The Three Doctors, Continued

Parts 7-9, Episode 3.

For All the Whos in Whoville

Parts 4-6 of "The Three Doctors" - Episode 2

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Does Whatever A Spider Can...

Another lucky find: http://www.wallopinwebsnappers.com/
Lots of information about the production of the 1967 Spider-Man animated series straight from the voice of Spidey himself - Paul Soles.

Sing along with this!


Anyone else notice that the storefront "At the scene of a crime" is spelled 'Fine Jewlery' before he swings in , but as he swings in, it's 'Fine Jewelry'?

Because I'm in a Who-ing Mood

With much gratitude to CrackedCosmo at YouTube, I'm posting "The Three Doctors", a serial from the Jon Pertwee era, guest-starring Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell. Split into three parts, this is Episode One.

Part Two.

Sadly, as you see in Part Three, William Hartnell was too ill to participate beyond pre-taped segments. He passed away only a few weeks after filming was completed.

Yowza.

Is it possible to sleep until next July? I don't think anything this cool will happen before then.

Pieces of DC Comics History

Life is full of happy accidents. Today, through some means I don't even recall, I found AIBQ. This page is an amazing collection of comics - specifically, DC comics - that run from the 1930's all the way to the 1980's. You will have to download the cdisplay viewer, but it only takes a moment and it is incredibly worth it.

There are 81 different series, for example:

Batman (Spring 1940 to December 1979)

Adventure Comics (November 1938 to September 1983)

Green Lantern (v.1: 1941-1949, v.2: 1960-1986)

Justice league of America ( Oct.Nov. 1960-April 1987)

And of course, my favourites:

All-Flash Quarterly (1941-1948)

The Flash: First Appearance Showcase #4 Sept./Oct. 1956 (as you see here!), plus the full series (1959-1985)

This is, of course, just a few of the comics available - full scans, including advertisements (which is half the fun in reminiscing!). Some of the other famous and infamous titles include Prez; Brother Power; The Phantom Stranger; OMAC; the Metal Men; Plastic Man; the Atom...Well, by now you get the idea. With Xmas vacation coming up, I am truly in DC geek heaven.



God bless us, every one.





Justice League of America #1, Oct./Nov. 1960

Whose Who?

Welcome back, folks. Real life forced a bit of a hiatus there, but I've got some particularly geekified thoughts running around my head, so here goes.

Over the past few months, I've been enjoying the new 10th incarnation of The Doctor, better known to the masses as Doctor Who. I think the new Doctor, David Tennant, is particularly effective in conveying a mix of humour and menace in facing foes both old and new. If I have any complaint it's the growing 'love interest' between DW and Rose. It just seems a bit contrived. In other words, just like everything else on television. For the most part, however, I find it extremely entertaining.

A side note here to the CBC: okay, I get that Holiday programming is par for the course at this time of year, but a five week hiatus between parts one and two of an episode? Come on.

Anyhoo, I started thinking about why exactly I like his characterization, and a life wasted on YouTube has allowed me to watch several of the other Doctors in action, adding fuel to the speculation. I finally realized that Tennant is not just creating a great character, he's playing pieces of many of the best incarnations before him.

Which led me to ask myself: Which of the 10 Doctors are my favourites and least favourites? So, here's a list of my 5 favourites. I'll cover my least favourites in a later post.

Favourite Doctors:

6. Peter Davison - 5th DW - Almost slid onto the least liked list, but there's something about his relatively low-key performance that appeals to me. I recently watched 'Castrovalva', and his playing of the flawed regeneration was great. By far the kindest and softest-spoken DW of the group, but no less determined to right wrongs. I got a bit annoyed at his companions, though. Like Alice, I try to believe three impossible things before breakfast.

5. Christopher Eccleston - 9th DW - A unique take on the character, which is maybe why he's not my favourite - there's no particular sense of continuity. Still good, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. The final two episodes of his run were, dare I say, Fantastic.

4. Tom Baker - 4th DW - Everybody's vision of DW who doesn't watch the show. The version that has appeared on the Simpsons at least twice, which is as good an indication as any that he's by far the most popular of the Docs. There seems to be sort of an emotional distance to the character, though, which is why I don't love this incarnation as much as most. Gotta love the tin dog, though. Jelly baby?

