Welcome to another edition of Rapid Fire! Let’s get right into it, shall we?

-I saw Diamond’s sales numbers for last month. While Marvel had the best selling book, Amazing Spider-Man #25, their other books just aren’t selling that well, no matter what they try. Meanwhile DC is doing pretty well with the Rebirth titles. I’m sure the cheaper cover price helps. My theory: New readers are coming straight from the movie theater and finding that Iron Man isn’t Tony Stark, Thor is a woman, Captain America might be part of Hydra, but not really, alternate universes up the wazoo, etc..It makes it hard for new readers to jump onboard no matter how many reboots they do. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t try new things but maybe it’s time to rein the writers in a bit.

-The first Hour of Devastation spoilers appeared today (accidentally?), we finally got our look at Nicol Bolas, who looks impressive. Steep casting cost but I have a rampy super friends deck, with a set of Oath of Nissa, some mana dorks and a set of Deploy the Gatewatch that might be the perfect home for him. Once I do some testing I’ll post the deck list if it’s any good. Nothing but the best for you guys!

-Wonder Woman looks really good. According to the reviews that I’ve read, DC might have a winner here. I’m looking forward to seeing it soon.

-I’ve been building up my PS4 collection lately. Hidden Gem alert: Earth Defense Force 4.1. Buy it. Now. Go ahead, I’ll wait………….

It feels like a mix between Starship Troopers and 50’s cheesy sci fi flick. You choose between four soldier classes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and shoot the bajeezus out of giant insects, giant mechs,and huge spaceships. It’s as nutty as it sounds.

-Since I’m on the subject of my PS4 collection, I also bought King of Fighters 14, which comes with a nice steelbook and is unplayable out of the box. C’mon! A 5gb download?! To be fair, once you suffer through the download the game is really enjoyable. Not quite as good as 13 but still decent in its own right.

-Despite your preconceived notions that we sit around all day playing games, we also both love to read (Shawn is a writer actually, look him up on Amazon. Do it. I’ll wait…….). Anyways, I’m a fantasy/sci fi kind of guy and I recently just finished Brandon Sanderson’s Way of the Kings, which is the first book in his Stormlight Archive series. It was ridiculously good. I highly recommend that you give it a shot. Shawn recommended it to me and when I was at Barnes and Noble heading to the register with it, an employee stopped me to let me know that she absolutely loved it. It’s the kind of book that immediately grabs ahold of you and the hours just melt away.

-I picked up a couple issues of the Batman/Flash crossover event,”The Button”. Usually I’m not a fan of alternate universe storylines, but this one works and is really decent.

-Sadly, last Sunday was the final episode of River Monsters on Animal Planet. After 10 years of scaring people out of freshwater, Jeremy Wade is hanging up his fishing pole. I will miss the Monday morning River Monsters email thread at work which was mainly comprised of “What the hell did he catch?!” and “Why do people swim in anything other than a swimming pool?!?”. The show was educational, entertaining, terrifying and fascinating.

-I bought a box Amonkhet and was lucky enough to pull a masterpiece (I believe they are called invocations in this set). I got a Consecrated Sphinx, which books for $55. While I’m happy that I got one, I’m disappointed in the overall look of the Invocations. It doesn’t even look like a MTG card and the font is ridiculously hard to read. I ended up trading it for a Blood Moon and a Misty Rainforest.

-Finally, we are talking about possibly getting the 2 Guys Gaming podcast going again. We will keep you up to date as far as that goes.