My Favorite Martian

A lot of people are waiting to see who makes a comeback in the DC universe this year, and next to Batman, my biggest hope is that the Martian Manhunter will return. I love the character. Somewhat because of his classic "alien lost on earth" origin, but mostly because he's just so weird looking.

Two of the Martian Manhunter figures that I've picked up recently are the Justice League International version from DC Direct, and the smaller DC Universe Infinite Heroes version by Mattel.

DC Direct has been pretty prolific in the past few years when it comes to Justice League figures, and given my fondness for the JLI, I'm more than happy with their Justice League International line. Martian Manhunter is a great figure that mostly captures the look and feel of the character from those books. Sure, there are things that I could nit-pick about, like the somewhat inaccurate costume (as seen in the JLI series anyway), or that he's a bit beefier than he needs to be, but this is such a solidly made and well sculpted figure, that I'm willing to let it all slide.

And considering that they gave him an Oreo cookie, DC Direct gets so many points for humor, that I'd be willing to overlook a lot of problems. Luckily there just aren't any that actually matter, and I'm calling this my very favorite Martian Manhunter figure... for now.



On the other end of the blue and green spectrum is the considerably smaller, but much more articulated 3-3/4-inch Martian Manhunter by Mattel.



I want to preface my criticism of this figure by saying that I really love most of what Mattel has put out when it comes to DC characters, cartoons, and comic books. The various incarnations of the Justice League lines have been wonderful, their Batman movie toys are brilliant, and the DC Universe 6-inch line is entirely responsible for reseeding my interest in DC comics as a whole. With that said, I've also tried my hardest to give their 3-3/4-inch DC Universe line a fair chance to grow and evolve, but after opening and fiddling around with the Martian Manhunter figure, I'm pretty sure that Mattel is simply never going to get it right.



Past DC Universe Infinite Heroes figures have suffered from either being too simplistic, with oddly limited detail and articulation, or they were just plain ugly.

The brilliant style and fantastic engineering that the Three Horseman have brought to the 6-inch line, is entirely absent from this smaller scale line. And what confuses me the most, is that I can't think of another DC related Mattel line that takes the subject matter for granted as much as this one. Even the Hot Wheels Batman vehicles (and Hotwheels has definitely been known to "phone it in" from time to time) tend to be a little more concerned with build quality and play value than the DC Universe Infinite Heroes figures.

So, what's the deal Mattel? Why is your little Martian Manhunter figure so painfully mediocre?



Here's the deal: Mattel's 3-3/4-inch version of this character looks good carded, and that's largely why I decided to give it a try, but once you've opened it up, you'll realize that something is wrong.

When it comes to build quality, I'm actually not all that picky. For the most part I tend to look for joints that don't fall apart, or a toy that your average six-year-old could abuse for a bit, without eventually owning just a pile of tiny fragments. In the case of Mattel's Martian Manhunter, what I've found are some weirdly designed hip joints, and some nicely articulated shoulders (arms in general) that are sadly limited by the cape. Martian Manhunter is a character on par with Superman as far as strength and abilities are concerned, but this toy is lacking in the kind of well rounded play value that a Superman toy would (or should) have.

Ultimately, I guess that I'm mostly bothered by the cape. The collar is huge, and it hides his head. The cape limits what you can do with the arms, though when I try to bend the shoulders, lifting the arms up, I see tiny stress cracks forming at the armpits.

I really want to like this line, and all problems aside, I still like this Martian Manhunter figure... just a little. Mattel needs to fine tune their approach to doing 3-3/4-inch figures some more. Part of me wishes that they'd simply rip-off Hasbro's Star Wars line when it comes to articulation and build quality, but another part of me knows that if they genuinely wanted to make better small scale figures, then they would have done it a while ago.

Kraft Macaroni & E.T.

This post is a bit of a rehash from my old MySpace blog (mostly deleted a while ago), but I picked up a boxed version of this toy recently, and took some new photos, so I thought I'd mention it again.

Back in 2002, Kraft put out a bendy toy of E.T. to celebrate the film's twentieth anniversary.





Everything said and done, there haven't been all that many decent E.T. toys made over the years, but this one is actually pretty cool for something that comes packaged in a mac and cheese box.

