#but it's also getting to the massively unwieldy point comics get to

[antivillain]

Some context from a comics fan! First of all, the reviving door of death has been a fixture in the comics for YEARS to the point that when Krakoa happened, installing the resurrection protocols wasn't so much introducing something new as formalizing it and giving it story weight instead of having it just happen anyway. At this point most X-Men had died at some point or other anyway and been brought back through some shenanigan or other. Jean's died so many times it's basically a meme.

(And this isn't just X-Men or even just Marvel--DC does it too. Killing off a big character gets a lot of attention and causes a lot of drama, but you want to keep selling books about them so you can keep making money.)

ANYWAY, there's a five person team that does the resurrections. The eggs come from a mutant named Fabio Medina whose power is to make.... gold balls.

Pre-Krakoa his mutant name was Goldballs. When they found out they could use them as eggs he started going by Egg. Then there are four other mutants who manipulate reality and time and psychic stuff to get the dead mutants into the egg and age them up/give them their brains back. It's a whole protocol.

As for the ramifications--comics definitely explore it! Especially because of how it changes the mutant relationship with death. There was an event where a ton of mutants lost their powers a while back thanks to Wanda and so there was a whole ritualized combat thing called the crucible where characters could fight to the death and then be resurrected with their powers back. There were the politics of who could be brought back to life (specifically clones were banned and also Mystique's wife, Destiny). There also was the awkward issue of making sure you didn't accidentally bring someone back twice--X-Factor was a comic of a bunch of mutants investigating deaths to confirm the characters had actually died so they could be brought back to life safely. (Also the entire team basically was queer it was great I highly recommend). There were some magical realms where if you died there you'd come back "wrong". Storm and Magneto both had their back-ups destroyed for various reasons.

Anyway, hope that clarifies things! Or... just makes it sound even more ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous comic book nonsense, don't get me wrong, but there was also some very interesting storytelling. I thiiink the Krakoa protocols are gone now? I'm kinda behind in my comics these days so I'm not totally sure where we've landed on that.

I still won't expect anyone'll stay dead. Besides possibly some minor characters.

Hope u r doing well.

Btw what is the egg reborn thingy u mentioned in ur tag post? Is it that from the Krakoa arc I heard from the comics?Or is that a fan theory for the MCU?

Have a nice day!

The egg reborn thingy is how they revive characters during their krakoa run. It doesn't make sense but the newborn characters are full of egg goo and that's pretty funny to look at (plus they're butt naked and that's always nice to see musclar butts!)! Reviving your characters make their death less impactful imo. I am already "mad" that every characters live multiple heavy traumatic experiences and yet they barely show any sign of trauma. They sometimes mention it, but it is not really something they deeply explore, which is a pity imo! like Scott is the king of repression, but at some point he should be over his limit. Maybe there are comics who explore that, but I didn't find them yet haha! Sorry for my mini rant haha! I don't know if the MCU revived any of their characters? I stopped watching any new movies since the last spiderman movie, so I am really not up to date with what is going on.

[pochapal]

You don't gotta answer this publicly, but what on earth happened/is happening RE: Dogpiling?

this is long but there’s a lot to cover and i don’t know how much information is pre-known going into this.

basically breadtuber sarah z made a 2 hour fandom postmortem video on homestuck. instead of being a genuine look into what made the comic and the fandom so massive and so relevant for so long, she kind of glosses over all that in the first thirty minutes, then spends the rest of the video discussing homestuck’s two major controversies in the least tactful way imaginable. 

the first one she talks about is the hiveswap development hell fiasco, which on paper is an interesting thing to bring up in relation to a lack of content contributing to fandom decline, but sarah’s primary source for all this is a pseudo-anonymous blog run by giovan_h, someone who is notorious for treating dangerous and baseless accusation as fact and for obsessively stalking current and former whatpumpkin staff members to obtain information for said blog. she supposedly tries to bring a balanced argument on what exactly happened in the three year dark period between hiveswap’s supposed release date and when act 1 actually came out by pitting ipgd’s tumblr post (the one that made the odd gentlemen embezzlement claims vis a vis king’s quest) against giovan’s blog (claiming through anonymous and unverified sources that hussie deliberately dicked around and failed to meet a single deadline, then broke contract terms by using the kickstarter money to commission the odd gentlemen to animate act 7 instead of working on hiveswap. there are a lot of other unsavoury claims about hussie and certain other wp members among these blog posts, but that’s the primary relevant gist). 

neither account can actually be verified (ipgd’s post claims their information is spotty because they’re talking around a pretty strict settlement nda and giovan’s sources and accounts are deliberately vague and unverifiable to “protect various parties from retaliation from hussie/wp”) but sarah ultimately comes down and says that she’s inclined to take giovan’s blog as more truthful for. reasons. this is obviously bad because within minutes of the video dropping several wp team members reveal sarah never once tried to get in contact with them, which has led to attacks on the team members because a lot of zealous people looking for an excuse to keep being mad at homestuck in the wake of hs^2′s semi-permanent hiatus were emboldened by a video essayist treating the ugliest speculation as hard fact. as of right now, the hiveswap kickstarter has released a statement clarifying the development situation as best they can (from what i’ve read it does point to them legally being unable to point to/discuss certain things) which has had all the impact of dropping a match onto an oil spill. the anti homestuck zealots firmly believe every word of that post to be bullshit and are accusing the wp team of covering for hussie and his super heinous evil crimes (keep in mind we are still not privy to the internal workings of wp because why the fuck would we be) so the wp team in turn are putting these people on blast for this dangerous harassment (it doesn’t need to be said that as a professional being publicly accused of covering up fraud is a very bad thing) and then as a counter counter response the angry fans are now accusing the wp staff of abusing their power to direct mass harassment towards specific individuals (this amounting to people getting into wp members’ private discord servers and publicly posting mean things they have said about giovan et al which imo only serves to bolster the stalking claims) and the whole thing went very ugly very fast.