3. Jon Pertwee - 3rd DW - The 'Dandified Doc'. Some of the gadgets are a little out there, and I hated that car, but generally played the Doc as thoughtful, intelligent and caring. He's out there fighting evil for a reason - because it's right. Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!

2. David Tennant - 10th DW - As I've said, a terriffic mix of humor and menace, and loyalty as well. Competent as well, and supremely confident, as befits a very old character such as the Doc. From The Christmas Invasion:

Sycorax Leader: Blood control is just one form of conquest. I could summon the armada and take this world by force...!

The Doctor: Well...you could do that...yeah, you could do that, of course you could! But...why? Look at these people, these human beings; consider their potential! From the day they arrive on the planet, blinking, step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than... no, hold on. Sorry, that's The Lion King. But, the point still stands...leave them alone!

1. Patrick Troughton - 2nd DW - Befuddled, bewildered and supremely clever, this incarnation is what comes to mind when I think of the Doctor. He's doing what's right against the wishes of his all-powerful Time Lord race, and defeating evil through deception and force of will. In many ways, David Tennant is adopting small but recognizable pieces of many of the Doctor's personalities to give us the current incarnation. The best pieces, however, are of Troughton.

All together now: When I say run, run!

Well, there we are - feel free to argue and stomp your feet if necessary, I'll be back with the other side of the Time Lord coin shortly.

Online Comics!!!

From the fine folks at DC Comics and Ugo.com, you can now read the first 5 issues of 52 online!

Monster Manual IV - a Review

The first thing you'll notice about the newest offering of monsters from WOTC is that a change in formats. The stats have now been consolidated in a stats block that has smaller print, making it a bit harder to read, however that means you'll have to spend a bit more time preparing - perhaps by using a Combat Sheet, such as you can find here. The other thing you'll notice is that each monster now takes up 2 pages instead of the one page standard the previous MM's used. That translates into less monsters, but a lot more information on each one - things like ecology of the monsters, suggested treasures and lairs, and entries for the Eberron and Forgotten Realms campaign. The other new addition isn't really new to anyone who's been reading the 'Ecology of ____" articles in Dragon Magazine lately - a table giving the applicable Knowledge Skill and what information the players can glean about the monsters from the Knowledge Check Roll. I like this new development, it prevents veteran players from going 'oh, that's a mind flayer, my character will use such-and-such" - it forces them to play the characters as though they'd never met that monster before. Of course, the corollary is that the party will need at least one character with the necessary Knowledge Skill, actually a couple, since some monsters use the Knowledge(dungeoneering) roll, while others use Knowledge(the Planes) or Knowledge (Arcane).

As for the monsters themselves, they generally tend towards the CR 4-9 level, the highest is the Concordant Killer at CR 19. One new feature is that a lot of the monsters are actually examples from previous races, for instance, under Orcs we have the Orc Berserker (Barbarian 4), War Howler ( Barbarian 2/Bard 2), Orc Battle Priest (Cleric 1), and Orc Plague Speaker (male unholy scion Cleric 5), which leads me to my one complaint about some of these additions - some of them are dependant on your owning another book, for example the Unholy Scion is a template found in Heroes of Horror. Another example is the Drow Elves entry - of the 4 entries in MM4, 2 of them use classes found in The Complete Adventurer. Nonetheless, it's nice to have something you can quickly use in place of the generic Orc/Drow/Ogre etc. Another large entry is found under the heading of Spawn of Tiamat - basically a variety of monsters linked to the chromatic dragons, but not necessarily looking like dragons, which would be handy if you wanted to run a campaign using Tiamat as the protagonist.

Overall, this is a good buy - rather than a slew of new monsters, some if not most of which you'll never use, WOTC has opted to present a lesser quantity of entries, but of a better quality and presented so that you'll have little difficulty fitting them into your campaign setting.

Geek Toy of the Week

Technically, I suppose, this is a miniature rather than a toy. Although, truth be told, at 11 inches across and 8 deep at the base, and at 24 inches in height, miniature is kind of an inadequate term to describe something that's the equivalent of a 10 story building sitting on your game table. Granted, at $259.99, this isn't going to be something you'll just casually buy, that's probably why they're only making 500 of them, but still - isn't the 'oh sh*t!' look on the players' faces worth it?

Leeroy Jenkins

Let's face it - every party has one. And they're the DM's favourite...

For Those With Actual Lives of Their Own...

