Why yes, I AM a nerd, thanks!

I am a huge comic books fan.

You're totally shocked, right? Hah, yeah right. There's no surprise there. I'm a huge nerd! Anyway, I love comic books. To be specific, Marvel comics. I have over a thousand, probably around 1200 by now actually, boxed up or spread around my apartment. Which would be fine if I lived alone. Sorry Darcy! (no I'm not.) In the 7-8 years I've been collecting comics, my "pull list" has grown pretty much out of control. Originally I started with only a couple of titles (Exiles and New Mutants), but since then I've expanded to 12-15 titles every month, not to mention special one-shots and limited series. It's crazy.

But what I wanted to talk about, 'cause I really have no one around to listen to me drone on about comics (locally), is a couple that I'm really excited about right now. First up:

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man

The Ultimate Marvel line of comics was launched as a separate continuity from regular Marvel comics to make it easier for new readers to enjoy comics without having to be bogged down by decades of backstory. My favourite title in the Ultimate line is Spider-Man. It's a version of Peter Parker very similar to the original, but still back in high school, not all grown up like the Spider-Man we all know and love.

This title has actually come to an end with the Death of Spider-Man story that recently came out. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty bummed by this. Not only is it one of my favourite comic books, but the title of that final story should be a pretty obvious clue. They killed Spider-Man. Peter Parker is dead.

They did such an amazing job with the story, it was really epic how it all happened, and I really advise you to go read it if you haven't already because even though I'm sad, I can't help but be at awe of the story. It was so tragic, but in the end, Peter Parker dies a real hero (not that there was any denying it before anyway).

The title is relaunching in a few months with a new man behind the mask, and I'm actually really interested to see what's going to happen. The new costume design is really interesting, but there really hasn't been any info revealed about the new Spider-Man. The only info I've heard is of what his motivation is; that Peter's death is to him what Uncle Ben's death was to Peter. Very intriguing... Also of note is that Ultimate Comics: X-Men is finally getting a new start after the dust settles here, and it looks like Johnny Storm, Bobby Drake, and Kitty Pride will all be featured there, so that's pretty awesome.

The second title I'm excited about right now hasn't actually come out yet, but I just read the "Prelude" miniseries today so it's got me pretty much on the edge of my seat wondering what's going on:

X-Men: Schism

The next big X-Men event. X-Men: Schism is a limited series starting in a couple weeks. What I know so far is that there is something bad coming. It's a threat beyond anything the X-Men have ever faced. And in dealing with this threat, Cyclops and Wolverine come to a conflict of opinions that can't be resolved, and the X-Men are all forced to choose a side, dividing the X-Men "forever" (gotta throw the forever in there for dramatic effect).

Part of what has me excited about this event is to see what the heck it is that will cause the split of the X-Men. They are a family, and now a nation, united against all threats to the mutant race. But what could cause them all to turn on each other? It's gotta be something big! And I haven't been disappointed by an X-event yet!

The other part is that it means we'll have separate teams again! I liked the good old days where each book had it's own set of X-Men, with the occasional crossover and/or cameo. The last few years have had the same core characters appearing in every. single. book. I didn't mind when it was Wolverine appearing in every comics 'cause he's awesome, but I'm getting really tired of seeing Emma Frost, Colossus, Kitty Pride, Wolverine, and Cyclops in ALL of the X-Men books, leaving so many characters out in comic book limbo. I'd love to see a unique set of characters in each of the X-books.

After Schism comes to an end, Uncanny X-Men will relaunch with a new #1 issue, and that is where you will find Cyclops and those who choose his side. Those that take the other side will appear in Wolverine and the X-Men. So that is at least two teams that will be totally different. X-Men: Legacy will hopefully continue to focus on it's own team as well. That leaves X-Men and Astonishing X-Men to establish where they will fall after the Schism, plus titles like New Mutants, Uncanny X-Force and X-Factor that could see some shake-ups as well. Oh, and Generation Hope. But I don't really care about that one. At all.

Woo! So that's just SOME of what's going on in comics right now that's got me excited! If I continued, this post would never end, so I'll leave it here, but expect follow-ups to this, 'cause you know, I'm a comic book nerd, so what else am I gonna blog about? Leave a comment below if you've got anything to say about these comic events! I'd like to hear what you've got to say! (and good on you if you actually made it through this whole post!)

More Evidence That I'm a Nerd

So, I had planned on typing up this great big E3 review blog (and I had actually typed most of it), but I decided that there was far too much useless stuff that I just didn't care about in it, so this is E3 blog attempt number 2! Every year I get super psyched for the Electronics Entertainment Expo (or E3, for short). It's where all of the big gaming companies get together with the press and show off all the new stuff they're working on. It's all very exciting for a nerd like me. This year I was actually a little bit disappointed with a lack of actual release dates for games, but I was pleased with what they showed off.

