Tag: X-Men

Discovering the greatness of the Golden Age of American comic books

With Great Power There Must Also Come Great Responsibility. It is one of the most famous quotes in all of comic book fandom. Almost as iconic as the famous “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane” line about a certain Kryptonian made out of steel.

I am one of those people who has had an overwhelming passion for comic books my entire life. Unfortunately my limited funds have been divided between comics, DVD’s, video games and computers. Thus, I have had spurts where my collection would grow exponentially then decline as I moved around the country.

Now with a combination of digital comic subscriptions, an increase in funding due to a rise in employment status and the obvious additional free time caused by a certain health crisis.

I signed up for all three digital comic services; Comixology Unlimited, DC Universe and Marvel Unlimited, I have had a great time digging into the Golden Age of Comics.

I decided to start with the earliest days and work my way through the modern stuff. I am still reading current issues too but I have a different reading plan for those. That being said let me share my observations are based on my experience with the apps.

First thing I realized is contrary to my previously held belief, Marvel comics does not in fact have superior characters and stories than DC. In fact the more I find myself reading the early DC stuff, even those characters I had previously despised, I have realized that DC actually does have far superior storytelling than I ever believed. Now I have also learned that my belief Marvel was my favorite was based on a limited sample. You see I always loved the X-Men above all else. I also fully enjoy Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, but my absolute favorite comic character has always been Batman. I figured this balanced things out as Marvel had more that I liked but the quality of Batman alone was great enough on its own to balance things out.

Once I realized that I never went beyond those three fringe comic’s I realized that the remainder of Marvel, as I explored its library, didn’t interest me nearly as much as I thought. I can’t stand the Avengers, Iron Man, Thor or Captain American in their comic forms. In fact I quickly discovered that aside from the big three I named above, I found it increasingly difficult to find a Marvel character I did care about. I realized I am basically an X-Fan who also enjoys FF from time to time. Spider-man is a side character and the rest are nothing to me.

Things became further lopsided once I realized I actually found myself enjoying more of the DC characters and stories than I had Marvel. At first I thought I would hate Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the like. Now to be fair I did read The Flash and Martian Manhunter as a kid so I had some previous attachment to those characters yet I was still limited in my knowledge of their lore and thus never fully appreciated them.

I could say the Arrowverse played a role in igniting my curiosity which sparked into full on appreciation for the DC characters, but I must admit I’ve always found batman most enjoyable and have had a strange on again, off again interest in Superman. No, what really settle it was diving into the Golden Age of Comics via those digital comic apps. Reading those early Action Comics showed me that while my assertion that Superman did in fact spend most of his time doing boring, things like helping grandmas across the street, rescuing cats or, to my shock, rigging a high school football game! But, I discovered that the actual appeal was in the reality you have this character with all these amazing powers who spends his time helping out ordinary humans doing ordinary things. In other words, the stories were so well-written it didn’t matter he was only doing extraordinary things to solve ordinary problems, it was the fact he had super powers and yet he used them for good was the whole point.

By the time I branched out into exploring the remainder of the DC Golden Age far, at least that which is currently available on DCU, I learned they truly do have a knack for story telling. I am not saying Marvel lacks this, rather I am merely saying that once I discovered the true history of the DC universe I realized there was more to like than I had thought.

Now getting into Detective Comics was where I found the good stuff. I am not like most Batman fans, I love the character thoroughly in all of his forms over the years. Yes I even enjoy the movies fans are programmed to hate. In fact Batman Forever is my personal favorite and in my opinion actually the best Batman movie to date. While some will argue it’s camp gets in the way of its darker, allegedly grittier successors, I contend Batman  has never been fully dark nor fully camp, rather a fair combination of the two, on a spectrum that pushes and pulls the character back and forth between the two extremes in a perfectly balanced way that provides long time fans with the joy of constantly rediscovering the character. What really did it for me was flipping through those old Batman comics and Detective Comics from the 1940’s and feeling like a kid again. The magical wonder of the character returned to my world to remind me life is short and it’s absolutely worth finding the things that make you happy and allowing your self to be just that, happy. I was having fun reading his books and that’s what it’s all about.

I am not saying the Golden Age is superior to other ages. I am also not dismissing it as simplistic and primitive, nay childish even as some fans of today might try to argue, rather I am saying, with a firm assertiveness, the Golden Age is the most fantastically amazing series of stupendously exotic comic book joyousness that is essentially awesome in its  grandiose story telling and extraordinary art work. Or all those fun comic adjectives comic book editors are so known for using to arrogantly describe their own work. Needless to say the wonder of the Golden Age has restored my faith in comics while reigniting my passion for a form of story telling I was once madly in love with. Now that our affair has rekindled I most assuredly will remain fully committed to my love all the remaining days of my life.

