Omnitron feels as out-of-place to me in Silver Gulch as he does in the Realm of Discord, or as Chairman does in most environments other than Rook City or Pike Industrial (Megalopolis isn't too much of a stretch, and I figure he can be reskinned for Silver Gulch, Final Wasteland, or even Mars, but in Atlantis, Insula, Discord or Anubis, he just feels weird). I don't have this problem with most villains, someone like The Matriarch or Warlord Voss can be imagined cropping up just about anywhere, but these are two examples of villains that seem to bring a theme with them, and I find them out-of-place against the wrong backdrop. This is part of why I never randomize my games; I like to make them seem holistically fitting, and in solo games I often extend this to the choice of heroes.
Suspension of disbelief and comic book storylines
Well, if you're a fan of comic books, you'll know that the most ridiculous things can happen with almost no explanation other than "time portal" or "science". I see no problem with Omnitron rampaging through an old western town; perhaps it sent itself back in time in order to murder the descendent of some key figure who helps lead an anti-machine resistance in the future, Terminator style. Or the Chairman deciding to become the ruler of Atlantis and resurrect it to power in order to expand his empire beyond Rook City and eventually be able to overwhelm Megalopolis (what else are evil minded, rich people going to do with their time?)
I think any scenario can be explained; some are borderline crazy, yes, but a little imagination can make a fun theme out of it.
Yes, when the comic books in question are very badly written. I don't accept it as an inevitable genre convention that all comics MUST be ridiculous, let alone that they OUGHT TO be. A good writer does NOT just throw all sorts of crap at the wall and see what sticks; a good writer recognizes that sometimes one theme clashes with another, and that they can't and shouldn't be combined without investing serious effort in making it work. With a properly constructed justification, it can work…I created such a thing when I tried to imagine Chairman in the Final Wasteland, and reimagined him as the dictatorial overlord of the last surviving human settlement, whose word is law because the alternative is death by cryptid. But trying to put him in Insula Primalis under a similar rationale just doesn't work as well, IMO. Perhaps a better writer than I could make it succeed brilliantly, but I can't see it; to me it's just a kind of silly combination that doesn't really work.
I see no problem with Omnitron rampaging through an old western town; perhaps it sent itself back in time in order to murder the descendent of some key figure who helps lead an anti-machine resistance in the future, Terminator style.
It strains my credulity to think that the four gunslingers (counting Sherrif Pratt) of SG would react exactly the same to Omnitron as they would to, say, Plague Rat. One is FAR more outlandish in such a setting than the other, even if neither one quite belongs. Omnitron is a building-sized metal monstrosity who nobody could possibly ignore, while Plague Rat could easily be mistaken for a man in a mask, and could hide out in the desert or skulk through the shadows of town. The Plague Rat story needs a little duct-tape to hold it together; the Omnitron story is like a three-lane traffic bridge built out of popsickle sticks and Elmer's Glue, which I wouldn't trust my weight to for a second.
Or the Chairman deciding to become the ruler of Atlantis and resurrect it to power in order to expand his empire
Not quite as much of a stretch…this is the beginnings of a decent rationale, but it needs some work. Remember, the power of Atlantis is three cards in the deck (Font of Power, Pillars of Hercules, and two Phosporescent Chambers); the Kraken and Mystical Weaponry together are just as much of a factor, and Collapsing Hallways, Leaking Rooms, and Toxic Seaweed make up the rest. (If the room isn't leaking, then why exactly is Toxic Seaweed a problem?) So how does the Chairman keep the Corrupt Cops on his payroll when the Kraken keeps eating them? How does Prison Break even apply when the heroes and villains are miles from civilization? I am happier not having to ask these sorts of questions; it is a rare game when none of them at all spring up, but I'd at least like to keep them to a minimum.
I think any scenario can be explained; some are borderline crazy, yes, but a little imagination can make a fun theme out of it.
As a thesis, I don't disagree with this at all. The issue is just with the borderlines and the definition of "little"; my numbers are a bit different than yours. Measure twice, cut once.
If we make Omnitron be an alien AI, there is no reason to imagine he wouldn't have attacked during the Wild West days.
If we move the entire premise into a more Firefly-esque setting, the idea of sic-fi technology interacting with cowboys is even less far-fetched...
Hm. Okay, that works. Good job.
Goes to show, Firefly is the winning answer to everything.
Yes. Yes it it. 
There's also Doctor Who...which has had aliens in a Wild-West-style town and dinosaurs on a Spaceship, amongst other things :D.
That hardly counts, Dr. Who has everything in it. "Unity of theme" is not really a thing for that show…it's not unlike the comics in that regard, but this regard is very much what I think comics need to stop being like, so that they can be taken as seriously as they deserve to be.
Having a ship that can go anywhere in time and space makes these things a lot easier to explain than whatever shenanigans holds comics together, though :P
Also different genres of comics have different levels of seriousness and such, some are made to be silly, others aren't. Comics started off more comical and silly, thus why they are called comics, sometimes refered to as The Funnies or The Funny Papers when refering to comics in a newspaper.
Sentinels has a hairdryer that gets brought to life with cute little eyes and a squeaky voice, a vicious mechanical raptor called Mr Chomps (and friends), a huge Maori warrior guy who has just the biggest, happiest grin ever whilst smashing up robots, a horrible villainous villain of villainousness who in one incarnation has the title "Maniacal Death-Ray Wielder" (or something along those lines), and a dispute over the fact that Bee Bot is technically a hornet but "Bee Bot" sounds better. And a load of other stuff.
So no, I wouldn't say it's a particularly serious comic for the most part. Yeah, it has its serious side (Iron Legacy's story, for example), but there is plenty of fun and silliness in there to balance it out. There's also a million Shout Outs to many, many things - Omni-10 even references Doctor Who in one of his fluff quotes, making a comment about "reversing the polarity" (can't remember which card, though).
