Kung Fu Fridays in November

Tonight is the gut-ripping madness that is Five Shaolin Masters, but next month, what can my pack of Kung Fu-crazed friends in line to see when they crash my place on Friday nights? Click the poster above for a closer look, or read below.

Mulan - Disney comes to KFF?!? It's a nice change of pace, don't you think? And an opportunity to put the famous Chinese folk heroine on a KFF poster! Plus, come on, Ming Na! I've had a crush on that girl since The Single Guy. (Yeah, I remember that.)

Killer Clans - What kind of film do you show on the Armistice? Answer: Fist of Legend, with Donnie Yen martial artsing his way through WWI Europe. But we've already seen that, so it's gonna be a good old-fashion, gut-spurting, accidentally homoerotic, classic clan war movie.

True Legend - Yuen Woo-Ping's most recent epic, it features a revenge story between a drunk fighter and one armed with Five Venom Fists. You had me a hello, as they say. But check out the cast! Michelle Yeoh, Gordon Liu and... David Carradine?

Opium and the Kung Fu Master - Ti Lung stars as a martial artist wrecked by opium in director Tang Chia's final film. That's an intriguing hook right there, and the fact six martial arts directors are showcased also promises mucho action.

If you can't come over to watch the movies, see you each Sunday for capsule reviews!

Reign of the Supermen #373: Willigig

Source: Adventures of Superman Annual #8 (1996)
Type: Alternate futureThis is the story of how the legacies of two dead worlds saved a third...

Back in the Man of Steel mini-series, John Byrne wrote a scene in which Superman was visited by a hologram of Jor-El who infodumped all sorts of Kryptonian knowledge into his head. In the far future, when Earth is as dead as Krypton, the Coluan Xurl Dox, a student of Earth's heroic tradition, inaugurates a clod of dirt from that lost planet. While he explains its symbolic importance, the brutal Sarkons attack to get themselves some Coluan slaves. In the melee, one of the Sarkons' Curatti slaves (a slave race that lives on the Sarkon homeworld in chains after a failed attempted to invade that planet in the distant past) activates the Jor-El hologram by accident. Trippy!
Willigig is left with extensive knowledge of Kryptonian language, arts and sciences, and the peculiar delusion that he is the Last Son of Krypton. Keeping a secret identity as a simple slave, he builds himself or borrows a rocketpack and heat vision goggles and wages covert war on the Sarkons. Well, covert... They recognize him immediately, but that's not really important. Was is important is that with Dox's help, he learns that he's not really a Kryptonian, but also that the Curatti were never invaders. The Sarkons have co-opted their history to keep them subjugated. THEY'RE the aliens here. Willigig lights up the sky with the truth and in the best Superman fashion, gives up his life in the process. But it's worth it as his people rebel against the Sarkons and expel them from their planet. Curatti he may have been, but he will always be remembered by his people as Superman!
You know, Tom Peyer's story (as drawn by Derec Aucoin and Mike Collins) really gets to the heart of what Superman is all about. The best Dead Earth Annuals should be collected sometime. They make good reading.

The Old 52: Vext

If you haven't read it, it's new to you. Every month I try to supplement the New 52 with a series from the Old 52. Series I've never read, but have always meant to.When it was new: Vext was a monthly series published by DC starting in 1999 by Keith Giffen, Mike McKone and Mark McKenna. It lasted only 6 issues.

Premise: Vext is the former God of Mishap and Misfortune, exiled to Earth for lack of worship. Hilarity (briefly) ensues.

A run of bad luck: Due to poor planning on my part, the first series I've talked is a very short one. Indeed, it could have been a mini-series. It's too bad it wasn't, because it ends entirely too abruptly, with recently introduced subplots left dangling. For example, three of the cast are villains Vext never even gets to meet, despite a 6-issue build-up of meanwhiles and elsewheres. The A-plots, however, are stand-alone tales that can still be enjoyed regardless.

