#scourge vc: your highness -

[acherys]

Please,,,, talk more about Paladin Au Zoen or that au where Zoen is legitimized as heir and grows up with her mom in Theramore and with the expectation of a crown and becomes Genn's ally because destruction of Theramore. You don't have to ofc but like...., they're both really cool and fun aus to think about. Or yell more about the Scourge, cause i know u love them and also?? Your thoughts on them are incredibly Interesting and delightfully terrifying and so amazingly Scourge that we Need More

     Thank you so much!!! This is no joke one of the sweetest messages I’ve ever received. I’m so glad that you like my thoughts on these subjects. (Also the fact that you’ve remembered those AUs when I totally forgot about them is really impressive, lmao, and if you’re coming from the DK Discord like I’m guessing - what’s up, buddy, let’s talk more.)

     In a grand example of mashing two things together into something barely resembling either original ingredient, let’s talk about Princess Zoen Menethil of the Scourge. 

     And also how Arthas perceives her because that’s one of the most important aspects of her character and I don’t think I’ve touched on it in a while.

     Quick disclaimer that this is all either my own conjecture / headcanoning or my observations regarding how other people who’ve written Scourge muses have treated her. This is absolutely not me trying to be like - “if you write a Scourge muse, you MUST treat Zoen this way” or anything, it’s just…. me…. I don’t know. Writing to write?

     Also all of this only really applies to my own au wherein Arthas is the Lich King again, because otherwise pretty much none of this smoothly translates into a Lich King Bolvar world. 

     Anyways. TL;DR: Zoen’s the princess of the Scourge and that means weird things.

     by bryss

     While prior to Arthas’ first death atop the Frozen Throne, Zoen was regarded and treated by the Scourge no differently than any other death knight (and, later, an Ebon Blade death knight), after his resurrection and reclamation of the Helm of Domination, her position…. changed. Partly, this was due to the fact that her parentage was now public knowledge; before Arthas’ death, it had been known only to herself and her parents, but in the wake of the Bolvar’s ascension her heritage was revealed. While Arthas hadn’t been actively keeping it a secret while he was Lich King, he also wasn’t actively unmaking its secrecy, and thus - no one knew. 

     After he died, though. After he came back. Zoen became a little more singular.

     The tendency of the Scourge to perceive Zoen as their (errant, treacherous, misguided, idiot of a) princess started up after Arthas retook the Frozen Throne. It didn’t mean especially much, since he and Zoen weren’t really in communication and the only Scourge agent she had any prolonged exposure to was Myrundíel Mourningale (and Kel’Thuzad, depending on the writer), but it was still the perception. King’s daughter = princess. Simple arithmetic. Most likely at this point, Scourge will still attempt to slay her if they see her, it’s just that they might do so primarily so they can bring her corpse back to Arthas because they think it’ll please him.

     Upon taking up the mantle of the Deathlord, Zoen has become Scourge in all but name. The Ebon Blade’s so-called ‘alliance’ is hardly anything so equal as the term implies, considering the entirety of their Legion questline consisted of them at his beck and call. Nazgrim, Thoras Trollbane, and Sally Whitemane were all resurrected on his word. Fordring only escaped that horror by the skin of his teeth. Many Silver Hand paladins, an entire brood of storm dragons, and potentially nearly all that’s left of the red dragonflight are murdered because he tells them to do so. Acherus came to defend Icecrown Citadel from an invasion!! “We are not beholden to this Lich King” you sure, Mograine???

     At this point, powerful and obedient (if not loyal), manning a position among whose epithets literally includes “Champion of the Lich King”, Princess Zoen of the Scourge started to be more of a thing. She’s theirs. They won’t obey her, of course, not unless Arthas explicitly gives the order -  Ebon Blade still doesn’t neatly equal Scourge, after all - but they’re also not going to kill her on sight like they would any other adventurer. ‘Cause she’s their princess. She’s their king’s heir.

     Except no, no she isn’t, because that’s not how the Scourge monarchy works.

     The successor of the Lich King is straight-up just whomever happens to jam the Helm of Domination on their head first after the current king dies. That’s it. There are no appeals, no chances for succession crises, no one within the kingdom may usefully dispute this situation, nothing. It is functionally impossible for Zoen to be a crown princess in anything other than name. The dead second someone other than her puts on the crown first after Arthas dies, she’s back to being no one (in the context of this discussion). She might be best called the heir apparent if only because as Deathlord, she’s both in close contact with the Lich King and also outside his control enough that her taking up the crown when he dies is pretty feasible, but. That’s still a huge if. A better term is really to call her the “heir, apparently.”