the second controversy that sarah brings up is everything involved in post canon homestuck (epilogues, pesterquest, hs^2). here she reverts to more of a passively pro-fandom stance, asserting time and time again how horrible and evil the epilogues and everything else were because of how they took the characters and stories everyone knows and loves and warped them into something unrecognisably terrible, that post-canon homestuck was universally reviled. in a very bad and awkward placement of information she then segues into a kind of hand-wavey discussion of the intense backlash towards certain post-canon trans interpretations (of vriska, june, and roxy) in a very I Am A Cis Woman So I’m Not Qualified To Make Any Statements Here Other Than Transphobes Fuck Off <3 But Also This Is Indicative Of A Growing Fandom Resentment way, which honestly begs the question of why she needed to include this at all. another bad thing here is how she super glosses over the “controversies” surrounding “the advocates for june egbert” and “the writer for vriska’s pesterquest route” - she is obviously referring to former creative director kate here (she kind of confirms this on twitter by saying she didn’t want to mention kate by name in order to not stir up further drama which uh... yeah) and the inexcusably terrible chain of events which led to every single out trans woman working on homestuck to resign to protect themselves from further mass harassment and dogpiling from the fandom.

she instead, for some reason decides to focus on how post-canon homestuck has been a total commercial and creative failure, that homestuck^2 basically shouldn’t have even happened after the fandom’s distaste for the epilogues and that it was not only controversial but also was a low quality mess everyone agreed sucked. she then goes on to compare the hs^2 team to the wp hiveswap dev team, and passively applies the same giovan-esque assertions to the internal workings of hs^2, kind of but not really implying the reasons given for the shutting down of hs^2 were bullshit. this is super bad for the fact that the post canon homestuck team is the most openly marginalised group of people working for hs is in an official capacity, and we have seen time and time again what drawing undue, speculative negative attention towards these people has done. again, reminder sarah did not reach out to a single person who worked/is working on homestuck for what is essentially a drama video disguised as a fandom postmortem. the upshot here is that her post-canon section served to embolden yet another wp-hostile section of the fanbase - those who adamantly believe that only the fandom itself can create worthwhile homestuck projects, and that all writers are evil people who want their queer fans dead (only a partial exaggeration) and produce spite projects which are driven by the steadfast belief that their work is inherently superior to official content by virtue of their fan status. among this group were a lot of people who latched onto any accusation against a team member as fuel to push them out of “ruining” such a beloved franchise so sarah’s video serves as proof that all the hs^2 writers were morally corrupt monsters ruining a fandom space that was meant for minors and queer people (this is all very anti/anti-anti carousel of bullshit nonsense that i have no time for) and thus they’re confident to once again tear down the remaining public facing staff members, ignoring how all this crusade has done so far is drive a handful of trans women and people of colour off of official homestuck projects for their own safety.

then she ends the video with a “oh btw this video is proudly sponsored by audible <3″ bit and it’s just. beyond unbelievably awfully stupid that she deliberately reignited this aggression which has caused untold material harm on marginalised people (that happened less than a year ago!!!) just for the sake of quick clicks and ad revenue. she consolidated the most dogshit takes as fact within the general fandom consensus, sided with some of the worst people to engage with homestuck, potentially detonated the last shreds of stability of this independent marginalised media project, and wrapped it all up with a sponsorship from an amazon subsidiary company of all fucking things. this is obviously a case of an incredibly short sighted decision to cash in on a very complicated and unwieldy fandom history but still the potential consequences here are unfathomable.

[mobius-prime]

270. Sonic Universe #3

The Shadow Saga (Part 3 of 4): Old Soldiers

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

So it appears that despite this being the morning of the final battle against his arch-nemesis, Eggman has suddenly become very preoccupied with the fact that Gamma rebelled against him over a year ago. We've not heard anything from Gamma in all this time, but apparently ever since it left the Egg Carrier during the Sonic Adventure arc it's been traveling the world, fulfilling its mission from the game to "rescue" (read: murder) all of its brothers, and expanding out from there into attacking various bases belonging to Eggman. Commander Tower back at the GUN base explains all this to Shadow and Rouge, requesting that Shadow track it down and find a way to ally with it, as it's so far refused to actually ally itself with any of the global Freedom Fighter chapters despite sharing a similar goal. At the same time, we finally see who Eggman is explaining his side of the story to: Omega, of course! It seems that Omega was built not long after Gamma was, but has been stuck in storage ever since, and is not very happy about it.

