PvP isn't my thing. I don't play Halo, I haven't tried Call of Duty. The idea of getting on a game and fighting with my friends or strangers online just doesn't appeal to me.

PvP, at the end of the day, just isn't nice enough for me - I'm not cutthroat enough with other people. I'm the sort of player who doesn't want to attack anyone too below me, who is still learning, who is having lag issues, so on and so forth. I'm incredibly blood-thirsty when it comes to the NPC hordes but when it comes to other players.... Not really. I tend to take the golden rule to a gaming extreme. I don't want to be afk snipsnipe when I'm having equipment issues or still trying to figure out how things work so I'm too sweet and end up just creating chances for people to kill me. Good times...

I think a lot of the sour taste in my mouth, and my 'head shot as you would wish to be head shotted', in regards to PvP came from Galaxies and their PvP zones and guild wars. Oh those annoyed me to no end. When Galaxies introduced war torn PvP zones, I missed the memo regarding their location and bounderies. My little tailor (a non-combat class so level one with no fighting abilities) was out checking her harvesters. I hit auto zone, put her on the right path and move away to grab something.

When I came back, she was about to enter a PvP zone. The warning text popped up on the screen as I crossed in -  not before or at a particular distance away, as I entered - so I turned myself around. Sadly, speeders do not stop or turn on a dime and before I could make it out I was dead and my speeder was destroyed. I liked that speeder.

I'm the little guy...

While replacing the speeder wasn't a big deal in the end, it was incredibly frustrating to me that the fighting in those sectors was so blood-thirsty that people rejoiced at taking down a level one tailor. Yes... Congrats. You took out a player with no ability to fight back. Truly your ability causes men and women alike to swoon. To be fair, in SWG, it didn't matter if you took down a level 90 or a level 1. You got the same number of points. Maybe that is what really annoyed me about it - that a game that won't give me a tutorial because they want us to talk to each other to encourage community had 90s mowing down 1s because it is just so much easier than taking on a fair fight.

It didn't help that SWG had this thing where guilds could decide that they were feuding. And when that happened, any member of said guilds could pick each other off without the ability to refuse the duel. That, again, annoyed the hell out of me. I loved playing my non-com but this meant that I really couldn't unless I could muster up a group of folks to travel with her at all times. Not exactly the most fun thing in the world, sitting around a cantina while an entertainer provides new cosmetics and buffs.

I much preferred the way PvP worked in Lord of the Rings Online. Which was a really fun game before it went free to play. Not to insult them for doing it but by the time LoTRO went free to pay it was so radically different from the game I bought that I just lost interest. That said, I do have a lifetime membership so I may go back at some point.

Anyway, not to go off on a tangent, PvP in LoTRO was simply not something that you could stumble into. At least not when I left and I highly doubt they have changed it. You very deliberately selected a fast travel to a specific map that you could only get to from this travel point.

Once out there, there were more quests and reward tokens and special horses that you could only get from successful PvP combat. These items could be used anywhere in game, with a few possible exceptions, but they all had to be earned in this zone. Of course it also got into my good graces because it functioned well within the concept of the story - you didn't have elves fighting against elves. Free people characters (elves, humans, hobbits, dwarves) played fought against player controlled monsters (orcs, spiders, and all fun nasties).

And it does have to be said... A part of me avoids PvP because I admit that I am not the most gracious loser in the world when it comes to player v. player combat - I want to win but I'm just not interested enough to build up the required skill set. Not the best combination in the world!



My husband isn't a PvPer either although he is a very gracious loser. He is the kinda guy who will get completely destroyed, laugh and offer genuine congratulations. Me, if it is a console game, I'm fuming. Ah, the joys of an Irish temper. He just doesn't like dealing with it. Me, I get annoyed and go off to slaughter some trolls.

