Actively Nerdy Schedule Change

Hey everyone! So something very exciting happened recently, which is going to cause a few changes to how I update. I got hired!

Yes, I have found full time employment! Which means the usual posting time of "Noon or pretty close to it" isn't going to work anymore.

I'll still be posting once a week, but here's how this is going to work. While I'm still playing around with my own schedule and getting into a routine, it may not always be Wednesday. I'll be playing around and trying to figure out what the best day for it is, and I'll announce it as soon as I can. However, I will be posting each day to launch at 12AM, and giving a heads up on Facebook the night before and an official announcement when I get the chance after work.

Things are going to get a bit hectic for a while, but there's no way I'm going to stop Actively Nerdy. As I enter this new chapter in my life, all I ask is for is your patience while I try and normalize the schedule. Thank you all for reading, and wish me luck!

Underrated Comics: Runaways

Hey everybody! So as you all know, last week was not a very healthy week for me. Anything involving doctors and needles and I’m not going to have a very good time.

This is my hell.

So what was I doing while I was recovering? Reading my old comics and trying to find fanfiction for some of my favorite series.

I can feel the judgement eyes from here. Hear me out okay?

One of the series I was re-reading was the first comic series I ever bought a trade for. Published by Marvel Comics, having three volumes before going into an indefinite hiatus-turned-cancellation, and having so many female role models I’m sad people haven’t heard much about it, Runaways was my favorite team book from Marvel. Actually, it’s probably my favorite team period. I fell in love with the characters, and I could relate to all of them in some way having been a teenager when I discovered them the first time. I always felt like the story wasn’t ready to be done when it was canceled, and I figured I would see if fanfiction could help fill some of the Runaways void for me.

The face of all my guilty pleasures.

And then I realized how little there was of it. 166? Really? I know comics don’t have the most fanfiction dedicated to it, but I was expecting more than that! Young Avengers, who they’ve had crossovers with, at least hit 200.

So after I figured I’d at least look in my copy of the Marvel Encyclopedia. Sure, it’s not the 2014 edition, but the series ended the month before my version was released in 2009. They were a well established series by at least 2004. They played a part in Civil War and Secret Invasion for crying out loud! There had to be something on them right?

Right?

Not a freaking thing. I even checked under every one of their real names and code names from the first volume. Not a word on them. The closest we get is part of Ricochet’s article, mentioning that he joined a group of former teenage superheroes in L.A. trying to dissuade other teenagers from being costumed heroes. The teenagers who were their first mission to save from it, but never even got close to beating? The Runaways! Where is the Runaways love?

I tracked down the newest edition, and they don’t even have their own article. They’re just mentioned in three others, with only one of them being an article on one of the members. Squirrel Girl gets her own article, but only Nico gets one from the Runaways. Sure, Squirrel Girl is awesome and I love her, but you can’t even give the Runaways their own eighth of a page? Molly Hayes beat the crap out of Wolverine and they beat Ultron for cripes sake!

Pictured: One of Marvels' most powerful villains. Not Pictured: The teenage team that beat him.

So we’re going to change this here and now. More people need to know who the Runaways are, and exactly why they are awesome. Only three of the characters ever made it to other books, and the fact that barely anyone’s read the series they came from is a crime against a great series. So here’s my spoiler-free plot synopsis, character rundown, and top reasons why you should give the series a try. If you couldn’t find it in the first trade of the first volume, I’m not going to give it away here, although there might be some clues.

Runaways: Read This Comic!

Okay, basic concept time. Remember your teenage years? Yeah, that awkward, not-quite-a-kid, not-nearly-grown-up phase of life you’re really hoping you can forget about? You know how, unless you were blessed with a near-impossible perfect home life, at one point or another you thought your parents or guardians were evil? I mean, those moments aren’t the most proud memories of our lives, but I’m willing to bet it happened during the course of puberty.

Now imagine you were right, and your parents were supervillians trying to destroy the world. Welcome to the Runaways, you’re going to fit right in here.

