80’s – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:38:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png 80’s – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. 80’s – Nerds on Earth false episodic 80’s – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. 80’s – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Understanding the Hellfire Club of Stranger Things and a Very Real Satanic Panic https://nerdsonearth.com/2022/05/understanding-the-hellfire-club-of-stranger-things-and-a-very-real-satanic-panic/ Sat, 28 May 2022 20:09:44 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=38570

Millions of kids played D&D in the 80s. But millions more parents were nervous that the imaginary demons in the D&D books might corrupt those same kids. We look at how the Hellfire Club of Stranger Things portrays that.

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Back in my day, children were allowed to spend days wandering unsupervised through the woods. In fact, it was expected, because that’s how us little rascals entertained ourselves before everyone had our devices.

Fortunately, I grew up in West Virginia, so I could find woods just by walking out my back door. As a junior high kid, a shout of, “Mom, I’m going to go play in the woods!” would be greeted with, “OK, be back before dark!

Some of my best memories are of the woods, particularly because I’d explore the area behind the junkyard and that allowed for a little serendipitous salvage. There was also an abandoned house that my friends and I wandered into only to find a detached doll’s head with creepy eyes that we were convinced was Chucky, an experience that fostered weeks of sleepless nights.

Other woodsy activities included building lean-tos out of fallen trees, damming up streams to build little hydroelectric experiments, catching salamanders, just barely missing putting our eyes out with BB guns, and practicing throwing ninja stars into trees.

The point is that it was no big deal for kids to wander the woods in the 80s and there were no cell phones to check in on them anyway. Just ask the kids from Stranger Things.

the Hellfire Club’s nod to Claremont X-Men is brilliant.

But our story takes a twist, as as evidenced by the opening episode of season 4 of Stranger Things. Eddie, the leader of Hawkins High School’s “Hellfire Club,[1]” reads a Newsweek article about how Dungeons and Dragons is for Satan worshippers. “The devil has come to America,” Eddie reads aloud. “Studies have linked violent behavior to the game, saying it promotes satanic worship, ritual sacrifice, sodomy, suicide, and…even murder.”

I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. Not everyone was comfortable with children exploring the woods. In fact, there were millions of people in the 80s who were absolutely convinced the woods were brimming with satanists and all sorts of evil things that you’d expect to inhabit the Upside Down.

All this looks perfectly normal to me.

So, let’s talk about what was happening culturally at that time in the 80s. I’ve written previously about the 1970s anxiety about cults, driven largely by Charles Manson murders. That was part of it, but changes in the Unites States economy played a huge factor as well.

Gas prices soared, inflation was out of control, and anxiety about Russia limited economic confidence, trends that could never happen today obviously. But that economic reality meant that both parents were entering the workforce in record numbers.

Whereas the mother may have previously planned trysts with Billy and stayed at home to greet the kids after school, it was increasingly a culture of “latchkey” kids who would let themselves in the house, then be expected to entertain themselves for several unsupervised hours. Many, like me, would wander off to play in the woods.

Parents had unexpressed guilt about this and these worries about their kids being unattended would often come out sideways, driven by irrational fears. We’ve established that Charles Manson stoked a cultural anxiety that kids were being scooped up by crazy cults. But soon another anxiety would layer on top of that.

The late 1970s also featured a cultural rise of the Religious Right, organized by televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson of the 700 Club. Remember, there were only a few television stations at that time and no Internet, which meant YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix were out of the question. So shows like the 700 Club had tens of millions of viewers.

These televangelists would consistently book fringe voices and conspiracy theorists over and over, normalizing them, much like Fox News does today. Suddenly, a single, isolated crazy like Charles Manson felt like a reality where there was a crazy under every bush and around every corner.

And the Religious Right kept tossing chum out into those waters, feeding the frenzy. It was as if anxiety was taking shape, starting to feel a little more tangible. Indeed, folks started to believe that literal demonic forces were swirling around them.

Says Religious Studies professor Joseph Laycock, “Many Americans truly did feel the corrupting presence of an invisible force that seemed to be all around them, corrupting their children and undermining the values of the family. This anxiety was expressed in symbolic terms, and these symbols were mistaken for reality.”

I love that the kids on Stranger Things play D&D, in part because that’s exactly what I was doing when I was their exact age at that exact time in American cultural history. But OG D&D players know the anxieties we’ve been talking about were thick in the culture at that time.

D&D fans remember it being called the “Satanic Panic” and thousands of kids had their D&D books confiscated by anxious parents or teachers. Already nerdy, the Satanic Panic pushed D&D players deeper “underground” for fear that they’d be ostracized for playing “the devil’s game.” This, ironically, further deepened the misunderstanding and mystery of the game.

I should know, the 80s tried to beat into my head that my beloved D&D was a direct journey to Satan. While my mom never forbade D&D books, she was a little nervous about them, her only sin being that she loved her son and wanted him to be safe.

Lo and behold, despite my life-long love of D&D, I have been a pastor most of my career. I must have failed a saving throw along the way.

The Mind Flayer was just a monster in a book, yet millions of Americans truly felt like it was lurking in the woods, eager to steal the innocence of our nation’s children. This is what the writers of Stranger Things have captured so perfectly.

Stranger Things is a brilliant show that portrays a moment in American culture pitch perfectly, and is darned entertaining to boot. Nowadays, our nation’s symbolic fears have a new face and you might actually see someone wearing a D&D t-shirt in public, but the Hellfire Club of Stranger Things reminds us that cultural anxieties have been around a long time.


[1] I love this clever naming nod to Claremont X-Men, comic books that were wildly popular at the time. Stranger Things captured the little details of the 80s perfectly.

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Why the Four Horsemen Says Playing with GI Joes Is Time Well Spent https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/09/playing-with-gi-joes/ Mon, 09 Sep 2019 12:00:55 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=25803

Does imagination and play feel like wasted time to you? Well, playing with GI Joes might be a good thing.

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Daniel Dennett doesn’t believe in The Force. In fact, Dennett, like Han Solo, doesn’t believe in any sort of “hokey religion.”

Dennett is an atheist, part of a movement that calls themselves the “Four Horsemen.” Dennett and his colleagues study the mind, intentionally trying to decouple it from religious thought.

Interestingly, Dennett has done research on the effects of playing with toys and being the old Grognard I am, that sets my mind thinking about 80s Star Wars, GI Joe, MASK, and He-Man action figures.