 

Favorite Strong Female Comics Characters

I was about 12 years old when I really began getting into comic books and comic book culture. It was around this time I started reading Wizard magazine and other comic related publications. I can’t remember the name of all of the different magazines, back in the 90s there was more than one magazine floating around on any given topic.

During the transition phase of going from a child to adolescent I began to notice my interests were changing. It’s only natural at this stage in life. One area I became more interested in is discovering the artistic expressions, in comic books and other media, of the female form. I struggled as a Christian with the balance between being able to appreciate a woman for her beauty without over sexualizing her in the process. I will say it was a battle I sometimes lost due to the nature of being bound to a fleshly body. That being said I often did let my eyes decide which female characters in the comic medium to investigate whether it be based on a costume, the way she presented her self or something else. I also grew up the only male child in a house full of females. It was a unique experience to say the least.

This is a list of some of my favorite strong female comics characters.

Early on my favorite female comic book characters began to take on a certain theme. They were the types of women, like myself in many respects, that didn’t fit into the typical roles. Often they were a super hero with a power that set them apart or they were a character with some sort of personality disorder. It never failed, despite the physical attractiveness one might find as drawing to a character, the traits of independence and being powerful figures in their respective story lines were most often what determine which characters I was drawn to. This was not always the case with male characters, so I can now take a look back and analyze this more.

My first love when it comes to comic book characters is the goddess Dawn from the Cry for Dawn comics and later other mini series. It original attraction was her depiction the artist drew her in the comics as well as the magazines. She was always looking at the reader in a way that suggested she was self aware of her comic book existence. Truth be told the character herself was rarely used in the stories of the books I managed to read. In fact, she was hardly even a narrator for all intents and purposes. Still, the image of a seductive but powerful female demon type was a character I found myself drawn to.

If I were to go so far as to admit to having had a crush on any single comic book character as depicted it would be Marvel Girl, aka Jean Grey. More specifically her Original Team interpretation and her later post-Phoenix Saga rebirth. I was always drawn to Jean for a number of reasons. Primarily she was by far the most powerful of the X-Men. She was romantically attached to my favorite of the X-Men male characters, that being her lover Cyclops aka Scott Summers. I even picked up the Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini series due to my appreciation for those characters. Not to mention the wedding issue I cherished for a many number of years. I was also kind of a trading card collector so I made the mistake of cutting out the 3 cards inserted into the middle of the issue, a regret I maintain to this day especially after I purchased for mere dollars a complete set of the series those cards were from. Jean became even more of a character I admired once her movie adaptation breathed a new life into the character. I didn’t care for every story line they put her in, but I was more than happy just seeing my favorite of the female X-Men sticking around.

Then there was Rogue. She was definitely the character I was not letting my eyes trick me into discovering. Her character was, shall I saw, not depicted in a manner I found even slightly attractive. I felt she was too muscular and her stripped hair, frizzy hair was a turn off. I don’t mean to completely let the characters physical appearance determine my interest, I was a pre-teen boy raised in a sex-obsessed culture after all cut me some slack. However I became intrigued with the Rogue character more and more over time. I began to realize the complexity of her character was a major draw to the stories she was involved in. I didn’t care for every aspect of her personality, or her falling for that slick Cajun card hustler, but I was still able to really find myself strongly interested in the fact she was raised a super villain who turned hero and had such a tragic story tying her to everything. She was a lot more interesting as a person than Jean.

Next up is Kitty Pride also known as Shadow Cat. She was a character I was originally adverse to. She was young and annoying. Not unlike Rogue herself but I was introduced to the 90s adult Rogue and an early 80s annoying teenager Shadow Cat. Still what drew me to the character more than anything was her struggle with fitting in. The whole purpose of the X-Men is finding a place for misfits to find their place in society. Being a mistfit among freaks is even more difficult to deal with. Shadow Cat never really grew into a main stream character but I eventually developed a fondness for her and began looking into her other books. My favorite was the Wolverine and Kitty Pride mini series.

For reasons I don’t have time to dig into, I eventually branched out and began discovering other female characters in comic books I found appealing for some reason or another. As someone raised in the male world of men are strong women are not but the changing perceptions of the 90s to today, I had to cope with a lot of breaking the rules and allowing myself to like characters I wasn’t supposed to. Of course in the Batman universe it was Harley Quinn that caught my eye. This time it wasn’t her appearance so much as her costume but even more so, her obsession with Joker. Like most Batman fans the Joker is naturally one of my favorite characters. It is no surprise I would begin to develop an interest in a character who struggled with her desire to love the crazy clown, while also exploring other possibilities of self fulfillment. In the end her character became larger than life in many respects but I still enjoy reading a good HQ centered story from time to time.

