Bionic Sexism... by Kenner

So Steve Austin gets Mission Control Center...And Jamie Summers gets a Bionic Beauty Salon?!
They obviously just cannibalized The Prisoner's Electroshock Therapy Playset for that one...

Reign of the Supermen #413: Gold Super Powers Superman

Source: Kenner's Super Powers Collection, never released action figure (1988)
Type: ToyFor Superman's 50th Anniversary, Kenner had apparently planned to issue a gold variant of their Superman figure, which would have had two important differences. First, the ordinarily blue portions of the costume would have been vac-metalized with gold. And second, the original figure's "punch action" would have been replaced with "flight action". When I read that, I thought you might squeeze the arms to raise his knee for take off, but it would seem the figure would not have had joints in its legs. Its arms were supposedly resculpted into a flying posture, so it's probably a more extreme version of Dr. Fate's "spell-casting action", with a squeeze of the legs raising both arms, here in flight.

Sadly, neither this Superman nor the "Kryptonite Cape Superman" to be included in the 4th wave of toys ever saw the light of day as the line ended with the 3rd in 1986.

A Dimension of Minds Blown

Comic-Con exclusive William Shatner dolls based on each of his two appearances on the Twilight Zone?!You know, you're just begging for this market to explode!

We all have our Captain Kirk dolls, of course, and now both Bob Wilson and Don Parker, so what are we missing?
1. T.J. Hooker - with car hood roll action!
2. Columbo 2½ Pack - with costumes for both Columbo appearances AND the character played by one of the characters!
3. Major Tom Album Cover Astro-Shat
4. Big Giant Head
5. Denny Crane - pull the string to hear him say his name! (mechanism may get stuck, preventing the doll from doing so until lithium batteries run down)
6. Shatlet, Prince of Denmark (in Shakespearean garb, with Yorick's skull accessory)
7. Stan Fields - the perfect doll to interview your various Barbies
8. William Shatner Star Trek Interview Edition (Offended Friend Leonard Nimoy sold separately)
9. $#*!-Saying Dad Figure
10. Whoever the hell he played on TekWar

Request your favorite!

Reign of the Supermen #334: Super Optimus

Source: Dave's Gallery of Robot Art TF Canon Characters (2003)
Type: Fan-made AmalgamThanks to Dave Van Domelen, I can marry this week's mechanical Supermen theme with Amalgamondays! Thanks Dave! In his own words: "A cross between Optimus Prime and Superman. Mostly Prime's physical model (with mods to chest and boots) and Superman's colors (with a bit of Prime's in the chest). The hands are gray because they're the same color as Prime's faceplate, just as Superman's hands are bare."

I would really want to know he turns into the Supermobile.

Reign of the Supermen #309: Superman, Sky Hero

Source: Marx Toys (1977)

Type: ToyClick to double the image in size where you can read the amazing ad copy. I just want to see a couple things:

1) There are three other Sky Heroes available, but you know, only Superman can actually fly.

2) They capes deploy after you throw them, but I guess no one told the licensees that two of their heroes didn't have capes.

3) Also, I like that they flaunt its ability to "dive". They mean "crash", don't they? Bless.



Did anyone have one of these when they were kids? Did they in fact work as advertised?

Reign of the Supermen #304: Super-Bugs Bunny

Source: My 5-year-old niece's bedroom (2010)

Type: Fan-madeSo I spent last week at my sister's place in Montreal, and the last thing I expected to find in my niece's room is a Superman for the Reign. But there it was. The story goes like this: In 2010, her mom chose to cater her birthday party with an animal-stuffing class. They come to your house with "Build-a-Bear"-type kits and show the kids how to make their own stuffed animals. My niece chose a rabbit skin and a couple of outfits - Superman (with Mickey Mouse ears in the shield) and an angle costume (she likes flying, but I like to imagine the bunny going to heaven when it's hit with an anvil or something). She calls him Bugs Bunny. Cute huh?



Warner Bros. has yet to file a lawsuit.

Reign of the Supermen #223: Elastic Superman

Source: Mego Super 8 Elastic Heroes (1979)
Type: ToyBased on Kenner's Stretch Armstrong, Mego created its own line of Elastic Heroes that, yes, included a Plastic Man. When did Superman ever have elastic powers? Well, why not find yourself a chunk of red rock or something and play out your very own Silver Age fantasy? That's if you can even FIND one of these anymore. And even if you could, the stretchable rubber will have become brittle. There are only half a dozen of these guys left near anything resembling mint condition, and even those rarely have the removable cape, the cape's "S" sticker or the box itself.
And Superman was one of the most produced in the line (which included, in addition to Plastic Man and Batman, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Casper, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck)!