Well, this got weird fast. I mean, this article went straight from religious thought to waxing philosophical about GI Joe toys. Yet while it might seem like some steps are missing, I promise I’ll get there. But before we go any further, let’s acknowledge the most befuddling philosophical conundrum of them all, which is fandom itself.

Don’t try to understand fandom. It lies beyond the realm of analytic comprehension. Asking why some adults compulsively horde with religious fervor every GI Joe action figure released with an O-Ring is tantamount to asking why the universe exists. It just does. And they just do.

I should know: I have boxes full of GI Joes.

Instead, simply accept the fact that fandom is illogical and let’s lean into it. With this mindset, it’s pretty easy to mash up religious thought and GI Joe toys.

While our culture dismisses our use of the imagination as wasted time, mystics throughout history have told us that the imagination is a conduit into reality, not away from it. So while many assume that imagination distracts us from the real world and proper responsibility, many believe that imagination can open our minds.

In the 16th century, St. Ignatius of Loyola designed the training manual of the Jesuits, in which adherents were to deeply imagine themselves partaking in incidents from the life of Jesus, creating internal and personal “virtual realities” as a means of coming closer to God. Ignatius thought that deeply imagining themselves walking along with Jesus would help them to live a life well lived in the real world. This was simply building on the work of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.

Sixty-five years later, the Spanish nun Teresa of Ávila wrote a prayer manual called The Interior Castle, but you could easily say she wrote a “Player’s Handbook.” The Interior Castle described Ávila’s path to God as a kind of single-player game of D&D. She described the soul as a crystal globe, containing seven mansions to represent seven stages of deepening faith.

Throughout the book, she warned that this imaginary internal world will be constantly assaulted by reptilian “toads, vipers, and other venomous creatures,” representing the dangers to a soul that must be vanquished. Teresa of Ávila was totally a real-life cleric, y’all.

Similar techniques exist in many world religions, like the inner visualizations of Buddhism, for example. Those mystics and more speak to the importance of imagination, speaking of the vital importance of daydreaming and fantasy, and in their cases, imagination as literally the door to divinity.

Dennett observed that something equally interesting happens when we play with toys. Sure, action figures are physical objects but they don’t have minds, obvi. But what if action figures actually had plans of their own?

Dennett calls this the “intentional stance.” Think of it this way: when you play with Snake-Eyes, you don’t just plop a piece of plastic down on the table. No, you recreate scenes and absolutely make whooshing ninja sounds and you make him kick and slice like a Real American Hero.

But what if some smart alec Dreadnok corrects Snake-Eyes, letting him know that ninja lore has, um, actually been romanticized throughout time. Would Storm Shadow then step in and knock that smart Alec upside the head with a nunchuck?

In other words, playing with action figures helps us to think about what someone else would think, even if that someone else began as Cobra before turning to GI Joe. Imaginative play helps us to think about others intentions, making our decisions based upon the beliefs of our characters and the situations we’ve set up for them.

Now, deciding what an action figure will do is different than predicting what a real person will do in similar circumstances, so Dennett would warn us about wrongly projecting intentions onto inanimate objects.

Yet, we do it all the time. Chevys, starships, and the USS Flagg don’t respond to begging, yet anyone who has driven a clunker has at some point begged their car to start, much like Han Solo begged the Falcon to hold together. Or what nerd hasn’t wished upon a dice roll?

Sure, these are superstitious beliefs. Lightning doesn’t strike because Zeus is angry. But just like Teresa of Ávila or St. Ignatius of Loyola hoped for us, we can use our imagination to picture the best behavior for ourselves, thereby taking a baby step towards being more pure in our intentions. This is why I love to listen in on my girls playing with my Marvel Legends superhero action figures. They pretend to be heroes and my heart swells for them.

Fake it until you make it, in other words. Imagine you are a Jedi, committed to the Light Side of the Force. Or maybe you are a GI Joe filled with honor and a commitment to service.

Like many nerds, I spent my introverted childhood in my mind, reading, writing, and playing with action figures. Tolkienesque fantasy, Claremontian prose, and yes, tiny plastic GI Joes cut straight across my Western-thinking subconscious, allowing me to become a hero against the evil forces of Cobra Commander. I embarked on missions to battle the bad guys and in my imagination the good guys always prevailed.

And although our culture dismisses our use of the imagination as wasted time that distracts us from the real world and proper responsibility, I encourage you to pick up a Joe or grab the character sheet for your Paladin.

Imaginative play is not the same thing as making positive, constructive life choices but now we know that practice can make perfect. And knowing is half the battle.

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7 Reasons GI Joe is so Great https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/09/7-reasons-gi-joe-is-so-great/ Mon, 09 Sep 2019 12:00:22 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=24914

GI Joe is great and we list 7 reasons why. Now you know.

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Selling more than Yo-Yos or Radio Flyers is the iconic GI Joe, the insanely popular action figure line of the 80s, an estimated 375 million figures flew off the shelves, a number that is easy to remember because the height of GI Joes is 3.75 inches.

Obviously, a number that huge provides a good bit of cultural infusion as well as generates a healthy collector’s community. Yet there are many who didn’t or don’t collect GI Joes, so when they learn the rest of us nerds have boxes full of old GI Joes, they might scoff and ask us if we aren’t a bit old to own toys, as if only a child would care about such things.

We might laugh it off, because while some people look at Joe and see stupid little army men, when a GI Joe collector looks at them, we see our own histories.

So, what can we say to make non-collectors understand our love of GI Joe: A Real American Hero? Here are seven places to start:

7 Reasons GI Joe is so Great

Great Toys Mean Great Play Time

Photo courtesy of Special Mission Force.

As a little child, you’re given toys. First it’s clunky wooden blocks, then Legos if you’re lucky. Along the way you get action figures. They help your mind grow, and best of all they’re fun.

Then you grow up and society says playing is lame. You’re supposed to knuckle-down, be productive, and filter any ingenuity into your job! You’re not supposed to build LEGO, or pose action figures, or paint miniatures anymore; you’re supposed to build a shed in the backyard to store the tools you need for completing never ending tasks around your home. If you enjoy handy work, fine. But it’s not why you’re doing it.

The closest thing to playing that’s permitted of an adult is restoration. You can fix up an old convertible or re-stain a table. Those things are fine, because the end product will be usable for something. Again, it all comes back to practicality.

The thing is, not everyone wants to gut and remodel an Airstream trailer. It’s much more fun to play with old GI Joes from your childhood!

So why then is collecting GI Joes looked down upon like they are some childish thing? Why is replacing an O-Ring in an old Joe rather than a faucet considered a “guilty pleasure” rather than just a “pleasure”? And why am I considered a reclusive nerd, other than the fact that it’s true?

