Marvel Knights, Where are they Now

Back in 1998 Marvel released the Marvel Knights imprint. The idea was to make a more adult imprint in the Marvel universe but without going into the adult areas of DCs Vertigo line. While the initial launch was considered a mixed bag Marvel Knights very quickly became a banner of quality, basically you would know a good book if it had Marvel Knights written on it. A certain Joe Quesada was in charge of the Marvel Knights line, and as a result once he became EiC of all of Marvel the line was slowly diluted and phased out. It now stands for one-off prestige events. But I wasn't going to talk too much about the fall of Marvel Knights as an imprint. Instead I was going to talk about the Marvel Knights titles and Where they are now.

The original 4 Launch titles of the Marvel Knights range were Daredevil and Black Panther as ongoings, a Punisher 4 issue Limited series and an Inhumans 12 issue maxi series.

Black Panther

Obviously in the launch the majority of focus was on Kevin Smith's Daredevil story (Back when you could trust Smith not to run away and make Jersey girl on you) but the major critical acclaim at launch came from Christopher Priest's quirky take on Black panther. For starters, the story was seen from the point of view of a government attache called Everett K Ross, second the story was told from his rather fragmented reporting of this story to his superior and girlfriend. The result was a confusing but very entertaining non-linear story. Over the course of the issues we had the initial fragments expanded and it was a rare thing to have a story that was entertaining both as a single issue and a full story.

So, what happened. Well Panther has had a hard time of it as a title. It was the first of the Marvel Knights titles to be taken into the mainstream Marvel Universe, where it seemed to lack the spark of earlier issues. This volume finally ended with a very entertaining story where struggling New York cop Casper Cole found and used a Black panther costume.


Black panther then re-started in a story that was almost a re-boot of the title. This started well with international politics taking a high stage and the US threatening an invasion. However I found the story was de-railed by dragging Black panther into every big summer event in existence plus further confusion when Panther joined the Fantastic 4. In the end I dropped the title and it has since had to be re-booted for the current Dark Reign state of affairs.





Overall Black Panther has never really regained its status from the Christopher Priest issues which is a shame as the character is ripe for development. Here's hoping this newer run brings back some of the old Marvel Knights magic.

This is why I love Knight Rider

This will be my first attempt to get a video clip embedded in a post, wish me luck.

Ok,

This is why I love new Knight Rider, we're near the conclusion of a 3 episode arc, KITT has been de-activated and mike must invade a base to get him back and defeat KARR. Now, dark gritty series may have used forboding or stealthy music and had him do a lot more sneaking. Not Knight Rider, they Put on the AC/DC and turn the action machine up to 11. The only way they coudl have made it better is if he was actually playing teh music from concealed speakers during teh scene, and I kind of like to think he is.

Electric

What holds back the electric car, and who made Steve Gutenberg a Star? I will attempt to answer one of these questions in this post.

Steve Gutenberg had a cheeky smile that suited some roles during the 1980s furthermore.....

Just kidding. There are currently moves to encourage electric car ownership, with government attempting to get a network of plug in points assembled across the country. This has seen some success in London where the GeeWhiz electric car has been quite successful as a small commuting vehicle.

Electric cars have also evolved from their predecessors which often lacked speed and range. Indeed it is often said that an Electric Car's bigges weakness is the weight of its batteries and the amount of energy it spends hauling those around. However I disagree. Range is now just about comparable to a tank of petrol and speed isn't an issue with cars like the Tesla proving that it is possible to build an exciting electric car.

Nope, the electric car's biggest hindrance is charging time. Take a petrol car, when you run low on petrol you stop at a petrol station and fill up the tank, this usually takes a few minutes. Batteries take hours to charge. This is irrelevant when you are driving your car to work, plugging it in for 7-8 hours, driving home and plugging in again, but what if you want to make a trip that is outside the range of your batteries, you may need 3.5 hour stopovers every time you run out of power, making long journeys longer.

So, what are the solutions. Well, most practical is the Hybrid, cars such as the Toyota Prius, which carry a petrol engine which can run the car and charge the batteries at the same time. Its not the ideal solution, the car is heavy with the weight of an engine and batteries, and this seriously affects the engine's fuel efficiency when running on petrol. There is a plug-in version available, which allows you to charge the batteries by plugging in, but the hybrid really is a stopgap.

Far More promising is the Hydrogen fuel cell, which has been perfected, it uses a clever chemical reaction from hydrogen to generate electricity. The only by-products, water. of course, the down side is that at the moment it costs more energy to produce Hydrogen than you ever get out of it, but that's merely the next hurdle.

