Nightcrawler and Sky Pirates?!?!

Last night after watching the newest episode of Nick Toon’s Wolverine and the X-Men, spotlighting Nightcrawler. I remembered I had a couple of comic mini-series about him, and dug them out. Starting with a four issue series form 1985-1986 and I began to read. So far I’ve only read the first two but wow. If you love that classic 1980’s comic feel, a bit over the top and cheesy you’ll feel right at home here. I’m enjoying it so far. (I like these kinds of stories) Coming soon I’ll review these issues.

As a teaser just think other dimensions, sky pirates, and a half shark half man Sorcerer.

The Gaming Generation Gap

Is it just me or have videogames lost something in recent years. The industry seems to be focusing more on the graphics to sell games, but is that taking away form the other aspects? I say yes and no. First of all I want to make clear I’m not against the way games have evolved. This was just a thought I had while checking the new releases recently. Think about it games have come such a long way in a short time, and we’re still early in this generation. Perhaps I’m bias growing up in the 8bit era, where the graphics were lacking, the games were fun, stood on their own, and some just had really good stories. Another question that came to mind is if gamers of today would give older games a chance? I mean they don’t have the graphics of the newer ones, but I, personally, don’t believe graphics make a game. They do help, in some instances. What do you think?

Regardless, the industry is doing the next logical step for this era of gaming. I just can’t help but feel like the younger/new generation of gamer is missing out on something. Is it graphics? Is it variety? I don’t know. We do have things like the Wii’s virtual console, so the classic games are out there, for the new generation. But are they taking advantage of it. I think some are. There is no real answer to any of these questions but I can at least give my thoughts. I feel bad that they don’t have the overall variety that I grew up with. They might have the best games graphically, but I grew up during the Nintendo/Sega war, with other systems like the Turbo Grafix 16, Atari Jaguar, and Neo Geo. Now we have the standard Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, knowing where they stand. I guess all I’m trying to say is, though I love to see games evolve, my heart is with the games and systems of old. However, the next few years of gaming, as well as the next generation of systems, seems very promising. What are some of your thoughts?

My history with Comics / Captain America #25

Recently I had gone through and catalogued my entire collection using a computer program. In doing so I saw the gaps my comics which shows when I was heavy into collecting. (Unfortunately since then our computer crashed and I lost everything I had catalogued.) My first comic was Amazing Spider-man #290 from July 87’ (The issue where Peter “pops” the question to Mary Jane) I was 6 years old. My favorites we’re Spider-man and Batman. (With the help of Tim Burton’s Film getting me in to Batman.) I collected what I could for comics, some from local stores, but a lot came from flea markets. I remember more of the story arcs and books I collected starting with Batman’s “Death in the Family” arc which tells of the second Robin aka: Jason Todd’s death at the hands of the Joker. Then news hit that “Superman was killed” in 1992. So being the comic fan I was with the help of my Dad, we tried to collect all the books leading up to his death along with the issue it self (vol. 2 #75). I remember the first printing was sealed in a black bag and came with an arm band. At the time it was really expensive. (I had to wait till around 4 or 5 years ago until I finally got the first printing.) Shortly after that came the end of the “Knightfall” story arc where Batman’s back was broken by the villain Bane. It goes on from there, I’ve collected on and off for my whole life.

Now to the present and the story that got me back into and still quite heavy into comics now. Re-wind to April 2007 the news headline Captain America is dead. I heard that news and I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t been into comics for a few years so I knew nothing of the Civil War. All I knew was Captain America was dead… and I needed to know why. I jumped on EBay that very night and grabbed first printings of Captain America #25 (vol.5). Now that I had bought the book I still had no clue what had happened I looked all over the web for answers. Which lead me back to my local comic shop and back into collecting. Once I acquired the comics leading up to Cap’s death including his own title and the Civil War trade paperback. I was blown away with the story and I wanted to know more. So I continued to collect farther back in Ed Brubaker’s run of Cap, and buying some Marvel Essentials to read of early stories. Since then I still read every month and it’s currently my favorite book. Some may think it’s geeky or cheesy but comics can be very well written. It captured me emotionally and has me coming back for more. Thank you, Mr. Brubaker.

Since then I also collect a few more titles, my other current favorites include Thor, Moon Knight, and Invincible Iron Man. So I guess all it takes is a death in the comic-verse to bring me back in if I start to lose interest. LOL But this time I believe I’m in for the long haul baring the cost doesn’t go much more above $3.99 a book….but that’s another topic all together. I’m sure I’ll hit some of the points with more depth int the future. For now I guess...

Great Saiy-Tim out!

My first blog post ever!

So it’s been a long time coming I guess but the thought occurred to me that I wanted my thoughts out there for others to see. These posts will be mostly random at best. I’m really not sure myself what I may post about. All I can say is there will be a lot about various video games, comic books, cartoons, and the 80’s (movies, cartoons, toys, etc.). So if any of that interests anyone tune in for that coming soon.