Because you allow it, that’s why.

But you don’t have to! You can say, “Screw it. I’m collecting old Joes! I hold down a day job and it’s OK that I have a hobby I enjoy. So if you need me, I’ll be down in The PIT, posing tiny plastic action figures into a fighting force against Cobra. Because that’s what I want to do, and no, I won’t apologize.”

Besides, research has shown that play is vitally important, even in adults.

The Characterization

Photo courtesy of Special Mission Force.

GI Joes weren’t just presented as faceless soldiers, they were presented as people with real names and personalities who interacted with one another.

From Ryan Costello of the Know Direction Podcast: “The characterization of GI Joe was amazing. In a few years on the air, GI Joe had a larger cast than any cartoon until The Simpsons. The Joes and Cobra had dynamic relationships, consistent personalities, and a lot of layers.”

Don’t take it from me, take it from Ryan, but he and I agree that GI Joe is great because the characters almost felt like friends to us. Better, they are characters we could look up to and emulate.

The Comic Book

Larry Hama is the man who wrote the book on GI Joe. A Vietnam veteran, Hama had just began to work at Marvel and was offered GI Joe as a consolation, a job that was considered the kiss of death, as no writer wanted to be associated with a toy line.

At the time of the cartoon, FCC rules prohibited children’s programs from advertising their own brand of toys, so instead Hasbro advertised the G.I. Joe comic — to fantastic results. Hama’s comic–GI Joe: A Real American Hero–was a wildly successful comic, appearing at the top of 80s comic sales charts alongside The Amazing Spider-Man and Claremont’s X-Men.

The comic was praised for its attention to detail and realism in the area of military tactics and procedures, this due to Hama’s military experience and the large amount of research he put into the book in order to be as up-to-date as possible. (He was drafted into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Vietnam war, so the figure Tunnel Rat was fittingly modeled after him)

But it was the soap-opera(y) nature of the book and the fact that the Joes were written as a family that ultimately made the comic be such a beloved read. Hama didn’t write the Joes as soldiers, he wrote them as people.

The comic also had moments of incredible artistry, such as G.I. Joe #21, titled “Silent Interlude”, which was told entirely without words or sound effects. (Our full story on that issue is here.) There were also spin-off titles such as GI Joe: Special Missions and Larry Hama also wrote the majority of the file cards that appeared on the back of the action figure blister packs, which millions of kids cut out and kept along with their Joes.

In short, the comic is absolutely a reason to be a Joe fan and endures to this day. In fact, I recently re-read through every Hama GI Joe comic and wrote about the experience here.

GI Joe is Diverse

Photo courtesy of Matt Middendorf.

There were female Joes right from the beginning and those characters like Lady Jaye and Scarlett had breasts and hips that were of normal proportions, choosing instead to treasure female characters’ strength and intelligence over the male gaze.

Likewise, there were lots of people of color and those Native American, Asian, and African American Joes were of high of a rank and just as much in the thick of battle as any other Joes.

This is due largely to Larry Hama, the legend behind the GI Joe comic. As mentioned, Hama didn’t write the Joes as soldiers, he wrote them as people. And males and females of all colors and types were the people who surrounded him in his New York home. In fact, Hama admittedly as much, saying, “I based the characters on people I knew.”

More than Nostalgia

Photo courtesy of Special Mission Force.

For many, GI Joe represents our greatest memories. I grew up in a small town and was very shy, not making friends easily. But GI Joe was always there for me, as cheesy as it sounds. I suspect many others feel the same way.

I don’t have a touchstone to my childhood home, as my parents moved away. I can’t visit the house I grew up in and look out in the backyard to remember the good ‘ole days. Instead, I carry my memories in plastic clamshell cases.

It’s important not to wallow in nostalgia, but it is important to remember the influences on your life. So, what a non-collector views as stupid pieces of plastic, I view as memories that have bared witness to my childhood. Some people look at old GI Joes and see stupid little army men, but when I look at them, I see my own history. I’m not alone in that.

They were legit

We’ve had had moments of looking back on something with nostalgia only to realize it doesn’t even remotely hold up when we revisit it. GI Joe holds up. They were really good toys.

From Strato-Viper on Twitter: “As a kid it was the toy as a whole. I loved the poseable figures, the art on the box, the catalogs in the vehicles. It seemed a step up from any toy. Then I started reading the comics and I was hook line and sinker.”

Strat has a point: GI Joes felt like a step up from every other toy at the time. Listen, I had tons of 80s Star Wars figures, but they had 5 points of articulation. GI Joes, on the other hand, could be bent and posed a million different ways, plus they came with great accessories that they could hold. GI Joe was is legit.

A Legacy of Service

Photo courtesy of Special Mission Force.

Ron Friedman and the writing team that created the Sunbow G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon series had complex feelings about a show that portrayed war, so they wanted it to leave a legacy of service and to provide positive messages of inclusion, self-sacrifice and heroism. 

To this end, millions of kids watched GI Joe, each episode ending with a PSA aimed at teaching kids values and morals. These ultimately became a popular and enduring part of the GI Joe lexicon, spawning the catchphrase, “Now you know…and knowing if half the battle.”

As a result, the GI Joe cartoon helped inspire countless men and women to become first responders, members of the armed services, and others who put themselves on the line for the greater good. Now you know.

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The Nerds On Earth Podcast: An Interview With YouTuber Michael Mercy https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/07/the-nerds-on-earth-podcast-an-interview-with-youtuber-michael-mercy/ Fri, 19 Jul 2019 05:01:42 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=24965

An interview with Michael Mercy of the incredibly popular 80s toy nostalgia YouTube channel.

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The Nerds on Earth Podcast features interviews with the creatives behind some of the nerdy things we love. The mission of Nerds on Earth podcast is to celebrate the creativity and professionalism of some of our favorite creators, while being able to take a peek behind the curtain of their craft.

This episode features an interview with Michael Mercy, creator of the EXCELLENT YouTube channel dedicated to 80s toys like GI Joe, Transformers, and more. His “History of…” series alone is pure brilliant joy.

This is a wide-ranging interview. Michael and Clave talk about nostalgia in pop culture, our favorite X-Men, GI Joe, and much more. Give it a listen!


This podcast is presented by Nerds on Earth. It is up to you to decide if you want more nerdy interviews. So if you liked this episode of the pod or any of the others, it’s up to you to let us know. Share the word, but also leave an iTunes review. If you ask for more, we’ll line up more interviews with creators!