Not me. But I kinda want this outfit even though I don't play WoW.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that PvP is bad by any means. I still engage in it from time to time. I had a number of friendly duels in LoTRO and SWG and I don't see any reason why that won't continue in SW:TOR. I never got far enough in DCU to get to any PvP honestly. I remember with particular fondness the PvP servers for Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time game. By the way, if anyone knows of an emulator for that game, let me know. I miss it so much but I can't get it to run on my newer computers without screwing up the cutscenes.

PvP is just not something you are going to see me running off to do. Unless, of course, someone has figured out how to make it appeal to me. In which case you might want to follow along and see what even has me in the fighting! :-)

SWG Vs. SW:TOR

New post time! A small compare and contrast of Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars The Old Republic. First, a little holiday giggle.

Snagged this at: http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2010_12_01_archive.html

It's not a big secret that I positively adore Star Wars. It was, in fact, largely my first introduction to the world of things geek. I latched onto Star Wars as my only fandom for years until I got older and gained more exposure, primarily in college. So it is safe to say that I have special place in my heart for Star Wars, even if my opinion of Lucas himself waxes and wanes.

I won't lie - I didn't get to play SWG in it's heyday. I stared playing after they released the New Game Enhancements update that 'broke', at least according to popular opinion, the game. I first considered buying it as a way for me to go on dates with my long distance boyfriend (now my Gamer Husband!) without having to drive 3+ hours. That it *was* my favorite geekery and that I could run around as a Twi'lek in gorgeous dresses cinched the deal for me. I bought the special edition so that I could have have my own mini-chicken walker thing - I forget the exact transport model.

My first character was a Twi'lek entertainer. I enjoyed role-playing with her but our guild was primarily PvP so I didn't get a lot of chances to. Not their fault - I went with the same server as my then boyfriend since the whole idea was to use it to stay in touch and do things together. I was still learning what I wanted to do. A little later I made a tailor (also a Twi'lek) on a different server that was geared towards RP and had more fun with that when le bf was busy.

The entertainer character fell to the wayside a bit in favor of a Zabrak smuggler and I discovered the joy of combat in a MMO. Soon SWG had gone from being something I used to have a date night with my far away boyfriend to being something I did for my own entertainment. Of course we still had our date nights and even staged an in-game wedding between our characters. Yeah...we're that kind of sappy. XD

Sadly, my love affair with SWG was to be short-lived. All too soon, they decided to “fix” it again. A new system that was supposed to make entertainers a more playable class just frustrated me. In theory, it was awesome - customized stat buffs that required the entertainer player to actually be at their keyboard and not just AFK dancing. Maybe it was because I was still new to MMOs and game systems that I found it frustrating. Or maybe it was the way that the MMO was structured.

For those who didn't play, one of the big ideas behind SWG was that they would promote community by forcing us to rely on each other. You could only have two characters per server (this was expanded a little bit while I was playing) and most, if not all, crafting required you to use parts made by other professions. In addition to this, there were precious few tutorials. I'm not sure how they got information out to begin with but players were forced to ask each other how to do everything.

In theory, again, this is great. However it does open people up to a lot of cyber-mocking if they are having trouble understanding how to do something simple. Not the most fun thing in the world. It definitely made me always in a hurry to get my characters into a nice, friendly guild, not that this is a bad course of action in any MMO. Just that, as someone who was getting started in MMOs I had to weigh my desire to accomplish any given task vs. how friendly people would be. While I don't really consider this to be a negative thing, it wasn't a beginner friendly MMO - particularly back in the days when a force sensitive character didn't have the option to refuse PvP.

Of course SWG didn't start out with just anyone being force sensitive. You made your character, played through and were pretty much randomly picked to be force sensitive - from my understanding. I came in post-NGE and that changed a lot of things in terms of force sensitive characters. The big thing was that you could decide to be a force sensitive character from the start, nixing all the prestige that came with attaining force sensitive status in SWG. There was also no way, or incentive, to randomly kill the force sensitive characters. While this was good in my book (I'm a team player, not a competition player honestly) it upset a lot of players who liked that style. So I truly believe they shot themselves when they nerfed it.

