I'm working on converting my homebrew to 5E in preparation for running a game, and this means going through a bunch of old notes to get organized (it's been a while). I just found my notes on the minotaur pirate island, and I am still amused by the idea of vikings that come with their own horns.

The vast majority of people are very bad liars. A very few people are naturally good liars, and many people are very practised liars, but most people are unable to mask deception, keep their stories consistent, and avoid tripping red flags while being questioned.

In all seriousness though, elder millennial jokes aside, I think it’s important to resist the media framing of any mainstream resistance to the status quo as just the shrill nonsense of middle-aged women with nothing better to do. This isn’t the first time they’ve run out this playbook.

Watching the Matrix as I work on converting my homebrew world to 5E. It's a very geeky Friday night (Saturday morning).

One of my favourite things in the comics is when one side of a fight is clearly outmatched, but both sides are still taking the pre-fight dialog very secretly. Like, threaten all you want, but the Hulk and Thor are on this side, and you appear to be run of the mill minions, so ...

Posting a comic cover I love (and keeping the theme)!

Reading anything by Steve Gerber is always a trip. His stuff is always weird, never boring. #comicsky

Name: Old Combat Zone Artist: Adrian Marc Game: Cyberpunk RED Book: Night City 2045

If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula.

Question for #comicsky. I'm a big fan of the way Wasp is written in Avengers EMH. Can anyone recommend a Wasp run that I might also enjoy? I've generally been reading older comics and the writing for Wasp is as bad, if not worse than other female superheroes.

Yes I'm religious, I believe in the holy trinity.

I think one of my favourite things about Avengers EMH is how new characters constantly appear without the writers feeling obligated to drag the story to a halt while they introduce them by name, describe their powers, and explain their origins.

Strong women are awesome!

So during COVID, I had the idea to start reading as many Marvel comics as I could from the beginning of the superhero age (FF #1). When I started doing this, I looked for podcasts from people who had done or tried similar things. There were some, but not as many as I'd have thought.

Tonight seems like a good night to re-watch Hackers (1995) and ignore current events. #hacktheplanet #villainsonskateboards

The S.H.I.E.L.D Heli-Carrier has come a long way. #comicsky #fridgesinflight

It's possible that I might be a giant nerd. There are signs.

In our ongoing series of comic book civilians making bad choices, we have Burt Kelso, the only man on the security guard force brave enough to face down the Hulk. #comicsky #thugsmakingbadchoices

If I was going to hire a mercenary to go after the Hulk for me, I'd probably look for a psychic or maybe someone who can turn themselves into gas or electricity. I wouldn't choose someone whose whole deal is grappling people. It goes as well as you'd expect for Temu Dr. Octopus (Constrictor).

People talk about how quicksand and lava aren't the threats that their childhood led them to believe they were. For child-Doombot, there was something else really powerful and scary.

I'm rewatching Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and I just realized that Klaw's henchmen are an homage to the cast of Predator.

I've finished the Wolfman run of Fantastic Four, which puts me up to around April of 1980. I have multiple series where I'm still back in the 1970s, so it's time to jump to my next title. One of my favourite characters, and the absolute ruling king of one of my favourite types of characters. (1/1)

As I do these multi-thread musings on old comic books, I hope I'm using the "Add Another Post" option correctly and I'm not accidentally spamming people's FYP.

Another notable first appearance in my recent Fantastic Four read is H.E.R.B.I.E., a Marvel character with an interesting past. H.E.R.B.I.E. is arguably the very last Lee/Kirby creation, created during Kirby's last days of his last stretch of time at Marvel. (1/5)

A while back I posted a thread on how Sue Storm is one of my favourite Marvel characters, and how in reading Silver and Bronze Age Fantastic Four, I've been really happy to see how her treatment by authors does improve, albeit in incrementally and inconsistently (1/3).

Me in every Teams meeting.

Me rolling into the open games night at the local community centre.

