First official image (that I've seen at least) of the Red Skull!

Menacing ain’t he? Hope his character comes off as menacing as this picture.

On second thought, this is Hugo Weaving we’re talking about here. If he pulled off Agent Smith, I’m sure he’ll do a good job at portraying the Red Skull.

This week, the official Captain America teaser poster was revealed online, and I'm impressed. Here's the poster:

I've seen several photos of the Captain America costume, and I have to say that I like it. It looks realistic to me, attire that is conceivably something that the military would use. It retains key features of the comic book costume, not straying too far away from the source.

Known for playing humorous goofballs, Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds both landed leading roles in superhero movies, with the latter playing DC's Green Lantern and the former shown here as Captain America. Previews have shown that Reynolds is keeping his signature witty personality as Green Lantern, which personally doesn't fit how I know the character. I hope Chris Evans can lose that part and portray Captain America as he is.

Last December, we held a tournament with the Web of Spider-Man Daken Limited Edition figure as a prize. I already had this figure by then, after asking my Heroclix supplier to look for it for me. Normally, I wouldn't have been eager to win prizes, but I was told that this figure was highly sought after. Even if I had this figure already, I thought I would be able to easily trade him for the other figures that I had trouble getting.

Why do people want this figure so much? Well, for starters, he completes the Dark Avengers look. There's a more common version of this figure, but it doesn't fit visually. Here are two images of the Dark Avengers:

The "Dark" members of the team (L-R: Bullseye as Hawkeye, Venom as Spider-Man, Iron Patriot, Daken as Wolverine, and Moonstone as Ms. Marvel)

The Dark Avengers team in action

The normal Daken figure looked like this:

 And the Limited Edition version looked like this:

So yes, it was easy to see why players sought after the Limited Edition. Luckily, at the venue that I play at, they hold special tournaments whenever the prize at stake is highly valued. It was announced that we would be having a 500 points Modern Age event with a special stipulation - the team has to have at least figures that has one or more of the following abilities: Transporter, Sharpshooter, Indomitable, Giant, Duo, or has a Special Trait.

I pondered long and hard, considering all my options. I wanted to bring a comic-accurate team that would be able to compete. Noting my earlier success with the Justice League of America, I settled on bringing this team:

(L-R) Barry Allen, The Atom and Hawkman, Batman, Aquaman, Green Arrow

The three figures that qualified this team are The Atom and Hawkman (Duo), Aquaman (Transporter) and Green Arrow (Sharpshooter). Combining for a total of 306 points, I had almost 200 points to spare for some quality teammates. I had other options, but when I was thinking of this team, I knew that it would have a good chance of winning. I ended up spending php 1,100 on Barry Allen (a Super-Rare level figure). I figured that if I won, the money that I spent would be for two figures, and not one. This raised the stakes higher for me - I had to win to earn my money's worth.