Classic Hulk: Tales to Astonish #100-101

Tales to Astonish #100 by Stan Lee and penciled by Marie Severin

We're here at the tail end of Hulk's Astonish run. He shared this title with Namor (and Ant Man) from issues #59 forward, and now the two are battling it out for the whole issue. Very awesome!

Cover: A neat cover, Namor and hulk flying into the sky over new york. A 3.5/5 for me.

Page 1-3:

Namor watches the hulk falling to his death from last issue and decides to save him in order to team up with him for his own needs. Namor finds a ship floating in the water as he rises to the surface, and the gunfire from the ship just bounces off Namor. He then rams the ship from below, tipping it over. We then see the puppet-master, one of Namor's villains, shouting about how he can't defeat Namor...who just knocked over his ship.

Page 4: 

Puppet-master reads in the newspaper that the hulk is buried under the landslide. This master of voodoo then makes a clay figure of the hulk in order to control him and crush Namor. 

Dude! Loki already tried this in the avengers...it didn't work. Oh, hold on...it's not voodoo...he's using radioactive clay that somehow works like voodoo. Regardless of ridiculous science, the puppet-master orders hulk to awake! The green giant smashes some rocks and breaks free.

Page 5: 

I'm surprised the puppet master is still alive, he has like almost no talent! Update: The latest news actually shows that he was killed under unknown circumstances during the FF Original Sin tie-ins.

Meanwhile, general ross tries to blow up all the rocks along with the hulk while rick jones tries to protect the hulk. Just then, the hulk smashes his way into the open.

Page 6-7:

Jones goes down to talk to the hulk, but the puppet master orders him to ignore everyone else...so jones is bopped out of the way. Ross screams as the hulk leaps away. The hulk then splashes into the water next to namor. The puppet master orders the hulk to destroy the sub-mariner while namor tries to negotiate with him. The hulk punches namor in the face...

Page 8-9:

Namor kicks the hulk away and declares the battle begun! The two super-strong heroes just smash each other with seemly equal strength. The hulk points out how weak namor really is on land. Namor then shows how he can fly, while hulk only can jump.

Page 10-12:

Namor smacks hulk around in mid-air, but then hulk grabs him and swings him into the background. Unfortunately, the puppet master points out that hulk just threw him into the WATER! Massive fail! As namor falls into the ocean, we see Rick Jones being treated at a hospital.

Page 13-14:The love triangle between betty and talbot continues. While talbot is happy that the hulk is insane, since betty is now all his. However, Betty is sad because this violent outburst makes her think that banner has lost his mind. Talbot is also angry since NOTHING can kill the hulk. Meanwhile, the sub mariner rises from the water and flies back into the air.

Page 15-16:Namor smashes into the hulk with his catchphrase: Imperious Rex! Awesome! Hulk happened to be near a pool, so namor uses the water to gain an edge, punching the hulk around. Realizing this, the hulk smashes into namor and jumps out of the water. All this commotion alerts the military and the government, of course. One thing that I missed is that they are actually fighting in Miami and not new york. This leads to a lot of lines about hurricanes and background characters in casual shirts.

Page 17-23: Some dramatic shots of the two titans hitting each other. Plus more jumping/flying. Namor eventually flips hulk into the sea, where he gets smashed by waves and whatnot. Plus namor directs a wave to smash into the puppet master's base. On the shore, namor finds bruce banner and just leaves him alone...not knowing he is the hulk. However, on the last page we see that the hulk puppet still survives!

I think this issue was pretty good even though nothing much happened. I think it earns a 8/10 just for being an interesting concept with some awesome dramatic art. Namor seemed to have an advantage, so I think in a fair fight he would just drown the hulk eventually...or at least retreat. Besides that, the issue had nothing else going for it, plus the puppet master is a dumb villain. Think about it this way, even the weak minded hulk was able to resist the puppet control near the end [it was a really minor detail, but it happened]. So that.

Tales to Astonish #101 by the same authors as above.

This issue is a pretty weird one. The cover is great as we see Hulk just jumping down the rainbow bridge, totally a easy 8/10.

The issue opens right after #100 and the battle with namor and hulk reduced to bruce, Loki forces the Hulk to transform (so, anyone with magic powers can just do that? One of the worst thing about early hulk stories is that the transformation rules keep changing) and teleport him to Asgard to cause havoc! 