Bonus: Check out a video presentation of the podcast below. Visit the Michael Mercy channel for more!

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An interview with Michael Mercy of the incredibly popular 80s toy nostalgia YouTube channel. An interview with Michael Mercy of the incredibly popular 80s toy nostalgia YouTube channel. 80’s – Nerds on Earth full false 1:06:49
The 49 Greatest GI Joes of All Time https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/02/49-greatest-gi-joes-of-all-time/ Thu, 21 Feb 2019 13:00:50 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=22027

We rank the greatest GI Joes of all time.

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There was no better time to be a kid than in the 1980s. And a love of GI Joe action figures endures to this day. I’ve written many times about our nerd obsession with GI Joe, so this time I simply want to share a list of the greatest GI Joe action figures.

But we do lists of 7 here at Nerds on Earth. With 200+ different GI Joe and Cobra action figures, a list of 7 simply will not do. So I’ve gone 7×7.

You need to know that all images are taken from the glorious Ultimate Guide to GI Joe 3rd Edition. They can be clicked to embiggen. Knowing that is half the battle.

49 • Scrap Iron

Scrap Iron was Cobra’s anti-armor specialist, so it makes sense that he came with a missile system. But I hated the guy, a feeling that sprung from a single panel in the comic book where he launched a missile at a car, killing a woman and child. That ain’t right and I never forgave him.

48 • Buzzer

I loved the Dreadnoks and although the grape soda drinking, chocolate donut eating Buzzer wasn’t my overall favorite, he still ranks above Zandar, who I barely noticed as a kid.

47 • Lifeline

The 2nd GI Joe medic, Lifeline was often a passenger in the Tomahawk helicopter, helping pilot Lift-Ticket get injured Joes or civilians out of sticky situations. But the memorable thing about Lifeline was his pacifism. He refused to even pick up a gun, much less fire one, as that would go against his principles.

46 • Duke

I know that field leader First Sergeant Duke is a fan-favorite Joe, as his blonde, square-jawed looks just screams All-American but–while I certainly didn’t have anything against him–I never thought much about Duke when I was a kid.

45 • Muskrat

I always liked my Joes to have a particular skill or environmental focus, which was perhaps the reason I never connected as strongly with Duke as others did. Muskrat’s environmental focus was swamps, and you know this because he came with a little swamp skimmer to go with his shotgun and machete.

44 • The Fridge

It kinda bugged me that GI Joe had guest stars, but I forgave them with The Fridge. Everyone was doing the Super Bowl Shuffle at the time, so when The Fridge became the physical trainer of the Joes, it was A-OK.

43 • Torpedo

As a Navy SEAL, I knew Torpedo was tough. But the thing I remembered most about Torpedo in the comic was he wore his flippers at all times, even when he was drawn firmly on land.

42 • Croc Master

Did Cobra Commander need to hire a crocodile trainer to patrol the swampy areas of Cobra Island, particularly when it was located just off the coast of Florida’s alligator country? No. But I’m sure glad he did.

41 • Crimson Guard

Captained by Tom and Xamot, the Crimson Twins, the Crimson Guard lived among us, from being hidden in small towns like Springfield to infiltrating the highest offices in business and politics. Commonly called Siegies (See-Gee), comic readers called them Fred.

40 • Rock ‘n Roll

A California dude, Rock ‘n Roll loved music, the ladies, and vintage muscle cars. I loved that he had a machine gun.

39 • Beachhead

I literally didn’t know much about Beachhead other than he looked cool and he always wore a ski mask like several other Joes.

38 • Barbecue

Barbecue was the Joe firefighter. His card back said he was the life of the party.

37 • Flint

Warrant Officer Flint was popular from the cartoon and popular with Lady Jaye.

36 • Cutter

Cutter was awesome because he came with the Whale, the GI Joe Hovercraft that–outside of the USS Flagg–is the greatest toy ever made. He also wore his life preserver everywhere he went.

35 • Outback

Outback was the Survivalist and it says so right there on his t-shirt. Outback also got a wonderful GI Joe comic storyline when he was ordered by Stalker to escape, yet had to live with the guilt of leaving his squad-mates behind.

34 • Mutt and Junkyard

If you read the comics, you know that Junkyard does not behave. That dog is fully in change of his handler.

33 • Chuckles

The undercover agent Chuckles didn’t want to stand out so he wore a Hawaii 5-0 style Hawaiian shirt. But he further stood out because in the one GI Joe issue drawn by Todd McFarlane, Chuckles was drawn as beefy as Roadblock.

32 • Recondo

Recondo was the GI Joe jungle specialist and he looked the part with his resplendent hat and glorious mustache. He always got a lot of missions in the fictional South American country of Sierra Gorda.

31 • Dusty

Dusty was the desert trooper. He was also cool, which is an asset on long marches across the Sahara with the French Foreign Legion.

30 • Snow Serpent

Rarely are the generic Cobra troopers well regarded but Snow Serpents were fantastic. Each sported a couple of snow shoes as one would expect, but they also had a sweet mortar, which is not nothing.

29 • Snow Job

Snow Job was one of the earliest Joes and an Olympic biathlete. I just loved his gear. The skis and poles that attached to his back are among the all time best Joe accessories.

28 • Sgt Slaughter

Having a wrestler like Sgt Slaughter become the drill sergeant for the Joes was another occasion where I decided I was OK with real-life personas becoming Joes.

27 • Serpentor

What do you get when you genetically combine the DNA of the world’s best military minds like Gengis Khan and Alexander the Great? Well, Serpentor of course.

26 • Jinx

She was like Storm Shadow’s cousin or something, which is enough for me to like her lots.

25 • Doc

Doc was the original medic for the Joes. The number of times he got them out of scraps and bandaged up in in scientific notation territory.

24 • B.A.T.s

B.A.T. stood for “Battle Android Trooper” and these things were killer with their detachable hands that could be a claw or a flamethrower.

23 • Alpine

I loved Alpine. Not only did he have a cool look as a figure, he had the coolest gear, complete with a set of grappling hooks and rope.

22 • Ripper

Ripper was the mohawked Dreadnoks that had a hydraulic cutter and a can opener attached to his rifle, on the chance you’re getting your Dreadnoks messed up, which is understandable.

21 • The Crimson Twins

Tomax and Xamot were the twins who were in charge of the Crimson Guard. The distinctiveness is they had matching scars on opposite checks. To show off their twin-ness I only used one image and mirrored it.

20 • Zarana

Zarana was Zartan’s sister who liked to get sassy with the Baroness in order to push her buttons. Her other brother was Zandar, although people tended to overlook him.