These guys are called The Pride, and they’re the parents of 6 pre-to-upper teens. They essentially controlled the crime and supervillian scene in Los Angeles for multiple years, finally giving an explanation as to why Marvel never really had stories or events happening on the West Coast. Once a year they sacrifice a young girl and feed her soul to the old deities they have a deal with so they can destroy the world and let their kids inherit the new one.

Their kids happen to witness one of the sacrifices, and understandably freak out. They run away from home, and now are on a mission to fix all the bad things their parents have done. And they have several decades of bad karma to undo. Along the way, they learn just exactly who they came from, added more teenagers join their ranks, and even formed a healthy respect and general working relationship with the Young Avengers and a just as woefully underrated superhero duo, Cloak and Dagger. The series went on hiatus and was summarily canceled in 2009, with three of the members going off into other series.

Alright, now that you get a general idea of what the story's about, we can get onto the characters. Starting with the original 6 Runaways in no particular order:

Alex Wilder

Alex is a tactical genius and the original leader of the team. While not the oldest and having no superpowers or other gifts, he takes after his parents in his cunning and is the one who keeps the coolest head in a tough situation. Unless it involves Nico’s love life. Then he’s a bit less level-headed. When the team was using codenames briefly, he was the only one not to choose one.

Gertrude Yorkes

Gert is the 15 year old child of time-travelers who got stuck in the 1980s when their time machine malfunctioned. While they were able to repair it for a few more trips to get Gertrude’s “inheritance”, none of the team could figure out how to fix it again after it broke the final time. Oh, and her inheritance is a dinosaur. She shares an empathic link to the reptile, which was genetically altered and developed to obey her mental commands or those she trusts. She’s the most snarky and sarcastic of the group, and has the easiest time distancing herself from her parents and believing they could really be evil. She started the original trend of having code-names, even if they were dropped by the end of the first volume. She called herself Arsenic, and she named her dinosaur Old Lace.

Karolina Dean

The daughter of movie stars, Karolina grew up with tabloids claiming her parents were aliens. For once, those stories were right. Her parents were fugitives from their home planet, became actors in Hollywood for some undisclosed reason, and made sure nothing off-world would disturb the Pride’s little slice of happiness in L.A. When her medical bracelet is removed, Karolina has the same powers of her parents, which include energy beams powered by the sun, quite psychedelic and photosynthetic skin, and the ability to fly. When they choose code-names, she goes with Lucy in the Sky.

Chase Stein

Chase was the dumb jock kid of extremely intelligent parents. The Steins were engineering geniuses, and created some of the most powerful weapons on the face of the Earth. Unfortunately for them, their idea of security for keeping these high tech and extremely destructive weapons away from their delinquent son was to assume he would always stay away from their workshed because he’d think it was boring. The sad thing is, if he hadn’t seen the sacrifice that night with the others then they would probably have been right. Chase is the man with the wheels and the oldest of the team, going with the codename Talkback when they were actually using them.

Molly Hayes

The youngest, being only 11 when the entire mess got started, Molly was the only daughter of two mutants with mental manipulation abilities. Her powers were a lot less mental. Molly is extremely strong, being able to lift almost everything and take a lot of damage. However since she’s so young, this tends to get her very sleepy. Her drowsy spells after using her abilities get shorter and shorter over time, so Molly will probably grow out of this eventually. She’s the most naive of the group, and is essentially everyone’s little sister. She’s the only one of the Runaways to ever make a costume for herself, but only wears it once. Chase tried to give her the codename Bruiser, but she prefers Princess Powerful herself.

Nico Minoru

The Minorus dabbled in the dark arts, and their arcane powers were passed along to Nico. When her mother tried to strike Nico with the Staff of One, it absorbed into her body and she gained ownership of the powerful magic tool. However it comes with a drawback tied to its name. She can only use a certain spell once. Also, to get it out of her body, she has to bleed. Sometimes this isn’t as much of a problem, but when your staff absorbs back into your body every few uses, getting it to come back out can be a pain. She’s close friends with Karolina, and is the same age as her and Alex. Her codename was Sister Grimm, but was the first to get tired with it.