Vext is, for all intents and purposes, a send-up of "superhero gods" like Thor, Hercules and the New Gods. The twist is that Vext doesn't become a superhero. He's just a regular and very unlucky guy trying to figure how mortals live. He's more a victim than a lord of his particular domain, and there's good comedy to be had from his hardships (I very much empathize with his bureaucracy problems, for example). The last couple of issues are the weakest, the bits about the God of Flatulence low-browing the proceedings to a place where, had I been reading at the time, I might have welcomed premature cancellation. Though I suspect DC didn't market it very well, I'm not sure how much longer Vext could have remained interesting unless the character had taken a more active role in the stories. It reads today like an amalgam of other Giffen series. It has the trademark banter of his Justice League, takes place in Delta City just like Heckler (another quickly canceled Giffen book), and makes use of varied narrative pieces (cut-out coupons, computer data, dictionary definitions, and changes in genre) not unlike his Legion or Doom Patrol.

In the final analysis, this is a series that had an intriguing premise and some promising subplots, so it was canceled before it's time. It's really too bad because it could be genuinely funny, and the God Police was about to slap Vext down hard (and his ex, Paramour, the Goddess of Bad Relationships was about to make contact with the villain of the piece, rogue archaeologist Aaron Caldwell). There might even have been the possibility of the Heckler putting in an appearance, who knows? I guess bad luck was written right into the concept. Not much Giffen could have done about it.

Trade in for one of the New52? Maybe if it wasn't so abortive.

Reign of the Supermen #372: Lisa Jennings

Source: Superman #703-714 (2010-2011)
Type: Alternate futureYour Superman Squad member of the week is Lisa Jennings, who started life in the Grounded storyline as a "mysterious woman" stalking Superman, then graduated to a villain and finally a proud member of the Superman Squad and Superman's guide in all things Squad-related during Grounded.

Origin? Sure. She was a school teacher and some of her students found a Kryptonian sunstone in a field and brought it to her. Superman walked by on his "sad Superman walk" right at that time and she was flooded with Kryptonian memories and powers. It also linked her to Superman's mind and she visited him nightly, filling his head with doubt and depression and causing havoc wherever Superman went. He eventually caught her and brought her to Limbo where they destroyed the sunstone and freed Lisa's mind from her induced madness. She kept the powers and became one of the first members of the new Supermen of America.

And the sunstone? Its shards were spread across time, creating, among other heroes, Super-Chief, of which we've spoken before.

Star Trek #1421: Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes Part 1

PUBLICATION: Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #1, IDW Comics/DC Comics, October 2011

CREATORS: Chris Roberson (writer), Jeffrey and Philip Moy (artists)

STARDATE: Unknown (during original 5-year mission) / In the Legionnaires' timeline, it seems to be just after The Great Darkness Saga (2982)

PLOT: In a divergent universe, the Imperial Planets are waging war against the shape-shifting Durlans. Simultaneously, Enterprise crew members are accidentally beamed down to that universe's dystopian Earth, and Legionnaires crash their time bubble on that same Earth.

CONTINUITY: The divergent universe features elements of both the Mirror and DC Universes, an Earth empire (with two swords across Earth instead of one) is called the Imperial Planets, shades of both the Terran Empire and the Legion's United Federation of Planets. The divergent universe has Durlans, a mirror Shadow Lass and a Captain Tomorrow that may well be Tommy Tomorrow (Tommy is Kamandi in an alternate future, so the character may synch up with the 23rd century). The Imperial Planets defeated the Dominion in the 23rd century. Ship designs seen at Imperial Earth include ones based on the Federation's, the Klingons' and the Vulcans'. The Earth itself looks like the Borg Earth seen in First Contact. Admiral Komac (This Side of Paradise, Amok Time) and Mr. Kyle appear. The Kobayashi Maru rates a mention (The Wrath of Khan). The Imperial Planets have a corrupted version of the famous Star Trek speech that ends with "boldly go where no man has gone before... and conquer!"

