Well, recent comments by Dan Didio, together with the full November solicitations appear to show us how Kyle’s turn as Parallax ends at the end of the Sinestro Corps.

Whereas previously I was hoping the “Kyle in a different costume” was Kyle from another Earth in the multiverse, it does indeed look like once Kyle is freed of Parallax he’ll be ditching the Ion persona (which looks like it’ll go to Sodam Yat - a character I just don’t care about at this stage) and going back to being a plain old GL (with yet another new costume - although at least this one looks like it’ll have some consistancy between artists, unlike the Ion costume).

Its not the end of the world, and hopefully this will give Kyle some stability again. The Ion thing seems to be getting written off as another wrong-step by “One Year Later”, which is a pity as Ron Marz did some excellent stuff in that maxi-series, and there was some really interesting setup in the role.

To be honest though, the Ion thing seems to have become a bit directionless. Jade died, “returning the energy Kyle had given her”. Of course, that’s not what had actually happened back in Kyle’s run as GL, but fortunately Ron Marz sorted it all out by stating that Jade had given Kyle her Starheart powers, which had merged with Kyle’s own Oan-created GL powers turning him into Ion (everyone keeping up?) . Then along comes Sinestro Corps and tells us that Ion is infact the cosmic manifestiation of willpower. Now that the direction seems to be being binned for Kyle, I’m finding it hard to care anymore.

Ron Marz has got a one-shot in November which will wrap up Kyle’s tenure as Ion (by the looks of the cover). Hopefully he’ll address the Starheart stuff, and Jade won’t have died just to give Kyle yet more baggage to carry around.

As I say, its not the end of the world. If the powers that be have decided that “Ion” was a mis-step then I hope its explained and wrapped up in the one-shot and then shuffled off to the side. Kyle looks like he’ll be getting plenty of face-time in the coming months both as Parallax, then joining up with the Hunt for Ray Palmer, so its not like fans of the character are getting shafted (no matter what you may read online). I just hope that placing him in the Challengers of the Unknown means he’ll hook back up with Donna. Although at this point, I really just want some stability for the character.

Still, it could be worse. He could be John

Well, I’m back from 7 nights staying in New York City. Its the second time I’ve been there, so I’d seen a lot of the big tourist attractions before, but this trip had a different emphasis. We were based a bit further out of Times Square than before, and we’d booked up a Broadway show this time.

Some random thoughts in no particular order:

It really is a one-of-a-kind city. I seriously doubt there’s anywhere like it in the world, and its really somewhere most people should make the effort to go at somepoint in their lives.

New Yorkers have a bad and undeserved reputation. My experiences of them have (with a few rare exceptions) always been very positive, with everyone being very friendly and outgoing.

Avenue Q is great. A brilliant show that I can’t recommend enough.

Central Park needs signs. Badly. Expecially when you’re guzzling gallons of water due to the heat and really need to find a toilet.

Central Park is however, beautiful to walk around, and a great haven from the rest of NYC.

Fairway Market is how other supermarkets should be. Despite stocking a lot of known brand products, they also have their own farm to source their various fruit, veg etc from. Its like a great mix between a normal supermarket and a proper wholesalers. Its great.

The Tavern on the Green Restaurant is another stunning location everyone should check out while they’re over there.

Toys R Us Times Square has a big wheel in the shop itself. That’s just cool.

45.23809523809524% of me is a huge nerd! How about you?

Found this CGI short linked to from CtrlAltDel. Funny stuff, and a must for fans of giant robots

As I’ve mentioned before, I could easily use Blogger or somesuch for hosting my blog, but instead I decided it’d be fun to host and maintain my own blog. However, part and parcel of that, is handling the upgrade process myself to ensure I get all the latest security fixes.

Its always a bit nerve-wracking. I of course back everything up first, but there’s still the chance of ending up with a knackered blog and having to spend ages trying to fix it.

I’m starting to get the hang of it now though. As I’m on the latest point releases, I don’t need to worry about database upgrades thank goodness. The only problem I had this time, was that my permalink structure was broken, rendering site-navigation stuffed. A minor issue I’m sure you’ll agree

Fortunately, I’ve got it fixed now. I switched from using the default link structure (post/page ids passed via querystring) a month or so ago, and am now using a more human-reading link structure (hover over a post title to see what I’m talking about). As a side effect to this, it seems that when I’m upgrading, it helps to switch back to the default, and then re-enable the re-writing again. Not sure why it works, it just does.

Well yesterday I nipped into Toys R Us and saw that they now had a giftset of Blackout and Scorponok. These two Decepticons should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the movie, as Blackout laid waste to the US Army base in the opening scene of the movie, and Scorponok tracked the soldiers who escaped afterwards.

