Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

For those of us unable, or unwilling, to pay to watch the UFC Freedom 250 event which "happened" to coincide with POTUS47's 80th birthday, it seems to have been everything that we thought it might be, tacky, shamelessly crass and with strong echoes of the declining days of the Roman Empire's gladiatorial games.

But not to worry, visitors to Washington could visit the newly renovated Reflecting Pool, and possibly take home some souvenir algae bloom.

The US/Iran war is apparently over.... again... possibly... still being worked out... waiting to be signed... is still general rather than specific. It's a freaking "Choose Your Own Adventure" that's what it is.

The UK is looking to ban major social media access to those under 16

I meant to mention the passing of Marcia Lucas, the film editor who truly made "Star Wars: A New Hope" the blockbuster what it was, though she always insisted that she had only fixed a scene or two.

Comments

[iamrman]

This week’s comics ramblings:

Excalibur. Brian’s ex-girlfriend  Courtney Ross gets fridged and replaced by an alternate variant. However, the heroes won’t find this out until many years later when Alan Davis comes back to tie up some loose ends. Also, I never noticed this before, but Alistair Stewart is very Tenth Doctor.

The Flash. I had a whole thing planned about Waid’s treatment of the Rogues and uninspired original villains, but the I got to the Reckless Youth arc. Time for Impulse, let’s gooo!

G.I. Joe. Ah, Raptor. When even Cobra Commander thinks you look ridiculous, then you must *really* look ridiculous. I get the impression that Larry Hama resented having to include Raptor because barely a panel goes by without somebody roasting him.

Green Arrow. I can proudly say that I have changed my opinion on Green Arrow thanks to Mike Grell. Gone are the corny gimmicks and self-righteous crusading. There are still Very Special Issues, but you don’t get beaten over the head about it.

Green Lantern. Somebody who may or may not be Kyle’s deadbeat dad tricks Kyle and Connor Hawke into launching a deathray into space. Kyle thinks it was just a communications satellite. He must not have seen the great big nuclear reactor attached to it.

Guardians of the Galaxy. Unlike his MCU counterpart, comics Taserface’s name is not metaphorical. He is ridiculous, therefore I love him.

Impulse. Bart is actually applying himself at school and doing chores. It seems like he pulled himself together because Max Mercury is dying, but it is far more complicated than that. His evil clone Inertia has been impersonating him, because of course he has. If something is wrong with a member of the Flash Family, it is always because of a Reverse-Flash.

Incredible Hulk. Hulk team-up with Worst Avenger! Marvel was reprinting some old “Doctor Droom” comics, renaming the character Doctor Druid so as not to confuse him with Victor Von Doom. Len Wein shoehorned him into the Hulk’s book to drum up interest in the reprints. I don’t think he appeared again until Roger Stern dusted him off for his run on Avengers, so that probably tells you how little of an impression Druid made.

[icon_uk]

In fairness, it seems that Claremont forgot that Courtney was replaced by Sat-yr 9 half the time too. Or that Kitty likely never met the original, and Sat-Yr-9 was the only version they knew.

I think you mean the Tenth Doctor is very Alastair Stewart, we'll have none of that timey-wimey retro-temporal inspiration nonsense here thank you, but you're right. :)

At least he kept Raptor around to mock, I'm not sure Crystal Ball showed up for more than a page or two, Stephen King penned origin or not.

I mostly know Raptor through his appearance as a running gag in Toy Box Comix where he lives in a cage and frequently interacts with Geoffrey the Giraffe, the TRU mascot as a part of COBRA's more... toyetic schemes.

If Dr Druid is part of your story, the smart move is to back carefully away, avoiding eye contact, until such time as you are safely in the next issue, when he's hopefully gone away.

[iamrman]

I had to wrack my brain to remember Crystal Ball. I always thought he looked more like Kraven the Hunter.

[icon_uk]

If you can't remember Crystal Ball, it's probably means he's doing his job properly



And he recently got a new action figure in the high-end Gi Joe Classified line

[iamrman]

Looks like I remembered correctly. Definite Kraven vibes.