Hiemdal attacks him, and of course, you don't want to make the hulk angry. By power ratings alone, Hulk could crush an asguardian with only moderate difficulty, and he knocks over the god with no problem. 

I'd also like to note that the Hulk here demonstrates what I'd call moderate (rather than low) intelligence once again. [using full sentences, coming up with simple strategy, ect.]

Hulk next finds Hogun the Grim, one of the Warriors Three and body slams him into the ground.

The other two warriors arrive to help, but I don't think it will really matter when it comes to fighting the Hulk. Hulk (again showing more thought than normal) decides that he doesn’t want to fight and just demands to know where he is. Loki manages to trick more warriors into starting another attack.

Seriously? Why do the asguardians trust Loki? Does nobody else in Asgard know that he's evil? Wasn't he imprisoned before in Journey into Mystery? He's a known villain!

Loki's Criminal Record [considering I'm up to JiM 109]:

Escaping from his tree prison in JiM 85 and releasing animals from the zoo

Escaping again after Odin tells him not to in JiM 88 and attempts to conquer the earth

Escaping for a third time in JiM 92, even when restrained by uru chains.)

And those are just the first three times he escaped, why does anybody trust him at all?

Anyway, Loki gets tired of the hulk and turns him back into Banner and throws him down a pit.(So, he can do that too? It seems like Loki could have just killed Hulk at any time by just transforming him, like in the Avengers comic...) A cool issue for sure, but loki is strangely overpowered, and to an extent so is the Hulk when compared to the asguardians. A 6/10 for me.

Scarlet Spider #8 (2012)

Scarlet Spider #8 (2012)

Written by Chris Yost and Penciled by Kohi Pham

Page 1-4:

So the crisis at the Roxxon oil plant continues as Kaine is surrounded by the group of D-list Texas heroes (who are actually pretty neat). They all get really nice introductions by kaine's narration. It's neat to see new characters who are a bit fresh. We've got a guy who can turn into a tornado, a girl with some kind of fire powers, a man made of lightning, some kind of alien in a space suit, and a gunslinging girl.

Page 5-6: 

Kaine, being the cool guy he is, throws the pistolero girl behind him out the window...pointing out that he isn't very subtle. He still manages to dodge super-powered fire and lightning though.

I noticed that this series uses a lot of fire effects and fiery colors to set a nice artistic tone.

Page 7-12:

Kaine gets mind-attacked by the alien and this causes him to fall off the building he was climbing on. Then again, this is a spider-man we are talking about, he manages to swing away out of the Rangers (yes, the group of the heroes are called the Rangers, as in Texas Rangers) reach.

Mr. Walsh [the CEO of Roxxon) tries to pin this whole thing on Kaine, not unlike something JJJ would attempt in his early years.

Page 13-16:

Zoe, the daughter of Mr. Walsh, explains how the man pretty much bribes all the police and how he's the real villain. I never trusted Oil Tycoons anyways...

Kaine takes a bike to the nearby town while Mr Walsh tells his staff to prepare the mechs for extra security. Mechs? Wow! Maybe him and Lex Luthor can trade tips.

Page 17-19: 

Zoe and Kaine make it to an empty building where zoe says evidence of her father's evil has been removed. Why exactly would he keep around a stash of dead bodies that have his fingerprints on them? The Rangers get the jump on kaine, but they discover in the middle of their brawl that the bodies were buried under the empty looking room. Couldn't he just have burned the evidence?

An experiment that is going on in the other room (hinted at the start of the issue) explodes a man into an electric monster, and the Rangers and spider are left to deal with it.

I think this issue is pretty interesting, and I still love the art style and tone. A solid 7.5/10. These new heroes (even if they are working for the bad guy) are actually pretty neat at least from a visual perspective. The art and moment to moment writing really sells this book, while the overall plot is pretty lackluster. That's why the score is a bit lower from me.

7/21/13

Today I read all of Superior Carnage and Superior Spiderman in the airport. I actually really liked the way Carnage came out, with a good mix of humor and horror. The cover is also a play on the original superior spiderman #1 cover, which I liked. That issue basically talks about how Cletus [or however you spell his name] has lost his brain after the end of minimum carnage (In scarlet spider) [which I didn't read], and now he is in the middle of a prison going berserk without even any intelligence to speak of.

