Madrox Lives!
The day we’ve all been waiting for has arrived: the full X-Factor teaser has been released and Multiple Man lives! My fears of Jamie Madrox dying were for naught. Behold, faithful readers, of the awesomeness that is X-Factor!
He may be tucked way down off to the side, but at least he's there!
Madrox dying would have really put a crimp in my comic book reading habits. For all you non geeks, I figure it would be like if your favorite sports star was no longer playing the sport. Or if your favorite TV character left the show. The final season of Scrubs just wasn’t as good without JD. Of course I watched it, but it felt less than itself. That’s what a Madrox-less X-Factor would have been like.
And it’s not just Madrox, but Longshot and Polaris as well, which was one of my guesses from the last post. So that’s very exciting. Granted, there are now 11 characters on the team. That means less panel-time for everybody. But I’d like to think that writer Peter David knows what he’s doing. The man rejuvenated Multiple Man, after all! I’ve got to have faith!
For anyone interested, here are the full X-franchise teaser images for all their titles. None of the character reveals have made me want to pick up a book that I wasn’t already planning to pick up. Though now I’m even more excited to be getting Wolverine and the X-Men since Iceman and Toad are on the team. My brother Cippy is getting Cyclops and the Uncanny X-Men.
First is Wolverine and the ‘Gold Team’.
Click to enlarge
Second is Cyclops and the ‘Blue Team’.
Click to enlarge
The only sadness in all of this is that my other favorite X-Character, The Mimic, is not on any team. Oh well. Back to comic book oblivion for him.
The Greater Unified Robot Theory
Since it was recently my brother’s birthday, I felt I’d do something nice for him and write a blog entry. Naturally the topic had to be something geeky, so I’ve decided to share my Classification system for Automatons with you. We are all aware of the presence of robots in our everyday lives. Robots build our cars, stand in Disney’s Hall of Presidents, and scare the shit out of us.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
But today we are going to focus on a different kind of robot… the fictional kind. Yes, for many years mankind has been delighted by whimsical flights of fancy wherein mechanized humanoids fight, kill, and sometimes…love. From Star Wars to Star Trek it seems that you can’t throw a stone without some machine man laughing at your primitive use of stones. Nowadays we have so many different fictional robots out there. It is hard to keep track. And to make matters worse, we now have different kinds of robots; like cyborgs and androids! And I don’t even want to get into what Japanese anime has done to these lovable tin men.
But I shall anyway! For I have devised The Greater Unified Robot Theory!
The G.U.R.T. makes the case that all synthetic persons can be broken down into four main categories: Robots, Cyborgs, Tech Suits, and Clones. Each category has its own pertinent criteria to help take the chaotic world of Automation, and make it much more manageable. Let’s start with some definitions.
Synthetic Person refers to any fictional character that has not been made by birth, hatching, or some other natural means of reproduction (i.e budding). Also, a synthetic person must display some level of artificial intelligence or A.I.
The dude on the right built the dude on the left. That’s a Synthetic Person!
Human refers to everything else. If you were born, hatched, spawned, or secreted then congratulations you’re a human! Now obviously bats, fungus, aliens, and Gary Busey aren’t actually “humans.” But for the purposes of G.U.R.T. we’re going to ignore all of those things. Primarily because this is a purely Ficitonal Theory and things like cloned sheep are real. But also just to keep it simple, we’re talking about robots and humans.
The chick on the right birthed the chick on the left. That’s a Human!
Category 1: Robots!
Robots are simple. A robot is any synthetic person lacking human parts. No skin, hair, brain, heart, etc. Robots are almost always made of metal and wires. Complex computers act as their “brains.” And cold metal casings replace the flesh. Nothing on or part of a Robot can come from a human. Robots are made. Famous Robots include: R2-D2, C3PO, Bender, Optimus Prime, Tom Servo, Johnny 5, the list goes on.
By Robot standards, this picture is about as famous as that one of the sailor kissing the nurse.
