Kingpin, Luke Cage, and leveling news from me!

Stopped by the shop today in game and saw a couple new things for sale. First up, the Kingpin mission!


Awesome! I'd like to break out my Daredevil and Spider-Man heroes for this one and give it a spin. I'm sure if I poured through some of my old comic books I could find a kingpin issue or two. He's a classic, and it should be fun to lay the smack down in that direction. ;)

Also saw everyone's favorite Hero for Hire up in the shop for the bargain price of 300 gold!


Rock on, Luke Cage! If that's the going rate for a former Hero for Hire, sign me up! ;)

I need a few more heroes! I'm starting to run out of unmaxxed heroes at the moment. Speaking of that, Nova, aka the ultimate super space cop, just maxxed out the other day:


Don't you just hear the words, "It's a SUPERNOVA!" when you look at him? I'll admit, I've been turning the voice acting up a bit lately. (Opening doors still bugs me, but everything else is ok. I like being able to hear what heroes are near me around town. :))

Super Nova's play style in missions seems pretty standard fare . . . seems to be mostly "just out of" melee for the first part of his attack combo and finally coming in a little closer at the end as he slides forward. I'm not terribly familiar with his comic book line, but he seems to have an interesting story to him.

Of other heroes I'm not very familiar with, I decided to purchase Spider-Woman!


The moment in game that I saw she could not only wall crawl, but also could fly, I knew I wanted this hero in my collection. Awesome! Maybe I'll use my current Valkyrie and Spider-Woman characters to convince my daughter into playing this game with me again. ;)

Happy Dueling!

SNAFU or SNAFY?

SNAFY, you ask?  Sure!  Situation Normal, All For You!

Most of you noticed that the prices for the Heroes have dropped drastically during this "sale."  In fact the heroes marked as "sale" are going for 300 instead of their usual 350.  But the real sale that seems to be going on in the background are not from these "sale" heroes at all!  The real sale is how all of the prices on the other heroes have dropped from 1000 gold to 600 gold, or from 1,600 to 1,200 gold.  Now, a 50 gold cut in price is good, but a 400 gold cut in price is outstanding!

So, I asked my contact at The Amazing Society what's the deal?  Is this a bug? Why aren't the other heroes showing a Sale sign?  The answer I got back was surprising.  "Working as intended" Yup, these prices on heroes may in fact be their new price . . . period!  That isn't 100 percent yet though.  They're still looking at metrics and data behind the scenes to see how this affects certain . . . I don't know . . . factors(?) before making some of this official, but I personally find this a surprising and welcome move. I hope that is the case!

I'll be keeping an eye on those prices and continuing my daily play of Super Hero Squad Online.  From the feedback I got on my thread about the "sale," it looks to me like the players are welcoming the price breaks and buying up heroes left and right.

Happy Dueling!

Sale, MMORPG.com article, Punisher, and Max FF Spidey

First thing today, we have a sale on all the 350 gold heroes in the shop! They are all currently going for 300 gold.


The only one of those I haven't purchased yet is Valkyrie. Hmm, I may go ahead and save the 50 gold there and purchase her, but I really have my eyes set on Spider Woman. Hmmm.
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Next, MMORPG.com wrote a great intro article to Super Hero Squad Online yesterday. If you're feeling it, you should add to the comments on this post. Good time to support our favorite game, and it's nice to have MMORPG write an article (that's some prime coverage).

My favorite quote from the article is, "The colors and environments of MSHSO are vibrant as would be expected. What is surprising is the obvious effort that Gazillion and The Amazing Society have put into making the spell/hero effects really impressive looking. Dr. Doom’s lightning sizzles with awesome purple power. Wolverine’s roar is loud and literally earth shaking. Phoenix’s AOE Hero Up attack dazzles in fiery fury (and does some pretty amazing damage too!). I was very impressed overall."

My favorite quote from the comments is, "One of the metagames that would really appeal to adults is the card playing "PvP" battles. Building decks with the right combo of cards is an elegant and complex work. :)"

I like Suzie Ford, the author of the article. I actually met her in real life once, but that's a story for a different time.
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I bought Punisher yesterday!