I wanted to note that I also got the trade for Superior #1-5 and I'm planning on picking up superior Team-up at some point. Also. I won't be reading Superior Foes since it doesn’t seem like a long-running kind of book and it's a bit too much of a comedy for me. The only villain I even like in that lineup is the Shocker, and he is the most downplayed in the cast.

Classic Review: Amazing Spider-Man #33 and #691

Amazing Spiderman #33 (1966) by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

-The cover of ASM #33 shows Spidy being crushed by debris and saying this is the “Final Chapter!”

talk about false advertising...!

-The first two pages recap that aunt may is dying due to contact with peter's radioactive blood, and doc-ock has stolen the only cure. Spidy tries to break out of all this metal on top of him, but he seems to be too weak.

*Fun Fact: Spider-man can apparently lift an average of 10 tons, so I’m pretty surprised how weak he is in these older issues.

Page 4-5: In an emotional moment, he calls upon the memories of his uncle and he dares not allow his aunt to die as well.

Page 7: As I figured, Spidy breaks free and grabs the serum he needs...but he's still injured.

Page 8-9: He is smashed by flooding water and is forced to swim to an escape.

He is ambushed by doc-ocks freaky purple henchmen dudes (seriously, they are weird looking)

Do these eight guys (yes, I counted them) think they can beat up spider-man? Really?

Page 10: Well, they actually do get a bunch of blows in on him, but as spidy points out...the punches barely phase him. He eventually punches them all back with the same spirit he displayed before.

Page 13: Spiderman makes it back to Dr. Connors, who finishes the cure for aunt may's disease.

Page 16: Spiderman takes pictures of the purple goons in order to get some money from the bugle.

Page 17-18: Peter returns to the office and Betty is surprised to see that Peter is beat to hell.

In the last pages, peter returns to hospital and discovers that aunt may has recovered.

Kraven the hunter is also teased for the next issue, and that seems pretty interesting.

I would give this issue a 9 out of 10, pretty nice, and one of the best I've seen from the original run. The issue is classic, and the cover is really great. Though I felt like this only really wrapped up the last issue and nothing more.

Amazing Spiderman #691 (2012)
Written by Dan Slot and Penciled by Giuseppe Camuncoli

Note:

This is part 4 of the "No Turning Back" Arc that I read a year ago, featuring the Lizard and published around the time of the first Amazing Spiderman movie. They gave electro the spotlight around the same time in Vol.3 of ASM for the first few issues (around the time of the ASM 2 movie), but I still need to collect the rest of that arc. In fact, I wanted to write a whole rant about Vol.3 #4 and about Silk and all that...but figured it would be pointless. 

The cover is very interesting with the whole “Lizard Eye” thing, and it's really neat to look at it.

It looks very rough and dramatic with Spidy punching at the eyeball. A solid 4/5 cover.

Page 1: There is a lizardman outbreak inside Horizon Labs, and it's Peter's job to figure out how to fix it.

Page 3-4: It seems that since lizards and humans are not natural enemies, these transformed lizard-people aren't rampaging around. Peter realizes that even though Curt Connors is currently not in his lizard form, but he could still be evil enough to think up this plan. Peter then realizes that The Lizard would be able to control all the other lizard-people in the lab, so he tries to move him out of the building. I really like how one panel used motion blur to convey a serious sense of speed.

Page 7: The lizard, rather than his normal form, turns into a giant reptile mutant since he made some super-strong formula. But if he's made himself so beastly, how come he can still speak and whatnot? I guess his intelligence is still somehow the same and he is stronger. Bruce Banner and Dr. Conners should probably have a chat sometime about that.

Page 9-11: Peter and the juiced-up lizard fight outside near the waterfront, and the same sort of motion blurring is used. I really like the way these fights look, especially since the lizard is pounding the life out of spider-man.

Page 12-14: (the new) Madame Web [I say new since whenever I think of Web, it's the old woman from the 90's animated series, ie: the original] shows up and warns spider-man that if he delivers the cure [that he did receive] into Curt, that it might actually kill him. Peter says that it's probably worth the risk in order to save the dozens of people in harm's way. He slams the needle into him in a large panel.

Page 15: It seems like the cure completely fails, and the lizard is sent off to SHEILD prison. There's also a pretty funny joke that people are either turning into spiders [spider island] or lizard-people in NYC! What a crazy place.

Page 16-18: Meanwhile, The Kingpin [Wilson Fisk] is working with Mr. Stone from the lab to create some sort of “Spider Jammer” machine based on max's technology [max is the head of the labs]. Sounds very interesting.