Now SW:TOR is starting out with being able to select force sensitive characters. To be specific, you can be a Sith, a Sith Inquisitor, a Jedi Knight or a Jedi Consular. I have spent most of my time playing a Sith Inquisitor so far. It really is a testament to the game that I'm actually interested in playing a 'bad' character - all things being the same, my characters are usually at least lawful good and usually a few steps above that. This game just makes it *fun* to be bad!

In particular, I can get into my character's back story in my head. Unlike in SWG where you just showed up at this space station and everything was very much the same regardless of character or class, each class and allegiance has it's own separate intro. For Inquisitor, you are a former slave who has been plucked from bondage to see just how in tune with the force you really are. Interestingly, this is only class where you can play a Twi'lek as part of the Empire. Throughout early gameplay there are plenty of snips about how you are just an alien and your kind can't be taught, etc. It really makes me want to explore what sorts of dialogue you get when you a play Sith bloodline character instead of a Twi'lek or a human.

I can't say I'm surprised by my desire to explore the different combinations of class and species. It is Bioware after all! I'm even a little interested to see what happens with male characters instead of female, from what I've seen peeking over my husband's shoulder.

As far as character customization goes... I think SWG wins - so far anyway. The color palates you could pick from were huge and I find myself annoyed with the cosmetic options in SWTOR - I want to be able to do eyes and mouth separately, that sort of thing. Particularly for Twi'leks - for them make-up and markings are tied together. I can't pick the markings I want and then the make-up. I just have pick which make-up/marking combo they made that I like best and there aren't that many to pick from. Still, that is an easy fix and it wouldn't break any of the game play to add more cosmetic options so I can hope that they will include more options in a patch.

Another thing that Galaxies had that SWTOR doesn't, so far, is a non-com class. I really miss my little entertainer, I really do. It was just fun! I had my own dances mapped out, when I special effects, etc. Granted, I didn't play her as often as my smuggler but I did really appreciate having the option. Plus I had an entire back story in my head about how my smuggler and entertainer worked together. It made me happy. :-)

Where SWTOR does have Galaxies beaten, hands down and all around, is questing. Oh my G-d is questing fun! I remember how we used to mockingly call quest hubs roller coasters. You showed up, grabbed a quest or two that sent you up and down the various landscape, came back and repeated the cycle ten or twenty times until you ran out of quests. And there really weren't enough quests for me - I'm a big quest player, I don't just want to randomly kill stuff. I want to kill stuff for a *purpose*. I want to feel like I'm accomplishing something other than getting a few XP per kill. Protecting a settlement or avenging someone or just recovering a trinket from bandits - I'm not horribly picky as long as I keep getting quests.

The conversations are another great aspect of SW:TOR. When you are talking to an NPC to pick up a quest, turn one in or anything else, you get options. Some options increase your light side points, some increase your dark side. Whenever you pick your selection, you get to hear your character speak and interact with the NPC, including gestures of frustration or flirting. If you are in a group and start a convo with an NPC the rest of the group has the option to join in the conversation or not. If others join in, everyone picks the dialogue option he/she want and the game 'rolls' for them. Everyone sees the winning character speaking. It's interesting and adds a new dynamic to group questing since you could end up with dark or light side points that you didn't want if you turn in a quest as a group. A truly nifty feature of this is that you don't have to physically be at the NPC to turn in a quest *and* interface with the NPC. As long as one member of the group is there, the rest of you can holocall in, which is quite fun in and of itself!

One area that I really can't speak to is space. Galaxies had great space combat, from what I understand. My primary interest in space was decorating my yacht. I just don't like flight combat much and never understood it or got the hang of it in Galaxies. To be honest, I also didn't try very hard since I didn't have much interest in it. I'm coaxing my husband to say a few words on the subject as he was a true space head in Galaxies and flight was one of the things that he was truly looking forward to in SW:TOR. In his own words:

“Comparing space combat in Galaxies and in SWTOR is akin to comparing apples and orangutans – they don’t have anything in common besides being in the Star Wars setting and being in space. The space combat system in SWTOR is reminiscent of the Star Wars Battlefront games – you get a space mission (protect or destroy), you pick the mission you want to go to, and you watch as your ship is mostly flown for you (you can dodge things, but can’t really change the direction of your vessel) while you shoot at other ships and asteroids. Think of it as a roller coaster with guns – you’re on rails making things explode. There’s no free-roaming the galaxy in your ship or looking at cool features of the space landscape – it’s mission-based and very much in the tradition of KOTOR, where you were a gunner on the Ebon Hawk.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I ache for the space combat system in Galaxies, sometimes. Even when SOE had changed everything about the ground game, space was somewhere familiar and comfortable, with minor changes made even through the CU and NGE. I could take up one of any number of vessels I had parked at any number of starports and go cruising, dogfight with Imperials, bandits, Black Sun, Hutt pilots... or just sit and watch nebulae seethe and crackle. I had total control over the gear in my ship and was perpetually tinkering with the configuration to see if I couldn’t get just a little more out of my chassis. In the end, space was the only thing keeping me subscribed to SWG, not the ground game that I’d had to adapt to repeatedly over the five years I played.

I’ll confess that I’d hoped for a successor to SWG’s space system in SWTOR, and that I was disappointed when I found out just how dissimilar the two were, but I at least didn’t go in expecting Bioware to have re-used SOE’s code and just slapped different skins on things. Bioware’s going their own way with SWTOR, playing to their tried-and-true strengths... space combat, from what I’ve seen so far, just doesn’t happen to be among them.”

So that is the opinion of The Gamer Husband! xD

In truth, I'm quite inclined to agree with him. And not just because he looks good taking down starfighters. It was a shame that SW:TOR doesn't have the same options as SWG. It was nice knowing that I could suggest it to friends and say that it had strong space and ground combat, even thought I never got into the former. And it was fun to decorate my ship and run around in his.

That said... I think Bioware is wise to play to their strengths right now. This is their first MMO and I have strong hopes that future patches and expansions will bring us good things. With luck, they will be giving us an expansion with better space and ship features!

In respect for the flyboys and flygals of Galaxies some great interiors of SWG ships:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=293413

Babs - The New 52s. Contains Minor Spoilers (In that I talk about the comics that haven't been out long)

So... Given everything in the previous post, it is probably pretty easy to guess that I looked to the new 52s with dread once I heard that they were putting Babs back on her feet. I cussed the writers, went on geek-love fueled fan rants, and existed in a general state of 'murrr' regarding the topic.

Then they started to come out. I stuck to my guns at first and refused to read Flashpoint. Then, out of sheer boredom one day while sorting comics, I realized that the store where I volunteer had all three of the Flying Grayson Flashpoints. I was bored, had some down time, and I have always had a crush on Grayson. So I picked them up. And I was surprisingly pleased with the story. With hesitation, I signed myself up for a few titles before the 52s started coming out but still left Batgirl alone for a bit. Till finally, between the urging of friends and morbid curiosity, I broke down.

Now I'm not saying that all the 52s are great. Far from it. But I am saying that I have had to eat my words regarding the Batgirl title in almost all respects. I was pleased to see that they haven't ignored or written away her time as Oracle though they are teasing us by not being clear as to why she can walk again. They just keep referring to it as 'the miracle' (although Barbara does give us a bit of info as to how in the recent Batgirl 4). This could have been horribly corny but they have made it work by introducing the Mirror, a villain obsessed with 'correcting' miracles as he believes they shouldn't exist.

The costume redesign actually makes sense for her since she is returning to the field, so to speak, after years of absence. It makes sense to me that, after being out so long, that she would both need and want a new suit. Slightly new color scheme, different style to reflect that Barbara is, in many ways, a different woman and is embarking on a new chapter in her life. I still object to her keeping the old name of 'Batgirl'. She is very much a woman now and became so much her own woman during her time with the Birds of Prey but I can see that she might want to use it out of sentimental reasons.