19 • Dr. Mindbender

Dr Mindbender was the mad scientist of Cobra. His crowning achievement was the creation of Serpentor. He also was into leather and liked to go shirtless.

18 • Major Bludd

Major Bludd was one of the very first Cobra mercenaries introduced and he was adequately ridiculous, as a Cobra villain should be. The early years of the comics had Cobra Commander, Destro, the Baroness, and Bludd always a nervous wreck over who would double-cross who.

17 • Low-Light

Low-Light was the Joe’s night spotter and he has a slick pair of goggles to prove it. He has a fantastic storyline in a GI Joe Special Missions comic where he was behind enemy lines and had to hoof it to catch the evacuation chopper.

16 • Shipwreck

Shipwreck had a parrot. If that’s not enough reason to like a Joe, then I don’t know what is.

15 • Zartan

Zartan was Cobra’s master of disguise and leader of the Dreadnoks. His figure was cool because it had hyper-color technology built into it.

14 • Tunnel Rat

Tunnel Rat was modeled after GI Joe comic book writer Larry Hama and I will always love him because of that. ’nuff said!

13 • Cobra Commander

Is there any better villain in pop culture than Cobra Commander, he with all his schemes within schemes? He was great in the comics but he was even livelier in the cartoon, as he’d always whine about being surrounded by imbeciles.

12 • Wild Bill

Wild Bill was the rootin’ tootin’ Texan chopper pilot.

11 • Spirit Ironknife

Spirit was the Native American tracker on the GI Joe team but he was also known for his great rivalry with Storm Shadow in the cartoon.

10 • Gung-Ho

Gung-Ho was the shirtless Marine with the chest tattoo.

9 • Stalker

Stalker was a Green Beret and one of the original GI Joes. His story intersected with Snake Eyes’ and Storm Shadow’s as far back as the Vietnam War.

8 • Destro

Destro was a Scottish arms dealer who lived in a castle and wore an iron mask and used wrist rockets. If all those words don’t excite you, then you aren’t wired up right.

7 • Storm Shadow

Do I really need to give a rationale for why the ninja is one of the all time best?

6 • Lady Jaye

Lady Jaye was introduced more slowly into the comic, but she burst into the cartoon. A covert operations officer, she also had the best missions and her javelin launcher was one of the most unusual accessories. Originally slated to be named Lady Shea, she was the among the best-educated of the Joes. The other elite education belonged to her beau, Flint, a Rhodes Scholar.

5 • Roadblock

Roadblock was the cook of the Joes. He was also the heart of the Joes in many ways, often sacrificing for the sake of his teammates. He could also wield a 50 cal one-handed if need be.

4 • Firefly

Firefly was the saboteur, which meant he was decked out in grenades and C4. Sort of like Boba Fett, Firefly is among the all-time most popular despite the fact they he was only a mercenary, not a central player.

3 • Baroness

It should be said that I played with GI Joes as a pre-pubescent boy, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Baroness is among my favorites.

2 • Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes never spoke and you never saw his face. Yet, despite that or perhaps because of that, Snake Eyes is seen as the iconic GI Joe. His release that included his wolf Timber is among the most sought after toys ever.

1 • Scarlett

Listen, I don’t know why she used a crossbow and I don’t understand what she was wearing, but there isn’t a better Joe to me than Scarlett. One of the originals and the first female, Scarlett was cheekily names after Scarlett O’Hara.

As an original, her arms at first didn’t include the swivel battle grip. Nor did her feet include holes for pegs. So she’s not able to be posed on battle stands.

When asked about Scarlett’s martial prowess, Larry Hama said, “I didn’t see why a female Joe shouldn’t be just as competent and deadly as the males […] I didn’t tone her deadliness down in the comic at all.”

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Back to the Future: An overview of Tales from the Loop https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/07/tales-from-the-loop/ Thu, 26 Jul 2018 12:27:16 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=19059

We look at Tales from the Loop, a nostalgia-inspired tabletop roleplaying game.

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I was a teen in the 80’s. It was a time that really helped forge my identity as a nerd forever. I remember Empire Strikes Back, E.T., Goonies, Commodore 64, and riding bikes with my friends to the Putt-Putt just a few miles from our neighborhood where they had a KILLER collection of arcade games.

There’s been lots of nostalgia stirred up recently with reboots of movies and tv shows, the arrival of Stranger Things on Netflix, and even games like Kids on Bikes (check out fellow nerd Brandon Morgan’s excellent review) and GasLands (a Car Wars type game also reviewed by Brandon).

Tales from the Loop is another RPG that scratches that same 80’s nostalgia itch. It was inspired by Simon Stålenhag who published a book of his captivating artwork and stories that blend simple rural and urban scenes from the 80’s and 90’s [“Cool!”] with futuristic machines and vehicles [“Yeah?!”], Robots [“Awesome!!”], and DINOSAURS! [“AAIIIEEEE!!!”]

Excuse me, I’m going to need a moment…

Thanks. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the game…

Back to the Future: An overview of Tales from the Loop

The core Tales from the Loop book is gorgeous! The design is crisp, clean, and engaging with its bright colors and the inclusion of lots of Stålenhag’s beautiful illustrations. It’s a solid book weighing in at 191 pages, and it includes everything you need to get playing.

It all starts with a quick intro for people who may be new to RPGs. There’s a brief description of the setting, a quick example of game play, and then an explanation of how RPGs work. Then, it gives a concise list of the principles of the game (I love nice little nuggets like this because they’re easy to understand and remember) that include things like “your home town is full of strange and fantastic things”, “adults are out of reach and out of touch”, and “the world is described collaboratively”.

The book dedicates two chapters to describing the settings: one in Sweden (Stålenhag’s home), and one in the US; and each have some beautiful supporting maps. Of course, the descriptions of locations and the technology of the world make it easy enough for the GM to adapt the game to any setting, you’d just miss out on the maps.

Creating characters is a pretty straightforward process. Like the things that inspired this game (and Kids on Bikes), the characters in this game are kids. Unlike Kids on Bikes, this game takes a shorter view of a character’s career. In Tales, a character is between 10 and 15 years old (when a character turns 16, they are “no longer considered a kid for the purposes of this game”).

Age does affect the game, in that you have a number of skill points to allocate based on your age. The older you are, the more points you get to allocate to your base attributes. Conversely, the younger you are, the more points of “luck” you have (luck allows you to reroll dice). The results are older kids are better with certain skills (more dice in their dice pool for those skills), but younger kids are more versatile (luck can be spent to re-roll any skill).

