The ''Worlds of Power'' books are a series of novelizations of video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System released in the early 1990s. The series was created by Seth Godin and is characterized by the fact that they are mostly "male-oriented titles," that take creative liberties with their source material. They usually include game hints written upside down at the end of chapters (some also had a tear-out "trading card" in the middle with a tip in mirror writing on the back) and are written in a simplistic, easy-to-read style.

Books in the series

Books in the series consist of novelizations of # ''Blaster Master'' by A. L. Singer # ''Metal Gear'' by Alexander Frost # ''Ninja Gaiden'' by A. L. Singer # ''Castlevania II: Simon's Quest'' by Christopher Howell # ''Wizards and Warriors'' by Ellen Miles # ''Bionic Commando'' by Judith Bauer Stamper # ''Infiltrator'' by A. L. Singer # ''Before Shadowgate'' by Ellen Miles

Junior Edition Books

''Mega Man 2'' by Ellen Miles

''Bases Loaded II: Second Season'' by A. L. Singer

Production

The producer of the series, Seth Godin, used the pen name "F.X. Nine." Godin said one day that when he talked to his nephew he discovered that the boy did not read for pleasure. Instead the boy played NES games. Godin decided to create books that appealed to children who played video games. Godin, the head of a book packaging company, created the series idea, selected games to novelize, found writers for the books, and contacted the publisher for approval. Nintendo negotiated with Godin but negotiations failed. The other video game creators successfully negotiated and Scholastic Books approved the project. ''1up.com'' described Godin's role in publishing as "similar to that of a movie producer in the film industry."

The video game companies did not assist Godin as they were too busy. Godin set the production schedule, selected the video games, and selected the authors. Then he set to create one 40-page "bible" for each game outlining the plot, characters, and level layouts to assist the authors' creation of the dialog and narratives. ''1up.com'' stated that assembling the bibles was "quite a challenge." Godin and the authors played through the games without strategy guides in order to reverse-engineer the stories. All of the books were indexed by Godin's pen name; Godin said that he chose the pen name due to the way bookstores arrange books as children looking for books related Nintendo would see Godin's books indexed by the letters "n-i-n." Godin said that his most serious frustration was playing video games for too long, as he would experience headaches. He added that the success of the ''Worlds of Power'' series outweighed the drawbacks; around one million copies of the books were sold. ''1up.com'' added that this was "especially remarkable" as the target audience, young boys, were not considered to be a large market for book series. Godin said "We sold a million copies to kids that may not have read for fun before. That's a huge success (and) a home run!"

One author, Peter Lerangis, used the pen name "A.L. Singer" and wrote the novelizations of ''Bases Loaded II: Second Season'', ''Blaster Master'', ''Infiltrator'', and ''Ninja Gaiden''. Godin approached Lerangis when the project began and asked Lerangis to be a writer for the project. Lerangis, who admitted a lack of skill in playing video games, took the offer. Lerangis wrote each book in about four weeks. One of Lerangis's two favorite books, ''Ninja Gaiden'', was one of the most popular books in the ''Worlds of Power'' series. He liked writing the book since he "was able to get into the character's head pretty quickly," especially while writing the beginning. Lerangis said that the book reveals Ryu's father to be alive at the end since he and Godin believed that the revised ending was consistent with the ''Worlds of Power'' character and as real-life fathers they felt reluctance to leave Ryu without a father. ''Bases Loaded II: Second Season '', Lerangis's other favorite title, is considered to be more obscure. Lerangis liked baseball and, since the game had no plot, he created an original light comedy storyline; Lerangis said that ''Bases Loaded'' was the most fun book to write. Lerangis described ''Blaster Master'' as the most difficult book to write; since the game does not have a strong middle plot, Lerangis fleshed the story connected the beginning and ending of the games.

Godin said that he would have liked to novelize the game ''Myst'', a personal computer game, into a book. He said that "I think that stories never go out of style. I think we need a series like this now more than ever & kids need to learn the habit of reading" and that "I think the lesson of each book was that there is a hero in everyone. You just have to set it free."