Finally, there have been some encouraging experiments done in fast charging batteries. in short re-chargeable batteries that could run for 3 hours and charge in 30mins. Suddenly all an electric car does is make you take regular breaks.

Providing people are willing to invest and promote new technology I foresee a future where nearly all of us drives either a Hybrid or and Alternative fuel car

Games that Stole My Life #2

Myst

Or to be Precise, the Myst series of games, yes, Myst, Riven, Myst II: Exile, Myst Iv Revelations, Uru and Myst V: End of ages have all taken up an inordinate amount of my time. The series focuses on you, a mysterious traveller who gets dragged into a mysterious book. You become embroiled into the affairs of Atrus, one of the D'ni, a people who could write links to amazing worlds in books.



Myst


The story starts with you trying to work out what has happened on this deserted island, and which one of Atrus's Sons trapped both him and Catherine. As you travel through the ages of Myst you see the signs of both son's corruption, but who was responsible, Sirrus, who plundered ages for wealth, or the more sadistic Achenar. Both try to blame the other in garbled messages from their trap books. The revelation at the end is of course, it was both.


I started playing Myst in School, it came free with the Apple computers that had been donated and being one of the better computing students I, along with others, was occasionally allowed to go to the lab at lunchtime and play games. The look and feel of Myst blew me away, the atmosphere, the mystery. Even now if I load up Myst, I can almost smell the pine on Myst Island. This is a game that virtually requires you to sit down and spend about 20 odd minutes in game reading. Oddly enough when I left school without knowing how Myst ended I needed to buy my own copy, and did, in pre-Internet days my only source of advice was a certain mate who had sometime net access and could provide me with hints. Regardless, this game took as many hours of my life online as it did offline, sitting in classes or in front of the TV I'd be trying to solve puzzles in my head or work out what I'd missed. Once I'd beaten it I would occasionally still load up the game, just to play the story again. I still get annoyed that RealMyst is so thin on the ground, yes I prefer ed the Myst IV engine, but to wander around Myst island with changing weather. Wow.



Riven

Following the events of Myst Atrus contacts you once again, try and free his wife Catherine from the clutches of his power mad Father Ghen in the age of Riven. And there may even be a way home for you.

For me, this was a long awaited sequel. What happened next. Surprisingly, at the time I was a little disappointed. Initially the more uniform look of the different islands of Riven was a let down after the variety of the ages of Myst. However the plot was interesting, and seeing the sadistic way Ghen kept his followers obedient through fear was interesting, if nothing else because you, as the outside observer get the view from behind the curtain. Riven also suffered from puzzles making slightly less sense, in Myst, they were hints to combinations to access the valuable link books, in Riven some made sense but others (The generator puzzle for example) didn't really make sense (Why have a coloured bead puzzle to switch on power?) Overall though a very good addition.





Myst III: Exile

For a few years this was just a cover picture and a selection of images and concept sketches to me. My machine lacked the oomph to run Myst III. This led me to do something purists will no doubt call a travesty. I played Myst III on the Playstation 2. Yes, I played it on a console, my enjoyment was not diminished of this tale of a nutter who was tortured by Sirrus and Achenar out for revenge, plus you really felt like you were learning a little about the "art" of writing worlds. We also had a good selection of distinct areas, mechanical islands, anachronistic tech and giant organic areas. This was the Myst I remembered. It also had a fantastic "Gotcha" moment on the villain, who I'd found sympathetic, but also fallen afoul of the ending where he basically stabs you in the back.





Myst IV: Atrus has invited you over to see him and his family, and you apparently haven't learned that things go wrong when you drop in. Sure enough, he's been visiting his sons, who he trapped in their ages during the events of Myst, and wants to know wheather he should let them out. While he's away getting parts for a machine there is an explosion and his daughter Yeesha disappears, and worse, it seems that one of his sons is responsible. But which one.

This was excellent, it had the varied ages that drew me to Myst, a decent mystery (Albeit similar to Myst) and my favorite graphics engine, the set nodes made a game that looked better than its sequel, it had the neat feature that you could tap surfaces, in fact the sound could deserve lines of review alone, Only two puzzles were hellish and the mystery was really well presented. Plus it had the superb version of Peter Gabriel's "Curtains" in it. One I must return to at some point.





Myst V

Set many years after the events of Myst IV, Yeesha is all growed up and the events of Uru are in the past. Things are beginning to fail and collapse, and it may be Yeesha's fault. This is so far (With a small caveat) the only Myst Game I am yet to finish. You must re-assemble some sort of tablet, then work out if you can save the Myst universe.