A Really Great Mazinga

And speaking of Shogun Warriors, here's a long time favorite of mine...





The 5-inch Great Mazinga figure is a perfect combination of chunky diecast, pointy plastic, and spring-loaded rocket fists.

Ad Space: Shogun Warriors

"Excuse me, would you sign something for me?"

This past Sunday I drove up to Seattle for the Emerald City Comicon, and just like last year, I had a great time.

Comic Book conventions are fun for a lot of reasons, but the ritual of getting an autograph from an artist or writer is what I love the most. Being able to meet the person that drew the pictures or wrote the story for a book is great, but getting to actually tell them how much you enjoy their work is even better.

The first order of business was to find Len Wein, and have him sign a copy of Swamp Thing for me. I spotted him sitting near the back of the room, and while I was trying to slyly point out the creator of Wolverine to my son, he saw us looking over at him.



Len was very nice, and very tolerant of how lame I am around people that I really respect. I told him that it was difficult for me to decide on what I'd bring, as his name is printed inside just about half the comic books that I own. And I don't think that I was able to clearly communicate just how much his work has both entertained and inspired me in all the years that I've been reading comic books... or just reading reading... period.

A while later I dropped by David Mack's table, and had him sign my copy of Kabuki: Circle of Blood.



Given that I'd spent much of the '90s living under a rock, I'm pretty much a newcomer to his books, but I'm a fan now, and I'm happy that I got to say hello.

Mike and Laura Allred signed the cover of this Madman comic for me. I love their work, and feel like a fool for waiting until nearly the end of the day to find their table, but I'm so happy that I got to say hi before they took off.



Next chance I get (if I get one), I'll have them sign a copy of The Atomics... which I would have done if I hadn't left the copy that I wanted to bring at home.

At the very beginning of the day I walked up to Michael Golden's table, and I mentioned that I'd love it if he would sign a copy of The Micronauts for me. I told him that I couldn't decide on one, and asked which cover was his favorite. He joked that he didn't have one, and that if "the check cleared" it was his favorite.

We laughed, and then I said that I'd come back later, after I'd had something to eat, and maybe by then I'd decide. As it turns out, I ended up returning to his table near the very end of the day (he had been parked a few spots down from Len Wein), but he was gone. The woman in the space next to him mentioned that he had wandered off for a bit, but that he'd be back soon.



I stood there with my son for about twenty minutes--actually happy that we had a chance to stop and rest. I explained to him how when I was around his age, I used to sit and draw Acroyears like the ones in the book that I was holding. That in a way it was a part of what led me to study art later on.

Michael Golden returned, and I hurried over to hand him the book that I'd decided on. I started to hand him a silver Sharpie, and then I pointed to a spot where he could sign. He responds by saying that a black one would look better, and that he'd found a good place to sign. At this point I'm laughing out loud, and I'm thinking, "Oh my god, you drew the thing... of course you can sign wherever you want."

The Iron Men

Hasbro's Iron Man 2 line continues to be a winner. For someone like me, who's been a fan of Iron Man for over thirty years, I love being able to play with and compare all of the different Iron Man costumes.

The most fun so far has come from having both the film and comic book first versions of Tony Stark's invention to contrast. They're really good toys, and though neither of them is completely perfect, Hasbro has managed to do a lot more with the big clunky gray suits than I imagined they would at this small scale.



Comic Book Iron Man is brilliant. They gave this one much more articulation than the suit probably had in the old comic books, and there's some nice paint and weathering going on, though they seemed to ignore the back of the figure, which is unfortunate.



Mark I Iron Man from the first film is actually just a scaled down version of the 6-inch figure that Hasbro released for that film. It's not a bad thing that they rehashed the old figure somewhat, as they did a nice job scaling it down, and the detail is great.

The one thing that I would have liked to see them lose, is the big stupid missile launcher that clips onto the figure's arm. It looks more like a Super Soaker firing a giant cheese puff than anything in the Iron Man universe.



When putting the two figures side by side, I'm a little surprised by how the film version is so much shorter than the comic book version. But that's just about the only "off" thing that I'm seeing. For the most part I think they're great, and they definitely inspire me to collect other film and comic book related Iron Man figures.