Saturday, September 25, 2021

Year 5: September Update

Another month is flying by rather quickly and I suppose I don't have a lot to talk about though there were some more gaming events with new announcements. The reason I uploaded another video on the blog's YouTube channel for a Sega Master System light gun game this month is I want to get rid of my old tube TV as it's quite bulky and I rarely touch it. The only other platform I own a light gun for is the Saturn but I've never actually used it, and I think the only game I have that is compatible with it is Virtua Cop. Back in 2019 I posted about the Aladdin and Lion King game compilation and now there is an updated edition coming to stores on November 9th that adds The Jungle Book and the Super Nintendo version of Aladdin to the collection.

Sony held a "PlayStation Showcase" event on September 2nd where it announced a sequel to Spider-Man and another new Marvel title from Insomniac Games that stars the X-Men's Wolverine. These games are at least a couple years away though and exclusive to the PlayStation 5. Aspyr Media is remaking BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and it will be a console launch exclusive on the PlayStation 5 which means it will likely get to Xbox at a later date (it doesn't have a release date yet). This isn't a remaster, it's a full remake of one of the best Star Wars games and certainly one of my favorites.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Nintendo just streamed a "Nintendo Direct" video presentation this past Thursday with a variety of things shown, including a new Kirby game for 2022 and the addition of Nintendo 64 (N64) and Sega Genesis games to the Switch's online service, plus N64 and Genesis gamepads will be available for the Switch. The video also unveiled the voice cast for an animated Mario Bros. movie that will hit theaters in late 2022. A couple of the actors featured are Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

That's about it for this month's update. Thanks for stopping by!

-Jonathan

Sunday, September 19, 2021

ToyFare Picks the Top Ten Greatest Toy Lines (July 1998)

ToyFare is a spin-off of the comic book magazine Wizard and focuses on action figures so this "Top 10" article is, not surprisingly, all about action figures. I'm not too familiar with Shogun Warriors (#10) or Micronauts (#8) though I do own an incomplete Micronauts set. The rest are all quite well-known and, of course, I completely agree with ToyFare's #1 selection as it is also my favorite. Some unexpected selections are the first G.I. Joe line and McFarlane's Spawn. While Spawn figures do look nice, and ToyFare does indicate it selected the line due to the detailed sculpts, ranking it 4th is too high. I expect the popularity of Spawn in 1998 had a large influence on that choice. I'd say Masters of the Universe is the biggest omission and it doesn't even get an honorable mention in the "Toys in the Attic" box that provides some reasoning on why a few toy lines didn't make the cut. In the scans I deleted a couple captions as they were too adult for this blog and not humorous either (unless I'm misunderstand the joke which is possible).


Monday, September 6, 2021

[YouTube] Ben Cooper's Marvel Comics "Action Figures" (1970s)

This is a look at four Marvel Comics "action figures" from Ben Cooper, Inc. (1937-1992) which is a company best known for manufacturing Halloween costumes. I put action figures in quotes because they are molded rubber and aren't poseable; you really can't do much at all with them other than hang them on something. Ben Cooper did call them action figures though as Plaid Stallions has an image of a 1979 retail display box that referred to them as such. The four Marvel characters I have appear to be the full 1979 assortment but Spider-Man first released in 1973 alongside The Incredible Hulk and D.C. Comics' Batman and Superman. An eBay seller has the 1973 display box that calls them "Heroes of Action" and the side of the box mentions that they bounce on a string. 

I'm not sure if there were any other comic book characters in this toy line, however, Ben Copper also created a variety of monster toys in the same format. In the photos (and video) you'll notice the strings are missing from my Spider-Man and The Thing, there are spots and other marks on them, and The Thing's leg is damaged. I had some trouble getting good photos as the colors look slightly off to me under natural light which is what is used for the photos below. I'm not a fan of using my camera's flash but I did I use it for the group photo above to try and get a more accurate representation. 

Spider-Man


Doctor Strange

The Thing

Red Skull