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANELS OF THE DAY - Spock and Brainiac 5, two guys on the same wavelength
REVIEW: I was really stoked about this project. Over the past year, Chris Roberson has been a rising star in comics, finishing up the horrible Grounded Superman storyline in an actually satisfying way, launching a cool Elric series, and continuing his excellent work on I, Zombie. I'm a big Legion fan and matching the heroes from the future with Star Trek is an excellent idea. Though the opening chapter is basically all set-up, Roberson scores his first points with his choice of teamed-up continuities. The Star Trek cast is from the Classic series, NOT the Abrams reboot, and the Legionnaires are from the classic 80s era before any of THEIR reboots took effect. Despite the 650 years between the two franchises, these share a similar aesthetic and philosophy. The two teams cross over thanks to a multi-dimensional snafu, with a universe mirroring BOTH their universes acting as a cool nexus. I mean, who doesn't love alternate universe stories? Roberson has a good understanding of all the characters he's writing, with small moments like Sulu being happy to see his home town of San Francisco, or Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl being kind of huggy. He also laces the comic with trivia (like the Tommy Tomorrow connection), but never in a way that will confuse readers. In fact, I think Legion fans who know nothing about Trek, or Trekkies with no knowledge of the LSH can definitely enjoy this. The art by the brothers Moy is fun and expressive with no reliance on stiff photo reference for the Trek sections. IDW and DC give you a number of choices for covers. There's the fairly standard Phil Jimenez group shot, a crazy awesome Keith Giffen action cover, and Gabriel Rodriguez' diptych above. The link he draws between Spock and Brainiac 5 is supported by the comic too, as the two characters make the same realization at the same time. Can't wait to see them actually pair up (and who else will, for that matter)!

Reign of the Supermen #371: The Oldest Superman in Metropolis

Source: Action Comics #251 (1959)
Type: TransformationYour mid-week Silver Age story wouldn't have happened had Clark "Superman" Kent been a little more humble. See, back in the spring of 1959, he interviewed the brilliant Professor Vance who claimed to have invented a super-vitamin and planned on conducting the first human trial on himself. When he turns his back, fearing for the scientist's safety, Clark scarfs the entire thing down. Hey, it can't possibly hurt him, right? Clark leaves and only then does Prof. Vance notice his guinea pigs got real old, real fast (were we then REALLY at the human trial phase?). Back at the Fortress, Superman analyzes his stomach contents and finds the vitamin has SIMILARITIES with Green Kryptonite. And that night, Clark turns into a wizened old man.
The next morning, he goes back to see Professor Vance who tells him he expected it and was about to call him and everything, honest! Turns out, the guinea pigs got better after 3 days (plot point: EXACTLY 72 hours after ingestion). So Clark is expected to make a complete recovery, and Perry puts him on easy assignments in the meantime (stories happening at the mall or a nursing home - NO, I'm NOT joking). The worst of it is, Clark's steadily losing his powers.
Even if he can disguise his age (which would be murder on his secret identity), how can he possibly do that charity thing where he gets shot out of a cannon in slightly less than 3 days? And for that matter, how will he perform his crimebusting duties as Superman? Superman robots? Sorry, they don't work because they don't recognize his cracked voice, as revealed in a sequence that also shows Opal City was around in the DCU long before 1994's Starman series!
Superman's solution is pretty ridiculous. After hitching rides on whales and submarines out to the modern pirate ship of Captain Cutlass, he uses his new look to pass himself off as the mythical Old Man of the Sea.
I guess sailors are a pretty cowardly lot. In the next emergency, he dresses as Santa Claus to defeat crooks in a toy store. And later, as Father Time to defeat the mastermind known only as the Clock.
That one's weird, because in the middle of the incident, a cat races a mouse up a clock, recreating the "hickory-dickory-dock" nursery rhyme and evidence against the Clock is revealed by a timepiece leading Superman to believe the real (and invisible) Father Time had a hand in it. Finally, it's time. Superman must climb into a cannon and be shot out of it. By this point, he's lost all his powers and only the Human Bomb's helmet is keeping his secret safe. And then the cannon mysteriously breaks down and it takes an hour to fix.
Yep, all is well with the world because the cannon was set to go off 71 hours after Clark Kent drank the vitamin serum. An extra hour makes 72, exactly 3 days, and that's how I expect all medicine all the time to work. It's all about the timing.

