Reavers – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Thu, 20 Oct 2016 14:17:50 +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 Reavers – 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. Reavers – Nerds on Earth false episodic Reavers – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. Reavers – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Friday 5: This Week’s Nerd Culture Highlights! https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/10/friday-5-weeks-nerd-culture-highlights/ Fri, 21 Oct 2016 12:15:27 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=10006

The 5 biggest news items from this week in geek culture

The post Friday 5: This Week’s Nerd Culture Highlights! appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

]]>

Friday 5 collects bits of news, fun, and updates on the week’s best nerdy things. Five quick links and your mana pool is replenished for the week. You’re welcome. Now, to the links!

Nerd Culture Highlights for the Week of October 16, 2016.

1.  John Cleese recaps The Walking Dead

John Cleese is a comedy legend. Needless to say, this video where he recaps the current seasons of The Walking Dead is great stuff.

via Nerdist

 

2.  A 100-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien book is being released in 2017.

Tolkien TombstoneBeren and Luthien, a book by the fantasy author, will be available next year as a standalone novel for the first time since its writing in 1917. It tells the story of a mortal man and an immortal elf, and Tolkien acknowledges that it was written to echo to real life love of Tolkien and his dear wife, Edith.

Our own Joseph Robinson has been nerdsplaining Tolkien’s work, so we’re sure this release gets him excited.

via GeekTyrant

 

3.  The first trailer for Logan dropped yesterday.

Old Man Logan was a great storyline in the comics. We wrote about it here. Certainly the movie will deviate, but it’s promising nonetheless. And the first trailer is amazing.

 

 

4.  Promo pictures hint to the appearance of the Reavers in Logan

xmen-reavers-comics-700x324While the Reavers were rumored to appear in Logan, Hugh Jackman’s last Wolverine film, the first trailer confirms the cybernetic baddies.

We’ve written extensively on the Reavers, so this is an exciting addition to the movie.

via SlashFilm

 

 

5. The first teaser trailer dropped for Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

I’m just going to leave this right here.


And we’re out of here, leaving you with 5 nerdy links. Hopefully they get you caught up on the big stories from nerd culture that you may have missed this week.

The post Friday 5: This Week’s Nerd Culture Highlights! appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

]]>
Meet Gateway, the Aboriginal Teleporting Mutant Member of the X-Men https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/10/gateway-aboriginal-mutant-x-men/ Thu, 06 Oct 2016 10:37:22 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=9408

What's the true origin of the Gateway of the X-Men? Nerds on Earth digs into the Aboriginal teleporting mutant's story.

The post Meet Gateway, the Aboriginal Teleporting Mutant Member of the X-Men appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

]]>

X-Men was the #1 selling comic book in the 80s by a wiiiiiiide margin, so like so many others, I was grabbing X-Men comics off the spinner racks by the fist fulls. And even though he’s a deep cut, I loved Gateway, their mysterious Aboriginal teleporter.

2284037-gatewaycolAustralia has a beautiful mix of interesting cultures, dating well before colonial times and it was fun that X-Men featured a character from that region. But the comics never included a map of Australia that had a big map marked “X-Men headquarters be here.”

This imprecision makes it difficult to exactly pinpoint Gateway’s indigenous origins, yet we have several solid clues that allow us to guess with pretty good confidence. We know that during the Australian years of the X-men, they took over the Reavers’ base that was located in Cooterman’s Creek, a high-tech facility disguised as an abandoned town in the Australian Outback that in X-Men vol. 2 #44 is said to be around 200 miles southeast of Lake Disappointment.

Geographically, that would locate the fictional Cooterman’s Creek in the area of Uluru, a site that is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara, the Aboriginal people of the area. Also known as Ayers Rock, it features a large sandstone rock formation that is surrounded by an abundance of springs, waterholes, rock caves, and ancient paintings.

outback01

At this point, let’s do three things:

  1. Even though we shouldn’t treat X-Men comic books like history or geography textbooks, let’s have a little fun with the tiny clues that help pinpoint Gateway’s ancestral inspiration.
  2. Let’s look a little more at the historical Ayers Rock and the Pitjantjatjara people who hold it dear.
  3. And let’s look more into the mutant powers of Gateway and why he was such an interesting support character in the X-Men comics.
The very real Uluru, aka Ayers Rock, which remains an important spiritual and ceremonial site for Aboriginal people.
The very real Uluru, aka Ayers Rock, which remains an important spiritual and ceremonial site for Aboriginal people.

The clues to Gateway’s geographical origin. Cooterman’s Creek is an abandoned mining town in  the middle of the inhospitable Australian Outback (Uncanny X-Men #249, and the comics that introduced the X-men Australia years.). The town was once booming enough to support a saloon, a hotel called the Desert Rose, and a newspaper called the Woolagarra Creek [X-Men Legacy #220], no doubt a homage Wollangarra, a place in Australia that can indeed be found on the map, even if the climate details were all wrong.

Historically, mining ore was prevalent in that region in the early 1900s, with little towns like this able to flourish in the otherwise arid Outback if it was located near an underground reservoir of fresh water. And Aboriginal people certainly had developed interesting and unique cultures in this region.

figure-23
Gateway, presumedly perched high atop Uluru, looking down upon Cooterman’s Creek, the one-time HQ of the X-men.

Ayers Rock and the Pitjantjatjara people. Chris Claremont was undoubtedly inspired by Ayers Rock (aka Uluru), which is a very real place that has been recognized as a World Heritage Site. And although the comics never really zoomed out to the point that the art gave a panoramic view of Uluru, there are so many wonderful panels of Gateway sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce, perched on the edge of Uluru, peering over into the Outback and Cooterman’s Creek, all while twirling his bullroarer as he teleported the X-Men all over the world.

As for the Pitjantjatjara, they are an Aboriginal people who refer to themselves as the Anangu, which in their language means “human being, person.” (I couldn’t confirm if the term also meant “mutant.”) Today there are still about 4,000 Ananou who have given up their nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle, and are living scattered in small communities like Cooterman’s Creek across their traditional lands like Uluru, which still possesses important spiritual and ceremonial significance in their culture.

eden-fesi-1The mutant powers of Gateway. Gateway was always a mysterious mutant, both because he never spoke and also because his origin was so shrouded in mystery. But twirling his bullroarer, Gateway could send the X-Men wherever they wanted to go.

And in addition to his kindly and wise appearance, he also had vaguely empathetic or telepathic powers, although comics are famous for making powers shift to support whatever plot point is current. Still, he always seemed to “know” just where the X-Men needed to be and when they needed to return.

The X-Men Rogue, in particular, formed a connection with Gateway and he’s been considered an unofficial team member for decades now. He’ll routinely pop up in stories from time to time, although precious little of his backstory is ever revealed. Most recently, Gateway is seen near the Jonathan Hickman created Eden Fesi (Manifold) who has similar powers to Gateway and presumedly could be Anangu as well.

Gateway is a great character, even if we’ll never truly see his origins presented in the comics. But kudos to Chris Claremont for bringing in a character that could take readers imaginations around the world.

The post Meet Gateway, the Aboriginal Teleporting Mutant Member of the X-Men appeared first on Nerds on Earth.

]]>