Another 5 Questions

A short bit of time ago( being generous) Uniquecrash5 put up ANOTHER round of the 5 question meme… I was VERY happy as I loved the 5 Question meme… and loved the questions he asked.

What follows is his NEW questions and my answers. Everyone should know the rules… if you want me to ask you five questions- let me know in your comments and I will. We also established last time the single use boomerang rule… which is to say- I will ask YOU( unless you are Uniquecrash5) to ask me 5 questions when you post this meme on your blog with the answers to my questions… and after that NO BACKSIES! I hope that’s clear…


1) Why for do you dig on the speedsters?
Ok, the answer to this gelled first but I didn’t type it until like last as I figured it would be the longest of all answers.
Actually I was glad I didn’t respond- as I got to briefly talk to Kel about it when I met him on Thursday- which I might not have had I answered.
The short answer is History. I like that the Flash family is A) a really good extended family and B) I’ve gone through a lot with them and have seen them age as I have.

I started reading Flash with Barry during the Death of Iris. I then started gobbling up back issues. If I may get nostalgic for a moment; like the used bookstore, I miss the used comic bins at my comic book stores- Yes I can get a better price for my comics and better bang for my buck on EBAY, but it’s at the cost of going through bins and looking at all the cool covers ….
Anyway, as I read old issues I grew to love Barry and Iris. They were a team and a couple. They worked together MUCH better then the ‘power couples’ like Hawkman and Hawkgirl and I felt Iris was more of a person then Black Canary( whom I often thought was window dressing for Ollie). I loved that Barry himself was a fanboy- getting his identity from a COMIC BOOK. Better yet, he ends up living the fanboy dream of MEETING his hero and becoming friends.
In Barry’s book Wally was much more of a guest star then any of the other side kicks. Dick, Roy and Gar lived with their ‘father figure’ whereas Wally still had his dad. So while it was nice to see Wally and Barry… I think Jay appeared more often, which made for an interesting dynamic, as this makes Barry the first guy to ASK his father figure for superhero advice and help.
To be honest, I didn’t like the comic as Barry moved into an apartment building. I didn’t like his new supporting cast- I much preferred Iris to Fiona… and can understand why Reverse Flash wanted to MARRY Iris and kill Fiona. Heck, unlike Evan (who’s also a Flash fan) when they canceled Barry… I thought he got a good send off and was happier that he died a noble death, then suffer another year of crappy writing.
And that’s when the history of the Speedsters really took off. Wally stepped out of the shadows and he grew up before my eyes. Granted in his first comic he celebrates his 21st birthday, but still Wally stepped out into the spotlight and we saw him really grow and the Flash family really gel as a family.
Whether it was Wally’s friendship with the first Flash’s ‘widow’, which lead to Wally/DC bringing back Jay and the rest of the JSA or the introduction of Bart… Wally had a history and built on it before our eyes.
At this point I really have to say I wish all comic book heroes aged and learnt like Wally. It’s one of the things I love about him. Likewise I loved when they added Bart to the mythos, and Bart (unlike the ‘original’ Jason) wasn’t a cookie cutter of Wally. He was his own person who brought his own style to the table- complete with being taught by HIS sidekick Max Mercury. I loved the idea of the New Mutants as the idea, of ‘well gee the x-men are getting older so we need more kids…” but the New Mutants never ripened like the original Teen Titans as they weren’t really allowed to age as gracefully as Wally, Dick and Roy- Heck the only Marvel person who’s aged well is Peter but I digress.

So I love the Speedsters because they’ve grown as a family. They’ve had losses and set backs but they’re still close. They’re family.

So when they start the new Flash comic… I will be there. I don’t expect much, as I don’t like the idea of them aging Bart to take over the mantle… but I feel I owe to Barry, Wally and Jesse to give it a try ( Oh I hope that Jesse comes back).

