E!TACT! #5
Kamandi Challange #12, The New Age of DC Heroes, The Overlooked: an RPG,
By Grunion Guy
Kamandi Challenge #12
By Simone, Levitz, Sook, García-López, Thompson, Prado, Mulvihill, Crossley, and Martin
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| I still don't know what the fuck we were supposed to be solving! |
At least when DC did this last time, they set up the DC Challenge as a mystery. True, nobody treated it like a mystery. Every writer just added more bullshit and more characters each month while ignoring the calculator clue that Eli Ellis was responsible for whatever the fuck the mystery was. I can't remember anything about the comic book except that, yes, I solved it before DC did. I noted the Eli Ellis clue that every subsequent writer ignored because Batman is a terrible detective when he has to rely on real people to do his work for him. I think one of the other clues Batman was supposed to decipher had to do with Benjamin Franklin being on the fifty dollar bill.
If your reaction to that last sentence was, "Wait. That's not right!", then congratulations! You're also smarter than DC Challenge's Batman!
But getting back to the Kamandi Challenge, what the fuck is the challenge? What am I supposed to be figuring out? I hope before they reveal the solution, they'll explain the mystery!
They didn't explain the mystery. But I guess the mystery was "Did you know Jack Kirby was Kamandi's father?" and the solution was, "Yep! Jack Kirby was Kamandi's father!" So the final issue was like that moment in Cerebus when Dave Sim sings a Pink Floyd song to his aardvarkian creation while they discuss the importance of the Injury to the Eye motif in comic books destroying the innocence of American children. Except with less misogyny.
Speaking of Cerebus, I sometimes wonder how many people were left reading the monthly book by the end. Probably less than ten thousand, right? That number might even be pretty high. Well, if you weren't one of those who made it to the end, let me explain Dave Sim's concept of the creation of the universe. See, there was this female void and this male not-void. And the female void was super sexy which caused the male not-void to want to fuck it. Now, the female was a void because she was empty of the creative process, being that her only reason for existing was henpecking and nagging the male not-void. But the male not-void was super creative and full of creative juices. Now, the male not-void would have created the best universe in the world with his great male creativity, but he was distracted by the female void, what with her basically being a giant, infinite orifice. And because he spent so much energy trying to please her so that he could fuck her, he didn't get any creative work done and the world suffered for it and became less than perfect. In other words, if you're a male, you should become a celibate hermit so that you can create a six thousand page comic book that doesn't suffer the influence of women. Although being that a good portion of that six thousand pages was all about how women ruin everything, it would seem that women ruined those six thousand pages anyway!
I don't think Kamandi Challenge is going to end as crazily although it begins that way with Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth, resolving some father issues with a godlike father figure cradling a massive phallic object. I hope Jack Kirby's final words to Kamandi aren't, "Don't trust women, boy! Not that there are any left. That's just general advice! What I mean to say is, 'Don't get distracted by your penis.'" Then he chomps down on his cigar and his eyes roll back in his head and he mutters, "Oh yeah. That's good oral fixation."
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| Oh. I guess Kirby is the anti-Dave Sim. He wants Kamandi to fuck! |
Some of you that read up through Dave Sim's "Tangent" before breaking your connection with him might be thinking, "Your explanation about his creation of the world was in Mothers & Daughters. I thought you were going to explain some shit from the end!" And I did! It's just that the Mothers & Daughters creation story basically became Dave Sim's vehicle for explaining The Bible. Instead of one male God, he tells the Genesis story as if it were a back and forth between two Gods, the form and the void, or the male and the female. At least that's how I remember it. I'd reread it but I'm not sure I can muster the energy to slog through that shit again.
The issue ends with Bobo the Chimp saying, "This is what comics are about! I hope you had fun!" Well, fuck you, Bobo. I didn't have fun. This was worse than DC Challenge! Mostly because I hate reading 240 pages of sucking Jack Kirby's dick metaphors. I'd rather have simply had a bunch of artists draw that.
The New Age of DC Heroes
Around the time Image cropped up causing the people behind the scenes at DC to begin shitting themselves over writer's and artist's rights to the characters they created, DC began thinking up schemes to create as many new characters as possible so they could own all of the ideas. There was that crap about Bloodlines which created nearly no heroes that anybody cared about and then some other shit about a meta-gene which might have had to do with the Legends miniseries. That might not have created new heroes as much as relaunched a few franchises like the Justice League and the Suicide Squad. But I had to add it to make my point because just referencing Bloodlines didn't seem like enough evidence of DC losing their minds about the potential loss of profits in having to acknowledge creator's rights. Plus the Legends thing fits in with this whole "New Age of DC." That's because this new wave of heroes will become extant thanks to the Metal Gene. That's my guess, anyway. I figured I should take a look at these up and coming heroes and judge them by their covers.
