News Round-Up: allowing anonymous comments, DCU Online, cute figurines, and a new Tony Daniel cover!

I'm thinking about allowing anonymous comments, since david_hine is about the fifth person I know who created an account for the sole purpose of commenting here. It makes me wonder if more people follow about_faces than I realize! One of my highest priorities here is discussion through comments and feedback, so I want to make that as easy as possible, even if it means weeding through spam and the occasional anonymous troll. I'll give it more thought.

For now, lots of new stuff!



HARVEY FEATURED IN DC UNIVERSE ONLINE!





I already knew he was in the game, but Newsarama devoted a whole article to the game's version of Two-Face (and... Mxyzptlk? Ooookay). I've heard nothing but buggy, mixed thinks about the game, but I'd be intrigued to see how Harvey would play out, since the description here is most intriguing:

Just hinted at in the core game, the Penguin is ready to make his move to take control of Gotham, and in a case of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ you align yourself with Two-Face in an effort to foil the fowl fiend’s plans in a new mission string. Both the villains and the heroes can get into the action, as on the side of good, the Harvey Dent side of the scarred former prosecutor takes a dominate role verses his dark side for the other faction. However, keeping with his trademark of how he decides his actions, Two-Face could flip his coin mid-mission and suddenly turn against you.

Two-Face will also become available as a player character in Legends PvP with the ability to summon a mob of goons, set traps and fire guns or use a grenade launcher. His coin also factors into PvP as a quick toss will buff a set of skills for the side that the coin lands on (damage and DoT for bad heads; control, knockdowns and stuns for good heads)

All that is pretty damn clever, and exactly the way he should be used in such a game. Lord knows I'd love to play as him as well.

( Picspam of character sketches, design, and gameplay! )

ADORABLE TWO-FACE FIGURE IS ADORABLE





The first series of these arrived at my shop last month. Henchgirl utterly fell in love with the Penguin, and I was hoping they'd do a Harvey. He looks a bit lizard-like (what's with so many artists making him look lizard-like? Acid no work that way!), but still pretty damn adorable. That said, I think J'onn's the best of the bunch, followed by Ollie, who should either look angrier or come with chili.



A COVER FROM THE UPCOMING TONY DANIEL STORY ACTUALLY LOOKS INTERESTING

I feel like I'm too harsh to Tony Daniel. Yeah, I'm not a fan of his work thus far, but I'll do my damnedest to be fair when it comes time to review the issues as they're released. Until then, I can only wait and worry about what he's going to do, based on the little we've seen thus far.

But today, prof_pig sent me a heads-up to a new cover (variant?) by Daniel for the storyline. And damn if it doesn't raise some interesting possibilities.





I really like the scarring. The real test will be seeing what, if any, character Daniel will give to Harvey's non-scarred side, but he doesn't look too bad here. Definitely of the Jim Lee school of design, but not bad at all.

The Prof wondered if this cover indicated a reference to the excellent (and still under-loved) Long Shadows storyline by Winick, particularly the finale where Dick seemingly convinced Harvey that Dick was the one true Batman. I still think it made way more sense for Harvey, in that context, to have realized that this Batman was Nightwing, rather than the true Batman, because who else but Dick looks down on Two-Face like that? Hopefully we'll see where it goes from there. After all, this will be Dick vs. Harvey, Round 5!

Please don't use Gilda. Please don't use Gilda. Please don't use Gilda...