What Are You Reading?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've heard good things about Lorcana, which despite my growing resentment for Disney as a company seems to have a solid foundation of mechanics to it from what I've seen.

Currently my attention is taken up by MTG and the One Piece TCG, but I may look into it in the future.

And yeah, I tried playing Yugioh Master Duel and found myself pretty overwhelmed after the initial tutorials. It feels kind of impenetrable for newcomers, but I may give it a more serious try at some point.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I tried watching one of the recent Yugioh championships to see how the game worked now, and it was almost incomprehensible.

But at least some things don't change.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

What cinched it for me was the collab video where Team APS tried to teach the Professor from Tolarian Academy (a veteran of TCGs) how to play Yugioh and he was completely lost just trying to read the effects of almost any single card.

I also think the fact that OHK combos are not only possible but not that uncommon on the tournament scene is a surefire sign that your game probably needs some rebalancing.

Speaking of card games, though, as well as recalling a previous discussion about the shortcoming of the Digimon Adventure reboot, it's worth noting that the Digimon TCG was also rebooted along with the anime. In this case, I've actually heard a lot of good things about the new game, and am strongly considering trying it out. Again though, MTG and One Piece have more than enough content to keep me occupied for now.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I read the first issue if Gail Simone's new X-Men run mostly on a whim and for the most part genuinely enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind keeping up with this series, but I immediately found myself wondering how long it would be before Marvel forces it to get involved in one or more big crossover events and completely derail it's momentum. That is what pretty much drove me away from reading most modern Marvel content. Even runs that I like for the most part like Zdarsky's Daredevil or Cates' Venom run had their momentum almost halted at times due to having to tie into bigger story-lines instead of following the more engaging, very personal stories that they were telling. In Venom's case it was it's own event and even that still felt wildly unnecessary when the whole pull of the story was Eddie Brock's personal demons and facing it together with the Symbiote.

I guess I'll stick with it until something like that happens or it loses me for some other reason.

[Mustang]

What cinched it for me was the collab video where Team APS tried to teach the Professor from Tolarian Academy (a veteran of TCGs) how to play Yugioh and he was completely lost just trying to read the effects of almost any single card.

I also think the fact that OHK combos are not only possible but not that uncommon on the tournament scene is a surefire sign that your game probably needs some rebalancing.

I wish I saw this sooner.

I watched an tier list video on the current meta decks recently. Yeah, don't know any of them lol. I'm still playing catch up. Just now understanding Mathmech, Cyberse, and Mekk Knights (and they aren't even listed on the tier list). Believe it or not, balance is not the issue. Almost every deck can kill you turn 1 (depending on if you go 1st or 2nd). I think the problem is the game itself. Way too special summon heavy. Just about every deck ends with the same board of extra deck boss monsters, and from what I'm seeing only so many decks can play around and recover from hand traps (Ash Blossom, Nibiru, Effect Veiler), and pretty much every deck is running them. Personally, I think the game need a reboot. I'm not saying reboot to the old 2000 days, although I had fun back then, but I was also still a child more or less. If Konami can find a way to dial back the special summoning I think everything would be ok. I don't think the game is bad, but for me it's in a bad place if new people are trying to get into it. It's way too fast and there's too much that you need to know about. Hell, probably don't even need a reboot. Maybe more formats kinda like MTG. What they got now? I know of Legacy, Vintage, Modern (it's been so long for me with that game too). Whereas with YGO you only have Traditional and Advance/Modern.

I also saw Master Duel mentioned. Dear GOD, NO! Not for beginners. That game don't explain anything, and if you have no knowledge of these deck types, good luck. I recommend Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution, but be cautious. The ban list is out of date. And the game only teaches you the very basics of each type of summoning. Personally, I still don't get pendulum or link summoning 100%. I know how to do them, but when it comes to combos utilizing them, nah.

Thought I'd chime in on the YGO talk since it's kinda what got me started in everything lol.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I took a lengthy break from Marvel and DC stuff over the past year due to a bit of burnout, but like always I cycle back to it when I've had time to refresh and try other things.

I finally got around to finishing John Byrne's Fantastic Four run. Honestly one of the best comic runs that I've read from that era. I have some issues with it (Johnny Storm dating Alicia REALLY doesn't work), but as a writer he really pushed the series forward after it had been so stagnant for an entire decade following Lee and Kirby's original iconic run with the series. It felt simultaneously like a return to form but also "modern" (for that time period) take on those characters.