     And we haven’t even MENTIONED the fact that Arthas honestly, genuinely, desires and expects to rule as the Lich King forever. He has no plans to willingly give up that throne, he has no intentions of dying or retiring or anything. He’s the Lich King, ad infinitum. He has no actual, practical use for an heir, because he’s never going to leave behind anything to inherit. The point of a princess is to have someone around to take over after the current leader, but that’s completely pointless if there’s no after.  

     (You might think “He’s died once, surely he realizes he could die again, so shouldn’t he want to choose who will lead the Scourge after him?” but the issue with that logic, is that he genuinely does not give a fuck about the Scourge unless he’s in charge of it. Arthas is an absolute, total narcissist. He loves the Scourge now, he cares deeply for it now, and he wants it to succeed only because of how he perceives it as an extension of himself. So while under this justification, he would definitely be partial to Zoen inheriting it after him instead of someone like Bolvar, if only because he also sees her as an extension of himself, she’s still fundamentally unacceptable because she is not him. He’ll still be bitter and pissy in the afterlife if she’s on the Throne, no matter how much appeal he might have found in her being his ‘heir’ while he was still around.)

     Zoen’s position in the Scourge is really just a very long, very unfunny joke being pulled on absolutely everyone involved. It’s profanity against the monarchy Arthas comes from, against the situation they would be in were they both alive, against Arthas and Zoen themselves because love is a weakness that ought to be nonexistent in the Scourge, and yet the Lich King turned an unworthy girl into a death knight merely because she’s his daughter. The punchline is he did it because he loves her. No one laughs. 

     Zoen is a princess of the Scourge because Arthas likes the irony, and because she’s his daughter. That’s really it. She’s been his princess and heir since she was born. He never intended for her to be hidden away forever, he was always going to present her to court and have her legitimized. That’d been the plan even when he was alive. So for the Scourge to embrace her as such (which they do primarily because he embraces her as such, this would be a totally Different Conversation if Arthas didn’t care about her at all) is really just the natural evolution of that ambition. 

     She’s his daughter. Her place is at his side. It’s very much that simple.

     (The logical contortions he goes through to justify his expectations of filial loyalty from her when he committed patricide are both impressive and horrifying.)

[dippedanddripped]

As a fashion customer, you accept waiting as just part and parcel of buying your clothes. You wait as omniscient figures in penthouses play a high-stakes game of Red Light, Green Light and wave on or turn away the trendiest styles, hottest designers, and game-changing technologies. You wait as investment firms, luxury conglomerates, swagless executives, entrenched designers, and retailers all get to take a crack at a brand and its clothing before you ever get a say. Kickstarter’s biggest in-an-ideal-world promise is that they’ve done away with all the waiting. Unlike clothes shopping, the crowdfunding platform gives you the chance to peruse a marketplace of ideas. “People on Kickstarter aren't shopping,” says Kickstarter spokesperson David Gallagher. “They're supporting the creation of something that doesn't exist.”

In the fashion space (the site’s seventh largest category, but a “strong and growing” one, Gallagher says), the promise of the crowdfunding site is that a creator—shaken loose from the chains of powerful investors or the ruling luxury conglomerates that own the luxury houses where creators are forced to cut their teeth for years and years before finally getting the chance to install their singular vision—can easily connect directly with you, a paying customer.

“I love Kickstarter because they're opening it up,” Josh Gustin, founder of Kickstarter-funded denim brand Gustin, says. “If you have a good idea, give it a shot. You don't have to win the approval of Barneys anymore.” Instead, you need the approval of the masses, or at least enough of it to reach your funding goal. But what does that look like?

This summer, it looked like a romper, for dudes. For a brand that was seemingly met with near-universal ridicule, Romphim raised an awful lot of money—just over $350,000 from a single campaign. That would have been an impossibility without Kickstarter. Daniel Webster-Clark, one of the brand’s founders imagines asking a friend for funding: “Hey, can I borrow $200,000 to make some male rompers?" The next step might be to pitch a VC fund—“Hey, we've got a great idea,” Webster acts out the hypothetical pitch. “The next big thing is male rompers”—but it’s hard to imagine getting past slide one. The Romphim is something that maybe wouldn’t have existed without an army of individual backers, but is this really the future Kickstarter promised? Since Kickstarter’s launch, $127 million total has been poured into Kickstarter fashion projects, birthing jeans and jackets and, yes, male rompers. But is Kickstarter creating new product categories in fashion or merely clickbait clothing?

