Archive for PS238

Dragons and Dungeons

PS238 #39

Alec Kent used to be a normal kid with a talent for art and mathematics, but after taking a trip to another universe a couple issues ago, he emerged with the ability to draw pictures and patterns that have magical properties. As a result, he gets introduced to the metahuman kids at PS238, where he’ll soon be enrolled as a student. Tyler Marlocke takes him on a short tour — he points out spellcasting teacher Vashti Imperia’s office, which has been blocked off by a magical brick wall ever since her mysterious disappearance. Unfortunately, Alec draws one of his teleportation patterns on the brick wall and goes after her — Tyler follows, after putting on his Moon Shadow costume. What they find on the other side is a magical fantasy world of castles and adventurers and witches and a very large, angry dragon. They also run into a little girl named Vashti Imperia — not a de-aged Vashti, but her actual younger self — Alec and Moon Shadow have traveled in time to a magic-based “Heroic Age.”

Of course, they run into the older Vashti Imperia, disguised as a wicked witch, but they also run into some unexpected guest stars: the fantasy misadventurers from PS238 creator Aaron Williams’ other humor comic, “Nodwick.” Besides the big-schnozzed, sensible, and frequently-killed henchman Nodwick, they include Yeager the musclebound fighter, Atrax, a wizard with an outrageous mustache, Rowan, a hyper-aggressive ranger, and the bespectacled cleric Piffany.

Alec and Moon Shadow have to keep from getting shish-kebabed by Nodwick’s trigger-happy crew, get Ms. Imperia back to the school, and make sure the younger Vashti gets properly rescued… all while avoiding the aforementioned very large, angry dragon.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great introductory story for Alec, a great return for Vashti Imperia, and a pretty cool crossover for Nodwick and his crew. The big climax of the story is actually pretty epic and dramatic — big props for Aaron Williams’ artistic and storytelling skills. This one is hard to find, but it’s worth the effort for you to track it down.

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Soccer Hooligans!

PS238 #38

The kids from PS238 are competing against the kids from the wildly evil Praetorian Academy in a soccer match. So the Wonderburg sports complex has installed forcefields to protect the crowd from high-velocity soccer balls and soundwave cancellation systems to cut down on the sonic booms. The Praetorians jump to an early lead, thanks to the former Captain Clarinet and to the Praetorians’ willingness to cheat. But Tyler Marlocke, the Flea, and Cecil Holmes have discovered an invisible ship observing the game, and they sneak aboard to investigate. But can they escape the clutches of the Headmaster and keep a dimensional rift from eating the soccer field?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great work with the plot advancing along with the soccer game, which is a lot of fun all on its own. Bernard Brenner, PS238’s pint-sized Hulk analogue, has a lot of fun cheering on his team. And Cecil is, as always, great to read — he’s really developing into one of this series’ best characters. If you’re not reading this comic, you should start reading it as quickly as you can.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #9

This issue focuses on the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange, along with his assistant, Jason Wong, and his teacher, the Ancient One. Strange and Wong are enjoying an afternoon at the Guggenheim Museum when they’re suddenly attacked by a spell-slinging squirrel. A squirrel? Turns out its actually Dormammu, Ruler of the Dark Dimension, temporarily forced to assume the form of a lowly rodent. When he finally claims his full power, he has some odd ways of going about conquering the world. He turns all the vehicles in the world into red convertibles, except for the ones parked close to a mailbox. And he eats a hot dog. What’s going on? Turns out the last time the Ancient One defeated Dormammu, he got him to sign a binding contract forcing him to follow all kinds of silly rules. Can Dr. Strange, Wong, the Ancient One, and Daredevil’s pal Foggy Nelson find the right loophole to banish Dormammu again?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is pretty amazingly silly stuff. So of course, I approve wholeheartedly.

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Friday Night Fights: Friday Night Foot!

Hasn’t been too rough a week for me — heck, I’m unemployed, so that means I get to live the harsh life of sitting around the house, watching TV, trying not to overeat, and just, you know, have nightmares about money and homelessness and all that. So not too rough. But even on our easiest weeks, we still need something to get us out of our day-to-day schedule. So, the weekend’s almost here, and the best way to get stoked for the weekend is with our old pal FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight, we’re going to go for some seriously hardcore violence, so small children, squicky parents, and people who totally freak out about violence may wish to look away.

From November 2002, here’s a panel from PS238 #0 by Aaron Williams, featuring the epic battle between Bernard Brenner and his dad’s foot.

The savagery! The carnage! The limitless agonizing aaaaagony! Although you may find this panel tacked up in our friendly neighborhood podiatrist’s office. One person’s pain is another person’s Porsche…

(BTW, you can check out Aaron Williams’ awesome website right over here.)

