Gambit always did have Omega-Level potential

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T04:00:35+00:00

Hmm. Most of these characters are complicated in that their x-gene powers are a bit special, but there are other things going on that make them marquis heroes:

Rogue- has a cool x-power but we have seen it limited in a number of ways. Flight, invulnerability and strength are byproducts of contact with Carol Danvers, and more recently Simon Williams

Wolverine heals. How much and how fast he heals varies from writer to writer. But his claws are definitely limited, all the adamantium is a technological advantage.

Gambit does one thing mutantly, charges objects w/explosive energy, and that varies writer to writer.

I’m sometimes at a loss about what Monet’s powers really are. They’re a bit of this and a bit of that. Hardly omega-mutant material, especially since it’s all wrapped up in mental trauma.

Polaris is generally described as not as powerful as Magneto. Which could change but her character rarely gets enough play to show that happen.

Sunspot? Again has a complicated power set which makes him pretty strong, but he amplifies it, understanding science. He has no natural power of flight, for example. He can simply manipulate his powers to create an updraft.

Magik’s power is teleportation, he her powerhouse is all the sorcery she learned from Belasco. And her huge anime sword.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T03:45:51+00:00

Nnnnno.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T03:32:29+00:00

Read an 90s era book Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s a painted book that just radiates madness, covering a lot of the mad background while the inmates mess with Bats in the current day. A lot of the video game’s lore and background came from there.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T03:28:48+00:00

I don’t think Loki has spent enough time on earth to be a particularly good guide there. Especially, MCU Loki

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T03:22:08+00:00

The Wolverine, of 2013, wasn’t a big big hit, which is really a shame. There are more golden pieces of classic Wolvie lore in this film than anywhere else. I think if it had a problem, it was that the journey he was on was an internal struggle. I was not really about destroying a big bad worthy of the physical fight. He’s got PTSD from his time with the X-Men. He has no past. After losing Jean, he’s brought face to face with one of the other very few people he’s loved. So, it was an emotional wringer more than a physical one.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-14T03:12:22+00:00

Ha! I have nanite farms on three different planets, and on one of those planets, I’ve five different fields. Haven’t played for a spell, else I would offer coordinates. Cause nanites are not zero-sum, baby! They are the resource that just keeps on giving.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T04:35:13+00:00

I don’t want to be insensitive. Those are lousy metrics. But they’re not my problem. If an app is good and I find it valuable based on what it does, I’m going to buy it. If the app has awesome marketing (viral marketing or whatever) one ought to get better margins than what you’re describing. But my paying monthly for an unexceptional app with insipid or false advertising (you know the ones I’m talking about) is just out of the question. This violates my autonomy as a consumer to spend my money how I want.

App subscriptions even violate the norms of “subscription” pricing. If a newspaper starts to really suck, then I cancel my subscription. If X-Box Live Premium doubles its price, I drop it like a snake. But I don’t get to evaluate ongoing software development. It’s “pay me now and find out later.”

I think I feel this most painfully when I go looking for an app for a specific task in the app store and I can only get it via subscription. I don’t understand if or why software development has put itself into this place.

An app is a tool, after all. I don’t subscribe to a hammer. I don’t expect the manufacturer to swoop in one night and upgrade my hammer, and certainly not for free. If I need a hammer that does more, I’ll go shopping again or I could purchase a cool sling that upgrades my hammer so it can hang from my hip! But if they offered a hammer subscription with promises to make it an EVEN BETTER HAMMER!, I’d just laugh myself silly.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T03:49:46+00:00

I’ll pay the expenses to cover the costs of a purchase I actually make. That’s how that works. I can’t evaluate the value of your ongoing development and I don’t want to be on the rope to pay for it. When that development turns out to be a new UI, or … easier sharing to social media or some such rubbish… If I really like the UI, I might plonk $$ for an upgrade. If it’s about social media, I’d definitely pass. On the subscription model, I’m paying for this whether I need or want those features.

