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For decades, Rey Mysterio has been one of the most beloved and influential figures in professional wrestling. Now, the legendary luchador is stepping into a brand-new role that could shape…

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DC COMICS ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #20 BATMAN #163 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #4 (OF 4) FACSIMILE EDITION DETECTIVE COMICS #1109 FLASH #33 GOTHAM ACADEMY FIRST YEAR #4 (OF 6)…

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‌ Superman encountered several super-females during his long career, including his own cousin and various amped-up versions of Lois Lane and Lana Lang. But Susan Semple was a variation on…

The post JUST IMAGINE! December 1951: The Girl of Tomorrow appeared first on First Comics News.

Fernando Menezes is one of those comic book artists whose work instantly grabs your attention. The Brazilian illustrator has built a strong reputation through dynamic storytelling, expressive characters, and exciting…

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Title: Battle Beast # 9 Publisher: Image Comics Writer: Robert Kirkman Artist: Annalisa Leoni & Ryan Ottley Colorist: Annalisa Leoni Letterer: Rus Wooton Covers: Annalisa Leoni & Ryan Ottley, Mike…

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Title: Birding Is My Favorite Video Game (GN) Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing Author/Illustrator: Rosemary Mosco Price: $ 18.99 US, $ 25.99 Can Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Website: http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com…

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POISON IVY #47 Written by G. WILLOW WILSON Art by LEANDRO FERNANDEZ Cover by JESSICA FONG Variant covers by NOOBOVICH, KYUYONG EOM, and MANNY VINCENT CARBONILLA $3.99 US | 32 pages…

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MIDNIGHT X-MEN #1 Jonathan Hickman (W) • Matteo Della Fonte (A) COVER BY DIKE RUAN • MOVIE HOMAGE VARIANT COVER BY Björn Barends VARIANT COVER BY Alessandro Cappuccio • VARIANT…

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The irresistible X-Men met the immovable Blob in their third issue. “The first two issues were notable for just how off-model the characters were, as Stan (Lee) had not yet…

The post JUST IMAGINE! January 1964: And Blobby Makes Three appeared first on First Comics News.

Papercutz Announces JANE AMERICAN A Young Girl Forever Changed by War Must Decide Whether to Hide Who She Is or Become the Hero the World Needs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY…

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 One idea for my new campaign I'm working on that I'm borrowing from the Japanese rpg Sword World (or at least its unofficial translations into English) are Local Experience Tables. These show up in some of the setting books and are just random tables of events themed to varying degrees to specific locales. They don't typically provide any mechanical benefit (though I could see it in limited situations), but they are still potentially useful, and they certainly provide a roleplaying hook.

Here's one I came up with for Salvage:

Salvage and the Field of the Fallen Colossi

Roll

Experience

1

Swindle. You either suckered someone or got suckered.

2

Dust Up. You were involved in a violent altercation.

3

Busted. You were once down and out.

4

Scarred but Smarter. You got caught in a trap in a colossi, but now you know better.

5

New Part. A part of your body is Magitech.

6

Poisonville. You once lived in a pretty toxic area.

7

Bad Blood. You made an enemy, and someone is still after you.

8

Took a Bullet. You’ve been shot before and have the scar to prove it.

9

Lost Mine. You believe you know the location of treasure.

10

Tech Friends. You have a friend that is a construct or otherwise Magitech.

And here's one that covers the region outside the major cities:

General

Roll

Experience

1

Courier. You once delivered a sealed letter to an important person.

2

Marshlander. You’ve spent a good deal of time in the marshes.

3

Mad Season. You’ve experienced the mad ecstasy brought on by exposure to the pollen of the irrsin flowers in the scrublands

4

Rail journey. You’ve traveled by train.

5

Runaway Construct. You had a dangerous encounter with a magitech construct.

6

Under Strange Stars. You were once lost in the Stargazer’s Garden.

7

Fantastic fishing. You have fished in the Prismatic Lake

8

Captive. You were once captured by a Fomori (humanoid) raiding party.

9

Birthing. You witnessed a Mothernode produce a Mek.

10

Searcher. You are looking or have looked for a friend or relative lost in Berlaith.

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on May 23, 1985.

Batman and the Outsiders #23: Barr and Davis send most of the Outsiders to the Gotham Zoo where Rex and Sapphire have a tense meeting with Simon Stagg over their wedding plans. A group of armed men attack, and the Outsiders have to deal with the chaos they cause. In the aftermath, it's revealed the attack was cover for the attempted assassination of Stagg orchestrated by his assistant. After Rex saves his life, Stagg warms on the idea of the hero marrying his daughter.
Meanwhile, Halo is in the city by herself and encounters a friendly hippie guy in a van who calls himself Brother Abraham. Meanwhile, he offers her a place stay and drives her to a secluded commune called Eden.

