"...but I already battened down the hatches!"

"Well then batten them down again, we'll teach those hatches!"

Our landlord has this old 1943 boat parked by our house. It's the coolest piece of yard art I've seen in a long time. He stopped by today to do some maintenance. While he was here he uncovered the boat, so I figured it was the perfect time to shoot some pictures of it.

With Mezco's Storm Gear Popeye from Series 2.


"She just needs some elbow greaske and a little love"


"Ugh, I can'sk see the oshkin for the trees!"


"Better hoisk anchor or this'll be a short trip!"


"Smooth seas...I may be overdresked."


"Full speed ahead!"


"ahh, nuthin' like the freshk salt air."


"I think I'll drive al fresco today"


"Well blow me down...there ain't no oshkin here, only pavemensk!"


"Maybe I oughtsta take a closker look at the moorings..."


"WHOAH! Where's the water? Is thisk a schooner or a duner?"

"One thing's for sure, we don't needs a bigger boat."

Feeling Gassy

Rex Mason, aka Metamorpho, is the "Collect and Connect" figure for DC Universe Classics Series One. In order to obtain him you must first purchase the entire series, collecting a piece of him along with each figure. Left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, and torso. Once you have them all, you can construct Metamorpho, the Element Man! The figure is brilliantly sculpted, capturing his multi-elemental properties with a mud leg, a clear glass/ice leg, a rocky arm, and his other arm which is some kind of purple chain mail...I guess.

And as if a complete Metamorpho weren't cool enough, he even comes with added appendages to enhance his elemental changing powers!

His right arm comes with a rocky, magma-esque enlarged hand:


His left arm comes with a metal looking hammerhead at the end of a gaseous wrist transformation:


And his right leg comes with a mud-like fountainous mount:


All together, Metamorpho becomes quite the formidable hero!


This figure is great. There are plenty of reasons to collect the entire DCUC Series One, but Metamorpho alone would be enough to convince me!

Go Ask Alice

Mezco's Popeye the Sailorman action figure series was one of the coolest things to hit toy aisles in the early 2000s. Ironically, by the time 2004 rolled around (the 75th anniversary of Popeye) the series was petering out. Apparently there wasn't enough retailer interest in the line, and by Series 3, we were given only one "all new" character, a bunch of repaints, and a "diver" and "scuba" version of Popeye and Bluto respectively.

Even more ironic, the "all new" character was the most obscure of the entire line, and was the most difficult to acquire.

Of whom do I speak? But of course I speak of the one and only Alice the Goon:


At the time I knew she was being released, and tried hard to find any local comic shops or stores that carried this line (none did.) I watched the Mezco online store daily for updates, and finally one day, she was up for sale. I ordered her and not a couple hours later she was sold out.



Alice is pretty tough to come by these days. When she (rarely) pops up on eBay she goes for quite a few bucks. I'm just glad I got her for $12 plus shipping!


Since the line was pretty well dying when Series 3 rolled out, all the figures had mostly regurgitated accessories from the earlier two lines. Alice came with a Swee' Pea variant in a blue outfit as opposed to the originally released red.

I sure wish Mezco had kept going with these figures. Or that they someday try it again. I would have loved a Goon in it's natural garb (or lack thereof.)

What a Charmer!

This here is King Hiss. Dated 1985, old Hiss-Face came out near the end of the Master of the Universe line and was a figure I never had as a kid. I got this guy in a recent flea market haul, and have to admit he's pretty fun.

He appears to be a regular, well, kind of superhero looking guy actually. Not much "kingly" about his get-up. Sometimes I wonder if there were executive decisions that came about after characters were already designed that changed the back-stories of these guys from how they were originally envisioned.


Regardless, his nifty "action feature" gives rise to his true identity!

His arms and body separate to reveal:


YIKES!!!! King Hiss is in actuality six snakes of various sizes sprouting from a set of normal legs and a pelvis. What?!?!


Well at least that's as far as Mattel let his transformation go. I'm sure there were talks about the potential off color "trouser snake" jokes and the inevitable parental concerns therein, had the toy designers taken it any further.

Whatever, he's still pretty cool. His snake "arms" move up and down for slithery posing action and, well, that's it. Otherwise he just stands there looking strange. Cool!