Sorry Farewells

I think my wife has been talking to Marvel, they keep cancelling series I was following and as yet they haven't started any new titles starring War Machine, Deathlok, US Agent and Century (Some personal favorites of mine) so my actual buying pile will be dropping, diverting that money into altogether more useful things such as clothing and wallpaper.

The comic that has ended, why it was the comic that should never have been, let alone never lasted 50 issues. Yes, I'm talking Cable & Deadpool.

It was a madman's idea, mixing Cable, tortured son of Cyclops, raised as a kind of messiah in the future, returned to the present and responsible for some of the more confusing temporal bobbins in the X-Men timeline, meets Deadpool, bonkers loud mouthed Mercenary with a healing factor.

While I'd read issues before I only started picking up deadpool near the end of its previous solo title run, it started sporadically with a black panther crossover, but I don't like to talk about it. Deadpool has been one of marvel's unlikely survivors, very much reliant on Fan support and writer enthusiasm. The title was briefly discontinued and replaced with Agent X, equally brilliant work by Gail Simone which only has a slight dip in quality where Marvel forced in other writers. Later, post Agent X we got Cable and Deapool, and it worked, and continued to work. It worked for 50 issues which is an age in comic terms, over 4 years. It had serious plots but deadpool's quips and antics always lent it some madcap fun. Frankly I was expecting an axing 4 years ago but it never came. It ended on a high, with symbiont infected dinosaurs in New York, Deadpool berating Spider-Man on his actions in One More Day (Which is worth the cover price alone) and a nice thought that we could well see Deadpool, Weasel, Agency X and of course, my nomination for best new character ever, Bob: Agent of Hydra, again. It ended on a high and while I'm sad to loose it, I'm happy with this last issue.

Hopefully we'll see more of deadpool now that he's confirmed in the new Wolverine movie, as for Fabian Nichiz.. Nichez... Fabian, well I think the guy is ill treated. His run on Thunderbolts was exemplary and he kept Cable Deadpool as more than just and odd couple gimmick. Newsarama noted that he did great work scripting the Mighty avengers in Deadpool's last issue, and I agree, so Avengers or a new Thunderbolts/Zemo series. Failing that the initiative still has about 40 states that we've not seen, how about an initiative based team book for him to play with.

Go on Joe Q, give this guy something juicy before he jumps ship.

NHS

For those who don't know, my wife has been ill, it started about 6 weeks ago and she has been in constant pain since then. In 6 weeks all they managed to do was rule out heilicobactor, appendicitis, ovarian cysts and ectopic pregnancy. The last 3 were ruled out in the first day. The big slap in the face was when her appointment to see a specialist came through, in April. It was considered quite appropriate to take a woman in her 20s and have her sit for what would be 12 weeks before a diagnosis was even reached. We enquired down the private route and found we could see a specialist that day. Thing is, it was the same guy that we'd have waited 8 weeks to see on the NHS, so effectively a £200 bribe allowed us to jump the Queue. While it worked for us it sickens me because we now have a heath service where the quality and speed of treatment is dependant on your ability to pay.

I'm trying to work out when this happened. I remember when the Tories first introduced Private health, it was very specifically aimed at getting a room on your own or nicer food. AT no point was queue jumping on the cards. In the years between then and now there has been a slow erosion of the NHS. First private companies were allowed to build hospitals, yes the NHS can use them in a pinch. The excuse for this was to provide the nicer rooms/food, and for superfluous cosmetic surgery that was taking off. Now, however these hospitals tie up specialists and doctors with the lure of greater financial rewards. Frankly the private health industry is now a parasite sucking life from the NHS. How do politicians deal with this. Well, a labour health spokesman decided that free health for all was probably unrealistic. Effectively saying there should be a basic free system for poor people and the beleaguered middle classes should be bankrupted with heath insurance. The tories meanwhile suggested that Private patients pay less tax as they don't use NHS facilities, which is even more baffling, as I'm not sure how this would provide more income to the NHS.

Free, good quality helth care is not only possible, it is essential. How is it possible, well most of Eurpoe has free health care of superior quality to our own, and the most embarasing, Cuba has a very good free health system despite being technically a third world country.