A graphic novel is just that - a novel shown in graphical form. Text-only novels can range from silly to serious and back again, so why not the ones which tell most of their stories via pictures?
But we're not talking about just random unrelated stories, we're talking about a giant shared universe. There aren't very many of those in novel form, and I lack the patience to read very much of the ones that are (one of the reasons I love comics is that I can get through them a lot faster than text-only books). Given such a medium, the whole thing is essentially one giant book, and so it ought to have a coherent theme and take itself with a consistent amount of seriousness, don't you think? If sometimes it builds tension, but other times it goofs off and fails to respect its own rules, that strikes me as poisoning the well. If you're reading the Lord of the Rings, you don't suddenly see Saruman go down to the bar to have a couple of beers and joke around with his buddies; it would be completely off-tone. The books work because they make a conscious decision to function on a certain level, and they stick to it. Why can't the Marvel or DC universe manage the same? Why does Batman's existence run the gamut from Bane breaking his back and leaving him convalescent for months, to Bat-Mite driving him crazy with reality-altering pranks? Probably because different writers, with different styles, are all cooking the same soup, and adding too many ingredients that don't go together.
I don't know why, but the reason I can't get into comics is that I can't take a story seriously if it has more than very occasional pictures. Pictures put me in lazy passive mode, a bit like TV, and that's somehow not as much fun as if I'm having to "work" by reading a text-based book.
I mostly dislike movies based on book I've previously read for similar reasons - the pictures in my head are generally better, so I'm usually disappointed with the visions of the director. Things look and sound wrong.
Fun Fact: that episode of Doctor Who where Matt Smith visits an old west town is the same set used in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Not disagreeing with you, but usually there is something to say about testing out different things in a certain style of story. It's like being a chef: you never know if two different flavors taste good together until you try them out, Like a chocolate covered pretzel.
It's also all personal tastes. There's something unique about a super-serious character having to deal with a reality bending prankster, could open up a whole realm of possibilities.
Anywho, to each their own. But if the powers that be want a little bit of silly in their serious super-hero soup, then who are we to say they are wrong?
I actually kind of like comic books BECAUSE their serial nature allows them to change tones and showcase the writer's perspective and personality while still maintaining the overall theme. Of course, I am not a huge comic book reader so I can't really attest to how well any particular line of comics has kept well over decades and decades of publication... but for me I like being able to see the story from different angles and seeing what each writer/artist brings to the a character's universe.
Now I don't always like the changes a particular writer or artist may have done to character I enjoy... but I like that he/she was able to do so.
Since we're on the subject, I do agree with Envisioner to the extent that long running comics (Superman, Batman, Fantastic Four, ect.) are dying under the weight of their contunuity, and some of it has to do with massive shifts in tone, but these tended to happen over decades. I mean, to use tv/movies, the Adam West batman just simply cannot be the same Batman as Christopher Nolan's Dark Night, but they were also from periods of time that are what? 40 years apart?
What I really want to see in mainstream comics is the same thing I try to find in webcomics (and could potentially get from Sentinels of the Multiverse comics) a self-contained, interesting story which does not have 1,000 back issues for me to slog through, with some of them being accepted canon and others.... "overlooked"
I know the big names are big money makers even today, but we need to start writing new stories, stories that actually end instead of going on ad infitnitum, or the medium isn't going to become the best it can be. In my humble opinion of course.
I agree with Silverleaf on the not-tending-to-like-film-adaptations-of-books thing - I like to envision the characters and locations in my own way, and then I'll see a film of it and go "aww noo, they did it wrong :(", obviously "wrong" in this sense meaning "they didn't do it the way I picture it". Plus they tend to move stuff around, add/remove stuff, and generally make it not much like the book. A film adaptation of a book can still be okay/good in its own right, just not when viewed in comparison to the book (saw the latest Hobbit film the other day…).
I'm not into graphic novels, I've never really developed any kind of interest in them. I'm not even that interested in the whole superhero genre in general, really - it just happens that Sentinels is such an epic game I can make do with it not being set within my favourite genre (though ain't it funny how my favourite hero to play has ended up being the one I can msot closely relate to a Fantasy class?) ;). Then again, it still has aspects of Fantasy, as it does many other genres - Infernal Relics is basically the "magic" expansion and funnily enough contains most of my favourite stuff :).
That's what also makes comics so hard for newcomers to get into. A lot of the biggest characters in comics have been around since at least the 30's. When someone who doesn't know a thing about comics (but is kind of interested after seeing the latest Superman movie) walks into a comic book store for the first time, where is he/she supposed to begin? The problem with comics is that they have no "beginning" point for people to start with. Sure, the employees and forum users can suggest certain story arcs they should try out, but even then, some of the jargon can be so soaked in its own continuity and backstory that it simply turns the reader off before they can get into the good stuff.
So I agree, it'd be nice to see comics start fresh stories and actually finish them (though I doubt we'll see that from DC or Marvel, considering hooking a reader base on a character is how they make their money, and that leads to pushing out as many issues as they can). Continuity is both the best and worst thing about comic books. I love knowing that all the stories I read and characters I love are linked together in this big chain of events within a contained universe. A lot of it, however, has simply gotten out of hand, creating a massive problem for getting new readers into comics.
Bringing this back to Sentinels; I'd be excited to see SotM printed in a physical form. I'd buy the hell out of that. And I applaud >G for stating (somewhat officially) that Sentinels is going to stop with the 6th expansion (Tactics, however, is a different story). That shows that they have an end in mind and are willing to create just the right amount of content instead of pushing the series as far as they can until it falls off a cliff. And I'm sure they'd do the same with the comics; start and end them in a commendable fashion.
I would love for Comics to have seasons.
That way there would be an easy pick-up point to jump in. Some things could continue over, and some things referenced, but you would be able to follow a general story arc as it builds and resolves.