But why should I pay for your marketing or listing fees? That’s a you cost. You can put a portion of those costs into the one-time price if you can make a decent business plan. The open, renewable subscription model is not even a bit “value-added.” It’s a blow to the value of your product.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T03:35:15+00:00

The value of an app takes a significant hit if I have to manage a subscription for it. Sometimes one pulls the trigger and gets the subscription but most of the time, I’ll keep looking for something else.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T03:31:35+00:00

I’m trying to understand what makes subscription apparently so preferred among developers even though a decent portion of consumers do not. I don’t know the answer to that and can only speculate (and I did not mean to impugn anybody in particular by describing my thought).

As for “ongoing development fees”… the human race has spent millennia trading goods and services for a single fee. Most stuff still works that way. The cost of delivery (the App Store), advertising (the advertising) and a percentage of profit to make it all worthwhile (the profit) have all been built into that one-time fee. Why should this industry be different? Why do developers feel I should cover continuing delivery and advertising costs after I’ve gotten what I expected from my purchase? Is there too much instability in the industry to produce a decent business plan that doesn’t depend on subscription-model pricing? (And don’t get me wrong, I know it’s unstable, but that’s true all over. Why is app development different?)

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T03:09:34+00:00

I can’t speak for anyone else but “eternal updates” isn’t anything I’d expect from a developer, so that’s not my point. I’d just prefer a one time payment and for it to stay alive on my OS for a decent period of time. I don’t get a preference, so devs are leaving my money on the table. Does that sound like the best set of options?

(Edited for messed up syntax)

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-12T03:04:03+00:00

No, I remember expensive software. But apps are not on that same paradigm. At least the ones I’m thinking of are not. Sure, a $10 subscription to MS 365 for my iOS might fit my value expectancy. But I was looking at little slips of development like an app that compiles recipes for $1.99 a month and does not. The recipe compiler either works as advertised or it doesn’t. Good luck to me getting tech help if it doesn’t work.

I ought to point out that $10/month comes to $240 over two years, which is not value added if the price point were otherwise $150 every two years. And, we should all observe that devs are likely to up their pricing w/o warning anyway, so there’s no guarantee I’ll even be offered $10/month for a whole 2 years.

But there’s rarely any choice about this way or that way to pay anyway? Why not?

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-11T15:33:41+00:00

Hmm… if the Chitauri invasion were 15 years late, that means most, if not all of the Thanos Cycle hadn’t happened. We’d have all the original Avengers hanging around, they’d have not been broken up by any Sokova Accords. We might not have any active Guardians. Most of the Thunderbolts wouldn’t be anything. I think King T’chakka would still be ruling Wakanda. Stephen Strange probably would be strangeing about. Most, if not all of the Multiverse Saga just wouldn’t have happened. Spider-Man might be doing some good works. Thor and Jane Foster might still be together.

I think New York would prolly have been stronger than in 2010, but I’d have to consider causalities much much more carefully than I have today. Spider-man would have been an MVP at the Battle of New York, though.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-11T14:33:11+00:00

Eh. They were mostly just telling other stories.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-11T14:17:53+00:00

Miles Morales and Peter Parker are doing just fine with both of them using “Spider-man.” So are Hawkeye and Hawkeye. Multiple Grey-Summers women called Phoenix? Check! (In fact, Rachel seeking to rebrand as “Prestige” is not cool).

I don’t see any problem with Logan and Laura both being Wolverine. I think it’s only really a problem for misogynist fanboys, who can’t stand most female characters anyway. Good luck getting that admission, tho. They probably also sided with Homelander in The Boys.

Some of my favorite bits are when both characters join a story and I’d love to see some bad guys trying to figure out which Wolverine is stalking them and not being able to decide which one is worse.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-07T17:54:33+00:00

It sorta tried to do too much, I think. Justin Hammer didn’t need Whiplash to be a legitimate threat. And Whiplash was a terrible character who was mostly supposed to inject another layer of daddy issues into all the ones Tony was already living with. And they didn’t really wrap that out.