My solution, and it would be unpopular with those who get large amounts of money from private health insurance and running private practices, is to return the private sector to only non NHS cosmetic procedures and perhaps the nicer, private rooms. However private firms could not employ specialists, doctors or consultants. All of those would be hired from the NHS at a going rate. Furthermore NHS work would always take priority. It would be the only way to stop those who can pay jumping queues.

What I'll actualy be doing, is probably investing in some private health insurance, although is raises my hackles to do so.

Console War Correspondant

The Wii is the current leader in the current console war. The response from both Sony and MS is, well Cheat. They've disqualified the Wii for not playing by the rules and doing the same stuff but better looking. However the war is far from over. And it still could be everything to play for as so far Nintendo's biggest advantage is that it has not made any blunders.

Using a military analogy the Wii has won some early battles using the unconventional tactic of seemingly having different goals to its two competitors. Rather than barrel into a spec battle it went for innovative gameplay and quirky, original games. Like the clear win of the DS over the PSP Nintendo's biggest advantage has been their appeal to non-gamers thanks to party style games, innovative basic controller and low price point. In short rather than aim to win over the hardcore gamers, Nintendo almost went out of their way not to appeal to them (Although it has some very good titles for the more hardcore). It made the Wii the must have gift this Xmas which is no mean feat. In the long run the larger numbers of Wiis sold (Although supply problems, deliberate or not create good peer pressure based sales in the kids market. If all your friends have Wiis, you want a Wii rather than a 360 or PS3 so you can share games, play together and compare progress. The Wii versions of EA sports staples (Such as Madden NFL and tiger woods golf) have definitely given the sports simulation crowd a preference to the Wii as well despite the spiffier graphics of its rivals. Some games have had very good critical response, Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy. Zelda and Metroid Prime corruption have received solid reviews comparable to games on the XBox (PS3 have yet to gain a "killer App") To win Nintendo will have to continue to produce original fun titles peppered with the odd involving Hardcore title to keep the serious gamers interested.

Microsoft went for a quick attack by launching near enough a full year before its opponents, indeed they may have been the most prepared for this war, spending money during the XBox's tenure acquiring some very lucrative licences such as Grand Theft Auto. Neither of these are exclusive but MS have the first launch. Also getting the system out first now means they have an established user base and plenty of titles out there. Indeed evidence from the last war showed that the first system (PS2) won despite lower power. However, they blundered. It was a strange vision of consoles being an upgradeable entity that has to a large extent hobbled MS. They had a vision of people checking system specs before buying games, as is done with a PC. To this end they launched with 2 systems, core and the other one. The blunder came by not equipping the core with a hard disk. Now, any 360 game is limited by the storage of a memory card and the hard disk on the better and elite models is relegated for holding pictures, music and rented movies. Games can't utilise larger storage and can't use the hard disk to stream data to reduce loading times. I'm not exactly saying the core was a mistake, but the lack of a hard drive on it definitely was. Also the XBox is so riddled with DRM and lockdowns (Like a Mac :Shudder:) those tasks such as transferring data from an older 360 to the new one is an exercise in beurocracy and frustration. Still, if Sony and MS have decided the Wii doesn't count, since they target the "Hardcore" gamer, MS would do well to play up its "First dibs" essentially they should say "Play it first on 360" otherwise they will loose custom to the more powerful PS3.