It would be far easier to tell someone they should pick up season 8, with numbering starting at 1, than what newcomers get now.
Big shifts in style and substance just start again with their own series, they do that now but the numbering and titling get wierd, and it is sometimes really hard to follow.
Before it died, I was a big fan of the company Crossgen Comics, which was founded by a bunch of Big Two exiles who wanted to "do it right" as they saw it, and made quite a bit of progress in that regard. One of their innovations was that, once they'd been running for several years and begun to suffer bloat, they began marking certain issues as "Key Issues", meaning that they were good jumping-on points for the series. Each one had a plain white background for the cover which made them really stand out on the shelves. It was an admirable idea, which sadly came a bit too late to save the company, it seems.
Both Marvel and DC have done exactly what you're both talking about: DC's "New 52" was meant specifically to appeal to new readers, as is Marvel's "Season 1" TPBs and their Point One one-shot issues. In fact, Marvel's Avengers Assemble comic was meant to be a direct jumping on point for readers who had seen the Marvel movies but weren't comics readers.
While you can argue as to the success of these initiatives--I'm not a fan of the New 52, particularly--but you can't argue that Marvel and DC aren't trying to make comics accessible.
Edit: Also, here's data: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=50302
I've never heard of Season 1 / Point 1, but Marvel does have the Ultimate Universe, which is a very definite step in the right direction IMO. I don't know much about New 52, but frankly DC has done so many Final Infinite Crises on Multiple Universes that I don't even really care. They've generally been a bit less continuity-obsessed than Marvel anyway I think, at least with their flagship characters; everybody knows who Superman is, but almost nobody has actually read everything about him, so I think DC is generally fairly good about telling you most of what you need to know and not making too many assumptions about which previous stories you've followed. (They still do that kind of stuff, and have been worse about it at some times than others...the whole Green Lantern -> Hal Jordan -> Parallax -> Spectre -> Kyle Rayner -> Green Lantern thing comes to mind....but I think in general they're slightly better at keeping it from getting out of control, because they seem to have a bit more reverence for their flagship properties, which Marvel plays a little faster and looser with. And Marvel is frequently more about teams than individual heroes anyway; they generally are more comfortable with constantly-changing team rosters and the resulting interpersonal imbroglios, while with DC this is basically just the JLA, and the heroes spend plenty of time by themselves even if they have JLA membership.)
Marvel's Ultimate Universe has been in existance for over a decade now--saying it's a good jumping on point isn't accurate anymore. Besides, they're in the process of blowing it up, via the Cataclysm storyline which is about to end.
And, honestly? Your points on DC directly contradict each other. DC's "Infinite Crisis" and "52" events were both designed specifically to reset the discrepencies in DC continuity. Explicitly, that's why they were written. If anything, Marvel's been much less concerned with having an "established continuity" than DC has.
Fair enough, I should have said Ultimate Marvel was a step in the right direction, back in its time. I hope that in another ten years they'll do something similar.
Hm. Okay I can see why you would think that's a contradiction. DC invents excuses to avoid caring about continuity, which can be argued as either caring about continuity or not doing so; I was arguing the latter but I see what you mean about the former. But Marvel is the one where every D-list mook from the Mighty Marvel Bullpen days turns up later and becomes a recurring feature, no matter how inherently lame they are. Ever heard of The Melter? Or the Frightful Four? The Wrecking Crew? "Paste-Pot Pete"? (Okay, admittedly, that one gets lampshaded in the books to fairly decent comedic effect.) Marvel is never content to just sweep their embarassing mistakes under the rug, while DC probably has a vice-president in charge of doing exactly that, albeit in ridiculously overcomplected ways.
Leaving it to writer/editor fiat shows a lot less "concern" about continuity than actively trying to police or reset said continuity.
And what's wrong with those villains? The Frightful Four led directly into the Inhumans Saga in Fantastic Four and were among their original foes. Yeah, they might not have the gravitas or weight of Doctor Doom or Ultron, but they're entirely servicable villains for a story arc or two. The Wrecking Crew were made to provide a foil for Thor: average guys who get Asgardian powers, in response to the Asgardian god forced into mortal form. They're no Loki, but they do they job--they usually provide muscle for other, larger-reaching villains.
But Paste Pot Pete? Yeah, he's kind of a loser. Hawkeye makes a great jab at him in the animated Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. But, the point remains: not every villain needs to be an all-encompassing, monologuing supervillain. Variety is the spice of life.
Honestly, I've found many comics to be incredibly accessible lately. You'd be hard pressed to find a comic above issue forty from DC or Marvel these days. I don't really think The New 52 knows who its audience is, but Marvel Now! has been incredibly accessible. Peruse your local comic shops, folks. Times are changing.
shrug I'm mostly thinking of their original leader, "The Wizard"…can't remember offhand who the rest of them were. But he was thoroughly idiotic, and if you think he was "serviceable", then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
But, the point remains: not every villain needs to be an all-encompassing, monologuing supervillain. Variety is the spice of life.
I look at it differently. It's impossible for anything in a story to happen by coincidence; the writer chooses to create everything. Therefore, I believe he should choose to create everything well, holding himself to the highest quality standard, considering all the implications of everything, and never committing anything to paper that will make people cringe in a handful of years. The stores of shelves are littered with low-quality dreck; I believe people should know when NOT to create, because it isn't ready yet, because they don't have the talent to do it well. Mind you, I don't want to stifle creativity, and comics are fantastically creative, most especially in the visual arts aspect, somewhat so in the storytelling as well…but in both cases, there are certain missteps. Whether it's a storyline that sounds like an eight-year-old thought it up, or a costume design that even said eight-year-old wouldn't think was even remotely cool, many things have existed in a comic somewhere which ought to have been written off as an unfortunate miscalculation, and buried deeply to ensure they never again see the light of day. Instead, they get brought back time and again, in every more absurd morasses of continuity, and I mourn for the wasted potential, the vastly better stories and artworks that could have been created if only some empty space had been left for them to grow into, and time taken to cultivate them, instead of letting the proverbial "garden" be choked with metaphorical "weeds", ugly and useless things that refuse to die.
