Episode 3 - Avengers Galore
Show Notes
This Week: Avenger movie and Comic news; ; Female Thor; Pillars of Eternity; BloodBorne; Discuss death of Wrestler Pedro Ramirez; and Video games difficulty
Avengers News
Captain America: Civil War directors Anthony and Joe Russo will be filling the void left behind by Joss Whedon and directing Avengers: Infinity War.
Considering that Captain America: Civil War is gearing up to start shooting in a few weeks, Marvel is scrambling to figure out the future of its recently rescued friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Remember that this third Captain America begins the Civil War story line which puts Cap and Iron Man on opposite sides of the super hero registration debate. Spider Man plays a pivotal role in the storyline.
https://nerdist.com/the-latest-avengers-infinity-war-and-spider-man-updates/
New Avengers
Marvel's Secret Wars event doesn't kick off until Free Comic Book Day (that's May 2, so mark your calendars), but all week it has been teasing the lineup of the brand new team of Avengers that will be forged from the ashes of Battleworld, and now we've got the lineup.
The Avengers team will consist of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, Sam Wilson as Captain America, Thor (not Thor Odinson, the other one), Nova, someone in an Iron Man suit and Miles Morales as Spider-Man. Additionally rumors about that the iron man suit is actually piloted by Pepper Pots.
http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/26/8294881/all-new-avengers-miles-morales-ms-marvel-thor
Female Thor out sells Thor by 25%
Background: During the Original Sin story arc, Thor is one of the Avengers who travels to the moon to capture Nick Fury after he kills the Watcher. During the battle, Fury tells Thor an extremely important secret, which somehow causes him to become unworthy. At the close of the series, Thor is seen trying in vain to lift his hammer.
Immediately after this, Thor returns to using his old axe,Jarnbjorn. He loses his left arm during a fight with Malekith, which is replaced with a prosthetic made from Uru metal. He later encounters the new Thor, a woman who is somehow able to wield Mjolnir. After teaming up with this mysterious new heroine, he gives her his blessing as well as the title of Thor, choosing to now go by the name Odinson.( http://www.comicvine.com/thor/4005-2268/ )
The first five issues of Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman's Thor have sold over 100,000 more copies than the last time the character had a renumbered solo title, 2012's Thor: God of Thunder.
The most recent Thor #1 sold 150,862 copies, based on ComiChron's numbers (which in turn are based on publicly released sales figures from Diamond Distributors), while Thor: God of Thunder #1 sold 110,443. First issues of a new series always sell significantly better than those that follow because they are considered to have a higher collectible value, but even by issue five, Thor is still selling better than Thor: God of Thunder's #5, by nearly 20,000 issues. You can check out a handy graph at Fusion. None of these numbers include digital sales figures, which as yet are not regularly released to the public by Marvel Comics or any digital comics retailers.
Series writer Jason Aaron emphasizes, “This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”
http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/20/8267191/female-thor-outselling-thor-god-of-thunder
Justin Bieber roast Monday on Comedy Central 10/9c
Right now you can see a couple clips of some of the jokes staring Snoop Dog, Natasha Leggero, and Martha Stewart
http://www.cc.com/shows/roast-of-justin-bieber
WrestleMania this weekend
Begins 3/29/15
http://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemania/31/wrestlemania-31-matches
Super Trooper 2 surpasses Indiegogo
The Broken Lizard comedy troupe has surged past its $2 million crowdfunding campaign goal to raise production funds for “Super Troopers 2” in only two days.
As of 8pm 3/26/15 they are at $2.7 million dollars.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/super-troopers-2
Mall Rats cast update
According to Director Kevin Smiths facebook page Jason Lee, who played the 1995 original Mallrats film, will reprise the role for the Kevin Smith-directed sequel. The news came from Smith himself, in fact, who made the announcement on his Facebook page earlier this week.
Lee will join Mallrats 2's cast of Kevin Smith as Silent Bob, Jason Mewes as Jay, Michael Rooker as Jared Svenning, Shannen Doherty as Rene, and Stan Lee.
https://www.facebook.com/YesThatKevinSmith
Ready Player One
Deadline reports that Steven Spielberg is set to direct Ready Player One, the highly anticipated project based on the popular sci-fi book by Ernest Cline that takes place in a virtual world. The book takes place in 2044 and follows the story of a virtual-reality game creator who offers up his entire company to the best player who can find an Easter egg in one of his many virtual worlds via a game called OASIS. A teenager named Wade Watts decides to take it on after millions have failed over many years. The key to winning the game is a plethora of pop culture clues from the 1980s.
Opinion: Great book, Will Wheaton does the narration for the audiobook. The book is definitely geared towards people who grew up in the 80s. That being said it’ll probably be a nightmare to get all the rights for all the stuff the book references for the movie. I mean at one point in the book the characters are scene by scene reenacting the movies War Games and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Pillars of Eternity
Pillars of Eternity is an upcoming fantasy role-playing video game from Obsidian Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. Out 3/26/15. Early previews compare the title to some of the most popular PC isometric rps of all times. Titles like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape and early Fallout games. The team at Obsidian decided not to use the D&D rule set but instead come up with their own original setting including spells, powers, player stats, and character classes.
Anyone who’s played a D&D computer rpg knows that it’s pretty easy to create a messed up character. Often you end up just maxing out a characters main attributes and letting the other stats suffer. Thus you end up with Barbarians with high strength but are dumb as rocks because they have no intelligence or wisdom, and Glass Cannons Wizards/Sorcerers with high spell power but no hit points. No joke, players would spend hours or days planning out their characters levels before even starting a game.
Obsidian instead remade their attribute system. The attribute Might controls all damage. All classes can just put points there if they are going to be damage dealers regardless if they are a mage or warrior. However Intelligence controls radius and duration of abilities. So you can have a high intelligence Barbarian with a long timers or large range on his killing abilities.
BloodBorne, best of the Soul series?
Bloodborne is a 2015 Action- and Tactical Role-playing game directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, developed by From Software, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 4. Metacritic 4.5/5, GamesRadar 4.5/5, The Escapist 4.5/5, GameSpot 9/10.
http://kotaku.com/20-hours-in-im-obsessed-with-bloodborne-1693242198
Hardcore Souls fans: Bloodborne is both familiar and fresh, a reimagining of the Soulsformula as creative and boldly designed as Dark Souls. If you were disappointed by Dark Souls II, there's a good chance that this is the game you wanted.
Interested newcomers: If you thought the introduction of guns meant the Souls series was preparing to lower its guard, think again. Bloodborne is hard as hell. But while it pulls no punches, it's still the most accessible take on a Souls game yet, sporting a slick and modern interface that makes settling into the game easier than ever. The game's not about to hold your hand, but if you've found previous entries too obtuse, Bloodborne's early hours are an easier climb.
My first week with Bloodborne has been fun, brutal, and hellish. Even now, typing these words, I want to go play more.
Discussion
Wrestler death live on TV, Video Games Too Easy?
Pedro Aguayo Ramirez broke his neck in the ring during a wrestling match Friday night (3/20/15). He was lying helpless in the ring for several minutes before being taken to an ambulance. As Omar Villafranca reports, the match kept going even after he was hurt.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/popular-mexican-wrestler-dies-during-match/
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/comparing-the-wwfs-death-rate-to-the-nfls-and-other-pro-leagues/
Music Credits
"Happy Bee", "Movement Proposition", "Theme for Harold (var.3) ", "Take the Lead"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/