[thezmage]

In The Tommyknockers, King writes a child with a GI Joe collection who makes one of those little kid promises with the world that if his brother comes back he’ll let him have all his GI Joes EXCEPT for Snake Eyes and Crystal Ball. Even knowing that King and his son were responsible for CB it’s still hilarious for him to write as if the two characters are anywhere near each other in desirability

[cainofdreaming]

That sounds easy enough. Until you stumble into Dr Druid - the series. Well, a mini anyways.

[thezmage]

I love Raptor. If it isn’t birds or shady accounting, he’s not interested. I’m a little upset that the Energon Universe tried to make him cool

[icon_uk]

Sort of like Sidewinder in the Serpent Society.

"Yes, I have a fancy snake costume with a cloak which is linked to my Roxxon™ cybernetic implants allowing me to teleport, but at my heart I'm an accountant with a talent for investment and portfolio management."

[thanekos]

" I'm a snake, and I'm a financial professional - and I repeat myself. "

(This also works for the Viper who was in advertising.)

[icon_uk]

Good lord, and I thought Viper was soul-ess before!

[tripodeca113]

Avatar News: Presumably annoyed at all the complaining on social media Bryan Konietzko said that the big Avatar RPG game has been delayed rather than cancelled and implied that Comic Con will have a sustainable update on Seven Havens.
(Season two of the live action show draws ever closer much like the inescapability of death. A recent interview reveals that it was originally scripted for eight epsidoe before the cheapskates at Netflix cut the epsidoe order down to seven. I can't imagine this making things better, but season one had eight episodes and it was quite awful so it's not like we're losing much

Doctor Who: Okay the Doctor cares enough about the Odd to be sad he couldn't save them, but not enough to be bothered by the fact their slaves. That's a very specific level of consideration...

Now I have nothing but respect for the Disciples of the Light for defeating the Prince of All Darkness, but maybe it would have been simpler long term if they just dropped the Beast in a black hole at the dawn of time, rather than creating an elaborate prison orbiting a black hole that'll fall into it if he ever tries to escape.
I guess it did work pretty well until humanity blundered into it.... (and they did have the foresight to leave a nice clear mural that makes it obvious you need to smash the two vases to make the planet fall into the black hole)

Next time is Love and Monsters the only episode from this era I haven't seen before. It's actually kind of exciting, maybe it's a misunderstood gem, maybe it's as bad as they say it is.

(oh yes looks like Doctor Who is on hiatus again. Still it it might only take a decade for the show to come back this time...)

Got the second Hitman omnibus. Tommy had some ups and downs, but at least he got to meet Superman! (which did admittedly led to the terrible knowledge of knowing that he let Superman down).
It was a pretty hard-hitting and impactful final, really felt like the only way the story could have ended. I'll probably check out more of Ennis work.
I've heard good things about Preacher, but it seems like I should avoid The Boys like the plague (the superhero parody in Hitman was manageable but I don't see how a book based around it could be any good)

In other news the visionaries at Dracula Land have released a PDF for potential investors.

I'm sure you want to give them all your money now!


(Amazingly this one is actually worse than it looks at first glance. The numbers for the Disney parks are taken from an article stating the number of people to visit all Disney theme parks in 2023, while the Fortnite one is the number of monthly users ii had in 2023, the Minecraft one is the games total sales as of October 2023, the Call of Duty stats are the highest number of players it had on Steam in a single 24 hour period in 2024 and the GTA V ones are the total number of console sales it had as of August 2014)

[scorntx]

Eh, that scrapped episode probably wasn't important.
Bet it only contained some necessary plot detail or character moment.
Nothing the show can't do without.


Guessing the Disciples of the Light felt that killing The Beast would (*sigh*) make them no better than him, but imprisoning him forever on an asteroid with no means of stopping him killing and possessing anyone who landed was fine.
Good old false equivalence.

Just like the Osirans and Sutekh, come to think of it... weird.

[cainofdreaming]

Yet the Beast's... brother? Cousin twice removed? Whatever. Was trapped in actual death.

As a side note Whoverse death is bleak.