To refute both your points:
In Johnathan Hickman's recent run on Fantastic Four, the Wizard played a pretty important role as part of the "Council of Doom", as convened by Reed Richards. The Fantastic Four were tasked with preventing an interdimensional attack by the alternate Reed Richards-es of other parallel dimensions, so they gathered the FF's notable rogues together to figure out how to outsmart the smartest man in the Marvel universe. These included Doctor Doom, the Wizard, the Mad Thinker, the High Evolutionary, and several others.
Wizard's role was particularly notable in this as the FF had, in an earlier issue, liberated a pre-teenaged genetic clone of Wizard from one of his laboratories and had been raising him alongside Franklin and Valeria Richards. The conflict of having to work with a known, noted villain, particularly in the shadow of raising his biological son, increased the dramatic tension of the scenes significantly. Without the Wizard, that dramatic tension just doesn't exist. Writing him off as "unimportant" or "silly" actively stifles the neat creative things that can be done with such a character.
It's easy to write off a character like the Wizard as silly. But, what's silly--or, to use your words, "dreck"--to one person, is enjoyable and fun to another. I'll never understand the appeal of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but my wife and several of my friends absolutely love it. I absolutely love He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, while some others view it as the worst of 80s commercialism-driven cartoons. You've got to keep in mind: your taste is not a be-all, end-all. "Ugly and useless" to you might be a beautiful rose to someone else.
Oh, and regarding 8 year olds writing comics storylines? I recommend you go look up Axe Cop. In addition to its obligatory Munchkin game, it's now in its first season as an animated series on Fox.
PASTE POT PETE!
That is all.
Just realized that was the original name for The Trapster.
AXE COP! Dude that show is hillarious!
Also, thumbs up for Paste Pot Pete reference
You should check out "Atomic Robo'. Their business model is exactly what you describe. They basically put out one volume per year of 5-6 issues. The main character is a robot made by Tesla in the 1920s whose stories span from back then to slightly in the future. The volumes also do not take place chronologically; so one volume might be in the 40s during WWII and the next will be modern day. If you use comixology they have the first issue and all the free comic book day issues up for free to check it out with no monetary risk (I also think they are on their website for free as well). BTW I would hightly recomend volume 3.
Envisioner
I hear your complaints, but feel the industry as a whole is getting way better. While Marvel or DC are not completely ignoring previous contiunity, they are taking steps to make comics new reader freindly. There is some really great titles in Marvel NOW and The 'New' 52 (I'm sorry two and a half years is not new anymore)
Also if you really want to read good comics that aren't in a shared universe try Image or other smaller publisher books. Saga is fantastic, Chew is great, Locke & Key just finished up and just may blow your mind and if you want to read superhero stuff Invincible is the best superhero comic being printed today. Now all of these books have at least 20 issues (over 100 in the case of Invincible) which might run into your continuity issue, but they are at least self contained stories that do not have to worry about what's going on in Crossover X, Obsure Title Y or Flat Out Bad Title X(men Legacy). 
Most are being carried by libraries that you'd be able to get through the Inter Library Loan system if your local branch does not have what you want. So you can try for free.
This argument is sounding a lot like "I didn't like it, therefore it should have never been created," which is a little absurd. You seem to be coming at this thinking that the artists/writers that make these comics aren't trying to do their best work or at least do the work that they feel is necessary within the scope of what they're trying to accomplish. Well, even if you personally think something was absolute crap (a valid opinion), I guarantee you that someone else enjoyed it thoroughly. Costume designs or dialogue choices that you don't agree with were likely another reader's favorites.
I think it'd be a major mistake to try and put an entire artistic medium into a small box and say "This is how these should be made" and shrug off everything else as garbage. You may have your own criteria for what makes an enjoyable comic, and that's great. But that criteria may not match the thousands of other consumer demographics that comics cater to.
That's not exactly what I said, but I do often read other things (including Invincible, which I like less than some other things but am generally quite fond of). I used to read more library comics, and the current state of my life has made this less practical, which is probably one of the reasons that I'm generally crankier than I used to be. In the case of Marvel and DC, I love the general idea that they're in a shared universe, but disagree with many fine details of how that status is executed. I have a hard time generalizing about what I would fix and how, without pointing to specific stories/titles/issues as examples…generally it's a "I'll know what I like/dislike when I see it" kind of thing. But in general, my thesis is that because some Marvel and DC comics are as amazing as, say, "Superman: Birthright" or Grant Morrison's run on the X-Men, while others are as ridiculously awful as most of the Mighty Marvel Silver Age and a huge swath of the Countdown to Final Crisis era, one should treat the entire thing as a one would a smorgasbord of food, some of it delicious and some of it awful - throw the stale, rotten stuff away and serve only the good.
There is a difference between my personally disliking something and my believing it is objectively bad. I would never call Roger Zelazny's "Nine Princes in Amber" badly written, even though I hated the main setting conceit (f**k you, Only-Real-Reality-That-I'm-Just-A-Shadow-Of, I happen to think I and the universe that made me are pretty damn important) and wanted to see all of the characters die horribly. Conversely, I was in the process of liking Lyda Morehouse's "Archangel Protocol", but the ending not only ruined the book for me, it proved to me that (at least at this point in her career) she wasn't actually that good of a writer, having resorted to a plot point that a typical teenage girl might have considered too lame to put in her self-insert fanfiction. I have guilty pleasures, and I have works that are "just not for me"…but I also have things that I'm quite confident deserve all the disparagement I can hurl upon them.
