House 2
I think that Indiana Jones ruined crystal skulls for everybody. The film opens on a crystal skull, and then dissolves into this gorgeous house. If the outsides art deco wasn’t impressive enough, the cavernous interior with stone balconies and Mayan glyphs lining the walls will definitely catch you.
House two was heavily advertised, way more than the original and I remember seeing it on the back of every comic book, on the wall of every theater, and in every other commercial on television. It’s one of those films I was very aware of but I always assumed that it was a sequel to the original. I even wondered if perhaps the Second Story referred to most of the action taking place upstairs. Of course I was wrong. You have to understand this is an anthology series and this story stands alone, completely unrelated to the rest of the films.
After spiriting away their baby, a couple hears a strange noise from upstairs. They’ve obviously been living with this horror for a while, and they head up to investigate. All we see is a shadowy figure that demands “I want the skull!” before gunning them down.
25 years later
A car pulls up and Jessie, the baby that was sent away, has arrived to take ownership of the house with his girlfriend Kate. He certainly joined by his best friend Charlie and girlfriend Lana in toe. You may recognize Lana as Amy Yasbeck from the Problem Child series.
Downstairs, Jesse finds an article about his great great grandfather discovering a crystal 
skull, then having a falling out with his archaeological partner Slim. The Crystal Skull however, is nowhere to be found and Jessie comes up with the idea I’m digging up his great great grandfather and checking the coffin. The skull indeed has been hidden there, but what he discovers is that his grandfather is also there, and alive. A zombified corpse reaches out and grabs Jessie, defending the skull. Jesse pleads with him and wins his trust. It turns out, Gramps has been waiting for 170 years for somebody to come and dig him up. He accompanies Jesse and Charlie back to the house, and places the skull back in it’s cradle over the mantle. It starts to glow and Gramps warns them that this house actually a temple, and forces will steal through to try and acquired the skull.
Chris takes Gramps out on the town for some fish out of water comedy and they end up on the side of the road getting drunk and staring at the stars. They set him up in the basement with the TV and they listen to his story of life in the old west. But soon, doors start to open between this world and others and a variety of bizarre forces start to come through to claim the Crystal Skull. A barbarian from the Stone Age storms in and swipes it during a Halloween party, but when he leaves, the portal used remains open. Upstairs in one of the bedrooms they discover a jungle. It’s actually very reminiscent of the devices used in the first House movie. The idea of walking through a familiar door, but instead of finding yourself in the expected room, you find yourself in a very different place. it’s one of those things that makes this feel like a sequel to the original, even while it’s completely disconnected.
They plunged into prehistoric times with an Uzi got that makes the prehistoric man a pushover. The stop-motion dinosaurs are a bit more of a threat. Nevertheless they escape the matte painting prehistoric world, along with a weird dog caterpillar and a baby 
pterodactyl, all while managing to retrieve the skull and return it to it’s cradle.
In the meantime, Bill Maher is trying to make time with Jesse’s girlfriend.
It’s weird to see him act, over the years we’ve gotten very used to him more as a panel moderator and commentator than a performer. He plays a completely superfluous and ridiculously slimy character in this film, all of which is pretty much the perfect metaphor for Bill Maher’s existence in the first place.
No sooner is the Crystal Skull back in it’s cradle Then the Aztecs come to take it. It’s around this time that John Ratzenberger shows up as Bill. He’s there to fix the wiring but he also has a sideline as an adventurer and finds an alternate universe inside one of the walls of the house. Bill, Jesse, and Charlie head through the portal to the alternate universe to retrieve the skull. A virgin sacrifice tags along with t hem on thier way home – she’s got a thing for Jessie.
It’s time for Gramp’s old partner Slim to arrive, emerging out of the evening’s dinner as a terrifying visage. Frank Welker provides his best Doctor Claw voice for the dead cowboy and gramps arms Jesse with his six-shooter for the next encounter. Outside, the windows show a Wild West Town and Jessie crashes through to save his friends In a climactic showdown.