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Stories within Stories

PS238 #37

We get a break from some of the recent epic drama with a nice, relaxing transition story. The superpowered students have been given a creative writing assignment and are reading their only-somewhat-fictional stories to their classmates. The hyper-patriotic USA Patriot Act has a self-glorifying story that earns him the wrath of some of his classmates, Tyler Marlocke tells a story about the heroic and M.I.A. Moon Shadow (Tyler’s secret alter-ego), Toby Marlocke (Tyler’s superpowered clone) has a fantasy tale about the perils of great power, and Guardian Angel tells about her insecurities now that her powers don’t work right anymore, and Zodon recounts how his latest giant robot was a total failure… or was it? All that, plus preparations are being made for the school’s big soccer game against the rival Praetorian Academy, and Tyler has to decide whether he wants to become Moon Shadow again.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice breather before the upcoming drama with the villainous Praetorian Academy. The artwork is grand fun, too — two of Aaron Williams’ kids helped provide the drawings that accompany the superkids’ stories.

Booster Gold #17

Booster is still lost in time. He’s now stuck in the same time period when he literally ran over the Flash and Kid Flash with the Time Sphere, temporarily marooning them in time. Booster also has to contend with Chronos, a second mysterious time traveler, and the need to get a non-powered Barry Allen to a very important appointment with his origin story.

Verdict: Thumbs down. With two different Booster Golds and two different Barry Allens, this issue falls into a trap that a lot of time travel stories eventually run into — it’s just too danged confusing.

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Angels and Demons

We got time to look at a couple of new all-ages books? Yes, I do believe we can swing that.

PS238 #36

The unpowered Tyler Marlocke and his superpowered clone, now named Toby, are in the process of getting their parents used to the fact that they’re now twins. Meanwhile, Malphast, the son of an angel and a demon (think of him as a pint-sized Spawn), has discovered that his parents and the forces of primal order and chaos plan to invade the mortal world to force their collective wills upon humanity — which will certainly result in the destruction of the Earth. Malphast enlists the aid of the Marlocke twins, conspiracy-minded Cecil Holmes (and his mystical bat-winged coat), and Alec Kent, a local kid with some math talent.

While the little imps and cherubs influence superheroes to chase the kids down, Malphast and his friends draw some crayon glyphs to foil the bad guys and make a stopover in the astral plane to shut down the invasion at its source. Luckily, when Cecil travels to other dimensions, he turns into a giant, tentacled monster, but even with his giant, tentacled aid, can they discover the secret that will stop the invasion in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, this series is a colossal amount of fun. I don’t think Cecil was always this much fun — I think he’s gotten to be a more enjoyable character as time’s gone on. Seriously, y’all should pick this one up if you have the chance.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #3

Theo Adam has released the Seven Evils, and he finally manages to trick Mary Marvel into revealing their magic word to him. One “Shazam!” later, and the evil Black Adam is released on the world. While Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel try to figure out how to stop the Evils, Adam heads out to take over the city. Is there any way to stop him?

Verdict: This one is still awfully cute, but I think I’m going to give it a thumbs down. I enjoyed all the stuff with Cap, Mary, Adam, and the Evils (sounds like a band, doesn’t it?), but there was a lot of filler in this story, including Cap staying up all night to watch horror movies, and Billy meets a bunch of weird kids who have been given permanent detention. It’s bizarre and it goes on for way, way too long.

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Pet Sounds

Tiny Titans #10

We got a bit more focused story this time, with Supergirl and Batgirl as our two main characters. They’re gonna go hang out with the Titans, but they’ve forgotten to feed their pets! So Streaky the Super-Cat and Ace the Bathound head off to look for them. They barely miss their owners at Titans Treehouse, then it’s off to Gotham for a picnic, where the girls get grossed out by Kroc eating garbage and take off to Metropolis. But there, they have to deal with Bizarro who eats potato chips much too noisily. Will Streaky and Ace ever catch up to their owners and get their dinner?

Verdict: Thumbs up. At least partly for this:

That’s the “Tiny Titans” version of Killer Croc. And one of the sound effects is actually “GARBAGE!” That’s just plain awesome.

PS238 #35

Tyler Marlocke has finally been cured of his alien xenovirus, thanks to a transfusion of Susie Finster’s superpowered red blood cells. Unfortunately, his clone has gotten superpowers – and he’s being piloted by an angel and a demon who can’t agree on how to make him fly and are willing to make him look good by turning innocent people into supervillains for him to defeat. In fact, every time he uses his powers, something bizarre and unexpected happens. What’s the cause of all this? It seems that the parents of half-demon/half-angel Malphast have decided they’re willing to upset the natural order just to see their son…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one is always lots of fun. I got no idea how they’re going to clear up all the problems with Tyler and his clone.

