When a gay man dates a woman to hide his sexuality, they call her his “beard” - a false affectation of heterosexual manliness. It would seem Shadowcat, Polaris, Rogue, that girl Opal he was with through most of the ‘80s, were all Iceman’s beards.

Wow. You had my exact same reaction. I was initially upset, or maybe I should say that my 10-year-old me was upset that one of his favorite characters was “turned” or whatever. Then I sort of slowed down and came to a “whatever” place. If they want to go this way, fine. It certainly doesn’t damage the character, as…

Stick it out, man! Hang in there like a kitten on a clothesline. I haven’t gotten the game yet, but immediately knew/know I would be signing Special Forces. The few and the proud, apparently. Sonya, Jax, Cage, Stryker, all the new characters that look coolest to me - if they had Smoke, it would be all of my favorite…

Getting Hasselhoff for the Kung Fury soundtrack was Kickstarter money well spent. Thank you heroes.

On the one hand, I totally agree with you. I found the Krypt in MK 2011 tedious, wandering the field and watching the same handful of animations over and over again. I wish they’d either make it more fun/interactive, or just unlock stuff without making me go through all that rigamarole just for some concept art.

I can recommend tons of stuff. I do whole seminars at comic cons on “What to Read.” What kind of stuff are you into? Just looking at your list of names, I’ll say:

What decisions? I played W2 and barely felt like I decided much of anything. Help the elf bandit guy or kill him, okay... but that was a pretty bland decision that didn’t have much nuance to it—there was no reason given to side with him, really, other than just not knowing much about why they were doing what they were…

I’m with you, too. The combat in W2 was clunky with random insane difficulty spikes, and the story was unusually ho-hum for a game where so many laud it for its storytelling. The whole thing felt kind of beautiful-bland; a whole lot of wonderful work into making a muddled tapestry of gray.

There was a sense of reality to the series. It dealt with the legal ramifications of superheroing in a way I’d never read before. It had a constant tension, a feeling like no matter how ahead of his problems Murdock got, at any given moment the whole thing could come crashing down. Such a great time.

The Echo intro arc was illustrated by David Mack, the artist known for painterly work and heavy collage awesomeness. His series Kabuki is way worth looking for if you enjoyed him on Daredevil.

That stinking pile wasn’t a good anybody story.

This is, for my money, the single greatest run on Daredevil of all time. Frank Miller will always hold the most important spot in terms of building the character from a second-rate Spider-Man clone into an interesting character of his own, in his own setting with his own cast and style. But it was Bendis who wrote the…

I am extremely excited for this. Extremely. Tron: Legacy was a spectacular movie that, for whatever reason, became a "crap on this" meme, but I could write essays - PLURAL - on the levels going on in that movie. There is so much subtext, so many great visual metaphors, so many layers to the story. They took what could…

It’s really worth setting the time aside. Scour his whole video history - it’s some of the best in-depth analyses I’ve ever found on games.

This guy is spectacular. Anybody on the fence about listening, if you have the time - do it. His rundowns on the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises were deeply considered, even-handed, and analytically stimulating. He did one comparing Skyrim and Dragon Age side-by-side to see the highs and lows of each as they…

Would these be the same people who think a gaming news/journalism site is “biased” or “unethical” because they publish articles or reviews that differ from the reader’s own opinion?

By your tag I’m guessing this is all sarcasm. I’ll respond not to you but the larger idea.

You’re not supposed to understand it. If you can understand it it isn’t art. Which is why I avoid the fine arts like the plague most times. They go out of their way to noodle around with nonsense, seeming to produce pieces just because they “seem like the kind of stuff you see in galleries.” Gobledeygook, says I! I…

I’m finishing a run through Sid Meier’s Pirates. It was a game I remember reading about while it was in development, but never had the chance to play. Now that I’ve converted to full-on PC gaming, it was on my list of things to get back to. I’ve really enjoyed it and the openness of just sailing around the Caribbean,…

I'm going to speak up for Celia Friedman's Coldfire trilogy, because you don't do a good enough job selling it and it's one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.