Now, the main events of E3 are the "Big Three" press conferences, those three being Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. There are a few other "big" press conferences, but I'm not gonna lie, I didn't watch them 'cause they seemed pretty darn boring. But even two of the "big three" were pretty boring to me.

Microsoft kicked off E3 with their press conference, showing off all that's new with the Xbox 360. Which really wasn't exciting to me at all. I actually quit watching partway through. What I did get out of it was that they are really trying to push the Kinect (which I don't want) and they have a lot of sequels and remakes of games I don't care about (war games, shooters, and more Halo...). Tomb Raider actually looks alright, but I don't think I'll play it. Fable: The Journey seems like a step backward for the series, I like free play, I don't want a game-on-rails. The new Xbox Experience (dashboard) looks pretty cool though, and TV through the Xbox would be cool (but Telus already does that here).

Sony held their press conference on everything Playstation later that evening and this one I got to watch live 'cause it was after work. Once again, I wasn't overly impressed. There was a lot of similar stuff to the way the Microsoft show went. Sequels of games I don't care about (war games, shooters) and a real push to get with the 3D gaming experience (I don't like 3D). They did release a cool 3D monitor bundle, and talked about the new feature that eliminates split screens using 3D glasses technology, but I'm still not buying it. They also talked about the NGP, now dubbed the Playstation Vita, or PSV as I'm gonna call it. Looks like a pretty nice piece of hardware, but it seems like they are just trying to cram as much into it as possible to make it seem cooler than the 3DS. I may buy it, especially since it's only gonna cost $250, but so far there aren't any games that interest me coming for it.

Nintendo was the star of E3 once again this year (as far as I'm concerned anyway). They opened up the show with a special look at the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda. They did some fun little musical stuff, and talked about the Zelda games they've got coming out this year. Link's Awakening being released on the 3DS Virtual Console that day, the N64 classic Ocarina of Time 3D coming to the 3DS on June 19th (which is this coming weekend! I pre-ordered mine, did you?), GBA classic Four Swords coming to the DSiWare shop for free this September, and Skyward Sword for the Wii on it's way this holiday season. There was some more stuff to do with that but it wasn't important enough to remember.

After that, they showed off a string of 3DS games on their way: Mario Kart (which appears to have a few new gameplay elements added to it, air and underwater racing sections), Star Fox (boooooring), Super Mario Bros. 3D (which looks AWESOME! Can't wait to get my hands on that. Tanooki suit!!), Kid Icarus: Uprising (looks cool, but is really old news since it's reveal last year and STILL no release date), and Luigi's Mansion 2 (So cool! I don't even know why! I had no interest at all in the first one but I want this one so bad!). They also talked about a few 3rd party games but they were all dumb so I won't mention them.

Afterwards, they announced the Nintendo Wii U! It looks pretty exciting, but as time goes on, I lose enthusiasm, so I really should have blogged about it sooner. It's basically an HD Wii, for the most part, even using the Wii controllers and such, BUT it's got one big difference. The main controller for the system is basically a tablet computer fused with a motion sensing controller, with buttons. Minus the CPU. It can be used as a second screen for all kinds of different things, plus some games even allow you to switch gameplay from the TV over to the controller so someone else can use the TV for something else. See how it doesn't sound all that exciting? But it IS! I SWEAR! Watch the videos! Maybe I'll make another post entirely devoted to the Wii U later. Good plan, I think.

Anyway, that was pretty much it for the Nintendo conference, the rest was them talking about the Wii U and different developers weighing in and pretty much from there it was just boring crap. Elsewhere at E3 Nintendo also announced a few other games. A new DS Kirby game that looks a little lame. A new Wii Kirby game that looks AWESOME. And... uh... I don't remember what else. There was nothing new about Paper Mario, which made me sad. There was a new trailer for it, but that was it. Square Enix was pretty weak on their presence at E3 with an absence of ALL of the games I'd been looking forward to see from them. They DID however have some good stuff on FFXIII-2 which looks like it will be good. Now just to finish the first one... Natsume brought their new Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games which look very nice (I like the farming games...). There was also some new stuff on X-Men: Destiny which I want very very badly, and a new Spider-Man game which looks like it will be good, but I doubt I'll play it.

And I think that is pretty much it. I really had to rush through all that 'cause there was a lot of stuff announced. I'll probably do future blog posts dedicated specifically to certain game/system announcements once I absorb more info, and you can expect a review of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D sometime in the near(?) future 'cause I went down and pre-ordered it today. I'll probably be there right when they open to pick it up on Sunday too. To be fair, they open at noon, and I'll just be leaving my weekly family coffee thing right about then, so it's not like I'm a rabid fan or anything. Anyway, until next time...