Everyone has their guilty pleasure character. That one character you know you shouldn’t admire but you can’t help but worship in some way for reasons beyond critical thinking. In terms of comic characters for me it was Wendy from the Casper series. I didn’t read many Casper comics and truth be told he was pretty far down my list.When I did however I preferred the ones with his little witch friend.

I always had a sort of fondness for Wendy despite knowing better. I can’t quite explain it but something about her always made me drawn to the stories she was in. I suppose there is a part of me, as an over protective big brother, who saw a resemblance to her in some respects to my baby sister. Still, I shrug that off as only a surface level explanation for why I would be drawn to that character.

Although it was far from sexual, I did have a strong affinity for Batgirl as my other DC female I admired fondly. Why? Because much like the awesome Batman himself, Batgirl kicked ass and was a fantastic detective. Unlike the annoyingly cheesy Boy Wonder, I always wished Batman and Batgirl would become a permanent team replacing the sparrow-inspired lame duck with a superior character that made a whole lot more sense.

If there was a character I was drawn to for, shall we say carnal reasons, it would most certainly be White Queen from the X-Men. Of course, well for very obvious reasons she was drawn in such a way to make her seductive. She also was the anti-Jean having largely the same powers but was far more flexible in her morals, if you could argue she even hard morals. It didn’t help any when they cast a woman actress who portrayed one of my favorite characters in the highly sexualized drama Mad Men to portray her in the X-Men film franchise. Needless to say they were spot on in that regards. As far as her character as a person, this is probably the one I can say I know the least about as a person, going back to that maleness in me that didn’t even bother taking the time to get to know her more. Oh well, everyone has their fling. She was not my true love however.

In terms of comic characters the one I would give my heart to, if she were real, is none other than the beloved story book character Alice from the Alice in Wonderland series. I have been drawn to so many comic book interpretations of Alice I can honestly say as a sales gimmick the best way to get my hard earned dollars is to make some variation of the character in comic book form I have yet to experience and chances are I will be there.

The last character I want to briefly discuss is going to be controversial to some. She is the heart and soul of the Scooby Doo franchise and the one female character I think really pulls the entire show together. Of course I am referring to the great Daphne. I know there are weirdo’s out there who like the glasses wearing geeky Velma. Not me, she was just annoying. I don’t pick Daphne based purely on looks however. I always felt she was a far more important character than she is often remembered. Sure she is usually the damsel in distress but what’s wrong with that? So is Princess Toadstool and she has been quite the success in the video game arena. Okay sure there is the whole stereotype argument but what can I saw, I don’t let that ruin a perfectly good character for me. I love Scooby Doo as a franchise. I certainly believe the entire team brings their own skills to the table, Daphne is still the one who ties the group together. She is, to use the cliche, the glue. It also didn’t hurt any she was the one carried over into the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo when that annoying nerd got booted off the show. To top it all off the highly admirable Sarah Michelle Geller, who portray the very popular Buffy, was selected to bring Daphne to life for the live action film, of which I am one of the rare fans.

This is far from a comprehensive list of the female comic book characters I have been interested in, this is largely the ones I consider the most intriguing for some reason or another. Stay Cool.

Thoughts on X-Men Film Franchise from the perspective of a fan playing catch up

In the early 1990’s I was the exact right age to get sucked into the Fox X-Men Animated series. Needless to say I became a pretty big fan of the series. I bought toys, comics, video games and watched all the cartoons I could. I loved X-Men. Imagine my excitement when I am reading the latest issue of Wizard magazine and they are showing off images from the set of the upcoming live-action feature film starring my favorite mutants.

Throughout the years the X-Men have continued to star in nearly a dozen feature films following that first masterpiece from 2000. It was the perfect film to transition comic book movies from the dark days of the 90’s into the golden age of comic book movies were are experiencing today. I was still the right age to be excited for the movie when it released. I was 18 when it released and finishing up high school. I vividly remember going to the theater and then being so excited to see it again, and again. I couldn’t wait for the next film in the franchise.

Now nearly 20 years later there is a new X-Men themed hit tearing up the box office right now and another mutant fest right around the corner. I decided this was a good time to finally get caught up on the films. I watched Days of Future Past earlier today. This had been the last of the primary X-Films I hadn’t seen yet. It was a good thing I did because I actually had a great time watching this movie. It was a dream come true seeing the stories I used to be mesmerized as a child coming to life in a new medium.

Here is a breakdown of the X-Men films so far. I am not counting the Deadpool movies or Wolverine films. First, I haven’t even seen them yet, and second I am not really a fan. I will keep this to the primary X-Films until I can get around to watching the spin-offs.