More teens joined them as time went on, but these are the ones that stuck around for more than one storyline.

Victor Mancha

Victor’s parental identity is a spoiler, but lets just say Victor is the son of one of Earth’s greatest villains and would have taken very closely after his father. That is if Gert from the future hadn’t gone back in time to tell herself and her old friends to find him with her final breaths. Right now we don't know if that future will come true, but the timeline has definitely changed since he joined the group. His powers include magnetism and electricity manipulation.

Xavin

Xavin is a Super-Skrull trainee that has mastered all four powers of the Fantastic Four, just not at the same time. Karolina’s parents arranged for her to marry the shapechanger in order to settle a truce but didn’t exactly tell her of the deal. When on Earth, Xavin often lets his form change species and genders whenever she’s alone with the Runaways but eventually settles on the one Karolina finds most attractive as the default.

Klara Prast

A child-bride and Swiss immigrant from 1907, Klara is the same age as Molly and was taught that her powers were satanic and needed to be hidden at all times. She has manipulation over plant growth, especially roses, and is taking to modern culture just about as well as you could expect. She sort of looks like classic depictions of Red Riding Hood, but it may or may not be intentional.

So that's the team. I’ve given you all enough information to get you interested, but if you’re still on the fence, here are my top three reasons why I think you should give this series a shot.

3. It’s A Great Original Concept Done Well

Children making up for the sins of the parents isn’t exactly new, but I don’t think we’ve ever had an entire team formed on the basis on it. There are a lot of reactions and reasonable conclusions the team draws when they find out their heritage, and trying to compromise all of these viewpoints with a little under two decade’s worth of life experiences is pretty realistic. Even in just the first volume, you get to play around with the idea of older counterparts who have been there before, a potential member turning out to be evil, and the ever-so-popular traitor storyline in ways that completely make sense for teenagers in a stressful situations. In fact, this entire series is probably one of the most accurate depictions of teenagers in comic books. I’ve reacted in the same way of every single one of the original six team members on multiple occasions, and would catch myself in high school all the time switching between how the characters thought about the world. It’s really impressive if you think about it.

2. It’s a Superhero Team That Doesn’t Play To Tropes.

It’s a team that doesn’t have codenames outside of a few issues in the first volume, no special uniforms or costumes, no battle cry, and no desire to try to be something they’re not. The closest thing to a battle cry they’ve ever had was “Try not to die”. They have no illusions about what they’re doing, and know that they could be seriously injured or killed every time they get into a major fight. But they keep fighting because it’s what they feel they should do to make up for their parents mistakes. They’re not trying to be famous or join a well known team, or buckle to older superheroes if it compromises their mission. They’re just trying to do what’s right because they want to, even when chances come for them to return to normal lives. I think that’s more heroic than even some of the Avenger’s motives.

1. MOLLY-FREAKING-HAYES!

If you thought dealing with teens and puberty was scary before...

I might have glanced over this a little earlier, but I’ll say it again. SHE BEAT UP WOLVERINE. She’s the youngest, she’s the strongest team member, and she’s probably one of the strongest mutants left on the planet after the whole House of M storyline. She rides on Old Lace’s back like it’s a pony! She saves a group of child runaways from an evil wizard completely solo! When Molly’s powers were starting to show themselves, everyone thought it was another one of the “special changes” that happens to girls at that age. Well she was getting older all right, and strong enough to take on the Marvel Universe’s biggest bruisers. Punisher?

Check.

Wolverine?

One and Done.

The Hulk? Hasn’t been shown yet, but I’d pay to see that matchup any day of the week. She was only ranked behind three other superheroines in Marvel’s Toughest Female Characters rankings in 2008, losing out only to Rogue, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk.

Oh, and apparently in the future she’s a full fledged member of the X-Men.

Seriously, seeing her with Deadpool is enough to give my fangirl heart palpitations.

