The Shed Of Ideas – Episode One
By way of something to tide you over in anticipation of House to Astonish’s full-blown return, here’s an hour of questions, answers and general messing around featuring me and previous guests Cara Ellison, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, where we answer questions on comics-based video games, gritty superhero TV shows, all-ages comics, Marvel Now Wave 2, the future of the Ultimate universe and loads more.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available through the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
Don’t forget that our stylish and charming House to Astonish shirts will keep you warm and contribute to Paul’s son’s college fund, and can be found at our Redbubble store.
The thing that amused me most about Arkham Asylum was that Batman would always tell people ‘you’re safe now’ only for them to inevitably end up dead by the end of the game.
Freedom Force! I love Force Freedom. The second one was a little disappointing (tried to do the Bronze Age and the Gold Age at the same time, to mixed results). I’d love a third one, if Irrational Games would stop loafing about with that Bioshock nonsense. That’ll never take off like FF…
I liked the other elements of Shattered Dimensions (even if they were a bit linear) but the Noir bits were annoying and derivative.
Never turn your back on the New 52. It’ll do something shifty while you’re not looking.
Nightcrawler’s invisibility in shadows is perhaps the most useless power ever. You’re already hiding in shadows – why do you need to be invisible. I think it was Cockrum that came up with that, as Nightcrawler was his pet character.
Spider-Man (when he was still Peter) totally stinks of Lynx, like a teenage boy scared of using the showers after PE at school.
This is peobably still the best superman game:
http://youtu.be/r7U2TFIayos
—
I also dug out my NES recently and forgot there was even a Silver Surfer game.
—
We need Kieron and Jamie to do a YA game, that is mostly eating in diners, people making out and a level where Miss America just punches things, like a violent version of Katamrai.
Great show, all. Literally shouting along at points. Probably better not listen to this in kip, unless I want to dream-throw the table over when Heroes is mentioned. I might argue the toss re: Ult’Spidey as well, but that might take more than one dream.
A key feature left out of early Spider-Man comics is the bit where Flash taunts Peter over his spammy smell (© R K Herring).
As far as my Qs go: I’d argue that camp is just another kind of self-loathing. “Earnest” is *exactly* the word I was hoping to hear. I haven’t seen Arrow, but as with Man of Steel, I think the name probably says it all. Basically, I just want the Doctor Who slot.
As to female-lead supermovies, yeah, Carol would seem to be the obvious choice. I can’t entirely get past the name, though, wrt Shazam. If Cara wants to see a supermum, then the obvious choice – Jessica Jones being rubs – is Madame Web (Julia Carpenter). Single mother superhero with spider-voyant powers? Bosh.
(I have a pitch for that! She wears a jumper and goes to Manchester!)
As to Wonder Woman, I’m going to delete the thousand-word essay I wrote on why leaning into mythology is as much a move in the wrong direction as making her a wacky boardroom executive would have been. I suspect arguments like that are what keeps the poor thing off the screen.
Vidjagames! I’ve just watched Hannah Yogscast’s Arkham City playthru. There’s something incredibly heartening in the depiction of Batman’s resolution in the face of all that degenerate sleaze, but yeah: there’s a bit too much of it. I kinda wonder what it says, when taken with so much of what I see (admittedly as a total outsider) in games – I guess the end of the world is fertile soil, but still… I was thrown by the liberal use of the word “bitch,” too – I think I only heard one or two other swearwords, but yeah. Not in Batman.
Spider-Man 2 was the last game I played. Ended up causing, or exacerbating at least, my manifold hand-woes. Zen Spidey, though. Lovely. The games I’ve seen since have tried to do what the first Spidey games on the PS1 did, and embrace the wider superhero mythology. I…didn’t entirely enjoy the presentation, the button-mashy repetition (again, cf Batmarkh), or the first-person POV of The Vulture Noir holding the player down and attacking him. That and being told what to do by Moon Knight! Rack off, Moon Knight! You’re a meff!
(remembered this, as well: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/29/spider-man-2-devs-are-making-energy-hook/ )
Anyway. Once again, bon podde, tout le monde. Good show.
//\Oo/\\
There’s a great pair of unlicensed superhero text adventures: Kwah! and Redhawk.
As the current online stuff goes, Avengers Alliance is surprisingly good and makes excellent use of the characters.
I’d love to see Kieron write an old school style Infocom text adventure game.
Superman: Shadow of Apokolips on PS2 was actually a quite decent game, probably the best with the character as the main hero and not just part of the roster like in Injustice.
Matt: I wouldn’t really argue that’s the best way to do it, but my point really is while the “she’s hard to convert” is true, but she’s not impossibly difficult to do so. Choose your mark and just fucking do it. There’s a bunch of ways to approach the material.
(I’d say her biggest problem is actually her lack of an origin, in the way that (say) Spider-man, Superman or Batman have one.)
But that’s far from impossible, y’know?
Alex: I’ve been known to mess around with Inform 7 a little actually, though never persevered.
LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes is a surprisingly good Superman game. Even though just Batman is in the title, and the pitch for the game mentions the entire Justice League, in reality the core of the game is a Batman/Superman team-up against the Joker and Lex Luthor.
Superman’s heat vision and freeze breath are nicely implemented. Flying is fun, especially in the Gotham City open world, where the John Williams theme kicks in after you start soaring. The gameplay isn’t the most sophisticated, but the fun more than compensates.