Inaction Figures: The Monolith

I love how the packaging proclaims "ZERO points of articulation"!

So yeah, in the category "Most pointless, yet totally awesome action figure", I have to nominate the Monolith from 2001 and 2010*. I only wish they had a bigger one scaled to make my Beast-Man figure evolve into He-Man. And if you're going to recreate The Year We Make Contact, the 12.99$ price point may prove prohibitive. This really isn't a cost-effective army-building "figure".

Model scaled to different figures... lower price-point... Here are three more ways to improve the Space Monolith:
-Built-in sound chip to recreate the film's angelic voices and droning WombWombWombWombWomb
-Choice of playsets: Violent Monkeys, Discovery One Crew, or Astronaut Dave & Extra-Vehicular Pod
-Actually being full of stars

*For sale on ThinkGeek.

Reign of the Supermen #211: Total Justice Superman

Source: Kenner action figure (1996)
Type: ToyComes with:
Cape
Chest Armor
Kryptonite Ray Blaster
2 Kryptonite Shields

Accessories! They're a good way to reuse the same old molds for new figures, so long as you switch their less slick plastic accessories. Total Justice's back story is that Batman builds "Fractal Techgear" to fight Darkseid and outfits various members of the Justice League with it. Weapons and armor appear out of thin air as needed! And in Superman's case (though he did not appear in armor in the tie-in mini-series), not only do the Fractals boost his power and make him resistant to kryptonite, but it also channels kryptonite energy into a gun!

A gun! A problem - thematic - second only to the Total Justice figures' spindly legs and unarticulated EXTREME!!! poses. As in, Totally can't stand up without help!

Reign of the Supermen #129: Cyber-Link Superman

Source: Superman & Batman: Doom Link (1995)
Type: Elseworlds/ToyThe problem with Superman? Not enough accessories! At least, that's what toy developers seem to think. Actually, they seem to think that of the entire spandex set. We've all seen those action figures with plastic attachments or alternate looks that have nothing to do with the comics, right? Remember Total Justice?

Well, in the case of Kenner's Cyber-Link Superman & Batman Action Figure Two-Pack, the accessorized action figures came with a short Elseworlds comic that gave a back story for the accessories! That's a pretty neat idea! In the Cyber Link universe, a kryptonite meteor slammed into the Earth, spreading radiation and resulting, over time, in the loss of Superman's invulnerability. Now, Planet OnLine News Service correspondent Clark Kent wears Cyber-Link armor that creates synthetic invulnerability as... THIS GUY!
Superman! And escalation being what it is, this leads to every hero and villain on Earth to wear similar armor/accessories. Gotta keep up with the times!

Reign of the Supermen #106: Super Powers Superman

Source: Kenner's Super Powers Collection, Series One (1984)
Type: ToyOh how I love the Super Powers action figures line! Sad thing is, I didn't gobble them all up at the time and consequently don't have this sweet sweet Superman! Removable cape! Squeeze his legs and he throws a punch! (I still have Aquaman, Green Lantern, Darkseid, Dr. Fate, Hawkman and Brainiac, plus crap I picked up in yard sales like Desaad and an off-model Parademon. And I still play around with them.)

Now, there are some handsome action figures coming out these days (mostly from DC Direct), but gosh, the Super Powers guys were FUN. I still prefer their cloth capes to the semi-rigid rubber used on many figures today, and the idea that you could make them punch, swim, run, fly, cast a spell, etc. with a quick squeeze made them the top superhero figure of the 80s, and still relevant today. Some of them even had extra gimmicks, like Darkseid's Omega Beams, produced when you shone a light on the top of his head.

If I were made of money or had a time machine... But the latter hasn't been invented yet, and as for the former, a look at eBay shows loose figures starting at around 10$, and carded ones often hitting and passing 60$. Never mind the vehicles! Look at this sweet bunch:
And way too many holes in my collection to ever make it affordable. But I can dream...

Hey Kids, Daleks!

Because it's important to teach your kids life-affirming lessons about tolerance...

And yet, are there any toddlers you've ever been more jealous of?

So... when do we get a Mr. Sontaran Potato Head?

Cat of the Geek #88: Battle Cat

Name: Cringer
Stomping Grounds: Masters of the Universe (toys, animated series)
Side: Good
Breed: Eternian tiger
Cat Powers: Turning into a bigger, braver, more powerful version of himself. Fated to serve as He-Man's mount.
Skills: Eat 8, Sleep 8, Mischief 7, Wit 4, Inspiration for at least one mount in World of Warcraft 10
Cat Weaknesses: A penchant for cat girls. As Cringer, a terrible coward, afraid even of the Power of Grayskull turning him into a brave version of himself.

