You Can Choose a Ready Guide in Some Celestial Voice...

This is the DC Infinite Heroes version of Dr. Fate.


This version of Dr. Fate represents Hector Hall under the helmet of Nabu, who is also the current comic book Dr. Fate. The first Dr. Fate was Kent Nelson.


I have never followed along very closely with Dr. Fate in the comics, but I love his design and concept as a character. I also love his golden ageyness, even if his costume is mildly updated from the original. I did really like the comic and character Fate in the early nineties though.


I've loved all of his cartoon appearances as well, from the JLU to the new Batman: The Brave and The Bold. Magical mystical superheroes are groovy.


The good doctor alters our DC Infinite Heroes tally thusly:

Infinite Heroes: 4
Infinite Villains: 1

You're a Mean One, Mr. Gorneesh

Spring has sprung, the birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, the trees are blooming, and young mens' thoughts are turning to that of...the Swap Meet.

The family and I got a little breakfast this morning and hit a couple garage sales before moving on to the local used-to-be-Drive-In-Theatre soon-to-be-Medical-Plaza that has hosted the local swap meet for decades. The Drive-In closed about a year or two ago, and the Medical Plaza planned for the site has yet to break ground, so in the meantime it's still a Swap Meet on weekends.

I spent my time as I usually do, shuffling through bins of toys of various ages, condition and levels of completeness. I picked up a couple things as I wandered around, but of all the things I saw I was completely caught off guard when I stumbled upon this guy:


This is King Gorneesh from the Ewoks toyline (after the Star Wars Ewoks animated series) of 1985. Finding him at the swap meet is pretty cool considering the fact that I live on Endor. So of course I had to do an outdoors photoshoot with good ole Gorneesh!


King Gorneesh's condition is amazingly mint. He doesn't look like he was ever played with at all.


I never had any of these Ewoks animated toys as a kid but I watched the cartoon, so I immediately recognized him and couldn't believe he had survived in such great shape for so long, only to end up in a swap meet bin full of mostly junky fast food toys.


I offered the guy 25 cents for him and he happily agreed. Wowza!


King Gorneesh has some sort of animal spine headgear and funky turtle shell shoulder pads. Spiffy!


He also has an eye patch cuz he's cool like that.


You can read a little more about this King of the Duloks at his Wookieepedia entry.

Not bad for a quarter! Yay for the swap meet!

Time After Time

The most recent episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold teamed Batman with Etrigan the Demon in Victorian London, in a story highlighting the origins of The Gentleman Ghost and also teaming Bats with the greatest detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes.

In a moment of unbridled and totally unexpected awesomeness, Batman's tattered costume is fixed by the magics of Etrigan, altered to better reflect the time period and - here's where comic nerds the world over screamed a squee of delight - exactly duplicated the costume worn by Batman in the Elseworlds tale Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is my favorite Batman "what if" (or as DC calls them, Elseworlds) story and if I recall it is the first story under the Elseworlds banner. It places Batman in the Victorian era on the trail of Jack the Ripper and is illustrated with amazing art by Mike Mignola.

So I have my DC Direct Gotham by Gaslight Batman and my DC Universe Classics Etrigan, and I decided to team them up as an homage to one of the coolest episodes of Brave and the Bold yet!

G by G Batman has limited articulation in the manner expected from DC Direct, but he's a beautiful replication of the art of Mike Mignola.

Etrigan has all the articulation of the DCUC figures, and is a beautifully rendered comic version sculpted by the amazing Four Horsemen for Mattel.


What an awesome and unexpected team-up! Thank you Batman: The Brave and the Bold for being so freaking cool.

(Mondo) Gecko Sits And Watches All

We come to the end of TMNT week and the end of my small TMNT collection with Mondo Gecko!

Dig those crazy braces!

Mondo Gecko came with this radical jet powered skateboard for major shreddage.

He reminds me of a cross between Bill and Ted and the Geico Gecko. Excellent!

"Later, skaters!"

Thanks for joining me for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles week. It was fun, and although my TMNT collection is pretty humble, I've grown to appreciate them so much more over this past week.

Tune in next week when Toyriffic brings you our very first super special celebrity interview!