A character’s base attributes are body (similar to strength and dexterity), tech (intelligence/wisdom-ish – related to physical things, like machines, computers, and locks), heart (charisma), and mind (intelligence/wisdom-ish – related to people, creatures, riddles, etc.). Each attribute will have a score between 1 and 5. A character has a number of points equal to their age. The remaining points (15 – character age) are luck points.

As your character ages, you lose luck points as they are transferred into attribute points. A character also has some skills that can be improved through experience points. There are standard archetypes provided to help you build your character, including computer geek, jock, and popular kid.

These archetypes give you direction for other character aspects: skills, problems, drives, prides, relationships, and anchors. Those aspects are useful in driving the narrative. The anchor is interesting in that it is the person that helps a character when they are hurt. In Tales from the Loop kids can’t die, but they can get hurt (acquire a condition). When they’re hurt, they need to interact with their anchor to remove conditions.

Possible conditions are upset, scared, exhausted, injured, and broken. These conditions are results of skill checks (rolling dice).

The mechanics of the game are based on the Year Zero Engine. When facing trouble, a player will build a dice pool where the number of dice is determined by the adding the value of the relevant attribute and relevant skill. You may have an item that gives you a bonus or a condition that give you a penalty. A result of a 6 on a die is considered a success. You may need 1, 2, or 3 successes to overcome trouble.

Spending a luck point, or pushing yourself will let you re-roll. If you get more successes than needed, you get to choose from a list of bonuses for each skill which include not having to roll in a similar situation in the future, or being able to give another character a bonus die for a future roll.

Failure however, as well as pushing yourself, result in acquiring a condition (-1 to your dice pool). To heal or remove a condition, a character must spend time (play out a scene) with their anchor where they talk through the problem. As a counselor who uses games to promote growth and development, I love this mechanic. It’s a great way to play out real life struggles in a safe way.

The rest of the book includes a year long (game time) campaign that can be played in either setting – with supporting maps and artwork. There is an additional book available that includes mysteries to solve, new machines, and more information for game masters to create their own mysteries and campaigns. You can also get custom dice, a GM screen, and beautiful printed maps from your FLGS, publisher Modiphius, or however you reach you’re favorite gaming vendor.

Oh yeah, Stålenhag’s work has recently been picked up by Amazon for a new show on Prime.

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How the Upside Down of Stranger Things is Very Real in the Mind of Millions https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/02/stranger-things-dnd/ Tue, 13 Feb 2018 13:00:42 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=15861

Millions of kids played D&D in the 80s. But millions more parents were nervous that the imaginary demons in the D&D books might corrupt those same kids. We look at how Stranger Things portrays that.

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Back in my day, children were allowed to spend a day wandering unsupervised through the woods. In fact, it was expected, because that’s how us little rascals entertained ourselves.

I grew up in West Virginia, so I could find deep woods by walking out my back door. As a jr. high kid, I’d shout, “Mom, I’m going to go play in the woods!” and be greeted with, “OK, be back before dark!”

I had so much fun in the woods, particularly because I’d choose the area behind the junkyard that allowed for a little serendipitous salvage. There was also an abandoned house that my friends and I could wander through. Other woodsy activities included building lean-tos out of fallen trees, damming up streams to build little hydroelectric experiments, catching salamanders, and practicing throwing ninja stars into trees.

Later, BB guns were involved, but those are stories for other posts. The point is that it was no big deal for kids to wander the woods in the 80s and there were no cell phones to check in on them all the time anyway. Just ask the kids from Stranger Things.

But our story takes a twist, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. Not everyone was comfortable with children exploring the woods. In fact, there were millions of people in the 80s who were absolutely convinced that the woods were brimming with demons and satanists and all the sorts of evil things that you’d expect to inhabit the Upside Down.

Let’s talk about what was happening culturally at the time. I’ve written previously about the 1970s anxiety about cults, driven largely by Charles Manson murders. That was part of it, but changes in the Unites States economy played a huge factor as well.

In the 1980s the economic reality was that both parents were entering the workforce in record numbers. Whereas the mother may have previously stayed at home to greet the kids after school, it was increasingly a culture of “latchkey” kids who’d let themselves in the house, then be expected to entertain themselves for a few hours. Some–like me–would wander off to play in the woods.

Parents had unexpressed guilt about this and their worries about their kids being unattended would often come out sideways, driven by irrational fears. We’ve established that Charles Manson stoked a cultural anxiety that kids were being scooped up by crazy cults. But soon another anxiety would layer on top of that.

The late 1970s also featured a cultural rise of the Religious Right, organized by televangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson of the 700 Club. Remember, there were only a few television stations at that time and no Internet, which meant YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix were out of the question. So shows like the 700 Club had tens of millions of viewers, who even if they weren’t into it, didn’t have anything else to watch.

These televangelists from the Religious Right would consistently book fringe voices and conspiracy theorists and plug them over and over, normalizing them, much like Fox News does today. Suddenly, an isolated crazy like Charles Manson felt like there was a crazy under every bush and around every corner.

And the Religious Right kept tossing chum out into those waters, hoping to bloody them up even more. It was as if anxiety was taking shape, starting to feel a little more tangible. Indeed, folks started to believe that literal demonic forces were swirling around them.

Says Religious Studies professor Joseph Laycock, “Many Americans truly did feel the corrupting presence of an invisible force that seemed to be all around them, corrupting their children and undermining the values of the family. This anxiety was expressed in symbolic terms, and these symbols were mistaken for reality.”

I love that the kids on Stranger Things play D&D, in part because that’s exactly what I was doing when I was their exact age at those exact years in American cultural history. But OG D&D players know that the anxieties we’ve been talking about were thick in the culture at that time.

D&D fans remember it being called the “Satanic Panic” and thousands of kids had their D&D books confiscated by anxious parents or educators. Already nerdy, the Satanic Panic pushed D&D players deeper “underground” for fear that they’d be ostracized for playing “the devil’s game.” Of course, this simply further deepened the misunderstanding and mystery of the game.

I should know, the 80s tried to beat into my head that my beloved D&D was a direct shot to Satan. Lo and behold, most of my career I have been a pastor. I must have failed a saving throw along the way.

The demogorgon was just a monster in a book, yet millions of Americans truly felt like it was lurking in the woods, eager to steal the innocence of our nation’s children. This is what the writers of Stranger Things have captured so perfectly.

