Psi-Lords in June

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SuperMage
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by SuperMage »

kinggirlfriend wrote:This looks terrible. And I'm a huge fan of FVL's A&A, and I'm one of the few people that didn't hate Gen Zero. But holy cow this looks gay.
Gay? Who's gay? Are Hazard and Beacon gay? Because if the first issue ends with the two of them making out that would be a big thumbs up from me. :thumb: I'd also be happy if the issue ends with a Sense8 style orgy. Hopefully the book is gay. It's 2019, we don't need any of that heteronormative nonsense in our fiction. We need Artisan barebacking Hipster Jesus in the back of a space pickup truck on their way to the space rave with Hazard and Beacon watching as they smuggle their space weed across the galaxy to space burning man.
Shadowman99 wrote:
Not appreciating the 'Psi-Focus' descriptions. 'Omniscience': look that up in the dictionary and see if it makes *ANY* sense at all when you attempt to match it up to the description of Beacon's power set. 'Willpower': Not even sure what that means in relation to Tank's vague power set description and flavour quote.
Like Greg said it seems that their power descriptions are a "clever" way of implying they are each a part of "God".
"Artisan is one of these guys who's never had to do a hard day's work in his life because he charms his way out of every responsibility. Ironically, his power is he can create hard-energy constructs out of thin air, shape matter, and, basically make whatever he can conceive. His cocky attitude disgusts an emotionally needy person who's desperate for people to like him."
Artisan's power is to be disgusting apparently.


I ironically like Hipster Jesus, that's his name now, and I hope that he's the embodiment of every hipster stereotype you can think of. If the first issue doesn't define him as a socialist-vegan-intersectional feminist-anti-fascist-communist-marijuana enthusiast-internet activist-woke-atheist-furry-fan fiction writer-weeaboo-dog lover, who also enjoys watching his wife have sex with other men while hiding in the closet, than I may consider dropping this book. Hipster Jesus is my main reason for reading this book now, and, if he doesn't get the screentime he deserves, I will write an extremely passive aggressive letter to Fred Van Lente that I will never actually send. Hipster Jesus is a beloved Valiant character with a massive fanbase, and I have officially declared myself to be the president of Hipster Jesus' fan club.
DirtbagSailor wrote:Honestly, I really do hope that Pat-Lords is a hit.
I think you mean Phat-Lords. They're the biggest names in the space rap game.


In all seriousness the core concept of the series sounds real interesting. Human abducted by aliens that escape from intergalactic prison to become space gods sounds like a pretty good pitch. It does feel a little derivative though. The jail break from a prison in space is identical to Marvel's Black Bolt ongoing, and of course 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. Most of the character feel like ersatz versions of other comic book heroes jumbled up together. (Starfire, Raven, Juggernaut, Green Lantern, etc. ) The description for Tank doesn't even bother trying to pretend he isn't just a Valiant version of Juggernaut. It's the space god aspect of the story where FLV will have to sell it to us, and that part is meant to be a "secret" for the first twelve issues. It'll be interesting to see how this series develops if only out of morbid curiosity. Psi-Lords is essentially a blank slate, and I think that's why most people will end up reading it. Opening up a completely unexplored corner of the Valiant Universe is going to be enticing regardless of how we may feel about the leading characters. It's Generation Zero in Space, but it's Generation Zero in Space with the ability to expand the Valiant Universe without any real expectations attached to the product.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by mramsterdam »

Anybody notice the barcodes on all the others arm except artisan?I was hoping it would be in the future,but it isn't.
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by greg »

mramsterdam wrote:Anybody notice the barcodes on all the others arm except artisan?I was hoping it would be in the future,but it isn't.
I'm not sure that tells us anything. How did they get to another planet? Aric is more than a thousand years from "home" due to space travel.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by The Dirt Gang »

Shadowman99 wrote:
greg wrote:So, their power (Psi-Focus) sets are: Creation, Omniscience, Willpower, and Lifeforce? ...and they're looking for "god"?
So the punchline here is: "Look within"?

Maybe that will be it in the end :?
This is exactly what I thought as well.

DirtbagSailor wrote:I DO feel as if the red-headed character works at a 4002 A.D. Starbucks as a barista who condescendingly educates me about how capitalism is wrong and how we need to become a socialist democracy because of income inequality, sadness, and the enlightenment he received in a yoga class once.