[cainofdreaming]

Ah, drek. I should double check my memory before posting, not after. I mixed up Abaddon and Death. Abaddon was trapped in the Rift.

[icon_uk]

Perhaps, like Galactus and the Elders of the Universe, their presence in the universe is a problem for the universe as a whole, but their absence would be much, MUCH worse.

[skjam]

Sixty-fifth rapidly approaching, have not heard back from Medicare about my application.

Extra training at work, some vital, some useless.

New Marvel Puzzlequest chase character is Famine. Plus they're really pushing the X-Men for some reason.

Over at my blog, I look at the final issue of the original run of Adventure Comics, #503. https://www.skjam.com/2026/06/15/comic-book-review-adventure-comics-503/

[zachbeacon]

Last week's Behind the Bastards episodes were about Bill Ackman. It's giving me JCP PTSD.

[scorntx]

Things with the new dog going well. Only a few cases of the growls, sometimes with the usual suspects.
But he seems very much a country dog. Tried to bite a moving car a few days ago. He also get the zoomies in the garden.
Fortunately, he seems alright with little children looking to pat.
And he's not fussed by the cat. But she's fussed with him.
(to be fair, nobody likes being sniffed in the butt. The impertinence.)


Well, looks like Doctor Who's on Gardening Leave. Again.
(Speaking as one of the twelve people who watched last year's season and as someone still not over the shock of what happened, still at "damn".)

Think it's about twenty five years since my first encounter with Who.
The VHS release of The Android Invasion, from a branch of Borders.
(Also, my first encounter with the original Transformers comic at the same time. TPB of Matrix Quest.)
Was... quite a turn coming back to that one a few years later, lemme tell you.

We got footage of Kingdom Hearts IV last week, so probably only another five years to go?
Turns out... That 'un is coming back. I feel I should be more surprised than I am.
Good old KH trailers; helping to lower stress and tension by revealing every damn plot point ahead of time.


For no reason I can figure out (maybe looking at stuff about the Insomniac games?) suddenly have a desire to read Venom: Lethal Protector.
...
hmm. Could've sworn I just heard something like an entire run of books suddenly blipping out of existence. Weird.

Marvel's revisiting... er, reviving / rebooting the Mangaverse.
Odd choice, but it's their money.
(Just a bunch of connecting one shots, rather than wasting time getting anyone's hopes up, from the looks of it.)
If we're revisiting old AUs, going back to Bullet Points would be interesting.

Speaking of AUs, the New Ultimate Universe (supposedly) ends next week.
Though wouldn't be much of a shock if one or two issues got bumped back a week or more at the last minute.
Really hoping it doesn't end bleakly... but given Hickman is involved, it would also not be a surprise if the Maker survives somehow.

Oh, and there's the next volume of Avengers. Was wondering when that would show up.

Read that X-Men '97 comic out the other week.
So, Val Cooper - sorry, Doctor Val Cooper's brilliant solution to heightened tensions between humans and mutants is... make things worse.
And Havok is helping this.
Yup, that's Val and Alex alright.
What mystifies me is why the rest of X-Factor are going along with this.
Because it doesn't look like they're doing an early X-Factor of "oh, we're only pretending to hunt down and arrest mutants but are actually taking you to safety in the most ass-backwards way possible!"
They're just being actually genuinely stupid.

[iamrman]

Ooh, a new Avengers series? Any idea who the creative team is?

[scorntx]

Zdarsky on writing, Marco Checcetto on art.
It's following on from Armageddon, and has the totally reassuring tagline "Earth's Mightiest Survivors".

[iamrman]

Ooh, interesting creatuve team. I enjoyed their run on Daredevil. That tagline sounds pretty ominous, though.

[icon_uk]

I'm torn on last season, but can confirm that Belinda objectively deserved a whole lot better than she got.