The Sweat-Absorbent Office Shirt

Aman Advani tells me that the inkling for Ministry of Supply came when he found himself cutting and discarding the bottoms of dress socks and splicing the tops onto athletic Nike socks, in the hopes of creating a more comfortable sock to wear to work. It’s a creation only someone so far removed from the fashion industry, like say an MIT engineer such as Advani, could love. But he saw the beginnings of a company.

Before Ministry of Supply raised almost $430,000 then landed a $1 million investment, there wasn’t a precedent for fashion brands on Kickstarter. “Ministry of Supply was definitely a trailblazer,” Gallagher says. Advani didn’t even bother researching other fashion Kickstarters at the time, and instead tried to emulate successful tech projects. Advani says there are two types of projects that can potentially go on Kickstarter. The first is “[insert whatever thing here] but better.” These sorts of projects don’t need Kickstarter. “You already know the market likes blank, they're definitely going to like blank on steroids, just go build it,” Advani says. The second sort of projects are the challengers that aspire to upend entire categories.

Technology masquerading as fashion is one of the cornerstones of Kickstarter’s apparel projects. Ministry of Supply’s gear—moisture-wicking dress shirts that Advani calls “performance professional” fits into this category. Flip-flops are instead 3D-printed marvelsengineered for your feet, hoodies and T-shirts are made out of something called Filium to shrug off odor and stain, and magnets are put to work in order to eliminate the scourge of belt holes. On Kickstarter, the is less What does this fashion item look like? and more What can it do? The majority of projects on Kickstarter aren’t launched by legit designers, but rather entrepreneurs promising “disruption” of your closet.

“What we're trying to do is say [if] business casual is dead, then business comfortable is next,” says Advani. “If Brooks Brothers is right, then so be it. It will have been a risk well taken.” But consumers have embraced Advani’s concept to such an extent that others are now trying to get a piece of the pie. Since Ministry of Supply’s launch in 2012, plenty of other fashion-first brands have added, or tried their hand at, blended performance and formalwear: Gant Rugger has its Tech Prep line, Calvin Klein makes one, and even Brooks Brothers experimented in the space. At the very least, Kickstarter opened a pathway for Ministry of Supply, and the concept it’s heralding, to make some noise.

Other companies aren’t as fortunate to wake the sleeping giants and live to tell the tale. Kickstarter frequently functions as a place where large companies pillage ideas, or wait for concepts to prove their viability. The most prominent example is Pebble, a leader in the smartwatch space that was once valued at $740 million but is now out of business. The company debuted on Kickstarter in 2012—three years before the Apple Watch hit the market. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, who now works at startup incubator Y Combinator, declined to comment.

The Forever-Kickstarting Jeans

When Gustin launched with the promise to sell $81 raw denim, Josh Gustin was already running a denim brand—but he was selling jeans in stores for $205 and gaining no traction. Part of the reason Kickstarter has been able to bend the menswear industry is that it gave a different route to people with nontraditional ideas—if not about jeans, then about ways to sell them. “I like the fact that it gives people a shot in an industry that can be very difficult and closed,” Gustin says. “I love Kickstarter because they're opening it up. If you have a good idea, give it a shot. You don't have to win the approval of Barney's anymore.”

And while direct-to-consumer wasn’t brand-new when Gustin launched in 2013, the sales pitch hit a nerve with customers. The company raised $450,000 after loudly blaring its sales model, along with the promise items would be sold to customers at more than half typical retail prices. With Gustin, the conceit wasn’t just that customers were getting denim at a value pricepoint. It was that Gustin had created a more efficient model for them to buy those jeans. Buying them, then, didn’t just make customers feel more stylish. It was a way for customers to feel like they were outsmarting the fashion industry, and everyone who was paying $200 for raw denim, in one fell swoop. “The tech community values efficiency as well,” Gustin says. “So they want that product but they're like, ‘Hmm, it's interesting that you have a more efficient model around it.’” And Gustin’s able to keep customers once it gets them in the door. The comments on the brand’s Kickstarter page are largely positive beyond some gripes about customer service and the denim nerds over at Heddels describe the product as “a quality pair of jeans at prices that won’t break the bank.”