House 2 is not so much a horror film as it is a bit of a Dark Fantasy Adventure. There’s a lot of elements here that feel like The Goonies, which make sense. We’ve got a slightly watered down PG-13 rating on this film as opposed to the R rating of it’s predecessor. House two may be a lot of things, it’s spooky and dangerous, But it isn’t scary. Still, you can’t deny the tenor and general feel of the film that links it to the first House film. The addition of John Ratzenberger to the cast is a brilliant bit of backhanded connection as well. It feel like it’s part of something bigger, though it still could probably stand on it’s ow, and even with the very strange (and slightly unsatisfying) ending, it’s still worth the watch, especially in the context of the franchise.
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Gone in 60 Seconds 2
In 1989 H B Halicki was trying for a come back. He spent the last several years buying up hundreds of cars – yeah you read that right, I said hundreds. The plan was to do a sequel to his first movie and greatest success, Gone in 60 Seconds – but this time bigger and better. Halicki boarded a semi truck and proceeded to crush dozens and dozens of cars on camera before bailing out the driver side window and making his escape on the feet of a helicopter while the semi pile drove straight ahead into a water tower.
He got as far as shooting the first big stunt, but the water tower fall went wrong, cutting a cable which knocked down a telephone pole – right onto Halicki himself. He never made it to the hospital and was pronounced DOA in the ambulance.
I feel a little devastated to discover this man’s demise, despite being 30 years 
removed. I love that his wife gathered up enough money, enough crew and enough leftover cars to complete the second chase and then, patching it together with footage from the original Gone in 60 Seconds created a short feature, about 30 minutes in running time, which is essentially just one long car chase that crunches over 250 cars in its path of devastation. There’s very little in the way of plot or dialogue but it’s a fitting eulogy for H B Halicki, encompassing his love of the chase, his love of car crashes and his aspirations cinematically. It would be after this was released that his wife would then collaborate with Jerry Bruckheimer to see the Nicolas Cage remake done, forever immortalizing Halicki’s story with a more mainstream audience.
This short film is available here and there, I’ve seen it occasionally on YouTube and manage to score a copy in a “Fast as Hell” DVD collection of Halicki’s films at the dollar store. It’s worth a watch, if for no other reason as a epilogue to this remarkable man’s career.
Catching up on What If?
Of all the marvel cinematic universe shows, the two that I have been looking forward to the most were Loki and What If?. I’m still sad that Loki was such a disappointment, but so far, What If? has fared much better. The thing that strikes me so much about it though is it’s very MCU. This is not merely pulling random marvel characters and doing an imaginary story, this is laser focused on reasonably prominent MCU supporting characters and very interested in re-creating scenes from some of the great Marvel movies -largely fro phase one. The attention to detail is beautiful, the actual actors of been brought into voice their character is wherever possible, and I never feel like I’m looking at a generic re-creation. Backgrounds look like they’re straight out of the films. The costume design still has a very Marvel cinematic feel. I’ve had some people tell me that the animation is a little off-putting, particularly around the eyes. I find that interesting because to me it’s perfect. It actually reminds me a great deal of the animation style used in the MTV Spiderman cartoon that took place between the first and second Raimi movies (It’s underrated, and doesn’t get nearly enough respect. Bridged that gap, and added a great deal more depth to those films. We could’ve used another season in between two and three for that matter!).
There’s still some politically correct elements in here that we probably wouldn’t have paid nearly as much attention to five years ago before The woke went on steroids. I’m perfectly willing to give that stuff a pass… Captain Carter has no real heroes journey, but her strength isn’t at the expense of Steve Rogers he still gets to be a hero and sacrifice. His character is very evident in What If?. There’s some opportunistic journalists right now capitalizing on saying T’Challa is a better star lord than Peter Quill, but he’s really not. He’s just different. A different focus, and apparently Black Panther has a Secret power that everyone just automatically likes him. They should really make that a thing, like X forces domino having a knack for things just naturally falling into place. Then again, Quill starting off being flawed and learning to be a hero was the entire point wasn’t it? If anything, that robbed T’Challa of any character development or heroes journey.
Episode three benefits greatly from being able to showcase most of the original MCU Avengers as well as being focused and voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. There’s an interesting twist that just touches a bit on the later films, but for the most part is still heavily rooted in the early and best of the MCU, something that’s really appealing.