Oh, come on Shadow! That iteration of Metal Sonic existed for a grand total of like, three hours! Even a robot isn't about to change its mind about the purpose of life in such a short amount of time. As Shadow boards the helicopter that will take him to his destination, Eggman watches Omega depart while Snively informs him that the Dark Egg Legion is ready to begin the final battle against the Freedom Fighters. A few hours later, they're over the drop zone, and Shadow straight up leaps out of the helicopter without a parachute like an absolute madlad, because apparently if you're the ultimate lifeform you don't need silly things such as life-saving safety equipment. He notices tracks in the snow, and soon finds himself face to face with Gamma, who is uncertain about his presence here.

This is honestly fascinating and great, because in no other canon do these two ever actually meet. It's interesting to see how they interact with each other, given their histories and past affiliations. However, no sooner have they agreed to work together than Gamma detects another robotic presence, this one broadcasting Eggman's signal. Sure enough, Omega bursts out of the treeline behind them, guns blazing and ready to murder them both. It's excited about the chance to face off against Shadow, which it considers an even greater test of its abilities than Sonic, and is perfectly happy to annihilate Gamma as well while it's at it. Shadow tries to cover Gamma's retreat to the extraction point, but Omega isn't having any of that.

I don't know why, but the mental image of Shadow wedging himself into Omega's gun arm with a loud "THOOMP" sound effect is incredibly amusing to me, more than any other sound effect in this entire comic so far. Gamma hides from Omega while Omega does its best attempt at a villain monologue, going on about how outdated and poorly-maintained Gamma is and how its firepower can't match up to Omega's own. Gamma retorts from cover that Omega is unwieldy with its size and weight, that it's very loud and can't cover ground as easily as Gamma can, and this is because ultimately, Omega is a walking arsenal while Gamma is an assassin, proving its point by sniping Omega with several potshots. Omega concedes the point, but Gamma, as it turns out, actually isn't looking to win this fight at all.

Fun fact, by the way - in this issue Omega is portrayed as being massive, far taller and larger than Gamma, and yet it's exactly the opposite in the games. The difference between their official heights in the games is actually hilariously dramatic - Gamma is a whopping 7'1" or 215cm, while Omega is a paltry 4'11" or 150cm. This seems absolutely absurd, but if you look at their character models when compared to other characters in their respective games, it's totally accurate - Gamma stands taller than Eggman, who is already 6'1" or 185cm, while Omega is shown to be not actually that much taller than Shadow or Rouge when standing next to them. That said, Omega actually weighs far more, so Gamma's assessment of its abilities is pretty accurate in this issue.

Anyway, Omega unleashes a deadly barrage of ammo on Gamma, just as Gamma announces that it's completed an "upload." All that's left of Gamma after the blast is a smoking crater, with the Flicky bird that's served as its soul all this time flying away happily, finally free of its metal prison. Shadow arrives just in time to see it all happen, and is horrified at his failure to protect Gamma, but then Omega starts freaking the hell out, yelling about a virus in its systems. The voice of Gamma speaks through Omega's body, revealing that it uploaded the portions of its code pertaining to free will into Omega. Their two personalities merge into a new being, a fully sentient one that's capable of feeling emotions, though it's still largely based on Omega's original personality. Omega is confused, not knowing how to handle suddenly going from an "it" to a "he" with a personality and feelings, so Shadow offers him the same deal he offered to Gamma before.

Omega, much like Blaze, has a pretty different personality from his counterpart in the games. Not completely unrelated, of course, but compared to game Omega's fairly composed personality, focusing more on consistent barrages of firepower and occasionally bragging about its abilities but also having the capacity for deeper, more emotional thought (such as its chat with Rouge at the end of the Team Dark story in Heroes), comic Omega is a bloodthirsty, murder-happy killing machine who practically worships fire and death. It's also worth noting that Ian has actually been wanting to introduce Omega into the world of the comics for years before this point, with Sega shooting him down for whatever reason several times. While I do love Omega from the games, Omega in the comics is known for how absolutely hilariously over the top he is, and truth be told it's probably my preferred characterization for him. Case in point, after Omega helps Shadow construct a small grave marker out of stones for Gamma, he threatens Shadow with maiming and death if he ever tells anyone else about his moment of emotional weakness. Once they get back to GUN's headquarters, Hope enthuses about her discoveries about Omega's construction while Rouge listens attentively and Shadow mopes. He blames himself for not being able to save another living weapon, even though he… kind of did? I mean, after all, while Gamma as a fully actualized personality no longer exists, the parts of it that made it sentient still do, and it willingly accepted its fate, so it's not like Shadow is some giant failure here. Hope then informs Shadow and Rouge of their next assignment, which cheers him up somewhat - she's finished recalibrating her teleporter, meaning they're about to take a trip into the Special Zone in search of another Chaos Emerald!

[teenwolfplus]

E! News: I was truly delighted by the scene with Stiles at the end of the premiere. I think a lot of people were worried he wouldn't be in too much of the season because he's so busy.

Davis: Yes he is. He's got mazes to run, he's got assassinations to do. So he's definitely busy.

So what can you tell me about getting him back? How much are we going to see of Stiles and Derek?

I can tell you that it wasn't intended for Stiles to actually be a part of these last 10 episodes, but I always had it in my heart that Dylan would come back for at least the series finale. I'm actually really happy that we were able to build a good bit of story in about Stiles, and get him in more than just the finale, so it's important to show where these characters are going. We have many many characters that are close to my heart on the show, but the show started with Stiles and Scott, and it's also great to be able to write for Stiles and Derek again, to see that pair back together. They're so funny together, those two characters. There was spark there that gave great comic relief to a show that got very dark.

