Meeting Minutes (9/22/11) HEROCLIX

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Last meeting we played a game called Heroclix. :D For those who don't know, Heroclix is basically a board game where you play as figurines of your favorite superheroes (or villains) and face off against a band of villains controlled by a mastermind with other players. So, basically it's a nerd's game about friendship or whatever, but that doesn't mean that it isn't interesting and all :D

By the way, here's a shout out to one of our newer members: Mary Jane, as 9/21/11 was her 18th Birthday. So Happy (Belated) Birthday, MJ!

MEETING MINUTES

7:13- Real Steel = Medabots = Rockem Sockem Robots

7:15- HEROCLIX!

7:19- Mary Janes rips pants on the way to the club, but continues to stay like a real trooper

7:19b- Mary Jane talks at a higher pitch to people when she doesn't know them (thus sounding nicer)

7:24- You can't have 2 Iron Men (Why not?) Because last time they did that they made War Machine

7:35- Still setting up...

7:48- Still waiting to start...

7:52- We can only do 11 things... Javier: We can only have one Thing though...

So, at this point the game begins and here's the set up.

STORY:

There is a heated battle in the Helicarrier for the Chaemeleon (Dmirtri Anatoly Nikolayevich) and his right to marry Spiderman (Peter Parker). However, MODOK and his band of Hydra members alongside the Wrecking Crew and Mr. Hyde and Baron Zemo are all part of the Tea Party and are thus against the idea. So, the battle is for the Civil Liberties of Gay Marriage.

PLAYERS:

Mike as the Evil Characters banning together

Mary Jane as Chaemeleon

Select as Doctor Strange

Will as Ant-Man

Javier as the Thing

Rebekah as Gorilla Man

Andrew as Captain America

Raelle as Moon Knight

Dan as Electro (ie Shock Man)

Aton as the Hulk

Melodie as Psylocke

Armon as Thor

Taimur as Miek

Together, the Heroes form the Pro-Chaemelon League!

8:06- Raggaeman should be a real superhero (With Skaman as his sidekick)

8:11- Electro shocks girl medic. Jerk. He did so Screaming and randomly throwing bolts and all.

8:16- Chaemeleon beaten to an inch of his life. (Mary Jane has a shocked expression)

8:23- Electro electrocuted woman to death cruelly.

8:31- Scifi club wears Mels shirts

8:41- Rebekah and Javi: Adventure Time fanfic: LSP joins a Sorority "Society can't define who I am! Oh my glob!"

8:48- Bulldozer is the Flesh from Kablam

8:51- Good night, Moon Knight (Moon Knight is killed)

8:55- MODOK is Michelle MODOK-mann

9:02- Hulk falls to MODOK

9:11- Chaemeleon outlives the Hulk

9:34- Spiderman, Dragonman, Loki and Batman come out of the Delorean to get at the Pro-Chaemeleon League (though only Loki goes on the field)

9:36- Mr. Hyde is a valued member of the Tea Party

9:46- Thing Falls, though Gorilla Man does massive damage for revenge against MODOK

And some round afterward, the forces of evil were defeated by the heroes. I just forgot to record all that is all... :P

ENDING:

And so, with the fall of MODOK and Loki, Chaemeleon returned from battle scarred and beaten to his Spiderman. They embrace and do an upside-down kiss thing that was so ever popular with the movies and this heals Chaemeleon of his close-to-death wounds. The remaining heroes make their graves for the fallen in this conflict and mourn the loss of their friends. Yet, despite this there was not without happiness, as Chaemeleon and Spiderman finally get their wedding, with the champions of the battle to be there to witness the glorious ocassion. The two then move to Long Island and have 2.3 kids where the gang would return for their baby showers.

However, the heroes must be ever vigilant for the possible future actions of the Tea Party. Depsite this, they all lived Happily Ever After

(that is until the the election of 2012 where they must band together again should the Tea Party take over...)

As a final note, after the villains lost President Mike notice a stone lion and suggested we chuck it over the balcony right next to us and bid to try and vanguish as many sorority girls as we could at the time, as they did steal everything from us. Like lighting it was "Big Trouble in Little Chinatown." "It's all in the reflexex" ~Mike quoteing from said movie.

Well, that's all the insanity for today. I got to go and do stuff.

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A Hot Nerdy Mess: 2 Days of NYCC Madness

I, Wendy, your humble narrator, shall walk you through the life-altering two days I was at NYCC.