All in all though, I think I’m enjoying what is the most of all of the MCU TV series, and I hope it keeps up the quality. It’s fun, it’s episodic, and is really exactly the sort of thing that I’m looking for… A chance to dip my toe in the Marvel universe, without having to commit to three hours, and whatever her social agenda is fashionable this week.
Next week I really ought to catch up on StarGirl.
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Mother’s Day Massacre
We begin Mother’s Day Massacre in the most awkward position possible – From the perspective of a woman in the stirrups at the gynecologist office and diagnosis her STD . Upon receiving the news of her venereal disease, she is off to confront the mistress and her cheating partner… We get a baby scarred by hot bacon grease and a frying pan bludgeon…. and we’re not even five minutes in.
Whiplash forward to present day where were introduced to our Ingenue Doreen and her hapless boyfriend Jim – also his abusive father who ruins their quick nookie session.
We get a bizarre first scene with the pervy dad and we are gynaecologist that seems to be completely unrelated to the rest of the film, other them to disturb and pad the runtime to feature length… And they still only managed to stretch this thing out to 77 minutes
Doreen located Jim’s mother (who abandoned him) on the Internet as his dad’s crudeness escalates.Jim and Doreen head into an abandoned ghost town to locate his mom. A bunch of friends decide to tag along since they’ve heard the town is spooky and there’s good weed growing wild. We manage to get a doomsayer (slasher trope) – a kid this time – when they stop for gas at a rundown joint that remind me of the general store from pumpkinhead.
Once they get there, they drink beer and then split up to explore the town – always a good idea when you’re in a horror film! They search the unfortunately brightly lit houses looking for places to bang, and find creepy things inside them, like the worst Gloryhole 
ever. That’s when the axe wielding rednecks show up.
The movie isn’t shy about spraying blood everywhere which is a good thing because a redneck father and son team of villains aren’t very visually interesting. This isn’t Wrong Turn with grotesque mutants hunting our city slickers, but rather just a guy in shades with his retarded inbred song teaming up for murder.
All the kids escaped with some of the weed which causes the rednecks to follow them, so the killing can continue.
This is a sloppy movie. (almost as sloppy as this review) There’s no three act structure, no story arc, just a general idea that’s been laid over the bones of a film. It’s one of those situations where I wonder if the filmmakers had access to a cool location and just decided to try and build a movie around it. Whatever the case, this one fails to satisfy.
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Adam Green and Joe Lynch
Every week, I’m a regular listener to Joe and Adam on the movie Crypt and this poster, when I saw it in Adam’s store, was just too cool to pass up, signed by both of them (and Adam’s dog Arwin!).
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House
I always forget just how spooky the opening of House is. They use extreme angles and weird lighting and negative images to heighten the spook factor and really give the house itself character, all before we even open the movie. It’s a great bit of misdirection and sets the tone well. In this house bad things can happen even in the daylight and you get that impression moving through the courtyard and inside the structure to discover the dead woman hanging there.
We are introduced to Roger Cobb, a divorced writer and Vietnam vet whose son vanished at his aunt’s house – the same aunt that we saw hanging at the beginning of the film. He’s having terrible writer’s block and nightmares of the war, and decides a change of scenery is in order. He heads over to the house to move in for a while.
The film takes its time, carefully setting up characters both living and dead, inside and outside of the house, even bringing the Aunt back as a ghostly doomsayer. The haunting starts slowly, with disembodied sounds in the house. It’s soft quietness is a stark contrast to the thunderously loud Vietnam flashback scenes that we get as Roger dreams and writes his book. In the house there’s a vision of his son, and the ghost of his aunt. It’s creepy but benign – that is, until finally he checks the closet… and the monsters begin to 
show up at midnight.