So if you’re looking for a self-contained series to check out, Runaways is available from Marvel in multiple styles of print and bound trades. Victor Mancha went on to be in Avengers A.I., and both Nico and Chase are part of the cast of Avengers Arena if you want to find out what happened to at least some of the characters after cancellation. I haven’t checked out what Victor has been up to, but Chase and Nico were the entire reason I picked up the trades of Avengers Arena.  Mostly to find out if they live.

When members of your favorite team get put into something that's a direct homage to BATTLE ROYALE, you have a right to be as worried as you want.

This comic series I’ve found is seriously underrated by the fans, and virtually unknown to the general population. I think it would make a great movie or TV show as well, and I’d do anything to see how the story was supposed to end. Maybe Joss Whedon could help? It’s not like he hasn’t done work with the series before.

If you’re interested, check it out! Help me make the Runaways a little more well known, and hopefully we’ll get more of the characters soon. You never know what will be the next big hit for Marvel’s multimedia universe, and a female dominated team could do really well and fill a need. And hopefully next time I mention the team, I won't get a comic book shop full of blank looks.

Feel free to leave a comment or email me at activelynerdy@gmail.com with any recommendations, questions, comments, or feel free to leave a comment below!

Sorry Guys, no post this week.

Actively Ren is actively ill this week. To help hold you over, here's a sketch of a T-Rex trying to eat a burger. I'll be back next week, hopefully a lot less sick.

History Of The Ice Bucket Challenge

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month or so, you’ve seen what the Ice Bucket Challenge is. Or at least, you know that it’s a big thing. For those of you who somehow don’t know what’s going on, here’s the basic gist.

Pretty simple right? Donate $10 to the ALSA and dump a bucket of ice water on your head, or donate $100. For those in the UK who don’t exactly have an easy time doing currency conversions, most donate to the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA). Of course, you can always donate more and a lot of people have, but that’s just the standard rules. But where did the challenge originate?

When it comes specifically to ALS, we can take it back to Chris Kennedy. Kennedy challenged his cousin-in-law, whose husband has the disease, who then challenged more people. Eventually Pat Quinn, an athlete who was diagnosed with the disease, got the challenge as well. When it got to Quinn, he put it on his Facebook page, which started a trend. So the veritable flood of videos on your Facebook wall can be directly traced back to a minor-league professional golfer and his cousin.

His Ice Bucket Challenge wasn’t the first Ice Bucket however. That honor goes to another athlete, motocross racer Jeff Northrop three weeks before Kennedy turned it to ALS. Northrop was fundraising for his nephew, who also has medical problems. But even he might not have been the first. Around the same time, Arizona basketball coach Niya Butts is credited for starting another ice bucket trend for cancer research in the women’s basketball community. Both happened around mid-June, but the dates of when both were first performed compared to when they were reported are a bit difficult to determine. The basketball trend got its own hashtag, known as #Chillin4Charity.

So being doused in ice water seems to be a bit of a trend in raising awareness this year. But it also extends even farther back, like 2013’s Cold Water Challenges for different diseases and conditions.

Or we could go even farther back. Do you know how old the Polar Bear Plunge is? People have been dousing themselves in cold water for centuries, but if we’re just going to look at once specific one bringing awareness to a charity or to honor someone, lets go with the oldest. Boston’s annual Plunge has been going on since at least 1904, and that’s just the earliest date we have written confirmation of.

TRADITION!

There has been a lot of criticism of the challenge, of course. A lot of it is valid. Especially when you’re watching people in California dump buckets of water on their heads in a drought. Although I’d like to think there are some simple ways around that particular one. Using less water than one of the giant paint drums is one of them.I had a friend who got challenged who used a little watering can for her porch plants in an effort to conserve water. And that’s totally fine and valid. You don’t have to dump a gigantic tub of water over your head. Just do what you can, and help spread awareness.

Maybe you have an issue with the particular type of experimentation process the ALSA is using. That’s totally reasonable too. Just say in particular where you’re going to be donating and say it’s still for ALS, and understand if people don’t agree with your opinions and beliefs. There’s plenty of organizations that are working towards treatments that could use the support. The ALSA just happens to be the big one.