One thing that these new issues have touched on is a difficult issue for women - how much we can let the men in our lives protect us. Her father, Grayson, her physical therapist, everyone wants her to slow down. They are concerned about her and don't want to see her go back in the wheelchair.


And that is understandable. But I can only imagine how difficult it would be to hear that, particularly from Nightwing. After all, when he was a kid he could be rather patrionizing in urging her to leave the viligante work to the men-folk. I don't really fault him for that, being a young teen, who grew out of it - and he was being written in a different era after all! I don't really fault him for urging her to go more slowly now either. The former was out of ignorance, the latter is out of love and concern - she has *just* gotten back on her feet after all.

But I know first-hand how annoying it is to hear. I don't get angry with my male friends and loved ones for trying to protect me. But sometimes I really don't want an escort. Sometimes I really just want to be left alone and I can take care of myself, thank you very much. My bosom does not make me incapable of defending myself and, if anything, it sometimes seems that I'm a much better judge of "stranger danger" because I grew up being taught that I needed to keep my head up. Which is not to say that women are inherently better at spotting trouble than men, it's all individual. Just that it is frustrating to have an escort forced on you simply because you are female when you are entirely capable of managing it on your own. I can only imagine how much worse it is when you are as trained as Babs is.

I wouldn't say that men are being chauvinistic, in general anyway, when they do this. After all, many times I have offered - sometimes more insistently than others - to escort friends myself. As long they respect the wishes of the woman in question. And that is something where I want to give our current DC Gotham men credit. By issue three, Barabara is making it very clear that she needs to do this on her own and on her own timeline. Nightwing, at least, is being respectful of this. And the end of issue thing has some wonderful symbolism that could mean a return to their relationship in time. We all know how happy that would make this little Bat! XD

I find myself applauding how the writers are handling her transition back into the physical aspects of herohood.  She struggles with balancing the very real need not to push her body too far while so very eager to pick up with the rooftop activities that Killing Joke put a stop to - though let us never forget that Babs was never useless in her chair, nor did she spend much time away from crime fighting!

I must also note that they are not falling victim to the cliche of "oh I'm back in my costume, everything is better now - it's like nothing happened!". Throughout the first issue, she has a running dialogue with herself and, at the end, it becomes very clear that Barbara has at least one post-trauma trigger. Something that she is going to have to work through to get back to where she was.

Another interesting thing is noting where Barbara is pushing herself to grow emotionally now. She goes on a date and starts to let strangers into her life again. I do have to say that I'm NOT thrilled that this is coming about with her being out of the chair - this can reinforce a lot of negative stereotypes about those with mobility issues regarding relationships. But it is interesting nevertheless. I just wish that we got to see more of it while Babs was still Oracle.

Overall... I think I still prefer her as Oracle. Women, and our desirability, are more than simply the state of our bodies and she showed that so very nicely. That said... This Barbara Gordon deals with different issues and she is still a character that is very relatable. I'm looking forward to reading more of the coming comics and hope they keep up the good work!

And... because you know I'm a Grayson-fanatic... XD Bittersweet spoiler behind the cut!

Oracle! - Contains not entirely work safe pics

Time to talk Babs! She is a wonder that has been on my mind for awhile now. Most people who are familiar with my cosplay know that Barbara Gordon is probably my favorite character to play - and specifically when she is in her wheelchair. In a few weeks I'll be posing as her along with a Harley and an Ivy for a Gotham City Sirens drawing session. Should be tons of fun!

But why Babs, why as Oracle? At first I really didn't know why I was so drawn to her. I was introduced to her character through Nightwing while talking to other geeks. I became fascinated by the idea of a hero who can't run on the rooftops anymore. So I began to research more into her, doing google searchs and even pulling up a couple of fan fics that I can't even remember anymore. The more I learned, and continue to learn about her, the more fascinated I grow with her.

In her beginnings, she had trouble getting 'the boys' to take her seriously. And I can understand where they were coming from a bit - she didn't exactly have the normal hero backstory of "avenging dead family members" or "I have super awesome powers, I must use them to help humanity". She had dressed up for a party and happened to be in the right place at the right time to help 'save' Bruce Wayne from a kidnapping attempt. After that I guess fighting crime seemed like the hip thing for a young girl to be doing.