Blue Devil #15: Truly the DCU most be overrun with geniuses because an inventor on the level of Cassidy just winds up doing special effects and theme park animatronics. In this issue, as Blue Devil contends with Verner's Vanquisher (Verner's chaffeur that he had empower by scientists as a superhero), the two fight a King Kong-esque robot running amuck that Cassidy made for the studio tour. The process that created the Vanquisher seems to have made him mentally unstable, and he kidnaps Marla with whom he's infatuated.

Green Lantern #191: Engelhart and Staton/Patterson reveal the Predators identity at last, and it is certainly unexpected. After Hal's discover of Carol's perfume lingering in the Predator's hideout, he also finds the reporter's videotape showing the meeting between Green Arrow, Black Canary, Carol, and himself, that on one else involved with seems to remember. Hal calls Ollie, Dinah, and John Stewart, but no one's home, so he heads to Carol's place and shows her. Even with the reveal, I'm still not sure why the Predator doesn't want them to remember this, but luckily, I don't have to think about that long, because the Predator shows up and kidnaps Carol. He takes her to his old theater hide out. Powerless Hal suits up for battle and confronts the villain. He gives a good showing, but he can't stop the Predator from playing the old organ (something Carol thinks is important). When he does, Carol declares her love for the Predator, as he does for her. Then they merge into one being: Star Sapphire!

Infinity, Inc. #17: The Thomases and McFarlane/DeZuniga introduce the rest of Mr. Bones crew, and they are an odd bunch. I don't know quite what to think about Thomas and DeZuniga creating Arak as a historical S&S hero then doing a modern, minor villain that bears his name but is unrelated presumably other than being Native American. Does him calling himself (or someone else naming him) Arak suggest that the original Arak is a well-known historical figure in the DC Universe? 
Anyway, Fury finds herself prisoner of this team who call themselves Helix. They want to ransom her for millions from Carter Hall. Hector tries to rescue her but gets defeated.

New Teen Titans #11: Wolfman and García-López/Tanghal continue the story from last issue. After sleeping on it, Joe is still weirded out by the mutated bug people, and I mean, who wouldn't be? He and Kole get the other Titans and they head out to the mansion where we follow the familiar pattern to this title of our heroes getting captured so they can talk with the villain while he puts them in one trap, then they escape and end up in another, then they escape and the bad guy is neutralized in some way. In this case, Weathers and his mutant followers (including his own grasshopper mutant wife) expose themselves to a gas that turns them completely into bugs so they can survive the nuclear devastation he's sure is coming, and they let the Titans go. Other than following the typical Titans formula, this story is just weird. With its Hellstrom Chronicle vibe and schlocky mutants, it feels like something from a 70s Marvel comic, or done a different way, one of DC's now-defunct horror/sci-fi anthologies.

Sgt. Rock #403: The main story by Kanigher/Catan involves Rock and an Italian resistance fighter pursuing a German officer guilty of war crimes to a church in Terza, Italy, where the officer has asked for sanctuary--and Pope Pius XII. This story is another one that has that weird story beat that comes up on occasion where Rock seems to really want to capture a German officer (it's always an officer) to make him stand trial instead of killing him. And this is after the guy just shot the Pope. Rock's hesitancy leads to the resistance fighter getting shot. Rock then pursues the Nazi into the church's bell tower where in the scuffle, the German gets knocked out of the tower by the bell and falls to his death.
The second story is the first publication of Tom McWeeney, who will go on to do a lot of work in the 90s, particularly at Wildstorm. This goofy story is not a career high point, though, and would have made more sense in Weird War Tales, if anywhere. Soldiers die and are burnt to a crisp on a deserted battlefield. Is it nuclear war or at least are they caught in a nuclear test? No, it's a pizza in the oven and they're...anchovies? 

Saga of Swamp Thing #39: Moore and Bissette/Totleben continue the story with Swamp Thing walking into the reservoir covering Rosewood to deal with the vampires. The vampires aren't a threat to him, that is until the next generation is born. The survivor of the brood is an inhuman monster that rends Swamp Things body apart. That doesn't stop Swamp Thing, though. He just moves through the Green and becomes a whole hillside of vegetation. He moves and diverts the water of the reservoir into the river again (likely flooding places downstream, but anyway...) and the vampires die in moving water. Before all that, the parents of the boys who went missing come to Rosewood, and one of them is killed by their own vampire son, but the rest escape. Constantine tells Swamp Thing he didn't take care of things quick enough. Now word will get out, and people will believe in vampires. That's what the enemy he's trying to defeat needs. Constantine tells Swampie to meet him in Maine.

Warlord #95: I reviewed this issue here.

Talent Showcase #18: The editorial reiterates the reason for the name change and tells us that the next issue will be the last. This issue is a weird mix of sci-fi stories done by established pros (Bruce Jones, Shawn McManus, and Dan Adkins) sometimes with the assistance of relative newcomers that could have been anthology book inventor stories from a few years ago. Then there are several short, humor cartoons, and even a text piece by John Constanza. The only complete newcomer story is a superhero humor piece with everything but the lettering done by Kerry Callen, who will go on mostly to work for Mad.

