Episode 8 The Hero You Needed

This week we talk a bit about the CW super heroes but in particular, Stephen Amell making his WWE début.  I'm not sure if you knew there was a Power Rangers movie in the works, well you do now.  I'm stoked for Final Fantasy XV (Formerly Versus XIII), but will it come out next year?  Square-Enix seems confident but we're not so sure.  All this and more in episode 8 of the West Coast Nerd Corps.

-Big O

Episode 8 The Hero You Needed

Brother Against Brother

With Marvel's film Civil War releasing next year, I've been thinking a lot about the comic that it spawned from.  Civil War was a comic series that released in 2006 and revolves mainly around the conflict between team Iron Man and team Captain America.  To date, this is considered one of the more successful Marvel story lines and I was trying to figure out why this story arc is considered better than most of the work the company has released since.  In short, it was intelligent and different.  A brief synopsis of the story is that there is a major attack by a person with super abilities (I believe on a college campus but it's been a while since I've read it) that leaves many people dead.  In response, the government institutes the Super Human Registration Act.  This basically says that any person with powers needs to register their real name and abilities with the government.  This becomes a very divisive issue among the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe.  Two prominent groups emerge, one that is for the registration act, lead by Iron Man; and a group that is against it, lead by Captain America.  The two groups begin to fight which leads to the "Civil War".

So what makes the storyline so intelligent?  Many comic book stories follow a very paint by numbers formula.  There is a good guy and a bad guy, the bad guy wants to do something evil so it is the duty of the good guy to stop them.  However, Civil War threw that concept out the window.  There really were no heroes and villains, just people fighting for their ideals.  This rung a little more true to me.  In real life, there are very rarely people who are just evil and do things for evil sake.  There are just people who do what they think is best, even if they go about it in the wrong way sometimes.

The main debate was whether these people, some of which are basically weapons of mass destruction should be forced to register or does that infringe upon their civil liberties (sound kinda familiar).  This debate not only raged among the characters in the book, but the readers themselves.  I was in college when this story came out and I remember it sparking huge debates within my friend groups and online. That was the beauty of this story, it took people who would normally never think about social issues such as these and actually made them contemplate the pros and cons.  I remember at the time I actually sided with Captain America and the team that was against the registration act.  Personally, I feel that political decisions should never be made out of fear but rational thought (but that's a conversation for another day and another blog).

I've spoken to a few people that are a little confused as to why everyone is so excited that Spider-Man is going to be in Civil War.  This is because one of the most pivotal moments in Civil War is when Spider-Man shows his support for the registration act by revealing himself as Peter Parker in a press conference.  This leads to some very turbulent changes for Spider-Man, all of which get retconned by the events Brand New Day (again, a rant for anther day).  As far as I know, when Marvel did not have the film rights to Spider-Man; his place in this important scene was going to be replaced by Black Panther.

There is also a humorous scene from the comic that I really hope makes its way into the film.  Basically the scene plays out a bit like this:

Iron Man calls Doctor Strange 

Iron Man: Hey, you have to register

Doctor Strange: Well, I'm not gonna

Iron Man: But you have to

Doctor Strange: Come and get me *click*

The end result is that they add an amendment to the registration act that Doctor Strange is exempt.

The reason this is so funny is because even though Doctor Strange appears to be living in a normal apartment, it is basically another dimension that he controls.  Long story short, trying to go after him in his own home would be suicide.  Iron Man realized this and decided it was better to just not deal with it.  

On a final note, one of the aspects that was very clear was the frustration of the writers with current events.  As I mentioned earlier, the comic released in 2006, just a few years after September 11, 2001.  For people who don't remember, our nation was very afraid at the time and it showed.  The government was constantly warning of attacks and telling us to remain vigilant.  Basically, they were telling us we were about to die on a daily basis.  Anyone who was remotely intelligent got tired of it pretty quick.  Anyway, the authors of the comic were very frustrated with the fear mongering culture we has become and showed it in this story arc.  This is just something to keep in mind while reading the story.  It was a very turbulent time for our nation.  

Civil War is not only an amazing series but has many ramifications for the entire Marvel Universe.  I won't get to into them so I can avoid spoiler territory.  Hopefully this article has been enough to peak your interest in this series.  Maybe a few of you will be inspired to read Civil War before the film comes out.  At the very least I hope it explained why I am so excited for what I consider to be one of the best Marvel series of all time.  

-Big O

A Day to Remember

Yesterday, Panda and I drove out to Tempe, Arizona for a book signing with internet celebrity, geek goddess, and all around awesome person Felicia Day.  She was there signing copies of her newly released memoir You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost).  Meeting Miss Day was a huge honor and even though it was a brief meeting, she was every bit as warm and personable as she appears online.  We made sure to tell her that her work has been a huge inspiration and is part of the reason why the podcast is here today.  I've been excited to get my hands on this book for a while now so look forward to a review and more detailed discussion about our meeting with her in a future episode of the show.