[thezmage]

That Among Us tv show was surprisingly enjoyable. Probably has something to do with being made by the same guy as Infinity Train

I saw Disclosure Day. A fun thriller with some sci-fi to it, and an ending that I didn’t entirely swallow but it was a fun 2 and half hours

If you were a fan of Essence20, the rpg system behind the Transformers, Power Rangers, GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Welcome to Night Vale rpgs, apparently they’re scrapping it and reissuing the first three of those with D&D 5.5e rules

The Disaster Gay Detective Agency is exactly as fun a book as the title promises

[scorntx]

Does that mean they're redoing the sourcebooks as well?

[thezmage]

All we really know right now is that they're crowdfunding new core books for PR, TF, and GI Joe and releasing a free document on their website for converting back and forth between the original and new editions. Presumably some of the books will be rereleased maybe with the content from multiple books combined or condensed, but I doubt they'll go through all of them.

EDIT: The creators are pretty active on their Discord if you wanted to ask them more directly: https://renegadegamestudios.com/discord

[zachbeacon]

I had zero interest in Among Us until I saw Brian David Gilbert was one of the writers.

[thezmage]

I never played the game and according a friend of mine who has they did bend the rules a little to where you can't use them to determine who the impostor is, but he still enjoyed it as well

[cygnia]

https://deadline.com/2026/06/only-murders-in-the-building-david-tennant-nicola-coughlan-1236955027/

Tennant AND Whittaker?! I will laugh if they reference "Broadchurch" but intentionally leave out "Doctor Who"...

[icon_uk]

It would be fun if they do a full on French farce approach, with Tennant sweeping out one door, only for Whittaker to sweep in the same door a few seconds later, and vice versa, but for the two characters never actually meet each other face to face.

Either that or one of them pulls a rubber mask off at the end, revealing the other, and so they were both the same character all along.

[cyberghostface]

Marcia Lucas did a lot and it was more than two scenes but there’s been a tendency from fans especially after the prequels and special editions to make it sound like George Lucas made a disaster and it was salvaged in post which wasn’t the case.

[thanekos]

Probably a side-effect of some people's reaction to the prequels - " you don't edit George, you get trade blockades and Jar-Jar. "

[cyberghostface]

For better or for worse a lot of it has to do with George changing over the years than when he made the originals.

Although I’ve noticed thanks to the sequels and recent politics that people have been reappraising George’s decisions with the prequels.

[thanekos]

Solid manifesto: " Obscurity is a symptom of a failure to curate. "

[zachbeacon]

Well, Pizza Hut is being sold to a private equity firm. They've been on the decline for a while but I think they're going to be dead soon.

[cainofdreaming]

Given how those firms generally work it'll probably be cut to pieces like one of their pizzas.

[zachbeacon]

I remember a viral tweet about Book It!

It was something along the lines of "it says a lot about some of us that we were told that the more books we read, the more pizza we get to eat."

[metadronos]

The UK is looking to ban major social media access to those under 16

So is Canada. Carney's government recently introduced Bill C-34 which would do so, in addition to requiring providers of AI chatbots to block their products from providing advice or instructions, to users of any age, on committing self-harm/suicide or engaging in illegal acts. Critics of the bill note that it doesn't specify the means of age verification for social media, leaving it up to individual providers to implement. As well, providers can seek exemption from the age ban if they convince the digital safety regulator (position to be created) that they've included adequate safeguards for protecting minors.

In other words, the bill has a serious "opt-out" loophole (social media companies, like any big biz, are good at saying what authorities want to hear without necessarily abiding by it) and a major potential for privacy abuses. That's in addition to the same fundamental problem Australia has faced with its age ban: a majority of kid users have found ways around it.


The US/Iran war is apparently over.... again... possibly... still being worked out... waiting to be signed... is still general rather than specific.

There's also the possibility -- which Iran no doubt is anticipating -- that Israel will not only continue its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, but majorly ratch it up. (Although Netanyahu has publicly praised the memorandum of understanding and, like Trump, labelled it a "victory," it's an open secret that Israel's government is pissed at being left out of the process despite allegedly being a full partner with the U.S. in the war. Seriously, Netanyahu is many bad things but he's not a stupid man; why would he trust what the most untrustworthy POTUS in history would say?) This would allow Iran to say "No deal" and full hostilities, including the Strait of Hormuz blockade, to resume.