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The Justice Kids

PS238 #34

Things are getting weirdly interesting in Wonderburg, home to PS238, the school for superpowered kids. Tyler Marlocke is currently in two different places at once — he’s locked in stasis to keep an alien virus from infecting the rest of the world, and he’s also running around town in a clone body that may be developing its own superpowers. He hangs out for a while with Julie “84” Finster and attends a cookout with Julie and her cousins, the Nuclear Family — Julie’s parents and the Nuclears don’t like each other much, so they spend most of their time arguing. And even worse, a bunch of imps and cherubs who only the kids can see are making the adults and some interdimensional crystal entities fight each other!

Unfortunately, when Tyler gets put into a crystal prison by the invaders, it gives his clone, which had apparently evolved its own sentience, the opportunity to throw off Tyler’s control and start taking action. And extra-unfortunately, the clone doesn’t seem to be a very nice guy. Julie is able to get the imps and cherubs to leave, and it looks like her superpowered blood may be just the thing to cure Tyler’s alien virus, but will Dr. Newby be able to formulate a cure in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, this comic is a ton of fun. Y’all should go pester your local comic shop for a copy — it’s definitely worthy of wider popularity.

The Family Dynamic #2

Tragedy Ann and Tom Foolery want to re-enact the Hindenburg disaster, but the Family Dynamic get warned off from helping because Pyralis’s flame powers could blow up the blimp. Instead, the unpowered vigilantes Blackbird and Little Wing take down the villains. It’s soon revealed that Blackbird is really Maeve Spencer, sister of Pyralis, and Little Wing is her extremely enthusiastic daughter.

Verdict: I’m still giving this a thumbs up, because it’s an absolute metric ton of fun, but I really, really wanna see some more effort on summaries and on reminding us of all these people’s real names. Yes, it’s a minor point, but this comic’s large cast — and all those Latin names for the F.D.’s super-names — really cry out for a few good summary panels to make sure we all remember who everyone is…

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Multiple Guess

Okay, heading back to work today, so that means it’s time to get some comics reviews done.

 

PS238 #33

Poor Tyler Marlocke is still in three places at once. He’s in a stasis pod in the school’s basement because he’s been infected with an alien virus; he’s running around in a cloned body, which is being operated by remote-control from within the stasis pod, because if the alien student Prospero even suspects that Tyler is still infected, he’s going to destroy the Earth; and he’s existing in a quasi-dimension in the Castle Beyond Space and Time, where he has to decide whether the cosmos will continue to let humanity have superpowers.

Meanwhile, Cecil Holmes, the alien-obsessed student with the magic overcoat, has been taken on a field trip by Kent Allard, who’s secretly the Revenant. He’s taken Cecil to see if he can figure out whether a group of corporate CEOs are aliens — Revenant suspects that Cecil has a superpower of his own, namely the ability to sense whether or not someone has superpowers. Unfortunately, the CEOs are all supervillains, and they’ve figured out who Revenant is.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s weird how great a character Cecil has become, ’cause when he was first introduced, I just couldn’t stand him. His scenes with the Revenant are just wonderful. The rest of the book is worth buying, too. Y’all get this one put on your pull-list, okay? It’s definitely worthy of a larger readership.

 

The Brave and the Bold #16

While Batman is out of town, Superman is keeping watch over Gotham City. Commissioner Gordon has asked him to try to track down an underworld auction, but he runs into Catwoman pulling a big heist so she can get a large enough stake to be allowed to attend the auction in question. The main item up for bid: the map to a certain hidden cave near Gotham. Of course, Supes decides he’d better attend the auction to keep the Batcave’s location safe, but of course, no plan is perfect, and things get a lot more chaotic.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great banter between Supes and Catwoman. I especially love the mild-mannered disguise Selina puts together to let Superman attend the auction incognito.

 

1985 #4

The supervillains of the Marvel Universe have invaded the real world and are busy slaughtering as many people and causing as much chaos as they can. Toby and his dad make a narrow escape from the Lizard, then join the evacuees trying to get out of town. Dad goes back to find Toby’s mom, who’s still hiding out in her house, and Toby decides to snoop around the old Wyncham mansion, where the invasion seems to be centered. But what can a kid do to stop a horde of supervillains? Well, he can always call for backup…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The chaos of the situation is very well-realized. I love Dad’s reactions when the Lizard threatens Toby — it’s not exactly comic-book heroic, but it is real-world realistic. Toby going dimension-hopping looks to be fun, too.