Who's Who #6: We're into the D's and we get Darkseid, the Demon, DeSaad, Doctor Bedlam, and the Deep Six courtesy of their creator, Jack Kirby. Atari Force is well represented with Dark Destroyer and Dart by José Luis García-López. García-López also does Deadman, perhaps because he's the artist on the limited series that will be published at the end of '85. Amethyst's Dark Opal also shows up with art by his original artists, Colon. Marshall Rogers renders Deadshot who will become more prominent in the next few years. Deimos shows up from Warlord, courtesy of Grell. The then-recent Demolition Team is here, courtesy of their co-creator, Dave Gibbons. There are, of course, a lot of "Doctors." Giffen and Mahlstedt give us Doctor Fate instead of whoever's drawing All-Star Squadron this month.

There are a lot of opinions about setting in rpgs and how much is the right amount or too much. Consequently, a lot has been written about it by a lot of people, me included. As readers of this blog likely know, I am pro-setting, in the sense that I personally like thinking of and writing about them, but one might also have intuited that I enjoy them as a player or GM. They are a major part of what gets me into a game, a fundamental part of supporting imagining the game world. I realize there are people who like their settings merely implied or at the least as light as possible, and that's their right, but to me that would reduce an rpg to the same sorts of pleasure I might get from a board or arcade game, and that would not have been enough to sustain my longterm interest.

As I have been working on the setting for my new campaign, I've talked with my players for the first time about how I feel about GM creation vs. player creation of setting material. It's not that it was a secret before, but it never game up in an explicit way. My personal observation is that while most players don't want to be given a lot of homework to play a game, they also don't tend to be told impromptu to imagine things for a world. A framework to inspire their character creation tends to be what most of my players are looking for, though how much they intend to flesh things out varies.

Encouraging this sort of engagement, though, means that the world is a bit out of focus until we get into the playing of it. I can have thought of a lot of things, but a lot of details I have in mind stay flexible on until the players get their hands on them. In the end, the worlds winds up being a collaborative process even if it mostly starts in my mind.

Here's an example. In creating Azurth, I clearly called out that despite a number of animal people in the setting, there were no cat people. Now, the fact that I noted that and didn't mention a whole list of other animal people that would never appeared in Azurth was meant to suggest "something's going on here." And it was. 

However, my friend Jim, in creating his bard Kully missed that. Jim did a very flavorful, brief character write-up, nailing the Ozian sort of vibe. The only problem was he mentioned Kully encountering a Cat Man at a pivotal moment.

I could have suggest a change to that detail and in some circumstances, I might have. Here though, because I had already intended something to be going on with that point, I used what Jim came up with. I told him that Kully had had that encounter, which was odd because there aren't supposed to be Cat-folk in Azurth, and so no one believes him. Jim was creating a little mystery in his characters backstory, which wound up tying into a minor mystery of the entire setting. Kully's backstory became setting material supporting a future reveal that at least one player was going to care out.

Not all instances of a player's view of the world and my own having a discrepency turn out so serendipitously, but I think it's worth looking for those opportunities and leaving things just a little fuzzy to facilitate those clarifications.

SALEM, OR. Madeleine Holly-Rosing, writer/creator of the graphic novel series Boston Metaphysical Society, announced the launch of her campaign to fund the printing of the hardback edition of volume three…

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In addition to MARY JANE: FACE IT, TIGER #1, a special giant-sized one-shot, Marvel Comics celebrates Mary Jane’s 60th anniversary this August with stunning new MARY JANE WATSON VARIANT COVERS.…

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This July, Jeff the Land Shark faces off against iconic X-Men villain Mojo in JEFF THE LAND SHARK: SUPERSTAR, an all-new five issue limited series by Kelly Thompson and Tokitokoro.…

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Ram V and Mike Perkins Open the Door to Britain’s Secret War. Occult warfare is a fantasy…or is that what they want you to think? Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy #1…

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PORTLAND, Ore. 05/15/2026 — Fan favorite writer Doug Wagner (Narco, Plastic, I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer) teams up with rising star artist Hoyt Silva for an all-new, action-packed thrill-ride…

The post EXPLOSIVE NEW ANTI-SPY THRILLER YUMI: 00EX WILL HIT SHELVES THIS AUGUST appeared first on First Comics News.

This August, Marvel and Lucasfilm join forces to complete Kylo Ren’s saga in STAR WARS: THE FALL OF KYLO REN, a five-issue comic series by Charles Soule and Will Sliney.…

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*** OLYMPUS SAGA: MEGALITH #2  *** Written by MATT KINDT Art by LEWIS LAROSA Colors by LAURA MARTIN Cover by LEWIS LAROSA $5.99  |  32 PGS.  |  FULL COLOR FINAL…

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