He will tell me how to fix the worlds problems -- yet somehow fail to serve me the Salted Caramel Cold Foam Cold Brew that I ordered, because coffee is more complex than world problem.

I'd like to see you and this barista work through your differences by focusing on what you have in common - a love of Salted Caramel Cold Foam Cold Brew.

It's getting to the place where coffee orders sound like dissertation titles. :lol:
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by Shadowman99 »

greg wrote:
mramsterdam wrote:Anybody notice the barcodes on all the others arm except artisan?I was hoping it would be in the future,but it isn't.
I'm not sure that tells us anything. How did they get to another planet? Aric is more than a thousand years from "home" due to space travel.
I noticed them, and I'm figuring that the barcodes were put on as part of the inmate processing protocol by the Gyre prison system. I don't think that they'll be any more significant than that. Or, I guess maybe it's supposed to be some kind of hipster thing right(?), seeing as that seems to be all that anyone wants to talk about in this thread. Maybe it saves tank time at the coffee till when he's serving those salted caramel things that everyone keeps mentioning. Can just scan his arm with the barcode reader rather than tapping a few buttons on the touchscreen till :roll:

Also, this thread is getting pretty weird to be honest, with all the sarcastic chat about hipsters, SJW-ish stuff, homosexuality, Valiant board meetings, etc. I think maybe people ought to stop *SQUEE* their pants and just wait to read the book when it comes out.
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by jmatt »

Shadowman99 wrote:I think maybe people ought to stop *SQUEE* their pants and just wait to read the book when it comes out.
Three cheers for not judging a book by its cover. I see nothing to object to from where I'm sitting and I'm happy to see FVL still working with Valiant.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by mramsterdam »

Shadowman99 wrote:
Valiant board meetings, etc.
:? Yeah, when will i ever be invited to the valiant board meetings?I'm looking forward to this series and see if they stick with Fall of bloodshot storyline. :hope:
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by TheFerg714 »

SuperMage wrote:All of the characters look cool, except for that red-haired character. He's literally giving me cancer from how obnoxious his design is
I'm fascinated by this insight. What exactly is missing from this character that would make him less cancer-inducing? Do you hate the beard? The red hair? The fat? What's so wrong with him?
SuperMage wrote:Gay? Who's gay? Are Hazard and Beacon gay? Because if the first issue ends with the two of them making out that would be a big thumbs up from me. :thumb: I'd also be happy if the issue ends with a Sense8 style orgy. Hopefully the book is gay. It's 2019, we don't need any of that heteronormative nonsense in our fiction. We need Artisan barebacking Hipster Jesus in the back of a space pickup truck on their way to the space rave with Hazard and Beacon watching as they smuggle their space weed across the galaxy to space burning man.
Okay, first of all, one second you're complaining about a chubby ginger and now you're advocating for diversity? I'm confused...
Secondly, kinggirlfriend doesn't have a problem with gay people. Pretty sure he's just commenting on the aesthetics/overall feel of the project. Obviously I can't speak for him, but trust me, he's not advocating for less gay people in fiction.
AnarchoMambo wrote:You guys are high-larious! In an effort to be more clever than the last, you battle to outdo one another on snarky comments of the character designs. And my desperate plea to you is....please keep it up!

Why? Because editorial definitely listen in on the boards, and some of these outrageous snap judgements almost certainly get mentioned at creative meetings. It has already been shown on this thread that at least one of you will type an opinion before you can even expend the effort to read a caption.

So to me, it is entertaining that a slightly overweight red-headed Russian cosmonaut code-named “Tank” is fondly reminiscent to several of you as the prototypically-cliched barista at Starbucks.

But at Valiant, this is a serious play-testing trial for some of the possible groupthink that goes on in dedicated fandom. Legitimate critique or not, if some here can’t accept a character due to some petty prejudice at the design stage, they can rethink and reimagine some aspect of the character so as not to elicit your Pavlovian disgust.