He's all about the guns there, isn't he? I've been filming his play a bit, and I'll probably put together a short game play video of him soon. Pretty much it feels like Punisher just wants to be in the thick of the battle. His normal attack has him firing off rounds in every direction and his heroup attack has him blasting a hole in the earth all around him. Good times!
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My Future Foundation Spidey finally hit max level!


Haha! Took me long enough! FF Spidey is an absolute blast to play. He's a really nice reward for finishing your challenge quest series. His attacks in combat are solid, he makes travel around town super fast, he's hilarious, and you're sure to get friend invite after friend invite when you're running around with him because it's just a really cool status symbol in game as well.
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And that's all I've got for today. Let me know what you're up to!

Happy Dueling!

HOT!! Punisher LIVE tomorrow and Deadpool card quest

Got 600 gold handy? I hope you do because that's the price tag I'm hearing Punisher will go for, and the release date? Inside sources tell me you'll see Punisher in the shop shortly after midnight tonight!

It's going to take me a couple more days of spinning the wheel to earn my Punisher (I did just get Ghost Rider after all), but I'm psyched to add him to my squad. :)

Also of note, the Deadpool card quests will be introduced to the game after tonight as well. I'm not 100 percent sure on the price, but I would expect the standard gold pricing given to most card quests to apply here.

Get ready for tomorrow, squaddies!!

Happy dueling

Ghost Rider at Last!

WOOT! Made a new purchase yesterday! :)


After just a few trips to the Prize Ticket wheel, I finally had my (introductory price of) 1000 gold and was ready to buy mr. flaming skull head himself!

I decided to video just a bit of me running a daily mission with him and trying out his emotes for the first time.



I couldn't quite get the hang of positioning his motorcycle to take out a strand of enemies. In fact, the line he makes with his bike seemed really narrow to me. But, throwing that chain around was super fun. I love the crowd thrashing he can deliver!

Hope to experiment more with him over the next few levels and see which power attack is my favorite. For coolness factor though, I'm loving Ghost Rider! (Now if I could just shake this feeling like Nicolas Cage is hovering over my shoulder ...)

Happy dueling!

Invisible Woman, Shadowcat, Iron Patriot, and Wasp (TO THE MAX)

As predicted, I had a few more heroes max out over the weekend. WOOT!

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First up, Invisible Woman.


Maxing out IW also unlocked her third power emote, which is the best way to walk places I've discovered.


Why run places when you can just plod your way through the game laying waste to all in your path?

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Next, Ms. Shadowcat.


It's so awesome she gets to bring out Lockheed to blast stuff as her first power. Lockheed is awesome! He should be his own super hero squad character! He was a member of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers after all. ;)

Did you know you can read all four issues of Pet Avengers for free online at Marvel's website? LOL! Here's links!

Pet Avengers 1
Pet Avengers 2
Pet Avengers 3
Pet Avengers 4

Good to get Shadowcat finally leveled to max. :) Did you know Shadowcat and Illayana were roomies back at the X-men Academy? See! More evidence they should put a couple New Mutants into the game! ;)

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Iron Patriot was third to level to max. Um, I did take a picture of Iron Patriot hitting max, but . . . uh . . . it got moofed, so . . .


This JR SHIELD hero was also good to finally put to bed as a max level hero. I really like Iron Patriot's first star power the most in missions. For the cost of one star, there's a lot of push and shove crowd control. That may just be me though. :)

As for playing the hero himself? It feels kind of awesome to know you get to play a highly confused bad guy in SHSO. Norman's wacky, which makes for a lot of fun possibilities with this character.

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Finally, Wasp hit max level:


I have to say her final power emote is officially awesome.


SHSO has a couple of reoccurring jokes running through it, one of them being pigeons. A handful of hero emotes have something to do with pigeons, and Wasp riding on a pigeon cowgirl style cracked me up. :)

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Playing all these heroes was fun, and I enjoyed each and every one for different reasons. Hope you're all having fun with your squads!

Happy Dueling

Jr. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Again! More Max Heroes :)

That's right! I'm back in Jr. SHIELD agent status again. :) That meant it was time to finally get Hulkbuster here to max level!


He was only 200 experience points from 11th anyway. ;-)

I still have a few levels left to gain on Shadowcat and Iron Patriot out of my Jr. SHIELD agents.

