superman Movie

 So far I am hearing very good reviews of the new Superman movie, despite those complaining because Kal-El is shown as an immigrant to the planet, which he is. "Strange visitor from another world" and all that as the original original had it.  If you see the movie, bring in your ticket and purchase $10 worth of Superman books, we will give you a reproduction of Adventure Comics #210, featuring the first appearance of Krypto.

Marvel RPG

 Marvel has announced the Marvel Multiverse RPG for release in 2022 . Not suprisingly, there will be three differnt covers. I am just suprised there are  not 7 or more and that one is a 1:25 variant copy.

By my count this is at least the third Marvel RPG that has released.  TSR did one back in the 1980s. Wizard Publications put one out about 10 years ago and  Margaret Weiss Productions released one about 5 or so years ago. There may have been one or two others  but if there are, I do not remember them.

The MCU and super heroes in general, have always been hard to replicate in RPG form On one hand, you have characters with power off the charts like Superman and Thanos and on the other hand you have "street level" heroes like Elektra and Robin. How do you make a balanced system that allows players to create both types of characters?  I still think Champions was one of the best RPG systems for accomplihing this and even it would not easly let you make a Hulk-type character.

Why The Red Trunks?

Caught this interview with Zach Snyder on NPR today and learned something I never knew before:  why the red shorts on Superman?

For year's people have joked about Superman wearing his underwear on the outside rather than under the tights, but if Snyder is correct, the design is based on the garb worn by wrestlers and strongmen of the late 19th/early 20th century:

The body suit with contrasting trunks was common attire for strongmen and wrestlers during the area.  This makes sense as Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster would have needed something to base the character design upon and, given that the story positioned Superman as the strongest man in the world,  what better costume than that worn during their youth by the men who proclaimed themselves the strongest men in the world?

Superman Celebration

Set up at the Superman Celebration in Metropolis IL this past weekend.  The city estimates about 35,000 people attend each year but I sure did not see those kind of numbers.  Numbers were certainly respectable but I did not see the same number of people in costume that I did when last there two years ago.  Food vendors did quite well though, as did the Chamber of Commerce, as both were selling out of merchandise on Friday and having to restock.

Weather was great on Thursday through Saturday, with sporadic rainstorms on Sunday.  There were more vendors of Superman memorabilia there this year than last but a significant drop in street vendors.  If you wanted a hand-dipped corn dog or funnel cake there were a dozen plus stands selling them but many fewer booths selling non-food items.  From what I understand, the organizers of the Superman Celebration cracked down significantly on vendors selling knockoff and unlicensed Superman  merchandise, which accounted for a large number of the non-food vendors in past years.

Margot Kidder was the big-name guest, followed by Tracy Scoggins, the guy who played Luthor on Smallville and a couple of actors who appeared in separate episodes of The Adventures of Superman.  Jerry "The King" Lawler was also there, signing autographs, and was promoted at the event, though not on the website.  I was impressed that Lawler was the only celebrity to stay around to sign autographs on Sunday, the others only appearing on Friday and Saturday.

DC Heroes RPG

Green Ronin Publishing has just announced a DC Heroes role playing game based on their award winning Mutants and Masterminds system, which is in turn based on the also award winning Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 role playing system. No idea as to price yet.

I'm of two minds on this product. On the one hand, there have been a number of licensed super hero RPGs over the years, including 3 editions of set in the DC Universe from Mayfair games, based on logarithms, another DCU based one from West End Games that used their d6 system with some modifications and 2 editions of a Marvel licensed game from TSR, one percentage dice based and one card based. The Mayfair and the first TSR version each lasted roughly 5 years while the West End and second TSR ones only lasted about a year. Licensed RPGs featuring characters from the Big Two don't have a very good track record in the market.

On the other hand, the previous DC and Marvel games were system specific. A system was created for use with the particular universe, rather than adapting an already existing game system to the universe. Mutants & Masterminds has proved it has a dedicated base of support and already has one super heore universe under license, George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards. Adapting the DC Universe to the already existing M&M rules system may prove the way to go.

J. Michael Stracyzinski

J. Michael Stracyzinski, best know as the creative force behind the Babylon 5 TV series, has been working in comics for ht epast few years, most recently on Spider Man. DC has just announced that, come July, he will take over the writing chores on both Superman and Wonder Woman. Given his emphasis on long term plot development and characterization, it will be interesting to see what he does with both characters.