Wednesday Comics: More Metabarons

I heard there was a Metabarons comic on Free Comic Book Day, which precedes a new Metabarons series. I've mentioned Metabarons on this blog before, but for those unfamiliar with it, it's the Greek Tragedy by way of Space Opera generational saga by  Alejandro Jodorowsky that he came up with riffing off ideas from his aborted attempt to get a Dune movie made.

The original "Saga of the Metabarons" was published, complete, in English in the early 2000s. In 2014, there was a sort of prequel Metabarons Genesis: Castaka published in 2014.

Hearing about this new series, I went looking to see if I had missed something, and what do you know? I had. There are already two volumes in a series called The Metabaron. Now, I haven't read these yet myself, so I can't comment on them (though I'll have them in hand this week), but I wanted you guys to know they were out there:

The Metabaron Book 1: The Techno-Admiral and the Anti-Baron

The Metabaron Book2: The Techno-Cardinal and the Transhuman

Misty Isle of the Meanies

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night, with the party and friends still lost at sea after displeasing the Sea King. Their submarine had wondered into strange, dense fog. Kory Keenstep recalls legends of the mist-enshrouded paradise of Cucana and is sure they have found it. When Captain Cog sights a green and pleasant isle in his optics, it seems that Keenstep may becorrect.

When Waylon, Dagmar, and Erekose go ashore, they find the pleasantness to be an illusion. The island is gray and mostly barren and cloaked in gray skies and a sulfurous stench. Going ashore, they find paths strewn with the pulverized bits of broken toys, and occasional gray statues that look more like petrified people.

They made their way past the giant, sessile worms with lolling stripped tongues to the Blue Pagoda City. There they encountered the disagreeable blue meanies--and ended up slaughtering them in fairly large numbers. The party wandered through the bunker encountering and defeating a number of odd and violent people before apparently reaching the inner sanctum of "His Blueness."

This adventure began a loose adaptation of Chris Kutalik's Misty Isles of the Eld, liberally mashed together with the film Yellow Submarine.

Mecha & Cavemen

The physical copies of the the English translation of the French prehistoric rpg Würm finally arrived last week. I got the main rulebook and the Voice of Our Ancestors  magazine with rules and adventures. I taked about the main rulebook pdf before. On of the Voice of Ancestors issues has rules for the benefits conferred by ritual cannibalism, which is an interesting edition. I don't know if I can convince my group to play it, but I'm not sorry I backed the Kickstarter.

Tom Parkinson-Morgan, the author of Kill 6 Billion Demons, released the latest iteration of his mecha rpg Lancer for free. I confess I have not read through it yet, but hey, it's free.

Underground Comics Contents

Solo-parenting of a sick infant has kept the blog silent this week, but I wanted to share a bit of what I've been working on just prior to all that happening. Here's a glimpse of the most interesting part of the contents page for the forthcoming Underground Comics with work by Jason Sholtis, James V. West, Stefan Poag, Luka Rejec, Jeff Call, and Karl Stjernberg.

FASERIP Black Void

BLACK VOID

STATISTICS
F                 RM   (30)
A                 GD  (10)
S                 IN  (40)
E                 AM   (50)
R                 EX (20)
I                   EX   (20)
P                  AM   (50)
Health: 130
Karma: 90

BACKGROUND
Real Name: Ted Crawford
Occupation: Former petroleum engineer
Identity: Known to authorities
Legal Status: Citizen of the United States
Place of Birth: Hagerstown, Maryland
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Base of Operations: Mobile
Group Affiliation: Masters of Menace

KNOWN POWERS
Amorphous Form. Outside of his containment suit, he is a mass of protoplasmic entity.
Telepathic Link. Black Void has Monstrous rank telepathic communication with the black mass entity that he is an offshoot of.
Conversion and Draining: Black Void can heal himself by touching his victims, which alters their cellular structure, converting it into more Black Mass Entity like himself. He gains health equal to the targets health or material strength. He does this with Monstrous ability and the target can attempt an Endurance FEAT to avoid.