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Kid Stuff

 

PS238 #32

Soooo much stuff going on here. Tyler Marlocke is actually in three places at once — in a stasis chamber underneath the school, walking around in a mentally remote-controlled robot, and sitting in the Castle Beyond Space and Time trying to decide if humanity should be allowed to continue having superpowers. He gets to talk to Ron Peterson, formerly Captain Clarinet, who’s actually gone over the evil Praetorian Academy! Also, Tyler gets deposed from his position as class president by American Eagle and USA Patriot Act, Cecil Holmes gets recruited by the Revenant, and a mini angel and demon have done something weird to all three of Tyler’s bodies.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spooky stuff going on, and the scariest thing is probably Ron’s defection to the Praetorians. It’s like Superman deciding he’d rather hang out with the Joker than fight crime…

 

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #25

We’ll make this one short and sweet: Arnim Zola. And brain-switching!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Is there any plot more awesome than getting the heroes’ brains switched into different bodies? I’ll answer that for you — there is not.

 

The Flash #241

Gorilla Grodd causes more trouble, at least up ’til the point where he completely fades away. Wally’s daughter Iris unexpectedly ages to her teens and gets her own superspeed powers. The townspeople, driven nuts by Spin’s out-of-control powers, set the Flash Museum on fire, forcing Flash to have to rescue the frozen-in-time body of Impulse’s evil clone, Inertia.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I expect this will mark the return of Inertia to villainy, and I’m hoping Iris isn’t about to unexpectedly age any further or vanish into thin air or something.

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Roleplaying for Metaprodigies

 

PS238: The Roleplaying Game

Here’s something I don’t get to do too often — reviewing a pen-and-paper roleplaying game. If you’re familiar with Aaron Williams’s “PS238” comic book, this should be fairly clear — PS238 is a school for kids with superpowers. They get training in how to use their powers and how to maintain a secret identity. The entire school is secret, located three miles underground beneath a normal elementary school, and the super-powered kids have to attend both schools. It’s a very funny comic, and I recommend it without hesitation.

So Hero Games put out a PS238 game, written by Steven S. Long, and made it compatible with “Champions,” the best-known and most popular superhero RPG. In addition to a complete set of the HERO System rules, the book also includes a complete description of the school, character stats for the faculty members, students, villains, and other important characters, and some general gamemastering advice.

I do have a few problems with the book. First, I’m not a big fan of the “Champions” system. I know, lots of people play it and love it, but I just can’t get into it. Back when there was a such thing as GURPS Third Edition, I liked their treatment of superheroes, and nowadays, I like to pick up “Mutants and Masterminds,” which really does seem to be the best superhero game I’ve ever seen. Still, obviously, my dislike of “Champions” is a personal preference only.

A bit more substantial a problem is the book’s typos, which range from “barely noticible” to “fairly wacky and embarrassing.” One thing that jumped out at me while I was reading the book was that they stuck Julie Finster with some of Captain Clarinet’s disadvantages — specifically, they said she had the same vulnerability to the Kryptonitesque mineral that CC did — of course, Captain Clarinet is an alien, and Julie is a human, so there was clearly a problem with copy-and-pasting stats from one character to another.

I was also unhappy with the quality of the gamemastering and player tips. Specifically, there’s no advice for either players or GMs on how they should roleplay children. It’s not that obvious, of course. Sure, we were all kids once upon a time, but slipping from an adult’s mindset into a child’s isn’t as easy as it sounds. Williams does a good job of it in the comic book, but there needs to be some advice on this subject in the book.

And this may seem overly nitpicky, but the cover of this book just plain honks me off. Look at it up there — completely off-balance. Obviously, the kid heroes confronting that bully is what’s supposed to be front-and-center on the front cover, while Victor von Fogg and (unseen) Zodon arguing about their laser-beam tic-tac-toe game on the moon is supposed to be on the back cover. Something went bad wrong in the design process, however, and we get the amateurish crap job we see here.

So that’s a lot of griping, but I still like the game. All the art in the book is by Williams, taken from his comic book, and there’s just tons of great info about the characters and setting — it’s really like having a complete guidebook to the PS238 universe. With the right bunch of players, I could see this being incredibly fun to play — in fact, it might be a good system to use for young roleplayers — instead of asking them to play adult psychopaths raiding dungeons, let ’em play themselves with superpowers.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Even with the problems, you should check it out.

(I keep considering whether to start reviewing roleplaying games more often, but I usually resist the temptation. It’s been something like a decade since I played an RPG, so I keep worrying that I don’t know enough about the current state-of-the-art to be able to do a proper review. Ehh, maybe I’ll review some more, maybe not…)

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