Stranger Things is a brilliant show that portrays a moment in American culture pitch perfectly, and is darned entertaining to boot. Nowadays, our nation’s symbolic fears have a new face and you might actually see someone wearing a D&D t-shirt in public, but Stranger Things reminds us that cultural anxieties have been around a long time.

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Throwback Cartoon Theme Songs that You Won’t Be Able to Get out of Your Head https://nerdsonearth.com/2017/01/throwback-cartoon-theme-songs-that-you-wont-be-able-to-get-out-of-your-head/ Thu, 19 Jan 2017 13:00:23 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=11776

The internet has gifted to the world the collected totality of human knowledge and creation. It’s like a modern-day Library of Alexandria, only with more Biden/Obama memes and cat videos. Some of these creations include the best cartoon theme songs of the 1980s and 1990s, just waiting for our listening pleasure. Prepare yourselves—these earworms are […]

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The internet has gifted to the world the collected totality of human knowledge and creation. It’s like a modern-day Library of Alexandria, only with more Biden/Obama memes and cat videos. Some of these creations include the best cartoon theme songs of the 1980s and 1990s, just waiting for our listening pleasure. Prepare yourselves—these earworms are next to impossible to forget.

Throwback Cartoon Theme Songs that You Won’t Be Able to Get out of Your Head

Ducktales
The Ducktales theme opens with a bass riff pulled almost note-for-note from Hall & Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True”, and it sets the tone for the rest of the song and the show. Those punchy backbeats, the great animation, the Indiana Jones-ish vibe—what more could you want from an opening minute of a show?

If your response is, “Intricate rhyme schemes and slavish devotion to and emphasis on the word ‘duck,’” you’re in luck. “Duck-blur” is rhymed with Duckburg, “good luck tales” with “Ducktales,” and the singer ends the song mockingly crowing, “Not pony tales or cotton tales but Ducktales!” And good luck getting that “Woo-ooo!” out of your head for the rest of the week.

 

The Adventures of Pete & Pete
I know this isn’t a cartoon, but bear with me. Considered a bona fide cult classic nowadays, The Adventures of Pete & Pete has a theme song worthy of a spot in any Spotify playlist. “Hey Sandy” is a genuinely good one minute song, sounding like a more upbeat Toad the Wet Sprocket B-side without sacrificing the deeply quirky nature of the show.

They even manage to sneak in a surprisingly long, awesome guitar solo. This is because it was written by real band-turned-fictional TV band Polaris, whose penchant for nearly indecipherable lyrics (seriously, can anyone actually tell what the words to the third line are?) and long, luxurious locks makes them prime candidates for boyfriend-of-the-week on an episode of Gilmore Girls.

 

Muppet Babies
With a 1950s doo-wop beat and the best background singer this side of Frankie Lymon or the Skyliners, this Jim Henson classic sounded like a blast from the past even during its mid-80s heyday. This isn’t accidental—much like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the high priests of 1980s movie culture, Henson was an ardent disciple of vaudeville, movie serials, and radio shows.

Seriously, this song could be playing in the background of a scene from American Graffiti and no one would be the wiser. One of the loveliest things about Jim Henson’s M.O. was his sincere belief in the uplifting potential of television, and the Muppet Babies theme carries the flag proudly by emphasizing the power of imagination (although poor Beaker looks like his imagination trip might be a little too strong).

 

Thundercats
Thundercats might be the Holy Grail of nerdy TV theme songs. As the ‘Cats emblem flickers onto the screen a primal roar sounds, a trumpet issues the clarion call, and the drummer drops an absolutely sick tom fill—audibly communicating that whatever comes next is bound to be gnarly.

Over the next minute or so, we are introduced to everything we need to know: awesome good guys, evil bad guys, explosions, cool vehicles, spectral mentors, the works. During all of this, the drums keep pounding, and the best 80s guitarist not named Oz Fox joins the fun, adding some blistering fretwork to an already rocking song.

All of this would be enough for any other show, but it’s time to introduce the actual bad guy: the dreaded Mumm-ra, who gets to hog the final twenty seconds of the credits pushing Lion-O around and lording over his sweet pyramid/castle stronghold. Between the theme song and the top-notch animation of the opening credits, the first minute was probably the most expensive part of the entire episode.

 

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Nerd Nostalgia: Looking Back at MASK, the great 80s Cartoon and Toy Line https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/12/nerd-nostalgia-looking-back-at-mask-the-great-80s-cartoon-and-toy-line/ Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:42:54 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=10480

M.A.S.K. was a wonderfully cheesy 80s toy line and cartoon. We look back.

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I was raised by a single mom who worked multiple jobs to provide for me. One of those jobs was to manage the toy section in G.C. Murphey’s, a now defunct department store chain from the 80s. Listen, my mom was already a saint, but the fact that she got an employee discount in a toy section at a department store elevated her to Pantheon tier in my eyes.

My first love was GI Joe and Star Wars, but I had plenty of room in my heart for another 80s toy line: M.A.S.K.

Nerd Nostalgia: Looking Back at MASK, the great 80s Cartoon and Toy Line

M.A.S.K. stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand and was the result of GI Joe and Transformers having a love child. So if you think that MASK’s jump the shark moment was right out of the gate, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. And you can mock, but at the end of the day Fonzie jumped over a shark on water skis and you didn’t.

rhino-mask-80s-toys

Matt Trakker (two Ks, of course) was the leader of the good guys in MASK. They battled Miles Mayhem, the leader of the villainous organization V.E.N.O.M. (Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem). Everyone drove a tricked out vehicle that could pass as a street car until it transformed into a heavily armored and weaponized doom mobile.

And, also, every one of the characters wore a mask, because battling VENOM in transforming vehicles wasn’t enough kool to toss at kids. But imagine that your Toyota Camry suddenly had rocket launcher that sprung out the fenders and you drove it wearing an Iron Man helmet. Yeah, you’d change your name to Matt Trakker in a heartbeat.

Here are some of the most popular toys in the line:

  • MASK 80s toys Thunderhawk
    The Thunderhawk was a Chevy Camaro that was driven by Trakker himself. It had retractable wing cannons because, you know, the doors folded up like wings so the Camaro could fly, as is typical.
  • The Rhino was perhaps the 2nd most popular vehicle. The Rhino was a tractor rig that transformed into a mobile defense unit.
    It had a bumper that turned into a battering ram, smokestacks that turned down into cannons, and the rear ejected and turned into an ATV.
  • The Condor was a motorcycle that turned into a helicopter, while VENOM had a motorcycle called the Piranha that had a removable sidecar that doubled as a submarine. They go low; you go high.
  • gatorbox
    My favorite was the Gator. The Gator was a jeep. But the entire body would pivot up, allowing a speed boat to shoot out the front. Dusty Hayes was the driver, but I pretended he was Dusty Rhodes, the American Dream.
  • The base of operations was a filling station called Boulder Hill. This HQ had everything a kid could dream of: an anti-aircraft current, a helipad, and gas pump lasers.
MASK Boulder Hill 80s Toys

The 1st series of MASK was in 1985, with the 2nd series following shortly thereafter in 1986. They were developed by Kenner, who wanted a toy line to compete against Hasbro’s Transformers and GI JOE. Ironically, Hasbro has long since purchased Kenner, so there is word that MASK will be a part of the shared movie universe that is being developed by Hasbro.