X-Men

Looking back on it now I still think this was a brilliant way to kick off the franchise. While it does boast a modest budget and reasonable special effects, for the time, it’s clearly more focused on the story. The best part of the film is the casting. These actors easily bring my favorite comic book heroes to life in a manner that is consistent with my liking. The characters are the heart and soul of the X-Men and although they choose to center it on a very small cast, it’s a great selection of characters.

The action isn’t over the top like later films. I actually like this on repeat viewings. It doesn’t really seem tame as it does reigned in. The movie gives the characters a chance to breath while leaving enough to the imagination to build up to the next film. It’s obvious they were trying to repeat this pattern with the flawed Fantastic Four films, unfortunately in that case it didn’t quite resonate with audiences.

X-Men 2 (X2 X-Men United)

Removed from time this movie remains one of the all-time greatest super hero science fiction films ever produced. Even with all the modern spectacle of Avengers films, this movie continues to amaze me with the way it present the mutants powers. It’s not excessive like others in the series yet it is far more refined than the first. It’s obvious the first movie was used to test the waters while this movie was given the freedom to do what it needed.

Story wise it’s a direct continuation of the first movie. The characters have real heart and start to really come together as a team. By the end of the movie the stakes are real. The deaths are gut wrenching and the mood is somber. It perfectly sets up the third film in what was originally to be a trilogy.

X-Men 3 The Last Stand

I remember the anticipation for this movie was very high for me. I was heartbroken at the death of one of my two favorite X-Men characters in the previous film. I suspected she would return as Phoenix because that’s the way they did it in the source material. I wasn’t entirely on board with how it turned out but I still enjoyed this movie tremendously, considerably more than the vocal fanbase who has condemned it for reasons I have yet to determine.

X-Men The First Class

This movie came out around the same time as the first Wolverine movie. By this time super hero movies were in full swing and the X-Men were starting to get played out. This was the first of the series I didn’t see in theaters. It wasn’t because I had any problems with the prior film it was more the market was now saturated with big budget sci-fi spectacles and suddenly X-Men movies weren’t as interesting.

I did eventually see it years later. I thought it was pretty good. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first three films but I did enjoy it still. The character selection was a little odd. I would have preferred they stuck with characters I was more familiar with, I still liked the way the story unfolded. The new Mystique was also a pretty good choice in casting. By this time audiences had grown to expect more out of special effects so the use of the super powers increased significantly. I liked the movie but not as much as the others.

X-Men Days of Future Past

This was the last one I saw previews for and was actively excited for. The trouble was there had been so many new movie franchises rise to prominence by this time I was more into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I ended up skipping this movie. I finally got to see it today and I have to say I was a little disappointed. Not in the film, it was fantastic. I was disappointed I let myself go this long without seeing this movie. In fact I enjoyed it so much I am starting to get excited for the next film in the series.

X-Men Apocalypse

This was the first dud in the franchise as far as I am concerned. By this time Disney was dominating with their MCU films. The story was fine, the characters were all right but the issue was in the execution. The movie felt a little bloated. It seemed to be the first movie to stray too far from the source material in terms of story for my liking.The movie was entertaining enough it just felt like they were trying too hard with the effects this time.

I have seen two of the three Wolverine movies. I haven’t seen The Wolverine yet and I also haven’t seen either of the Deadpool films yet so I will evaluate those at a later date.

Over all I still think the entire X-Men franchise has been consistently good. There have been a couple bumps in the road.

My comic book memories: X-Men

A couple of days ago I went onto Amazon to purchase some Dawn comics. For those that don’t know Dawn is a character created by Joseph Michael Linsner in the late 1980’s. I discovered Dawn in my early pre-teen years when I was just starting to really get into comic books. Before I could commit to buying any more issues or trade paperbacks I had to dig out my comic vault to see what I had to make sure I wasn’t buying something I already bought previously. I started going through my X-Men graphic novels and TPB’s and realized I didn’t have all of the ones I thought I did. I also confirmed I didn’t have any of the Dawn TPB’s so I was good to order them on Amazon.

How I got into X-Men is a little more interesting than how I discovered Dawn. I always preferred comics with more of a mythology feel or fantasy/swords and sorcery stuff. I enjoyed Conan, and the D&D comics especially. That is how I found myself getting into X-Men. My first experience with Marvel’s famous mutants was not even through comic books. Since I was mostly into indie comics, horror comics, and less mainstream stuff I didn’t see a lot of advertisements for X-Men or other mainstream stuff. If I did, I ignored it or dismissed it as a bunch of spandex wearing clowns. My first exposure was walking into a video arcade and playing the 6-player behemoth X-Men arcade machine. I had no clue who these characters were. Since I discovered TMNT through an arcade game I decided to check out X-Men since I really loved the Ninja Turtles at that time. Turns out the Ninja Turtles were mutants, and the X-Men were also mutants so I thought cool I can get into this. Even if I didn’t really know what a ‘mutant’ was at that time.

