Capsule reviews: Comics from 2/23

(I meant to get this up sooner.  Really.  Honest.)

King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel #1 (of 4) (Dark Horse, $3.50, Timothy Truman, Tomás Giorello) - The first issue of a storyline narrated by an older Conan, one who is in his later years, as he tells the tale to a court scribe about an adventure during his younger days as king. This has many classic Conan elements to it: Conan is captured, brought low by sorcery, refuses to compromise his principles, and is left to die a horrible death.  With another writer this would be mere pastiche, but Truman gives the story enough emotional heft to make the telling enjoyable, and Giorello's art is wonderfully visceral.  Highly recommended.

Astonishing X-Men vol 6: Exogenetic (Marvel, $14.99, Warren Ellis, Phil Jimenez) - Wait, a Marvel book?  How did that get on the list?  Oh yeah, it was written by Warren Ellis, who is pretty much my favorite writer in the field today.

This storyline, when published in serial form, was plagued by various delays, but none of that hinders the story when read in a collected format.  Like Ellis's previous Astonishing story, this is self-contained, with no real knowledge of the current X-Men continuity is needed (thankfully!).  Ellis still has to dance around the idiotic '198' rule that was imposed on the X-books in recent years, and in doing so comes up with an intriguing challenge for our heroes: someone is using the DNA of past friends and enemies to create monstrous threats for the X-Men to face.

The writing here is pretty much as good as you would expect.  Ellis's dialog is sharp, and often hilarious.  The characters are pretty much spot-on - there's a wonderful sequence where Beast utterly deflates the 'Cyclops is a stone-cold killer' nonsense that has been passing for Scott's characterization in recent years.  And of course there are plenty of 'oh Hell yeah!' moments thrown in for good measure.

While I've been concentrating mainly on the writing, Jimenez's art also plays an important part here.  His detail is excellent, both with the main characters and the tons of insane backgrounds that Ellis's script calls for.  It's a beautiful package, and well worth the price for any X-fan.

Essential Spider-Woman vol 1 (Marvel, $16.99, Marv Wolfman, Mark Gruenwald, Michael Fleisher, Carmine Infantino, others) - Another Marvel book, reprinting stories from an era when Marvel wasn't actively trying to drive me away as a reader.  The issues reprinted here vary a bit in quality, as one might expect from a series with multiple writers, but overall the stories are enjoyable enough.  In her early days, there was a bit of 'weird menace' to Spider-Woman's character, and that bleeds over into her villains as well.  Most of her bad guys aren't exactly iconic by any stretch, but in all they're a fairly creepy bunch.  Later on, when Fleisher takes over the writing, the supernatural elements that had pervaded the series are dropped, and Spider-Woman becomes a more standard 'street-level' heroine, albeit one who makes her living as a bounty hunter.

As for the art, this isn't Infantino's best by a long shot, but it's still quite a bit better than some of the stuff he would do in his post-Flash days, when at times it was clear he was pretty much phoning it in.  After Infantino leaves the book, the art takes a dip in quality for a few issues when Frank Springer and Trevor von Eedon handle the visuals, but it picks up in the final issue of vol 1 when Steve Leialoha comes on board.

If you have any interest in the character of Spider-Woman, it's hard not to recommend this: like DC's Showcase collections, Marvel's Essentials line give such a bang for the buck that it's a fairly safe recommendation - you're almost guaranteed to find enough comic book goodness to justify the price.

Trollslayers - Melee Weapons

(apologies for the uneven formatting - blogspot doesn't want to have things line up nice and simple, I guess)


Weapon               Type     Hand      STR      DEX      DV      DEF      ENC    Cost    Notes