The closet monster by the way, is actually really worth taking a close look at. It’s the claws that really grabd your attention but pause the movie and check out the formless shanks of the creature. There’s multiple faces emerging out of the ultraslime on it’s misshapen body, possibly representative of people the house is taken. It was certainly enough to stir up Rogers curiosity and lead him to further explore the curse of the house, while simultaneously exploring his dark past in Vietnam. The flashbacks to the ‘Nam are amazing by the way. Richard Moll as Cobb’s partner Big Ben is perfectly cast and executed. Moll has always been good at a sort of over the top malevolence, a bad guy 
who is practically a cartoon but that you still love. It’s a far cry from his character on Night Court and this is one of his better performances. He’s not comic relief, but he is incredibly amusing. Comedy relief of course is coming from George Wendt, veteran of Cheers and Rodger Cobb’s next door neighbor. Wendt isn’t really trying to stretch here, he’s playing Norm, just as always. It’s sort of a give the people what they want appearance and it’s a role he understands well. Both men nicely balanced out William Katt’s Rodger Cobb, who has to balance an almost static rational character even as he begins to come unglued.
Indeed, the house wants him unglued, and it begins taunting him here and there. A remote control car making its way into the room by itself, a prized fish on the wall that stares and watches him as he goes, throwing a tantrum until Cobb dispatches it. Restless 
tools in the shed that come after him. The house is getting more aggressive by the moment.
All the commotion is enough to get the cops called on him, and some of the creepiest monsters start coming out as well. Interesting to note that the lead police man was Alan Autry, who would also go on to play one of the lead cops in the TV version of In the Heat of the Night.
Of course new complications arise when, after taking care of the monsters, another neighbor shows up. This time it’s a beautiful blonde who flirts with Rodger to score some free babysitting. It’s a surprisingly scary prospect. We’ve already lost one child in this house and the idea of bringing another one in fills me with dread. It’s a justified fear, the house goes after the new little boy, with monsters leading him away to try and take him as well. Cobb fights them off and rescues the little boy from the most precarious position in the fireplace chimney. Still, as perilous as the entire 
encounter is, the whole episode strikes me as an excuse to pad run times.
The haunting over all has brought about a change in Roger, and it seems now, he’s ready to fight. He discovers a clue in his aunt’s paintings and finds the way into the dark dimension that holds his son. It’s time for his final confrontation with the forces that plague this house.
House is one of the earliest horror movies that I remember watching, very likely because William Katt was in it and my parents knew I was a fan of him in the Greatest American Hero. I probably saw it on television so it was deemed safe, a judgment that couldn’t be more wrong. I found a terrifying but it’s the sort of horror film that made me love the genre and kept me coming back for more. Today it’s comfort food, an old favorites with a well-rounded story and and the brilliance of 1980s practical effects. I still find the monsters terrifying and the concept itself feels even more dire now that I’m a father. Of all the house films, this is the only one that’s truly scary and has earned its place as a horror classic
Steel City August 2021
I wasn’t really feeling it this weekend. I honestly wasn’t in the mood for a long drive to Pennsylvania, and my map completely turned me around and added both time and mileage. Still, I was really just coming in to grab a few Elm Street victims, almost everybody I needed to complete my scrapbook.
Brooke Theiss and Toy Newkirk were both supposed to have come to steel city con last year, but the plague shut everything down. Even now, there’s still a certain degree of trepidation and both arrived this time, but masked. It certainly put a damper on things, and I declined photos with them. Still, Toy had some interesting photos with her. Her mother had been on set when she was doing make up tests and getting her lifecast and and taking dozens of photos that she never knew about. She only discovered them a couple of years ago, and had a really interesting collection that gave her a good excuse to talk about the whole process there.
I was particular excited for Breckin Meyer though. I enjoy him in a variety of things, not the least of which are the Garfield movies. I have an unreasonable lot for these. But he’s also fun and stuff with the robot chicken crew and things like rat race. One of his early performances was in Freddys dead… He looks completely different and his voice and dropped yet. It was always strange to see him, and I assumed you with one of the guys I was never going to get in person. It was a great deal of fun to head up and chat with him and get my photo signed. I pulled down my mask and headed in.
“Gahhhhh!” Meyer exclaimed as he jumped back startled. I pulled up the Freddy hockey mask I was wearing, as we laughed over it.
“That is so %$#@&* cool!“ breathed Meyer. “So thanks for coming out and terrifying me today! “ 
I noticed Tom Arnold didn’t have any line so I decided to run over and see him too. He’s one I’ve been debating on, he doesn’t really get killed by Friday, but he does have a look at cameo in the film and some genuine achievements in his filmography.