I didn’t really pick up any X-Men comics right away though. Instead my next exposure came from renting the abysmal NES game. Now I had rented my share of terrible games on the NES but this was by far one of my least favorite. I couldn’t believe this was how they ported that awesome 6-player game to the NES. I didn’t discover until years later the weren’t even connected outside of the name.

From here I was in 3rd grade and I had a teacher that new I was into reading fantasy and science fiction stuff so she lent me a few of her issues of X-Men comics. They were all mostly current stuff from the late 80’s. Nothing special but I had no idea what was even going on. They were about 3 unconnected issues that had totally different characters in each one. The only character that I recognized from the video game was the guy in the yellow and brown jump suit with the claws. My first impression was I hated that guy. I learned his name was Wolverine and I thought, what a stupid name. His power is he has claws, yawn. Oh he has unbreakable claws, so what.

I didn’t give X-Men another serious thought until the animated series came on Fox a couple of years later. I watched a few episodes and it was entertaining, but I still didn’t know much about the characters, and I still couldn’t stand that blasted Wolverine who just happened to basically be the star of the show. By this time i was really heavy into the Conan the Adventurer cartoon and the new Aladdin animated series. Like I said I was more into horror and fantasy stuff than actual sci-fi. Well I saw a commercial for the Phoenix Saga mini series of X-Men cartoons coming soon. There was a Phoenix character on Conan so that connected the mutants to the mythology stuff I was more into. I was also getting really heavy into Dungeons and Dragons right about this same time.

Finally I gave the cartoon a second chance. I had seen a few random episodes here and there. While the action was always good, the characters didn’t really mean much to me as I had no connection to them. So when I started watching the Phoenix Saga and Dark Phoenix Saga unfold as a dramatic event over several weeks, I became hooked. Suddenly I picked out the characters I did care for and wanted to follow them. I immediately ran out and began buying all the Cyclops and Jean Grey stuff I could. I fell in love with that couple and wanted to get everything I could. By this time I was also getting into collecting trading cards so I had picked up a few sets of Marvel Universe series cards. There were always X-Men characters within those sets so I started reading the backs of the cards, trying to learn more about the lore of these characters. By this time I was really getting fascinated with the Cyclops character and Marvel Girl especially. I started buying X-Men trading cards, action figures, that super fantastic Sega Genesis game and it’s pretty amazing sequel, too. By the mid-1990’s I had gone from not caring or knowing much about the X-Men to being completely dedicated. Before long I was less excited for Conan and found myself looking forward to X-Men episodes even more. As the series dragged on my disdain for Wolverine continued so I quickly lost interest again as the characters I liked took a backseat to his temper-tantrums.

Then it all culminated with me picking up the Wedding of Cyclops and Phoenix issue. Seeing Scott and Jean get hitched was the perfect end to the fairy tale. The mess that was the Spider-clone saga had completely turned me away from Spidey comics by this time. I had sat through the majority of the Age of Apocalypse with intense interest and curiosity. Then just as things were starting to ‘recover’ they started they whole Onslought stuff and I finally lost interest in the comics for good. I kept paying attention to the characters through buying action figures, picking up back issues of the comics that were void of Logan as much as possible. Then they dropped the bombshell of a movie on the world. Wow, for the first time I didn’t care for the Cyclops character and was actually rooting for Logan. Part of this was the movie made Logan a much more likeable character than the whiny little bitch he was in the comics. He was still a selfish asshole in the movies sure, but not as bad as he was in the comics.

This allowed me to warm up to the character so I went back and tried to get into the Wolverine comics too. Needless to say the movies altered my perception of the characters quite a bit. Before long I was stating to lose interest in the characters and their mythos entirely. Still, every once in a while I go back and remember what it was I liked about them in the first place. At one time I was collecting everything X-Men related from New Mutants comics to Cable and Deadpool spin off stuff. Eventually the movies would start to really spend too much time focusing on Logan again, giving him solo movie after solo movie while continuing to treat my beloved Scott and Jean like second, or even third class characters.  Today I have a pretty decent X-Men comics collection I can go back to and revisit. I have all but one of the films and that’s just because I just haven’t been looking for a copy. All in all I discovered I really loved the X-Men and I am very glad I took the time to get to know them.