From my main pool of heroes, it was also time for Reptil to hit max level.


Yay, Reptil! Reptil is great. I've always been more of a New Mutant reader than a Avengers Academy reader, but he may convert me, yet! (Would it kill 'em to throw Illyana in the game to hang out with her brother, Colossus? ;))

Also of note, I finally saved up enough silver to purchase Bucky here:


Last time I had that much silver in my bank account, I blew it all on Jr SHIELD heroes until I had nothing left. hehe. Egads, how many more spins until I get the surfers?! I really do need an auto-spin feature.

Next up to level to Max for me will be Invisible Woman, Shadowcat, Iron Patriot, and Wasp. They're all around ninth level as of today. I'm shooting to get Ghost Rider before he turns 1,200 gold. :)

Oh! And before I forget, one of my friends was finally nice enough to invite me to the Bullseye mission finally! And what's this? Punisher as the narrator?


Nice!

The mission itself didn't seem to bad, but yeah, you really don't want to get caught in the path of those lasers. There's a couple giant ones you have to avoid while fighting Bullseye that's incredibly dangerous.

Hope you all are having fun with Super Hero Squad Online!

Happy Dueling!

GHOST2012 Winners!

With the release of Ghost Rider today also comes a list of all those who won the GHOST2012 Code giveaway. The Amazing Society was kind enough to pass along the names of all the winning squads.

SQUAD NAMES
Crazy Ferocious Bat
Confusing Admiral
Breaking Skull Prime
Mister Surfer Architect
Warlike Ultra Paladin
Rover Tiger
Grand Prince Rover
Baron King Captain
King Kraken Racer
Lieutenant Despair
Invincible Captain
Blur Fire Tiger
Icy Defender Mason
Mr. Confused Cowboy
Count Intellect Emperor
Count Egret Wyrm
Colossal Magnificent Berserker
Mist Iguana Racer
Fast Invincible Panther
General Beast Tiger
Nova Admiral Machine
Magnetic Hornet Nightmare
Battle Shark Wyrm
Commander Bio Tank
Forest Pirate Prophet
Master Emerald Dart
Toxic Breaker
Spectacular Desert Weevil
Bionic Plains Ghost
Iron Gardener Crane
Loud Martian Driver
Defending Sailing Skull
Marvelous Samurai Bunny
King Boxing Mosquito
Hornet General
Dazzle Omega Crow
Sergeant Rex Drool
Rebel Sea Bane
Impossible Tornado Crusader
Chihuahua Fish
Magnetic Space Bureaucrat
Nova Snipping Ghost
Primal Torch Roamer
Sergeant Golem Smasher
Duke Bionic Berserker
Aqua Theta Sorceress
Simple Spy Librarian
Squire Sea Colossus
Fantastic Galaxy Marmot
Impossible Singing Cyclone

Congrats to all the winners! (Ohhhh, we're all so jealous. Hehe)

Happy Dueling

New Card Quests! Ghostrider Hero!

To celebrate Valentine's Day yesterday, The Amazing Society placed four new card quests into the shop:


It's everyone's favorite couple, Daredevil and Elektra! Awww! I've added those to the Price guide up top. Take a look!

Also this morning there's a new 1,000 gold hero available for purchase. It's the long anticipated Ghost Rider!


Oh man, that's going to push me over the edge I think. I might need to resubscribe so I can try him out. So awesome. If any of my readers purchases Ghost Rider today, please let us know about it!

Happy dueling!

Price Guide!

I've added a new button up top:


This leads to a SHSO Price Guide I just created and uploaded to Google Docs. It's simply a list of all the items you can purchase in Super Hero Squad Online as of 14 February 2012 (I'll try to keep it up to date). Hopefully it'll be something you can take a quick look at if you're ever wanting to just get an item price without logging into the game.

How'd this come about? Well, I was starting a new character to see how long it would take me to earn 200 gold for the new Bullseye Mission (just curious I suppose) and while enjoying all the new player challenges all over again, I realized that some of this information might be helpful to a new player.