So please, by all means, keep it up. It totally helps Valiant!
I thought we disagreed on everything, but turns out, I totally agree on this point.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by SuperMage »

TheFerg714 wrote:
SuperMage wrote:All of the characters look cool, except for that red-haired character. He's literally giving me cancer from how obnoxious his design is
I'm fascinated by this insight. What exactly is missing from this character that would make him less cancer-inducing? Do you hate the beard? The red hair? The fat? What's so wrong with him?
It's the combination of those things. It's not that he's fat, it's just that the haircut mixed with the glass along with the beard make him took strikingly similar to a stereotypical hipster. It's mostly the haircut. It's just so bizarre to see the art team put a "trendy" character in the middle of a sci-fi setting. War Mother has the same problem with her weird half shaved thing. The whole shaved sides haircut is this decade's version of a mullet is pretty much synonymous with hipster fashion. It feels out of place in a post-apocalyptic jungle setting, and in a space opera.
TheFerg714 wrote: Okay, first of all, one second you're complaining about a chubby ginger and now you're advocating for diversity? I'm confused...
Secondly, kinggirlfriend doesn't have a problem with gay people. Pretty sure he's just commenting on the aesthetics/overall feel of the project. Obviously I can't speak for him, but trust me, he's not advocating for less gay people in fiction.
Sometimes a joke is just a joke. Obviously kinggirlfriend was saying it was gay as is in it was uncool. There's no reason to think his post actually had anything to literally do with gay people. Sometimes it's just funny to interpret things literally. There's no way that I would actually want to imply that kinggirlfriend was prejudiced against any group of people. I'm sorry if it was interpreted that way. I just thought kinggirlfriend's comment was funny because of how random it was.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by kinggirlfriend »

I thought we were all just being silly. I got no problem with anyone's sexuality. I do think this book looks,... questionable.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by hawkeyeps »

What if Gyre is a giant space mall and they are sentenced to work retail and food service?

Tank is a barista at Starbucks, Artisan works at one of those little phone case carts, Beacon works in the food court and Hazard works at the Gap.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by SJS4 »

I've had "all Valiant" on my pull list at my LCS since day one of VEI. This comic is the first one that has given me pause.

I'll give it a shot but man I hope it isn't as bad as it looks.
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by syzhang28 »

hawkeyeps wrote:What if Gyre is a giant space mall and they are sentenced to work retail and food service?

Tank is a barista at Starbucks, Artisan works at one of those little phone case carts, Beacon works in the food court and Hazard works at the Gap.
I hope new valiant is reading this. They really need to rethink the designs.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by TheFerg714 »

SuperMage wrote:It's the combination of those things. It's not that he's fat, it's just that the haircut mixed with the glass along with the beard make him took strikingly similar to a stereotypical hipster. It's mostly the haircut. It's just so bizarre to see the art team put a "trendy" character in the middle of a sci-fi setting. War Mother has the same problem with her weird half shaved thing. The whole shaved sides haircut is this decade's version of a mullet is pretty much synonymous with hipster fashion. It feels out of place in a post-apocalyptic jungle setting, and in a space opera.
I just don't know if I agree with the words "trendy" or "hipster," and even if he does fit those stereotypes, who cares? I, for one, have never seen a character in a superhero comic that looks like him, which I think is fairly cool.
Sometimes a joke is just a joke. Obviously kinggirlfriend was saying it was gay as is in it was uncool. There's no reason to think his post actually had anything to literally do with gay people. Sometimes it's just funny to interpret things literally. There's no way that I would actually want to imply that kinggirlfriend was prejudiced against any group of people. I'm sorry if it was interpreted that way. I just thought kinggirlfriend's comment was funny because of how random it was.
Oh okay, my bad. Unfortunately comments like that can be read all over the internet, and they're 100% serious.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by DirtbagSailor »

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by Savant »

jmatt wrote:
Dallow Spicer1 wrote:
depluto wrote:I'm down with this. I don't think I was too-too interested until FVL came on board.
Even after Generation Zero and War Mother? :?
Glad you brought that up. Shall we wager on whether we see someone wearing buckle shoes? :)

Btw, I liked both of those titles. Gen Zero was good / great, War Mother was okay.