World's Weirdest Model Car Kit

In lieu of a proper, researched post, the SBG presents...If anyone has built this thing and still has their soul, please share.

Source: Hot Wheels #1, DC Comics, 1970.

Siskoid Awards 2009 - Technical Achievement Ceremony

The tradition continues on from previous Siskoid Awards, and of course, from the Oscars themselves! The Technical Achievement Ceremony is a thinly veiled excuse to have a pretty girl hosted an awards show for the stuff I didn't fit in last Friday. At the Oscars, these would be for, you know, creating plane-through-earthquake software. Here, anything goes.

Your host, straight from the set of the canceled and then revived Primeval, is the luscious Lucy Brown. Take it away, Lucy! (Along with my heart.)

Character find of 2009 - Hans Landa. If Inglourious Basterds did anything right (and it did a lot of things right), it's birthing this character. Steals the show!

Best revamp of 2009 - Hank Pym. From discredited wife beater parading in the worst possible costumes to the Universe's Scientist Supreme. His book is the only Avengers book I read. I still refuse to call him the new Wasp however.

Best direct-to-internet musical superhero movie with a musical commentary track possibly better than the film itself - Dr. Horrible

Best Toy to land on my shelf this year - Any monster from the Classic Doctor Who lines of toys, but if I choose only one, it has to be the Sea Devil.

Most awaited RPG product - Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. Most awaited in the sense that I'm still waiting for it (but at least it has SHIPPED!!!).

Smoothest come-back of 2009 - Outpost Gallifrey. Though the biggest Doctor Who forum in history shut down this summer, it was quickly replaced by a variety of communities, the most Outpost-esque being Gallifrey Base (and a shout-out to the art-only community over at Braxiatel.com).

Most absurd thing I got into this year - Cake Boss

Best move in martial arts - The Axe of Thor. Of all the Kung Fu movies I watched this year, this non-sequitur from Born to Fight as called by the little girl filled with blood lust has got to be my favorite. All I can find on You-Tube is the French version, but start watching a 2:30 for about a minute. AXE OF THOR!!!

Things That Made Me Jealous Of Other Kids

Part of a continuing series of "Lest we forget..." moments---Ahhh, who am I kidding? These are very cheap posts, I know. I'm recuperating from something.

And yet, it's true that I would have liked to be a member of the Bionic Action Club. Who wouldn't!!!

The 10 Strangest Superman Team-Ups from DC Comics Presents

Already the end of the week and I feel like my theme's been more about Superman teaming up with animals than anything else. Let me fix that by talking some of the wild and weird combinations featured in DC Comics Presents. Though Superman's team-up book never received the same accolades as Batman's Brave and the Bold (where you had the winning Bob Haney-Neil Adams creative team), I've always been fond of the series. The very first comic I bought with my own money was an issue of DCP, and I still consider the team-ups with OMAC and the Demon among my personal favorite 80s books ever.

And while those were pretty offbeat, I don't consider them strange enough to make the following list (in order of publication)...

Sgt. Rock
DCP 10/The Miracle Man of Easy Company. DCP's first offbeat combo required Superman to travel back in time, and he does this by accident when an award coated with super-adhesive explodes in his hands over Paris (and they say the Silver Age ended in the 60s) and he loses his memory. Posing as a soldier, he joins Easy Company as "Tag-Along", but to the dismay of his unit, he can't bring himself to shoot anyone! When he finally remembers, he whups some Nazi ass, but allows himself to die in front of Easy, super-holding his breath while they bury him. Once they're gone, it's off to the time barrier.

Masters of the Universe
DCP 47/From Eternia -- with Death! It would take more than three years before Superman teamed-up with another bunch of characters he really shouldn't have. He-Man and Battlecat do share the white bread alter ego theme with Superman, but other than that, are we to believe Castle Grayskull is somewhere in the DC Multiverse? Probably not if Mattel has anything to say about it! The story entails Superman being mind-controlled by Skeletor (oddly never mistaken for Dr. Destiny) to fight He-Man, what else.

Clark Kent
DCP 50/When You Wish Upon a Planetoid. Superman makes the mistake of wishing he could lead both his and Clark Kent's lives simultaneously too close to a dream machine and makes this team-up possible. The twist: Superman is too intent on business to care about Lois, and Clark gets to trash him in the papers. Clark discovers his own secret identity when he sees himself in the mirror without his glasses! Further twist: It's Clark that defeats the Atomic Skull. And then the two heroes look like they're about to make-out and merge with each other. That wouldn't happen in a team-up with Green Lantern. Well... maybe it would.