And as a geek dad, the co-op makes it a great game to share with my kids – something for Paul to file away for the future. (Given his tastes, he may prefer the upcoming LEGO Marvel game, which has a surprisingly deep X-Men roster for a game that initially looked like an Avengers-centric companion to the Marvel Studios films.)
That’s certainly true (deletes pitch), although in the post-Twilight era, a young woman being “bitten by a radioactive man” (which is kinda what happens to Wondy) is getting to be well-worh as an origin story.
I had another idea for the female superhero movie: RED TORNADO, the matronly WWII tooth-smasher with a saucepan on her head. Imagine that: Melissa McCarthy (or Rebel Wilson if you want to pitch younger) in a Rocketeer/Cap1stAv-esque wartime comedy looking at the role of women in wartime, esp – OOH! That’s how you pitch it! ROSIE THE ROCKETEER!
Cheque, please!
//\Oo/\\
Whew! Brogue overload!
Infamous was a super-hero game with moral choices, although since it’s PS3 exclusive, you may not have played it. (Al kept mentioning his X-Box.)
It’s a fun game, but the choices weren’t all that complex. Basically, you got different cut-scenes and (somewhat) different powers based on whether you became a villain or hero.
For good licensed super-hero games, everyone always forgets Spider-Man for PS1. But I had more fun on that game than any other Spidey game since.
Did you guys get Alphas in the UK? That was a truly excellent super-hero show.
I think Alphas got consigned to the Sci-Fi channel, so didn’t get much publicity.
The unfortunately blandly named Spider-Man by Neversoft (or was it Vicarious Visions?) for the PC and PS1 was pretty good actually. I especially liked the What If mode (which basically just threw in a load of jokey cameos). There were some nice Easter eggs in that game and I think it was the first to do collectible comic covers, which was fascinating to me as a non-comics reader back then. I think that sort of thing can be underestimated as a gateway to the medium. The not-terribly-exciting Amazing Spider-Man movie game actually had full digital comics locked in it as collectibles, which was a great idea, they were just tiresome to unlock.
Amazing Spider-Man lost me when everything screeched to a halt mid-swing so Spidey could look around and choose his next anchor point. Way to kill the USP.
Thinking about Ultimate Spider-Man (the game), I enjoyed the thought of playing through a graphic novel – or at least an extended chapter of the regular story (even though, surprise surprise, they never really went back to it) – and I enjoyed the Bagley-derived art style. But Ult’Peter was just slightly too weak. Web-swinging always felt like just too much strain on my hands. I didn’t mind the repetitious street missions, although as with everything else, I preferred the ones in Spider-Man 2, which is why I went back to it. I could never beat the Torch in a race, though. Worse, I could never unlock the boss level in the Arena bit of SM2. I kept Mary Jane sweet, though, so there’s something.
Heh. I used to play that simulation game in Enter Electro for hours on end. The (not-so) Random Thug Generator was great to work out the frustration of the day.
//\Oo/\\
Clay: The point on the podcast where I mention Prototype is actually me thinking about Infamous and getting the two games mixed up. I’ve got Infamous (the first one, anyway) for the PS3 and have found it to be fun, though as you say, the moral choice element amounts mostly to some set dressing elements and reskinned powers, plus a couple of distinct power options.
Only heard half the show so far, but I had to defend Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Yes, the Noir section is a stealth game and no, that isn’t really what you associate with Spidey. But it’s one section, and you get to do plenty webswinging action in the other three.
And really, in the Spidey Noir comic, Peter does a lot of things you don’t associate with regular Spidey, including brandishing a gun, being remarkably underpowered, and yes, lurking in shadows a lot. If the Noir levels had played pretty much like the 616 or 2099 ones I’d have thought “So what’s the point of saying this character is Spider-Man Noir?”
I played Caped Crusader on Atari ST. I always got stuck really early on.
The one based on the ’89 movie was one of my favourite Spectrum games.
Sticking with 80s nostalgia, that’s the Marvel decade for me. X-Men was obviously at its best, and the foundation for all that’s followed, Byrne’s FF, Layton/Michelinie Iron Man, Simonson’s Thor, Miller’s Daredevil, black costume Spidey and the Hobgoblin mystery…
And for the last blast from the 80s, with the mention of Transformers – does it make any sense that Marvel, who’ve collaborated with IDW on New Avengers/Transformers, won’t let IDW use Spiderman in one issue and Circuit-Breaker in a handful (Circuit-Breaker, who will never ever again be used in anything, ever) of their Transformers reprints?
Marvel have let IDW use the issues of Transformers with Spider-Man, Circuit Breaker, the Neo-Knights and the UK issues with Death’s Head in for the recent run of reprint collections (Transformers Classics and Transformers Classics UK).
It was Transformers/New Avengers that set the foundations for their current cordial relationship over the use of Marvel stuff for those reprints and the Artist’s Editions.
Yeah, looks like it was older news when they wouldn’t agree, but it’s just come up again because some new digital versions have the Marvel parts missing again.
Al, here’s some unsolicited advice if you do another of these Shed of Ideas:
– Don’t ask writers and artists. They are unlikely to be critical about current books, writers, artists, etc.
– Get somebody more knowledgeable about comics. I enjoyed Kara’s other appearance on the podcast, but she didn’t add much comics-related commentary to this one.
– Find a different format than full-length Q-and-A. It can get a bit tedious.
I love the show and I look forward to your and Paul’s return in the coming months, but I didn’t find much to enjoy in this episode.
“Cara,” sorry.