Investigations All Over

Daily Ramble 84: Investigations All Over

What is Disney doing? First they announce they’re taking Marvel and Disney shows off Netflix, now they’re closing down Marvel Heroes. Do they have control issues? Are they worried about dilution of their brand? What’s going on? I always thought the way they integrated TV shows and movie premieres with Marvel Heroes events was great. And where else can you play a video game with a bunch of squirrels? Or as a Raccoon? So sad to see another game I enjoy shutting it’s doors. I just hope Disney brings something along soon that’s at least as good or better – not like what happened with City of Heroes. There IS a place for a Superhero MMO in the marketplace if companies can just figure out how to do it right.

Anyway, with that rant/concern behind us, I headed out into Secret World Legends today to see what else the Orochi group wanted me to do. I also finished off the first episode of American Gods and it ended with as much quality as it started with – I’m really enjoying this series. Finally, I take a look at the first Rebirth title in the main line – The Flash Rebirth – and I am encouraged that this event will be a good one.

Black Helicopters

In my mind, Secret World Legends does a pretty decent job of letting you play through missions at any level. At least those that I’ve run across other than the main story mission. That one, the Dawning of an Endless Night had some level requirements at certain points but other than that, things seem to scale up to whatever level I’m at. Right now I’m level 16 after having rolled through some missions multiple times and I am still enjoying running through Kingsmouth.

Right now, I’m on the bridge to Dunwich taking missions from Ann and Harrison of the Orochi group. They set me up with the Black Helicopters mission to investigate the airport so I head over there to see what’s going on.

Interestingly enough, I’ve gotta head down…into the sewer system to actually get into the area of the airport where things are actually happening, and I can see they’ve had others try out this mission in the past. Once on the grounds I get to put my hacking skills to good use and break into some laptops to gather information. It’s a matter of stealth, investigation, and puzzle solving and it’s a pretty decent mission.

First Watch of American Gods The Bone Orchard – Technical Boy

We left of with Shadow at the graveside of his wife and Audrey, Robbie’s widow, shows up wanting to teach the dead lovers a lesson. Shadow wants to have nothing to do with it and helps her regain some control of herself. But as we start to move away from the cemetery scene, we see the coin that Shadow flipped onto the grave sinks into the soft earth…something weird is happening here.

So Shadow’s been able to attend the funeral and he heads back to meet up with Mr. Wednesday. But on the walk to the hotel he has a run in with some weird stuff. First the lights go out and he finds a strange device on the side of the road.

Poking it with a stick, the thing opens up and leaps onto Shadow’s face…not good. He enters into a different reality – possibly virtual – where he meets a kid in a car. The kid knows he’s working for Wednesday and he proceeds to ask Shadow about Wednesday’s plans and what he wants. He says that Wednesday’s history, forgotten and old and that the kid is the future. He goes on a ramble about religion, language and prayers and Shadow has no clue what he’s talking about…he just started working for Wednesday this morning after all. And as the kid keeps asking for info, Shadow gets pissed because he doesn’t know what the kid wants to know. After explaining that he’d never tell the kid anything even if he did know something, the kid tells his guards to kill Shadow. All of a sudden instead of 2 guys, there are 6 beating on Shadow and the kid says they’re not just gonna kill him but they’re gonna delete him and undelete is not an option.

They throw him into what seems like space and start kicking him as he comes down. Shadow doesn’t stand a chance with these guys who look like they’ve come outta A Clockwork Orange for some ultra-violence. They stick a noose around his neck and string him up on a tree and as it seems he’s stopped breathing, the rope breaks and he falls to the ground. The thugs who’d been beating him up start exploding in showers of blood and as he rolls to get up, they’re all dead and there’s blood everywhere. Wow!

A bit of research reveals that this kid is Technical Boy and he’s one of the newer gods who are looking to get rid of the old gods, which Mr. Wednesday happens to be a member of.

So that was the conclusion of the first episode. Theres a lot to take in. So much happened but I think the direction and acting went a long way to making things understandable. If you hadn’t heard of American Gods before, by watching this episode I’m sure you’re hooked, it was just so good. Hopefully the following episodes will continue the quality.

First Look at Flash Rebirth

This is the first issue of Rebirth after the DC Universe Rebirth special issue. I’m following along with a reading order I found on reddit to try to keep things moving forward and in some semblance of chronological order though I think a bunch of the issues happen at the same time. In any case, The Flash is first.

This issue gives us an origin story for Barry Allen, a bit of history about Flashpoint, and brings us to the Rebirth event with Wally West. I think it works pretty well covering all that, particularly for someone who’s only experience with Flash has been in Justice League cartoons and the CW TV show.

After we pass the Rebirth event, Wally heads off to find the Teen Titans and Barry heads to see Batman where he learns about “the button”. Apparently, when Wally left the batcave in Rebirth, a smiley faced button embedded itself in the wall. This along with the letter Barry gave Bruce after Flashpoint seem to have a lot in common and are the basis of the investigation Barry and Bruce begin in order to find out what’s going on.