Year 9: August Update

When I went to write this post I was surprised to find that I hadn't actually written a monthly update since February. Unfortunately, I don't have much planned other than to keep scanning some magazine articles, and I do have more video game ads to share eventually. Despite not having a lot of actual work to do, it feels like I've been busy and I haven't kept up on much game and toy news. The best announcement I saw recently was LEGO's Batman Arkham Asylum, a 2,953-piece set that comes with 16 mini-figures, including Batman, Robin, Batwoman, Catwoman, and nine villains dressed in orange jumpsuits. It releases on September 5th at a price of $299.99. Also, now available from LEGO is the Decepticon Soundwave, who joins the previous LEGO incarnations of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. He does transform and has cassettes of Laserbeak and Ravage. The 1,505-piece set is available exclusively at the LEGO online store for $189.99.

Another new toy announcement comes from Jakks Pacific. Apparently there was a Sonic the Hedgehog and DC crossover comic book back in March, and now there are action figures based on it. Jakks Pacific will be releasing a variety of figures, including single Sonic characters dressed as superheroes, such as Sonic as The Flash, Amy as Wonder Woman, and Silver as Green Lantern. There will also be double packs of Superman with Knuckles, Batman with Shadow, and Cyborg with Tails. Jakks unveiled new action figures in its Super Mario line and The Simpsons too.

As far as video games, well, Nintendo did release the Switch 2 since I last wrote an update. That was June 5th, the week before the former week of E3. It costs $499.99 and is less powerful than its competitors as usual, though it is getting some of the higher end games that previously released on PlayStation and Xbox systems. I didn't find anything too exciting come out of the aforementioned former E3 week. Maybe it's because I'm getting old, though I think it has more to do with the lack of originality being shown, plus I don't own any hardware new enough to play most of the big games releasing these days. 

Yep, that was a short update. Sorry it's been such a slow year for the blog!

Thanks for reading,
Jonathan

The Death and Return of Superman Game Reviews

A new Superman movie hits theaters this week, as DC reboots its movie universe with David Corenswet replacing Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel. The comic book and game title "The Death and Return of Superman" is fitting in this sense as well, but that's not why I chose this particular game to scan magazine coverage of this week. I chose it because I couldn't find any other Superman video game reviews in my magazine collection. There were 11 Superman games released before the year 2000, my usual cutoff date for blog posts, starting with the Atari 2600 Superman from 1979. Surprisingly, I don't have much experience with any of them, though I think I did briefly take a look at Superman for the Nintendo 64 to see if it was as bad as the critics said, and it was. Sunsoft published The Death and Return of Superman in 1994 for both the Super NES and Genesis, and while the only magazine reviews I found are for the Super NES version, from what I've read, the games are very similar, but with different soundtracks. Both versions were developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

In the August 1994 issue of GamePro, writer "Lawrence of Arcadia" enjoyed the game quite a bit, awarding Superman no lower than a 4.5 out of 5 across the magazine's four ratings categories. I also scanned a four-page strategy guide from GamePro's September 1994 issue that features the game on the cover, and it's the only video game magazine I own with a Superman cover. Maybe it's just the timing of my magazine collection, mostly from the late '80s and early '90s, but Batman and Spider-Man saw a lot more time in the video game spotlight than Superman. Electronic Gaming Monthly's four "Review Crew" member (Mike Weigand isn't part of the scoring), rated the game a 6, 5, 5, and 5, so very average and much lower than competitor GamePro. 

Photoshoot: Mego Hulk vs. Mego Superman

I set up a mini battle between Mego die-cast action figures of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk and D.C. Comics' Superman. Some of the photos came out good but it was tough to get them in good action poses without the scale looking too far off or just getting them to balance well enough. Hulk is 5.25" while Superman is 5.5" and he also has a broken thumb on his right hand.

You may recognize the background from my Colorforms post and video as I'm using The Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk Colorforms Play Set along with a couple LEGO street panels for the base. More information on the Mego figures can be found at the Mego Museum website. The colors vary between photos as I chose different settings when editing them.

Superman Arrives

Superman knocks Hulk down who then punches the wall in anger.

Superman should not have landed... Hulk smashes him into the wall! 

(I like the first photo but you can see the table as the background slid backwards.) 

Hulk puts Superman through the wall!

Superman takes the offensive!

An accidental image that kind of makes it look like they are moving...or it's just a terrible photo.

Hulk wins...

...or maybe Superman wins? Most likely the Man of Steel does prevail.

Time for our heroes to shake hands!

The Electronic Learning Machine

The Electronic Learning Machine from Coleco is an educational toy designed for kids aged 5-9 that was released in 1981. While the box calls it a computer, it's not quite one as there is no monitor, though it is designed to look like one and there is an 18-button keyboard. It requires four "C" batteries that power an internal motherboard to process the button presses, operate lights, and produce sounds via a speaker on the base of the toy. Users can interact with the keyboard to answer a variety of questions that appear on cards that slide in and out of the top of the device. Each card indicates which keyboard layout is required; there are keyboard overlays that change the function of the buttons to match the type of card being played.

Cards can be one of many subjects, including math, reading, spelling, music, and science. The cards are all 5 x 6.5 inches, made of plastic, double-sided, and have either red or blue headers. Holes are cut in every card that, along with the part that holds cards, informs the toy what card is active. As you can see in the photo below the part that holds the cards and sits on the back of the device can be detached; it plugs into a slot facing in either direction, with the heading being red on one side and blue on the other just like the cards.

Coleco packaged The Electronic Learning Machine with a set of cards and sold sets of 36 separately at a price of $10.45 each. I'm going to post a few more pictures next of the box, bottom of the toy, and documentation, and then below that there will be more as there is a reason I'm ending DC Comics week with this product. One of the box sides has a chunk missing which I'm thinking might have been where the UPC was; perhaps it was needed for a rebate of some kind.

Some sets of cards feature licensed characters, such as Mighty Mouse and those from DC Comics. I own one of the three sets of DC cards which results in 72 images due to them being double-sided. They scanned decently but sometimes you can see a little of the other side bleeding through. I used a black background rather than the scanner's default white which helped decrease the bleed through significantly; that's also why all of the card holes are black (corners are curved too so you'll see black there as well). There is a little fuzziness around the text on the headers, possibly due to the size I've currently got them at. I plan on lowering the resolution and adding all of them to the blog's Facebook page soon so that they can be more easily shared. I believe a lot of the artwork on the cards is original, as it is unlikely you'd find Clark Kent raking leaves without a rake or Green Lantern pointing at an empty bird cage anywhere else. I've got them sorted by character and then there are a few with multiple characters.

Listed in order of most cards to least cards per character:

Superman/Clark Kent

Wonder Woman

 

Robin

Batman

Captain Marvel

Green Arrow

Green Lantern

Hawkman

Joker

Penguin

Aquaman

Speedy

Lex Luthor

Multiple Characters

I'm a little surprised villains were included when there are so many other heroes available to choose from. Something else that stands out is that Superman is the only one that appears outside of his costume. Also, I see Robin driving the Batmobile just as in the jigsaw puzzle that I showed in the Batman video on Tuesday. I commented then that I didn't think Robin would be driving Batman around in the Batmobile and suggested he just slid over to brake as Batman leapt out of the car but perhaps I was incorrect. Robin even received more cards here than Batman!