I am still dedicated to making this the one Marvel series that I read in order from start to it's current run (or at least to Secret Wars), so as tempted as I am to jump to Hickman's run, it will still be a while until I get there.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I read some of that new Ultimates comic by Deniz Camp. And while it's a given that it's far more emotionally mature than the Ultimates comics by Millar and Loeb from 20 years ago, in only 4 issues so far, the 20th Century Men author does so much in twisting all the established Marvel characters into something new, where they're all in search of a robbed destiny and freedom from a status quo turned upside down.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I read through the Fantastic Four Vs. X-Men miniseries by Chris Claremont as I got to that part in my current FF series read-through. It's actually a surprisingly decent miniseries with of course a very misleading title, and is low-key a pretty good Doctor Doom story to boot. That said, what caught my attention is how Claremont continues the passive-aggressive rivalry between Doom and Magneto, with Doom in particular having a sore spot for Magneto and insulting him any chance he gets. This was started in Byrne's run, in no small part inspired by his own passive-aggressive rivalry with Chris Claremont I suspect. I just find it amusing how aspects of real-life tend to blend into these fictional stories.

Claremont also took a shot at Byrne's trial of Reed Richard's for saving Galactus. He had Lilandra come out of nowhere in a random panel to scold Richard's and claim he would face consequences if Galactus ever destroyed another world in Shi'ar territory. Claremont was pissed that Reed got off the hook when Jean was condemned for obliterating just one single planet. That said, Claremont doesn't seem to have disrespected the actual FF characters. I suppose he still had a reverence for Lee and Kirby's first large-scale collaboration, so he doesn't seem to have treated them shitty like other writers might have done.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You guys have no idea how tempted I have been to just skip ahead to Mark Waid's and Johnathan Hickman's Fantastic Four runs, but I am still committed to following through with my personal goal of reading every main-line issue in order from the start to current day (or at least 2015's Secret Wars). And man, is it harder to resist than ever while I'm in the middle of Steve Englehart's run. Like, I know he's a respected comic book writer veteran mostly from his work in the 70's (I've read odd issues of his stuff from Dr. Strange, Captain America, and even Batman), but good god is this some of the most boring shit I've read in a while. This is especially jarring after coming off of John Byrne's iconic run that really felt like a push forward for the series in both tone and subject matter. This stuff is like a consistent string of the worst issues from the middling stuff during the 70's when it came to FF's books. It also feels like it's from that era which is probably why the books were most likely not selling very well by this point. Even by late 80's standards this stuff feels old and dated, both in the way characters talk and in how it lacks the tact to handle more serious subject matter. Like, Ms. Marvel (the Sharon Ventura iteration of the character) is on the team and has a personal character conflict of overcoming trauma from heavily implied sexual assault. That in itself can make for a very compelling character arc when handled with the proper level of care and delicacy. Yeah....not even close. She's just portrayed as a man-hating emotional wreck that needs to learn to "get over it," rather than overcome her trauma in healthy ways. Likewise, there is another thing that comes up with her character where she mutates into another version of The Thing and it gives her suicidal ideations with the shock of how it affects her life. Again, under a certain context that could work depending on how the subject matter is approached, but it just comes off so bad here. This is genuinely the worst FF material that I've read so far. I know that the 90's era (which I'm getting pretty close to), is not considered a particularly strong era for this team, but I'm hoping that the level of quality at least gets better than this. Man this is a real slog.

On the flip side of things I finally decided to start reading New X-Men by Grant Morrison. Thankfully I didn't place any restrictions on myself with any other comic series, so I'm fine to jump back and forth between eras for this series (I am still making my way through Chris Claremont's stuff as well). And yeah, it's really good so far. It's actually almost surprising how straightforward this is for a Grant Morrison comic. I don't want to use the word "safe" because it is very much a change of form for it's time, but rather it does feel oddly safe by Morrison's usual standards. Not that everything he writes gets into crazy meta-logic with it's context, but this does feel even more streamlined than something like his Justice League run. That series is still tame enough for anyone to pick up and read, but it doesn't shy away from some stranger and suitably thought-provoking concepts (and I haven't even finished that run, though I do intend to go back to it eventually). Granted, I've only read 10-ish issues so far so I could be talking prematurely and it could get to that suitable level of weird that I'm used to from Morrison. And to be clear, this isn't a criticism since it's a very well written and well paced series so far. It just struck me as odd in how NOT odd it is so far.

[Dr. Insomniac]

The New X-Men does get weirder later on, and I remember the breaking point for a lot of readers depends on how sentimentally attached they are to a certain X-Men villain.

As for me, the Ram V Detective Comics run wrapped up and I enjoyed it for the most part. I didn't love it, and there were more than a few times where I was tuned out, definitely a comic that's better to read in batches than on an issue-a-month basis due to the pacing, but I appreciated the high concept gothic opera that V was spinning throughout. And combined with some really beautiful artwork, I'm gonna miss reading this arc each month. And I didn't realize how much I wanted an Azrael/Cass teamup until this run did it.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I wasn't expecting a lot from Absolute Batman. Scott Snyder's been losing me over the years, and all the marketing with the extremely buff Bruce carrying a Bat-axe looked more goofy than anything, but I was pleasantly surprised by the first issue. A really fun reworking of the Batman mythos carried by a very charismatic yet grim reinterpretation of Alfred, while messing with your head through its subversion of the usual Batman tropes.