Editing of video game stories

''The Worlds of Power'' series omitted violent elements in the video games. Video game covers were adapted into the book covers after weaponry was omitted. For instance in ''Ninja Gaiden'''s cover the dagger that Ryu Hayabusa held in front of him is no longer visible. In ''Metal Gear'''s cover Solid Snake no longer holds his gun; ''1up.com'''s Scott Sharkey said that without the gun, Snake was "making a vaguely masturbatory gesture." Within the texts death and violence were not inflicted on humans and animals. In the ''Blaster Master'' book the bosses appearing like mutated animals are holographic projections placed on formless blobs. In the ''Metal Gear'' book Snake, described as a "walking arsenal," uses his guns only to shoot off locks on doors. In the ''Ninja Gaiden'' book Ryu Hayabusa's father, seemingly killed in the prologue of the game and said to be dead in earlier book chapters, is revealed as alive by the end of the book. In the ''Infiltrator'' book an agent scheduled to be "voided" either has his memory wiped clean, receives exiling, or receives a demotion. In ''Bionic Commando'' the protagonist's gun shoots "stun bullets" and the protagonist uses karate chops to disable enemies. Towards the end of the book Adolf Hitler kills the enemy leader; the protagonist feels no sympathy since the leader was, as stated by ''1up.com'', "an evil man being eliminated by an even more evil man." In addition, overtly magical and occult references were omitted from the ''Before Shadowgate'' book.

Godin described the editing as "stylistic in nature" and that he intended to "minimize the death" in the adapted games. He added that Scholastic asked him to remove witchcraft several years before the release of ''Harry Potter'''s first book, ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' (''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' in the United Kingdom), which was published by Scholastic in the United States.

Legacy

The PlayStation game ''Blaster Master: Blasting Again'', a sequel to the original ''Blaster Master'', canonized some of the original elements from Peter Lerangis' novelization of ''Blaster Master''. Particularly the character Eve, who was not in the NES game, appeared in ''Blasting Again''. Lerangis stated that he felt "honored" for the privilege.

References

External links

Everything2 nodes of the Simon's Quest and Wizards & Warriors novelizations

Castlevania Dungeon: Worlds of Power - Castlevania 2 - A review of the Castlevania 2 novelization

Blaster Master: The Legacy - explains the storyline of the Blaster Master series, with several canon and non-canon additions

Blaster Master Underground (BMUG) - a complete record of all games in the series, including external media and background development history on each game

About Worlds of Power - a background information page about these books, published on tsr's NES Archive

Demian's Gamebook Web Page (F.X. Nine) - a list of books written under the name 'F.X. Nine'

8-Bit Lit: Inside the NES' Worlds of Power Series - a retrospective on the series with interviews of the series creator and one of the authors

Worlds of Power: Mega Man 2 read in its entirety by James D. Rolfe.

Category:Nintendo Category:Novels based on video games

__NOTOC__

name	Jane McGonigal
birth date	October 21, 1977
birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
occupation	Game designer, games researcher
alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
website	http://www.janemcgonigal.com/ }}

Jane McGonigal, Ph.D. (born 1977) is a game designer, games researcher, and author, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games (ARGs). She initially rose to prominence due to her work with design company 42 Entertainment from 2004 to 2006, on projects including the alternate reality game ''I Love Bees'' (2004).

McGonigal writes and speaks about alternate reality games and massively multiplayer online gaming, especially about the way that collective intelligence can be generated and utilized as a means for improving the quality of human life or working towards the solution of social ills. She has stated that gaming should be moving "towards Nobel Prizes." McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification".

She has taught game design and game theory at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley and she currently serves as the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future. In 2006, she was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Games

''Evoke (alternate reality game) ''Cryptozoo'' ''Superstruct'' ''The Lost Ring'' ''World Without Oil'' ''Cruel 2 B Kind'' ''Last Call Poker'' ''PlaceStorming'' ''I Love Bees'' ''Demonstrate'' ''TeleTwister''