DC comics has been kind enough to post on their website a series of chapters outlining the History of the DC Universe. A nice move, and a prudent one, given the complaints I've seen on various message boards. That's the problem that comic book reality and actual reality share: it's messy. The reasons for the messiness are different, of course - actual reality is the one in which people die and don't come back, sometimes at phenomenal rates. The same cannot be said for comic book reality.

The need for a review of the history of the DCU arises from the most recent universe-altering event, referred to as the "Infinite Crisis". A direct sequel to 1985's "Crisis on Infinite Earths", it seems to be a belated attempt to tidy up the last unfortunate discontinuities created by the interim shakeups, "Armageddon 2001" and "Zero Hour".
In short, the DCU is now a slightly friendlier place, with a less grim Batman, and a more 'human' Superman.

One of the things that companies like DC do with certain characters who are around for a long time is 'reboot' them, with either a new character or a revised history, and this is currently the case with Wonder Woman and my obvious favourite, The Flash. Both have new characters filling their predecessor's shoes, both are well written and drawn, and the new Flash (number 4, Bart Allen, the grandson of the 2nd Flash, Barry Allen) seems a logical successor.

The same reboot is being attempted with Blue Beetle, who is now a Hispanic teenager in mystical body armour. This differs from the acrobatic inventor, Ted Kord (Murdered just prior to IC, a move that was quite surprising, if not shocking), the second BB, and Dan Garrett, the first BB from the 1940's (who had his own radio show, believe it or not). So far, this has proven disappointing - just my opinion, but I've never wanted to slap a comic book character before. Whine, whine whine. Just my opinion, of course.

The new Atom, an Asian-American, is in contrast very entertaining - witty and exceptionally well drawn. You really get the sense that the character is learning the ropes, whatever those may be when your power consists of shrinking to microscopic size.

There are other new elements, such as the much-ballyhooed Batwoman, but overall, I am rather satisfied with the 'new' DCU.

Why am I sharing these no doubt incredibly interesting insights? Well, to point folks toward the link above for one. My other reason is that I've been debating for some time on whether or not I should throw some thoughts down on the history of the DCU, since I've grown up 'living' there, and I've decided that I will, with this post as an introductory foray. Given the fairly wide latitude on this blog, and my desire to 'write what I know', I'm thinking it'll be appropriate and fun.

Watch this space, it'll be coming at you soon, whether you like it or not.
But I hope you do.

Be Seeing You.

One Good Motivation Deserves Another

As a followup to my previous post I thought to follow up with a link to Star Trek Inspirational Posters!

If You Want to Attend Comic-Con 2007

You'd better get down to San Diego quick - the line-up's already started.

Geek Video of the Week #2

For those of you in a nostalgic frame of mind:

Opening Theme to Rocket Robin Hood

Geek Toy of the Week #2

From the fine folks at
Crystal Caste comes one of the coolest things I've seen lately - a treasure chest with skull handles and a gargoyle hinge that comes with a complete set of dice. Truly you will be the envy of the other players at the table when you haul this sucker out,

His Majesty's Dragon - A Book Review

A great joy for any bibliophile is when they discover a new author and such is the case with Naomi Novik's 'His Majesty's Dragon'. This book combines a Napoleonic Era setting with the addition of dragons as a naturally occurring species - there's no magic here. The story begins when HMS Reliant captures a French ship carrying a dragon's egg on the verge of hatching. I won't go too much into the plotline from there, save to say that that Novik does an excellent job of creating thrilling battle scenes a la Patrick O'Brien, adding the extra dimension of aerial combat. She also fleshes out the background well, and creates compelling characters, especially the draconic ones. All in all, an excellent read - one I highly recommend, and I look forward to collecting the other books in the series.

Bonus Video

Following up on Flash's post I thought this video clip seemed appropriate:

Stephen Colbert on Dungeons and Dragons

Video of the Week

Ryan VS Brandon

What's my Motivation?

For those times you need a pick-me-up, we present RPG Motivational Posters! The ones you see here are just a couple of the many choices you can use to boost your party's morale!

Death, Where is Thy Sting?

Ok, so I died over the weekend.
Unless you are a believer in the supernatural (which I am not), it must be obvious that I am referring to my character: R.I.P. Ardric, 3rd-level Dwarf Knight.

So, how am I supposed to feel about this, I wondered. He was my stout, brave (or foolish, depending on your perspective), battle-hardened alter ego. I had never died before (not a Buddhist, either), so I wasn't sure how to move on.