Equipment:
Containment Suit. Made of Incredible material. Providing:
Body Armor: Excellent rank.

History: Ted Crawford was a petroleum engineer for Hexxon Oil, tasked with exploring a deep underground pocket wherein a material with unusual properties, dubbed the "black mass," had been found. Upon opening the chamber, the Black Mass was revealed to be a vast sea of protoplasm with an alien intelligence. Telepathically communicating with Crawford and his team, it asserted it was the first living thing on earth and all other lifeforms were ultimately derived from its substance. It absorbed all of Crawford's team, but left him with part of his intellect intact and animated his partial absorbed corpse within his environmental suit, so it could use him to explore the outside world.

The Crawford-Black Mass hybrid soon came in contact with Subterrans, who had long been aware of the entity they called the Black Void and had sought to contain it. The prince of the underground civilization, the Subterranean, battled Black Void and forced him back into the chamber then resealed it.

Later, the Black Void escaped again and was brought by agents of Hexxon to its board, who were revealed to all be members of a secret cult that worshiped the Black Mass and sought to use it to gain power. Black Void killed most of the board members and more a time took secret control of Hexxon.

Infinity War

Since Avengers and a shoddily animated post-credits scene, we've been teased with this. So even if, like me, you're beginning to tire of the Marvel Cinematic Formula, then you are probably going to up for this installment. And you should be, because damn if they didn't stick the landing.

In brief: Thanos of Titan (No reference here to comic's original Greek Mythological origin or his actual birth on the Saturnian moon. It's just some planet here.) is after all these plot coupons that have had major to minor appearances in previous films, to crush gemstones from them--the Infinity Stones. He well on his way to collecting them all, when Avengers: Infinity War opens.

What follows is a film structured like a classic comic book crossover with mismatched groups of heroes in different locations try to prevent Thanos or his minions from getting one Infinity Stone or another. Each time they engage them entertainingly. I don't think I felt my interest in the doings flag noticeably over the nearly three hour run time. It is impressive how well paced it is despite the number of location jumps and protagonist shifts. I can't think of any film with an ensemble so sprawling that has done it so well.

And the ending? Well, without significant spoilers let's just say this is the Empire Strikes Back to the Star Wars: A New Hope comprised of entirety of the Cinematic Marvel Universe before.

Are there things not to like? Well, it carries the baggage of previous CMU stuff, so if (like me) you didn't like the "science-fiction"-izing of Asgard and Asgardian, that's all in your face here, starting with Asgardian's sending a distress call like they are Free Trader Beowulf from the cover of Traveller. All you Hawkeye fans (there's gotta be someone) will be disappointed that he isn't in it, and many other characters largely just get brief lines and brief appearances in fight scenes. There is not as much character stuff or dramatic beats here; there just isn't space. In that regard, this is the story of Gamorra, Tony Stark, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Thor, and Thanos, and every one else is showing up just to fight. The CGI is great at times and unaccountably bad in others. Thanos's footsteps always seem too dainty.

And finally, this is perhaps the most comic book of comic book movies, with that fact entailing both good and bad perhaps. This certainly shouldn't be anyone's first Marvel film. It is not as accessible in the way Black Panther or the more comedic Marvel entries like Thor: Ragnarok are.

But overall, I loved it, and if you've been a fan of the other films or even most of them, you probably will too.

What Are These Items Being Displayed by This Hand Model?

Why, they're the latest proofs from the Operation Unfathomable Kickstarter! The Player's Guide and the second volume of that hymn to the oracular dice gods, Dungeon Dozen vol. 2.  Both adorned with snazzy cover designed by your truly (he said with all due modesty).

First, they will go to the the deserving faithful (i.e. Kickstarter backers), then they will go on sale to more recent converts at the usual outlets.