House of Mystery
DCP 53/The Haunting Dooms of Halloween! But speaking of GL, Clark dresses up as Green Lantern on Halloween when Superman comes crashing through the window! He's actually a kid who, dressed as Superman, has BECOME Superman. All around Metropolis, people are becoming who or what they were disguised at! Which of course means monsters. The big bad is Mr. Mxyzptlk, who has turned Cain's House of Mystery into a fun house full of traps and illusions and imprisoned Lois inside. Not that it's anything like the actual House of Mystery comic. A page 13 by Sergio Aragones would have gone a long way making me like this one.

Atomic Knights
DCP 57/Days of Future Past (that's actually the title, folks). It's 1983 and Mishkin & Cohn predict the world will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland in just 3 years. Didn't vote for Reagan then. Superman gets an electric shock while hooked up to the internet and wakes up 9 years in the future, in a world where armored knights ride giant dalmatians and help Hercules himself fight atomic monsters. Fans of Hercules Unbound may be saddened to hear that series all happened in the Matrix! The upside is, the world didn't end on my 15th birthday.

Santa Claus
DCP 67/'Twas the Fright Before Christmas! Toy-Man's been hypnotizing kids to rob street corner Santas, and one of his weapons accidentally downs Superman near the Fortress of Solitude... at Santa's workshop! You'll be glad to know that in addition to being a DC character, Santa monitors every child in the world via computer monitor and has a simple, but effective bag of tricks. All such stories of course end the same way, with Superman helping to deliver presents and then waking up from a "dream... or WAS IT?!"

Forgotten Heroes/Villains
DCP 77-78/Triad of Terror. A bunch of obscure villains from DC's past are trotted out just as forgotten heroes make their comeback. Since then, all the good guys have been players - Animal Man, Rick Flagg, Dolphin, Rip Hunter, Congorilla, Dane Dorrance of the Sea Devils, even Immortal Man - but the villains... not so much. By the end of the second issue, this thing has featured Space Cabbie, Chris KL-99, and introducing Creepy Gills in her Neck Girl! This thing has everything AND an appearance by the Monitor.

Swamp Thing
DCP 65/The Jungle Line. While Superman's first team-up with Swampy in DCP 8 was predictably a battle between the heroes and Solomon Grundy, the second was written by Alan Moore and pencilled by Rick Veitch. In this eerie story, Superman is exposed to Kryptonian fungus that makes his health and powers deteriorate. Heading south to die, he is found by the Swamp Thing who helps him come out of his fever dreams.

Elastic Four
DCP 93/That's the Way the Heroes Bounce! The comic creates a new elastic villain called the Malleable Man just so it could say Elastic Four on the cover. The other three are, of course, Plastic Man, Elongated Man and Jimmy Olsen AKA Elastic Lad. It's all tentacle fingers until the Malleable Man slinks into the Fortress of Solitude's massive keyhole (yeah, that's a security risk) and uhm, his powers get past their time limit. Cuz he was damn near undefeatable with them before that, right?

The Phantom Zone Villains
DCP 97/Phantom Zone the Final Chapter. Steve Gerber hands in this "untold tale of the pre-Crisis universe", Jor-El discovers the Phantom Zone and finding unsuitable for escape from doomed Krypton, it's put to use sending the planet's worst criminals in exile. You'll never read a more disturbing description of their crimes as the Superman universe brushes against the early Vertigo style. As the Villains think of escape, Bizarro stages a huge opposite destruction of Krypton on Bizarro World. Throw in a weird crystal heart floating about space absorbing people, Mxyzptlk freeing the Villains, New York burning under a giant kryptonite asteroid, and Superman not knowing what the hell just happened, and you have a not quite team-up in the style of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow... that completely contradicts that story!

So there you have them, my picks for strangest team-ups in the pages of DC Comics Presents. Maybe you have your own favorites. Don't be stingy, share!

This Week in Geek (15-21/06/09)

Buys

I couldn't resist the Scarecrow from Human Nature! But this is probably the last wave of Doctor Who action figures I get until the Series 4 set gets off the back order list at the store I deal with here in Canada. (Promises, promises.) This Series 3 set includes Martha, a bespectacled Doctor, a Judoon Trooper, Dalek Thay with his ass hanging out, Lilith the Carrionite, and the aforementioned Scarecrow.To pad out my order, I grabbed a couple of discounted figures: Dr. Constantine (comes with a second, Empty Childed, head) and the Master in his Prime Minister clothes.

