Last week we left our daring Lone Wolf poised on the railing of a burning flagship, staring into an advancing fleet of a terrifying armada of undead savages and wondering whether to jump for safety in the water or to boldly leap onto the deck of the approaching death hulk. And we chose ... Death Hulk!
Fight, fight, fight! I think it's funny we crashed right through the rotten deck. I guess zombies don't weigh much or this thing would look like a slice of Swiss cheese. Anyway, on to the battle!
With the Sommerswerd our Combat Skill is a gnarly 27, and our beginning END is a fully-stocked 24. We don't get Mindblast against these undead bastards (apparently they haven't had their morning ration of brains yet) but we do get to do double damage.
Round 1: I roll a pathetic "1". Typical. This is why my D&D nickname was "Rolling Death". Luckily the Sommerswerd is here to make up for my shortcomings, as with an 11+ Combat Skill advantage we double our outstanding 9 points of damage to 18, annihilating all three zombies for just 3 END lost on our part. Rockin'! One and done is how we like it, folks.
We do have Sixth Sense, luckily, so I just went ahead and jumped to that part. I think it's hilarious that after falling through the rotting deck, we end up in Stankville. Apparently when they can't get brains, zombies eat nothing but beans.
And at last we face a Helghast with an effective weapon in our hands! Time for some revenge, mofo. We're still rolling with a CS of 27 versus his 22 for a +5, with the same END for us both. Here goes ...
Round 1: Rolling Death makes good! With an "8" and a +5 advantage, we get an obliterating 14, doubled to 28. That slices the rotting pile of filth in half, in exchange for NO damage to us! Woot! We have got to work out some kind of permanent time-share on this Sommerswerd.
So here we are, folks. We have mounted a Flaming Death-Hulk (coming soon to the new "Marvel 52!") while flaming seamen dibble down around us. We can either charge into a massive rotting tower flinging fiery death onto our fellow sailors, or leap into the choppy waters and hunt for a better target. Or we just wet ourselves, I'm not sure. What'll it be?
Again, since we’re discussing writing, I offer another shameless plug of my own work, in the form of my review blog. This time, the features are last week’s Red Hood & the Outlaws, Nightwing and Captain Atom. I only offer the blog as the newspaper where my content is featured has not yet uploaded the material. Anyway, here it is: http://mcknightsreview.blogspot.com/
Also, if anyone is interested in this week’s material it will be reviews of Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Superman.
Well, we were already dumb enough to jump onto the ship in the first place, so what’s one more act of stupidity? Kill da tower!
(BTW, does anyone else feel like we’re some kind of mega-Firestorm, playing these books out this way?)
Destroy the tower! Otherwise it will destroy any other ship that we try to swim to. And…ahem, “Our cruisers can’t repel firepower of that magnitude!”
Also, Jeff: Isn’t it the DC 52? Marvel has some other stuff going on, like “Fear Itself” and “Spider Island.”
Myro, that was the joke — since the Hulk is a Marvel character, and since the DC 52 has been so successful, I think it’s only a matter of time till Marvel copies them. Only, being Marvel they’re going to want to up the ante and go all-in with stuff like “Mounting Death Hulk” in a bizarre and unsettling mimicry of the Starfire-Catwoman sex scandal.
That’s a long way to go for a joke, but there it is.
Myro (3): Yes, DC has the New 52. From everyone in the comic industry I’ve spoken to an the folks at my LCS, what’s been thrown around is that Marvel’s Fear Itself and Spider Island are their version of DC’s Final Crisis and Blackest Night.
Jeff (4): Yeah, I’m not the swiftest person in the workday after a few nights running with far too little sleep. Especially if I haven’t had some caffeine to right myself. So that one must have gone over my head.
McKnight (5): Shyeah, like I’m actually going to read Fear Itself anyway. Or, as I like to call it, in order to piss off my friends that are reading it: “Everyone Gets Hammers.”
Anyway, I have read a few more of your reviews, good job. Anyway, I know you haven’t reviewed it, but have you or anyone you know read Hawk and Dove yet? Word I got from Linkara at Atop the 4th Wall is that the story is pretty good, provided you can get past the art (no mean feat, given it was drawn by the infamous Liefeld). Just wondering if anyone else would confirm it.
What am I reading right now, you ask? Wait, you didn’t ask? Oh well, I’ll tell you anyway. I’m reading the Old 52. That’s right, the post-Crisis miniseries featuring Booster Gold, Render Montoya, et al. I’ve been meaning to go back and read that through all the way.
Also, I hate ny phone’s auto-correct.
