Reflection: From X-men to D&D

Between recent conversations of childhood cartoon shows that we loved, and Jon participating in the D&D blog hop – i’ve spent a lot of time this week chatting with friends about strange iconic things that have stood out to me that I distinctly remember making me dive into something that was SUPER geeky. Even if I didn’t I didn’t identify it as such at the time. Did you ever have one of those moments?

Specifically for me, I remember I would get up on the weekends and run to watch TV in the living room before my father could take control of the remote and watch some dull golf game, and I would tune in to Garfield and Friends, or Richy Rich, or…. anything that was animated really. One day, I stumbled across Fox playing a cartoon I didn’t recognize and people were flying across the screen, and there were powers, and there was a dude with a Cajun accent going after the girl – and I COULDN’T STOP WATCHING. I went from Captain Planet to X-men in a single episode (“the cure” if I remember correctly!) and I suddenly had a genre that I was in love with. I asked my friends and my brother if they understood how super incredibly awesome this show was, and was directed to the nearest comic store. After the following weekends episode was consumed, I was in the comic shop that day to get more. Within two weeks there, I had a monthly pull list.  Then my comic shop showed me some anime… and before long I figured out about the Batman shaped hole in my heart (figurative, thankfully). Somehow along the way, my family just started gathering for dinner on Sunday nights to catch new Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, and I decided singing along to the Sailor Moon soundtrack was an awesome thing to do in public.

What a strange thought, that one moment could influence my life so much? I liked one cartoon show, that showed me comics, that showed me a whole genre of art, that introduced me to games, communities on the interwebs, RPG groups and friends that I hold dearly well into my adult life. That one show helped move me to this table tonight where i’m sitting rolling D20’s with friends playing imagination station D&D games being evil elf sorcerers and contemplating assassinating the icons of this age. (Side note, my Drow sorceress really wants to find the eye of the Lich King, jab it in her face, kill him and become the Lich Queen. 13th Age is pretty rad game)

So what brought you to your part of nerdom? Did you make friends because one of them was whistling the Muppet theme song at work, you found you love fantasy novels because you were drawn to the wicked awesome cover art? Please share!

ALSO: Seriously, that romance between Gambit and Rogue in the 90’s x-men cartoon? My little tween heart was twitterpated for them. Even I had a crush on the Cajun guy with the incredibly awful costume.