Finding the Best Fantasy RPG for You

It’s official. I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs for almost 7 years. And in that time, I’ve played a lot of different games. Classic D&D, Pathfinder, GURPS, World of Darkness, all the big names. I’ve even LARPed (more on that some other day). I’ve been both a player and a Game Master, and in a variety of genres. So you could say I’ve been around the block.

If there’s one trait that I’m proud of, it’s figuring out what type of fantasy RPG would be best for each person. I have a pretty good success rate of matching a game with a player, almost like the nerdiest matchmaker of all time.

With Slightly Less Sass. Slightly.

I bet I can find anyone’s match, just based on a few interests. All I need is a favorite book, a favorite movie, a favorite genre of one of those two categories, and your favorite hobby (that isn’t tabletop).

But first, some background.

Tabletop RPGs evolved from traditional miniature wargames when Gary Gygax brought in the concept of an individual hero instead of a grand standing army. Bringing on Dave Arneson, it eventually evolved into the first Dungeons and Dragons. There’s a lot more to the history, but for our purposes that’s all we need to know. All other games spawned from this original concept of “player as hero”, and evolved into the gaming landscape we see today from tabletop into digital with video games.

Most RPGs use character sheets, which are not nearly as scary as they look. 

It's not complicated, I swear!

There are many ways to play and improve your character with experience, and each game has their own system. Some players let their character grow organically with the story, while others plan out their end goal of where they want their characters to end up power-wise and work single-mindedly towards that. There are also min-maxers, who sacrifice some skills to be legendary in others, or people who create their character completely by random chance and work forward from there . I’m personally an organic grower, but to each their own.

Dice are a mainstay of Tabletop RPGs, even if some are used less than others. It all depends on the system you use. Some are purely played with six sided dice, or D6, while others involve many types of dice. D20 games are all based off of having a complete set of the different sizes of dice, while D10 systems usually only use D10 dice. There are some special types of D6 that only have 3 symbols on them, but you can just use the normal dice if you want. Some systems use D4 and D8. Virtually none of them use the D12 for more than a few niche cases, unless you find some way to house-rule them in like we did.

Poor d12, some day you will find someone that loves you.

If you like, you can use battle maps and figures, but it’s not necessary. All that’s really needed is a creative mind with a knack for puzzle solving, some dice, a character sheet, and at least one person with access to the books you’re using and you can play. That and any snacks you need, and you can play an entire weekend away without even noticing how fast the time is going by.

So now that we’ve got that out of the way, what RPG should you play?

The Easy Ones

Dresden Files RPG

Game of Thrones RPG

The Adventures of Indiana Jones RPG

Babylon 5 RPG

Or any other RPG based off of a very specific property.

Even the obvious ones.

If you’re a fan of the property, you’ll probably like the RPG. The upside is that you get to play in a world you love and you already know a lot of the lore. Minus side, it’s hard to find enough people to play, and certain purists won’t appreciate anything going away from canon. Proceed at your own risk, but if you find a bunch of fans you’ll probably have fun. The easiest of these might be the Game of Thrones RPG, because there’s just so many fans. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica are two other games worth mentioning in this genre.

For Eclectic Tastes

GURPS

You can literally make anything in this system. Absolutely anything. This is a D6 system, so it would be the easiest dice to get a hold of on short notice as well. Anything made under the Steve Jackson Games label can be merged with the system, and there are so many splash books for different types of adventures you could spend your entire gaming career playing it.

Plus side: A lot of versatility. Easy to get D6s. Relatively easy system.

Minus side: It is very, very hard to find GURPS players. You usually have to convert some of your friends into playing it, and even then it can be difficult.

A Good Alternative:

D20 Modern

Made by the same company that makes D&D, it uses their standard system to bring a modern setting and modern elements to the table. With no defined classes, but many personality types, this game is more customizable, but also has less flavor than its famous predecessor.

For Epic Fantasy Loving Gamers

These are the gamers who love Tolkien, have probably read the Silmarillion, and whose favorite movies and books reflect this. People who were mad over changes to the Mountain song. Know who R. A. Salvatore is and have very strong opinions about him.

OR: You’ve seen The Gamers. Very good choice.

Dungeons and Dragons.

Of course this had to be on here. The one that started it all, and my first RPG love. With 5 different editions to try, you’re almost guaranteed to find someone to play with you. I’m a personal fan of the revised third edition, or 3.5. But if you’re new, I know the 4th edition is good for newer players and game masters. It feels a bit too much like WoW and too little like the D&D I started out with, but that’s just a personal choice.

Pros: A lot of worlds, a lot of version options, and a lot of people who will play with you. Created the standard D20 system, which is still popular.

Cons: Depending on the edition, it can be very intimidating to get into. Could be either too easy or too difficult depending on how much you’ve played and which edition you’re starting in. Beware of the flame wars from fanboys.

A good alternative: Pathfinder

It’s nickname was 3.6 for a reason. Great game, good balance, getting to be just as popular as the game it was based off of.