DAMAGE
I don't have any issue with Robert Venditti's writing, and I might, in fact, even like it better than most. But I'm not interested in reading a comic book that's probably not a complete rip-off of The Hulk according to DC's lawyers. Nor am I interested in seeing two to three double page spreads of this monster every issue. Here's Tony S. Daniel's quote on the book (which you've all probably read since it's in every issue of DC Comics sold for two or more weeks):
"As I grow personally and as an artist, it feels similar to how Damage is trying to be the best version of himself."
It seems odd to compare yourself to a character that explodes into a monstrous rage an hour each day but I guess it's provided me some insight into Tony's personality. I wonder if once or twice per day, Tony S. Daniel pictures himself in a double splash page? What would that even entail? I've probably had only a half dozen double splash pages in my entire life and they were the kind of double splash pages that I complain about because they would have communicated the exact same message as a regular panel. And, yes, my loss of virginity would be one of those.
Picture me climbing clumsily on top of the lucky woman who was about to obliterate my sexual innocence as I say, "Am I in? Am I...OH GOD YES! Um, sorry."
THE SILENCER
John Romita Jr. is artist on this series so if you hate subtle curves in your art, this might be the book for you. It's written by Dan Abnett who I've never found anything but sufficient. Apparently Romita fell in love with the boring name of this hero and just knew he had to bore audiences on this book. It's also possible I'm misremembering the back of the comic book interview with this "creative" team. If you liked that movie about those hot actors who were a married couple but also spies, you'll probably read this book and say, "What is this shit? It's a total rip off of that movie I love! The one with Lara Croft in it!"
Here's Romita's quote on the book: "That's what I like, something realistic and you add fantastic to it." Imagine how terrible all of his other quotes about this book must have been if that's the one DC went with. "I like real stuff but exciting! Imagine having real sex but with, like, a thumb up your butt! Real but fantastic!"
SIDEWAYS
This book's name was probably based on Kenneth Rocafort's inability to draw a standard comic book panel. This comic book is about Vibe except it's not Vibe at all. He's totally different for some reason. Maybe he's not boring? Although he's taken up the name Sideways, so he's definitely not creative or witty.
Kenneth Rocafort says: "I prefer to let my art speak for itself." Hey! Thanks for the fucking aggressive quote, asshole! "Hey, Kenny! How do you enjoy working on this new series?" "Why don't you look at this, bitch! BLAM!" The "BLAM" is when he shoves one of his drawings in the face of the interviewer. Later, the interviewer realizes she's now suffering from vertigo thanks to Rocafort's haphazard page layout.
THE TERRIFICS
Finally a book I'm excited about! Metamorpho and Plastic Man together?! Which one will be the funny one? Does the comic book have enough room for two funny characters?! Also Mister Terrific and Phantom Girl, for some reason. Plus there's mention of Tom Strong. What now?! Thankfully this is written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Ivan Reis so I have no horribly judgmental insults to heap upon the creative team.
Ivan Reis: "Readers have never seen a group like this." Maybe Rocafort had the right idea. Maybe the artists should just keep quiet.
THE IMMORTAL MEN
This series sounds interesting except for one aspect: James Tynion IV is writing it. I might add it to my pull list anyway because how much could it cost per month? Jim Lee is on art duty so it'll probably only come out every other month, at best.
How is James Tynion IV going to write characters that have been around for centuries? Is this book going to be about a bunch of Immortal Men having to learn from their new millennial pal, Caden Park? Is he going to teach them about all the different genders which they can't possibly understand, being old and probably white and most likely male (see the "MEN" in the name!). I bet Caden is bisexual.
Jim Lee: "When you create new characters, you can kind of swing for the fences." Why didn't somebody help Jim Lee with his quote. The whole idea of the phrase "to swing for the fences" is that you aren't "kind of" doing something. I'd like to see how he draws this idea. Then maybe I'd understand it! Although I'd probably wonder why he had to scribble on the person kind of swinging for the fence's face.