You seem to be coming at this thinking that the artists/writers that make these comics aren't trying to do their best work or at least do the work that they feel is necessary within the scope of what they're trying to accomplish.
I think that in a great many cases, they're trying to punch a proverbial timeclock, grinding out adequate pabulum in order to meet a deadline, so that the publishing company can generate enough sales to repay their investment. Which I consider not only uninspiring, but downright unacceptible. My economic belief is founded on a very firm rejection of Pournelle's Iron Law, and of capitalist thinking in general: I believe that companies (and in particular companies in the arts field; my standards for, say, construction or the grocery market are a bit different, because these are physical needs rather than ideological "luxuries") ought to actively try to put themselves out of business, by sacrificing every penny in their pockets to create the greatest possible product, no matter the cost to their "bottom line". If they successfully capture lightning in a bottle, they may get rich as a justly-deserved consequence of their excellence (which is what I believe >G did by creating SOTM, and seem to be at least mostly still doing), but they shouldn't expect this any more than a person who buys a lottery ticket expects to actually win. They should never let their work go out the door until they're 100% confident that it can't be improved upon in any way, and if they do strike it rich, they ought to re-invest those profits into creating the next wonder-work. Any time they fail to turn a profit and are forced to shutter their doors, they should still content themselves that they've contributed a work of genius to the historical record…that contribution, that fame and place in legend long after their death, not mere crass monetary profit that serves their fleeting temporal needs, should always be their aim in founding their enterprise in the first place, nor should they ever fall from those lofty ideals into the trap of complacent commercialism. (Note, of course, that I say all of these "shoulds" in the firm conviction that nobody is ever going to listen to me; I take it as read that the world is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and that greed and Darwinism are forces as impossible to overcome as gravity, so when I say that things need to change, I don't actually expect that they will. I just think someone needs to be saying it, and I seem to be the only one crazy enough to volunteer.)
You may have your own criteria for what makes an enjoyable comic, and that's great. But that criteria may not match the thousands of other consumer demographics that comics cater to.
I am fine with "different strokes for different folks". I am not fine with "we'll make more money if we target the lowest common denominator, and then shove the resulting feces down everyone's throats until they start liking the taste." No matter how many people like something, it can still be factually terrible; quality is an absolute, not something that is redefined by the consensus of the majority. And I believe that people will like what you teach them to like…if you saturate the market with Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, then you are intentionally trying to hypnotize the vulnerable-minded into becoming "addicted" to these catchy rhythms, and ignoring the fact that they are just plain bad music. I believe we as a society have a responsibility to defend ourselves against this sort of infiltrage by the forces of mediocrity (though, again, it is a responsibility I'm cynically certain we will collectively shirk).
The problem with your economic wish, no matter if you only wish it upon artistic markets alone, is that it would never stay afloat; not even in a vaccuum. >G got lucky. Very lucky. They are all incredibly talented and I'm glad they hit their stride and are successful enough to continue delivering their amazing games to us. However, they are the exception. They are, as you put it, that lottery winner, especially when you come to know how many other thousands upon thousands of people (equally talented people at that) try their hands at their dreams every day, only see it fail in front of them. Not because they aren't trying, not because they don't deserve success, but simply because they didn't strike the right place at the right time; they didn't get lucky. And for every failure is more resources lost, and while they may continue to fondle the idea of doing whatever they love for a living (art, video games, music, acting, whatever), eventually our basic human needs win out; we need food, shelter, clothing, and in 2014, those things are expensive, even if you want to live modestly. Not to mention the average person is not just looking after themselves, but are supporting families who rely upon their income. Along with a need for income comes a need for a job, a long with a job comes a need for transportation, and a need for auto-insurance and the expenses go on and on.
As much as I'd like to see every single business try and put out the best (which most do anyways, considering competition continously forces companies to one-up each other), the fact is, money wins in the end. And while some parts of that may be a bit shallow, we should all be thankful for it, because in the end, that is what makes our economy go round. Businesses make money, the expand, they create more jobs, more jobs means more people making money meaning they're consuming more, more consumption means more spending means businesses continue to make money. It's an endless cycle and while it may not sit right with everyone's morals or even be the best compared to other theories, it is currently the only viable system in place that provides a lot of jobs allowing most of the people that are in the U.S. (a hell of a lot of people) to have jobs and be able to live a middle class life with a higher standard of living.
Point is, we need that bottom consumer base; we need the companies that are shoveling out the garbage just as much as we need the people consuming them, because it not only cycles into the economy, but it also cycles into the hobby itself. Do you think as many music artists would have the same opportunities had Brittany Spears or the Backstreat Boys ever existed? Popularity creates industry and as an industry grows, it breaks down barriers for more, smaller, unique ventures to take their place. The same goes for comics. Comics have been a slowly dying industry for decades now, and honestly, things were looking pretty grim until Hollywood realized what a cash cow comics could be. They've pumped out super hero after super hero film (some terrible, some great, plenty mediocre) and it has given comic books another chance with a ridiculous expansion of new readers. We need the bottom rung; every hobby, business, interest needs the mass market because they have the money that fuels growth. Want to see your favorite passions continue to thrive? You should be thanking the masses for existing to contribute to their survival. I'm not saying it's right, only that it's the way it is and I doubt any other system in place could create a reasonable alternative.
All of which could be solved very simply if we simply stopped letting the Bernie Madoffs and Rupert Murdochs of the world hoard billions of dollars, and forcibly redistrubted the wealth of the world to give everyone a fair cut. I realize that if everyone had an exactly equal share of the money, nobody would ever spend anything or have any incentive to work…but I believe one of the greek philosophers once proposed a system wherein, for the most successful and hard-working people, their wealth could be no greater than six times the worth of people who supported their work in the most menial capacity - to put this in modern terms, a corporate CEO's salary could be no more than six times that of the lowest employee on the company totem pole. Instead of several hundred times as great. When the wealth gap is that huge, what incentive do the rich have to ever treat the poor as human beings? The two live in such different worlds that communication is impossible; they become aliens, and the more powerful one will happily oppress the weaker. It should never have been allowed to get as far as it has, IMO, and I see little hope that it can be reversed, and none at all without a great deal of bloodshed and awfulness.