In terms of all the people you did get to return, did you reach out to them, did they reach out to you? How did that work?

It was both. I had a list of people that I wanted to get back, and I said oh maybe one or two of them, and then everybody wanted to come back! There were people who wanted to come back that we couldn't get because of scheduling issues, like Meagan Tandy. I would have loved to have her in the last episode, but there was a point where she was only available for this day or that day, and then the script got too unwieldy to try to wrap up 20 different character stories, but I'd say hopefully we're successful at giving each character their moment. But I think it's a testament to the love of the show and the love of the cast, the love they have for each other and the crew, that everybody was so fond of the show that everybody wanted to come back. And nobody was doing it for the money. These weren't huge paydays. They were coming back for the love of it, which is great.

So what was your goal going into this final season?

We wanted to bring the focus back on Scott McCall, on our original teen wolf, and we thought we've gotta give Scott one last massive, huge battle to fight, and then we thought let's not just give him a battle—this is our series finale, let's have him fight a war, and that's what it turns out to be. A kind of war for Beacon Hills, a war that actually extends to the world itself. That's why we're able to bring Jackson back, we're able to bring Derek back, because it spreads all across the globe. So it's a war between supernaturals and humans.

What is Scott's final journey going to be like?

Well, they're all supposed to go their separate ways, and Scott finds himself sort of trapped once again by this place and these people that need him, and he wonders, can he ever leave? Will he ever be able to have his own life? And I think the answer comes pretty clearly in the final episode, but his journey is about facing this big battle again, facing his original enemy, people who want to hunt and kill werewolves, his kind.

I see Lydia's still living inside a horror movie. What can we expect to see from her in these last episodes?

I love Holland Roden so much. She gives her all. She has quite a few scary moments this season. She's got great heroic moments. Hers is sort of a journey of she wants to have Stiles back—like it's laid out in the first episode—but she also knows that they almost lost him, and she needs to protect him. One of my favorite scenes, actually, is when Lydia, Stiles, and Jackson all meet up with each other once again. It's kind of a fun awkward reunion for them, but we have fun with her character.

[olderthannetfic]

Sorry if this question is ageist. But why do older fen (50 yrs+) against newer zine publishers? I see so many complaints about no one making fanzines anymore, but yet they refuse to acknowledge or work with newer publishers. Wouldn't the Fannish Generation Gap close if people on both sides worked together?

Oh, nonnie, why do you always ask me this stuff with no name attached? I get the feeling you want me to say something rude that you can take back to Zinelist and try to get me in trouble for.

To put it simply, there is no single, massive generation gap in fandom. Fans who are 50+ are plentiful on tumblr. Fans who like oldschool media fandom fanzines are here too. Some of them are actively participating in new zines, whether contributing or just buying.

The gap that I have seen is a gap that happens all the time, and it’s not about generations: it’s about being left behind.

Once upon a time, I am told, zine publishers were a Big Deal, and being a prominent zine ed was one of the fastest paths to being a seriously important BNF. There were a lot of people who spent the 80s and 90s clawing their way to the top of the fannish heap. Zines became more and more and more about fic and less about art because that’s what the market wanted. Zines became longer and more physically unwieldy because, again, the market demanded as much fic as possible. Postage became ruinously expensive. Media Fandom diversified, going from a focus on a few megafandoms to demanding a place for multifandom zines and tons of mid-size or even small fandoms, so print runs dropped to the point where those wretched comb bindings were a good option. 

And just when a bunch of pan-fandom BNFs who were at the top of their game had bought a bunch of expensive binding equipment or figured out the right formula to reliably please their audience, the internet came along and curb-stomped all that.

“Where have the zines gone?” means two things in my experience:

1. Fans who are just consumers and who are relatively monofannish and OTP-focused have a hard time moving with the times. The Starsky & Hutch or Professionals fan of today is the Destiel or Stucky fan of tomorrow. Sure, you can read only the great novel-length fic that is specifically recommended to you, but one day, your ship will quiet down enough that you’ll have to make your own party. If you’re the kind who just moves on to the next juggernaut, you’re set. If you’re the kind who has a couple of OTPs and sticks with them for decades, you’re screwed.

Yes, there are new zines on Tumblr, but they’re rarely for the fandoms that were popular for Media Fandom zines in the 80s and 90s.

2. Fans who were big name publishers want new fans to submit to their zines and to buy their zines. They want their names and reputations to be respected. Most of Tumblr will never have heard of the cons they used to go to, much less the fannish pseuds of older zine publishers.

If they wanted to buy new zines, they’d be set, but they don’t: they want to sell zines to a new audience, and this requires social ties on Tumblr that take time and effort to make.

Another problem is the art vs. fic issue: Most zines I see advertised on Tumblr have a lot of art in them. It may be narrative art (i.e. comics), or they may be purely artbooks, or they may have a lot of fic in amongst the art, but they cannot be made except by a zine publisher who has the backing of artists. Because of that, they must also maintain a certain level of physical quality to be worth buying.

If you’re just a consumer, that’s great! I’ve never even seen Hannibal, and I still bought a bunch of copies of RAW. For a very cheap price, I got a lovely, professional-looking product.

If you’re a zine-maker, it’s intimidating, especially if you’re someone who was known for your fic or your ability to get great fic writers to submit to your zine. All of a sudden, your skills are no longer important. Your reputation has vanished.

