Time for Figure Friday the column where I attempt to justify my continued interest in toys even though I’m well into my 40’s. It’s not just me, either, I’m attempting to take as many people down with me as possible. Why just this week I talked BBP! EiC Andy Burns into buying a very nice Mezco One:12 Christopher Reeve Superman! It was the right thing to do.
(Editor’s Note: It WAS the right thing to do. I’ve been craving a Christopher Reeve Superman figure for years, and this one is fantastic. I wasn’t sold on it when I watched an unboxing video, but when I found someone selling it for less than retail, I decided to make the leap. Now, I believe that an extremely expensive action figure will fly.)
It’s entirely possible that I may be using him to satisfy my toy buying urge by proxy because I have no new purchases of my own to write about for this column. Sometimes, you just get a really good deal on an “as-is” IKEA Listerby coffee table or decide that you need a new mattress because one of those mattress-in-a-box websites is having a Presidents’ Day sale. But then you get a letter in the mail that your property tax is going up and you wonder what that’s going to do to your mortgage payment and if you’ll have to stop collecting comics and toys all together?
Perhaps I’ve said too much.
So here’s bunch of stuff that I’m totally NOT going to order (wink, wink)!
Star Wars The Vintage Collection Tantive IV Hallway
There’s not a whole lot I can write about this to explain or condone its existence. Looking at this, along with a lot of other Star Wars toys I never thought I’d see, I feel like I’m looking at the end of all things. I am both terrified and titillated at the thought of its existence.
It’s a playset in name only. More accurately, it’s a diorama I suppose. It’s a hunk of plastic that recreates the opening scene of A New Hope and it’s nothing else…and I would be a goddamn liar if I wrote that this isn’t a playset that I had dreamed about owning for the last forty years or so.
The Hallway is roughly fifty American dollars and comes with a Rebel trooper and you can buy ANOTHER identical Hallway to attach to this one so that you may more accurately depict the layout of Princess Leia’s escape ship. I feel like I have to lay down.
Also in existence is a Carbon-Freezing Chamber Playset (from Empire Strikes Back) which you can also buy two of to recreate etc. etc. I don’t think there’s a single character from the original trilogy that hasn’t been immortalized in plastic and I say that as a man who owns a Willrow Hood action figure.
If you ever wanted and answer to the question, “what’s it like getting everything you’ve ever wanted?” ask a Star Wars fan and they’ll probably tell you that the sequel trilogy sucked and the prequels were better than anyone gives them credit for. Some people, right?
ThunderCats Ultimates Thundertank
Among toy manufactures, Super7 is clearly doing the Lord’s work. I have to imagine their product planning meetings go something like:
“Wouldn’t it be cool if….?”
“We should do it!”
“Yeah?”
“Hell yeah.”
I mean, how else can you explain an over two foot long, five hundred dollar, action figure vehicle for 7-inch scale figures. I don’t understand it, it’s not quite for me, but I respect the hell out of it.
Super7’s line of TMNT Ultimates figures have been very tempting to me…VERY tempting. However, I had resolved some years back that I didn’t need to buy every iteration of the four Turtles that gets produced…unless I’m considering adding a TMNT-wing to my house, which I am not. Currently.
If I’m being honest, it’s only a matter of time before Super7 comes for me. They just recently announced they have the Silverhawks license which, for the uninitiated, was a show produced by the same company as ThunderCats but instead of cat people it was cyborg bird people…IN SPACE. How am I supposed to resist that?