And Gustin’s philosophy is that once you’ve made a customer feel like a big brainiac, you should continue to do so. In this way, Kickstarter can have its own effect on how a brand is run. Gustin continues to use the Kickstarter model for every one of its products launches. “The one wrinkle for us was, we think people are kind of missing the point,” Gustin says. “A lot of brands go on Kickstarter and they leverage the crowdsourcing model, but then once they move on they abandon it. And our whole plan was, ‘No, no, no, the whole point is the crowdsourcing model is what's so powerful.’”

The Nine-Pocket High-Functioning Jacket

The Adv3nture hoodie is a hooded sweatshirt. It is also a bottle opener, a pillow, a mini pen holder, a passport transporter, and a neoprene-lined drink cooler. By any standard, this is an over the top product—one that’s either ridiculously epic or just ridiculous.

The hyper-functional hoodie, launched by Zane Lamprey in September 2016, accumulated just over $1,850,000 in backing and is still the most-funded fashion Kickstarter ever. Lamprey has launched three wildly successful projects total, ranging from the hoodie to a TV show that eventually landed on National Geographic.

“[Kickstarter customers] want to make a difference,” says Lamprey. “It's like, ‘Hey, man. You seem pretty cool, and I like your product, and I'm going to back this because I want to help you out.’” Kickstarter also believes people are seeking out more than a shopping experience when they visit the site—they’re looking to create something totally new.

The Adv3nture jacket represents Kickstarter at its most promising and frustrating. Kickstarter can engage a consumer who isn’t interested in fashion, and can open the floodgate for every weird—and potentially industry-changing—idea. Yet the most funded product in the category’s history puts a bottle opener on a zipper.

Lamprey argues a jacket would be a harder sell in a department store. On Kickstarter, he can produce a video that explains how it works, and why you need it. “You can't just say like, ‘Hey, look at my cool shirt,’” Lamprey argues. “You need to say, look at my cool shirt, here's what it does. Right? So it's not really about the fashion, it becomes more about functionality, and so I think crowdfunding has really changed the view on how functional apparel can be.”

This stands in contrast to the way the majority of the fashion industry has operated forever, though. Reed Nelson, the content manager at San Francisco’s Unionmade, worries about what we lose in trading fashion for function. “In a basic-necessity-for-society sense, I'm sure these utilitarian things make a lot more sense in the same way that everyone in WALL-E wears the same clothes, right?” he says. “Style has always been a form of self expression but I think if the only idea you're trying to convey is that ‘I'm efficient,’ it's just a less interesting place to be.”

Whether the gatekeepers like it or not, Kickstarter is presenting a vision of style outside the established norms. That products like the function-first hoodie raised over a million dollars proves they are viable. “In a town where people drink Soylent for three meals a day and want to slim down on everything and swear by Acronym stuff, not because the silhouette but because of the functionality,” Nelson says of San Francisco, “there's definitely an audience for that.”

The Viral One-Piece

No matter what you think about the necessity of performance formalwear, disrupted denim, and travel-ready hoodies, Kickstarter has proven that there’s a desire for them. “Finding out if ultimately there is market pull for your idea is critical, right?” Ministry of Supply’s Advani says.

The Romphim may not have the category-busting, undercutting, or straight-up functional qualities of the above items. But it, too, wouldn’t exist without thousands of regular non-investment-company-owning people coming out of the woodwork to endorse it.

And, surprise, some of these people just want something to wear. Romphim’s Webster admits it was hard to find precedent for the Romphim among former successful Kickstarter campaigns. “They were of more about pioneering a new manufacturing process, or trying to bring together new technologies in a way that hadn't been done before,” Webster says. “Versus what we were trying to do, [which] was really just trying to jump into a place where menswear traditionally hadn't been.”

They set their sights on reinvigorating a style—yes, male rompers—that they felt was underserved. If this inclination were wrong, Romphim wouldn’t have raised over $350,000, and retailers like ASOS wouldn’t have started getting in on the action with dude rompers of their own.

