Morning Ramble for March 15th, 2017: #2107MMM, League, and Ant Man

Morning Ramble for March 15th, 2017 in with I take a look at the March Mammal Madness Two Animals One Mammal bracket, play some League of Legends, and read the latest comic in my Complete Mavel Reading Order list.  The 2017 March Mammal Madness continues today with the round 1 matches for the Two Animal One Mammal bracket.  These guys fought hard and there were some interesting battles, even one involving a bulldozer.  In LoL, I just get frustrated once again, but Ant Man was a satisfying read.

2017 March Mammal Madness: Two Animals One Mammal Results

Still reeling from the previous day’s robbery, I didn’t have much faith in my picks for the Two Animals One Mammal bracket last night, and I was right. I picked the wrong upset picks but at least these winners didn’t destroy my entire grouping.

If you want to check out the details of the incredible robbery, you can watch the Rodent Recap…

As for last night, the top 4 seeds won their matches but after that things got interesting. The Squirrel Monkey had to face the Hog Deer all alone when he’s used to being with a bunch of his buddies so he gave in quickly, while the Otter Civet had to face not only the Antelope Squirrel, but also a bulldozer clearing the rainforest – he didn’t last long.

The Bear Cuscus took down the Mouse Opposum as expected, and in the longest battle of the evening, the Raccoon Dog tried to take over the Tiger Quoll’s den and got more than he expected. Those Tiger Quolls are pretty tough and kinda crazy…are they related to the Tasmanian Devil?

As usual, you can see the blow-by-blow reporting of the fights at Storify.

Today is a rest day while the mammals recover from their opening round battles. The next event starts up on Thursday March 16th at 8:30 Eastern when the Round 2 battles for the Adjective and Desert Mammals kick off.

You can follow the battles on Twitter with the hashtag #2017MMM or @2017MMMLetsgo and be sure to check out the official site at Mammals suck…Milk.

Remembrance of League of Frustrations

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking some time off from League of Legends. With the Nioh release, Horizon: Zero Dawn, the Nintendo Switch, and my continued adventures in Destiny, March has uncharacteristically been a busy video game month so far. Usually there’s a lull in gaming around this time of year when the NCAA Basketball Tournament, MLB Spring Training, and Easter take the limelight, at least there are typically few game releases worthy of note. This year has proven to be much different where we see multiple releases that at least initially seem to be must haves. Tie that all in with the always fun March Mammal Madness and this month has been really busy.

Needless to say, I went back to League of Legends over the past few days and was immediately reminded of why I get so frustrated with that game…and will be taking even more time off from it.

I played 3 ranked games. In all 3, I had people on my team that had no experience playing their champ in a serious game before. Two of the games had one novice and the other had 2 noobs on my team – one who had not even made it past his placement matches yet. They all showed evidence for why they would be stuck in Bronze for a long time and why I get extremely frustrated with this game. Trying to advance in ranked by playing Flavor of the Month champions when you don’t know what you’re doing is not going to get you anywhere.

Sadly, despite 2 games where I played Zyra support, had the most kills and best KDA of either team, I was unable to carry the game. The final game saw me playing a Xin Zhao jungler and going 7–1 through the first 17 minutes when our 5–1 Thresh support was disconnected from the match. We were so far ahead and retained all our turrets but could not compete 4v5 with a first time Jinx on our team. 3 losses in a row and while I know it’s a team game, it sure gets frustrating when I keep working to keep the team in the game but can’t carry hard enough.

Sending League back to the back burner again.

Tales to Astonish #35: The Return of The Ant Man

This is the second installment of Ant Man by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the first to highlight his outfit.

Ant Man is an interesting hero from the early Marvel comics in that he doesn’t really have any super powers. Instead, his scientific genius allows him to design and create serums and devices that enable him to do superhuman things.

After briefly going over his origin again, the story dives, with Hank Pym, into the lives of ants. Hank has become obsessed with ant behavior and society and he creates a helmet to speak with the ants when he shrinks down to their size.

Luckily he built this before the Commies come knocking on the lab door and demand the secrets to the new Radiation Immunity Gas that Hank and his team’s been working on. I wonder if the government wants the gas to prevent more Hulk’s from running around?

When Hank refuses to cooperate, they lock him up…in the lab where he keeps his shrinking serum – so lucky for him and unlucky for the Russians. When they leave to ransack the rest of the lab, Hank turns into Ant Man and leads an army of ants to thwart the evil Commies and free his coworkers.

The story’s a bit short but we’re learning about Hank’s abilities seemingly as he is. Last issue focused on the shrinkage and this one highlighted the ant communication and control.

The art is pretty standard Silver Age stuff, the story was better than the first introductory issue, and I enjoyed this one overall.

I’ll rate this a B.