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Immortal Iron Fist has been my favorite Marvel title since its first issue. I love it because it relies entirely on its own mythos and only borrows what it needs from the larger Marvel universe. The closest it’s come to doing the usual “HEY THIS IS IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE HERE’S A CAMEO” is that it made a couple narratively logical nods to Civil War‘s fallout.

I mean, there’s more to the title’s success than just that, but its ability to create and then rely upon its own mythic momentum is pretty much never brought up, which is odd, because I tend to think that’s its greatest strength. You don’t need to know a damn thing about Iron Fist, because the character’s history is recreated in the issues we’re reading. And it doesn’t matter what ridiculous horseshit is going on in the rest of Marvel’s line, Iron Fist is left alone to do his own thing. This makes for a very fun and accessible title.

Unfortunately, the current creative team is moving on to other ventures. It is almost inevitable that the folks coming into it will completely miss that Immortal Iron Fist has more than enough self-sustaining mythos to cherry pick its involvement in the rest of the Marvel Universe. And if they don’t, then the people in charge will miss it. I could see a sales slump or increase being used to justify a ton of cameos and crossovers that can only choke the series — “Sales are down, do camoes to boost ‘em!” or “Iron Fist is popular now, do cameos to reflect is greater involvement!”

Oh, well. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Team Robo was recognized in two categories.

BEST LIMITED SERIES

Atomic Robo, by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener (Red 5 Comics)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, by Peter David, Robin Furth, and Jae Lee (Marvel)
Nightly News, by Jonathan Hickman (Image)
Parade (with Fireworks), by Michael Cavallaro (Shadowline/Image)
The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

BEST COLORING

Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
Steve Hamaker, Bone, vols. 5 and 6 (Scholastic); Shazam: Monster Society of Evil (DC)
Richard Isanove, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Ronda Pattison, Atomic Robo (Red 5 Comics)
Dave Stewart, BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC)
Alex Wald, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)

It’s a shame Umbrella Academy will win for best Limited Series. Still, just to get nominated on our first book is amazing enough. Here’s hoping that Ronda can pull out a win for us!

The jerks at Penny Arcade (not actually jerks) reminded me of something I’d completely forgotten.

Transdimensional TMNT was the first RPG book I ever bought. It’s only a supplement and pretty much useless without the core book, but how could a ten year old hope to deny that cover?

It had The Turtles, a T-Rex, and a Giant Robot at the same time. As if that wasn’t enough, and it was, it was a book about time travel, a subject I’d been 100% gay for since 1985. Hell, it’s still one of my favorite covers (of anything) and probably my all time favorite RPG book because the intervening twenty years have done nothing to reduce my fondness for The Turtles, a T-Rex, Giant Robots, or time travel.

My favorite picture in this favorite book is that of the Saurinoid. See, you could play as different kinds of dinosaurs. I mean, this is a setting where turtles can become ninja. Introducing dinosaurs into this process is surprisingly logical. Anyway, the Saurinoid was a catch-all dino for Dromaeosauridae, only this was back in 1988 so they looked more like Jurassic Park than a parrot. What was particularly fascinating about it, though, was that he was wearing clothes.

It blew my dumb 10 year old mind. Here’s this dinosaur and it’s wearing clothes. Suddenly, every other dinosaur in the book nude. Thus, I was immediately aware of what clothes meant. They were no longer merely a statement of utility or fashion. They were a statement of personhood.

That Robo has always worn clothes in his every iteration is a direct descendant of that revelation one Sunday afternoon twenty years ago.

Dr. Dinosaur, one of the Robo’s more active protagonists in the modern era, is a clothes-wearin’ time-travelin’ tribute to that plucky Saurinoid.