Side note of the day!: If you're not familiar with our Happy Dueling Hour monthly podcast, please go take a listen! Although the majority of the time we talk about Wizard101, I do mention my recent adventures in Super Hero Squad Online along with the other games we play (it's mainly just for fun and to be goofy): If you've got an hour to kill with nothing better to listen to, go check it out!

Thanks and happy dueling!

Three More Max Heroes, Some Reactions, and Badge Improvements Please!

The latest updates are now live in the game and I think it's good news that the introductory price of classic daredevil is a bargain as far as gold priced heroes go!


You can also see pictured there the new Bullseye mission. Anyone tried that?

Also good news is that you can turn these new voices down or off completely:


They aren't that bad, but extended play with them can be a bit . . . distracting? There were some interesting choices made that I'm not sure I like. I don't really think my character should say something every time he/she opens a door or heads to the sky. I wish the frequency was tuned down just a little bit. Like maybe every tenth time I opened a door it would say something or every fifth time I hit a flight spot. Either way, that volume slider for voices is a welcome sight. I was kind of getting annoyed at Invisible Woman this morning as she wondering "Hmm, I wonder what's in here" while I opened the door to the Baxter building. yeah. She's not that ditsy.

Anyway, I do have three more max heroes in my back pocket!

First up is Street Clothes Wolverine:


Next to ding max was The Beast:


And finally, just this morning I dinged max on The Human Torch:


All three heroes were fun to play. Beast's double jump makes him great around town. Human Torch has one of the coolest looks in the game. Street Clothes Wolverine was free! ;p Give me a free hero, and I will play it to max!

I played both Beast and Wolverine in missions (and they were fun), but I think all I did while leveling The Human Torch was collect tokens, kill troublebots, and click chasables. I need to play a few missions with him still. That's on my "fun agenda" in game. hehe.

Here's a quick idea: I wish earning badges in game meant more. Like, if I unlocked a badge on a hero, it should equal something like 5-10 gold or a bunch of tickets. It would really give me some extra incentive to revisit my heroes after they've hit max. Tying rewards (any kind of reward) to unlocking badges would be such an awesome motivator.

What do you think of the new voiceovers and updates?

Happy Dueling!

Voice-overs Incoming!!

The press release went out just last night. The big news? Voice-overs are coming to Super Hero Squad Online!

Here's a link to MMORPG, who picked up the story this morning: click!

It'll be interesting to see how this is applied in SHSO. The good news here is that the Super Hero Squad Show has some extremely talented voice actors. Tom Kenny who does the voice of Iron Man for the show is also the guy behind the genius of Spongebob Squarepants.

Alimi Ballard who does the voice of Falcon has a long list of credits as well. What I like about Alimi is that he's rumored to be a huge comic collector himself!

Charlie Adler who does Doctor Doom in the shows is probably one of the hardest working Voice actors in the biz. The man has worked for everything from Aladdin to A Pup Named Scooby Doo and back again.

In other words, this is a lot of excellent talent coming soon to our little online world! I can't wait to see how it's actually applied in game.

Happy Dueling!

A Window into The Amazing Society!

The Amazing Society sounds like a pretty cool company. Have you ever checked out their website? There's just so much creativity going on there, it's awesome. :)

I was haunting Google Maps the other day wondering what it would be like to visit their studios someday. Looks like they rent a space in this building here. Nice place!


If only we could peer inside those windows, right? Well, thanks to the Amazing Society's Senior Producer, Ellen B., I've got some great pictures to show you all. Here's what she sent over . . .

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Ellen describes this shot as THE TOY PHOTO!


Having toys at the ready is just a part of the job at The Amazing Society. You gotta have some toys, right? Apparently everybody has their own personal collection of toys at their desk.

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This next picture shows the driving force behind all that creativity at TAS . . . coffeebot. ;)


I for one, welcome our new evil overlord, coffeebot.

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Lore junkies rejoice! The people at The Amazing Society have a bookshelf chock full of Marvel reference material to read through.


Looks like I could spend hours at this thing reading up on all the lore that goes into Super Hero Squad Online.

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This is Kaitlin. Everybody say hi to Kaitlin! *wave*


Miss Kaitlin here is one of the animators that works on Super Hero Squad Online. She's showing off one of her latest creations. :) Keep up the good work, Kaitlin! Angel is a blast to play.