Also real quick, the Robot category also includes Androids. Androids are robots that do contain skin, hair, hearts, or any other human organ under the condition that the organ in question is not actually Human in origin. Androids often wear fake skin, fake hair, or are given fake hearts by the Wizard of Oz. These organs can sometimes get really complex. The Terminator has to eat and breath to keep his skin “alive.” They can even get as complex as taking actual organs from humans and attaching them to the Android. But with the exception of the brain, no matter what you put on an android, it is still an android. Famous Androids include: Terminators, Data, the Chee, The Vision, etc.
The kitty is not an android.
Category 2: Cyborgs
Cyborgs are the link between man and machine. A cyborg is born like a human but then winds up with synthetic body parts. Cyborgs must always have some combination of both parts. Once the last body part is replaced with machinery, the Cyborg becomes a Robot. Sonic the Hedgehog’s Uncle Chuck is a prime example of a man who became too machine. He was put into Robotnik’s Roboticizer and came out a robot. Whereas in the same cartoon, the character Bunny stopped the Roboticizer halfway through and only came out with a robotic arm and leg. She’s a cyborg. And even though Uncle Chuck eventually regains his free will and remembers who he once was, he’s still a Robot. You can never go back. Cyborgs work in one direction: Cyborg to Robot.
Though you can go from Cyborg to Human. In Futurama, Fry switches hands with the Robot Devil. While wearing the Robotic hands, Fry is a cyborg. When he gets his original hands back, he’s a human. The Robot Devil, however, is always a robot regardless of hands. Let us imagine for a second that Fry didn’t get his own hands back. Instead he gets new hands. If he grows them himself (i.e regeneration) then he’s a human. If they’re grown somewhere else and then attached………..well……..we’ll get to that.
Famous cyborgs include: Cyborg (duh), Robocop, Kickpuncher, General Grievous, The Brain, Inspector Gadget, etc.
Both men in this picture are cyborgs.
Category 3: Tech Suits
Here’s where things start to get a little tricky. Have the robotic components to a human become integral in carrying out normal bodily functions? If yes, you’re a Cyborg (see above). If no, you’re just wearing a Tech Suit. That’s the difference between Iron Man and Stilt-Man. Stilt-Man can take off his robotic suit anytime he wants. He’s a normal human wearing fancy clothes. If Iron Man takes off his armor, he’s still got a little battery in his chest that allows him to live. If he took it out, he would die. He’s a cyborg.
Now let’s discuss the complexity of Tech Suits. Take a look at a Mobile Gundam from any of the anime series. These things are “piloted” but that doesn’t necessarily make them vehicles. Due to the human-like nature to piloting a Gundam (you move your leg, the Gundam moves its leg. You move your arm, the Gundam moves its arm) it acts more like a suit than a car.
A certain amount of AI is also required. Think of a Space Marine in one of those big hulking suits that they wear. The wearer’s leg strength is not really involved in lifting or moving the suit’s leg. In fact there are many mechanized components within the robot leg that cause it to move based on signals that the human leg sends it (i.e. moving it). So because Batman’s mask will shock people who try to take it off of him while he’s unconscious, his costume is a Tech Suit, and therefore Batman in his costume can be considered part of the 3rd category of Synthetic Persons. Other Famous Tech Suits include: Master Chief, Dr. Doom, Zion’s APU Corps, and that thing from District 9.
Fun Fact: There’s a hot chick in there.
Category 4: Clones
Now things start to get really interesting. The short definition is: Clones are grown copies. Rather than building a Synthetic Person from machine parts, you copy a human’s parts and then grow them into a Clone. The Clone Troopers are the best example of this. Kamino scientists took Jango Fett’s DNA and grew new soldiers by accelerating their growth.
To take it one step further, unlike all other Synthetic Persons, Clones can be born…in a manner of speaking. Clones must be grown, but where they grow is up for debate. One of the more realistic places for a clone to grow is inside a womb. So eventually a clone grown in a womb is shot out of the uterus or “born.” Famous Clones include: Superboy, The Venture Brothers, Scarlet Spider, I think Solid Snake is too….I’m not sure, I haven’t played the game in a long time.
Oh, and Mario’s a clone.