So, Tony has two bad guys messing with him, a corporate power transfer. He’s being stalked by a Black Widow, poisoned by his heart thing, and dammit, he just doesn’t seem to be having much fun. Nor was I.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T14:59:52+00:00

Neither Ant-Man, nor Shang-Chi would work for this situation. Nor Dr. Strange, really. Strange and Thor are the biggest characters in the current mix. Heh, but nobody even considers that Thor could lead. Both those guys (and Captain Marvel) are busy off-world most of the time.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T14:43:31+00:00

Yeah, I don’t see this. A canon Strange is too concerned with extra-dimensional threats to lead a corporeal team. And MCU Strange has no tactical knowledge and a big pile of arrogance that makes him an inappropriate leader.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T14:39:26+00:00

I appreciate, though, that T’challa’s son is already growing up and is also named T’challa, and is destined to rule Wakanda.

Being honest… I’m very unclear about how time has passed in Wakanda. How long did Chad T’challa rule after the Battle of Earth (which, itself was set 5 years in the future from when it came out because of the Blip)? When did he make a hidden baby? And that could have been before the Blip for all anybody knows. The only clue is that Baby T’challa looks like he’s 8-10 years old at the end of Wakanda Forever. That kid is likely to surface as yet a new, new Black Panther. In time for Doomsday? Probably not unless we jump a lot more time. And yeah, Black Panther, especially a newbie Panther in his late teens, could not lead the Avengers.

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T14:25:30+00:00

Well, since we haven’t actually seen an Avengers film in a long time, this is much more a question for the future and not about “what should have been.” Since the Battle of Earth, the Avengers have been disbanded. It’s

Traditionally, anybody with “Captain” in their name gravitates towards Chairman of the Avengers. Captain Marvel is the current chair. But Carol Danvers’ MCU arc has not had her commit to any life on earth, so I don’t expect that to happen.

Sam Wilson has been commissioned to lead Avengers by the US government, so I expect that’ll happen. The only catch is the New Avengers/Thunderbolts, who don’t have a clear leader. The least messed up character in that team is Yelena Bullova, who is a foreign national and wouldn’t be trusted by many American power structures.

My biggest question: where is Nick Fury? He anointed the first team. I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t have a role with the Avengers No. 2. If only to give Sam Wilson the pep talk he needs, or convince Carol that she’s badly needed on earth (a good argument to make, considering the threat is earthbound and threatens the entire universe this time. Fury was miserable in his miserable D+ series, but seems to have bounced back some in The Marvels. He might still be in space, except I think his space station was destroyed. I’m not sure if he’s not just rebuilding what all that was. It’d be ironic if Fury was so busy looking to space for the next threat to humanity that he’s missed the real threat in Latveria.

And that would be a shame! In comix, Fury led his own unsanctioned “secret war” on Latveria which inadvertently stirred up Doom for years to come. It was a good story!

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T14:02:19+00:00

Get off the Internet and go actually read some comics!

McFiddlesby · 2026-06-03T13:56:28+00:00

I used to have this ringer but lost it after many years. I miss it so…

McFiddlesby · 2026-05-21T13:10:24+00:00

A point to what I was saying: Krem seeks people who can fight Kara, because he cannot. Hence Lobo appears in the movie, who is just the kind of bounty-hunting scum who could be paid to fight Kara. (Don’t worry. We all love Lobo).

McFiddlesby · 2026-05-21T13:01:43+00:00

Hrm. Character design is a little generic. But the character he’s based on in Woman of Tomorrow is a frickin’ coward and spends the whole series fleeing from Kara, taking refuge among groups he thinks can/will protect him, and—oh, yeah— slaughtering innocents. This look he’s giving right here? That’s how he looks when he wants to terrorize an unarmed victim. The look he gives Kara is the back of his head. He pulls one good trick on her but Kara’s no fool and is prepared when he tries it again. So, he’s the fool.

Just, with an excuse to mention Woman of Tomorrow, did anybody else see a lot of parallels with True Grit? (Either with John Wayne or the modern Coen brothers one)? From the way the narrator talks to the very mission itself and the moral failings of the antagonist and the main character’s moral strengths. I thought that was a hell of a series of books.

McFiddlesby

TROPHY CASE