Kingpin must feel pretty awesome in Shadowland. He's surrounded by ninjas and the newest Hobgoblin as well.

Page 19: Madame Web is very concerned about these events, but she also cuts back to a drug cartel in mexico where a hero [who looks like a orange and black palette swap of iron fist, sort of] is holding two uzi's and telling everyone this is his territory. He is called the Devil Spider! Another Spider? Great...Well actually, this man is Roderick Kingsly, the original hobgoblin who was in hiding while he waited for his brother to take up the title of Hobgoblin. Too bad for him, his brother is actually dead and this new hobgoblin is somebody else entirely. It should be cool to see the original hobgoblin face off against the new one. I thought this issue was pretty good, action packed, and had a interesting cliffhanger that left me head-scratching until I did some research. 7.5/10

-The next review in my archive was for Scarlet Spider (2012) #8, so I might publish that next, -

Avengers Arena #3-4: Catching Fire

Written by Dennis Hopeless and Penciled by Kev Walker

The Cover (by Greg Horn) for this issue is a huge flaming A, as a homage to The Hunger Games. I've never been a fan of the series, but it was one of the inspirations for this series and it honestly looks pretty damn cool. I'd give this cover a 3.5/5 since it technically isn't an original idea, and it's not meant to be, but I really like the fire effect on it.

It's been eight days now since the teens have been confined to this death game, and they have started to break apart into groups and create ambushes. Cammie is still mostly on her own, being mostly just a human trained to fight in space (who apparently worked with the Annihilation GotG team). Juston, a teenage character who is able to repair/reprogram the sentinels who hunt the x-men (they even compare him to the kid from Iron Giant), surprises her and metal starts flying. Darkhawk (basically a guy in an advanced space suit, who is joked to no longer be a teenage hero even though he used to be in the New Warriors.) also joins the fray and gets avoided by Cammie and her jet-packing laser-pistoling hijinks. They come to an agreement since they are both just looking for whoever is attacking people at night.

Cammi leaves him behind and moves through the snow, getting ambushed AGAIN by a camouflaged X-23. The wolverine clone notes that her scent dosen't match who she's looking for. She gets thrown to the ground and is clearly very frustrated, shooting into the air. A robot ambushes Darkhawk in the woods nearby and blasts him through the chest, seemingly killing him.  I thought this issue was nicely drawn with the cool backgrounds and effects (snow and forests, ect) and neat looking flashy characters. A 7.5/10.

Avengers Arena #4
Written by Dennis Hopeless and penciled by Alessandro Vitti.

The next cover is a bit basic, but it still looks nice as it advertises X-23 vs. Darkhawk like a boxing match. Now here's hoping that's not a lying cover. I'm pumped for a fight now! (3/5)

Nico and Chase from the Runaways (A series I need to read sometime, considering I also really liked Victor from Avengers AI) lounge by a tree and decide to wait all of this out. Chase laments about all the death he saw in his life as being a Runaway (parents were villain scientists) and he's more afraid that he will kill someone more than he will die, torching the forest with his powers after hearing a chipmunk in the trees!

X-23, Reptil, and Hazmat group around a fire as they start to realize it's becoming harder and harder to find food as Arcade is forcing them to fight this out rather than drag it out. Nico jumps out of the jungle and, looking like a witch, is attacked by the group. She shows them that she grew out a magic tree that grows magic fruit so they form a sort of alliance. She can do things like more stable like grow trees, but her magic is too random to let her teleport out or harm Arcade.

Chase tells Reptil that he's still pretty bad, even as a "hero" he really isn't much of a good guy. Just then, someone with a flamethrower torches the dinosaur kid and everyone blames the fire-thrower until they realize that he was out of range. All the power effects look really crisp and colorful :). The group breaks apart in strife, and Chase finds Darkhawk's amulet that was removed from him last issue. This allows Chase to become the new (younger) Darkhawk. I really liked both of these issues, and they both focus and give flashbacks for one spotlight character who is interesting to watch in action while keeping the tension high. The flashbacks, dialogue, effects, and art style really draw me in and overall I can't wait to see where this series ends up going. These new characters are also explained to me, as someone who does not know these sub-characters, fairly well. This gets a 8.5/10 for me, mostly because the cover did pretty much not come true. Oh well...:).

