Roaming the Mind of Gob

After a hiatus we returned to the Land of Azurth last Tuesday and picked up where we left off in an adaptation of the Role-Aids adventure Swordthrust. The party was roaming the labyrinth inside the mind (or at least brain) of the giant, crystalline gnome, Gob. They were trying to collect all the pieces of a magical suit of armor.

This time, they avoided some fights with some Rat folk cultists, a dining troll, and a kobold Necromancer:

This, and their previous expressions of solidarity with some goblin revolutionaries made their job of exploring the dungeon easier because it allowed them to backtrack through controlled territory. This was particularly useful then they wanted to move from one "hemisphere" of Gob's brain to the other. 

They didn't negotiate their way around everything, though. They had to kill an irate cockatrice and 3 disagreeable harpies:

Like these guys but more birdy

No armor pieces discovered this session, so the quest continues!

Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've got the comics released the week of May 12, 1983. 

Justice League of America Annual #1: This Levitz/Wein story with art by Hoberg/Giordano is notable mainly for having appearances by Dr. Destiny and the Bronze Age Sandman, both of whom will appear in the early issues of Neil Gaiman's Sandman in 1989. Beyond that, it's a classic JLA story of the team splitting up to deal with dream-related menaces before entering the Dream Dimension where Destiny has imprisoned Sandman and stolen his supply of sleep sand. Mention is made of the crisis in Markovia and Batman being on the outs with the League which will occur in Batman and the Outsiders #1.

Batman #362:  Moench and Newton bring back the Riddler who was last since seen in Detective #526, but outside of that cameo, hasn't had a story since '81. He's up to his same old schtick, but Moench throws in some decent wordplay for the Dark Knight to unravel. Meanwhile, Bullock decides to abandon his false charges against Gordon after...well, I'm not really sure how we're supposed to read what happens, unless it's a veiled threat by the Batman against Bullock made by giving him an egg with his name on it similar to ones the Riddler had employed in his caper.

Flash #324: Bates and Infantino/Jensen officially kick off the "Trial of the Flash" saga (or I guess you could say last issue did sorta), though that name is not, of course, used in the issue since there isn't any trial yet. With Fiona waiting at the altar and his family and friends gathered expectantly, The Flash engages in a round-the-world chase to stop Professor Zoom killing Barry's bride to be. He succeeds--just barely--but apparently the Reverse Flash loses his life in the process.

G.I. Combat #256: The first Haunted Tank story is mostly from the ghostly Stuart's point of view, as we see how he came to be watching over a "yankee" tank crew (Alexander the Great's orders!) and how he is unable to warn the crew of an ambush coming. Naturally the Haunted Tank makes it through. The second story is told from the perspectives of the Sherman and a German Tiger II tank. It's better than the first though not improved by Kanigher's "equipment's perspective" gimmick.

There's a "Silent Service" submarine story about the crew of the U.S. sub, Barracuda, willing to do whatever it takes to sink a Japanese sub-hunting destroyer, and another story of the Pacific Theater where a G.I. hides a gun in his bandages to get the drop on a Japanese ambush. 

The Mercenaries are back, and Kanigher and Catan have them in a mythical African micronation, Zamora, where their plan to get work with the king is sunk when his son kills him in the name of American petroleum interests. In a surprise turn, the king names Prince his successor, but once they've thwarted the coup planners, he turns over leadership to a teacher and political revolutionary--whose first act as president is (wisely) to tell the Mercenaries politely to leave the country.

New Teen Titans #34: Wolfman and Perez deliver something better than the last couple of issues, though mostly for set-up. Terra is grumbling that the Titans don't seem to trust her as they haven't shared their identities or anything. The Titans have reasons for not doing so, but all those are forgotten after the Terminator attacks and Terra plans a big part in defeating him. A staged part, it turns out, as the reveal at the end shows she is infiltrating the Titans on Slade's orders. Meanwhile, Adrian Chase's vigilante tactics (which he dragged Robin into) has consequences as a bomb comes off in his apartment. Also in this issue, Donna says yes to Terry's proposal, but wants to wait to marry him until she finds her parents, and it turns out Sarah (the woman Cyborg was into) isn't engaged after all.