Along with a need for income comes a need for a job
Actually I belive that a wage is only the smallest of benefits that a job offers a person; any job you'd only do for the money, you probably shouldn't do at all, because it will starve your soul and destroy you spiritually, having to do something that your entire being rebels against. You should do a job that you want to be doing, in and of itself, and view the pay as at most a cost-of-living stipend, if not simply a nice bonus on top of the satisfaction you derive from following your passions. A job that you'd happily do for free if you had no bills that needed paying, just as a way to occupy your time - what I like to call a Vocation. Mine, for instance, would probably be computer programming, if I had the skills required. Unfortunately, society charges us to develop those skills, instead of recognizing that education needs to be fully subsidized for the common good.
along with a job comes a need for transportation
This is something that should be less true than it is. America far under-emphasizes the need for mass transit and locational clustering (there's probably a better term for that). ideally, we need to be living in arcologies rather than traditional cities; it should be possible to take an elevator from your living quarters directly to your workplace, or to the grocery store or to your children's school, because they're all located in what is essentially one gigantic building. For about the past hundred years, we've been force-fed a thoroughly over-hyped and not-that-necessary addiction to automobiles; they encourage us to waste land on spread-out settlements, isolate us from our fellow human beings through distance, and squander our limited reserves of fossil fuels (oil should almost never be burned as gasoline IMO; it is far more valuable converted into durable plastics for manufacturing, and we don't need to be wasting it by the megabarrel, even if we weren't polluting the air in the process).
and a need for auto-insurance
Now that, on the other hand, is completely unnecessary. The laws mandating it are a huge injustice. We should not charge people money every month to insure their car in case they cause an accident; instead, we should make them less likely to have an accident, and not drain money out of them every month if they've done nothing to deserve such mistreatment.
considering competition continously forces companies to one-up each other
One-upping is NOT by any stretch of the imagination the same as doing better; most companies find it more efficient to put a layer of spit-and-polish on their product rather than actually improving it, because it doesn't matter what the truth is, only how they're perceived. A massive multi-billion dollar marketing blitz can utterly eclipse the competition simply by taking advantage of humans' inherent laziness, their tendency to buy the brand name they're most familiar with even if they know it's not the bes. Corporate espionage and gamesmanship can finesse the company's image, saturate markets, or even farm patents for legal feels…companies have a legion of ways that they can make more money without making a better product. Frankly, it's a wonder they even try to achieve the slightest degree of quality anymore, considering how hard our society works to offer them alternatives.
), the fact is, money wins in the end.
That part, as far as it goes, I agree with completely. This is basically why I am firmly in favor of just taking all the money away from a very small handful of people, by virtue of being a very large number of people who simply disregards the wishes of that tiny minority. Which is of course exactly what they fear, and will sink to any low to prevent.
Businesses make money, the expand, they create more jobs, more jobs means more people making money meaning they're consuming more, more consumption means more spending means businesses continue to make money.
Except that you can't actually create very much wealth, so this endless cycle of business expansion is really just taking wealth away from the many and concentrating it in the hands of the few, while converting it from natural resources into vast quantities of intentionally-obsolescent consumer goods which end up in landfills. People spend too much time worrying about how much THEY own…but resources never really belong to any person, they belong to the entire world, and there's only so much to go around, with that value appreciating slightly due to refinement techniques (turning soft iron into hard steel, etc), but mostly just consisting of wealth being transferred from one area or form to another. In order to enrich one person, you usually have to improverish another - and it's probably not just one other, because the more wealth an individual has, the more they tend to want. It's an addiction; if you allow someone to gorge themselves to the point of sickness, they will, because their ancestors nearly starved and it's wired right into their genes to think they need to hoard their wealth. Our instincts haven't caught up to the change in our reality, and so we're constantly on the verge of destroying ourselves through primitive, obsolete impulses - chief of which is the urge to accumulate wealth, which exists entirely because of the poverty we used to suffer from, and is horrifically counterproductive now that we're fairly unlikely to starve or die of exposure.
it is currently the only viable system in place that provides a lot of jobs allowing most of the people that are in the U.S. (a hell of a lot of people) to have jobs and be able to live a middle class life with a higher standard of living.
The US does not have a lot of jobs; unemployment is rampant, and the "middle class" is vanishing rapidly. People live in states of crippling debt, being forced to mortgage their whole lives away and then hope that a streak of bad luck doesn't cost them everything. Our system is broken, and our society is quite probably dying; it's just a huge dinosaur which doesn't immediately notice when its head is gone.
Point is, we need that bottom consumer base; we need the companies that are shoveling out the garbage just as much as we need the people consuming them
Constant, frenetic activity is not a point in our favor. We're burning ourselves out, exhausting and maddening ourselves with constant activity, because we feel compelled to "achieve" something; our society pressures us to do more, try harder, and all so that we have more money that we can spend on crap we don't need, when if we didn't buy that crap, we wouldn't need as much money to pay for it, and thus wouldn't need the jobs we're creating by buying it. We could de-escalate everything, lower the pressure that we're living under, and be far less likely to catastrophically self-destruct.
Popularity creates industry and as an industry grows, it breaks down barriers for more, smaller, unique ventures to take their place.