I find that a certain number of oldschool zine people also honestly believe that zine eds are great structural and line editors, while betas are useless cheerleaders. This assumption is holding some people back. In their view, if younger fans would just give their product a chance, they’d see how superior it is and become a zine fan. My view is that the very worst online fic is worse than what you’ll find in zines, but everything else is exactly the same. Even if younger fans “gave zines a chance”, they might not find anything there to justify paying money for.

The trouble is that some zine publishers are treating it half like a business and half like a fandom project. Either one works, but not a hybrid.

If it’s a fun fandom project that has lots of community buy-in, or it’s just a thing you’re doing with your friends, then it’s reasonable to expect people to help you foot the cost. All of your buddies chip in for the copy shop fees, and then you hand-sew the bindings on your doujinshi, etc. It’s reasonable to expect people to be tolerant of crappy printing and a less than professional physical product.

If, on the other hand, you’re doing zines more like a business, you need to ask what the market wants. You need to ask what price the market is willing to pay for that product. In my experience, the average fan on Tumblr is not willing to pay very much but expects a highly polished product. Complaining that postage and printing costs are ruinous is irrelevant: these fans feel no and have no obligation to help a stranger make a zine. If it’s more fun than some cheap-ass romance novel ebook off Amazon or more tempting than the bazillion fics on AO3, they’ll buy. If not, they won’t.

Honestly, I think the “generation gap” is more about people who used to get what they wanted from fandom, who no longer do, and who are not willing or able to put in the large amount of work it would take to get those things back.

[comiccrusaders]

Before HARBINGER WARS 2, The Blockbuster Creative Team Behind DIVINITY Take the Helm of Valiant’s Flagship Series for a Savage Four-Part Melee!

Valiant is proud to present X-O MANOWAR (2017) #15 – the FIRST ISSUE of “BARBARIANS,” an ALL-NEW ARC and FEROCIOUS NEW JUMPING-ON POINT from New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt (HARBINGER WARS 2, Mind MGMT) and blockbuster artist Trevor Hairsine(DIVINITY)! On May 23rd, the best-selling creative team behind Valiant’s groundbreaking DIVINITY series reunites to reveal a battle-scarred mission from Aric of Dacia’s youth… As HARBINGER WARS 2 readies it fire, prepare to witness the ;andmark episode that forged the heir to the Visigoth nation into the world-smashing, interstellar champion now known as X-O Manowar!

As HARBINGER WARS 2 besieges the Valiant Universe – and X-O Manowar along with it – Aric of Dacia cannot escape the flames that now threaten his future…or the shadows that cloud his past. Before space… Before the armor… Return to the apex of Visigoth conquest as a younger, brasher Aric and a sword-wielding grifter set off on a continent-spanning quest for fortune, glory, and power! From the bloodstained sands of the gladiatorial arena to the dunes of the Arabian Desert, meet the man who would become the warrior-king of an alien civilization – and our own world’s most powerful hero – as he sets out to seize his destiny once upon a time in a land of faraway kings and unrepentant conquerors!

“I wanted to try to do something a little different than we’ve seen in past ‘event’ books that crossover with other books and become these massive unwieldy narratives,” writer Matt Kindt told SyFy Wire. “So instead of getting a double-dose of X-O Manowar during HARBINGER WARS 2 and in his own book, I thought it would be more interesting to have him take on a larger role in the HARBINGER WARS book and then have a contrasting tale taking place in his own title – one that tells a story of him as a Visigoth in Rome – that would both inform his past self and also serve to work in harmony with HARBINGER WARS 2… Two stories that can be read independently of one another, but also work together in this crazy harmonic way if you’re reading both. Both storylines are standalone and also…not.”

On May 23rd, jump on board one of the most acclaimed series in comics today as visionary creators Matt Kindtand Trevor Hairsine reunite for a thrilling, four-part melee of blood and steely-eyed daring at the height of the barbarian age with X-O MANOWAR (2017) #15 – featuring covers by Lewis LaRosa (BLOODSHOT SALVATION), Jim Mahfood (Grrl Scouts), Veronica Fish (Spider-Woman), and Viktor Kalachev (Blue Estate)!

PLUS: Valiant is rewarding fans who reserve “BARBARIANS”, the next staggering arc of Valiant’s best-selling epic series, with specially expanded, limited editions of each issue in the X-O MANOWAR #15-18 PRE-ORDER EDITION BUNDLE – available only as a pre-order set! Released monthly from May 2018 through August 2018,each PRE-ORDER EDITION comes packed with trade paperback-style extras and bonus content, including creator commentary, behind-the-scenes looks at the creation of the comics, process character designs and artwork, and first looks at upcoming issues – plus exclusive covers by Shane Davis (Superman: Earth One) that can’t be found anywhere else!

Fans and retailers, take note: The only way to obtain these exclusive items is to pre-order all four issues with your local comic shop by the initial order date (IOD) of March 29th, 2018! No more copies will be made available beyond that date and subsequent issues will not be offered in later solicitations!

