In role-playing news, the Monday night D&D4e "Vanished Lands: the Faith-Based Initiative" fantasy gamers were joined by alumni Thomas K.Y. and John C.M. a few weeks ago. That adventuring party has fought at the edge of a battle between humans and evil humanoids, continuing its quest for three barbarian relics.

The "Holy Steel" teleconferencing team is still trying to get back to a regular schedule after moving from Thursdays to Sundays. We're also in the midst of converting characters from D&D3.5 to Pathfinder/"D&D3.75." When we left that group of heroes, it was traveling across the Arabian Desert on its way to the empire of Khemet (New Kingdom Egypt).

I visited Pandemonium Books & Games in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Compleat Strategist's new location in Boston a few weeks ago. I was impressed by the amount of support for competitors to Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition such as Pathfinder and Savage Worlds (which Brian W. is using for his "Fierce Frontier" game). Janice and I also went to our favorite book shops in Harvard Square.

The City of Heroes supergroup all logged in during "double-XP" weekend, as our metahumans tried to complete numerous missions. While the Sunday morning sessions have been moved to Friday nights (conflicting with several genre television shows), David I.S., Dexter V.H., and I are going to try the Lord of the Rings Online multiplayer online game.

Stuart C.G. plans to visit the Boston area in a few weeks, and he may make a cameo appearance with the current face-to-face group (the "F.B.I."). Speaking of college chums, I've also met Cliff Y. a few times around work in Framingham, Massachusetts.

I hope that Dex will also be able to visit later this year to run his D20 Star Wars: Saga Edition space opera RPG, and there is still a fair amount of interest in returning to D20 Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Ed. superhero scenarios. It's too bad I no longer live in Virginia, because Tim M.B.'s GURPS 4e: "Knights of the Astral Sea" steampunk/dimensional travel game sounds interesting.

In addition, Janice and I have continued using our new Nintendo Wii, especially the video games for the Wii Fit balance board. I like Wii Sports more than Wii Play, and Championship Foosball and Boom Blox may take some time to master.

Coming soon: "SciFriday" and upstarts…

Friends, I hope you've had a good fortnight. I've been too busy with work, plumbing problems, and various games to blog lately, but here's an update on the latter topic. This past weekend, I watched the Super Bowl, as much for the expensive commercials as for the football championship.

I thought the game itself was dramatically close, marred only by the number of penalties against both the Arizona Cardinals and the victorious Pittsburgh Steelers. Bruce Springstein's halftime performance was good, if a bit safe, as all the classic rock picks have been after Janet Jackson's controversial "wardrobe malfunction."

The movie previews were short but entertaining. I'm not a big automotive buff, so I'll pass on Fast and the Furious 4. Da Vinci Code prequel/sequel Angels and Demons might be OK for fans of Dan Brown's bestselling conspiracy novels. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra look like typical big-budget action movies, with little of the character charm of the cartoons they're based on. Speaking of adaptations of comic books, superhero movies were less prominent than last year, with only X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Watchmen representing the subgenre so far.

By contrast, computer-animated Monsters vs. Aliens and Up looked like quirky comedies in the tradition of this past year's Kung-Fu Panda and Wall-E. While the latest Oscar nominations kept animation in its ghetto, I hope to catch the stop-motion fantasy Coraline in the next few weeks. I'm cautiously optimistic about the cinematic reboot of classic science fiction Star Trek, but less so about the previews of Race to Witch Mountain and Land of the Lost, yet more attempts to cash in on intellectual properties from the late 1960s/early '70s.

On the other hand, Jack Black's Year One reminded me favorably of Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (Janice and I enjoyed PBS's Make 'Em Laugh documentary about U.S. comedy). We'll see if Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince can live up to that franchise.

Coming soon: RPG notes!

As I continue catching up on reading comic books and graphic novels, thanks in part to our exercise cycle, I find myself still enjoying traditional superhero titles, despite several controversies. Distributor shenanigans, the trend toward big events, the revolving door of death, and challenges facing independent publishers are hotly debated online and at comic stores.

-Distributor shenanigans: According to Chris F., manager of one of the comic shops I regularly patronize, Marvel mishandled its publicity stunt in which new President Barack Obama was depicted in a Spider-Man book. One might think that the popularity of recent movies such as Iron Man and Dark Knight (and upcoming ones such as Watchmen) has helped comic sales and retailers, but Diamond's near-monopoly and the "big two" publishers' inability to make their best-known titles accessible to newer readers have hurt the print side of the industry, not unlike journalism.

-Crossovers are still king: Marvel Comics' "Secret Invasion" storyline, in which shapeshifting aliens known as Skrulls infiltrated Earth's ranks of metahumans, has led into its conspiratorial "Dark Reign" and interstellar "War of Kings" stories across several series. In "Dark Reign," the Avengers are still disunited after the death of Steve Rogers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man's failed efforts to register all vigilantes, and Norman Osborn (also Spider-Man villain Green Goblin) has become the U.S. government's point man in hunting unregistered costumed characters. Villains posing as heroes and heroes in hiding have led to some interesting challenges.

