Metropolis

Q: Which city in comics would be the worst to live in? In Gotham there's nutcases with random crimes, but New York and Metropolis attract trouble on a your-city-will-be-killed-at-once scale. -- @rj_white A: That's the thing about living in a fictional universe, RJ: Generally speaking, it is an absolutely terrible idea. I mean, our world may have its share of pretty awful troubles, but at least you can rest reasonably assured that you won't have to deal with being poisoned into a smiley death by a murderous clown just because you wanted to go check out the museum's new exhibit on original folios of Shakespeare's comedies, or got bonked on the head by a dude in a lime green suit and suspended over a vat of boiling acid because you were really good at crossword puzzles.

Q: Can a setting, location, or place actually be "a character," as people often say about Gotham City or Bioshock's Rapture, and if so, what exactly does that mean? -- @Jon_Ore A: Technically, no. No matter how well-developed or intriguing a setting is, no matter how many good stories have been set there or how characters and creators have talked about it, it's still just that: A setting. The action and development, even if they're a reaction to the setting or have effects on the setting, are all things that happen to characters. The setting just provides the backdrop. Practically, though, they can be close enough that for all intents and purposes, they might as well be characters, with everything that comes with it.

Maybe it's because I read a lot of fantasy novels and played a lot of video games in my misspent youth, but I've always really liked seeing maps of fictional places. I obsess over them, to the point where I could probably still get around Grand Theft Auto 3's Liberty City better than I could navigate sections of my own hometown...

I'm a big fan of vintage travel posters. Some lovely prints of classic pieces depicting Africa and the Orient Express hang on my walls, but they might have to give way to a series of elegant travel posters based on some of genre fiction's most famous locales...

We've known for awhile now that the Metropolis in Sony's DC Universe Online MMORPG was going to live up to its name with a sprawling landscape fit for thousands of heroes and villains to inhabit, and the publisher's latest reveal of city's Tomorrow District just drives the point home...

If you thought Sony Online Entertainment had run out of things to show off about DC Universe Online, think again. The developers released a new video this week highlighting one of the DC Universe's more familiar locations: the Metropolis Police Department, which serves a crucial function in the massively multiplayer role-playing game based on the DC Comics superheroes...

DC Universe Online's regularly scheduled non-playable character rollouts have been a lot more exciting since we learned hands-on that gamers will have a chance to draw heavily from the heroes and villains that inspire them when creating their own playable character...

Metropolis' shady industrial district isn't necessarily on any timid tourist's list of places to visit, but for the superpowered players of the upcoming "DC Universe Online" MMORPG, Suicide Slums seems poised to serve as a destination of choice...

So you've come to see beautiful New Metrothamork, home of a prominent superhero! Welcome! Like most people, you've always dreamed of traveling to the city of Awesome-Man to see him fight villains, banter, and romance his on-again-off-again girlfriend...

Sony's "DC Universe Online" seems to get a little bigger all the time and considering its version of Metropolis will boast more than 1,000 square city blocks - that's saying a lot. This week DCUO previewed a portion of that cyber expanse with a look at Metropolis' Little Bohemia district and the results look pretty impressive...