As a result of this fairly cool scene, I’ve been keen to pick up the two of them, so the giftset seemed like a great idea, especially since the box was roughly the size of a Voyager-class, I figured it’d be nice and affordable. Well, shame on me for not checking the price tags more carefully, as the cost was actually £39.99! I was in a hurry though, so wasn’t really watching what I was doing.

Now, since most people reading this won’t really follow Transformers toys, the problem here is that Blackout is a Voyager class toy. Which means he retails for £19.99 (give or take). Scorponok meanwhile is a deluxe, meaning a cost of £9.99.

Yup, Toys R Us suckered me good.

Sadly, I’m one of these strange people who won’t take it back and complain, as I view it as my fault for not checking the price before buying it. That and the set is now the source of a perverse amusement for me, just for the audacity Toys R Us have for stocking it at that price.

As for the toys themselves? Well, fortunately I quite like them. Blackout’s helicoper mode isn’t necessarily as robust as I’d like, but he matches his on-screen appearance well, looks suitably evil, and his some nice gimmicks in his mini-Scorponok he carries with him, and his geared rotor system.

Scorponok should be awful. Only his beast mode appeared on screen, so the designers have had to cobble together a robot mode for him based on what they had. It kind’ve works though. He looks quite monstrous which appeals to me. Again, he’s got a nice gimmick in his gears claws (push him along the ground and they turn, along with a flywheel in his chest), and his tail is nicely articulated. Plus I quite like how the fixed spring-loaded missle in his tail works as a stinger. Simple idea, but it works well.

As an added bonus, Scorponok can be pegged underneath Blackout to be carried into battle, and apparently (though I’ve not tried it yet), in this mode, triggering Blackout’s rotors will also activate Scorponok’s claws. Neat.

Newsarama have a preview up for next week’s first issue of The All New Booster Gold. Check it out here. I love how its Batman and Superman that actually stick up for Booster.

I must admit, I’m really looking forward to this title. I’m hoping it preserves a slightly more light-hearted tone, in comparison to a lot of DC books these days, which have become very serious.

Here’s the cover to Green Lantern #22. I love Ivan Reis’ artwork on Green Lantern. While I do love Ethan Van Skiver’s detailed work, there’s something “clean” (for want of a better word) about Ivan’s artwork that’s always really worked for me.

Nice to see Ivan getting to draw the Ion costume again. Its a costume that’s been the subject of a lot of controversy, as no two artists draw it the same way, but I’ve always thought Ivan’s rendition was the best. The way he uses the three parts of the chest logo to form the outline of a lantern for example. Ethan’s version of the suit was good as well, but I noticed he’d ditched the starfield and changed the collar, which I wasn’t as keen on.

It’ll be interesting to see if the suit is still around post-Sinestro Corps though. Personally I hope Kyle comes out of it as Ion. It’d be a shame to lose that setup, and it let him operate within the Corps, while still standing a bit apart from it, which worked well.

There’s also a lot of buzz regarding Kyle turning up on the covers for Countdown and the Search for Ray Palmer. Notably in them, he’s not Parallax, and is back as a GL in a new costume (kind of a hybrid between Hal’s and his first costume). Meanwhile, in the solicitations for the same month, he also still seems to be running around as Parallax. For now, my money is on this Kyle being from another Earth in the multiverse. Which may throw an interesting twist into his interactions with Donna.

I’ve been bouncing between games a lot lately. Generally when I’ve not got a really good RPG that I’m playing to death, I end up bouncing between different things, playing them for a day or two, before trying something else.

At the moment, I’m re-visiting Sid Meier’s Pirates! which was released in 2004. An updating of his original game, you are in command of a Pirate ship, trying to track down the members of your family, who were all captured when you were a boy. By defeating other pirates in their ships, you gain pieces of the maps needed to locate your family members.

Along the way though, you must keep your crew happy, which means attacking the other vessels you come across, plundering them for their wealth and then either sinking them, or letting them join your fleet. You can either do this as a true pirate, attacking all nations equally, or you can ally yourself with various nations, attacking those they are at war with, gaining yourself fame, land and possibly attracting the Governor’s daughter.

Its a great game. The main part of the game takes place on the world map, seen above. You can use the number pad or your mouse to steer your ship (or fleet) around the map, and when you encounter a ship you want to attack, you get to play a really fun sea battle segment, where you have to try and turn your ship to get the best possible attack angle on your opponent, while simultaneously trying to ensure you don’t expose yourself to too much damage from their cannons.

There are various other mini-games which keep things moving along. Be it sneaking through town, fencing on the deck of another pirate ship with its Captain, or dancing with the Governor’s daughter. Its a cracking game, and well recommended.

Found this on Youtube today. Just class