Still, regardless of how she got started, she did display ability and deterimination. And though it had to grate on her nerves to have her place in the world questioned because of her gender, she pushes through it though (something I'm sure I will get into more detail with later as I acquire more and more old comics!). All seems well and then Killing Joke happens. So now we have a young woman who fought to be accepted on the rooftops and she is bound to a wheelchair and fighting to still make a difference because it is what she does.
This is where we get into just why I'm so incredibly fascinated with Barbara Gordon and why Oracle is, ultimately, my favorite character to play. It's because the wheelchair and Joker don't stop her. Not to get too heavy on you but the last time I looked at the stats one in four American women have been molested or harassed at some point in their life. It's happened to me on multiple ocassions, it's happened to several of my friends, and it's rough no matter how 'minor' the harassment was.

One of the things that happens in The Killing Joke that I don't see a lot of male readers picking up on is the fact that Joker sexually violates Barbara. If he rapes her or not is up for debate, though I think he did or had someone else do it. What isn't up for debate are these:

Regardless of how much he touched her, stripping her naked and taking pictures against her will is sexual assault. It's not a happy, fun-time thing.

My point here isn't that Joker is an evil monster. Who did it and why is pretty irrelevant to my point. Because regardless of who did this to her and why, she didn't let it stop her. This is a big deal. Because in the media we women don't get to see a lot of strong women who go "F*ck you, you don't get to win. You don't have the power here." At least outside of Lifetime and I can't stand that junk. I want to see women like Barbara.
It helps to have role models when something like this has happened to you. Someone that you can pattern your behavior after, something that you can shoot for. Not to make yourself into copy of them, be they a real person or a fictional character, but something to guide your first shaky steps while your head is swimming from life's sucker punch to the gut. Someone that you can look at and go "they have been here too, look what happened to them and look at where they are now - it's going to be all right". When it comes to not letting the attacker win, I'd say Barbara takes the cake.

Refusing to stay at home and feel sorry for herself, she pushes on. Barbara figures out how to help transition the hero world into the modern age of hacking and information gathering. And the icing on the cake? The woman doesn't seem to lack for interested male company. Of course Grayson is my favorite but there are others. Tedd Kord flirts with her, she gets sent free food by a cute cook, it's really quite wonderful to see a woman being flirted with, being actively chased who isn't 'perfect'. During my brief time in the wheelchair for cosplay, my eyes have been significantly opened regarding how a person in a wheelchair is viewed. That has only increased my love and respect for Barbara as Oracle - but more on my cosplay experiences as her later! If you get me started on that, I don't tend to shut up for awhile. XD

In the end, for me, Babs seems to come into herself in this role. She is no longer a Bat sidekick, a knock-off of the Dark Knight but her own person. This woman doesn't just survive her assault, she makes into a chance to grow stronger and better. Neither the chair or the sexual assault define her. She isn't perfect and and her journey isn't done, yet that seems to add to her appeal rather than take away from it - I still get to watch her finish this trek. That's why I get so jazzed about Oracle.

Now... a freebie of my two favorite DC lovers that I found on Google ages ago. Cause I'm just mushy like that.  ;-)

Zomg! Our first blog post!

Oh how exciting, I've finally joined the rest of the geeky world and started a blog. ;-)

This is named "Oddments and Wonder" to reflect the wide variety of things at hold my interest and will be appearing here. Some will be wonders and some will just be odd. You find yourself questioning my sanity at times. I'm remarkably ok with that.

I'm going to open this up with the oddment that is currently on my mind. Aquaman.

I will freely admit that I, alas, grew up not reading comics. The downside of being female is that sometimes your introduction to the wonderful world of geek comes late. That is a topic for another post though. So I knew very little of Aquaman when DC started up their new 52s. Everything I knew could probably be put in a thimble and was gathered from TV shows and jokes at Arthur's expense. Talks to fish, is useless on land, etc.

