A Descent into Dullness

Movie was funny and clever and the Ghostbuster ladies were all great.  Though tumblr is very right in that Holtzman is the best.  And I liked the original cast cameos, though I think Akroyd got the best scene.  And the ghosts looked good plus somewhat creepy and the climatic action scene was very baller.  Though the economics of their funding and the whole walking around with portable nucleur reactors was very much hand-wavey.

I was pleasantly surprised when our somewhat scanty evidence actually seemed to give pause to the railroading trial of the "Beast".  I mean, sure I'm still highly doubtful of the hoo-man justice system giving a humanoid defendant a fair shot.  But we left town with three judges actually delibirating on whether the "Beast" was guilty of marsh town massacre...

Though this rush to get to the next crime scene before the 2nd trial starts meant we were fairly unprepared for ghost fighting.  Stupid CON draining lil' kid specters.  And those were meant as the teaser battle before the main encounter for this abandoned village...

Anges Quill: An Anthology of Mystery written by Dave Roman and art by various

A half-dozen short illustrated stories following the cases of teenage detective Agnes Quill. Whose work often involves ghosts, zombies and stranger undead...

In "The Mummified Heirloom" & "the Divided Man", illustrated by Jason Ho, Agnes is first hired by a ghost to recover a family heirloom from her grave and then undertakes to help locate a magician's missing legs...

In "Lost and Found", illustrated by Raina Telgemeier, Agnes decides to help the ghost of a little girl find her lost doll...

In "Zombie Love Trap" and "Buried Homes and Gardens", illustrated by Jeff Zornow and lettered by John Green, Agnes first frees a jerk from his ex-wife's curse. And then she is enlisted to aid a subterranean community in finding out what is causing them to have power shortages...

And finally in "Invite Only", written and drawn by Roman, Agnes is invited to a party at a haunted house...

Another heavy pull this week. Helped along by the start of the second Incognito mini-series by Brubaker & Phillips. Which I somehow managed to miss when it came out sometime in the last couple weeks. Which has Zack Overkill going from super-villain to office drone in Witness Protection to government agent...

Sadly Young Allies comes to an end with its 6th issue. Which concentrates on Firestar and guest start Emma Frost. Who, back when she was a bad guy, had recruited the teen-age Angelica to try and train her into being her personal assassin. Oh well, one less book from the Big Two cape lines to keep up with...

But the other young supers book from Marvel, Avengers Academy looks to doing well. This time around the focus moves to Reptil, who has just been made class leader. Not that he isn't just as mentally screwed up as the others...

And lastly from the House of Ideas for the week is the next Strange Tales II. A great cover here by Jaime Hernadez, which ties into the Space Phantom story he has in the issue. His brother Gilbert has an amusing Iron Man/Toro team-up short also. Jeffrey Brown's X-Men story is also a stand out. Though Paul Maybury's Spider-Man story with Peter Parker telling various people various lies to explain his super-hero injuries, which leads to Aunt May thinking Mary Jane is beating him, might be my favorite...

The new ps238 concentrates mostly on Zodon and Victor VonFogg's cross-dimensional caper. Though we do get to check in with Ron/Argonaut and Tyler/Moon Shadow in space a few times...

Invincible hits its 75th issue with the climax of the Viltumite War. With the Coalition Viltrumite's and their most powerful allies going after the remaining Viltrumite Empire leaders. Also some nice Science Dog and TechJacket back-ups...

G0dland briefly becomes D0gland with a look at Maxim's people. And lots of..er..look its all very crazy and Kirby-tastic and I'm really going to need to give this one another read or two to follow everything thats happening here...

The cover for Secret Six has Bane wearing crude armor, wielding a bone lance and riding a T-Rex/Allosaurus type dino. Do you need anything else to sell you on this?

And we finish up with the latest iZombie. Gwendolyn (zombie) does some grave digging, Horatio goes hunting (monster hunter), Scott (were-terrier) gets a date, Galatea(?) makes her debut and Ellie (ghost) bonds with a new friend...