I've died before, but it was a long time ago: In the '80s, I played Traveller with a bunch of my pals. I originally was playing a Vargr, essentially a human-sized dog, or a werewolf without the were part, if you will. I played him as just another character. That is, until we actually got the books we needed in the first place, and discovered that the Vargr were treacherous and opportunistic. So, I went with it.

It took all of 15 minutes to get fragged by my fellow players. I deserved it, and I provoked it. Self-inflicted, for all intents and purposes.

So, I became a Zhodani, one of the tall, thin telepaths with amazing abilities like teleporting, etc. This guy stuck around for a while - he was useful, as a telepath would be. We spent over a year trying to get to the heart of a criminal conspiracy involving a group called Blackthorne's Blackhearts. Of course by criminal I mean legitimate, and by conspiracy I mean lawful authority, but that's neither here nor there.

At the end, we ended up in chains on the floor of his 'throne room'. I was pretty angry, and , since we were likely to die anyway, I teleported into the same space he currently occupied. Messy, yes. Surprising? You betcha. But not involuntary.

Since my re-intro to D&D, I've played a couple of characters: Max, a Paladin who went off to find spiritual enlightenment, and Diemos, a sorcerer who is still going strong, although currently on vacation (lucky bastard). We started the new game about a month ago, and I decided I wanted to play a knight.

Unfortunately, a brave, noble knight who died of mummy rot. how embarassing. At least I wasn't the only one - our halfling druid bit the dust, too.

I was shocked, I was dismayed. Then, my former-halfling pal and I went somewhere else to create new characters. I'm now a female rogue, both for the first time. Should be interesting. However, in the absence of a period of mourning, I thought I'd share this experience, in the hopes that somewhere, Ardric is hoisting a flagon of ale and swearing revenge on mummies in the next life.

Taken too soon

Ardric Erzgraeber 2006-2006.

If anyone has a spectacular or even an emotional character death story, I'd love to hear it. Together, we can heal...

Be seeing you.

D&D Meets Survivor

Just thought I'd give a shout out to a Webcartoon called 'Endurance Challenge: Mordred's Isle' starring Billy West, the voice of Fry on 'Futurama' - you can see the first episode by clicking on the link above.

Toy of the Week

For those people who don't like these newfangled digital watches and yearn for a simpler, older style the good people at
Think Geek have come through with the ultimate in 'old school' - a Stonehenge Watch. Yes, now you too can tell time the same way your great-many-times-grandfather did. Of course, it only works outdoors, and in the daytime and when you can see the sun, but hey, you can't have everything (Don't worry, there's an analog watch built into the front)

Dragon #346 - A Quick Overview

I've decided to make it a habit of giving my impressions of the latest issues of Dragon when they come out. So, we'll begin with #346, pictured to the right - I'll just give a quick list of the articles, and my impressions of each:

1. Core Beliefs: Pelor: I'm of two minds of this series - the fact that they deal exclusively with the Greyhawk Campaign Deities would make it of limited value to someone who isn't running a campaign set in that world. Nonetheless, it's a nice way of giving a background to that particular deity, and I suppose you can very well adapt it to whatever Sun/Good/Healing Deity you have in your world. It gives some extra spells for clerics of Pelor; a 1st Level Spell called Sun Father's Face that essentially gives you a +4 Bonus on a turn undead/wild empathy check and a 2nd Level Spell called Sunmace which I think is unnecessary, since it's basically Spiritual Weapon, which is the same level, but with the added bonus of extra damage to Undead, personally I would have made it a 3rd Level.
2. Three Dragon Readings: Character Generation Through Fortune Telling: This article allows the DM to adapt the TSR Card Game Three Dragon Ante as a character generation method combining random ability score generation with a point-buy system. This is nice because it allows the DM to scale the power levels of the characters with the difficulty level of a campaign - it also helps to give the players a 'feel' for their characters rather than simply picking numbers out of a dice roll. I really like the idea, although I don't know if it's enough to make me buy the product.
3. Games of Chance: Dice and Card Games for D&D: I like this article - it gives a variety of games of chance that the characters can play in the taverns they frequent during the campaigns, and gives a nice change from the ubiquitous Texas-Hold-Em and Craps games that most DMs seem to use, when they use games of chance at all.
4. Supporting Cast: Following the Leader: For those DMs who use the Leadership feat (DMG, Page 106) in their campaign, this article gives suggestions for followers for each of the various classes, along with a 'bit of a twist' suggestion. Nicely balanced, the suggested followers work well with the abilities of the leading class.
5. Impiltur: The Forgotten Kingdom: I have the same problem with this article that I have with the Core Beliefs article - unless you're playing the Forgotten Realms Campaign, this article will be of limited use to you. If you are, however, it's a valuable reference for an area you probably haven't sent your players into.
6. The Ecology of the Rust Monster: I'm aware that there's some discussion on the Wizards Message Boards on this Monster, so here's my 2cp worth; the majority of the people arguing that the Rust Monster is overpowered seem to be of the opinion that 'nothing bad is supposed to happen to the players' and that to me seems wrong, especially in this case, the fact is that the Rust Monster is fairly easy to defeat from a distance with missiles and/or spells - the only way a fighter is going to suffer serious loss of equipment is if he charges the beast solo without backup and really, why should the DM reward idiotic tactics? Also the idea of a rusting effect that's only temporary seems to me to be kind of silly, as anyone who's ever seen an 80's model car can testify, rust doesn't go away, it's permanent.
7. Class Acts: A mixed bag in this issue; the extra feats and options for scouts are handy for anyone who's picked up Complete Adventurer and wants to play the class, and the Sacred Enforcer seems like a nice way to customize monks for specific deities. The article on Eastern Cataphracts is good if you want to run a campaign set in a specific historical period, or if you want to give a different feel to another culture's cavalry. The article on The Power of Truenames seems to me to be only of use if the DM allows that magic variant from the Tome of Magic.

So that's it for this issue, any discussion/argument is more than welcome.

New DC Films! Huzzah!!

A big h/t to Superhero Hype for the news:

DC Comics--the world's largest English-language publisher of comic books and the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman--Warner Home Video (WHV) and Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) have announced the start of production and distribution of "DC Universe," a series of original, animated PG-13 movies. The announcement was jointly made by Paul Levitz, President, DC Comics; Ron Sanders, President, Warner Home Video and Sander Schwartz, President, Warner Bros. Animation.

WHV will be the exclusive worldwide home entertainment distributor for all DC Universe movies which will include a slate of 2-3 action-packed films per year. To kick off this impressive venture, WHV, WBA and DC Comics are proud to announce the first three films to be released in late 2007/early 2008:


Justice League: New Frontier - written by Stan Berkowitz (Justice League), with Darwyn Cooke serving as story and visual consultant

Superman: Doomsday - produced by Bruce Timm and written by Duane Capizzi, from a story by Timm & Capizzi

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract - written by Marv Wolfman and Tom DeSanto, produced by DeSanto.

Other DC properties with films in development include Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman.

The Scarlet Speedster Returns!

Hey all, I just wanted to drop by and thank Dan for the invite - I think this will be fun. My ridiculously useless knowledge that makes Ms. Flash roll her eyes will finally have an outlet!

Stuff I like, just as examples (not in order):

1) Irwin Allen TV shows - Just got Vol. 2 of The Time Tunnel - good stuff.
2) DC Comics - Hence the screen name. Particularly all incarnations of The Flash.
3) The Prisoner - I am not a number, I am a free man!
4) D&D - Better than I remembered, now I'm hooked.
5) Traveller - If I ever run a game, this will be the one. Again, better, since they switched to the d20 system.
6) Old Sci-Fi TV in general - The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, etc.
7) View-Master - I collect viewers and reels. My latest was the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Also have Trek, Lost in Space, Bonanza, and so on.
8) Richard Matheson's I Am Legend - One of the best Sci-Fi/Horror novels ever. Matheson is by far my favourite writer.
9) Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality

I'm glad to be here, and I hope everyone else will eventually be glad too.

Be Seeing You.

You Know the First Post's Gotta Be About Star Trek

There's a fine line between being a fan and being a fanatic, and I suspect it lies somewhere south of
Tom Pearcy's corn field - the British farmer used satellite technology to create a giant maze in tribute to the 40th anniversary of the show's first episode. The maze uses 1.5 million corn plants and claims to be the largest one of it's kind in the world.
Update: My bad, I misprinted the number of corn plants, it's been corrected to the correct amount

Welcome to the Blog!

Good day and welcome to my blog - as it says above we'll be posting on all things of a geeky nature.