Myro (6): I’m not even bothering with Marvel at this point. Mostly because of the reviews I’m doing of the New 52 and like $50 per week goes to the DC issues. Also, speaking of the reviews, I’m going to assume you are the HeroMachiner from Canada who visited the blog, so thanks for that.
Myro (6): Sorry, didn’t catch that bit about Hawk and Dove. No, I haven’t read it simply on the grounds that Liefeld is the artist. I’ve only spoken to one person who liked the story, but that’s really not enough to go on. Also, thanks for that reading list. If you’re interested, I can tell you what other titles to look out for in the DCnU. For this week, Aquaman is actually my number 1 choice. Doesn’t hurt that Ivan Reis is the cover and interior artist. Geoff Johns is also the writer, which definitely helps. I can’t comment on Firestorm however, since both branches of my LCS sold out.
Here are some interesting ones from this week:
All-Star Western (Jonah Hex) – passable
Aquaman – Surprisingly, pretty interesting.
Batman: Dark Knight – Average, nothing special (Yes, I know it’s the goddamn Batman, but trust me, it’s only slightly better than Catwoman.)
Black Hawks – despite the obvious joke within the name, it’s average at best
Flash – above average, nowhere near epic
Fury of Firestorm – haven’t gotten to it yet, but I’ve heard it’s merely average
Green Lantern: New Guardians – solid B, even features the origin of Kyle Rayner sans Alex in the refrigerator
I, Vampire – surprisingly good. I mean, I’m just thanking (insert god of your choosing here) that it wasn’t a Twilighty suck-fest (pun intended)
Justice League Dark – solid C
The Savage Hawkman – unless you’re a die-hard Hawkman fan, this is just below average
Superman – unless you’re in it for the art, it was far too monotonous. It was bad enough to make Justice League exciting by comparison.
Teen Titans – On par with Justice League and Superboy
Voodoo – Look, I’m a huge fan of Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.s, especially Grifter and Voodoo, but holy crapsicles that was bad!!
Sorry guys, i had to share this. the X-Men’s Guide to Puberty.
http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6618100/the-x-men-guide-to-puberty
Let’s go check out the tower! And yay, we won a fight
@Jeff, don’t worry, you’re not the only one the dice cursed at D&D. If it was an important roll, I was destined to get a 1.
@Myro, you should check out http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/27/new-52-reviews-week-3/ , they do week by week reviews of all the DC books, also. Not to take away anything from you, McKnight. Just another spot to see some reviews.
Dan (11): I usually look to them, IGN (sorry Jeff) and CBR. Mostly IGN, since I’ve spoken with one of the reviewers there on occasion. For the record, those are last week’s reviews. That’s actually the only place I’ve seen that gave low scores to captain Atom or Red Hood & the Outlaws.
For the record to everyone on HM, I’m doing these reviews for school credit on the college’s online edition of their newspaper. That means no money and with a full course load of all English classes, 3 (well, 4 this week) is the maximum I review of the 13 titles each week. There are also a few titles I refuse to read. If I did read stuff like Hawk & Dove or Catwoman, I’d most likely shoot myself. Since I have this weird addiction to breathing, that’s the last thing I want to do. I also urge people to look at all angles and not just take my word for it, so thanks Dan for bringing up another source for reviews. However, I would appreciate any comments here, via e-mail or on the blog in regard to my reviews.
Dan – Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind too.
Speaking of bad rolls, I had a knack for either succeeding against all odds, or failing in spectacular fashion anytime I needed to roll during a climactic moment. It was always an adventure with me. But that still doesn’t beat this one guy who’s been RPing in our group. Because he has such runs of bad luck, and because he works in a hobby/games store, he’s coming in once a month with a new set of dice, because the “other dice hate him.” This feeling even extends to the dice owned by anyone else in our group, which he’s had no luck with either.
Well, we’re already here, so let’s go to the tower. If we jump in the water, all we’ve accomplished is jumping in the water with 4 less Endurance than we would have had if we just jumped in the water to begin with.
Killing four zeds and one Helghast probably won’t win the day, but if we can seize the tower and have the option of turning it on the other Death Hulks, that might help.
Thanks to X-stacy for not only being on-topic but crystallizing my random intuitions. Jumping into the water just seems generally unwise.
I can see it now. You jump into the water and are pulled down by zombies and eaten YOU LOSE
let’s attack the tower
@Mtro, I TOTALLY had “lucky dice”!!! I actually had dice I would only use for specfic games. I have 2 ten siders the were only for Marvel, 6 siders that were only for Star Wars, etc. It rarely helped, though.
jeeze, that was supposed to be @Myro…ugh.