THEN, ALSO BEGINNING IN MAY: From New York Times best-selling writer Matt Kindt (X-O MANOWAR, DIVINITY, Mind MGMT), Academy Award nominee Eric Heisserer (SECRET WEAPONS), and superstar artists Tomás Giorello (X-O MANOWAR), Raúl Allén (SECRET WEAPONS), and Patricia Martín (BLOODSHOT REBORN), the most powerful Valiant event ever attempted erupts in full force as X-O Manowar, Livewire, the Harbinger Renegades, Bloodshot, the Secret Weapons, Ninjak, and a cast of thousands draw their battle lines in HARBINGER WARS 2!

For the rare and immensely powerful subset of humanity known as psiots, their unique abilities have come with an enormous cost. Once, their existence was known only to a select few. Now, the revelation that thousands of these latent telekinetic “harbingers” secretly live among us…with the potential to become active at any moment…has led the American government to a dramatic tipping point…

Armed with new extra-governmental authority, the deep-black military contractor known as Omen has been authorized to identify, evaluate, and, if need be, eliminate all super-normal threats to the homeland. H.A.R.D. Corps units have been deployed into cities and towns across the United States to enforce their orders.

In the East, one of the most powerful minds on Earth, Peter Stanchek, is leading his band of Renegades across the country, activating any potential psiots willing to join them, and building an insurrection force of ultra-powerful and unwieldy new abilities that will soon bring war to Omen’s doorstep…and the unstoppable force known as X-O Manowar raging back to Earth…

In the West, Livewire – the telekinetic technopath with the ability to bend machines and computers to her will – will be forced to choose between her former allies…or her newfound team of Secret Weapons. As the situation escalates beyond human control, the United States will be plunged into darkness from coast to coast, launching Bloodshot and Ninjak into a dangerous mission to neutralize their one-time teammate – and setting the stage for the most shocking, most violent, and most consequential clash of powers ever witnessed in the history of the Valiant Universe!

Stay tuned for more massive developments related to HARBINGER WARS 2 in the weeks to come!

For more information, visit Valiant on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and ValiantEntertainment.com.

For Valiant merchandise and more, visit ValiantStore.com.

X-O MANOWAR (2017) #15 (NEW ARC! “BARBARIANS” – PART 1)  Written by MATT KINDT Art by TREVOR HAIRSINE Cover A by LEWIS LAROSA Cover B by JIM MAHFOOD Variant Cover by VERONICA FISH X-O Manowar Icon Variant by VIKTOR KALACHEV $3.99 | 32 pgs. | T+ | On Sale MAY 23rd (FOC – 4/30/18)

X-O MANOWAR (2017) #15-18 PRE-ORDER EDITION BUNDLE Written by MATT KINDT Art by TREVOR HAIRSINE Covers by SHANE DAVIS $3.99 each [4 issues]| 40 pgs. each | T+ | Issue #15 on Sale MAY 23rd (IOD – 3/29/18)

X-O MANOWAR #15 – Matt Kindt & Trevor Hairsine Unleash “BARBARIANS” in May! Before HARBINGER WARS 2, The Blockbuster Creative Team Behind DIVINITY Take the Helm of Valiant’s Flagship Series for a Savage Four-Part Melee!

[entergamingxp]

Ian’s top ten best PSVR games of 2019 • Eurogamer.net

Welcome one and all to this year’s exciting instalment of the Ian’s VR Corner Top Ten list where I’ll be going over my ten favourite PSVR games of 2019. As per usual, the following list is completely my opinion and it only features games that I myself have played, so if I’ve missed out one of your favourites, chances are it’s either because I thought it was a bit bobbins, or that I just didn’t have time to give it a go. Either way, please do share the love for your favourite PSVR games of 2019 in the comments below and hopefully, together, we can inspire others to try them out too.

You can check out the video version of this list just below these words where you can watch footage of each game featured or, if reading is more your thing, you’ll find my entire top ten list just under that.

10 – Ghost Giant

Anyone who has watched the Ghost Giant episode of Ian’s VR Corner will know that I had a fair few issues with the game’s motion controls, or more specifically, the fiddliness of picking things up that were just a little too far out of reach. Thankfully, there’s a lot more to Ghost Giant than just its control scheme and I was able to push past those faults and appreciate the emotionally charged story at its core.

In terms of production values, Ghost Giant is way up there and it actually shares a lot of similarities with Moss, one of my favourite games of 2018. The level of detail in Ghost Giant is incredible and the paper-craft dioramas that make up the levels look stunning in VR. It almost feels like you’re sat, centre stage in your very own Tim Burton movie, able to reach in and touch and interact with every inch of the world.

I didn’t just enjoy playing around and exploring these ultra detailed, model villages though, I was also enthralled by the life and personality of the characters that were expertly animated and voice acted. If you can look past the unwieldy interactions caused by the less than accurate Move controllers you’ll find a beating heart which is full of sweetness and sadness and there lies a story that will stick with you for a long, long time.

9 – Everybody’s Golf VR

Someone famous once said that golf is a good walk spoiled, so it’s probably a good job then that Everybody’s Golf VR is a completely stationary experience. By cutting out all those boring strolls it means the game and its players can concentrate on pure, unadulterated virtual golfing across three gorgeous, 18 hole courses.

As the name would suggest, Everybody’s Golf is indeed for everybody. That means seasoned golfers will instantly be able to enjoy batting their balls around while newcomers can make use of an incredibly intuitive in-game interface to practice swings and judge the power and angle of each shot before going all in for a hole in one. The tracking of the Move controller is pretty much spot on with Everybody’s Golf VR and I didn’t notice any kind of drift or inaccuracy at all. Holding a single Move controller with two hands like you would the grip on a club feels just like you’re holding the real thing and this adds a lovely sense of immersion to the already relaxed vibe of the game.