Day 1

I have a horrible confession to make. Until last Friday I, in a hassled and confused state (bus times, friend arrival mixups, etc) outside the Javits Center, had never gone to a comic convention before. The very first snatch of fellow con-goer conversation I catch involves Daleks (now I REALLY know I’m in the right place, as though all the costumes didn’t give it away). I squeeze my way past Batman, Ms. Marvel, a few ninjas with their respective village headbands and five Sweet Lolitas to make my way to the DC booth where our beloved Madame President Courtney is to save me from the onslaught. The rest:

I stop at the Marvel booth to say hello to my old bosses (hi Jordan!)! I finally meet the famous Agent M! I grouch over the loss of working around action figures all day long for horrid physics lectures with freshman philosophy majors (DIE)! Then:

Artist’s Alley: Katie Cook of Marvel Cats’ fame—Spider Cat versus Sand Cat. A total sweetheart who did a five dollar watercolor and pen commission for me of Chessie and three for Madame Prez. I say hi and shake hands with Scott Reed, the writer of Incredible Hulks: Enigma Force, which I worked on during my last days at Marvel. A moment of synchronicity: Madame Prez and I are found by Fancier Dan and Andrew, then all of us ambush Mike and Will three aisles away (Will’s shiny blue Human Torch outfit helped). We all troll around the floor. Many many photo ops for Will! Then (sans Courtney, boo):

Robot Chicken Panel, After Waiting An Hour In Line, Listening To Will Bemoan How Tired He Is: Macaulay Culkin, Seth Green, Seth Green’s Wife and Matthew Seinreich. Potential vague spoilers for the upcoming season: Home Alone (hence Macaulay Culkin’s appearance), Christmas and more Star Wars. After:

Venture Bros’ Panel, And Will Is Still Tired: “Quit wastin’ my time-time!” Henchmen, Q&A, rabid fans, uproarious laughter, I-can’t-say-much-more-since-I-don’t-watch-the-show-but-should-I-know-but-it-was-funny-nonetheless.

Will poses for one last photo even as we’re getting kicked out of the convention center.

Day 2

I roll my four-hours-of-sleep ass out of my bunk, don my pink shades as the X-Men's Jubilee and brace myself for the craziest day at NYCC: Saturday. The mile long line for those poor unfortunate souls who didn’t get tickets in advance make me clutch my treasured weekend pass beneath my yellow coat and thank Asgard and Odin (maybe I should have asked the Thor and Lady Sif I saw to thank Odin for me) that I get to dodge it.

Once again, a meet up with Madame President Courtney, our very own Taimur (TDSpidey616!) and Fancier Dan cosplaying as Ambush Bug outside the Marvel booth. I get cosplay photos taken on the Marvel stage and for Newsarama. We wait outside the bathroom for Will and then something magical happens:

An old man in glasses and a tan suit steps into the bathroom. One double take later: it’s Stan “The Man” himself. Yes, we are inches away from him (peeing). Fancier Dan shouts it and Mike tweets it and I would have too but my phone is a piece of shit and doesn’t get Internet. One group-split later (someone fill the readers in on the Avengers panel, please):

We troll the floor some more, get some Punishers signed for Mike, migrate to the Artist’s Alley where it is marginally less crowded, dodge some Death Eaters, and try to find an ATM in the desolate wasteland that is the far west side of Manhattan (eventually we do). I meet the famous Serge of Midtown Comics and get educated on the origins of “Cool story, bro”. Will gets groped by an Orange Lantern. I get groped by a pair of Old Greggs sporting matching miniature Baileys bottles. I like it. There are many rounds of high fives, a few more photo ops and a shout or two of “JUUUUUUUBES!” There are Deadpools, Ichigos, Lolitas, Chun Li, Green Lantern with Black Canary, Boba Fett, Stormtroopers, and Elastigirl (Doom Patrol, not The Incredibles!). Unfortunately, no more Stan Lee sightings (bathroom or otherwise).

Team Assembles Again post-Avengers: some random chick in loli getup comes up to us and shouts “BOOBIES?” I guess. Taimur proceeds to get slain by Ares. Q&A Panel with Joe Quesada, Brian Michael Bendis, Axel Alonso, Arune Singh, Tom Brevoort, Jeph Loeb, Dan Buckley and CB Cebulski: Will asks about Marvelfest (sadly not happening this year, Quesada apologized). Some guy gets booed out of the room for bitching about how much Quesada sucks in the mic. Said guy should die in a fire, honestly, who does that (answer: assholes). Taimur introduces me to Bendis, whose books I also worked on all summer long at the office. I shake Bendis’s hand (check Phil's video for live coverage!) and grin (he grins back and apologizes for making me proofread all those scripts! What a nice guy!); we all offer our tributes of “Dude you’re awesome!"