Another note: I wrote the Catching Fire tagline for #3 trying to mock the hunger games cover, and then saw in the following issue how Chase could blast out fire and how Reptil caught on fire...it was an even better title that I didn't know beforehand.

Edit: I'm going to probably post more of my classic reviews, so spiderman #33 coming up next.

Games Update

For right now I think it would be better to post a general update.

Numenera Session 5 is on youtube now, and Session 6 will be live on Friday.

Cyber Suicide Session 15 will be held on thursday and now that I know how to capture MOV files, I should upload it after I get a chance to edit it.

Mystic Machina has decided to make the shift to the d100 BRP system. I recorded session four as an MOV using the system above and am currently considering how to edit and upload. it. I don't have adobe on this computer, so I have to find an alternate.

Me, Jung, Jarred, and the others have started running Hoard of The Dragon Queen [using the Remix resources] in 5e. I probably won't take the time to blog on this though.

I am playing a homestuck rp and a warhammer rp with my friend zane, alternating on Sundays.

My schedule is packed for this week, so I am going to have lots of general delays. I have two chapters to cover in my art class, I just registered for spring classes today, I'm attending Brigade Con this weekend, and then on tuesday I have to go speak at a event [a speech] and go to a concert and write a paper on the concert for my final art paper by the end of the month.

But beyond that, I have a lot of good things going on...coming home for thanksgiving and catching up on Doctor Who as well as starting work on Nova's Journal chapter 2 in December.

Edit:

Editing videos is going to take longer since I decided to move all the editing to my PC since the editing programs for mac don't work for me. I probably won't be able to really do anything else with that for right now. Thinking maybe until after everything calms down.

Cyber Suicide blogs will go up next week or the week after that. The next session happens in two or three parts as the game reaches the end.

Edit 2:
Cyber Suicide has been delayed due to Silver having a fever, but Numenera will go up live tomorrow night.

Cyber Suicide Session 13-14 [The Demon Computer, Part 1 and 2]

The sessions started out simple enough. The time traveling team has assembled together to destroy the computer that corrupted Kazuya in the first place. They arrive in the year 1700 in New Timeline B. Here they find the Agency building, except that it is made of wood and guarded by men with swords rather than G-men with guns in a metal building. Akio went to the computer room and found that Kazuya had been replaced with a random grunt wearing a suit that had already started to use the machine. Fray peeked over the man's shoulder and started to read the red text glowing on the dim green screen that he helped create. He was soon consumed by the text to the point where he couldn't stop reading it, and made no real effort to stop. By the end of the session, he had become a demon summoner like Kazuya before him. Bolt, finding out where the battery was, had to move through the two zombified people to destroy the computer from behind. Akio and Catherine ended up helping as well. However, Catherine was also consumed by the computer once she tried to attack it (+1 Will dosen't get you very far :P). By the end of the 13th session the computer was destroyed, but two of the party members were clearly possessed and there was also the matter of the man in the suit [who was knocked down with a punch].

The guards inside the building were also taken out, thanks to Catherine, Bolt, and Morph [the new name for Wolf]. The guards limped through the hall after them, nearly bleeding to death. Fray later tortured them to death with his knives, getting blood on his hands. Catherine was also able to stop herself from hurting Akio thanks to her new trouble [Crush on Akio] which turned out to be more useful than I expected.

Akio used his new telepathic link with Merlin to call him, and the wizard confirmed that he could help cure the two of the demonic presence. However, it would take him a few hours to travel to the future. In the second half of the session, Fray had completed his demonic transformation and Summoned a Demon Lord to force his way into Akio's conversation. The evil raven made a deal with the hacker and Fray discovered where Merlin was. The bird was then attacked by Catherine, and the powerful demon inflicted a Major condition on her by screeching so loud that her ears started to bleed [Deafened]. The horrible thing is that in this session, Fray and Catherine realized that they were related as sort of half-siblings. They had the same father, in two different timelines, as Fray had a flashback to being cloned by Jaques, who used his genes to make the time machine.
Fray pushed his power a bit and did a ritual to transport the party through time to England [instead of using the machine, because Fray didn't want merlin to track him]. Once they arrived in a magical forest nearby the wizard's tower, Fray rested while the others went hunting. Akio and Catherine made their way to the tower. Catherine meditated on the whole situation, trying to figure out why everything was happening so haphazardly and realized that something WRONG was happening. She summoned a minor Shadow demon to protect herself for the coming trials.