THE CURSE OF BRIMSTONE
Wasn't Brimstone the big bad dude in Legends that the Suicide Squad had to defeat? Remember, I might read comic books but I don't remember them very well. The most interesting thing about this series is the name. I was intrigued when I read the name and then became less intrigued as I read the concept and then was completely out of intrigue by the time I read Justin Jordan's quote: "He's a character who wants to try and do good with a power that is fundamentally evil." That sounds like somebody trying to make a mountain out of a philosophical mole hill. Unless his power is evil because it only works while keeping people in other nations starving, what does it matter if the power is "fundamentally evil"? Does that even mean anything? Unless, like I said, it has some kind of huge negative repercussion on the world. Because if it does then Brimstone is definitely just a narcissistic douche rationalizing his heroism. But if it's just evil in the sense that it was given to him by the devil, who the fuck cares? All that really means is that the devil is probably kicking himself every time Brimstone helps people using his devilish powers.
Philip Tan: "I love world building, and this project allowed me to create the look." Fucking hell. Will somebody please stop asking the artists what they think?! It's pissing me off because I'm beginning to respect Rocafort's answer!
NEW CHALLENGERS
Somehow, this series isn't being written by Dan DiDio. Everybody knows who the Challengers of the Unknown are and this is more of that. But it's by Scott Snyder! So whoever missed the memo that Snyder's writing isn't as great as we all thought it was (and it was. I think? Remember that thing about me not remembering comics at all?!) will probably be excited for this. Since it's the "New" Challengers, I take it that means the team won't be a blond white guy, a brown haired white guy, another brown haired white guy, a black guy, a red headed woman, and some kind of talking animal.
Scott Snyder's quote about this book was so good that the blurb about the comic is just a repeat of Snyder's quote. But Andy Kubert's quote doesn't disappoint (if you realize that by "doesn't disappoint," I mean that it totally does and that's what I expect from artists): "I am so excited to do science fiction, dinosaurs and all kinds of things like that." So fucking Andy Kubert is excited to, like, um...I don't know...draw?
THE UNEXPECTED
This is written by Steve Orlando so I kind of have to give it a chance. Until I read something by Steve Orlando that is the physical equivalent of Orlando pissing in my face, he'll get my money. Here's a quote from the comic book's description: "It centers in on something we all face every day, wrestling with our pasts and the compromises we've made." I'm glad I'm not a friend of whoever wrote that quote. I hope I'm not friends with anybody who identifies with that quote. Who the fuck is spending every day wrestling with their past and the compromises they made?! Fucking dramatic assholes, I suspect.
Ryan Sook's quote was fine. Thank you, Ryan, for a passable quote by an artist.
So that's that! I look forward to reading two of the New Age of DC Comics comics! Or would that simply be "New Age of DC comics"? It's hard to tell when the DC should have the word comics following it as a proper or improper noun. Was improper the right term there? I don't really fucking care.
And Now...A Game!
The Overlooked
A Roller Playing Game based on the HBO series The Leftovers.
If I'm not allowed to base a Roller Playing game on somebody else's Intellectual Property then pretend I never said it was based on what I said it was based on, even if I'm allowed to do it because this is technically a work of parody. It's not really but I write so poorly that it would be hard for any lawyer to argue that it wasn't parody because everybody in the court room will be laughing at my terrible style and constant incorrect use of big words.
The Premise
It's been three years since two percent of the population disappeared in the blink of an eye. No wait! It's been five years because that makes it significantly different than the television show. And instead of two percent, it was three percent! Everybody has tried to get on with their lives by somehow trying to forget the horror of that day but while also being constantly reminded of that day every single day. That's the whole conflict in the Roller Playing Game! How does your Fantasyer deal with what happened?! How does your Character deal with all of the other broken people trying to deal with what happened?! Will you ever figure out what happened? Can you ever get your life back on track? How many dogs will you kill?
Character Creation
Don't think up a name for your character just yet! The first order of business is to determine if your Character wasn't overlooked! Roll Percentile Dice. If you roll a one, a two or a three, your Character disappeared on the Day of the Disappearance! You win because you don't have to deal with all of the other pain in the butt people going crazy! Congratulations! I suppose if that isn't satisfactory, you can try rolling up another Character. In this case, your new Character is closely related to the Character who disappeared. You should probably make up a story about how messed up your new Character is due to not having as much good luck as their vanished loved one.
If your Character didn't vanish, you can name it now. You can decide yourself what gender it is and what kind of sex it likes. According to Tumblr, those are the most important attributes of a person after their name. Also race! Don't forget to not be a white heterosexual male because that's totally boring and probably evil. Oh! Unless you want to be an evil Character! There's plenty of room for those in this game! Remember that thing about shooting dogs? Probably only a white man would do that!