Battle Axe                C            1          14         11       x2/3       +1          3          12        A
                              C            2          12         10       x3/4       +2                                  A
Club                        B            1           8           8        x3/5       +1          1           -
Bastard Sword         C            1          14         11       x3/4       +1          3          35
                                            2          11         10       x4/5       +2
Dagger                    C            1           5           8       x1/3         -           1           3
Flail, hand                B            1           13        12      x2/3        +1          2           9       A, B
Flail, war                 B            2          12         12      x3/4        +2          4          12      A, C
Great Axe                C            2          14         12       x4/5       +2          4          22         A
Greatsword              C            2          14         11         x1       +2          4          55         A
Hand Axe                 C            1          11          9        x1/2      +1          2            3
Lance                      P            1           13         11         x1        -           5          25      A, D
Mace                       B           1           13         10       x2/3       +1          2            6         A
Mace, spiked            B            1          13         11       x3/4       +1          3          10      A, E
Maul                        B            2          15         12       x4/5       +2          5          12       A
Pole Arm                 P            2           11        10          x1       +2          5           15     A, F
Quarterstaff              B           2           10         12       x3/4      +2          2             2
Short Sword            C            1           7           9        x3/5       +1          1          15
Spear                       P             1          12         12      x3/5       +1          2            2        F
                                              2            9          8       x2/3       +2  
Spear, long               P            2          11           9       x3/4       +2          3           4      A, F
Sword                      C            1          12         10       x2/3       +1         2          25
Warhammer             B            1           15         12       x3/5       +1          3           8          A
                                             2          12         11       x2/3       +2
Whip (20')               C            1            7          13       x1/4         -           1           4    G, H


Type indicates the basic damage type the weapon inflicts, which includes Blunt, Cutting, and Piercing.

Hand indicates whether the weapon is used one-handed or two-handed (for human-sized users).  If a weapon can be used either way, different values will be shown for STR, DEX, DV, and DEF.

STR indicates the minimum Strength required to use the weapon without penalty.  The number listed is for Experts and for Commoners with some combat training (i.e. "zero-level men-at-arms").  For Warriors and Paragons, the number required is reduced by one.  For Magicians and Commoners without combat training, the number required is increased by one.

If the user's STR is less than the listed minimum, the user suffers a -1 penalty on their attack roll.  If their STR is half or less of the listed number, the penalty is increased to -2.

DEX indicates the minimum Dexterity required to use the without without penalty.  This otherwise functions as per the notes above on STR.

DV is the base Damage Value of the weapon, represented as a fractional multiplier of the user's STR (a person with a STR of 11 has a base DV of 4 when using a dagger, for example).  If the DV for a weapon that can be used either one- or two-handed comes up with the same DV either way (due to a low STR), add a +1 to the DV for two-handed use.

DEF is the bonus to the user's Defense score when using the weapon, indicating the user's ability to parry incoming attacks with the weapon.  The DEF bonus for melee weapons does not protect against missile attacks.

ENC is the Encumbrance score of the weapon.

Cost is the standard cost for the weapon in Silver Pieces.

Notes

A - whenever this weapon is used to attack, it suffers a -1 penalty for Initiative on the following round.

B - this weapon negates up to 2 points of DEF from a defender's weapons and/or shield.

C - this weapon negates up to 4 points of DEF from a defender's weapons and/or shield.

D - this weapon is usually only used when mounted; if on foot, it requires two hands to use and is treated as a long spear.  When mounted and the mount is charging an enemy, 2/3 of the mount's current MOVE score can be added to the user's STR for determining damage, up to double the user's current STR.

E - treated as Cutting vs Leather armor, and Piercing vs Chainmail.

F - this weapon may be braced against a charging attack; 2/3 of the charger's MOVE score is added to the user's STR for determing damage, up to double the user's current STR score.

G - may be used to try to 'grab' small objects within its range.

H - if the user does not have a talent with this weapon, an extra -1 penalty to hit is incurred.

Jim Shipman is back... unfortunately

I may not have a lot of contact with T&T fandom these days, but I still have enough goodwill toward the T&T crowd that what Jim Shipman is still up to pisses me off.  And I'm not the the only one whom it annoys.

DriveThruRPG helping New Zealand

DriveThruRPG has put together a RPG bundle charity package to help out people in dire need, this time the victims of the earthquake that recently struck Christchurch, New Zealand.  For a meager $20, you can get over $300 worth of RPG PDF's.

Go help someone out, and get some cool swag while you're at it

"I just do the best I can."

Nicholas Courtney, best known for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (more simply just referred to as 'the Brigadier') on Doctor Who, has passed away.



Dammit.

The wrong kind of shock

Just found out that Dwayne McDuffie, a long-time comic book veteran, passed away Monday night due to complications from a medical procedure.

McDuffie was a co-founder of Milestone Media, and helped to create the character of Static, which eventually led to the Static Shock cartoon.  He also did a lot of excellent work on the Justice League animated series, and was just recently doing press work for the new All-Star Superman cartoon.



Damn.

No, I'm not dead

However, writing up the weapon stats for Trollslayers is taking a lot longer than I anticipated, for a variety of reasons.  Sorry. 

Hopefully I'll get this hashed out sooner rather than later.