Costumes were out in full force as Sunday is the costume contest for the show… The place had violently erupted in anime characters. But there is also a stunning Mothra floating through the place, as well as some interesting bits and pieces… A brilliant J Jonah Jamison and a dead on Hulk Hogan. For my part, I was phoning it in – my freddy/jason top, along with a Hockey mask I had done up in a Freddy theme. It was actually king of fun – people (especially the crafters in the artist alley) kept asking where I had gotten the mask, and I got to 
walk them through the process of making them!
I ended up sticking around a little bit longer than I had expected because I kept running into friends who wanted to hang out… Some of which I haven’t seen since before the plague started. It made for a longer day, and by the time I left I was wiped. I still insist that steel city is not going to be a regular stop on my route. For the most part I’m trying to avoid the big meat market autograph shows, but it’s nice to know its there, just within reach to sneak out to. Maybe next time I’ll slip over to Evans cemetery on the way home.
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Star Lord
Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy has become one of my go-to costumes for comfortable cosplay. Simple stuff, muscle pants, t-shirt and the jacket with baby Groot on my shoulder. (Rocket Racoon puppet optional)
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
In the Dead of Winter
In the Dead of Winter begins at a bleak prison for somebody out in the mountains… We’ve got a con being released and meeting up with his Friends in their pickup truck. He checks his gun and heads out to cause mayhem…
I can’t help but notice that this film is produced by Tanya York, Donald G Jackson’s old financial partner. That explains the shot on video look to the film and makes me feel just a bit wary.
Sam, the contact that just got out start off by visiting the local sheriff – presumably the man put him in prison. He guns him down front of his family and races off in the truck. accompanied by a combination of new-age jazz and bad Casio soundtrack.
After that, it’s a joy ride in the mountains on snowmobiles, because why not? They’re looking for an abandoned cabin to hide out in, but when they arrive they find it’s not as abandoned as expected! And amorous young couple have already taken up residence for the weekend and Sam and his crew have found their next victims.
When the boyfriend attempts to fight back, they take him outside and bury him up to his neck in the snow – it’s actually a clever gag.
Inside, girlfriend get Sam scan and turns the table on her attackers – it’s a stand-off, with them threatening the boyfriend and her threatening them. It all goes wrong and the couple both end up dead. Time for Sam and his crew to run off.
After some internal squabbling when they get lost, they discover a cave to hole up in. The cave brings bad dreams but in the morning they take off on the snowmobiles until they run out of gas. That’s when they get shot at.
They flee the unseen gunman and desperately searched the woods for cover. Their unseen assailant pursues them in a Snowcat. The guys split up, one group and start all the other starts to succumb to frostbite.
All four of the crew are separated – one finding himself and literate than ice, one getting killed accidentally, and one inexplicably encountering Daniel Boone in the middle of the snowy wilderness. We discover it’s the local sheriff that’s been chasing Sam- apparently he didn’t die from his gunshot wound. I was hoping for a twist, like it was the sheriff’s widow or something.Sam stumbles into a bunch of bear traps and the sheriff leaves him to die. The ending is so straightforward it feels anticlimactic. This one is a definite skip.
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Brian Canini
I actually really enjoyed Brian Canini‘s “The Big Year” – a diary indie comic I picked up at an indie festival.
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong
I don’t usually get into stoner movies, but this time around we’re actually doing a Gingerdead Man sequel that has some direct connections to the original film and that in particular interests to me.
The Gingerdead Man had been making cameos in the Evil Bong series for a while now, and the lead actress from Gingerdead Man, Robin Sydney actually appears in every Evil Bong movie, so I suppose it made sense to finally bring them together in a versus movie, much like Alien versus Predator. It opens with the Gingerdead Man on a beach, being flirted with by three topless girls. I can’t help but notice that his lips are not really animated, but rather somebody else’s lips have been composited in so that he can talk. This doesn’t give me a great deal of hope for the effects in this one, especially when I notice that I don’t recognize the name of the person behind the special effects here. I also note that William 
Butler (or his pseudonym Sylvia St. Croix) is nowhere to be found.