Finally the PS3. It's very much the new boy. However already its Blu-Ray DVD drive has won that format war for Sony, but will it do the same in the games machine battles? Well, history shows us that the most powerful machine doesn't guarantee a win and the PS3 has yet to launch a "Must have" exclusive title, although it is definitely winning acclaim by its games looking significantly better than its rivals. It has also lowered its price from its initial high which has encouraged more people to consider it. However so far Sony has seriously blundered in a number of ways. Sony was complacent. After all, it was the winner of the previous 2 wars, and it pretty much thought it was the chief of the new generation of gaming, having beaten old hands Nintendo twice and seen off a well funded new rival in Microsoft. They had built the most powerful games machine on the planet and were fairly assured of victory. It was clear this early confidence was stuttering a bit when the Wii's controller was announced. Sony very much had the appearance of people floundering in confusion. Suddenly they had to include motion sensitivity in their controller, this combined with a small legal dispute over the Dualshocks use of rumble led to comedy announcements such as the controller can't hold motion detection and rumble (But the Wii does it and has a speaker and mic to boot) not only that but the significantly cheaper Wii was looking very strong on its launch. Sony's second mistake was not noticing that in the PS2 years MS had bought a fair number of their exclusive titles. Sony are fighting back now, short on exclusives they're being far cleverer. They play up the Blu-Ray aspect, making it a cheap option for a new movie player. Also, Sony are very much aware that their killer app on the PS2 was the Grand Theft Auto series of games. While you will play it first on the 360 Sony seem to be keeping their name linked to it. I don't know how but everywhere I read people talking about how the killer app for the PS3 is GTA 4, the fact that the 360 will have it first is ignored or glossed over. This could be a sign of very clever marketing, but it could backfire. Sony are winning some hardcore gamers away from their 360s, and have been fairly dismissive of the Wii as everything from a fad, a kids machine or not a machine for proper gamers. Some are buying this and PS3 sales are increasing. Sony are also pitching it as a bling type fashion accessory, almost akin to a big ugly car with spinners and neon lights, or a chunky gold watch, or £500 trousers, and again, some people are buying into this.

So in conclusion, it looks like the Wiis game at the moment, but Nintendo best keep things fresh and interesting and supplies coming lest their competitors get a better foothold.

That was longer than expected.

Updated

Well, thats most of the old posts ported from my old blog.

Apologies for poor formatting, typing spelling.

Old posts are still live on the old blog if anyone cares, apologies for not being able to port comments.

So, new blog starts here

New Digs

Hello and welcome to the blog. I'm currently porting old posts from my previous blog, so bear with me. Will probably include a best of post of the wee short posts that came before as well.

Why I don't Rate Trams

When the SNP gained power one of their first moves was to cancel the proposed Edinburgh Airport rail link and local tram system and divert the Billions these would cost into smaller public transport schemes in more deprived areas (Such as reinstating the Airdrie to Bathgate line) I though this was an overall good idea, Rather than spend the money on the Captial, which gets everything else, there seemed to be an intention to provide public transport for those who actually needed it.

Edinburgh is a tricky city to build new things in. This is due to its large numbers of listed buildings, old layout and the fact that if you build anything new in Edinburgh someone will call it an eyesore. In Edinburgh they don't like new things. However what Edinburgh hates even more is other areas getting money it wanted.

Now Edinburgh did do a lot of work with its bus lanes and busses. Most of it is good. Busses don't require much in the way of infrastructure beyond existing roads and bus lanes and sinage has made it a prefered way of getting around the outlying parts of edinburgh. The one glitch in this bus system is the stupid guided bus routes, which basically take all the disadvantages of rail (Costly structure, road blocked if a unit breaks down) with the disadvantages of busses (Low speed, running on deisel) and the only advantages is that its a bus only road. ANyway, with both those cancellations there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Edinburgers, particularly regarding the tram system. See the kickbacks for the expensive laying of track and purchase of materials had been paid and some people were in real trouble if teh sceme didn't go ahead. So the whinged and it got reinstated.

Now, I'm really big on public transport, but I really don't like trams. It isn't personal, but they have been superseeded by an altogether better invention, the trolley bus, which was invented over 50 years ago. However whenever a light suburban transport system is proposed, its trams.