Using those Percentile Dice, roll on the following chart to determine your family:
01-10 Single, No Children
11-20 Married, One Child
21-30 Single, One Child
31-40 Married, Two Children
41-50 Single, Two Children
51-60 Re-married, Two Children
61-70 Widowed, One Child
71-80 Widowed, Two Children
81-90 Divorced, Three Children
91-96 Remarried, d6 Children
97-98 Pre-teen (Roll for family type)
99-00 Teen (Roll for family type)
Next, roll for each member of your family to see how many members of the family you just discovered you had vanished on the Day of Disappearance! If you roll a 50 or less, the person vanished! I know that math doesn't match the math of only three percent of people vanishing from the face of the Earth but you don't want to Roller Play a Character who hasn't been affected by a disappearance, do you? I mean, I'll still make it interesting because remember how screwed up everybody was in that one town where nobody vanished? I mean the hypothetical town and hypothetical situation that I just made up while winking at you and poking you with my elbow and whispering so any lawyers in the room couldn't hear me. Add fifteen to each subsequent roll if a family member vanished in a previous roll. So if you have to roll three times and two of your family members vanished in the first two rolls, the third roll is at +30. See? That makes it hard for you to wind up like that one Character whose boobies you always got to see who was super into playing the role of a victim. Remember how she used to have hookers shoot her in the chest while listening to Slayer?! Normally I would have begun that by saying "Spoiler warning!" but if I say that here, it could be used against me in a copyright court of law. It's better if everybody just thinks I made that up just now.
If none of your family members vanished, you should roll on the following chart because you really should have been personally affected in some way. Otherwise you may as well play the Roller Playing Game "Nothing Particularly Unusual Has Ever Happened." And why would you play that when it would just be a simulation of your typical Saturday night!
Person in Your Life Who Vanished
01-10 Your mother
11-20 Your father
21-30 The person you were doing it to.
31-40 The babysitter you were probably doing it to
41-50 Your best friend
51-60 Your nemesis
61-70 Your spiritual advisor (like a priest or rabbit or yoga instructor)
71-80 The taxi driver of a cab you were in
81-90 Your favorite celebrity
91-100 A person who was just about to murder you
Flaws
Each Character has a number of flaws that will help you to Roller Play them as they try to discover the mystery of the vanishing or just try to deal with their insecurities based on not having been taken too. Roll about five times on the following chart and hope that you can handle all of the psychological baggage that comes with being a troubled survivor obsessed with their own tragedy!
01-03 Only attracted to people who lost somebody on the Day of Disappearance because they probably won't be as hurt when you dump them.
04-06 You believe dogs...I mean cats...are turning into people and taking over America.
07-09 You hate your stupid family but keep pretending that you love them for some reason that I could never figure out.
10-12 Your mother died the day before while you were doing smack in the bathroom which led to intense guilt about being the child of a rock star.
13-15 You can never relax because you're constantly annoyed by crickets and charlatans.
16-18 You were a star of a YouTube series and the only member of the cast who wasn't taken.
19-21 You constantly masturbate because that's what you were doing when it happened and you're afraid if you don't keep picking at the pork pie, you'll wind up being taken.
22-24 You've joined a cult. See the Cult Creation section.
25-27 Voices in your head keep telling you to do things that are never mentioned at all!
28-30 Life is apparently meaningless so you've lost all inhibitions and engage in reckless behavior.
31-33 You were in an accident due to people disappearing and are now in a coma.
34-36 A doctor who was operating on you vanished while holding one of your kidneys and you really want it back.
37-39 You smoke just like every other person who can't cope with their life, especially without the constant unconditional love of a dog.
40-42 You hate your stupid family and don't keep pretending you love them, instead faking your own secondary vanishing.
43-45 You kill dogs on sight. I mean cats! Whichever, I guess.
46-48 You believe if you don't appropriate every culture you can think of, the world will end.
49-51 You pay prostitutes to shoot you while you wear a Kevlar vest and listen to Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling."
52-54 You've invented a Roller Playing game called "Nothing Particularly Unusual Has Ever Happened" so you can feel normal.
55-57 You keep yelling at your television...I mean, at other people...that it's all meaningless and they really should just get over it already.
58-60 You constantly rain on other people's parades and even got a job that helps you hurt them because you hate yourself and your life and your really nice boobies.
61-63 You died and came back to life and now you think you're God but you're really just a jerk.
64-66 You worship an old lion that was able to get a whole bunch of boners because why not? Nothing makes sense anymore!
67-69 You think the people who vanished are the lucky ones because remember how much you can't stand your family?
70-72 If you lost nobody, you only date people who lost multiple family members because you're sure to blow up that relationship easy!
73-75 Your father was a pedophile. This isn't as funny as you might expect. Or at all even.
76-78 One time you buried a bird in a box for three days and it survived and what the heck was that about anyway?!
79-81 You spent the last five years on top of a thirty foot tall pillar just to get away from your religious spouse.