Year !! Title !! Organization !! Credit
2011	''Find the Future: The Game''	New York Public Library
2010	Evoke'' ||	World Bank Institute	Creator
2009	|	American Heart Association	Director
2008	|	Institute for the Future	Director
2008	|	McDonald's and ''The Lost Sport	Director
2007	|	ITVS Interactive	Participation architect w/ Ken Eklund
2006	|		Concept and design w/ Ian Bogost
2005	|	42 Entertainment	Live Events Lead
2005	|
2004	|	42 Entertainment	Community Lead/Puzzle Designer
2004	|
2004	|

Additionally, she has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Reality is Broken

On January 20, 2011, McGonigal's first book, ''Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World,'' was published. In this book, McGonigal expands her scope, looking not only at massively multiplayer online gaming and alternate reality games but also at games more widely. Using current research from the positive psychology movement, McGonigal argues that games contribute powerfully to human happiness and motivation, a sense of meaning, and the development of community.

The book was met with a generally favorable reception, enjoying positive reviews from ''The Los Angeles Times,'' and ''Wired'', and mixed reviews from the ''New York Times Book Review'' and ''The Independent'' . The book also received criticism from some quarters, including the ''Wall Street Journal'' .

Recognition

Date !! Award !! Description
2010	Named in O: The Oprah Magazine "2010 O Power List"	Named in O: The Oprah Magazine as one of twenty important women of 2010 on the "2010 O Power List"
2008	Named one of the Top 20 Most Important Women in videogaming
2008	South by Southwest Interactive Award for Activism
2006	Listed on MIT ''Technology Review's TR100
2005	2005 Innovation Award from the International Game Developers Association and a 2005 Games-related Webby Award.

Education

She received her BA in English from Fordham University, and her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2006.

External links

TED Talk: Gaming can make a better world (2010)

IT Conversations: Interview on Alternate Reality Gaming (2007)

Avant Game, McGonigal's personal blog.

''Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World'', ISBN 1594202850, 2011.

References

Category:1977 births Category:American Buddhists Category:American video game designers Category:Living people Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:San Francisco Art Institute faculty Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Game researchers Category:TR35 winners

nl:Jane McGonigal fi:Jane McGonigal

The Justice Lords are fictional heroes-turned-villains who first appeared in the two-part ''Justice League'' episode, "A Better World" (airdate November 1, 2003).

Biography

The Justice Lords are an alternate version of the Justice League from a parallel Earth. The roster of the Justice Lords was the same as the original DCAU Justice League — an alternate Batman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman — with the exception of The Flash, because the Flash from their universe had been killed.

The Justice Lords' world diverged from that of the Justice League when their Lex Luthor was elected President of the United States. The Flash was executed personally by Luthor for unknown reasons, and Luthor's policies eventually resulted in the country "being on the brink of a war that could destroy the whole planet". The alternate Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman decided to try and stop the impending war, storming the White House and confronting President Luthor. After Luthor goaded the alternate Superman, that no matter how many times Superman sent him to prison Luthor would find a way back into power all over again in an unending cycle, the enraged Kryptonian targeted Luthor with heat vision and killed him. This decision led to far-reaching consequences, as Superman decided he liked this new brand of "justice". Soon, the other Lords lost faith in humanity's ability to do what was right, as well as their own moral compasses.

The initial act of staging a coup eventually led to the Justice Lords taking over the world's governments and ruling with an iron fist. Using their satellite base for global surveillance, the Justice Lords went on to suppress free speech, outlaw elections, and eliminate all crime by lobotomizing all criminals and supervillains (to the point of having a man arrested for complaining about the food quality and incorrect calculation of cost at a restaurant). Although they justified their behavior to the masses as "temporary," and to each other as for the good of the people, it amounted to tyranny in the eyes of the Justice League.

''A Better World''

The Justice Lords learned of their normal Justice League counterparts when the alternate Batman came across the League while experimenting with a dimensional transporter he had built. Bored with their own largely domesticated world, the Lords decided to "assist" their counterparts by taking over the League's world. The Lords tricked the League into coming to the alternate Earth. Upon the League's arrival, they were trapped in a specially designed prison built by the alternate Batman. Later, they were transferred to cells that had been designed to neutralize their powers, except for Hawkgirl, who had suffered serious injuries trying to escape.