While Everybody’s Golf VR is slightly watered down compared to other games from the series, especially when it comes to the lack of multiplayer, it does feel like a perfect fit for PSVR and it’s an ideal starting point for any golf enthusiasts out there who may be nervous about trying VR for the first time.

8 – Falcon Age

It’s hard not to fall in love with Falcon Age after mere minutes of playing it and a lot of that has to do with your cute as hell companion, whom I decided to name, Pudding. Pudding is a falcon that you raise from a squeaking ball of feathers into a fully grown, mech murdering bird of prey and it’s pretty safe to say that caring for Pudding is probably the closest I’ve probably come to treating a VR animal as if it were a real-life living being.

Falcon Age is a rather compact open-world affair in which you stick it to awful robotic industrialists one act of sabotage and rebellion at a time. You head out into this world with a neat whip-baton thing in one hand and Pudding on your other, and you can send pudding to attack things, collect things, yank things about and then hold them up while you give them a good shoeing.

Just having Pudding there on your fist makes you think about it on a very emotional level. Seeing Pudding get hungry was enough to make me want to learn the rudiments of the cooking system, but pulling spikes out of her after a fight genuinely made me furious in a way a dog owner might be if someone mistreated their beloved pooch while they were out on a walk. This is a game about nurturing, about trust, about friendship and loyalty and about having an awesome Falcon friend who’ll do your bidding and smash evil robots for you. I love you, Pudding.

7 – Sairento VR

You know that bit in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves goes, “I know Kung Fu!”? Well I had a few moments of realisation just like that during my first hands-on session with the PSVR port of Sairento VR. Don’t go into Sairento VR expecting to be a badass from the off though. There’s an incredibly steep learning curve here and there’s a lot of things you’ll need to learn in order to feel comfortable when navigating the levels.

In fact, this game should definitely be thought of as being on the extreme end of the comfort scale because it expects you to do double jumps, bounce off or run along walls and scale great heights. All whilst swinging swords, shooting guns and triggering super cool slow mo super powers. The first couple of levels really ease you into things, but by the third, the action is relentless and enemies come at you rapidly, shooting and hitting you from all angles.

This onslaught can be terribly frustrating at first but it forces you to learn quickly and it won’t be long before you’re chaining leaps and bounds together with slow-motion headshots and slick slide kills where you split opponents in two with your blade. When everything does start to click, the combat becomes so absorbing that it’s easy to forget about the normal world that exists outside of your headset. That’s why it’s well worth putting in the hours to practice your skills because when everything is going your way and you’re flowing through the levels, Sairento VR is one hell of an experience.

6 – Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion HD Renovation

Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion HD Renovation is the first game in the world to have ever made me swear at a piece of toast and for that it instantly gets a thumbs up from me.

This VR remake of the cult classic PC horror game sees you trapped inside an ever changing maze comprised of 1000 different rooms, each one potentially home to a jump scare or two. Despite the budget look to the graphics and a rather slow start, I was surprised by just how scary Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion could be. Being stalked through the rooms by some of the games more unsettling specimens would honestly be bad enough in the flat version of the game, but in VR it’s panic inducing as you can almost feel their physical presence gaining on you as you try to escape.

That feeling of being chased never gets old either, as the rooms, locations and your pursuers keep changing in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Basically it’s like dropping acid and going to a Halloween Horror Fright Night even at Thorpe Park, except you won’t need to drop acid and there won’t be a massive queue to get in. Now hurry up and release this in the EU please, Albino Moose Games!

5 – Trover Saves the Universe

If you didn’t already know, Trover Saves the Universe is made by Squanch Games, a development studio run by Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty fame. So, if that kind of wacky, sweary, tasteless and self-referential sci-fi humour is your bag, Trover Saves the Universe will have you covered. In spit and poop, mainly…

Playing a bit like an Astrobot for adults, Trover Saves the Universe sees you galavanting around the galaxy, intruding on the often disgusting inhabitants of Alien worlds, all whilst trying to rescue your two pet dogs from the eye sockets of the evil Glorkon who is hell bent on destroying life as we know it.

There’s a fairly big game here and it basically includes everything you’d expect from a standard 3D platformer like combat, jumping, bounce pads, puzzles and item collecting. Everything in Trover has this dark and disgusting Roiland twist to it though and this leaves you constantly surprised and occasionally sickened by the events that occur. The bonkers scenarios and the imaginative characters that live within them are often either comically creepy or absurdly annoying and as such, fans of Rick and Morty are bound to be in VR heaven with Trover. For some, this constant barrage of weird humour may be a little too overwhelming and that’s totally understandable, but I played it through twice because I’m also super weird.

4 – Borderlands 2 VR

Technically Borderlands 2 VR came out in 2018, but it appeared on the Playstation store so late in December that my Top Ten list for that year had already been published. In fact, I didn’t even feature it on Ian’s VR Corner until January when I came back from my Christmas holidays so its inclusion on this list totally counts. Totally.

Far from being a short spin-off experience, Borderlands 2 VR is a complete conversion of the flat game, featuring the full 25+ hour campaign. Plus, after the release of the free Bad Ass MegaFun DLC pack in September of this year, it also includes the four add on story missions and a bunch of upgrade packs too. That’s a lotta bang for your buck indeed!

