Captains Courageous

I have always thought Captain America was a very cool character. He's so cool, in fact, that a decent action figure version is hard to come by.

Let's face it: his costume is...flamboyant. If not properly presented, you might as well have action figures of the entire cast of Cats on your shelf. Jazz hands!

I never had the Secret Wars version of Cap when I was a kid, but I did have Wolverine, Iron Man, and Dr. Doom. Their exploits in my back yard were legendary, and my wish list at the time included Captain America, Spiderman, and Dr. Octopus (my favorites from looking at the back of the packaging.) But it was not to be. But don't worry, Wolvie and ol' shell head held their own just fine.

I made a trade for this Secret Wars Captain America recently, and he's in really good shape for his age.

The larger Captain is a Marvel Legends figure and is available now. He's extra groovy because he represents Cap as he appeared in his first issue - complete with his diamond shaped shield that only appeared in that one issue (due to it's similarity to another existing superhero at the time: The Shield.)

Clawful - he's awful...cool!

Clawful is one of the coolest MOTU ever. He was one of my faves from my childhood...from which I have zero original figures. I sold them all to one of my Dad's coworkers for her kid, which was cool because I'm sure I spent the money on Transformers and stuff like that. I hope that kid got as much joy from the figures and playsets that I did. Hey buddy, if your Mom worked at Menlove Dodge/Toyota in the eighties and she came home with a pile of MOTU...you're welcome ;)

True to form, I have re-aquisitioned many original MOTU in my adulthood, including most of the re-releases from a few years back.

This here Clawful is one of those re-releases, in all his pinching glory.

What isn't cool about a lobster man with a huge pinching claw? Seriously - that's a real short list.

Holy Bat-Doll, Batman!

This first appearance Batman figure/doll came out in 2000. It came in a deluxe box- set with a hardcover book (Batman: The Golden Age by Les Daniels) about the history of Batman, and a reprint of Batman #1.

He's much like an old school GI Joe or Mego type figure (I assume, although I have no old school GI Joes or Megos to compare.) His cape has wires inside the sides to shape it, and his Batarang fits snugly into a compartment on his belt.

He's really well articulated and quite a nice representation of Batman's first appearance.

Lightning strikes, version 2.0

If you saw the Masters of the Universe haul I made a couple weeks back, you're not going to believe this. Even if you didn't see the haul I made a couple weeks back you're not going to believe this. I still have trouble believing it, and it happened to me last Saturday.

I got up early to go to a local church parking lot swap meet last Saturday. I walk up and about two vendors into it I see a tupperware box of Transformers. I start digging. When I come up for air, this is what I have in my sweaty palms:




A near complete Trypticon, Grimlock, G2 Bumblebee, G2 Hubcap(?), a couple non-transforming Transformers (including Bumblebee) and a truck (more on them later,) a G2 Sideswipe...


Oh yeah...and that little known, barely seen, poorly acted and easily forgotten background character named Megatron.



Holee Shiznickles! A G1 Megatron! No way!

WAY!

I was shaking when I pulled this guy out of the box. I actually first found a baggie with his add on parts in it, and thought that was all I'd find. I dug to the bottom and there he was in his chrome and black goodness. I'm still in shock.

While digging, I asked "how much" and was told the little guys were a dollar and the big guys were two dollars. Yeah, I was having a hard time playing it cool as you can imagine.




I only had eight dollars on me, and asked if I could have all this for eight bucks. She first said "ten," then said "sure, eight bucks is fine."




I am not sure, but the lady selling these may have been the same lady who sold the MOTU stuff. I wasn't exactly focused on her either time. Aliens could have landed...on Bigfoot...and I wouldn't have noticed. But you can count on me hitting all the local swap meets I can from now on.



And does anyone know what these guys are? They don't transform, but are "Transformers" - that's Bumblebee, and the other guy has a Decepticon symbol, and looks like his alt mode should be a pistol, but isn't anyone I'm familiar with. You can see a truck that is certainly part of the series behind them (it has the Autobot symbol on it.) It folds out on the back and sides to turn into a jet...it reminds me a little of M.A.S.K. and I know I've seen these in magazines or online somewhere (they may be a foreign only release) but I can't recall anything about them at the moment. I'll update when I find out more.

UPDATE: The figures are from the short-lived Action Masters series from 1990. Treadshot is the badguy's name. The truck behind them is part of the Micromasters series (also from 1990) and it appears I am missing the rear half of it.