"Accomplishments"

Gaming: A month and a half ago, I started Grand Theft Auto IV from scratch in the hopes of more systematically getting it up to 100% so that I could buy The Lost and the Dead expansion with a clear completist's conscience. Furthermore, I tried to set it up so that the 100% would be achieved with the very last mission, which meant doing all the extras that went towards completion before then. I'm happy to report that I hit the magic number in that very way yesterday afternoon. Thanks for the memories, Niko.
DVDs: I also flipped Supercop this weekend, a film I'd originally seen in a theater, but that I was happy to rediscover in the original Chinese. NOT in the original Hong Kong cut, however, as Bey Logan's as-usual interesting commentary reveals. I'm disappointed that Dragon Dynasty couldn't get the rights (I assume) to both versions. Still, a little of Jackie Chan's slapstick goes a long way, and there was apparently a lot more of it in the Hong Kong version. In the 90s, I went to see this film for Jackie. Today, I'm watching it for the wonderful Michelle Yeoh (despite intentions, everything about this movie screams that SHE is the title Supercop, sorry Jackie) and Maggie Cheung, in a thankless role, on whom I have something of a crush. Great action, and any weaknesses in the plot are forgiven by the end of the film's 15-minute action finale. Maybe it's because I wished for a GTA: Hong Kong game earlier this week, but Supercop was VERY GTA-ish. Man, they need to make that game. Oh yeah, the DVD also has interviews with the stars, director and a stuntman.

Links: Not me linking to someone, but someone linking to me, that I found hilarious... I think they should have read beyond the word Honeymoon. Check it out in the comments to this post.

New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: Only 3, getting them in under the wire after stripping The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky. More from that story during the week.

Someone Else's Post of the Week
The blogosphere is about to be abuzz with the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America, if it isn't already, but my neighbor to the south, Rachelle Goguen from Living Between Wednesdays, has already locked up the prize for best post about it.

Cat of the Geek #5: Sparky

Name: Sparky
Stomping Grounds: Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library / Quimby the Mouse (comics)
Side: Good
Breed: Tuxedo Cat
Cat Powers: The immortal head of a cartoon cat. Returns when it is most missed.
Skills: Eat 5, Sleep 8, Mischief 1, Wit 1, Pathos 9
Cat Weaknesses: Just a head. A mouse's plaything. Crybaby.
Toy:
Cartoon:

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

This Week in Geek (1-7/06/09)

Buys

I'm not a big fan of the sexy vampire genre, but I AM a fan of Alan Ball's Six Feet Under, so I'm giving True Blood a go. I've also gotten a cheap-ass copy of Hamlet 2000 because I've got a Hamlet-related project brewing. And then there's Battlestar Galactica. I saw the mini-series that reinvented it all, and enjoyed it, but then the show didn't air on any channel I had access to. Now that it's all over, and I found the boxed sets reasonably priced, I've gotten it all. Four seasons, Razor, Caprica, the whole schmear. Looks like an interesting month of July.

Seeing as I've almost read all the New Who novels I currently own, I bought the next few: The Pirate Loop, Peacemaker, Martha in the Mirror and Snowglobe 7. Oh, and the Quick Read, Revenge of the Judoon. Speaking of Doctor Who, I'm still building that toy collection:
As you can see, I got the whole Series 1-3 potpourri wave, each figure including a build-it-yourself Gelth inaction figure. So that's Poofy Sleeves Master, Trenchcoat Captain Jack, Astrid Peth, Jabe, Wizened Doctor, Gollum Doctor, Bananafatafalaka (or whatever) and a Clockwork Man.

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: I only flipped Hamlet 2000 this week, which isn't saying much since it's a bare-bones release, without so much as its own trailer. Plus, I have it on tape. So yeah. I'd originally found this modern adaptation to be clever at the expense of the language, as I do all such adaptations, though Bill Murray does a very interesting Polonius. This time, I was also struck by Sam Sheppard's Ghost, which is perhaps the best I've seen in all the Hamlet movies. And like every time I read or watch the play, I found something new in it. Which goes without saying, and yet might be surprising after reading/seeing it however many dozens of times I have.

New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: Only 4, as a quick taste of what I'm doing with Doctor Who and the Silurians.

Someone Else's Post of the Week
Caleb offers a makeshift comic strip with prehistoric fish that managed to amuse and move me. Check it out at Every Day Is Like Wednesday.