Now let’s address a previous concern. What if Fry replaced his hands with cloned hands? In fact this a major positive to the cloning argument. If you need an organ transplant, why not clone the organ? Or make a clone of yourself and steal all his organs? But what would you become? (Besides an abomination unto the Lord.) You’d become what I call…a Cyclone!
A Cyclone is a Cyborg with cloned parts instead of robotic parts. A Cyclone can also refer to a Clone with life-altering Robotic attachments on his person. That would be like Hank Venture getting a robotic hand. Also a cyclone can refer to a tornado…but that’s neither here nor there. I wish I could give you some famous examples, but since I’ve invented the term “Cyclone” just now, naturally there won’t be any examples in pop culture until word of G.U.R.T. spreads.
Well….There is Thor:
…..Kinda….
Once upon a time Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four became increadibly evil and cloned Thor using an Android body for structure. The result was some crazy Clone/Android who walked around killing C-List superheroes while believing himself to be Thor. He sorta fits into a couple of these categories, but for all intents and purposes, The Thor clone is actually an Android. He was never grown.
Well that concludes my guest lecture on the Greater Unified Robot Theory. I hope we’ve all learned something today about our metal friends—What’s that? You say I’ve forgotten something? Oh well I suppose you may be onto something. There is one glaring Synthetic Person that I’ve completely managed to avoid in this blog post up until now. But with good reason. These guys go to great lengths to take everything we know about robots, and pee gasoline all over it.
CYLONS!!!
This does change things a bit.
OK so before I go any further, let me be clear: I am only going to talk about the new Battlestar Galactica. I’ve never seen the show that it is loosely based off of. I never will. And the G.U.R.T. doesn’t really care about it anyways. But as far as these new Cylons go, if we follow the G.U.R.T. as I have laid it out, Cylons are ROBOTS! Well, Androids to be specific. But only at first.
We see from the hit show Caprica that the original Cylon is obviously a Robot. He has no organs whatsoever (except for some little girl’s digital soul…whatever that means). But when we meet the Cylons 40 years later, they have organs. And as we see in the film Razor, they took these organs from the humans and they made the Hybrids. Hybrids are therefore clones. It is understood that they used what they learned from human organs and grew some of their own. Then while they were at it, they strapped those Hybrids into their Base-Ships. This turned Hybrids into Cyclones. And that is as far as the Cylon Centurions had gotten on their own.
Are you starting to understand why I left Cylons out?
Then the Final Five show up. (I refuse to spoil anything as it was once spoiled for me. So no names.) The Final Five are part of a Cylon offshoot that figured out how to sexually reproduce. They also look just like humans and are Human in almost every way that counts. But we know they’re not humans. They can download their brains. We can’t call them Humans. But we can’t call them Androids because they grow. But we can’t call them Clones because they give birth. This is a problem! (Well…not in the sense that problems actually matter to people, but you get the idea.)
For the purposes of G.U.R.T. we are going to call the Final Five Cylons: Clones. Clones grow and are copied. We already know that the Final Five grow. They were young once and then they got older. Check. But we’re going to expand our definition of “copied.” When a Cylon makes a baby, that baby is technically copying stolen Human organs from thousands of years ago. They never fully stop being Robots and that’s why the Final Five are able to download their minds thousands of years after their species stopped doing it. They never evolved! Not really! One Cylon baby just copied everything from its parents just like they did from theirs. Cylons are cloned in their mother’s womb.
And then we have other 8 models. They’re Androids. When the Final Five meet the Centurions, they teach them how to make Cylons more advanced than the Hybrids. They build the 8 models (Grace Park, Tricia Helfer, etc.) These models don’t grow. And these models aren’t like the Final Five. They’re new. And very importantly, they can’t have babies……unless a Human fraks one of them.
Which was obviously only a matter of time.
So what happens when a Human and an Android have a baby? ……Fuck if I know. At this point R2-D2 and Robocop have thrown up their hands in frustration. This Robot stuff used to be so simple. But that’s part of why Battlestar Galactica is such an awesome show. And to answer my previous question: you get Hera.