Superman #386: Bates and Swan/Hunt continue Luthor's quest for revenge against Superman as he (wrongly) blames him for the destruction of Lexor. Despite the overall more serious approach to Luthor in this arc, this issue shows hints of characterization inspired by Hackman's Luthor in Superman: The Movie. Luthor discusses his plans with minions as one of them shaves and buffs his head. When he comes to believe killing Lois won't have the same impact on Superman since the two have broken up, he muses on working to get them back together then killing her. For right now, he settles for tricking Superman with a sham device similar in appearance to the one that destroyed Lexor and taunting the hero. He promises to strike for real when Superman least expects it.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #16: Pasko is back and joined by Bissette and Totleben on interior art, an artist team destined to make their mark on this character. After finding Linda Holland's grave empty, Swamp Thing and friends are on their way to Washington, D.C. to uncover the roots of the Sunderland Corporation conspiracy against them. On the way, Swamp Thing finds himself in an eerie small town where a form costume shop operator gives him a mask that appears to transform him back into Holland. He romances a local girl but doesn't feel right about his deception. In the end, it's revealed that everyone in the town is wearing a mask to hide some mutation or deformity. They invite Swamp Thing to stay with them, but he declines, feeling he can't abandon his mission.

The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Despite the attention lavished on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and even Star Trek or the Alien universe, I feel like the science fiction franchise most consistent in quality is the Planet of the Apes. Sure, it's not without its duds (Burton's film) and lesser lights (the last original film, the cartoon, perhaps), but the Wyatt/Reeves reboot?/prequel? series of the 2010s defied sequel gravity and only got better as it went along. (To me, anyway. Some would say Dawn was the high point. Either way, War was still good.)

When Reeves left and Disney acquired Fox, I had some trepidation about where the series would go. Happily, it seems like Wes Ball has things well enough in hand, at least with this first installment. While it's not as good as the best of the 2010s series, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was more enjoyable and more substantial than any other existing-franchise entry I've seen in the theater since the end of the pandemic--though perhaps that's damning with faint praise.

Anyway, it's "many generations" after the time of Caesar. He has become a mythic/religious figure. His name is borrowed. and his legacy evoked by an up-and-coming bonobo tyrant who (like King Louie in the Jungle Book) wants the technology of humankind. He needs (ape) slave labor to get it at it and a mysterious, young human woman, so when he captures Noa's village and kills his father, the young chimpanzee makes common cause with the human. 

There are hints of Beneath of the Planet of the Apes in here, and (perhaps unintentional, perhaps not) Biblical echoes with a hero named "Noa," but those are as they should be with an ape installment. The special effects are amazing, and it makes me mad the Marvel Cinematic Universe films often seem sloppy. I guess when your whole premise requires motion capture, you have to get that thing right.

I miss Andy Serkis here like everybody else, but he trained the new cast of apes well. It probably could have been a bit shorter, particularly for a film that is a lot about establishing a new conflict, but I'm not immediately sure what I would have cut.

All that to say, if you liked the previous ape films you should see this one. If you haven't seen any of the new apes films (which lately I've discovered a large group of folks that haven't) then you should see those and see this one.

You can also check out the watch and commentary Jason "Operation Unfathomable" Sholtis and I did of the much less good but still entertaining 70s Planet of the Apes TV show over at the Flashback Universe Blog.

Notes on the Common Kin

 Here are some notes on the standard D&Dish races (focused on the "how our [x] are different," as you do) for a world I've been blogging about recently, a world which I'm now calling Elden Urd (inspired by Tad Williams' Osten Ard in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy).

Dwarves

Warrior mercenary companies, distilled spirits, artisans in metal and gems. They mostly dwell above ground though not entirely. The dwarven throne has been empty for ages; they are ruled by a republic.

Elves

Descendants of fey trapped in the Cosmos when it was made. To this day they care little for the gods. Extremely long lived and slow to reproduce so they are a dwindling people.

Gnomes

Preservers of some of the knowledge of the Age of Wizard-Kings. Artificers and makers of mechanisms.

Halflings

The people of the plains and meadows, sometimes called "grass runners." Some are settled in sod house villages, work farms and tend flocks, others are itinerant traders and entertainers. 

Tieflings

Descendants of Fiends, the fallen Titans. They sometimes face prejudice from the common folk, but among the sorts of people that consort with adventurers their ancestry hardly merits notice.

Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of May 5, 1983. 

Wonder Woman #306: Great (if utterly unrelated to the issue's contents) cover by José Luis García-López. Inside, Heck is now on art. Senator Abernathy, Diana's and Etta's landlord, suffers a heart attack and is whisked away by Steve Trevor and a military team. Unsure what's going on, Wonder Woman follows them, and helps nab a team of terrorists who try to kill him. She's angry at Trevor for being secretive, but it turns out Abernathy had given some information to an enemy nation in an attempt to save his wife, which led to him being kept under surveillance. Trevor just didn't tell Diana because he knew she liked Abernathy and wanted to preserve her impression of the old man. At the end of the issue, Aegeus abruptly appears and stabs Trevor.