Chronicles of a Nintendo fan, the end of an era

Everyone has played Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Duck Hunt, Wii Sports, or Pokemon at some point in their life it seems. A lot of people grew up playing some form of Nintendo. I wanted to chronicle my life as a gamer, my evolution as a Nintendo fan, and my recent decisions regarding the current state of the Nintendo I once fell in love with.

For the world it began in 1985 with the release of Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. combo pack. For me it began in 1987 at a laundromat in Delphos Kansas. A small town the people in the next town over haven’t even heard of. Up to that point I was an Atari guy, we had an Atari machine at our house we used to play the crap out of that thing, mostly games nobody ever remembers the names too along with a few favorites like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Haunted House, etc. My arcade experience was mostly confined to Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man at the local bar in town we sometimes ate at as it doubled as a restaurant. Then there I was sitting in a laundromat bored out of my mind begging my mom for quarters to play one of the video games they had in the corner. I don’t for the life of me remember what the other two games were but I do remember the one I dropped my $.25 cents into, it was a game called Donkey Kong featuring this tiny man jumping over barrels and climbing ladders. At first I hated the game, man it was hard compared to Pac-Man my previous arcade favorite, but something about it kept drawing me back.

I remember it was 1987 because I was barely 5 years old, I hadn’t started Kindergarten yet, I was living in Delphos Kansas and I was born in 1982 so it had to be 1987. I also remember having mixed feelings about the game. Then we moved to another town called Minneapolis, Kansas. It was New Year’s Eve going into 1988, my family was attending a party with some friends my parents had made, this kid named Marvin who I remember very little about. What I do remember is when I asked if they had an Atari they said no, I should have been bummed but what they did have was so  much better. They took me downstairs to the play room where they kept all their toys, had the TV set up for the kids and they was this VCR-sized machine with these funny gray “tapes” stacked up beside it and the kid was holding an ugly little square controller with 2 buttons playing a game I never seen before, it was called The Legend of Zelda. He let me try it out and I was hooked immediately. Forget Atari man I wanted one of these, what were they called Intendos? I wanted one so bad. I spent the rest of that year BEGGING my parents for an Intendo I needed an Intendo bad. (yeah I didn’t learn it was Nintendo until we got one, that Christmas.)

It was the Christmas that almost didn’t happen though. See my mom had promised me a younger brother and in April of 1988 she brought me home, nope not the brother she promised, but ANOTHER sister, I mean come on I had one older and one younger than me I was surrounded by icky girls I was ready for a boy in the house to help me tear the place down. Well needless to say the “bundle of joy” came along early enough in the year there was some doubt what sort of Christmas we would end up with. Turns out most of the fears were for naught as under the tree was a present in a HUGE box larger than any we as a family had seen up to that point. Christmas Day arrives and we tear into it me and my two sisters that were old enough to do so and BEHOLD the Intendo machine I been begging for! Yeah parents made me forget that my baby brother was missing some parts. Oh well plugged my gaming machine into the TV, powered up some Duck Hunt and blasted Ducks till it was time to go back to school. Yeah it was a year after I had gotten my first taste of Nintendo before we had one in our home but man it was worth it, my tiny little six-year-old hands couldn’t be seen without a Nintendo control pad in them for a VERY long time.

Fortunately for us there were not on, not two, but THREE stores in town that rented Nintendo games so I was lucky to get to experience so many “great” games ranging from the hotly anticipated Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the nobody heard of before Little Nemo, to a bunch of games I can’t even sarcastically pretend were good because honestly I totally forgot their names they mostly sucked. Still even if the rentals were hit or miss, we had one gem at home, Super Mario Bros. Not Mario Bros. no we had SUPER Mario Bros. In the 80’s Rad, Awesome, Ultra, Super, Radical, or Mega, if your thing didn’t have one of those words in the title it wasn’t really worth your time. I played that game to death, literally poor Mario died countless deaths on his quest to save the poor princess from the evil turtle.

I don’t know if it was coincidence or what but it also happened that my favorite cartoon at the time and accompanying toy line also featured some beastly looking Turtles, so I was able to “pretend” my Leonardo action figure was “King Koopa” and any Optimus Prime action figure was Mario and I could re-create my favorite “scenes” from the game over and over, with toys. It was about this time my hobby of Nintendo began to become an obsession the likes of which would dominate my youth for many years to come.

I enjoyed the early days of the NES tremendously, randomly renting one game after another as my parents were too cheap to buy us that many games, and the few they did buy were sadly from the bargain clearance rack which meant they usually were games nobody heard of or nobody wanted to play. I wasn’t complaining though man I loved that little gray box. I loved it so much my parents bought me a small black and white TV and set it up next to my bed so I could sit and play at night before I fell a sleep. I thought once I discovered Nintendo there was no going back the world had changed and Atari was quickly fading into memory.