Trams are rarely a good solution to light urban transport. They require rails (WHich in turn need maintenance) space on the roads (like busses) and in some ways can be held up by traffic (Although at least Edinburghs bus lanes should help alleviate this)So, what is this mystical trolley bus I rant about? It is an electric bus, powered from overhead wires, think like a tram but with rubber tyres. So, this can run on bus routes and the normal road and all they need are suspended cables, which would be used for trams anyway. In fact some of the newer models used in china can actually fuinction on bateries over medium distances to allow overtaking and operation short distances away from powered areas (In fact I'm amazed no-one's devised a hybrid trolley bus) So, even using something as basic as the trolleys that used to run in Glasgow in the 1960s, what you have is a tram that needs no rails, not only saving money but also the disruption installing rails into the road causes.So why aren't they used. Well, frankly its a mystery. My personal theory is lack of awareness. Everyone remembers Trams from Glasgow, they're nostalgic, and they've been installed in a few other places. Many European cities installed tram systems after WWII and still maintain them. They're seen as a source of pride, more a tourist attraction than a practical solution. WHich while in keeping with Edinburgh, isn't really what the city needs. Sadly Trolley busses are at best forgotten and at worst known by their old nickname "Silent death". See rubber tyres and electric motors are silent, and people who didn't look both ways when crossing the road often got hit by a trolley bus where they'd have heard a car or tram. But nowadays people like silence, its desirable. Trams won't offer that, there will be all the clanking and squealing associated with steel on steel.

My inner cynic says that there are more kickbacks, both on installation and maintenance, of tramlines, thats why they are popular. But if Glasgow decides it needs more suburban transport, I'm campaigning for trolley busses.

Disorderly

heard with a heavy heart that The Order is being cancelled.

This is quite annoying as it is probably one of the best team books marvel has produced in a while, the concept of a super team akin to a sporting franchise, where someone may be "Benched" or dropped for poor performance was really intriguing, plus the idea that each hero can only keep their powers for 2 years could very well make a series with a constantly shifting line-up, and with that the very real possibility that a character could die. It also examined the behind the scenes PR of the team, how their public image was maintained and simple challenges like City mayors not wanting a super team based in the middle of LA.

So if it was so great, why was it cancelled? Well, it had some bad luck; it was to be called The Champions, harking back to an old LA based team featuring Black Widow and Ghost rider. But as it transpired Marvel had lost the rights to the name and after a brief legal altercation it changed to The Order. Second was it was launched off the back of Civil War, as part of the 50 State initiative. Sadly this coincided with the launch of 4 other team books. Of these Mighty Avengers not only had big names Bendis and Cho on writing and art respectively, but was one half of the 2 central Avengers Titles (Alongside New Avengers) Also released were Omega Flight and New Warriors. Both of these titles could at least trade off the old fanbases of Alpha Flight and The New Warriors. (Which the Order could have if it had been able to keep its name) Finally was Avengers: The Initiative, well, for starters it received the Avengers tag, but secondly it received some solid publicity in the run up to its release (Solid compared to "Its not called the champions") But it could trade off its avengers title, all the order had was "The Initiative" banner that was on about 90% of marvels output at the time.

What compounded this was the ever growing ton of events that were stacking up from Marvel. The X-Men books were running up to Messiah Complex and the rest of the MU was gearing itself towards World War Hulk. Well, if they wanted to follow world war hulk then if anything there was probably going to be a cut back in their uptake of new ongoings. Indeed, in both of the big guns Event fatigue is really setting in.

The next thing that robbed possible publicity from The Order was the controversial One More Day storyline. As this was very much the baby of the Marvel EIC Joe Quesada, Marvels output as far as courting publicity was almost entirely dedicated to explaining how good One More Day was going to be, closely followed by explaining why One More Day was excellent and then pitching Brand New Day, to be honest, you'd have been surprised that Marvel were making any other comics over this period.

Finally is a general criticism of Marvel. Times past a new title, or one resurrecting one of their secondary characters, would never be listed as an ongoing, rather it would get a 4-12 issue Limited series to test the water. Lately Marvel have been banging out new ongoings. I think this puts people off. If you give someone a 6 issue Limited series, they may consider the extra expense over 6 months not too big a hit, particularly when they know that the next big event is a year away. If the series works, follow with another LS or if you feel bold an ongoing. Notably Omega Flight was reduced to a Limited series, and was probably the better for it. If they'd said The Order was a 12 issue LS Not only would I be less upset at it finishing, I could be guaranteed a planned conclusion to the story and the possibility of more later on. An axed title is never a popular one to follow up.What I think we could use, as an ongoing, is an Anthology title relating to the 50 state initiative. Running anything from 1-6 part stories focusing on one or more of the new state teams. Judge on reaction to stories what may make the ongoings of tomorrow and take things slowly.

Still, I'll miss the Order when it finishes.