This game had an several new gimmicks, it was split over 4 distinct ages and the D'ni city itself, well at least the access to the City, nice to see areas from the books realised though. Anyway, puzzles are mostly solved using a tablet on which you draw symbols to make events happen in the age. Its a bit weird and can be an utter pain. Each time you draw a symbol you have to drop the tablet and let one of the Bharo (From Uru) judge your drawing, and they're pretty damned fussy. Still, nice touch of having Yeesha and an older D'ni man follow you through the adventure, giving advice and trying to talk you to their way of thinking. Problem is there are far too many timebound puzzles, where you do one thing and have a limited time to do the next few steps. It removes the easy and thoughtful pace of the previous games. Also while the engine used (Same as RealMyst and Uru) allows you complete free roaming, the node based system of IV looked better and seemed more immersive. Another I'll have to go back to and see if I can finish.

Uru

This was a fairly bold attempt by the Myst bods. A Spinoff, so not directly related to Atrus, experimenting with some 3rd person and platform elements, and finally it was to have an online feature, so the game could be played through as a group of friends solving the puzzles, creating new ones and just hanging out. The story follows Yeesha, Daughter of Atrus and Catherine and various prophecies of the D'ni and dark secrets in their past.

This game had a lot of nice touches, not just tat you could run around the ruins of D'ni, and Visit the cleft in the rocks Atrus grew up in. Although those were nice touches. An element of the plot featured an abandoned expedition to the D'ni city by a group called the D'Ni restoration committee, who were investigating this underground city and hoping to open it up for study. The gameplay basically featured exploring several ages in order to highlight a series of "Journey Cloths" througouht each area. You had a home base of your own little island (As seen on the cover) think it was called Rhelto. A neat touch was you could pick up pages for your personal Rhelto book to add things like weather and decorations. There is even a page for trees but they take time to grow. The basic story of exploring the patchier parts of D'ni history is compelling and despite the 3rd person and some irritating platform parts it is a fun game to play. The caveat from Myst V being the only game i didn't finish, not exactly true. I completed the main quest of Uru, but didn't play through the two expansions, Do D'ni and Path of the shell. So those adventures still wait for me. I also never had a chance to try the online element before it collapsed. However I believe there is a new version of the online game out. I'd be interested to meet that online community

So, not only has the Myst series taken many many hours of my life, but it plans to take many more. In fact, when I fix my big computer, I feel a Myst Marathon coming on.

Pie Man's Work Lexicon #2 - Jealous manager

A Jealous manager is a manager who is hit by massive pangs of jealousy every time he sees any member of staff of equal or low standing with something that he doesn't have. Employee X has a company Laptop, Manager must have a laptop, Blackberry, same, branded tie, got to have one of those.

Where does this come from. Well, its usually stems from a manager who is deeply insecure in his or her ability and indeed may feel like they're in over their head. However, this is normal in starting a promoted position, and most people will admit this and ask for help. Not the jealous Manager, no. Instead to them they must disguise their lack of experience with the trappings of position, as if owning all the paraphernalia of a manager will somehow stop people questioning their suitability for the job. effectively "I look like a manager therefore..." The ultimate nightmare of this sort is for someone below them to be mistaken for the guy in charge through something silly like speaking authoritatively or better knowledge.

This sort of manager is mostly harmless, provided you're not too bothered about how much of your budget goes onto their stuff, and then its more of an annoyance as they e-mail you from a blackberry to tell you that you can't have any stationary due to budget constraints. Down side is that if you have something that really helps, and they can't get hold of one, you will stand to loose said item.

Best way of dealing with this sort is to keep anything useful you have hidden, or better yet, claim its actually yours. They don't know the requisition system that well and you should be able to get away with that. You also look good because you're buying your own kit.

Oh no, not another Battlestar Galactica Finale Post

I should have numbered these, Made it a series, curse my lack of foresight

Teh internets have literally been split in half by the finale of Battlestar Galactica, For the record, I fall into the "Loved it" camp.

I was initially going to hold off on a review of this and instead lump it in with a review of the years TV once all the seasons have wrapped up, but word came in from the blogsphere that everyone had to blog about this so here I go.

This had a bit of everything, some brilliant action sequences, the battle at the colony had both great shots of Galactica fighting and some great scenes with the Human/Cylon alliance battling their way through the colony. The plot threads were suitably wrapped up and, ok, the ending owed a bit more to the hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Yes suddenly I was thinking "So, Baltar is actually a telephone sanitiser?"