My love of Nintendo even stretched into other areas of my life. I begged mom to buy Mario valentines day cards for my friends, I had Mario on my folders and notebooks for school, I watched the cartoon/TV extravaganza the “Super Mario Super Show” faithfully, even more so than my previously beloved Transformers. If Mario was on one channel and even Ninja Turtles, which I enjoyed, was on the other, Mario one every time. I even watched that movie, I won’t say the name you remember, and I was, well I liked parts of it, seeing Mario and Luigi on the big screen in their costumes was, um sorta satisfying, but, okay it was a mess of a movie that almost killed Nintendo for me but I sat in the theater hoping to enjoy it nonetheless, I even convinced my parents to buy a copy on VHS because as a kid I believed if I kept watching it would eventually get better. Yeah I was wrong sue me.

Things were progressing along just fine until one day I questioned Nintendo’s value to me. A friend of mine showed me his new game consoles, the Turbo Grafix 16. He bragged how it was so much better than Nintendo because it was 16 bits and Nintendo was “only” 8 bits. I didn’t know what the hell a bit was but if this machine had more of them it must be better. So I started looking through comic books to read Turbo Grafix ads and saw, it had a few games that looked cool. I started putting the work on my parents to buy me a new 16 bit machine and they shot it down dead with, when Nintendo makes one we will consider it. I thought that will never happen Nintendo is stuck in the past their machine is too popular there is no chance they will ever replace it. Of course I was 8 at the time what did I know. To be fair Super Mario Bros. 3 had just came out and well that game, 16 bit or not 16 bit, was a damn fine game that reminded me bits, what are bits, this game is FUN and fun is the name of the game. So  my interest in Turbo whatsitcalled faded and I plunged head first into my world of Nintendo.

Then everything changed in 1992. I was at another friends house who was showing me his newest toy, the Super Nintendo! Wait a Nintendo that was SUPER and not “regular” I had to have one. This put me on a quest to once again convince my parents I needed a new Nintendo player. Dad wasn’t falling for it, he just got the Nintendo three or four years prior, if they can’t last ten years he felt they weren’t worth the money spent on them. And so I waited. Christmas 1993 came and still no Super Nintendo under the tree. By this time I had begun to amass quite a collection of NES carts so I wasn’t exactly in a huge hurry to you know upgrade. That is until one fateful day everything changed for good, this time there was no going back. Sitting on the bus another kid showed me his new toy, the Sega Game Gear. My best friend at the time had a Game Boy and I already had dozens of those Tiger things at home so I was vaguely familiar with the concept of a hand held gaming device, but the tiny screens I just wasn’t sold. He was playing a game called Super Star Wars. I had played this game on NES and felt the Game Gear version definitely played better. Then he plugged in his Sonic cart. WHAT IS THIS? A “Mario” game that was actually as good as or even *gasp* better than Mario? Oh man I fell in love so hard with Sonic I immediately began to lose all interest in that lame Plumber from the Mushroom Kingdom. (This was the SAME Mario my mom had used to convince me cleaning the toilet was fun because “Mario is a plumber and plumbers clean toilets” yeah I fell for it, Doh!)

With my friends posters and Sega promotional material I now knew I had to have this new machine, the Sega Genesis. I had forgotten all about Super Nintendo and abandoned my quest to get one now I turned all my attention to Genesis. It was an easy sell, my parents were Sunday school teachers, the word Genesis is in the Bible it must be good right?  It worked, a little nudging, some careful planting of evidence and on my 12th birthday my parents gave me a Sega Genesis console with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 packed in! Whoo hoo I was happy. Yeah sorry Nintendo, Sega had Sonic, Mortal Kombat WITH the blood, Turrican, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, the BETTER Mighty Morphin Power Rangers games (shut up I was 12,) and it had not one but TWO totally amazing X-Men games and boy was I an X-Men nut by this time. The 16 bit wars were easily the best time to be a gamer and I loved drawing battle lines and picking what I knew was the right side, Sega Genesis all the way baby, it had games, it had Sega CD, it could play music, it could play Karaoke CD’s (didn’t know what they were but hey it could play them so it was cool!) Man I jumped on the Sega bandwagon so hard, to this day my online discussion forum handle more often than not is Sega Gamer 12, a throwback to getting a Genesis on my 12th birthday. Good times were had for a very long time.