For this week we'll go with the one World of Darkness core setting I've never played or run, Wraith: the Oblivion. First to think of a concept. I think I'll base my Wraith off of Balbir Singh Sodhi. Like Sodhi he'll be an Indian Sikh working the night shift, shot and killed by idiots who thought he was a "dirty Muslim terrorist". Of course since this is the World of Darkness, his killers weren't convicted and the story didn't get more than a "In sad news" newsbite. We'll also make him a family man who leaves behind a wife and a (now) teen-age son and daughter...

Harisha Suresh Sodhi
Nature: Director, Demeanor: Judge

Mental Primary, Social Secondary, Physical Teritary
Str: 2, Dex: 2, Stam: 2 - In death, as in life, Harisha isn't an imposing man
Cha: 4 (Genial), Man: 2, App: 2 - But he always had a friendly greeting and kind word
Per: 3, Int: 3, Wits: 4 (Level-headed) - Calm and collected to the last. And beyond...

Talents Primary, Knowledge Secondary, Skills Teritary
Alertness: 1, Awareness: 3, Dodge: 2, Empathy: 4 (Truths), Streetwise: 3
Etiquette: 2, Stealth: 1, Repair: 1, Drive: 1
Occult: 1, Politics: 2, Linguistics: 3, Bureaucracy: 2, Enigmas: 1

Arcanos:
Castigate: 2, Phantasm: 3

Backgrounds:
Haunt: 2 (Unused attic of store), Mentor: 2 (Cowboy Bob), Eidolon: 2, Contacts: 1

Fetters:
Child's drawing (from daughter): 3
Father's Day mug (from son): 3
Wedding ring: 3
Store where killed: 1

Passions:
Give hope to children *Love* - 3
Watch over neighborhood *Hope* - 1
Bring murderers to justice *Anger* - 2
Help wife move on *Love* - 3
Move on to "true" afterlife *Faith* - 1

Willpower and Pathos both start at 5

And now those 15 Freebie points. Passions are 2 points each, so we'll up al but the "Watch over neighborhood" and "Move on" by 2, so 5, 4, 5. We'll up the last by 1 point to 2. That leaves 1 point, which will bump Pathos by 1 to start at 6...

Sadly, this week, there won't be a Friday Poll. And I think I'll be taking a break from doing them for little while. Mostly because I'm really running out of ideas for them. Going over the last ten I realized I did ones using Bad Super-Hero Concepts TWICE. And thats over a period of only two months. So no more until sometime in the new year. Though I'll probably do a poll on Christmas. Because I love Christmas...

But as to what I've learned:

1) Bad Super-Hero Idea (Take 1): The Oozing, Weeping Plague Sore Kid...

2) The most popular way to help kill zombies? If you had to borrow a gun from Firefly's Jayne...

3) Best Dracula? Bela!

4) Scariest ghosts are those made up of your own dead dreams...

5) Favorite Halloween treat? Mini-candy bars...

6) For destroying my Nemesis, its a tie between Karl Rove's brain in a robot alligator or a zombie-cyborg made from my roommate. Probably be best to use both then...

7) Most popular Sci-Fi/Classic Novel mash-up movie idea was Dumas' The Three Rockateers...

8) Bad Super-Hero Idea (Take 2): Drunken, Racist, Suburban Housewife Woman. Plus a bonus poll result showing the Comte de Mink is the most popular of the Weasel Lineage of Heroes...

9) Three way tie for showing them all. So obviously that means the Not-Mad-At-All Plan will involve a robot army, otter pups, 18 million tiny whirling devices, poison frogs, a selection of roses, a riddle fiendish in its intricacies, passages from King Lear, the power of STEAM and the ghost of Bud Abbott...

10) Another tie, as the best way of gaining revenge from beyond the grave is either your own re-animated corpse or bees. Maybe the revenant can spit bees?