5 Timey-Whimey Films to Slide Your TARDIS Into

Consisting of five more ideas for Doctor Who role-playing games (or simple daydreaming) taking very simple inspiration from the world of cinema.

Last week, I dropped the TARDIS into five "sideways" stories to take the edge off the monotony of, you know, the past and the future (lame!), and I return to those kinds of stories this week with a promised chapter on timey-whimey scenario ideas. Now sure, I could have gone for time travel movies like 12 Monkeys or Primer or even Terminator 2, but maybe those were too obvious? Instead, I'm going with films that play with time in unusual ways. So what if most of them have some kind of narrative or fantastical rationale? Temporal anomalies of all kinds can McGuffin your players into the right circumstances.Groundhog Day. A classic timey-whimey movie and one of the first, Groundhog Day presents a world where time is limited to a single day, which repeats over and over again until the heroes "get it right". Whatever the reason for this recursive temporal bubble, the TARDIS crew could only escape it by fixing, well, how about EVERYTHING? RPG players are probably gamers too, and should have all the necessary tools to play the same "level" over again, getting all the details right so they can move on. And any massive screw-up will be reset so... have fun!
Sliding Doors. In this Gwyneth Paltrow romance set in London (we're halfway to Doctor Who already), a woman both gets on and misses a train. Somehow, both her stories continue from there and eventually cross paths. There's no reason for it in the movie, except that fate is trying to get Gwyneth with the right guy, but that shouldn't matter to brave TARDISeers. It's Schrödinger's train/lift/door and bam! Split time streams. The twist is that the players get to play both versions of their characters as they take two separate paths to adventure. The ultimate goal is to get to a single track, hopefully the best of the two, so don't make it easy on them. You might be tempted to pull a Girl Who Waited at the end and require a sacrifice. Dude, don't. It made me cry, that thing.
Memento. I try to throw in a challenge when I can. How about a story that proceeds IN REVERSE, like Memento? Doable? There's a 10th Doctor comic that features aliens living in reverse, and the Doctor must navigate the adventure as best he can with effect preceding cause. Or you can have the TARDIS keep materializing in the recent past. Then an hour before that. And an hour before that. Going back into an event, revealing more and more. Can the players (and frankly, the GM) improvise their way into a victory in reverse? For advanced players, surely, but could be one you'll talk about for a long time. Memento is key inspiration for something like this. Make sure to leave clues the players will then have to manufacture (or have to pay for with Story Points - "Did I leave myself a clue?").
Source Code. Here's one that's part time travel, part brain puzzle, part Schrödinger's cat. Have the TARDIS crew hooked up to the McGuffin in Source Code and they can enter a certain past event using someone else's body. Can they find out who caused the event so they can be apprehended? Or does going into the "source code" create a parallel universe where the event can be prevented? That's up to you, but either way, a fun recursive set-up that is all at once Groundhog Day, Quantum Leap and your favorite disaster movie.
Melinda and Melinda. Ok, here's an odd one, but gear with me. This Woody Allen movie features a couple of writers discussing the merits of tragedy and comedy. Starting from the same ingredients, they each tell (going back and forth) Melinda's story, one tragic, the other comic. It's a conceit that could be used in Doctor Who as well! Remove the raconteurs, and instead have the TARDIS keep shifting back and forth between two realities. Some of the same characters are in both, and both worlds need help. If you give each world its distinct feel (one a thriller, the other a romp, for example), and perhaps make the TARDIS wheeze periodically (jump aboard before you lose your ride!), you can switch between genres within the same story. Or will the players do the unthinkable, and 'port characters from one world onto the other so the guest-stars can help their other selves fix their problems? It's up to you, but parallel time streams can be a fun new wrinkle to your game.

So that's my lot for today. What about you? What timey-whimey movies would you send the TARDIS to?