I also want to footnote- as I did for Kel, that all the years that I played DC games with him, Evan and Adj… most of the time I created my own spin on DC characters; giving a new person the H dial( this was BEFORE the excellent Dial H maxi series), creating a twisted Earth Two version of Tim Drake and other stuff… but Bart was the only ACTUAL pre made hero I played and I loved playing him. When I told Kel this, he told me he remembered that I left in a huff because he put words in my character’s mouth. I didn’t disagree with him on that recollection, I just remembered some of the fun stuff I did more then the other stuff. For me in that game- Bart was comedy relief because he was just SOO much more powerful then many characters as to make them useless if he actually was able to concentrate for more then 5 seconds.
And footnote #2, one of my ‘knock off characters” was an overachieving speedster for a Legion Academy game( my first Evan play it by email game) and I had him… like they had Bart- speed read his way to knowledge. I thought it was a good idea for MY character but not Bart. Just like I was glad they aged Wally, I haven’t been pleased with them aging Bart before his time… and faster then Tim.
Hope the above made sense as while it’s been in the back of my mind for a bit- I’m tired and hung over tonight when I finally decided to commit it to bytes.


2) What's your favourite restaraunt and why?
I think my favorite restaurant is Boston Beerworks. I pick this place because when somebody comes up to Boston( like Kel did this week)- THIS is the place I want to go with them. The food is currently pretty standard bar fare- burgers, chicken sandwiches and a few fish selections. However what sets it apart is the BEER. Glorious BEER. They are a micro brewery and I love their blueberry ale. Usually when a friend and I go, we order a blueberry ale and then look at the rest of the menu.
And to be frank, being a poor bachelor proletarian- I’m much more likely to do take out then restaurants.

3) What TV shows do you watch regularly and (briefly) why?
I watch ‘My Name is Earl’, as that’s one of my favorite TV shows of all times. I really enjoy the whole cast and the whole Karma stance. Now that Earl is in reruns, I intend to watch CSI. It’s dropped a lot in my esteem, over the past year or so. I’m not sure why, I think part of it is that I don’t really like the blonde who they give a lot of story lines to and would much rather see Sarah and Grissom.
Actually many of the ‘must watch’ TV is on the Cartoon Network- Justice League, which was cancelled this year; Venture Brothers, looking forward to the new Season; Harvey Birdman, when they put on episodes; Robot Chicken, Funny toys.
The last two shows that I watch regularly are the Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Oberman. That’s where I get my TV news from.

I also will watch (if I run across them) Kim Possible, Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom. These are shows that I don’t watch regularly, but when I find them via channel surfing( and not an episode I don’t like) I’ll watch them. Though I did make sure to see the Fairly Odd Parents’ Fairy Idol and will made sure I saw this week’s Danny Phantom ‘movie”.

4) What was the first really good RPG you ever played?
That’s easy- it was my second real RPG. Mekton. It was a simple system (which me and a friend STILL managed to get wrong). Mekton was an Anime game with Giant Robots. It came out around the time of Robotech. My friend( who was a bit younger) got me into Mekton and anime. We GMed each other one on one. I don’t think I did as good a job as he did, but it was fun. I don’t think I ever regretted the nights spent with him like I have some other gaming… though at the same time, until you asked I haven’t really looked backed on it fondly… His mom worked for my Dad and when he fired her… I sorta lost touch with him. I think him going to college also helped.

5) Assumming you had all the time you needed and willing players, what RPG (system, setting & basic plot) would you really like to run?

Hmmm. This is a tough one. You see I’ve been burnt by players before. I GM’ed at MIT and let me tell you, those people knew their ways around a rules system. So whatever system I GM’ed in would have to be simple enough for me to master and rule on the sly as to when they’re trying to take advantage of loop holes.
However I was looking at the new Savage Worlds system.
You see even though I’ve never played it- I’ve been very much drawn to Deadlands.
Deadlands is a horror/western setting with zombies( harrowed), magical card players( hucksters), and of course gunslingers.

I actually looked at the newest system Savage Worlds, which is the latest system that Deadlands has come out for, the last time I worked at the game store because of this question. I didn’t give the Savage Worlds a full run down--- but it seemed simple enough for me to pick up… and I liked how I’d only have to buy the two books (Savage Worlds and Deadlands) in order to run/play Deadlands; as opposed to say the D20 version of Deadlands, where I’d need various D20 books to understand the game mechanics.
So- that’s what I’d run. I just think that there’s soo much to do in that sort of setting, even though I’m not a civil war buff I do like weird westerns and horror stuff. Heck when I first saw the new book, last week, I told a friend that you could prolly run a female Rabbi in Deadlands… And that might be fun for me to play as an NPC… As like many GMs, I end up with one or two NPCs that are characters I’d play if I was a PC.