In the Cavalieri and Bair/Bryant Huntress backup, the Huntress manages to fight her way of the Tarr and Fether's criminal psych ward, making common cause with one of the "violent cases" to do so. Unfortunately, something happens to Huntress shortly after their escape.

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #4: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon pack a lot of story into these pages. Granch enters another dimension in a belly of a giant reptile to free Dark Opal’s other sons, but they don't believe he's there to help them and try to kill him. Dark Opal lures Amethyst into a trap with Citrina's soul as a lure, but the Princess and her mentor are able to outsmart him. Meanwhile, Lady Emerald is forced to turn over her eldest daughter to Dark Opal. and on Earth, Amy's parents deal with her latest disappearance.

Arak Son of Thunder #24: The Thomases and Gonzales/Alcala reach the two-year mark with this title, and they provide a map of Arak's travels, which is a touch I always appreciate. A lot is going on in this one! Arak and Angelica are still in Hell with Baphomet. Malagigi and Johannes are in Albracca desperately trying to find a way to stop Gog and Magog, rival armies fated to destroy the world. Satyricus and Brunello are trying to rescue Valda from Haakon. Arak arrives just in time to help those two (his and Angelica's escape from Hell having weirdly occurred off-screen), but when Gog and Magog arrive as giants made from the bodies of each army, everybody (but Angelica) works together to halt their rampage with Greek fire. In the aftermath, Angelica tries to reclaim what's left of Albracca, but Malagigi's magic stops her. 

Johannes becomes Prester John like we knew he was going to, and Albracca does a Brigadoon. Our heroes head out, presumably to return to France.

  

Blackhawk #261: Nice Cockrum cover on this one. Evanier and Spiegle get back to more interesting stuff with the return of Domino and the War Wheel. After stealing a German code book, the Blackhawks intercept messages that reveal the German's have the British blue code book. This is due Domino, who has been seducing and murdering a series of British generals. The rest of the Blackhawks try and fail to stop the new War Wheel, which gets away, while Blackhawk goes after Domino and ultimately captures her. Hearing of Domino's capture, Hitler dispatches 4 mean that look just like him, the four Zwillings, to kill the leaders of the Allies. We also get in extended flashback to Domino's origin this issue, and I suspect Evanier modeled the stern Frau Bulle who trained her on Granny Goodness.

Camelot 3000 #7: Arthur and his knights win some victories, but the good feelings are short-lived. The untimely but inevitable betrayal occurs, and Arthur banishes Lancelot and Guinevere after catching them in the act. Then, the issue ends with Tristan contacting Morgan Le Fay and agreeing to betray the knights in exchange for being turned back into a man. One of the things most interesting to me about the series is Bolland's futuristic 80s designs, and they are really on display here.

DC Comics Presents #60: Burkett and Novick team Superman with the Guardians of the Universe. The Weapon-Master (the villain from a recent arc in World's Finest) steals the power of the Central Power Battery of Oa which enables him to control the minds of many of the Green Lanterns, so the Guardians send Superman out with the wannabe poet who was supposed to have been monitoring the power levels on the Battery. Pretty standard stuff after last issues Ambush Bug zaniness.

Fury of Firestorm #15: While Multiplex and Enforcer engage in some exposition-delivering discussion, Firestorm manages to break free from containment. He briefly defeats Enforcer, but Multiplex outsmarts him, and eventually both villains escape. Clarissa, Stein's ex, continues to try to drive a wedge between them and gain Ronnie's confidence. Senator Riley is forced to accede to the demands of the ultra-wealthy industrialist who is employing Multiplex and Enforcer, voting to grant him some sort of atomic energy monopoly lest his kidnapped daughter come to harm.

Justice League #217: Kupperberg and Patton/Tanghal are on board as the new team, and we get a story linked to Kupperberg's Arion: Lord of Atlantis mythos. When an energy-beam emanating from an undersea crevice (where old Atlantis lies in ruins) causes seaquakes in the undersea city of Atlantis and transforms three surface humans into elemental beings who attack other cities, the Justice League goes into action in their usually "divide and conquer" fashion. The villain turns out to be the ancient, Atlantean sorcerer, Daanuth. Now, this guy shares a name and a home base with the villain in Arion, but he looks nothing like him, but less Elric-y and more wizened bald guy. I wonder if Kupperberg wanted to use the concept, but they weren't sure if Arion was actually in DC continuity as yet? Anyway, this issue for some reason feels a bit more of a throwback to the middle of the Bronze Age than some recent issues that preceded it (though not really the immediately previous arc).