-Big O

The Crossroads of Destiny

As many of my friends know, and I've discussed it on the podcast, I'm a huge fan of Destiny (the game not the metaphysical concept).  I've been playing Destiny pretty much since the beginning and have always had a blast doing it.  It quickly became one of my favorite activities while listening to podcasts and music.  However, lately I've been finding that collecting bounties and killing demon gods has become a little stale.  So, with The Taken King right around the corner, I decided that this is my time to choose whether I want to continue on the journey I started or call it a day.  The problem I'm facing is that The Taken King is a $40 investment to a game that I've already put a considerable amount of money into.  On the other hand, everything I see for TTK is making it look like a whole new experience that may well be worth the money.  Also, I am kind of excited to see how the ghost is going to sound when Peter Dinklage is replaced by Nolan North.  I think the question I'm facing is would TTK provide enough new content to make me feel like I got my money's worth?  I watched a video the morning where they broke down many of the new features and I'll admit, that put me a lot closer towards buying it.  I have a feeling this decision will come down the the last minute.  In the meantime, let me know what all of you think.  Have you played Destiny and if you did, do you still?

-Big O

Episode 7 Anime!

Another week, another episode.  This week we talk about anime and all of its glory.  Gather your senpais and onii-chans for this very special trip to the world of Japanese animation.  On a side note, we apologize for the audio quality on this episode.

Episode 7

-Big O

Episode 6 Dragonball Z

This week, our hosts watched Dragonball Z Resurrection 'F' in theaters and decided to do an entire episode based on this iconic series.  This episode holds a special place in my heart because Dragonball Z was such a huge part of my life growing up and it was great to geek out about it for an hour.  I hope you all feel the same way listening to it.  If you have any Dragonball memories you'd like to share, feel free to comment below.  Enjoy the show.

Episode 6: Dragonball Z Super Show

-Big O

Adventures in Cosplay: Prologue

I’ll be honest: I’ve long enjoyed cosplay and costuming.

I was often loathe to admit it, downplaying my interest as “not really my thing” but secretly harboring a desire to dress up like my favorite characters at any opportunity. In my mind, cosplay was something weird and obsessive people did at conventions. I was too cool for that stuff. I liked nerdy stuff, I just didn’t want to act too much like a nerd… Thus, Halloween was my only option for going full on. (One costume of which I was particularly proud was Seishirou Sakurazuka from Tokyo Babylon.)

Now, that didn’t stop me from creating outfits “inspired” by characters I liked. On numerous occasions, I showed up to school wearing pink Chucks with rainbow shoelaces (an homage to Laine from Lost Souls) or some coordinated outfit subtly designed to reference Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing or Haruka Tenoh from Sailor Moon. I was subtle in my nerdiness, damn it, and I thought I was hot stuff.

Cut to a few years later. I was at university and hanging out with folks who enjoy costuming as much as I did, but they were actually talented enough to make their stuff from scratch (rather than trolling the aisles of local thrift stores looking for something that resembles what I wanted/needed). Sometimes they would say, “Panda, you should do a group costume with us.” But, of course, I had to downplay my interest—I still had delusions of coolness, after all. “I’m down for that,” I would reply, “if you guys will create the outfit with me.” (I lacked the talent to create anything on my own, anyway, so it was a good way to get a decent costume.) I took a few turns as L from Death Note and Hiromasa from Onmyouji, and thoroughly enjoyed myself (as much as I feigned boredom).

And then I moved to Japan, the cosplay capital of the world. I went to a summer Comiket and took ungodly amounts of pictures, blown away by the sheer talent of the costumers. They were so skilled with sewing, their bodies were perfectly suited to the characters… I was intimidated, to the point that I told myself I would never cosplay a character unless A) I was completely satisfied with the result, and B) the outfit was on par with the costumes I had seen at Comiket. Suffice to say, I was deterred from ever cosplaying again.

Seriously, how is this level of skill even fair?!

Luckily, a couple of friends introduced me to the world of Lolita fashion, along with other Japanese street fashion, which helped satisfy my need to wear remarkable outfits at random times. We would head into Tokyo every so often to shop at Laforet or Takeshita Douri in Harajuku, our favorite stop being Closet Child (the ones in Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Ikebukuro—there are more, though). I would expand my Lolita closet there, favoring the Gothic and Dark styles. I might have felt a bit lacking in skill, compared to my more talented friends, but at least I looked the part well enough.

When I came back to the United States for graduate school, I brought most of the fashionable items I had acquired back with me. I wore them around, usually at small local conventions. I had since relinquished my deathgrip on the idea that I might be cooler than the “average nerd.” And I started feeling inspired to create costumes from scratch—a dream which never quite left my head, as I had yet to learn the sewing craft. My first foray was for Phoenix ComiCon 2012, when I decided to cosplay a feminized version of Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. I made the freeze ray (with a lot of help from my father) from parts gathered at home improvement stores, and gathered the other necessary items from thrift stores (which I altered for my purposes). The costume turned out passable, and it met the first part of my previous criteria: I was satisfied with the result.

And now, as I quickly approach the delightful age of thirty, I find myself wanting to cosplay more and more. It gets worse, the more shows I watch with characters I adore. I know I’ll have to start small, but by god I will cosplay! And I will do it well!

Stay tuned…

~Panda

Clearly, I am the coolest person I know.

Moving Update

Just a heads up, we finished moving into our new house over the weekend.  We are getting settled in and already have plans for the next episode of the show.  I'm excited to see Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' this weekend and hopefully a review will be following shortly.  That's all for now, stay tuned for updates and more.