She’s the chick in the middle.
Hera is the Robot Messiah who (spoiler alert) goes on to recreate all of existence. She doesn’t fit into any of the G.U.R.T. categories and she isn’t going to. I figure that it is best to leave her alone and let her do her own thing. If you’ve got a better solution, I’d like to hear it.
The Greater Unified Robot Theory is the best tool we have for the classification of Synthetic Persons. Any Synthetic character you meet in a book, movie, tv show, etc. is going to fit into one of these 4 categories. If you think you’ve found one that doesn’t, bring him forth, I challenge you. And at the end of the day, I feel that this is what Sean’s blog needed: To challenge* you.
01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111,
Cippy Mills
*(And by that I don’t mean the challenge it was to actually read this stupid thing)
Madrox Update – A Possible Stay of Execution?
Remember last week when Marvel Comics was teasing the possible death of my favorite comic book character, Jamie Madrox the Multiple Man? Well this week the teaser swings back in the other direction, indicating that Madrox may not be dying after all. He may still be around come the new X-Franchise revamp this winter. Clearly Marvel knows a thing or two about marketing. As a comic book geek, I’m on the edge of my seat.
Behold! The X-Factor teaser cover now has 3 distinct hidden characters!
Click to englarge
Could one of those three silhouettes be Multiple Man? Focus on the silhouette on the left. He’d got Madrox’s style of hair, and he’s clearly got some sort of collar, just like Madrox’s signature trench coat. This greatly increases the odds from last week, when Marvel had yet to reveal Strong Guy and that area was just one big blob of black. Back then, in the long long ago, I surmised that maybe there were two characters hidden in Strong Guy’s shadow. Now that there are 3, that gets my hopes up! Behold last week!
See the difference?
As I wrote last time, Marvel is making a big push for the X-Franchise in 2012, everything from Uncanny X-Men to New Mutants to my personal favorite, X-Factor. The teams are going to get new lineups with a bunch of new drama to deal with. Marvel is teasing this big push by releasing the covers for the upcoming issues, only with all the characters blacked out as silhouettes. Then week-by-week, they’re unveiling which characters are hidden in which silhouettes and will be on which team.
I read comics based primarily on the characters. So this teaser strategy is perfect in determining which X-books I’m going to be reading.
Hopefully next week (or the week after) we may find out once and for all if Madrox is making the cut.
That’s the extent of the news, but if you’re interested in comic book stuff, I think I’m going to break this down a little bit more. So we’ve got three characters, one of which has short hair, one of which has a bit longer hair to the ears and one of which has either big hair or is wearing some kind of a hood. I think this means we have two guys and a girl, or a hood.
Let’s break it down:
Who are we missing? Out of the current X-Factor team, the three missing characters are Madrox, Longshot and Darwin (though he’s on sabbatical). They do not yet appear on this cover. Both Madrox and Longshot have similar hair, and could be either one of those two short-haired male characters. Darwin could be wearing a hood. So perhaps nobody dies in November and the team stays exactly the same with the addition of Havok, that blonde guy in the middle with the blue glowy powers.
Remember the 90s? Back in the mid-90s, there was an X-Factor series very similar to the current series. Both were written by Peter David, both were about a mutant team spun-off from the X-Men and both featured the same characters. In fact, Multiple Man and Strong Guy both became popular in the mid-90s X-Factor. Havok was on that team as well, along with Wolfsbane and a few others.
The 90s were X-Treme!
So with Peter David still writing, and Havok joining the team, we’re clearly looking at some kind of 90s reunion sort of series. Comic book fans love references to old stuff, and the 90s X-Factor was incredibly popular. Heck, love for that series is what gave birth to the current X-Factor after all. So Marvel is definitely banking on that. Which means, why kill Multiple Man? Keep him around for the 90s reunion!
Which leads me to believe that the ‘hooded’ figure is actually 90s member Polaris! She’s the chick up there with the green hair. Polaris and Havok have been out having an adventure in space for the past few years. They’re a couple. So it only stands to reason that Polaris would join Havok in X-Factor, as well as add to the 90s reunion.