For Modern Supernatural Fantasy Lovers

You love the ideas of creatures that go bump in the night, but like modern conveniences. Anything from the 1920s through today easily apply. You love classic monster movies, have a soft spot for Lovecraft, and more than likely hated Twilight with an ungodly passion. You like a world that is darker than we have today.

If you want to play the “Villain”

World of Darkness

Oooh boy where do I start with this one? If you thought D&D had variety, step back and watch a master. While not as varied as GURPS, it is by far more popular and has one of the most robust and lasting LARP communities in the entire genre of gaming. This system stresses the story over the mechanics, and is easy for Storytellers and Players alike to learn. Spanning from everything as mundane as a normal human to outlandish as a demonic entity comprised of multiple sewn-together corpses, this game lets you get in touch with your dark side.

Pros: Easy system to learn, hard to master. Still very popular. Only uses one type of die, a D10.

Cons: D10s are not cheap. Balancing the different systems together can be a nightmare that would make any Malkavian look sane.

Want to be a “Hero”?

Call of Cthulhu

You know something is wrong. But if you look directly at it, you’ll go insane. Investigate the truth that everyone else is blind to and save the world. Set in the lush world of H.P. Lovecraft, look deeply into the eyes of the void and try to come back in one piece.

Pros: Like WoD, only uses D20s. Very lush environment that you can tailor down to even your hometown. Can be extremely personalized.

Cons: System can be confusing, especially for new players. Does like to rely on handouts.  A printer for props is really important here.

For Comic Book Lovers:

You’ve seen every Marvel and DC movie, and have opinions about the accuracy of them all. You have a favorite Joker actor, both live action and voiced. You have a favorite super-team, and a favorite obscure hero that nobody knows about but totally should. You know that Squirrel Girl is a freaking tank of a girl.

The DC or Marvel RPGS

Not really much to say about these. Want to fight alongside your favorite heroes, or even as one? There’s a game for that.

Pros: Easily recognizable characters, world, and themes. You could probably get a game of fans together.

Cons: Not as many players, and the systems can be difficult to master.

For SciFi Lovers

The Star Trek and Star Wars fight is still relevant to you. You like cyberpunk and imagine being a master hacker when you’re bored. Ghost in the Shell brings back fond memories, and you are a fan of Anonymous. You might be a part of it. Technically. If anyone really is.

Shadowrun

The cyberpunk game that is still kicking today. The government is corrupt, and your team is ready to take them on. Whether it’s controlling your little section of the underworld, or taking down The Man from within, you’ve got a lot of options.

Pros:  A lot of options for specialties and enough room to develop some very interesting tactics.

Cons: If you’re a Jacker, you’re pretty much useless unless you’re in a certain little section.

For Fans of Action Movies and Michael Bay

Your big goal is to do the stunts in the Matrix. You don’t care how you do it, but you want to be able to run down a building shooting at badguys before kicking off and landing on a balcony across the street. You would kill to be in one of the Tarantino action scenes. As long as it goes boom, you don’t really care what happens.

Feng Shui

This game is literally putting yourself in as the protagonist to an action movie. However over the top you want to make it, you can do it. Based in Hong Kong action flics, you can tell the creators loved the genre.

Pros: Fast Paced, easy to learn

Cons: Hard to play an entire campaign of this. Hard to keep the energy up to max without some down time.

Unfortunately I’m not as familiar with war fantasies, so I can’t really recommend any of those in good conscious. But if any of these sound interesting, feel free to check them out! Maybe we’ll game together some time. Even if we don’t, I want to know what your favorite RPG story or feeling.

What’s mine? Too many to count. But if I had to choose, it’s a pretty strong tie between an out-of-game feeling and an in-character feeling. I love completely losing myself in a character for a while and love it when I remember all of the great interactions after I come out of it.

That, and finding a complete matching set of dice in the random die box at a gaming shop. There is nothing more satisfying than that.

Like this, but huge

Don’t be afraid to try a bunch of different types of games. I can safely say I’ve played  every game I listed with the few exceptions of some of the specific license titles. I’ve had to sleep sometime. There’s no telling what your niche will be, but if I could help even one person get started, I’ll be very happy.

May all your dice roll high, and a happy gaming experience to all!

Comic Characters You Should Know #1

One thing I love about my job is the down time I can get, and that nobody minds when I bring a book or my Kindle so I can read over lunch or when the janitor needs to go through with the vacuum. It means I can finally go through the backlog of some of my favorite character’s comic books. I’m completely caught up on New 52 Batgirl, Pre and Post 52 Harley Quinn, and New 52 Suicide Squad. Basically if it’s a character created in the 90s or later I’ll go through every bit of it, while Batgirl might be a bit too large of a project even for my completionist personality. But one of the things I’ve learned while going through all of the backlogs basically boil down into one thought.

“So many of these awesome characters, my absolute favorites in these titles, NOBODY knows about.”

So lets fix that, shall we? Consider this something I’ll come back to now and again. Here’s a Comic Book Character that you SHOULD know about.

With these, I’m only counting recurring characters that lasted at least two story arcs. Or one-off villains who died at the end of their arc, because while they aren’t coming back, they’re some of my favorite storylines. I might make exceptions for characters or villains that people never really seem to know about as well. If you’re wondering how I’ll test that last one, it’s pretty simple. I ask 3 friends of mine who read comics what they know about a character. If the answer is "not much at all" for two of three, I can write about it.