I had a lot of fun when Borderlands 2 VR first came out, but when Aim controller support was added in another update, the game just got better. Being able to hold, admire and shoot any of the bazillion guns that are available to you in VR while holding the aim controller just adds to the immersion and it makes shooting all those Bullymongs and bandits feel super satisfying. Borderlands 2 VR is an incredibly well produced title that looks beautiful in 3D so it’s well worth revisiting if you’ve played the game before in flat version. If this is your first trip to Pandora however, this is a must buy that’ll keep you busy for ages. WUB, WUB, WUB!

3 – Ace Combat 7

I’m absolutely terrified of flying in real life but flying in VR? Well that is a completely different story, especially when it comes to Ace Combat 7’s VR levels. There may only be three unique missions available in the VR portion of the game but when they’re this gorgeous, this exhilarating and this immersive, you’ll find plenty of excuses to replay them. I mean, I certainly did!

There’s just so much to love here, from the ultra detailed, interactive inheritors of the cockpits and the adrenaline pumping intensity of the VR dog-fights, through to the way that water droplets roll across your aircraft’s canopy as you leave thick cloud cover and burst out into the sunlight and thunder your way towards yours foes.

The sense of speed, power and of just ‘being there in the moment’ is truly exceptional here, so it’s a damn shame that Ace Combat 7’s biggest fault is that only a small portion of the game is playable in VR. Please, Bandai Namco, give us a full VR campaign and I promise you, I’ll buy it twice! Ace Combat 7 may have come out right at the start of 2019 but I still think about its VR missions regularly and I pull out my HOTAS and strap myself into my jumpseat whenever I get the chance.

2 – No Man’s Sky Beyond

No Man’s Sky Beyond is almost the perfect VR game. It’s infinite, it’s incredibly immersive and if it wasn’t for the low resolution of the visuals, I could quite easily spend a large portion of my life just pootling around the galaxy digging through planets for valuable minerals like some kind of space age mole man.

The experience of exploring the universe in No Man’s Sky in VR is every bit as jaw dropping and massive as you could have hoped for but the ever present blur does kill the magnificence a bit. All those stunning vistas and the mysterious alien flora and fauna that you may remember from the flat version now look like indistinct smudges on the horizon and this works towards dampening that awesome sense of discovery that made the exploration so compelling.

Get past that though as you’ll find that the rest of the game is an absolute joy to play. The sense of scale in VR is amazing and the ability to fly around from planet to planet and galaxy to galaxy while being encased in the game is incomparable to anything else I’ve played in VR. This is a straight up, never-ending VR adventure and depending on your patience for the survival genre, you could easily end up spending countless hours exploring brand new world after brand new world. No Man’s Sky Beyond is an amazing achievement and I’d recommend it to anyone with a VR headset, if only to get a taste of what VR adventures could be like in the future, if the platform continues to grow and expand.

1 – Blood and Truth

Right now, at the point of writing this feature, everyone in the world is getting excited about a brand new James Bond trailer. Everyone that is except me, because this year, thanks to Blood and Truth, I was James Bond.

The beauty of Blood and Truth though is that I wasn’t just James Bond, I was actually loads of things. I was a soldier in a warzone, a cockney gangster literally riding shotgun in a sports car and I was even some kind of parkour hitman, dodging machine gun fire from a helicopter as I legged it across the floors of a barely built block of flats before throwing myself through some plate glass windows as I shot enemies in the face during some glorious scenes of slow-motion gun-fu.

In Blood and Truth you are the star of your very own action movie, no more passively watching the action unfold on a flat screen, oh no. Here you’re right there in the thick of it, catching and throwing back live grenades, dual wielding pistols and generally living out all of those action movie fantasies that you never thought would come true. There’s an excellent supporting cast who’re brought to life by some top notch voice acting and motion capture and this serves to give you a real connection to the characters in some of the slower paced scenes, while each action set piece is just varied enough to make you constantly gasp out loud with the thrill of it all.

The gunplay is excellent too and while the on rails nature of the gameplay could be seen as a turn off for some, it keeps the pace rattling along and allows the developers to do some really clever and unexpected things with VR. If you own a PSVR you need this game and that’s the bloody truth of it.

And that, my lovely friends, is that! Hopefully you enjoyed this look back at my favourite PSVR games of 2019 but if I did miss any of your favourites out, do remember to tell us about them in the comments! Before I wander off to snaffle some pre-Christmas mince pies, I’d just like to say a big thank you to each and everyone of you for the continued support you’ve been giving my VR coverage. Can you believe Ian’s VR Corner has been going for over a year and a half now? Crazy!

Here’s hoping things get even more exciting for VR in 2020, whether that’s for PSVR or for the wider range of headsets, because if 2019 has proven anything at all, it’s that VR just keeps getting bigger and better and it’s definitely not going to go away any time soon! If this list is the first you’ve seen of my VR coverage by the way, Ian’s VR Corner happens every Sunday on this channel so do pop on over and subscribe for more VR videos whenever they’re uploaded. Oh and of course, do have a lovely Christmas and a wonderful new year!

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2019/12/ians-top-ten-best-psvr-games-of-2019-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ians-top-ten-best-psvr-games-of-2019-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net