Sgt. Rock Annual #3: Kanigher is joined by Spiegle on art for "No Time for Graves," which like the last annual, is a notch above the standard Sgt. Rock tale, aided by the increased length and Spiegle's art. Easy is headed to R&R, but when a new standoffish Polish American soldier steals a truck, Rock and crew figure it's to sell the contents to the black market. It isn't, as they discovered as they chase him across German lines. Instead, it's full of Polish kids whose parents were various sorts of "undersirables" the Germans sent to camps, and a priest trying to get them to the coast to meet a boat bound for Haifa. When the soldier gives his life to destroy a machine gun nest, Rock and the others take up the transport. The trip sees some of the kids that get introduced lose their lives and the priest too, but the rest make the ship. Rock and the others leave the bodies of both refugees and Wehrmacht on the beach where they fell because they have places to be and there is "no time for graves."

The Age of the Wizard-Kings

During the Titan War, the gods empowered human worshippers to serve their cause, and in response, so did some of the titans. The techniques they taught mortals are still employed by adventurers today. When the war was won, some of these champions were able to seize scraps of knowledge and fragments technology from salvaged weapons of the gods and from plundered titan strongholds, even from the outer precincts of Heaven itself. 

One wily titan, eager for revenge against the traitorous gods, gave mortals the secret of the paths of Immortality--a means to make themselves near equal to the gods. When the gods shut the gates of the Overworld, barring mortals from Heaven, their former champions began seeking their own apotheosis. What wouldn't be shared, they reasoned, they would take.

Connecting with the pillars that supported the cosmos--the so-called Spheres of Matter, Energy, Thought, and Time--mortals began to walk the paths to Immortality. In the process, they discovered more secrets of the Cosmos's creators. They developed technology that allowed them to conquer the world and usher in an age of advancement and wonder with flying cities, automata, and sagacious, living libraries. It was also an age of excess and violence with strange monsters crawling from the subterranean laboratories and towering war machines wielding eldritch weapons to lay waste to cities. This time was known as the Age of High Magic or the Age of the Wizard-Kings.

The end of the Age came when internecine fighting had weakened the Wizard-Kings such that they could not defend against a succession of threats: the forces of Chaos launching sorties into the Cosmos, and irruptions of the Underworld caused by the Lich Lords, and continued subversion by the fiends from Hell. In the end, a coup by chromatic dragons toppled the most powerful surviving Wizard-Kings.

The remnants of their power remain, though. In the ruins of sky cities or in the depths of the dungeons they built adventurers still encounter they creations, technology and servitors. Perhaps somewhere the secrets of Immortality await the lucky delver?

The Undying Kings of the Underworld

In the aftermath of the Titan War, with the withdrawal of the gods left from the world, humans were able to seize divine knowledge and tools as spoils of war. This theft would reverberate even far, even to the gloomy halls of the Underworld. 

There were the recently arrived souls of great mages and heroes, fallen in the war either fighting for the titans or the gods. These personalities burning with power and rage at the perceived injustice of the universe, resisted the pull of dissolution. Their souls would not enter the cycle of reincarnation. Without the Unseen Lord, God of the Underworld, to quell their rebellion, they ransacked the cities and forests of the lands of the dead to find a way out. Their frenzy cracked the Underworld itself, and they found themselves on the event horizon of the Negative Energy Plane. 

They stared into the abyss and the abyss stared back. And then, perhaps, something within it spoke. The great mages and heroes discovered a way for their intellects to live beyond death, and even to be returned to their physical bodies. To power these miracles, they would need to build receptacles to house the negative energy. The only accommodation necessary to utilize this new and seemingly endless replacement for their life force was a small one. They would just have to give up their souls.

These nine (so it is believed) Undying Kings, or Lich Lords as they are sometimes called, became the new rulers of the Underworld. When that was accomplished, they sought to extend their reach to the world of the living. They sent tendrils of Underworld rising up, and the swirling mists formed cysts of the land of the dead, the Shadowfells. From these bridgeheads, the lich lords raised armies of undead, led by mighty warriors, called Death Knights.

Their conquest of the world of the living isn't driven merely by a desire for territory. Their goad is the Negative Energy Plane, and its hunger for unmaking and entropy. Their own fates are tied to its eternal appetite, so it's needs are their necessity. The self-centered nature of the Lich Lords has hampered their cooperation, and that combined with the weakening of the Shadowfells in daylight hours has slowed their advancement, but the Undying Kings are not hurried as time is something they have in abundance.

This is part of this setting.