Yeah, Wal-Mart clearly did great things for the rest of the retail industry. Lots of new opportunities created there. When someone is allowed to grow too powerful, their first action is usually to crush all possible competitors like bugs. While Britney herself probably doesn't mind if people listen to music other than hers, the record label that's pumped huge amounts of cash into manufacturing her CDs and advertising and booking her tours? They'd like nothing better than to lobby the governments of every nation in the world into making the purchase of multiple copies of every new CD by her mandatory, and thus preventing anyone from ever competing with them. That's exactly the ultimate objective of every capitalist: to dominate the market entirely and attain godlike, limitless power. You have to nip such tendencies in the bud HARD, before they can even begin to snowball, or else it will inevitably happen just as soon as they can get away with it.
I'm not saying it's right, only that it's the way it is and I doubt any other system in place could create a reasonable alternative.
Interestingly enough, we actually have managed to create one, in spite of how heavily stacked the deck is against such options. Kickstarter and other forms of crowdfunding, and more generally the Internet's user-driven models, are the ultimate counterculture, the greatest possible hope of stopping monopolism. We should push harder in that direction; the movers and shakers of tomorrow's world should aim to be like Anonymous, entirely amorphous and self-directed agencies which By God Get Things Done, because they answer to no-one but their own objectives. Ideally, I'd like to see some hypertech applied to really take the concept to its ultimate conclusion…make it so that Internet cables grew like vines, being propagated by autonomous Von Neumann machines, to ensure that any form of monopoly on network access would be extremely short-lived. Decentralization is the answer; make all resources plentiful and accessible to everyone, and do away with any restriction which aims to keep power solely in the hands of the elite.
This thread has departed wildly from being about someone's ideas for new players, making it not incredibly useful for someone who is interested in exactly that. Please take further off-topic discussions to the appropriate forum.
We seem to be getting a lot of these recently.
Dang, did someone just cut and move this entire section of a thread… I didn't know that was possible…
Suddenly a little more fearful of mods and admins 
Yes. The Admins now have the ability to split threads. 
If a thread strays far afield, the Admins can pull it apart. (When Mods see something that needs it, they'll send a request to the Admins.) Unfortunately, we can't do anything complex, like pulling apart two mingled topics, so we'll have to quickly determine if it's going to go far afield early on, before on-topic posts are made.
Testing new waters here, folks. We'll see how this plays out…
I approve greatly.
GTG Forum: Shattered Topics.
Boy, this sure is a fun card game, huh?
(Nervously trying to change the subject…)
It's FUN?!?! Gaaaaah!! I haven't gotten mine! Couldn't you at least have tagged it with a Spoiler Alert!!
;-P
…Interesting.
Trying to change the subject, huh...
You guys hear about Pluto?
That's messed up, right?
I find the oft-tossed about faux-explanation "because: comics" to be lazy. Most everything that happens in comics can be explained within the internal continuity of the comics. Yes, you have a healthy amount of suspensions of disbelief - you've got super powered people fighting aliens and time-travelers, but everything has a REASON that it's happening that fits the internal logic and rules of the comics world.
Yes, there are many comics, including many mainstream titles, which play more fast and loose. But a lot of comic authors do have thought out explanations for everything happening in their stories.
I certainly do.
Just because YOU don't know the reason something is happening, doesn't mean there isn't a well-considered reason that just hasn't been revealed yet.
And there is a LOT that hasn't been revealed yet.
WHO IS CON
COOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN!!! </Shatner Voice>
Ha!
True, but why don't we hear 'because movies'? It's not like movies have such a great track record of internal consistency. My understanding on 'because comics' is that since thing are being drawn instead of being shown, it is easier to put impossible things in to the frame. In other words, I thought that 'because comics' was less about plot and more about physics.
Well said, and thank you.
So, any suggestions on Omnitron / Realm of Discord (DOES NOT COMPUTE), Matriarch / Ruins of Atlantis (scuba-birds?), Chairman / Tomb of Atlantis (where did the Informant find a phone?), Citizen Dawn / Time Cataclysm ("Now is OUR time!" "Uh, when exactly?"), or similarly weird matches? (Time Cataclysm in general doesn't really work for me, since there's neither a sense of the battle happening in one place nor a really strong "hopscotching through time" vibe…the only villains I've really liked for that one are Akash'bhuta, where it reinforces the sense of her immensity, and Plague Rat, where I imagine it as Chrono-Ranger hunting him through all of time and space.) For that matter, Chairman is the villain that gives me the most problems, and Chairman / Time Cataclysm is particularly thorny…how can he keep his Crooked Cops on the take when Payday keeps changing from tomorrow to yesterday?
That's the way I feel as well. What really bothers me is when a long-running comic book (or any story) violates its own internal consistency. For instance, Star Trek has pretty hard sci-fi-entific explanations for most of its stuff, so if, for instance, Odin appeared and started doing magical stuff, it would completely violate the show's established internal consistency. I mean, it's fine if you explain that it was really Q later, but without further explanation, it would just be wrong. Thus, I'm willing to suspend any amount of disbelief required as long as its consistent with what's been established. Another great example to me was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. All the wire-fu worked perfect in that movie because that's the kind of movie it was, but if Jet Li had started doing that in Lethal Weapon 4, I would have turned it off and walked away. Like Christopher said, if something like that happens, and the only explanation is "because: comics", that's just lazy.
I think the problem that commonly arises in comic books is that comic books, with some degree of frequency, change writers. A new writer comes along, and thus, a new internal consistency is born. As a reader, you have to decide if you like the new consistency or if it's too much. There was a similar discussion just recently in another thread about Davies vs. Moffat writing Doctor Who. For some people, Moffat was too drastic a change, and for others, it was just another writer change, and they rolled with the punches. The best we can hope for is that when authors/writers trade off, we get some sort of transition period where the consistency morphs, intsead of an abrupt cut-off, where suddenly all the dead stand up and resume their normal lives like nothing happened, and it's "because: comics".
But what if it was Apollo instead?
I think the problem that commonly arises in comic books is that comic books, with some degree of frequency, change writers. A new writer comes along, and thus, a new internal consistency is born.