Just like the transition from Atari to Nintendo then Nintendo to Sega I felt there was always going to be a newcomer to take out the old timer. Atari failed to make a comeback with their Jaguar, and even before it was announced I knew Saturn would bomb because it was over priced 32X and 32X was a joke, even I could see that at only 12 years of age. So where was I to go now that Nintendo had lost my interest? Don’t count the lovable house that Mario built out just yet my friends. Nintendo and Sega were battling it out in the home console and handheld market, Sega was killing it in arcades and I was a huge arcade fan, something was brewing that made me rethink everything. Virtaul Reality. We stopped calling it VR pretty quickly and then just called it 3D gaming but between Doom, Area 51, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Tekken, Cruisin USA, Killer Instinct, Star Fox, this new “VR-3D” gaming craze was upon us and I had to get in. The question then was which of the new 3D consoles was I going to set my sights on? There were four on the market or just around the corner.

It was middle 1995, summer, I had a job now I could save up my money and buy my OWN machine. No need to involve the parents anymore. I was saving up for a new 3D gaming box but which one do I go after? The Sega Saturn, and it’s blocky, ugly games that were not at all fun like Genesis? Or would it be Atari and..  not not even on my radar was the Jaguar sorry pass. What about Sony and their new fangled Play Station majigger? Not sure how much faith I have in a company known for making tape decks so I turned my attention to the one last hope for gaming, Nintendo Ultra 64, which was just around the corner. I enjoyed Killer Instinct and Cruisin USA in the arcades, I played the heck out of Area 51, and I was even starting to feel some nostalgia for Mario after playing Super Mario All-Stars at a cousins house that summer. This had me thinking Nintendo was going to be my next purchase. I saved up, went down to K-Mart in August of 1996 and put my N64 machine and Super Mario 64 game cart on advance layaway. It was going to cost me a whole bunch of money but I felt it was worth it I wanted 3D Mario.

The day before I was supposed to pay it off/pick it up something changed. My dad had taken me into this pawn shop, which introduced me to a whole new world of shopping I had never experienced before, and they had a complete working Super NES for a mere $40 bucks! I was like wow wait a second drop $250 on an N64 and ONE game, or take home this machine, a shoe box full of great Super NES games, and have money left over to buy 3 pieces of a 5 piece drum set? I had to cancel my Layaway, take that money to the pawn shop and load up on Super NES games.

With a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis safely tucked away on my TV in my bedroom I was set for life baby. I was quickly reminded how much I enjoyed Nintendo games. I never fell for the 16 bit wars, I finally had both machines and I could honestly say they both gave me equal enjoyment over the years. Eventually this would morph into a half truth then Super NES would not only win out for me as the better machine overall, I would eventually settle on it as the greatest video game console, of all time.

Things were going good I was firmly back in Nintendo land. I grabbed me an N64 a couple short years latter, got a Game Boy Pocket then Game Boy Advance along the way, followed that up with an amazing and to this day very memorable Game Cube machine, got me a Nintendo DS and enjoyed it tremendously then suddenly Nintendo did the unthinkable, they made a machine I not only wasn’t excited for much, I grew to HATE. Unlike Super NES where the alternative was just as good for the most part, or the N64 where you kind of had to recognize it was your second machine with Playstation being the bulk of your source of gaming, now Wii was an entirely different beast. I quickly went from not that interested to HATING that worthless pile of garbage. I hated it so much that it was 3 years into Wii U before I could even consider getting it and despite having the same name, I personally felt it was the superior machine, it was the last straw for me. I never picked up a 3DS, I sold my DS when it became nothing more than SNES 2.0 with a few N64 remakes and a bunch of the casual crap flooding the Wii library. I realized my love was not for Nintendo the company, or even Nintendo products, it was always the Nintendo games and the characters within those games. I gotta say with Wii and Wii U I lost a lot of respect for the company, I began to lose hope and now just a few months away from their next machine, the NX, I just don’t think I can muster the energy to go through all of that again. This could be my final good by to Nintendo once and for all. Wii hurt me, bad, and Wii U didn’t do much to mend those wounds, in fact it just rubbed salt in a few cases and was barely a band aid at best.

I am here to say that barring a really mind blowing game that I absolutely can’t live without, that does NOT rely on some controller gimmick, and isn’t outrageously over priced outdated hardware, I am just not likely to even bother with NX and Wii U might be my last Nintendo console I ever buy, and if I sell it to buy more Game Cube games, which I might do, it won’t even be a console I own forever. I love Nintendo, at one time I loved them a lot, but I feel like the time has come to file for divorce and go our separate ways. Sony surprised me over the years consistently making the games and consoles I just wished Nintendo would and I figured I am done wishing Nintendo would JUST make a Playstation/modern Super NES and say to hell with it I am firmly now a Playstation gamer.

There is a chance I might buy that new NES Classic Edition console they just announced yesterday. Can they win me back? Only time will tell but as of right now I spend all my time gaming on my PS4 anyways, and I am saving up for a Playstation VR so it’s a long shot. I might download that Pokemon Go app in the meantime though.