher.


More Battle of Nocturne footage; here we see early model MkVII armor mixed with even older Rogue Trader era MkVI armor. Note the lone MkVIII trooper in the rear with a slightly modified paint scheme. This suggests the Sons of Bartemaeus never fully upgraded their chapter, even well after their founding, yet still had direct contact with Imperial supply.

It was shortly after their campaign on Iocanthus that the Sons of Bartemaeus withdrew to their home sector to consolidate their chapter's strength. Their rest would be interrupted however. Three systems from their home world, on the insignificant moon of Rastus Jendbock, a major chaos following was making itself known and a planet scale revolt was in progress. The Dark Angels were called in to assess the situation, and commit Exterminatus if need be. Once the depth of chaos was revealed, reinforcements were needed. The closest chapter, the Sons of Bartemaeus, were the first to arrive.

The fighting was fierce, and although the two chapters were immeasurably outnumbered, they held their ground awaiting more reinforcements. Inexplicably, in the third week of fighting, the Dark Angels chapter withdrew wholesale from the planet, ignoring all hails from the Sons of Bartemaeus, even going as far as neutralizing a Sons of Bartemaeus battle frigate in orbit when it moved to block the egress of three Dark Angels battle barges. The Sons of Bartemaeus would cite the Dark Angels for heresy and label their act as a betrayal to the Emperor himself. These communiques however would not surface for hundreds of years. Later records would also reveal that the Dark Angels were privy to an unusually large band of the Fallen, led by Cypher himself surfacing in a nearby system, and their zeal and honor-bound devotion to destroying these exiles superseded their current mission. They would later claim that inbound White Scars and Angels Sanguine chapters were calculated to arrive only the next day after their departure and the Sons of Bartemaeus were not abandoned. In retribution for the Sons of Bartemaeus firing upon their own ships, they would file a petition to have the chapter looked into on grounds of Heresy.

Outnumbered by a planet full of chaos-infused militia and PDF forces, led by a demogogue who declared himself the planetary warlord, the Sons of Bartemaeus would meet their alleged end. The planet itself became inaccessible due to warp storms enshrouding the sector, and whatever reinforcements were to arrive would never see dirtside. The bulk of the armored forces of the Sons of Bartemaeus were led into a cunning trap, freezing them in their entirety in one of Rastus Jendbock's vast nitrogen seas. Large swathes of the chapter's infantry were slowly ground down in a number of theaters that included every imaginable environment from hive to jungle, it seemed that the chaos gods themselves were reshaping the very planet.

The fighting came to its climax as Bartemaeus himself led a daring raid against the bastion of the warlord. Mountains of the dead were strewn across the city streets, forming their own topography of decay and misery, the losses both sides suffered were high. At long last, Bartemaeus faced off against the warlord, a spiteful monster that could barely be called human anymore, being so imbued with the ruinous powers of chaos. Their clash was titanic, it raged for the better of two days as chaos claw shredded the rune-etched terminator armor of Bartemaeus. In turn, Bartemaeus' power sword sang through the air and connected, time and time again, with the warlord's bulk, rending chunks of flesh, chitin, and carapace from the despot. The chapter master took the left eye and wickedly barbed tail of the warlord with surgically precise and clean cuts with his power sword. The warlord, in turn, tore Bartemaeus' right arm from its socket in a mangled wound of muscle and bone. The survivors on both sides held their weapons at their sides, enthralled by the melee, and stood by one another in the rubble strewn streets, watching with awe.

There would be no further trickery or foul play; the warlord simply bested Bartemaeus. There weren't any defiant last words, or curses; just an audible crack of his terminator armor that signaled the end of the chapter master. The rest of the Sons of Bartemaeus, those not already ensnared or captured, were quickly rounded up and detained. The fate of Bartemaeus was not over, for he was a Space Marine, one of the Emperor's finest, and death does not come so easily.

The daemon-warlord put the broken, but still-living body of Bartemaeus upon a central spire, a gleaming spike, in the center of the city, a square where the fighting between the two giants leveled buildings the day before. Bartemaeus was impaled through his back and his body hung limp, one arm missing, facing the night sky, his slow-dying eyes forced to gaze at the stars; stars that would never yield his salvation, his redemption, or his brothers-in-arms with reinforcements. It took decades for the near-primarch to truly die, so resilient was he. All the while the forces of chaos grew. His living tomb was made into a mass grave all around the base of the spire with the fallen of his chapter, further testament to how far they had fallen. He called to the stars for the light of the Emperor to save him, for years he did this, and was answered only with silence. The marines of the chapter were dead, imprisoned, or lost to the nitrogen seas, frozen below its surface; their leader, the mighty Bartemaeus himself, eventually drew his last breath.