So I think Polaris is that hooded or big-haired character.
And I’m going to go out on a limb and say Longshot in the character in the middle, with the hair that goes down to his ears.
Or we might just have some random new character add some new blood to the team!
They could all be Madrox! Remember, Multiple Man’s super-power is that he can make duplicates of himself. Walking, talking, thinking duplicates of himself. And the catalyst for Peter David’s recent revival of Multiple Man was that he sent a bunch of duplicates out into the world to learn different things. Then when the main Madrox reabsorbs them, he gains all that knowledge. Perhaps the main Madrox will still die…but then a bunch of duplicates from around the world will return and join the team. That would account for the different hairstyles and the possible hood.
We shall see! I’ll stay on this story all month if I have to!
The Problem with Exes
When I met you ten years ago, I was in love. You were sweet, sexy, clever, fun and you were always willing to do what I wanted to do. I looked past the long, awkward pauses that we had between loading screens, and just enjoyed what we had.
Then we drifted apart, you and I. It wasn’t you, Deus Ex–It was me. I always loved you, but I experienced all you had to give and I wanted more. Flashier, prettier games were out there, and I was young. Foolish.
You were always so good to me, but I left you for younger, fresher games.
Then, this month, you strolled back into my life. You were sleeker and sexier than before, with slick gameplay and brilliant graphics.
I couldn’t help myself. All of the good memories were still lingering in my mind, and I came running back to you.
For awhile, it was good again, Deus Ex. Our love affair began again, and I had fun. Your story, your gameplay (With an actual melee button!!) were among the best I’ve experienced since the first time I left you. Sure, you didn’t have multiplayer, and your voice-acting was a bit wooden, but you were still the deep, introspective, liberal lover I once knew. Sadly, our second love affair ended almost as soon as it began.
You changed, Deus Ex. We both have, I suppose. You got older, grittier, darker. You were deep, to be sure, but this time you were only a shadow of what you were before. Your old theories about the Illuminati, Majestic Six, aliens in America–they were more or less gone, save for callbacks and references here and there. The Illuminati were still a real thing for you, but they didn’t play any sort of active role in your story. I always liked your conspiracies, Deus Ex. They only added to the depth that made you so wonderful.
I still love you,but I think it’s time for us to move on. This was a quick and dirty romp for old time’s sake, really. Incredible as always, but we’ve grown too far apart. It could never have lasted.
If anyone out there is looking for a great single-player RPG-shooter that forces the player to rely more on tact than sheer firepower–a cyberpunk game with an epic storyline and wicked gameplay, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is available. My rating: 4/5. Not as good as it once was, but definitely good enough for a play.
My Favorite Birthday
On this, my 28th birthday, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane to recall some of my favorite birthdays of the past. Let me first say that I have a terrible memory, especially when it comes to recalling anecdotes of the past. A lot of stuff has just gone fuzzy. So I’ve utterly forgotten some birthdays. There’s also the fact that birthdays have just never been a big deal for me. I’ve never had huge parties. But there are some fun ones that stick in my memory and I thought I’d share.
My favorite birthday party actually didn’t happen on my birthday. It was a Halloween party that I threw to celebrate my birthday, despite the two days being nearly two months apart.
I rarely had friends over to my house when I was a kid. I think I was embarrassed because my house was always really cluttered with junk. I don’t think my parents are hoarders, and it wasn’t garbage or dirty food or anything like that around the house. We just owned stuff and that stuff tended to get piled around the living room, and there was always a lot of paperwork piled up on our dining room table. We weren’t living in filth, we were just living in stuff. Anyone who has ever been to my parents’ house when it was like that knows what I’m talking about.
Anyway, for special occasions we cleaned the living room. So it was cool to have people over. On this particular year, and I don’t remember what age I was turning, my parents agreed to throw me a Halloween party for my birthday. I had to have been at least older than 10, but maybe not yet in high school. Or maybe I was a freshman in high school. Again, I have no idea. Though it was after Beavis and Butthead Do America came out on home video, since we rented that to watch during the party. That feels really teenagery of me.