The Rest Of The Afternoon: We hunt for merchandise. We look high and low and near and far for this one poster stand where the day before I’d bought a Totoro poster. We finally find it thanks to Will’s sense of direction. Posters, check. The T-shirt stands become lighthouses in the Sea Of Hot Messes And Random Car And Toy Fliers. T-shirts, check. Toys are ogled, two Penguins bought for Madame President. The floor lights suddenly start shutting off and that is our cue to leave. We wait outside on some hard stone benches, admire our haul, and present Courtney with her Penguins. One of the Penguins is missing his vest and socks and both are missing their umbrellas, but if you squeeze the smaller one’s legs together it looks like it’s, um… doing a questionable up-and-down gesture! With that, it’s time to go home.

All photos with me in it are taken by Will (except for the Marvel flickr and Newsarama blog); otherwise they are taken by myself.

Iron Man's New Outfit Heralds Movie Sequel

CBL alumnus and current New Jersey Herald reporter Phil Molnar has been continuing the comic book thing and most recently got an exclusive with Matt Fraction on Iron Man's upcoming new armor! Check it out!

Iron Man's New Outfit Heralds Movie Sequel

By PHILLIP MOLNAR
pmolnar@njherald.com
Taking spring fashion to a new level, the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man will get some new duds in April, just in time for "Iron Man 2" hitting movie theaters.
Tony Stark, Iron Man's alter ego, will create the new costume in Invincible Iron Man issue #25, due April 28.
The writer of Invincible Iron Man, Matt Fraction, had a simple explanation for the change.
"Well, we'd blown up all the other ones," he said of the sleek new outfit. "He sort of had nothing left and needed to start over."
Iron Man's armor has changed more than a dozen times since his 1963 debut.
"Unlike Superman or the X-Men, who are born with their powers ... Tony can give himself new 'powers' in the form of new tech," said the writer of the Iron Man Legacy series, Fred Van Lente. "He's just like James Bond, except unlike Bond, he creates the gadgets he uses."
The new costume comes on the heels of a storyline in which Stark systematically deleted his own memories so bad guy Norman Osborn could not discover the secret identities of America's superheroes. Movie fans might remember Norman Osborn, played by Willem Dafoe, from the Spider-Man movies.
The costume was designed by Ryan Meinerding, who designed Iron Man's costume in the first film.
"He sketched around. ... When he hit it, everybody kind of knew," Fraction said. "It was there all along, we just had to find out where we put it."
Peter DeFelice, owner of Pyramid Comics & Cards in Sparta, said the Iron Man comic became one of his best sellers after the movie came out.
"We saw a big pop in sales, which is typically not the case," DeFelice said. He said that "The Dark Knight," the Spider-Man films and all the other superhero movies did not increase sales for their respective comics.
The Invincible Iron Man series began a month after the movie came out in summer 2008 and has continued to be a favorite of fans and critics. It won the Eisner award -- the comic book industry's highest honor -- for Best New Series in 2009. The previous Iron Man series, which had been retitled War Machine, ended a few months later.
DeFelice is hoping for another increase in sales when "Iron Man 2" comes out May 7 and is also excited about the new armor.
"Change is good," he said. "New armor is always fun."
Fraction also hopes the movie will increase book sales.
"You can do a lot worse than having the most anticipated movie of the summer be your lead," he said.
The first Iron Man movie grossed $318,412,101 in the United States, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing at the Academy Awards.
Fraction was also a consultant on "Iron Man 2" and assures new readers the comic series will sync up.
"The vibe is there," he said. "If you dig the movie, you'll dig the book."
The villain for the sequel will be Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke. The character first became a recurring Iron Man foe in Marvel Team-Up #145 in January 1974, when Spider-Man and Iron Man fought him as he tried to rob a casino in Atlantic City.
Fraction said he had no current plans to bring Iron Man to New Jersey, but didn't rule it out.
"He's still in the Avengers so he won't be away from the East Coast for long," he said of the New York City-based superhero squad. "Besides, the rents are so much more affordable over the river."