I thought War Mother was great and have been hoping FVL gets to continue that storyline.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by Shadowman99 »

SuperMage wrote:
TheFerg714 wrote:
SuperMage wrote:All of the characters look cool, except for that red-haired character. He's literally giving me cancer from how obnoxious his design is
I'm fascinated by this insight. What exactly is missing from this character that would make him less cancer-inducing? Do you hate the beard? The red hair? The fat? What's so wrong with him?
It's the combination of those things. It's not that he's fat, it's just that the haircut mixed with the glass along with the beard make him took strikingly similar to a stereotypical hipster. It's mostly the haircut. It's just so bizarre to see the art team put a "trendy" character in the middle of a sci-fi setting.
If I recall correctly, I read that these characters have somehow been transported from our current day real life (VU version) to the Gyre, so if that's correct then I don't see any reason why any artist drawing this comic shouldn't be drawing characters that sport contemporary hair/clothing/accessory/body art fashions. As 'hipsters' typically sport a certain 'trendy' image at this point in time there's every possibility, according to the laws of probability, that just one of the many could be one of those transported to the Gyre to appear in this comic.

Plus, a real, living artist is drawing a character that's supposed to originate from their very own real-life setting, and it's always going to be likely that they'll be influenced to some degree by real people that the artist has encountered, so I really don't think it's bizarre that a 'trendy' character should end up appearing in a comic , particularly if the artist is a young person themselves...
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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by jmatt »

Savant wrote:I thought War Mother was great and have been hoping FVL gets to continue that storyline.
I liked the general concept and especially enjoy seeing 'future' stuff from Valiant. But there really does need to be more of it to kind of hang some meat on them bones.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by SuperMage »

Shadowman99 wrote: Plus, a real, living artist is drawing a character that's supposed to originate from their very own real-life setting, and it's always going to be likely that they'll be influenced to some degree by real people that the artist has encountered, so I really don't think it's bizarre that a 'trendy' character should end up appearing in a comic , particularly if the artist is a young person themselves...[/color]
Age and fashion sense aren't necessarily related. People aren't borgs. Being part of a certain age group doesn't mean everyone will magically have identical interests or taste. I'm literally thirteen years younger than Renato Guedes, but I'm not about to wear fake glasses, shave the sides of my hair, and hang out at Starbucks to tell everyone about the screenplay I'm writing. Hipster sub-culture is a sub-culture not an age group. Everyone under the age of 35 is not automatically dying to go to coachella. There's a sizable portion playing Apex Legends, and reposting memes on reddit.

But it's only the one character that kind of rubs me the wrong way. The rest of them look decent enough. For the most part, yeah, all we can do is judge this book by its cover since there's isn't much else to go off. I'm still willing to bet it'll do decent numbers, and it's definitely better than nothing. It's nice to see that FLV has returned to Valiant even if he's my least favorite Valiant writer. A win's still a win.
So there's that.

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Re: Psi-Lords in June

Post by Shadowman99 »

SuperMage wrote:
Shadowman99 wrote: Plus, a real, living artist is drawing a character that's supposed to originate from their very own real-life setting, and it's always going to be likely that they'll be influenced to some degree by real people that the artist has encountered, so I really don't think it's bizarre that a 'trendy' character should end up appearing in a comic , particularly if the artist is a young person themselves...[/color]
Age and fashion sense aren't necessarily related. People aren't borgs. Being part of a certain age group doesn't mean everyone will magically have identical interests or taste. I'm literally thirteen years younger than Renato Guedes, but I'm not about to wear fake glasses, shave the sides of my hair, and hang out at Starbucks to tell everyone about the screenplay I'm writing. Hipster sub-culture is a sub-culture not an age group. Everyone under the age of 35 is not automatically dying to go to coachella. There's a sizable portion playing Apex Legends, and reposting memes on reddit.

But it's only the one character that kind of rubs me the wrong way. The rest of them look decent enough. For the most part, yeah, all we can do is judge this book by its cover since there's isn't much else to go off. I'm still willing to bet it'll do decent numbers, and it's definitely better than nothing. It's nice to see that FLV has returned to Valiant even if he's my least favorite Valiant writer. A win's still a win.
So there's that.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious about age, fashion sense and sub-cultures there, and having only just hit my 30's myself I can confirm that I also have no desire to wear huge glasses, shave my head and talk coffee whilst tucking into my mashed avocado on toast. My point was more that the artist is probably drawing inspiration from people they've seen out and about in various places they've visited, and are drawing on the fashions that those people were displaying, and if the guy with his huge glasses made an impression on him then hey, that's the guy we're getting in the comic here.

Anyway, I'm tired of all the tedious and shallow whining about this 'hipster character' on this thread now so this is the last time I'm checking this thread. Just read the comic when it comes out and then make your minds up before hitting the boards to *SQUEE* about it.
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