I have been awake for very much consecutive time.

Yes. Long have I sat unkissed by the sweet mistress of slumber. Long enough, in fact, that I'm not going to edit that horrendously fruity sentence out of this post. It shall remain, ever vigilant, unblinking, much as its writer has these last many many hours.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM COMICS LATELY:

• All the good codenames are taken, unless you use common words translated into Spanish, which suddenly makes "Dog" and "Blood" into vaguely acceptable names for X-Men villains who will never been seen again once Mike Carey leaves the book.
• There is exactly one way to make Waverider interesting. And it involves him not having skin anymore.
• Batman has lots of stuff people don't know he has.
• Being crushed by a chunk of Opal City street attached to a Cosmic Rod is, evidently, survivable.
• "Runaway" is a verb, but only if you're a Marvel editor.
• I would very much like a pet talking alligator.

Go buy Ultimate Alliance.

Seriously. You get to beat up the Shocker in a giant pinball machine.

You get to beat up the Shocker. In a giant pinball machine. Even the Shocker admits that's a little weird.

If you don't know, the game's pretty much just X-Men Legends, except you can use Captain America and Thor. And Ghost Rider. And freaking Spider-Woman. And Ms Marvel. And the entire Fantastic Four.

And you fight Galactus. And the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. And MODOK!

MODOK asks you trivia questions before you punch him in his giant face.

It's by no means a perfect game - but my chief complaint is that there are, in fact, too many playable characters; I haven't even used Luke Cage, and I'm on my second play-through.

Oh, and you can dress Thor up as Beta Ray Bill. If that's not a selling point, I don't know why you're even reading this.