So I'm sure you can understand my surprise when a friend at my local comic book shop told me that I needed to read the new Aquaman. I was more than a touch reluctant and scoffed a little more than I should have really. Luckily, he's a sweet guy. Putting my faith in him, I dutifully grabbed the last copy of Aquaman 1 on the shelf (the fact that it was the only comic left of that series left and we were sold out of issue one and two should have been a clue in retrospect) and slipped it into my hold box.

I didn't give it much thought over the next few days till I came in to pick up my weekly mana of comics. I thumbed through the issues and pulled out several, including Aquaman issue 1. During a lull in the activity at the shop, I sat down and pulled it out of it's plastic bag. I admit, I was curious to see what had my friend so excited.

Two pages in, I got it. The art is great. The writing made me laugh. Is this a ground-breaking, earth-shattering, going to change comics forever title? No, it isn't. But it is pretty amazing in that it takes Aquaman from a huge walking/swimming joke to a title that is a good, solid fun read. And that is pretty amazing if you think about what a huge joke the character has become.

If you are wondering how, and if you are I don't blame you in the slightest, I think a large part of it is that they completely and utterly own how mocked he is. So far the public's misinformation regarding him has been a clear part of each issue. The first issue starts with him definitively showing that he is far from useless on land (I'm trying not to spoil anything!) and nearby law enforcement comment on how they feel being upstaged by, of all things, Aquaman.

Despite the fact that it clearly bothers him, he hasn't fallen victim to a reoccurring hero flaw of feeling sorry for himself. Nor does he retreat into the ocean to get away from the people who ask what it's like to be nobody's favorite hero. It's rather fun to watch him dive into the fray despite insults and wisecracks being hurled at him and Mera. He, with slightly varying degrees on patience, simply corrects the wisecracks and misinformation. No, he doesn't talk to fish. It's not a orange shirt, it's scale armor. Mera is a touch less patient in her responses but still doesn't cross the line between a good woman whose patience is being pushed and a jerk. He largely allows it to roll off his back and when he can't, simply walks away. Which is, all and all, a great thing for kids to be reading.

And, speaking of being kid friendly, get ready for a delightful shocker...Mera is dressed! Not that I expected her to be prancing around in a G-string but let's face it. DC has fallen a little short of the mark when it comes to how they costume/draw their female characters lately and they have taken a lot of heat for it. The closest Mera comes to being undressed is when she is, in the privacy of their own home, wearing an oversized t-shirt in issue 2. And oversized t-shirt with sleeves down her elbows, neck actually at her neck so no cleavage, and the hem approximately mid-thigh - no panty shots. Her armor/superhero costume does show some cleavage but in my opinion not an excessive amount. It's a generous neckline, no denying that, but the shape of it reminds me of formal gowns through history so it feels right for her character. It's also helped by the fact that, other than this, she is completely covered. Sleeves go low on her wrists and the bodysuit covers her legs and feet entirely.

In fact, in comparsion between Mera of the new 52s to Mera as she is depicted in Crisis on Infinate Earths, the artists actually added more coverage by giving her sleeves - despite the low neckline, her shoulders are completely covered. In addition, all three issues have their female background characters fully and sensibly dressed. While I'm not not the harshest judge when it comes to this issue, it is something has been bugging me with the new 52s. Let me just say that it is positively delightful to read a solid new take on a much mocked character and not have it rely on exposing the female figure or sex appeal. While I am sure we will see passion between Mera and Arthur in the future, issue one did include a wonderful kiss between the two, I really hope they keep this ball rolling. It is just as fun to see Mera commenting on childhood mementos of Arthur's as it is to see him sweep her into his arms.

This is the only steamy moment so far.

If you haven't already given this title a shot, I would definitely call it worth the three bucks to grab the first issue and see if it appeals to you. If nothing else the scene where Arthur is trying to get some peaceful noms in a seafood restaurant is entertaining! 

Two scans of the scene after the break. :-)