Agreed. And then usually the next writer inherits both sets of continuity and has to try to make sense of them.
Heh, funny, I wasn't aware of that episode. I should have said Star Trek: Next Generation. I'm not nearly as familiar with the original series Star Trek.
COOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN!!! </Quinto Voice>
To Answer who Con is, we must first determine who Con isn't.
Con is not Haka.
Now that that question is resolved, we can move on to more pressing Matters.
Like who is in the Hippo Suit?
My guess is a Parson's cousin who is upset they don't have powers, and likes Hippos.
Thats exactly what Christopher would want you to think
Con and Haka go way back.
[color=white]Necessarily.[/color]
… oh you beautiful bastard you.
CHRISTOPHEEEEEEER! [/shatner_voice]
Ok. Let's give these a shot:
Omnitron / Realm of Discord - There's a glitch in The Matrix type of scenario. Omnitron is the latest in the government's military technology… but it's become sentient and gone rogue… and it's attacking the city. The heroes are called in to shut it down, but as they get close, Omnitron releases its newest weapon, virtual reality projections, and they are so real they can hurt you. To give him a bigger edge, Omnitron manipulates the las of physics in this reality, messing with gravity and time and all those things the heroes are used to…
Matriarch / Ruin of Atlantis - A team of scientists has discovered the remnants of the fabled city in underwater caves, which are kept dry by a mysterious field of an unknown nature. Tachyon's team is invited to investigate and she brings along her newest intern/assistant, who happens to be her cousin, with whom she is desperately trying to forge a better relationship. During the visit, Lilian becomes bored and decides to investigate on her own and comes across a mask… she puts it on and Boom!! She becomes the matriarch. Where did the birds come from? They were created by the mask, which gives Lilian the power to physically manifest and control her fears (even though she doesn't know it), they happen to be birds because she just watches the Hitchcock classic on the long trip down to the bottom of the sea… and though she didn't admit it to anyone, it scared her… a lot
Chairman / Tomb of Anubis - Rook City was going through economic revival, brought in no small part by Pike's heavy investment into the run down and abandoned warehouse district, where he had plans to build his new Pike Industries headquarters (almost as if he had some information about a potential huge energy source buried deep at that location). While excavating the foundation of his new massive facilities his contractors came upon the ruins of what appear to be ancient buildings from… Egypt?!.. it appears the Stargate aliens had landed here long before they made it to northeast Africa. Something had defeated them back then and the power of Anubis had laid dormant since. If anyone could awaken and harness that power, surely he'd be unstoppable.
Citize Dawn / Time Caraclysm - Rumors of a young man who apparently had develop the ability to manipulate time made their way to Dawn and caught her attention. A person with such powers would be a great addition to her army. Word got to the heroes too, and they mobilized to help the young man understand and control his powers before Dawn could… but they got their too late. Citizen (insert clever time-related name) had been consumed by his powers when Dawn amplified them and in the process had torn the fabric of time itself… trapping the Citizens and the heroes in a Time Cataclysm.
Interesting whenever I have The Chairman at tomb of Anubis I play it off as him having bought a bunch of Egyptian relics for the Rook City museum of history (allegedly), that’s just a ruse, he’s in fact looking for more ways to extend his lifespan and is branching out into mysticism, only later Anubis and his cronies awaken because blah blah blah mummies curse, blah blah blah Anubis be cranky.
Ha ha ha. That's an even more plausible scenario. I just like to insert aliens wherever and whenever possible.
I second this, though I want to add EEEVVVIILLL to it somehow that isn't corny…
There were somewhat similar things in Next Gen; they didn't outright pose as mythological figures, but several entities with godlike power emanating from no source we can understand did exist. Q was the obvious one, but The Traveler also counts, and there were several alien-of-the-week types that did this (the one I remember was a giant glowing old-man head). In all cases, distinguishing the powers of such beings from magic is at best a matter of semantics.
Okay, you win. I bow to your clearly superior imagine-fu.
Are we saying this from the present point or from The Final Wasteland? I’m guessing the pressent point, but since Haka is pretty much immortal he “goes way back” with every body…
But those he "goes way back" with don't all live for thousands of years.
Speaking of Con...
While playing last night I took a look at Con's Bunker. Is it just me or is that the moon shattered in the background there? Did Baron Blade's Terralunar Impulsion Beam do some damage before it was shut down? (also, it's really close if that is the moon)
Honestly I thought the broken moon might have been an homage to the Borderlands series of video games, which take place in a wasteland riddled with monsters and futuristic tech, and a semi-broken moon. At least, that's what came to my mind at first sight.
I have played about 100 hours of Borderlands... and never looked at the moon!
Pandora's moon isn't so much broken as covered in fiery-looking cracks and craters and stuff, as far as I can tell (nearly done with the final DLC on Normal Mode in Borderlands 2, have been playing for a month or so now).
I saw the first part of a film recently in which the intro described how some kind of alien race invaded Earth and shattered the Moon (basically breaking it into many pieces which remained fairly close together, not scattered throughout the sky or raining down onto the planet or off into space or anything like that), which for some reason caused Earth to almost immediately. have loads of catastrophic disasters, possibly involving tides or something. What.
Anyone else think Con might be Ambuscade?
He's a bounty hunter. He's known Haka awhile. F.I.L.T.E.R. could have forced him to become some sort of bulletin poster as punishment for his crimes. That could also explain his presence in Chrono-Ranger's deck.
As for the excitement at Chrono's arrival, that could be a symptom of centuries of loneliness.
I admit this is just wild speculation. A better guess is probably Tachyon.
It'd be pretty funny if that was true, since it would mean that AmbusCON had taken out a "Kill on Sight" bounty on himself...and insulted himself to boot.
AmbusCON: "Man I was such a tool back then, why don't we go slap me around a bit."