Bolt and Wolf encountered a Pixie, who casted Sleep on Wolf and ran away. Fray froze it in time and captured it in his laptop bag, asking it to guide him through the forest when the time was right. Fray then used most of his remaining power [1 out of 3 stress] to teleport using time travel to Merlin's room. (What I found interesting is that he didn't even notice that he was able to control time for an hour now instead of being limited to a handful of minutes). Six Knights all pointed swords at the horned boy, but Fray knew that Merlin was meant to die using his knowledge of the timeline.

Merlin warned the boy: "You are a threat to the entire universe! Do you think your soul is really yours?!" as he drew himself up to the demon to gaze into his soul. Fray, in an instant, sliced the man's head from his body while flipping over him. He tossed the wizard's head towards one of the guards and teleported out as easily as he came in [without needing to roll any dice to kill someone destined to die]. Blood fell unto his hands for the second time, adding a great bookend to the session. He started with a kill [the guards] and ended with another [merlin]. He offered the wizard's soul to his demon friend, who gladly took it in exchange for permanent service. The bird had also taken Fray's old Shotgun that he had stolen from the first member of the death game, and Fray realized that man's soul was still bound to the gun.

More pieces fall, and the board is set for checkmate. Who will survive the death game across time?

Cast
Richard Bolten: The Electric Ranger [PC]
Morph: The Evolving Wolf [PC]
King Akio Drake: Wielder of Excalibur [PC]
Catherine Yamada: Ninja Powered Soccer Star [PC]
Fray Yamada: The Demonic Hacker
Kazuya: The Dark Lord [NPC]
Inokuma: The Man in the suit [NPC]
*: The Cyber Cult Leader [PC/NPC]

Numenera Session 1 Recap

We are Introduced to Nick, the obsessive nano (who is somewhat of a cyborg) who is running away from Aian from murder charges. He arrives in the village of Presca and is forced to undertake a ritual from the old town leader, who has a strange metallic (like a blue silver like sheen to it) arm that he tries to touch Nick with. Nick escapes before the ritual can be done and runs into Seth. Seth agrees to let the man stay with him as long as he does good work along with a slave he owns named Nel (PC) and a cook/hunter named Sarkon (NPC).
Nick finds some oddities around an an abandoned building near the village and decides to take Nel to investigate, disregarding warnings from his boss. Outside the building are purple skinned corpses with elongated arms, bug-like eyes, and hexagonal shaped hands. The pair found some cyphers inside (acids, flames, chemical equipment, ect.) as well as a set of rats that disappeared in front of their eyes. There was also a thick purple gas filling the building that Nick analyzed using Scan to be some sort of bio-toxin. They continued into another room where a set of security cameras shot off from the wall and shot pellet bullets at them until they were destroyed by the party. They continued into the next room, a series of holographic archives in rows that was in a language they could not read. Just then, a series of corpses inside the archive room rose up and attacked the party. After defeating them, they ran outside to find the other corpses had risen as well and put an end to them. Fleeing the building and returning to town, they noticed that their skin had turned purple as well, so Nick decided to have the local priest call a doctor from Aian using his communication device. The doctor was on his way, but there was no assurance that Nick would get any answers.

Numenera: The Purple Horror (Session 4-5)

So this session was actually partly recorded, although the experimental software I used ended up making the audio pretty garbled until I found a replacement afterwards. Otherwise, I'll give some general updates. I'll probably package the next two parts of Cyber Suicide together since it ended on a cliffhanger. I also canceled Tears of The Blade due to personal problems with one of the players. Overall, I wasn't putting too much effort into it anyway.

The session was set up as a really cool way to establish the player's full backstories. The dragon used his lightning breath to spark a fire inside the cave and everyone sort of stood around and told the dragon the truths he wanted to hear. This allowed everyone to present their characters in full so that everyone could bond and learn more about each other in a sort of campfire story time. I thought it was a cool way to explore the characters and give each of them a spotlight.

Raz had established in his backstory that he now had Pyrophobia (+1 Exp for hinderance), and I had done the same thing beforehand for Nel's fear of needles, so I applied the rule to Raz as well.
He sat at the edge of the cave, trying to move him away from the fire.