Oh well, let’s get into this.
The credits deposit us at a head shop where the employees are squabbling. As the owner’s girlfriend sets up a leech woman doll (a nice little easter egg), he recounts how he got into the business – It’s a good excuse for giving flash back to the first and second Evil Bong films (Good thing too, I’ve never seen any of them. I’ll get there eventually, it’s on one of my upcoming box sets). It’s a reasonable way to pad the run time, and gets us to well into the film before actually beginning anytime of story.
Some stoners wander in and Larnell , the manager, tries to sell them on a gas mask bong. (This is a missed opportunity by the way, I was sure I was seeing Chekhov’s gun here. Sadly, no), but even as I’m trying to comprehend this, that’s when the clown walks in. He’s selling freaky little Indian statues. Argumentative employee is distracted by some tourists that he up cells and doesn’t notice the clown taking a photos of them, for apparently no reason. (I kept waiting for this to pay off in the plot later, but it never comes up agian, it’s just schtick to introduce Larnell and his dimunitive employee Sting.
In the back, we discover that Larnell has the Evil Bong gagged and bound in the closet. He wants to unravel her secrets and possibly use her for good. Me for my part,I’m waiting for the Gingerdead Man to show up again.
Down the street from the head shop, there’s a new bakery called “Dough, Ray, Me”. Weirdly enough, they’re selling Gingerdead Man shaped cookies. Of course it’s run by Sarah, the heroine from the first Gingerdead Man film. Judging from the palm trees, she’s moved from Texas to L.A. There was a recent article on her in the paper and they use this to briefly 
recap the original Gingerdead Man film.
We finally finish up with all of the flashbacks to previous movies about halfway through the film. Larnell shows up at the bakery to grab one of the cookies and behind him you can see the Gingerdead Man peering through the window. He’s there to take his revenge on Sarah. Larnell is trying to pitch some cross-promotion between the bakery and the head shop while back at his store, his old partner has unleashed the Evil Bong.
When Sarah heads over to Larnell’s shop to check it out, a couple of heremployees head to the back to get busy. The Gingerdead Man sees his opportunity to ply his trade. he’s back to using the switchblade that we’re familiar with from the DVD covers, though an axe will still work in a pinch.
Over at the head shop, Larnell discovers the evil bong has been freed. The Gingerdead Man dispatches his employee, and we get the first epic confrontation between the Gingerdead Man and the Evil Bong. She offers to make him a man again if he’ll smoke from her. The Gingerdead Man is tempted, but he has unfinished business first and takes an axe to the office door to try and get to Larnell and Sarah.
“Heeere’s Gingy!”
To even the odds, Larnell and Sarah both take a hit from the evil bong, forcing the Gingerdead Man to follow them into the bong world. as soon as they arrive, the evil pastries from Gingerdead Man 3 start to taunt them, even as the Gingerdead Man stalks them. Things only gets stranger from there as the Gingerdead Man encounters King Bong 
and the other homicidal pastries who put him on trial in a scene designed to homage the Phantom Zone sequence from the original Superman.
Ultimately it becomes fight to escape the Evil Bong and hopefully leave the Gingerdead Man trapped forever.
Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong really is more of an Evil Bong film then it is a Gingerdead Man film. The character of Larnell overwhelms Sarah who is reduced to little more than a sidekick in this movie, and while the Gingerdead Man is certainly is the more murderous of the two villains, it’s the Evil Bong that really drives the story. Outside of a few clever set pieces, the Gingerdead Man is largely irrelevant and that’s a shame because I was really hoping for more of his influence.
On the other hand, half the film is taken up by recaps and flashbacks – making this more of a Gateway film, trying more to interest you into either of the other franchises rather than creating its own entry. We’d see Puppet Master go through this phase as well, particularly with the Puppet Master : The Legacy installment. Charles Band isn’t pulling out any new tricks here, versus movies and clip shows have kind of become his stock and trade at this point. This one is really only for fans of the franchise and it’s kind of unsatisfying as a final chapter.