The Ice Bucket Challenge doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Maybe after a while it won’t be specifically for ALS, but getting freezing water poured over yourself and recording it does get people’s attention in a big way. If even half of the people who have seen a challenge video looked up what ALS is afterwards, that’s millions of people who now know what the disease is and how it affects people. If everyone who has made a video donated something, that is a lot of money for research. And think of the people who were challenged and didn’t do the ice part of it! Even if half of the challenges weren’t answered there is still a lot of money going to a good cause. I know my three challenges went for the money route, and I donated $25, so that’s $325 right there from four people who know more about ALS than they did when the challenges started.

The challenge has hit Celebrities….

Entrepreneurs….

Professional Athletes….

Musicians….

Universities….

High Schools….

Everyday People….

It’s even hit Actively Nerdy….

And even if you don’t pour water on your head…

It’s helping bring awareness. Just be safe about it.

To find out more about ALS, visit ALSA.org. You can even find out the official rules on the site, and many different resources if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. And just know, you’re not alone. It might be difficult, but people have led long, fulfilling lives with ALS.

Just look at Stephen Hawking.

Paper Mario Part 2

Hey everyone! We had a bit of difficulties with internet in the Actively Nerdy house lately, and some family duties crept up on me, so only one Lets Play got finished this week. I forgot to say this last week, but if there's something major that comes up in the week in the news that I'm going to write about, I'm going to do special postings of the videos later in the week with their own announcements. Now that I'm starting to get the hang of video editing there will be more than one video per post. Except this week. Duty calls and all that.

So lets get back to it! Sorry in advanced for my horrible deep-voices.

Lets Play Paper Mario! Part 1

Thank You Robin Williams

If you or a loved one are suffering from depression, please visit the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance for more information. 

http://www.dbsalliance.org

I Saw A Film Today - 2

So there was a new movie that came out over the weekend. Nothing too big or important, not sure if it's going to get a lot of buzz. I mean, not many people know the property it was based off of, so I can take it easy with this one, right?

And if you believed that, I need to get a sarcasm button installed. Hello Guardians of the Galaxy, welcome to the Marvel Movie party.

Basic premise time: A group of noble outlaws flies through the galaxy, taking jobs and sometimes fighting against evil forces all while trying to make sure they keep flying.

Sounds a bit familiar, but FOX can't cancel this one.

Obligatory reference comparison!

Okay, probably not a completely fair comparison, but if you liked Firefly you'll probably be a fan of this movie. And if you've paid any attention at all to the inter-movie continuity throughout the movies leading up to Thanos, the villain will make complete sense.

I went to the screening with comic book fans, but I was the only Marvel fangirl in my particular group of four. Here's basically how the conversation went after we got out of the theater:

Emily: *incoherent screams of joy or confusion*

Robyn:  "I'm so getting this movie when it comes out times a billion. And dancing."

Josh: "Legitimately relaxing, and I could enjoy it without having to figure out what was going to happen next."

Me: ".....I know someone who dances like baby Groot."

You know who you are.

Overall, we all liked it! This was how the Guardians came together, and gave the basic origin stories of the group and how they got started. Unfortunately we did not get to see the pure extent of Rocket Raccoon's mechanical nohow. Or his guns. And rockets. And guns on rockets. 

Always in moderation, of course.

Of course, this won't be the last time we see the Guardians, so there's always room for a larger arsenal. Bradley Cooper did a good job bringing all of the sass and attitude of the foulmouthed raccoon, and I can't wait to see him in the Marvel Universe again. Peter "Star Lord" Quill was excellent, and Chris Pratt played him amazingly. All of the references to the 80's before Quill was abducted landed well, and he had all the confidence that was needed to play what essentially is a cross between Captain Kirk and Malcolm Reynolds.

Drax and Gamora played off each other very well, and I loved the performances. Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista were very good, and helped to ground the more comical characters in reality. Vin Diesel, if he did any of the motion casting, deserves a lot of credit. Either way, he played those four words very well in different ways. Extra props to the former Doctor's Companion Karen Gillan, who played Gamora's sister Nebula. Really can't wait to see her in the next movie with Thanos. 