Nel started first and fully explained her terrible life that had been foreshadowed within the dream. The scene was so disturbing that Matt (playing Nick) was actually uncomfortable with it. I felt guilty for violating my responsibility to respect Lines and Veils, but by the end of the session we resolved to have Nel move on from her past and overcome it.

We did point out one thing we didn't like about Numenera in that a lot of the items or abilities are highly situational. A lot of my players had cyphers lying around that they were stuck hoarding cause we couldn't find a use for them in the moment.
The players are also leveling up pretty quickly because I'm being generous with the EXP, and Nick is only one advance away from Tier 2!

Nick clarified his backstory to the group, explaining it in full for the first time outside of his character sheet. He also threatened the dragon outright, and made a clear message to me that he wanted it dead.
The dragon now feared him as well as Caiden.

Speaking of Caiden, he spoke of the deadly sword he carried and the party realized why the dragon found him so dangerous. The party knows he held a dangerous sword, and when Nick tried to scan it, he was mentally strained to even glimpse upon its dampened power (in a sense, they have never seen the sword in its active state).

After the campfire, Nel fell asleep with her earbuds again, but this time Raz and Nick were there to investigate. Raz basically entered into Nel's dream Inception style by using one of the two pink earbuds. The scene shifted to a roaring fire within a large house that almost burned Raz before Nel reached through the flames and tried to tell him that they weren't real.

They fell out the window of the building [Nick shook the bodies] and fell into the city of Aian. Since both sets of players were active during this time, it was very clear now that this was a dream. Nel being back in Aian reminded her of her old master who manifested as a large shadowy man.
Raz protected Nel and fought the giant shadow-man with his knife. He expected the thing to bleed when it was stabbed, and so it did. Nel fired arrows at him, but his trembling fingers made sure he missed the shot...that is until Raz realized that they were in a dream and caused the bolts to curve back around and hit the man using his focused thoughts (basically they just have to spend effort to manipulate the dream). After two shots he was on the ground, and Nel delivered the final blow with her knife, and within his mind he was able to overcome the pain and the fear that this man had caused. It was a pretty powerful scene that I really wish I had more time to focus on, because it represented all sorts of closure for the character.

Afterwards, now fully aware they were dreaming, Nel decided to celebrate with the candy that he had been unable to taste in a while. Raz, being a criminal, recognized the lollipop (Nel's final oddity) as a form of concentrated hardened hallucinogen (Called Ganch) and told this to Nel. The dream world shattered apart and Nel broke down as he realized that he had been fed this stuff for 3 months straight. I explained also that his intelligence had been secretly lowered due to this fact. It was a terrifying moment that was both very funny and very scary. Nel woke up after this and left the cave, looking out at the starlight as Nick held his shoulder for comfort.

After calming down, everyone "boarded" the dragon in the night and they made way to Aian to hopefully find a cure for this disease. The flight will only take two hours and cross the remaining hexes. I'm going to pre-roll any random events and weather before the session and see if they will flyby anything interesting.
I also keep forgetting to include Nick's penalty for sickness, so I told him to keep track of it himself rather than me keep it secret (when it was public knowledge by this point).

It should be interesting to see what these characters will do in their first huge city, and how they plan to find a cure. Nel pretty much wrapped up her character arc, so I was very satisfied with that. The problem is that I had originally planned to start with Nick's arc and now he seems like a underdeveloped character. Either way, he's still fine with how things are going at the moment

I'm not sure how I will handle the cure research, that's something I have to put a lot of thought into.
I also fleshed out in my own head how the dragon fits into the overall story and it really introduced a neat coherency to everything, finally writing out his stats and backstory.
Doing research and investigation really fits into the Numenera theme, but I'm not sure how to apply it in this context. Some ideas are coming to me, but I'm not sure what the players will do. Either way, I'm exited to throw them into this. The two purple skinned PCs [Nel and Nick] have 5 days to find a cure or they are dead meat (as far as they know!). They also don't know what trouble is lurking in the city itself.

I should also add that I am using Fronts and Factions [I've been watching Adam Koebel dm recently, so it inspired me to bring back that mechanic since I played DW once before to run a short dark high fantasy game]. I'll elaborate on them next session. The idea is that the forces back in Presca [the starting village] are still active and plotting while the players muck about.
Will the village leader make a move? What is Seth doing? Can't the local priest contact Aian? What will happen? Find out on the next thrilling episode of The Purple Horror!

Update: Session 5 is on youtube now! [http://youtu.be/VB-WRnvfm4I]