Miraclo Miles

Crocodile Dundee Concedes Knife Competition The Avengers Sneak peak of the hour is: Ares . I am not going to spend time today on the possibly dubious merits of inducting a former god of war onto one of the Avengers teams, but will instead simply look at the latest addition to the Avengers set gallery . Like his DC counterpart , Ares is among the priciest of clix. Indeed, they are exactly the same cost at 275 pts. I've marked with a red dot the clicks where is special power is in play. On those six clicks he can Perplex one of his stats by +2, and do so without any penalty. The restriction is that he can only do that for himself. This should come in handy, not merely in pumping up Damage if desired, but instead it could be used to kick up his Speed for a surprise approach during his Charge clicks, or to make his Attack Values more certain. It could also extend his range from an 8 to a 10, once again potentially surprising an opponent who thinks he's out of reach. Two targets at ...

The one after twenty one In a week that is under acceleration, this is mainly to quickly note today's my 22nd wedding anniversary. I can't access YouTube from this location, so I can't even toss up a quick link to something heartfelt, humorous and/or ironic. Off into the day.

More Avengers Buzz Three weeks from now the Avengers Heroclix set will be hitting stores, and the latest issue of Critical Hit (it's a pdf) four sneak peeks of different stripes in it. One new character and three Feats. The character is one launched in the early '90s, and one I've forgotten about periodically until one fan or another mentioned him: Darkhawk . (Click on the image for a larger view; I'm keeping him small here so as to not throw the text structure off too much nor feel that I have to write multiple paragraphs on him.) The version provided is a rookie, and at #19 in the set he's an uncommon, so if my somewhat optimistic (in terms of quality control) previous analysis holds he'll show up twice per case. The keywords he's been given are Excelsior, Loners, New Warriors, Teen, and West Coast Avengers. (To be perfectly frank, while I've picked up the Loners reference from some current fans - a recently-formed team - I have no idea what the ...

Second Opinion? Okay, you're ugly, too. In a surprise move, they've added the Ultimates version of Iron Man to the Avengers Gallery . As I've often remarked, the pieces always look better in person, but I'm finding it difficult to believe that this one will look good. It's a design issue. It's been decades since I was willing to go near flair-/bell-bottom pants and puffy sleeves, and it's not a style that's coming back soon -- at least not for me. Here's the pic they've provided, along with the dial. For 154 points it's a dynamic piece with the generally useful Ultimates TA, fairly good stats, damage reducers, some late-dial Outwit and a last-ditch click of Regeneration. The sting of a single target and Energy Explosion is partially allayed by the 10 range. The shift from front-dial ranged-striker for three clicks to mid-dial, super strong charging piece is potentially fun. By his final two clicks he's lost the ability to fly (Earthbound...

And the rest... Just wrapping up the weekend. Following my previous post, I ended up getting a shower. I got into the shower thinking I was going to use it to relax and lead into a couple hours' sleep, but emerged from it deciding to just keep rolling. Once I passed 5am I put on my MP3 player and went up to Genuardis for a quick shopping trip to a personal soundtrack. I talked with a neighbor who was out on his porch -- four hours before he was to have a couple major extractions of diseased molars -- who was punchy from pain and lack of sleep. Wishing him well, I finally broke away and up to the store. Knowing I was likely to be gone for the full day I wanted to be sure they were covered at home, so I made sure there were makings for salad, plenty to drink, and the makings of stew. I'd cooked steaks two nights prior and there were ample leftovers, so I had the meat already waiting in the refrigerator. That set up in the crock pot, I napped for an hour before heading out. Th...

Saturday, before the dawn I woke up just before 2, obviously restless and in need of some more aspirin. I'm trying to get whatever's happening to my right leg to ease up and back off. It started over the Memorial Day weekend with a sudden stiffness in the back of the knee joint, along the back of the leg. It felt as if someone had removed an inch of muscle or tendon, resected it and waited for me to wake up and watch what I made of it. It's gotten more generally painful and farther reaching as the week's rolled on. I've managed to loosen some of it up as far as cutting down on the discomfort for casual bending, standing and walking, but deep knee bends don't seem quite possible unless I can find some masochist within. Whatever the problem, I'm hoping that carefully putting it more through its paces will help -- it isn't as if I'd strained it in the first place. Today I'll be headed over to Crypt Leak & Abbygal 's to help them clear the r...

Little Magic Man Another Avengers sneak peek this week: Wiccan I'm no booster of the Young Avengers , a series which became so top-heavy with teen intrigue, back-stories involving secret, famous parents and even a gay romance that it reminded me with each sampling why I didn't watch the TV series creator Allan Heinberg was also one of the writers responsible for, The O.C. -- but I know the makings of a solid support piece when I see one. (Okay, I'm probably being unfair to The O.C. , it just wasn't something I was interested in - the steamy times and trials of the mostly young, hormonally-hyped and wealthy; I can't run from that sort of thing fast enough, but it's just a matter of my avoiding it. I've resented the trend in recent years to seemingly blindly invite people who have written for other media to come in and screw around with mainstream comics characters and continuity, though. It's one thing if they turn out to be huge fans, but too often it...

"Stop calling me Bruce." Another from next month's Avengers set. This time it's Shang Chi . I'm tired and likely have another killer day ahead tomorrow, so I'm going to keep this brief and not address the covert, yo-yo release of the new rulebook, including the changes and the new Duo mechanic. Maybe I'll finally get to that this weekend. In the meantime, I just want to post the info for Fu Manchu's son, the man whose name means The Rising and Advance of the Spirit -- Shang Chi. I really am out on my feet, in need of a shower and some horizontal time. So, very quick impressions -- This is the first of the full reveals on a common for this set -- Shang comes in at #12 in the set -- and gives us the first lower middle-cost piece in the set. He's also the first piece previewed that a) we hadn't previously seen the sculpt, and b) had even seen listed before as part of the set. Looking at this and Black Panther , Seth does se...

On This Day Certainly not something I'm likely to do often, but in the pre-dawn I found myself idly wondering what had happened on this day in history. Obviously, a great deal will be missing from these lists -- I've just chosen what meant something to me for this reason or that. Born on this date: 1759 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin writer/mother of Mary Shelley ( Mother of the Mother of Frankenstein would be a terrible title, wouldn't it?) 1886 Al Jolson [Asa Yoelson] jazz singer/silent film actor ( Mammy! ) 1907 John "Duke" Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] Winterset IA, actor (Just in case you were wondering why so many John Wayne movies were on TV this week.) 1908 Robert Morley Semley Wiltshire England, actor (High Road to China, African Queen) 1913 Peter Cushing Kenley Surrey England, actor (Hound of the Baskervilles, Dracula, Star Wars, Dr Who) 1919 Jay Silverheels actor (Tonto-Lone Ranger) (What you 1923 James Arness Minneapolis MN, actor (Matt D...

Holy F---! While fishing around for something else entirely, I came across a piece from this past January over at Jounalista! , on Christian sex comics that were published by The Family International . I must note that this topic demonstrates how flexible and seemingly meaningless the term "Christian" has become, not that we'd need to go farther than politicians who rally people to kill our enemies and invoke Christianity in the process to see how far afield the term's gotten from anything Jesus spread to the masses. The panel up top is one of the tame ones from an issue of The Flirty Little Fishy , put out by The Family International (go to that link and scroll to the bottom for links to an archive of what they published), a Christian cult that used sex to lure in new members. While noting that they labeled them as "Adults Only" it should be noted that they defined "adult" as anyone 12 years or older.