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And I saved the best for last. This is Matt, who is the Art Director at The Amazing Society.


Hmmmm. What could this be that Matt is working on today? Looks an awful lot like Punisher, and you know what . . . Punisher has a friend! What the heck?! Awesome! HAHA! Check that out!

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Thanks for the great photos, Ellen! Those were awesome.

Hope you all enjoyed this quick peek inside The Amazing Society. From my short time talking with Ellen, I can tell this is a great place to work, and everyone there puts a lot of heart into what they do.

From the Time Hound Times and the readers here, KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

Happy Dueling!

Stuff

^^^^
Winner of the best blog post title, ever!

So I have a lot of stuff rolling around in my head today about Super Hero Squad Online. I'll just start typing and let's see where this post goes.

1- Cable. I've been asking about how soon we might see Cable come into the game. In talking a bit with my sources at The Amazing Society, I found out THE REAL story about Cable and a few other super heroes. The fact of the matter is, Cable *is* coming to the game (not just a rumor), and I think anyone that saw the leaked character concept art realizes that. After that point, the question is "when!!" Sadly, concepts take a long time to flesh out and put into production, and the leaked information that some SHSO fans saw was very early in the stages of creation. The answer is that Cable isn't planned to be out for the next few months, but eventually, you'll see Cable. Patience, friends. :/

2- New mission this week! Sources tell me that there is something awesome coming to the game this week to coincide with the release of classic Daredevil! It's suppose to play awesome as well, so here's a little teaser to get you excited about the update coming this week:


RAWR! Load up Elektra or Black Widow, and let's go kick some butt!


3- My month subscription ran out! GASP! Aww well. I'm back to earning a measly 5 gold a day and one spot on the prize wheel. Man that's painful after having the joys of the daily gold rush, isn't it?

unsubbed rewards:

vs.

subbed rewards:

Sigh.

I'll have to contemplate another month subscription here soon. As for now, my family has a ton of catching up to me to do, and I still have a handful of heroes to max out (including Future Foundation Spider-Man).

It's kind of sad to see what happens to your Jr. SHIELD heroes when you cross the unsubscribed barrier. They just kind of fade out with a Jr. SHIELD symbol over the top of them, so you can't select them anymore. At least their levels still count toward your squad level though, right?

. . . and I never finished leveling Iron Patriot too. Well, luckily I got most of those leveled up to max before losing the sub.

When I was subscribed I purposefully avoided buying the 350 gold heroes so that I could save those for a goal when I was unsubscribed. I still have to purchase Nova and Valkyrie. I also am just right around the corner from earning the silver I need to purchase Bucky Cap, so . . . there is that to look forward to, right?

And that's it for today!

Keep me in the loop on all the cool stuff you guys are doing in game!

Happy dueling!

Introducing Super Spy Genie!

Yesterday I talked my wife into making a Super Hero Squad Online account. It was kind of funny. For some reason our two-year-old really just doesn't want mom to play this game with him. He wanted DAD to play the game with him. In fact, he went as far as turning off the computer on her. LOL.

As with all two-year-olds, they are easily distracted and he was off playing on the Wii, and I was able to help my wife get set up and talk her through some of the controls on screen. Before you knew it, Super Spy Genie was on the prowl for bad guys!

She's digging Ms. Marvel.

She actually had a really good suggestion for The Amazing Society. It would be nice to be able to select whether you were a girl or a boy before you selected your squad name (it's reversed right now), and then you would be given your choice of more "girl" sounding squad names. It took us a while to find Super Spy Genie, but when we landed on it, it was perfect.

Before you knew it, she was running through her first mission as Ms. Marvel with a guy who was playing Thing. She liked it, and from the sidelines it was pretty entertaining to watch. :)

I logged on after her mission and we met up to add each other to our friend lists (I really wish I could have more friends on my list--I have that same problem in Wizard101).


I can't wait to see if she gets into it like I did. It'll be fun to run some missions with her or maybe have a card battle. If we ever do that, I'll probably video it and share it. ;)

Happy Dueling

Ding 554!

There it is!