NEO Comiccon 2021
So, it would be accurate to say that there were no quarter bins of comics this year at Neo comicon. It would be accurate to say that. It would NOT however, be accurate to say if there were no quarter bins at all…We hit Neo comicon lite just as soon as the doors opened this weekend. We had another appointment on the east side of Cleveland so we were going to be very limited in our time here and knew we’d have to be judicious in our browsing. Still, in the two hours we were there, I can’t see me or Maddie having lasted much longer than that. It’s a small show this year. No programming, no costume contest, no out of town guests. We’re easing back into conventions. Still, it was nice to see old faces and the new acquaintances. One of my buddies from Heroes United ran up to me shook my hand while another just flat out embraced me. He mentioned that he forgot to bring my Flash box set that Chris has… I was confused.
“Wait, I loaned that to Rocky!”
“Yes,” he replied and “Rocky loaded to Chris. And then Chris passed it on to me since I do more Heroes United events than he does these days! But I totally forgot today…”
I love this stuff, it’s nice to be back on the convention circuit.
I caught up with Josh and Steph and Jennifer as well, who I just seen the previous night at our birthday parties… (We did all the July birthdays together at a new restaurant in Cleveland). I haven’t seen Jen in costume in a long time, and that’s kind of cool. Josh on the other hand has pushed Deadpool to a new ridiculous level. He’s got a Deadpool version of the Mandalorian, complete with a baby carrier for the child… Except the child is Detective Pikachu. Also for no reason, there’s an alligator Loki involved in this costume. It’s glorious.
Remember when I said there were no Quarter comic bins? I’m not lying. There were only dollar bins. Sure, I dug through some of the dollar bins and found a few interesting bits and pieces, but what I
really hit hard, were the toys. We found about half a dozen long boxes filled with hero clix, a quarter each or five for a dollar. I dropped five dollars. That doesn’t sound like much, but it sure does look like a whole ton when you have an arm load. Some were OP prizes or FCBD specials that nobody actually carries, as well as dozens of characters that we really like and wanted to play with. I got a new penguin and I got a rocket raccoon, I even got a gladiator hulk! Superman and wonder woman and Batman, or the one I thought was a USAgent that was actually the captain… Steve Rogers while he was in exile. Great figures, and it almost makes me wanna play again!But the single purchase that I was the most excited for…..
I actually just bought a couple of comics from this vendor, then went around the corner and spied a small box of twenty five cent toys. When I looked in, there were tons of old Star Trek micromachines. I love the Star Trek micromachine series. I grew up reading ads for the FASA wargame miniatures, and these things one for $10 for each ship in the 80s. When this series of Micro Machine starships
came out, these were five dollars for three of them. I bought most of them when they ere first on sale about twenty five years ago. In the bin I saw a deep space nine that I immediately grabbed, because The one that I bought years ago, had actually lost a pylon. Snapped right off. Replacing it for a quarter was a treat. a new borg ship, a Klingon D7, and then I looked down and I saw it. It was a saucer. I almost thought it was Miranda class… Maybe the reliant itself but it was completely round, and the lines were sharper… And I saw the registry. NCC-1701-A. My jaw dropped and I frantically dug through the rest of the bin. The saucer section, the primary hull, had broken off of this figure… I dug desprately. Finally, in the corner of the box I found the secondary hall, the body of the ship with the engines…I see the look on your face. I realize you don’t understand.
I came into Star Trek during the movie era. Not necessarily the wilderness period, but definitely before Star Trek the next generation. For me, Star Trek is the DC comics written by Peter David and Mike W Barr. It’s the maroon wrap around tunics, and the white starship with the blue dish on the front. It’s my single favorite ship in all of Star Trek. But micro machines, in their infinite wisdom, only ever released this ship as part of a large set that I could not afford at the time. Besides, that set had every ship that I’ve already bought in it…
I have always wanted this starship and I don’t care if this one’s broken, I have superglue at home. And at $.25 been this was the single most exciting discovery I had all day. Serious biz, I can’t even tell you how happy this find made me.
So amused that I still hit 25 cent bins as hard as ever, but today it was all about toys, rather than comics. Nevertheless. I came home with some new reading material, a lot of toys to play hero clicks with my kids, and some really fun memories of what is generally the best comic convention in the area. I’m hoping they’re back to full speed next year.
Argo City Comics 