When the Lords came to the normal Earth (posing as the 'mainstream' Earth's true heroes), they soon encountered Doomsday, a giant monstrous fighter. Doomsday had apparently come to challenge Earth's mightiest combatants, and went on a rampage. The Lords, particularly Superman, were more than happy to fight him (the Martian Manhunter being the only one skeptical on winning stating "IF we can stop it"). Attacking first and asking questions later, the alternate Superman predicted the Lords would win over the normal Earth people with their brand of justice. The fight ended with the Justice Lords beaten down and the alternate Superman held at Doomsday's mercy, however he managed to lobotomize Doomsday with his heat vision, to the shock of reporter Lois Lane. Lex Luthor, intimately aware of the real Superman's character (and what he would or would not therefore do) was the only one who figured out that the Lords weren't the League, stating "It's not them."

The League escaped from their prisons when the Flash, in an attempt to play on his status as martyr in the eyes of the Lords, sped up his heartbeat to trick the alternate Batman into thinking it had flatlined. The alternate Batman responded by releasing the Flash and was subsequently knocked out. The League then escaped. Most of the League went to Arkham Asylum to retrieve Hawkgirl, except for the normal Batman, who went to the Batcave to hijack the dimensional transporter. There, he engaged the alternate Batman in a fight. The fight ended abruptly with the alternate Batman playing off their mutual tragedy after Batman says the Lords have created a world without freedom or thought by seizing power, countering with, "And with that power, we've made a world where no eight-year-old boy will ever lose his parents because of some punk with a gun." The normal Batman was eventually able to convince the alternate Batman that the Lords' methods were wrong by (like the alternate Batman) playing on their mutual tragedies by sarcastically remarking, "They'd love it here, don't you think? Mom and Dad. They'd be ''so'' proud of you." The alternate Batman saw the error of his ways and saved the Justice League from the alternate Earth's security forces, and transmitted them back to their reality, presumably then going on to rebuild his world.

Back on the normal Earth, Superman approached Lex Luthor, offering him a presidential pardon in exchange for his help against the Lords. The Lords were defeated when the League engaged the Lords again to distract them long enough as Luthor used a power disruptor to strip them of their powers. The depowered Lords were then arrested, but it is not known what happened to them afterwards, save the alternate Batman, who never went to normal earth.

At the end, normal Earth Luthor said that he would go into politics.

Long-term effects

The Justice Lords' proposed alteration to the Justice League's world had repercussions in the first two seasons of ''Justice League Unlimited''. The events of "A Better World" added fuel to Amanda Waller's crusade against the destructive capabilities of the metahuman population if the government left it unchecked. Project Cadmus, which was originally created to counter Superman if he went rogue (as shown in the ''Superman: The Animated Series'' two-part episode "Legacy"), expanded its threat list to the whole Justice League. It also led to some increasing paranoia and distrust within the rank of the Justice League, including Batman and The Question, who feared that what happened to the Justice Lords' world would eventually happen to theirs when Luthor appeared close to winning the presidency as his counterpart had.

Further examples of the League's degeneration in the public eye — such as Superman’s fight with Captain Marvel over what turned out to be a fake emergency, staged by Luthor and Amanda Waller, and Superman’s later near attempt to lobotomize Doomsday in a similar manner to his Lords counterpart — cast the League, and particularly Superman, in an increasingly bad light.

Fortunately, the League had also taken precautions such as recruiting the ardently populist and politically astute Green Arrow as their political conscience. He in turn is critical in putting the role of Cadmus in a reasonable perspective for the League and thereby prevents them from falling into the same temptation that created the Lords.

''Divided We Fall''

As a major insult, Lex Luthor/Brainiac combined creating duplicate androids of the Lords in the ''Justice League Unlimited'' episode ''Divided We Fall''. However, Brainiac added an android duplicate of the Flash in a costume design almost identical to that of comic book villain Zoom, to distract the League from his and Luthor's ultimate goal of universal domination. Not only did the androids fight the League, but they also played on their worst fears at the time: Superman was confronted with the possibility of becoming a Justice Lord, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl played off their failed relationship, as well as Hawkgirl's pariah status on both Earth and Thanagar, and Flash confronted his role among the world's greatest heroes. However, the fears of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter were not revealed (Batman was able to destroy his double the second quickest next to Flash, so that his double never even had a chance to mock him). Only Flash seemed unaffected by his replica's taunts, apparently due to his overpowering sense of self confidence, and also considering that, while he faced off against the Justice Lords themselves, he never actually had a Lord counterpart to begin with. The androids were destroyed after a short fight.

