Stryder's Favourite Comics - 5/02/2012

Well the first week of May brought us big things with both Free Comic Book Day and the launch of DC's "New 52 Wave 2"!  Not to mention the first New 52 Annual!  I bought the annual and two of the four new #1's released last week...let's take a look!

NEW!  Earth 2 #1 - Our story begins on this alternate Earth as their versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Robin the GIRL Wonder are fighting a battle against Parademons, the shock troops of Apocalypse, in a battle for the very planet!!  The shock troopers, led by the "seemingly brilliant and unstoppable" Steppenwolf  have been winning for a long time.  Metropolis, like most of the world, lies in ruins!  Wonder Woman is the LAST of the Amazons.  Even the GODS are dying in battle!  This is a much darker world than good old Earth 1!!
 
Batman has a plan though...there may be a way to win the day and salvage what's left of human civilization!  If someone is willing to just buy him a little time...

Anyway I won't spoil it but a LOT more happens and I thought it was a really good read.  I'll pick up #2 for sure and at least let the first story-arc play out.  We saw a few familiar faces in issue #1 here, but there's a lot more to come I'm sure!  I've never been a huge fan of alternate universe fiction but in this case, I'm in!!

Find out more about Earth 2 and what else I read this week after the JUMP!

Adventure Time Retro Video Game T-Shirt!

Following in our tradition of posting cool retro video game mashup TeeFury shirts, here's an awesome Adventure Time design by Caddywompus. I could only imagine how cool the game would actually be.

Guardians of Sunshine is available at TeeFury.com TODAY ONLY, and it's just $10.
http://www.teefury.com

Lego Minifigures Series 7 Is Out! Photos & Bar Code / Bump Code Decoder!

The newest series of Lego Minifigures (Series 7!) is out in stores and waiting for you to feel around the bags to find your favorites. I was able to pick up 6 yesterday, so I have some photos to share. I also scoured the net and found a bump code detector, so you can save some time (and also save money from accidental duplicates) while shopping.

Click through the jump for images of the minifigures and the bump code detector!

Kickstart the Week: Epic Mario by Zachary Pollock

This is something that I would love to see get made.





I've personally tried to make video game images, pixel by pixel out of Lego bricks, but it's insane. The NES screen resolution was 256 x 240 pixels, which means one screen has 61,440 pixels. If you needed to use single 1x1 bricks at the Lego.com price of .10 each.. each screen would cost you over $6,000. Luckily, Super Mario Bros had a solid blue background for most of the level, and a 16 x 16 plate can be used, bringing the cost of each background pixel down to less than 2 cents each.

Another issue with Lego is the amount of colors available. The NES had a color palette of 48 colors and 6 greys. Lego has that many, but not in every piece. The amount of colors that are readily available is way less than 48. But it's close enough to make work, especially in the earlier less detailed video game designs.

It would take a miracle to hit the goal within the next three days, but Kickstarter miracles do happen. Plus at the pledge levels of $25 and above, you get a pixel by pixel Lego recreation of level specific items, characters, and even full scenes. If some of the big gaming sites took notice, this could still be successful. Anyone up for sending some emails to Kotaku, Joystiq, IGN, G4TV, 1up, etc..? :)

Epic Mario on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plaidsquirrel/epic-mario

Free Comic Book Day Reviews: Part 2

Our Free Comic Book Day coverage continues with another slew of free comic book reviews. You can read part one here or just dive straight into the action, windmilling your arms and punching with reckless abandon.

This time I’m looking at Mouse Guard, Image Comics, Atomic Robo, and this month’s buzzword: Avengers. How do they shape up? Do they even make any sense? Find out all this and more... after the jump!

Avengers Chibis by Bulls I Toy

I found these Avengers Chibi toys at Target yesterday and figured I'd take a chance. I really like the designs, and thought it would be my little way of jumping on the Avengers bandwagon. (Note: I haven't seen any of the individual films, or the Avengers film)

Look at all the possibilities! Wait until you see what I got!

Loki'd!

In the post-Thor/War Horse/Avengers haze, the ladies of Fruitless Pursuits have developed quite the taste for the dapper English gentleman behind Loki, Tom Hiddleston. Doing my duty as a pop-culture enthusiast meant I OBVIOUSLY had to sift through the 'Tom Hiddleston' tag on Tumblr which is where I found this little gem.

From MTV After Hours (I think), it starts off a little awkward and ends up totally bizarre. A WEIRD dapper English gentleman, perhaps.

Zombicide - Kickstarter Final Countdown

Have to type fast because we don't have much time, and you need to be informed - Zombicide is coming.




Wow, that was a terrible lead in, but its actually true. Zombicide is a minis-based zombie board game that is currently exploding Kickstarter (from a board game sense), and it is coming to a close. With under 2 hours left, the game has raised over $730,000 (its goal was $20,000 - 3,656% successful so far!). If you're a fan of zombies, this is definitely worth taking a look at (and you best hurry)

All the details to what you can get after the break.  But hurry, you're wasting time!

Review: Avengers Lego!

As The Avengers finally opens in North America we all face the very real possibility of being crushed by a deluge of tie-in merchandise. In this storm of plastic masks and re-released Hulk Hands, I became a man with a dream. And that dream was not equality, or world peace, or eating a giant marshmallow. It was assembling my very own set of Lego Avengers! Thanks to modern science and Danish ingenuity, that lofty dream has just become a reality.

Assemble, my noseless, stunted, plastic brothers! ASSEMBLE!

Assembling your own team isn't going to be cheap though. You'll actually have to purchase three sets: LEGO Hulk’s Helicarrier Breakout #6868, LEGO Captain America’s Avenging Cycle #6865, and the granddaddy: LEGO Quinjet Aerial Battle #6869. There's another small set too but it's all repeat figures and a truck you don't need. Although it does have the cosmic cube.

I'll review all three of these freshly released (and quickly selling out) sets... after the jump!

Perfect Strangers: The Video Game

Okay, so calling this nostalgic jaunt a 'game' is maybe pushing it a little, but for those of us who remember the 90s as the delightful hypercolour landscape it truly was, Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now will have you tapping your toes and grinning along faster than you can say 'Don't be ridiculous, Larry'.

You play as Mediterranean hero Balki, chasing your DREAM, and...well, that's pretty much it. It ain't rocket science, but it's a whole lot of silly fun. Get to it. Oh, and if at first you don't succeed, try try again. The little animation at the end is brilliant payoff.