Over on the DC Comics side, the cosmic "Final Crisis" is drawing to a close, with the most noteworthy development being the apparent death of Bruce Wayne/Batman, one of my favorite superheroes. I tend to like the iconic characters of the DC Universe more than their Marvel counterparts, but the writing has been more erratic lately, with the notable exceptions of Green Lantern and Superman.

-Death and rebirth: Still, I am curious as to how the "Battle for the Cowl" will go, even as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Barry Allen/the Flash, Clark Kent/Superman, and Oliver Queen/Green Arrow have cheated death (not to mention Thor, Peter Parker's Aunt May, and assorted X-Men).

A related topic is the aforementioned lack of accessibility. As a longtime fan, I understand the challenge of balancing continuity with the desire for creator freedom and character development. While I don't agree with calls for censorship, I see no reason why Superman or Spider-Man has to be weighed down with so much angst or history that he ceases to be inspiring to newer readers.

Frank Miller, who renewed interest in Batman with Dark Knight Returns and Year One and who has since slung mud at the icon in All-Star Batman and Robin, has helped popularize comics in recent movies such as 300 and his take on Will Eisner's classic The Spirit. However, the violence and sexism of much of his writing means that many young readers and viewers may never get the chance to discover why these superheroes are iconic in the first place. Animated series like Batman and the Brave and Bold are now their entry point rather than hardcopy comics.

-Indy pubs: Despite Diamond's new policies, which will likely hurt independent publishers, some of the best writing and artwork in the industry today is in indy titles. I've been enjoying licensed properties such as Zorro and original ones such as Umbrella Academy. As long as creativity and the mix of good art and writing can continue, I'll be a happy fan.

Fellow genre entertainment fans, by now, you may have seen the sad news of the deaths of 1960s icons Eartha Kitt, Ricardo Montalban, and Patrick McGoohan.

Kitt was best known as one of the actresses who played Catwoman in the campy Batman television series (Batman himself has been killed, of only temporarily, in the comics). She was also funny in the Eddie Murphy comedy Boomerang and as Izma in Disney's animated Emperor's New Groove. When I saw her at a convention a few years ago, she was still a magnetic singer and dancer.

Montalban, who was a leading man during the Latin craze of the 1940s and '50s, was best known to space opera fans as genetically engineered villain Khan Noonien Singh in the original Star Trek and Wrath of Khan. His charisma was undeniable in the original Fantasy Island, and I saw Montalban most recently in the Spy Kids movies.

Patrick McGoohan played John Drake in the 1960s espionage TV series Secret Agent, which was a rare in not being a parody of the James Bond films. I have fond memories of watching him as "Number 6" in the surrealistic, paranoid Prisoner, which is about to be remade for AMC. McGoohan was King Edward I in Mel Gibson's Braveheart and was also the inspiration for the appearance of the supernatural superhero Dr. Fate in Justice League Unlimited.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention the passing of Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who was key to the Star Trek universe. All of these fine actors will be missed, but their legacy will live on.

The series finale of Stargate: Atlantis was decent, if a bit rushed and predictable. I liked some of the characters in this latest military science fiction installment, but the plots weren't as strong as they could have been.

In addition, as with the Star Trek franchise, Stargate is following a pattern in which a strong premise is eventually watered down. Popular movies (Treks II, IV, and VI/Stargate) led to television series focusing on the best and brightest crews (The Next Generation/Stargate SG1). The next spin-offs focused on old space stations on the far side of the universe from Earth (Deep Space Nine/Atlantis) and included interstellar wars and cameos by actors from previous iterations.

Stargate: Universe seems to be following Star Trek: Voyager's premise of a starship far from home. Let's hope for the sake of space opera on television that Stargate is more successful at sustaining a mix of scientific speculation, idealism, camaraderie, and fisticuffs with aliens than Trek, which after the short-lived Enterprise has gone back to the beginning for a cinematic reboot. Of course, such things are cyclical.

Even given Star Trek's strong influence on the subgenre, other approaches to space opera are possible. Like Buck Rogers (I recently picked up the late 1970s/early '80s series on DVD), Andromeda featured a protagonist who was displaced in time. Like Flash Gordon, Farscape's human hero found himself lost, surrounded by strange beings involved in their own conflicts. The computer-animated Star Wars: the Clone Wars has done a good job so far of expanding George Lucas' universe and still being accessible to younger viewers.

In other "SciFriday" news, the first season finale of Stargate SG1 alumna Amanda Tapping's Sanctuary was decent, if a bit convoluted. The cryptozoology show has veered into steampunk conspiracy, and viewers unfamiliar with either might get lost in the mix of a vampiric Nicola Tesla, lost cities, and the now-cliche cabal of corporate/government villains who want to harness unusual powers for their own ends (see also Fringe).

This past weekend, I also enjoyed the retro animated Batman and the Brave and Bold, fantasy Legend of the Seeker, and comedic sleuths of Psych. Even with the grim Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, I'm looking forward to several midseason returns! While I didn't see most of the nominated movies, the Golden Globes were entertaining, even if the red carpet interviews were often inane. As with 2008, there are several noteworthy genre movies coming this year, including Watchmen and the aforementioned Star Trek.

Coming soon: comic book and gaming roundups!