82-84 You pay strangers to spank you with an oar and shout the first name of your favorite fat comedian.
85-87 I'm glad they eventually explained the goat guy.
88-90 You obsess over minute details because big picture thinking makes you want to commit suicide.
91-93 You can't stop obsessing over your own problems and no longer have any empathy for other people. I think every character has this one.
94-96 Were there any cats in the series? I don't remember there being any cats!
97-99 You can't let other people believe the vanished ones were taken by the Rapture because what does that say about you if they were? Sinner!
100 Somebody left a baby on your porch and you feel better now because caring for something helpless gives your life meaning. But just wait until you lose it and you once again have to face how life is as meaningless as Lily was to the show.
Special Powers
Some people in this post-meaning world have been given special powers for some reason. Maybe they're not really special powers at all! Maybe they're frauds or there is some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo behind it all. Who can tell?! It's not like anything matters anymore anyway. Just roll on the following chart, take your stupid special power, and consider yourself lucky! Or burdened, more likely!
01-96 No special power! Ha ha!
97 You can see through the disguises of dogs! Those sneaky mutts! You should probably kill them all!
98 You can't die! I don't know why you can't. It's not like it's ever explained in the show that this may or may not be based on!
99 You can hug people's pain away! This might just be a great big lie. But even if it is, it's a big hit with people of the gender you want to do it to!
100 You can tell people's future by making them do kindergarten art projects. This power is probably fake too. But play it as if it's real!
Cult Creation
After an event that seems to indicate the world ended (although suddenly losing two percent of the world's population doesn't seem like a bad thing, right? (I mean three percent!)), a lot of people lose faith in whatever crazy but accepted system of belief was barely keeping them tethered to sanity by providing a buffer against the possibility that nothing matters and we live in a careless and chaotic universe that doesn't have a special place in it for mankind. Since the old beliefs didn't stop masses of people from simply disappearing, maybe a new system of beliefs can help staunch the existentialism that's begun leaking in at the corners. That's where Cults come in! If you joined a Cult in Character Creation, welcome! You're about to learn your new rules to live by! This section should also be used by the Game Master to come up with some adversaries that aren't dogs or half-naked people.
First, come up with a name! This is easy. Just pick an adjective or an adverb and stick it in front of a noun or phrase. You should probably choose words that make people feel terrible. A good name might be The Penitent Fragment or the Sheepish Shred or The Regretful Oddment or The Conscience-Stricken Scrap. You can probably come up with one of your own since I'm running out of synonyms for The Guilty Remnant.
Second, you need to come up with some wacky rules. I suppose I could make another chart for those but they'd all be variations on what kind of clothing to wear and how to do your hair and make-up. Then the last rule would probably be about the conditions under which all the members would kill themselves. Your Game Master can figure that stuff out for themselves!
Random Encounter Table
Life is all about conflict! And in Roller Playing Games, that conflict is usually violent. But this is a special kind of Roller Playing Game! You don't get experience points for killing things. You just get more and more depressed every time you have an interaction with somebody until you feel like you can't go on with the charade anymore. This table will help drive Characters closer and closer to the brink!
01-05 Labrador Retriever
06-10 Cocker Spaniel
11-15 German Shepherd
16-20 Poodle
21-25 St. Bernard
26-30 Doberman Pinscher
31-35 Corgi
36-40 Greyhound
41-45 Australian Shepherd
46-50 Bloodhound
51-55 Cult Member
56-60 Guy with no pants on
61-65 Truly happy person
66-70 Religious person
71-75 Dog hunter
76-80 Prostitute
81-85 Woman with no top on
86-90 God. Maybe.
91-100 A hallucination
Some Starter Adventure Ideas
Adventure #1: Somebody asks you if you're happy. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #2: Your teenager's best friend keeps walking around the house in their underwear and you really want to do it to them. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #3: Your best friend's parent keeps staring at you as you walk around their house practically naked. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #4: You live in a town where nobody vanished and everybody thinks your town is special. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #5: The cult in your town, Doggy Daycare Disaster, has been putting fireworks in unscooped dog dirt. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #6: Your father set all the National Geographics in the library on fire. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #7: You begin hallucinating. Or do you? Who can tell?! Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #8: Have you seen any cats since the Day of Disappearance? Let the tragedy of your existence begin!
Adventure #9: Just let the tragedy of your existence begin already!
The Goal!
The goal of the game is to become satisfied with your life. I suppose I could make up some rule about how you accomplish that but who do you think I am? Some kind of Enlightened Master of Life?! I'm just as scared and anxious as everybody else!
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