Their story does not end here however...

Hancock, the Hulk, and Wall·E

All right, movie review time. Mind you, I watch movies on a pretty regular basis, but not all of them count as 'geeky' in nature, so I don't waste space here talking about 'em. Case in point, it took me two years to get around to seeing Casino Royale, I've been over the Bond films for some time, but it was amazingly good. And if you haven't seen it, check out the Woody Allen version of the same movie!

Anyway, first up is Hancock. I didn't know a whole lot going into it, just what you saw on the trailers, but it looked promising. My biggest draw to it was the whole Astro City vibe it had going on. It didn't disappoint either, the first half of the movie had some humor and some gritty super-hero action, plus a lot of sides of the action that you just don't see in the four-color comic book world, again, riding those rails of Kurt Busiek all the way home. It took a weird turn about halfway through the movie though, and I don't know still if I liked it or not. Without spoiling it or anything ('cause I know how many thousands of dedicated readers I have, heh) it just got pretty convoluted, pretty fast, with a lot of huge pivotal story moments without a whole lot of information backing them up. Again, not a bad thing (I think), but it didn't exactly grab me right off the bat. It's still a fun flick, with plenty of worthwhile moments if nothing else.


Next up is the (new) Hulk, or as I like to call it, the Incredible Hulk II, because it seamlessly dovetailed directly off of the Ang Lee version a few years earlier. While we're on it, the Ang Lee version rocked, everyone loves to knock it, but it was a good film in my eyes. On many levels it supersedes the new one really, but on to the new one. Good things: Norton was the best Banner they could've cast, and the Tony Stark cameo at the end was great as they totally lead up to an Ultimate Avengers movie. Oh, they did throw in a bone with Samuel Sterns, aka the Leader, showed his brain swelling up and everything, haha. The action was good, yada yada. The bad: Liv Tyler right off, she just bugs me, period. Although as an actress she does a solid job, something about her in this role didn't gel with me. Freakin' Jennifer Connelly from the Ang Lee version has got it on every level and just makes for a better Betty Ross in my eyes. Also, that cool Stark cameo at the end lost so much steam by not having another Nick Fury cameo after the credits. General Ross asks, "Who's 'we'?", and Stark just smiles, then you should have Fury walk into the bar at the very end and say, "SHIELD, that's who..." And what the heck was Ross drinking? Red Bull and Vodka? What else? The Hulk didn't look any better CGI-wise than he did in Ang's version either, in fact he looked a little 'mottled' the whole time. Abomination was cool I guess, it was a good screen translation, but I always thought of him as a B-list baddie anyway. Bottom line was that this wasn't a replacement, but a sequel to the '03 Hulk, and it wasn't any better. I walked away thinking that it "ain't no Iron Man", but that's not a fair comparison for any comic movie really.


I'm pretty much a Miyazaki homer, anything he does I like for one reason or another, and I think I'm getting to be the same way with the Pixar crew, Wall·E is no exception. For such a large movie, they took a lot of non-traditional paths, which were wonderful. The complete lack of dialog for the majority of the movie is done to an almost artful degree. You forget that not a single word has been spoken in over twenty just because you're so engrossed in the story and imagery. I don't need to recap it do I? A trashbot gets left behind on a eco-ravaged Earth and ends up becoming the dead planet's savior, you know, the usual. Throw in a hot, sleek 'bot from the future, and you're rockin'. There are so many good things to say about about this move I don't know where to start. The visuals were amazing, as usual for Pixar, as was the story. I think the commentary on human consumer culture was a tad heavy-handed, as was the eco-devastation of Earth, but whatever. The AI that controlled the human ship, Auto, had a very familiar red eye in its center, a well placed homage if I ever saw one, kudos to them, especially when he went to override human control of the ship. In fact, a lot of the space scenes came across very Kubrick-esque to me, and then they kicked in with the orchestral score and that sealed the deal. Overall, Wall·E was great; funny, beautiful, poignant, emotional; totally a solid film.