Later series show the focus shift from a military tech angle, instead making MASK and VENOM be the names of rival drag racing teams. But it wasn’t the same after that and it’s fate was sealed.

The crown jewel was the cartoon, which ran 75 episodes. I could describe it, but YouTube has the intro. Just watch below and try to tell me that’s not the catchiest theme movie of all time.

M.A.S.K. is seeing a bit of a resurgence of late. First, there is the aforementioned shared movie universe with Paramount Pictures, but on a smaller scale, IDW is publishing some MASK comics.

It really was a fun little toy line and I got dozens of hours of playtime with them, even if looking back you realize how cheesy they were. But do look back at them. I discovered an entire website dedicated to the toys, cartoons, and everything else related. It’s ran by Mr. Albert Penello, so give it a look if you are looking to extend this little journey down nostalgia boulevard.

Until next time, make sure you get out there an battle against the evils of VENOM.

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Get Off My Lawn! The Role of Nostalgia in Nerd Culture https://nerdsonearth.com/2015/09/role-of-nostalgia-in-nerd-culture/ Sat, 26 Sep 2015 15:16:17 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=3447

With the most popular nerd franchises having existed for decades, what is the role of nostalgia in nerd culture?

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Why aren’t old things considered cool? That seems kind of unfair. Consider Samuel L. Jackson. That fly muthaf****a has been eligible for an AARP card for years. But, hey, I don’t make the rules.

Nostalgia in Nerd Culture

x-men-101-bI do bend the rules however. I’m a Gen Xer, the generation of nerd that was alive to see one of the original Star Wars movies in the theatre. Gen Xers also grew up during the Claremont era of the X-men, began collecting action figures like these in full force, saw video games go from Arcade consoles to home systems, and developed our imagination with the first editions of Dungeons and Dragons.

Us old school nerds have just kept liking the same things we’ve always liked, so it doesn’t seem weird that we have a fistful of quarters and we have been wandering around our local Piggy Wiggly for 30 years, still trying to find that Donkey Long arcade cabinet that used to be there.

Yes, we continue to have a unshakable sense of nostalgia for the nerdy things that we grew up with, continue to geek out over them, and our unfailing obsession over them have carried many of the franchises into today’s nerd culture (See Star Wars Episode VII), some 3 decades later.

Us old grognards were the founders of nerd culture, so we have developed a sense of entitlement when it comes to nerd culture. Specifically, we expect that our beloved franchises will not only continue to exist in perpetuity–yet even more importantly–won’t be “ruined” by modern attempts to freshen them up or make them desirable to younger audiences.

url-6Han Solo shot first. End of discussion.

In short, us old nerds want to have our cake (like the things we’ve always liked, but untouched) and eat it too (be fed new material from our favorite franchises and genres). And in this great land of America is it too much to ask to have cake that we can eat? Happiness, you horrible fascist, please stop stomping on the old nerdy things I love with your rain boots of oppression!

But strong are the bonds that unite fan communities, so the vast majority of us nostalgic nerds aren’t looking for a nerd fight with the younger generation of nerds who are in their 20s. Sure, there are a few hopeless old reactionaries on the internet who are attempting to shout down the trends they witness in nerd culture, but the vast majority of us nostalgic nerds who lived through Honey, I Shrunk the Kids are pinching ourselves with glee because we never imagined we’d be alive to see Ant-man on a big screen.

In short, the majority of us are perfectly happy to revel in our nostalgia while also welcoming the new stuff that the whipper-snappers are clamoring for. Indeed, the term “Golden Age” drips with nostalgia, suggesting a romanticized preference for the past over the present. Steve Rogers will always the first image that pops into my mind when someone says Captain America, so Secret Empire was difficult for me, but that doesn’t mean I jump to bemoan or belittle the presence of Lady Thor, or a fresh profile for Ms. Marvel (In fact, I like it a lot).

Marvel-New-Mutants-1“The way things have always been” is not the non-negotiatable, unassailable natural order, it’s just the way things have always been. Granted, in the age of the internet my encyclopedia knowledge of 80s X-Men comics doesn’t carry the exclusivity it once did, but that doesn’t negate the profound experience reading those $.60 spinner rack comics had on me as a kid. Most of us old nerds can celebrate the past without clinging to it.

And it certainly would have been no good for anyone to have frozen the X-Men in the 80s, having killed off the characters and franchise permanently before the 90s, even though 90s X-Men comics make me throw up a little bit. So I don’t bemoan 90s comics fans their pouches. Instead I grab my iPad, subscribe to Marvel Unlimited, and read classic New Mutants runs while I creepily feed pigeons in the park and shake my cane at squirrels.

Nostalgia is not so hard to understand. Like many nerds of my ilk, I’ve just always liked what I’ve liked. Besides, I get to have my cake and eat it too. It’s not like Marvel will ever really kill off the X-Men, so I have an incredible opportunity to jam to the new tunes too. (Editor’s Note: Uh, Marvel is killing off the X-Men.)

Nostalgia in Nerd Culture: Challenges

That’s not to say that their won’t be in rocks in the road as nostalgic nerds and new nerds co-habitate. Our fine young friends who like what Michael Bay has done with the Transformers franchise will never be understood by me. (Disclosure: Not fine. Not Friends.) Likewise, Millennial nerds will never be understand how us nostalgic nerds existed on 8 bits alone, when OMG those graphics were obvi lame.

Millennial nerds are more present-oriented than nostalgic nerds. Young geeks are vastly more interested in using the instantaneous nature of social media to discuss works of their peers through creative and social lenses. To new nerds the past is distant, boring, and often filled with both injustices and old-fashioned techniques. They aren’t interested in celebrating the good old days that didn’t seem so good.

Us nostalgic nerds? Well, again, we’ve just always liked what we’ve always liked. But give us that new stuff too. Just for the love of all that is holy, do not screw up Star Wars.

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