Overall the ending was upbeat, and the body count was surprisingly low. Both unexpected. As always, the acting was superb, in fact a moment I loved was the scene between Caprica 6 and Baltar, when they both realise they have versions of each other talking in their heads.

Galactica had its share of padding and iffy episodes, but overall it really showed what you could do with Sci-Fi. This was not "Normal Person" friendly, yes it was dark, gritty and mostly low tech. But it wasn't like Lost or The X-Files, where it was set in the here and now with odd goings on. This was space opera, with spaceships, killer robots and all, but well written enough that people who can't get past "Its childish, they're in space ships, its not real" for Star Trek or Babylon 5, seemed to be able to put their prejudices aside and enjoy a stunning piece of television.

Goodbye Galactica, We'll miss you.

X-Men - Kingbreaker/Darkhawk

Yes, I caved, bought Kingbreaker and I think it was a missed opportunity.

The advantage of DnA's cosmic stuff so far is that they have found ways (Often just a cheat sheet) to introduce people to characters like Quasar or Drax, who they may not know. This has meant that throughout the cosmic stuff I've roughly known who everyone is from my own knowledge and info supplied. However, in a slightly questionable maneuver, the next big event is to be a war between the Kree and the Shi'ar, but focusing on the battle between the new rulers of the Kree, namely the Inhumans, and the Shi'ar, Vulcan, who is apparently brother to the X-Men's cyclops.

On one hand this is a good way to pull a segment of the cosmic universe into the fold that had been previously absent, the Shi'ar normally appearing in X-Men books. However while War of Kings: Secret invasion gave some sort of introduction to the Inhumans, the 4 part Kingbreaker did not clear much up regarding the Starjammers or the Shi'ar. If I hadn't looked at wikipedia, I'd not know that both Vulcan and Havok are related to Scott summers, I still have no idea why someone is using the phoenix force or why it suddenly left her and therefore disabled some other guys sword. In short its not a bad story, but I would have taken the opportunity to give some background rather than just assume I knew who everyone was. As a final failing, they messed up the shipping in a really stupid way, OK so you don't want to hold up an entire event because one story goes 1 issue behind. However War of Kings #1 lead directly on from the end of Kingbreaker #4, the problem, War of Kings #1 was released before #4 of Kingbreaker. If I was in any way worried about who got away from the cliffhanger in #3 it was resolved by seeing the crew of the Starjammer in WoK #1. Overall, this event has a lot of work to do, both to match up to its predecessors and win me over form a shaky start.

I suppose you could call it proof that this is a smaller event, or the fact that with two spin-offs doing another 4 minis before getting into the main story could be called a bit excessive. Anyway, the other lead up is Darkhawk, a small two part story. However by the looks of things it will be followed by a story running parallel to War of Kings called Ascension.

Darkhawk is a little known character, Chris Powell, who uses a suit of Alien Armour (it has varied between being armour or a whole android who replaces him but runs from his head) to fight crime. Last we saw he had left the encounter group for teen super-heroes who were trying to give up super-heroics alongside Turbo, Ricochet, Phil Ulrich and Spider-Woman III (The Spider-Girl Ripoff Mattie Franklyn) seen in the Excellent "Loners". And lately in Nova he has been working as head of security at Project Pegasus in his Darkhawk guise in the recent Nova story. WoK Darkhawk sees his life nearly destroyed by the arrival of a Similar Darkhawk type called Talon, and an attack by some sort of drone. The two part story basically focused on Chris accepting that he has to leave his friends and family and Travel into space to properly learn how to use his Darkhawk suit as incompatibilities are causing him anger issues. My only gripe with this series was that it is really a tester, and probably could have been summed up in a one shot for Ascension (Assuming Ascension is what I think it is) rather than a two part which seems to padded and finishing abruptly at the same time. A criticism I read was the removal of the characters uniqueness by making him part of a Corps (or order of the raptors or something) however I am intrigued in what I can only assume is Shi'ar links to the Darkhawk armour, what with the Shi'ar liking their bird comparisons.

In fact, this is what's interesting me about how things are going to come together. Aside from Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy doing the sort of linking I could only encourage, stories being tied together without needing to read both titles, in Nova Worldmind, having stripped Rich of his powers and having recruited and mind controlled a huge number of humans into joining the Corps, has made one of his old recruits, a Shi'ar, Nova Prime. I wonder how the Corps will fit into war of kings. Also War of Kings #1 showed a lot of promise.

So I'm not down on War of Kings, but the minis leading up to it have been less than stellar.