Off the top of my head, I can remember inviting Shannon David, Marc Paczkowski, I think Timm Burns, Andy Greathouse, Pat Henderson…all my pals from back then who are Facebook friends now. I don’t think I invited any girls. It wasn’t that kind of party. I’m sure there were some other guys there, but I just can’t remember them right now. My brother was probably there.
What’s so memorable about this birthday is that once my friends started showing up, we all of a sudden decided to go trick-or-treating. We were all too old to go normally, and that hadn’t been part of the birthday plan, but we went anyway. It started with just walking to my next door neighbor’s house to get some free candy. Because everybody likes candy at a party.
Then once all my friends had arrived, we decided as a group to walk my entire neighborhood for more candy! We all grabbed whatever masks my family had lying around the house, some from previous Halloweens and some from toys or whatever. I remember Shannon wearing one of those dark, faceless hoods and therefore he was unable to see anything as we walked because it was the dead of night. I don’t remember what mask I wore. So my friends and I grabbed some bags and just went strolling around the neighborhood getting candy even though we were way too old to be out. We didn’t cause any mischief, but we just had a blast shooting the breeze and getting candy. Then we all came home, ate the giant piles of candy and watched Beavis and Butthead Do America.
When I was a kid, my family and I didn’t trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. Instead, my siblings and cousins would go to our grandparents’ house, and then we’d be driven through the countryside visiting people and families our family knew. So that party was also the first time I ever just randomly went door-to-door in my own neighborhood. So basically it was just a really fun night with my friends, with a spontaneous amount of trick-or-treating.
I think the year before that Halloween party was one of the only other times I had friends over to my house for my birthday. This party was on my actual birthday, but it wasn’t a party so much as a chance to have people over and to camp outside. My parents bought me this big tent, which was basically just a big outdoor room with mosquito netting for walls. I had a few people over, I remember Marc, Eli Whitcomb, Andy, Pat, and I think my cousin Tyson. And we just hung out in the tent for most of the night. I distinctly remember us talking about girls for awhile. I also remember the feeling of walking out into the middle of the road in the middle of the night. I’d never done it before, and it felt kind of cool. Eventually we all just went inside the house and slept.
The earliest birthday I can remember was probably kindergarten. Back when you had a party and invited everybody in your class. We held the party at Burger King on Grant Avenue. I remember it because we handed out little plastic lunch boxes as treats, and each box had a little Alvin and the Chipmunks figurine inside. Mine was Theodore dressed to go swimming, with an inner tube, a snorkel and big flippers.
I don’t remember any of my birthday parties in high school.
My birthdays in college were not the epic parties I was probably supposed to have, but they were fun. Since my birthday is clearly at the start of the school year, I remember using my birthday Freshman year as an ice-breaker. I remember buying some pizzas and inviting everybody I’d met so far to just come hang out in the lounge on Brew 5. The next year I was living alone in a different dorm from most of my friends, but I again bought some pizzas and invited all my friends to make the trek out to hang in my new dorm lounge. It was a good chance for people to see each other again early Sophomore year. That party ended with a bunch of us taking the pizzas to another dorm, the one we’d been hanging out in so far that year, and I think we played either Connect Four or Jenga. I have pictures somewhere.
By Junior year I had some new friends and I tagged along with them to some house party. A lot of people might remember that I wasn’t much for parties or drinking back in college, but I went out on occasion. It was a fun but unmemorable night. Senior year I turned 21, and I was rooming in a South Campus apartment with my friend Joe Maguire. If I recall correctly, I invited my old high school friend Heather Partzych over to our apartment for a quiet night. Heather attended college at a neighboring school in Syracuse, so we got together now and again during the four years of college. People might also remember that I don’t drink alcohol. I had my first drink on my 21st birthday with Heather and Joe at our apartment, just some coconut flavored rum that Joe had on hand. They made me a mixed drink. I didn’t like it but drank it for their benefit. I don’t remember what else we did that night. Hopefully something fun. Though definitely a low key celebration.
And I think those are the only birthdays I can remember…
Still, memory lane is a fun place to visit.