Love the dedication

Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely worth seeing, and one of the funniest romps I've had in a while. The actors were amazing, the soundtrack was actually relevant to the plot and wonderful. If you get the chance to see it, do it.

And after you see it, now you'll know why I have to re-watch Footloose.

Actively Nerdy On the Town: 16-Bit Bar+Arcade

You know those ruts you get when all you do is follow the same weekly routine? No matter how fun it can be, sometimes you just need a change. Well I was in one of those ruts all last week. Wake up, write, chores, nap, eat, more writing, Facebook, more eating, sleep. But Thursday, an important anniversary guaranteed that keeping to the same routine would just drive me mad or make me depressed in a hurry. I needed a bit of a change.

So when my friend Emily of the Relatively Geeky Network invited me out for some fun, I jumped on the opportunity. And what can be more fun than a good friend, good drinks, and old school arcade machines?

Welcome to 16-Bit Bar+Arcade, where the drinks are theme, the machines are (mostly) free, and where an acceptable first line is asking what your first gaming console was.

You get carded at the door, because this is a purely 21 and up bar. Sorry 18 and ups, there’s no exceptions. The house rules are that if you buy a drink, you can play any of the arcade games for free. The only exception to this are the pinball machines which are the classic quarter buy-in. It might take a bit to find out how to work the machines, but just look for the glowing white button on the console.

There’s all sorts of games to fit your fancy, from classic Pac-Man or one of the Pac Family, to Donkey Kong, to Time Crisis II and other shooters. They even had a Punch Out machine that was way more punishing than I remember it being. I mostly kept myself to the fighter consoles and quickly realized I had been spoiled by the home versions of fighter games. I would’ve lost more dollars than I care to admit trying to beat the first level of Street Fighter 2.

Where allowances go to die

I mentioned earlier that the drinks were theme. Well, technically the entire bar is focused on the late 80s, early 90s when arcade systems were still one of the most awesome things around. And their cocktail menu reflects that. All of the drinks are named after famous people of that time period, even if they’re not famous now. Neither of us knew who Tawny Kitaen was, but her drink tasted good. My personal favorite was the Alyssa Milano, and I’m very sad to report that I was making “Charmed” puns every time I saw the name. Those were the New Wave cocktails, and all the Old School drinks were named after male stars, like John Stamos and Burt Reynolds. 

Apparently she was the girl on the car in the White Snake music video.

For those of you who aren’t cocktail fans like me, they’ve got a very wide selection of craft beers and domestics, with the highest price you’ll see being $6. They also boast a large selection of bourbon, and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon are always $2. Of course it is still a full bar, so you can get anything you want. Just be sure to ask for a price!

There’s seating outside and tables inside, but most of the space is taken up by people playing with the consoles. It’s a very relaxed place, and I personally loved the laid-back atmosphere. Be sure to check out the event schedule for their specials though. We were really lucky we went on Thursday, because all of the New Wave cocktails were $2 off.

So would we go there again? That would be a huge yes for me. I’m a gamer, I love the challenge of the old arcade systems, and the drinks are delicious. This was just what I needed to relax, and it was out of the way of the normal bar streets near the Arena District. For Emily? Not as much. The drinks were good and the atmosphere was good, but Em’s not really into arcade games like I am. Might not be our joint go-to place, but I’ll be taking more people there when I get the chance.

You can find 16-Bit, Ohio’s first barcade on 254 South Fourth Street Columbus, OH 43215. For a full drink menu and more information, their website is http://16-bitbar.com/ They're planning on opening up a location in Cleveland in August, so if you're in the area be sure to check it out!

Do you guys have a place like this in your city? Tell me about it! Email me at activelynerdy@gmail.com and if I end up in the area, I’ll check it out.

Also, don’t forget it’s almost Actively Nerdy’s third month online! Email me with any questions you want to ask me for the Q&A video at the same address, or find some way to contact me!