For once I'm actually at kind of a loss for words! I was pretty freaking excited about it last night after it happened. It felt really good for that final challenge to be won. Here's how it played out (hehe, playing my brand new Wasp purchase at the time):



I definitely spent too much time indoors earning that level. ;) The sunlight, it burns!

I just want to thank you all for reading along with me as I worked toward that final challenge. Hopefully I've covered any "advice" I'd give along the way already. Really, it's all about leveling and buying those heroes, working out a good deck for the challenges involving card battles, and having a lot of Marvel super hero fun along the way.

The game's challenges encourage you to discover all that you can do in Super Hero Squad Online. I think the ultimate goal of the challenge quests was to help players answer the question, "what can I do here?" whether that included being rude in a pond, playing through some missions, scoring reasonably well on an arcade mini-game, or just making friends. It's all one can ask for in an MMO like Super Hero Squad Online.

The big question you have to face after completing the final challenge is probably similar to what people were asking when the game didn't have a challenge quest line. What's the point? What I believe the designers are hoping you do is continue doing everything you've done up to this point, just without the golden carrot at the end (but with a promise of something greater coming in the future). What do I do? Go be rude in a pond, play through some missions, score reasonably well on those arcade mini-games, and just make friends! :) There are still 30 (and growing) heroes or so that I've never played before, right? Right.

I'm sure the future will bring more challenges and more changes to the game. It will all continue to grow, and I'm pretty sure the fans of the game will help direct its future. So don't be quiet! Let them know what you want to see in the game. Inspire them to greater programming, finer design, more beautiful art, killer marketing, and streamlined production. That's a fan's job.

That's what I say at least.

Did I say I was at a loss for words?

Happy Dueling

2 Feb 2012 SHSO News! Ghost Rider Contest, Punisher, Luke Cage, and More!

This news announcement just came across email a couple hours ago!


So, definitely go enter the code "GHOST2012" into heroup.com for your chance to win that freaking awesome looking Ghost Rider toon before anyone else. haha! That would be great, wouldn't it? . . . and at the very least you'll get some silver and a few tickets. ;)

Also mentioned there is the appearance of Punisher, Classic Daredevil, and Luke Cage. The White outfit Elektra is also shown in the graphic. Definitely some cool new heroes headed our way. Which one are you most excited for?

Happy Dueling!

Clearing up a Couple Misconceptions

So I backtracked a thread that linked to me from a comic book fan forum that I didn't even know existed. What I found there was a pretty harsh criticism of my blog. Probably deserved since, really, I've only been keeping this site for a few weeks, I've only been subscribed to the game for the same amount of time, and I'm still learning and enjoying the game.

For the most part I'm just getting to "know the heroes," whereas many are way past that and are looking at the "nuts and bolts" of how the game works. I applaud those working so hard for this game. Keep at it! I don't mean anyone any ill will.

There was some misinformation though, which was that one poster on the forum thought I was paid to keep this blog (I'm not--I'm just a regular gaming dad who's blogging for fun) and also that I keep the wikia site linked to up top (I don't--I just happened to find it in my brief search for wikis on this game). Ultimately I'd love to help foster a community for this game that shows respect and fun for all ages. I write clean and don't swear or belittle others, and I won't allow it on my blog. Keep it "E for Everyone."

I wouldn't mind working with someone who wants to produce solid "nuts and bolts" fan information for Super Hero Squad Online. A lot of players would be happy to learn from that information. If you have good links with straight information that would be considered rated "E," please share!

I'm hoping this blog evolves and gets better over time. :)

Happy Dueling

Congratulations Xmenfan!

The post from yesterday announcing the raffle has now been removed, and Random.org has spoken! Xmenfan (aka Crumpled Rabbit) was the winner of the random raffle for one free non-S.H.I.E.L.D superhero of his choice.

The hero he chose? Spider-Man! That's a great one to choose too since he is so high priced. I'll let my contact at The Amazing Society know today and hopefully this will be sitting in your account in the next couple of days (if it isn't let me know).


Congratulations Xmenfan and thanks so much for reading the Time Hound Times blog! thanks to the Amazing Society for offering this prize.

I will continue to try to hold raffles (and maybe even a contest or two in the future to test your creative extents) as The Amazing Society will allow me!

Thanks to all for participating.

Happy Dueling!