This growing fear concerning the League somehow turning into their Justice Lord counterparts reached a climax in that episode when the Flash surpassed his maximum speed by tapping into the Speed Force in order to destroy the link between Brainiac and Luthor. This caused the Flash to vanish into the Speed Force, to which the defeated Luthor amusedly remarks: “What do you know? I ''did'' kill him.”

Unlike the Justice Lords' Superman, who killed the alternate Luthor, the League’s Superman, refused to succumb to such temptation and follow the path of his tyrannical counterpart and states that “''I’m not the man who killed President Luthor. Right now, I wish to Heaven that I were, but I’m not.''”

A few minutes later, the League succeeded in drawing the Flash back from the Speed Force, saving his life, and avoiding the path traveled by the Justice Lords.

Realizing that they had allowed themselves to become distanced from the very people they were trying to protect and fearful of becoming the Justice Lords, Superman publicly announced the immediate disbandment of the Justice League. After Green Arrow points out that the Justice League had grown to be far bigger than any individual hero and would continue even without the original seven members, and with public support, the League opted instead to open an embassy on Earth which would serve as a second Watchtower.

Toys

All the Justice Lords were eventually released in the Justice League Unlimited toyline in three 3-pack collectors sets and "the big three" were re-released later with a lava Doomsday variant in a 6-pack. The first set featured Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. One reviewer criticized for not standing on their own, but noted "represent one of the most popular episodes of the entire Justice League series." The next pack included Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and, oddly the Flash. The final set had Hawkgirl and featured the Brainiac copies of Superman and Batman. The characters did not appear in the Justice League Unlimited series, except in flashbacks.

Inspiration and Similarities

As revealed in the DVD commentary on the second part of this episode the Justice Lords started out as a straight Crime Syndicate of America story but as the writers worked on it they decided that having it about a Justice League that went fascist had more story potential as the Crime Syndicate was simply evil.

This resulted in the episode being very similar to a saga that Dan Jurgens wrote during his run on ''Justice League America'' titled "Destiny's Hand". In that story, the Atom dreams about the original Justice League becoming the oppressive rulers of the world. Doctor Destiny tries to make this "dream universe" absorb the mainstream reality, and the modern Justice League fights the "evil" old Justice League.

The premise of a Justice League-esque superteam establishing a totalitarian state for what they see as the good of humanity has also been taken up in Marvel Comics' original ''Squadron Supreme'' miniseries, its recent re-imagining of that story, in Wildstorm's ''The Authority'', and the ''Titans Tomorrow'' storyline from the ''Teen Titans'' comic book. The idea of metahumans taking control away from humans, and of Superman leading them to make a better world, is also developed in the Elseworlds mini-series ''Kingdom Come''. According to the DVD commentary from Bruce Timm, that the plan for Batman's distrust on the League because of the Justice Lords was to have him form Outsiders as a counter-superteam to it, but the idea was dropped.

The idea of having criminals surgically altered to prevent them from returning to lives of crime seems reminiscent of ''Superman: Red Son'', which in turn was inspired by Doc Savage, who brainwashed criminals after his battles with them. It was also a plot point in the recent DC Comics mini-series ''Identity Crisis''- although in that case the alteration was magically-induced rather than surgical and primarily consisted of the heroes erasing the villains' knowledge of their secret identities, save in extreme cases, such as when Doctor Light raped Sue Dibny, wife of the Elongated Man- and in Marvel Comics' original ''Squadron Supreme'' miniseries.

References

External links

World's Finest Online biopage

"A Better World," Part 1, at tv.com

"A Better World," Part 2, at tv.com

Category:DC Comics supervillain teams Category:Fictional dictators Category:DC animated universe characters Category:Parallel universes (television episodes) Category:Fictional murderers

pt:Lordes da Justiça