It’s okay if you think it’s stupid; in fact, that’s the whole point. The entire point of Kickstarter is the principle that what you think is stupid, someone else might pay for. Social-media humiliation can scare corporations out of ideas, but Romphim suggests that for every hater there’s a backer. And if the Romphim is a stunt, it’s also a wildly successful one. It’s clothing as clickbait—and a whole lot of people clicked.

When you survey Kickstarter, you see that the fashion category’s problem of funding clickbait is endemic on the platform. The most-funded projects are a device with the same functionality and look as an iPod but with better sound quality, and a super-chilling cooler. One highly-funded project aims to bring back Reading Rainbow. There are few true category challengers, like Pebble, or even Ministry of Supply. And fashion is an even more challenging category to upend with instant audience approval. After all, the fashion system generally requires designers to spend years in the trenches for the opportunity to plan months and months in advance—predicting what the customer will want, rather than giving it to them in this exact moment. Kickstarter promises a revolutionary future that doesn’t need to cede to the requirements of the industry. But for now, its biggest success stories are items that cater to our most momentary whims.

[gokinjeespot]

off the rack #1148

Monday, January 23, 2017

 Squirrels, the scourge of birdfeeders. One clever rodent managed to open the cage holding a suet block for our woodpeckers and run off with the whole thing. Penny was fit to be tied. She went out and bought a squirrel bell to put on the post but I don't think it will keep the little buggers from climbing up and getting at the feed. We'll see.

 I spent yesterday watching the conference playoff games. Poor Packers, sorry Steelers, better luck next year. Super Bowl 51 will feature two teams with great quarterbacks and receivers. I am hoping for a high scoring affair.

 Artist extraordinaire Tom Fowler will be signing his new book Tabletop Fantasy & Comics Art at Comet Comics on Saturday, January 28 from 2 to 6 PM. Come in and commiserate and watch Tom doodle. That's also Chinese New Year of the Rooster day so you can cock-a-doodle-do too.

 Monsters Unleashed #1 - Cullen Bunn (writer) Steve McNiven (pencils) Jay Leisten (inks) David Curiel (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). I didn't think I was going to read this after being disappointed by the monster fighting story in Batman and Detective Comics and the fact that Cullen isn't one of my favourite writers but I was surprised that I enjoyed this a lot. Mainly because Steve is one of my favourite artists. The story seems basic. Giant space monsters are appearing all over the world and all your favourite super heroes are fighting them. I mean ALL the super heroes. This is a story that I would not continue to read if it wasn't for the beautiful art.

 Superman #15 - Peter J. Tomasi & Patrick Gleason (writers) Ryan Sook, Ed Benes, Clay Mann & Jorge Jimenez (art) Ryan Sook, Dinei Ribeiro, Ulises Arreola & Alejandro Sanchez (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). The villain's name is Prophecy and Superman comes up with a plan to beat him in part 2 of Multiplicity. Massive multi-hero stories like this seem to dominate the racks right now and I wonder when fans are going to grow tired of them.

 Kill Or Be Killed #5 - Ed Brubaker (writer) Sean Phillips (art) Elizabeth Breitweiser (colours). Dylan gives us two for one this issue as two months have gone by since the last time he had to kill someone to stay alive. The coolest thing for me about this issue was the philosophical wonderings about Carl Jung and synchronicity that Dylan has. I've wondered the same things. There have been many instances in my life where I have thought about someone and then they show up soon after. Is it because I think about the people I care about a lot or is it because I can sense their presence? Sometimes I think it’s the latter because one minute I'm thinking about them and there they are the next minute. It's weird.

 Black Widow #10 - Chris Samnee & Mark Waid (writers) Chris Samnee (art) Matthew Wilson (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This issue shows us what became of Nick Fury. Not the black scar face guy but the white Howling Commando guy. I know, it's very confusing. The bad guys come to a grisly end but don't despair, there are more villains for Natasha to deal with. It will be interesting to see how she stops those little Black Widows.

 Batman #15 - Tom King (writer) Mitch Gerads (art & colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). If you're looking to give your sweetie a nice romance story for Valentine's Day, the 2-part Rooftops in this and issue #14 would be the cat's meow.

 Archie #16 - Mark Waid (writer) Joe Eisma (art) Andre Szymanowicz (colours) Jack Morelli (letters). This issue features Dilton Doiley and a social media app that he invented. It also shows Cheryl Blossom beginning her plot to get revenge on Veronica as she insinuates herself into the lives of the kids in Riverdale while Ronnie is still in Switzerland. I know this book is like a teenage soap opera but it's well done and good for some light entertainment.

 Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #3 - Kieron Gillen (writer) Kev Walker (art) Antonio Fabela (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I like this hybrid comic book. It's part Indiana Jones and part Tank Girl. The psychopathic killer droids are fun and would be a good name for a rock band.

 Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #5 - Joshua Williamson (writer) Robson Rocha (pencils) Jay Leisten, Daniel Henriques, Sandu Florea & Oclair Albert (inks) Alex Sinclair with Jeremiah Skipper (colours) Rob Leigh (letters). I did not like the sudden change of the Heart of Darkness possessed Max Lord. Yes, it made way for an even nastier villain to appear for next issue's conclusion but it was way too easy. First appearance alert: see the new Justice League of America right here folks.

 Black Hammer Annual - Jeff Lemire (writer) Nate Powell, Matt Kindt, Dustin Nguyen, Ray Fawkes, Emi Lenox, Michael Allred (art) Dave Stewart & Sharlene Kindt (colours) Todd Klein (letters). I enjoyed this blast from the past featuring the young versions of the exiled heroes as the Colonel follows the flight of a mysterious alien.

 Spider-Gwen #16 - Jason Latour (writer) Robbi Rodriguez (art) Rico Renzi (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles & Travis Lanham (letters). Had to read this because it crosses over with Spider-Man #12. Part 2 of "Sitting in a Tree" doesn't have any K.I.S.S.I.N.G. as Miles and Gwen search for Miles's dad. Jason made it fun to visit Earth-65 and I would consider following this book if I had more time. Robbi made it easy to recognise the major characters too. I knew instantly who Matt Murdock and Doc Ock were. When Miles finds Jefferson Davis (why don't father and son have the same last name?) is it his dad or the Jefferson Davis of Earth-65? I can't wait to find out in Spider-Man #13 which hits the racks February 15.

 U.S.Avengers #2 - Al Ewing (writer) Paco Medina (pencils) Juan Vlasco (inks) Jesus Aburtov (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Time traveling and dimension hopping, my two least favourite plot devices. Captain America 20XX gives us the lowdown on the Golden Skull villain. I'm giving this story some leeway though because I love Paco's art and the subtle humour that Al puts in. A billionaire named Bryce with a manservant named Freddie. Har.

 Mighty Captain Marvel #1 - Margaret Stohl (writer) Ramon Rosanas (art) Michael Garland (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). I really like the art in this new book and the villain is a juicy mystery. I think I know who it is too. It will be fun to see if I'm right or wrong.

 Avengers #3.1 - Mark Waid (writer) Barry Kitson (pencils) Mark Farmer with Rafael Fonteriz & Barry Kitson (inks) Jordan Boyd & Wil Quintana (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). The mysterious Cressida, who can boost someone's powers, has helped Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch gain support from the general populace. When things look too good to be true they usually are. This story just got a lot more interesting.

 Gamora #2 - Nicole Perlman (writer) Marco Checchetto (art) Andres Mossa (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). Gamora isn't the only tough spacewoman in this story. She meets up with a Badoon drug dealer and I don't think that they'll get along. This is a good space adventure.

 Invincible Iron Man #3 - Brian Michael Bendis (writer) Stefano Caselli (art) Marte Gracia (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). When are they going to start calling this book Ironheart? I like the name. I also like how Brian builds relationships in his books. All of my favourite comic books have characters that the writer has taken the time to make me care about them. Brian does this with great dialogue between people. The three major scenes in this issue illustrate that very well and it really helps that Stefano's art is so pretty and expressive.

 Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy #4 - Dan Slott (writer) Jim Cheung (pencils) John Dell & Cory Smith (inks) Justin Ponsor (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). This story is quite convoluted but I am sticking with it to see how everything pans out. I really liked Anna Maria's role in this issue and how she changed the way Doc Ock behaved. You go girl.

 Amazing Spider-Man #23 - Dan Slott & Christos Gage (writers) Giuseppe Camuncoli (pencils) Cam Smith (inks) Jason Keith (colours) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). Most of this issue made my head hurt. Here's where Peter and clone Gwen talk about how real the clones are. This conversation takes place in the middle of what was happening in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy #4 so there is some overlap for fans who are not reading that mini. I can't wait for Clone Conspiracy to end. This story is getting tedious.