Super Heroes Sneakers

My wife and I have been marveling at how fast our son is growing lately, and in particular there's been some amazement at how weirdly large his (now teenage) feet have become. Recently I unburied this pair of old sneakers that I'd bought for him to wear to the San Diego Comic-Con several years ago. The sneakers were only worn once, and for one day, but if you've ever been to Comic-Con, you know that they can be very long days.



They're a fantastic old pair of Super Heroes shoes from the late '70s. Though it might be nice to still have them in the perfect condition that they were in before he wore them, I'm more fond of them as a kind of reminder of the day, and as a reminder of when he had much smaller feet.

Porsches and Jaguars

Matchbox put out new versions of a couple of my favorite cars this year. First there's the Porsche 914 that they've re-released in a very classic orange color, and secondly there's the Jaguar XK 120SE in a similarly classic British racing green.



When I saw this Matchbox car originally, I thought it would be great to have a "safety" orange version, and obviously the good people at Matchbox agreed.



All of the 914s that I've picked up have been great, and even though the red Lesney version and the bright green version have had a little more detailing, I'm most fond of this orange Porsche.



The Jaguar XK 120SE has been another favorite of mine ever since I'd picked up the Lesney version a while ago. A dark green Jag seems like a no-brainer, and again, I'm pretty happy to have it.



Of the few XK 120SE releases out there so far, I have no real favorite, but I am looking to get the bright red one from '09 now, and I have a good feeling that I'll like it as much as the rest.

Kit Fisto

Part of me is genuinely happy that Hasbro has come to terms with the fact that kids and collectors alike want nothing more than nicely detailed and well articulated figures. Another part of me is a bit sad though, that it took so long for them to come to this conclusion.

I was collecting during the period when Hasbro felt obligated to include a cheesy action gimmick or a crazy action pose with each and every figure. A perfect example is the Attack of the Clones figure that this Vintage Collection version of Kit Fisto is referencing.

It's a bit weird that Hasbro now considers toys from the prequels to be classics, and I'm also confused by why they'd want to remind us of the "With Force Action!" version of this figure from 2002. The thing was awful, which is why I didn't buy it, and that says a lot, because I was buying just about everything Star Wars back then.



So now Hasbro comes at us lean and mean with a bunch of truly brilliant and play friendly figures. This new Kit Fisto toy is excellent. It's got everything that I'd ever wanted from a green skinned Jedi figure: he looks cool, he bends in all the right places, he's got a pretty decent soft-goods cloak, and he can wear an unlit lightsaber on his belt. Neat!



I can forgive the fact that he may not fit in the Jedi Starfighter that Hasbro put out for him a few years ago, considering that I sold my green starship anyway. I can also forgive the fact that some stores insist on selling The Vintage Collection figures for around ten dollars, because I've been seeing them for $7.99 at others. (Thumbs down to Toys R Us, and a big thumbs up to Fred Meyer.)



What I can't forgive is that Hasbro would wait until after I'd lost my enthusiasm for Star Wars toys to start doing Star Wars toys the right way. But oh well, I suppose I can pick up a few like this Kit Fisto figure, and maybe the recent Mace Windu, to make up for certain past failures.

I'm also sort of happy if my complaining over the years has had any kind of an effect on how they design these things. It's always nice to see improvements, and I can't help but think that most kids or new collectors would be much happier with this toy, than with the magnet handed, action posed version that I skipped back in 2002.

Wacky Packages Erasers

Just when I was starting to think that the good people at Topps had given up on really trying to entertain me, here they go and put out something as cool as Wacky Packages Erasers.




Now, it's not that I really need an eraser shaped like a package of "Chimps Ahoy" or a can or "Dead Bull", but I really love the idea. That and they've included stickers, which makes this the perfect addition to my son's Easter basket this year.

Batmobile: Simms vs. Duncan

From the world of cheap plastic Batmobiles, comes these nearly identical classics from Duncan and Simms.



Simms began churning out Batmobiles in the early to mid '70s, and Duncan continued using the same mold in the late '70s. Each features a variety of interior and figure color combinations, as Batman and Robin can be found in either red, blue or bright yellow, and always with a contrasting interior color.



The only significant difference that I can see between the two, is that the Duncan Batmobile (shown with yellow Batman and blue Robin) comes with a trailer hitch that you can use to tow an equally awesome Batboat.

Neu Mit Blitztrumf

Card games are fun, but even more fun when they involve tank warfare.



Quartets is a card game that's been around for a while, and Ace Trumps (Top Trumps in the UK) has been around for nearly as long. Quartets is something like Go Fish, and Ace Trumps is a similar game that involves using the statistics and data on a card to determine the winner. In the case of Tank themed cards, something like the card with the fastest tank could decide who wins a turn, and then the winner collects the opponents cards. The player with all the cards in the end is winner.



German company ASS put out this "historic tanks" set sometime in the (I'm guessing) mid '70s. I'll admit that a bunch of cards with pictures of tanks on them was more than enough to get me interested, but the fact that there's a good game involved is a bonus.

Just Spotted... A New Star Wars Galaxy

Series 6 of the Star Wars Galaxy card line is out there, and though I'm happy that Topps has (finally) released something new for me to collect, I'm also a little sad to see how expensive they are.




The three dollar price for a pack of seven cards is no big surprise, but I'm still dreaming of a day when Topps gets back to asking two dollars, or maybe just a buck for a pack of trading cards. I'm no huge completist when it comes to the Star Wars Galaxy line, and even though they're by and large pretty great, I can live with picking up just a few before I call it quits.

...though I'd probably try for the whole set if they were cheaper.

Ferrari 5 -- 2011 Edition

Hot Wheels has been putting out Ferrari 5-packs for a while, and though they tend to be one repaint after another, they're still a lot of fun.

With this years 5-pack, we get a Ferrari F50, Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Ferrari 288 GTO, Ferrari 599 GTB, and Ferrari 575 GTC.

The pearl white 288 GTO is particularly nice.

Z.O.M.B.I.E.s

October Toys was founded by a couple of cool toy nerds who obviously know that I'll buy a few small plastic zombies every time I visit my local comic book shop. With that said, I've been collecting one of each in blue, green and orange, as well as a whole set of glow-in-the-dark Z.O.M.B.I.E. figures.




I'll echo the sentiment of the guy that runs my local shop, and say that we both want larger versions--something like the old Marx monster figures--of these zombies.

Plastic Liberty

Minifigures Monsters

From LEGO minifigures Series 3 comes the Mummy, and from Series 4 comes The Monster and a Werewolf.



Of coarse what we have here is about as close as you can get to a trio of LEGO Universal Monsters, without actually calling them that. The Frankenstein figure is my favorite, and just about all I need (aside from the Vampire from Series 2) is to decide on a proper setting to put them in. Perhaps a castle or maybe a swamp... I'm not really sure yet.