I’ll be playing with the format, but for now, here we go.

THE SERIES: Deadpool

The Character You Know:

Deadpool. What can be said about Deadpool that hasn’t already been said? He’s the Internet’s Darling Boy, The Merc with The Mouth, mainstay at conventions, the birth of a thousand internet memes, not crap-tier for Marvel Vs Capcom, and not nearly as weird an origin as his cinematic appearance in Wolverine Origins (I’m hopefully optimistic for 2016, as a note). This super-merc with the healing factor of Wolverine is a fan-favorite, even by those who haven’t read his surprisingly dark backstory and emotionally complex original release.

Created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld in 1991, the original run of his solo comic began in 1997 and lasted 69 issues before the X-Men related multi-series revamp occurred. Deadpool was involved because of his origins and a long-standing love interest subplot with Siryn (now Banshee), so his book was revamped as well. I’ve read every issue of the original run, and I have nothing but good things to say about the characters and the series. Those of you who know of my feelings towards Liefeld might be surprised that I have nothing bad to say whatsoever about the art or design from his very first incarnation in The New Mutants #98.

Writer Joe Kelly helmed the original run, and set the baseline for Deadpool’s eventual rise in popularity. While he evolved over time, Deadpool always had a complex relationship with morality and self-preservation. And if there’s one thing I’m eternally thankful to Kelly for, it’s for creating the person who could not only keep up with Deadpool mentally, but serve as his moral center and someone to beat some sense into the nigh-immortal mercenary and get him back on track to do what he needed to do.

Yes, even Deadpool has someone who can whip him into shape. Well, some semblance of in shape at least.

The Character you SHOULD Know.

Blind Albert

Yes, a blind old woman who was his “prisoner”/roommate. I’m not kidding. She is one of the most amazing characters I’ve ever followed.

Appearing in Deadpool #1-25, Blind Al has many names. Althea, Al, Crazy Old Coot, things like that. One thing’s for sure, the “blind” part of Blind Albert is not just part of her name. She really is completely blind. Deadpool once got her a seeing-eye dog as a goof, and she wasn’t too happy having a “mutt” around for the longest time. Until issue 17, she wasn’t allowed outside of the Deadhut and she memorized every part of the house. Unless Wade spun her around. Which was often.

Her favorite revenge for that usually involved Ex-Lax brownies. Not usually bullets. Usually.

Al is ??? years old. Yeah. Nobody really knows how old she really is, and it seems to keep changing. One issue she said she was sexagenarian. A later issue she said she never went flapper because she thought it made her butt look big, putting her in her teens around the 1920s. Another character thought she was a septuagenarian. How old is she? We have no idea. Some have speculated that she was “Golden Girl”, aka Betsy Ross, but that was never considered canon and has been discredited. Kelly himself intended her to be a Black Widow, as in the orignal Black Widow, but that was scrapped as well. The only thing we absolutely know for sure that can help pinpoint her age is that she had a relationship with Captain America back in the day. That’s right, Captain America and Blind Al were sweethearts during the war.

Al usually treated Wade like a misbehaving child, which in all honesty, was a pretty accurate response for most situations. However Wade did have his dark side, and “The Box” was the representation of that. One thing that was easy to forget was that they weren’t just roommates, but a prisoner/captor situation that made it impossible for Al to leave the house or accept visitors. Wade completely snapped one day, and threw her into the room along with her visitor, another amazing side character named Weasel in issue 14.. Wade always had great guilt for his actions, and trust me, Al got revenge on him for that eventually through passive aggressive tactics that eventually broke Wade down. At the end of that arc she was technically free to leave, but chose to stay because she had what I can only describe as a weird mix of maternal instinct and a heaping dose of Stockholm syndrome. She eventually did leave after issue 25, and became a more sporadic support character.

They had a special relationship

We don’t know much about Al’s past either, but we do know that she was in British Intelligence. Not much about what she did is actually known, but she first met Deadpool in Zambia where she was stationed. Well, it was less “meeting” Deadpool than “being his target”, but everyone else but her died and she escaped, only to get captured by him years later. Their weird relationship was one of the things that kept me hooked on the series.

For all the pranks Deadpool pulled on Al, she always got back at him. Once she even sabotaged all of his weapons before a job because he pointed her in the direction of the basement stairs after being spun around, and after the “Box” incident she used the silent-treatment on top of ultra-servile behaviors to guilt trip him so badly he was begging for forgiveness. She even ironed his underoos. But even when he was at his worst, there was still some affection for the merc.

While her major appearances lasted only 2 years, she still comes back occasionally. And anyone who gets an invitation to Deadpool’s wedding has to be really special to him. Even if he’s crap at Braille. And sent her to a mob funeral instead by accident.

She’s pretty special to me too.

Deadpool is property of Marvel Comics, and by extension Disney. I can’t wait to see the next movie with Deadpool in it, and even though I doubt they’ll include Blind Al, I hope for its success.

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!