One of my dogs just stood there and looked at me as I held up the edge of a blanket so he could crawl under. It's because he wanted under the weighted blanket and not the fleece one. On tonight's episode of This Used To Be A Wolf.

I got quote-tweeted by Gail Simone and that's pretty cool for me.

An ex foreign-legion soldier A member of an ancient brotherhood A brilliant archivist The archivist's scoundrel-sibling

Johnny with a big swing and miss. He's probably lucky Ben wasn't around to see this.

Kon-El: Batman made murder plans for every member of the Justice League. Did you do that for Young Justice? Tim Drake: I just figured if I needed to kill you all I’d just put poison in our fridge and label it “Tim’s poison do not eat.”

So a few thoughts on one of my favourite Marvel characters, Sue Storm. I'm into Marv Wolfman's 1977-80 run on Fantastic Four (Issues 195-217), and one thing that I'm overjoyed by is the respect that Wolfman has for Sue Storm. (1/x)

So right now I'm working on getting all the titles I'm reading caught up to the 1980s. Next I'm diving back into the title that kicked off the Silver Age of comics and reading Fantastic Four from Issue 180 to Issue 213 or so.

"This is it. The moment we should have trained for." - Turanga Leela, Futurama

One of my favourite things about reading What If? is how it's written and drawn by a changing cast, but because it's all alternate timelines, there's no feel of discontinuity. It does, however, lead to Uatu the Watcher having a lot of different looks. First we have Gym Enthusiast Uatu.

I read comic books because they're a beautiful medium for understanding the times they're written while simultaneously immersing in timeless stories and lessons. Sometimes those lessons are subtle and abstract. Sometimes they're not. From a 1978 Marvel comics letters page:

Oh look. It's that time on a Friday afternoon where I stop pretending to be productive and start reading comics book instead.

My next read is going to be one of my favourite titles of all time -- What If? I've always loved reading alternate history books by authors like Harry Turtledove and SM Stirling, and I latched on to What If? when I first got into comics as a kid.

I've finished the 70s run of Ms. Marvel, which was fun. It cuts off mid-run, and judging by the revolving door of artists and writers for the last few issues, they were having trouble getting it covered.

My favourite comics are when the bricks from different teams get to team up to punch something really big. Hulk and Thing punching a supervillain at the same time is the ultimate expression of this, though Thor and Hercules comes close.

Random comment, but I love that A.I.M. henchmen wear their cylindrical hazmat helmets even when they're nowhere near a laboratory.

Describe your Bluesky account in a single image.

Moving forward from the Inhumans and the Guardians of the Galaxy, it's Gerry Conway and John Buscema's Ms. Marvel (the original)! 23 issues from January 1977 to April 10, 1979, which I think is the full run. I've read these before, but it was a long time ago and I'm looking forward to the re-read.

Post a comic cover you love.

One of my favourite thing in comics is when henchmen show uncommon common sense and realize the ridiculousness of their position when going up against superheroes. From the Gerber run of Guardians of the Galaxy I just finished:

I really like the current incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy but as I read the older Gerber stuff, I have to say that the concept of one survivor of each of the planets in our solar system, separated by 1000s of years of evolution, is really cool and would make a great movie or miniseries.

My next read: Marvel Presents -- specifically the short run of Guardians of the Galaxy by Steve Gerber, one of my favourite writers. This is the first iteration of the Guardians, which I actually enjoy as more thematically coherent, if a little more dated.

More thoughts on the George Perez run of the Inhumans: I think more comic book runs should end with the heroes fighting the Hulk. It makes for easy milestones. First you fight Spidey because of a misunderstanding.

Thoughts on hitting the end of the George Perez Inhumans' run: I'd actually like to read more Triton. I haven't read a lot of Namor beyond the Silver Age, so maybe he'll show up in some of those books. This nearly killed me, thinking of the ten-year old that Karnak probably beat for the trophy.