At the tail end of yesterday's trip to Acadia, one of the last for The Acadia You Haven't Seen Vol. 2, while exploring the abandoned Bass Harbor Lighthouse trail, Jaime got a few brief minutes of cell service. She got the job! Our lives are about to change. When I got back to the car, we went down to the shore to watch the sunset and begin to make plans. First on our agenda, a quick trip to CT for an early celebration of my birthday and her getting the job, where she'll be making what we made combined this past year. We've taken huge strides in our careers as authors but we're not there yet, this will afford us the opportunity to get there.
Unfortunately we only had a couple days because she had to be back for a drug test on Tuesday but that left us a couple days to eat and shop our way across CT and MA. We packed Friday night when we got back from Acadia and went to bed early, I did well over ten miles and was feeling it. But man did I get some cool places for Vol 2 and with the best news we've had in a while, it was one hell of a day.
Just the other day I happened to see that a new Toy Vault just opened in Massachusetts at the Solomon Pond Mall, which we pass right by on our way to CT. In fact, we've stopped at the gas station across the street many times, usually in the middle of the night when the mall is closed. This was our first time actually going into the mall. Since the Toy Vault there is so new, it wasn't on the directory so we walked the mall until we found it. It was a good size store, all the regular stuff. Huge Star Wars and Superhero section, little bit of everything else. Nothing crazy rare like Inhumanoids or Jayce & The Wheeled Warrior, Sectaurs, Super Naturals, green card WWF Hasbros, Action Master Transformers, all the stuff like that I'm really after, but a good selection nonetheless.
I only ended up leaving with two figures, the first being Scareglow from Super 7's Masters Of The Universe Reaction figure line. It's honestly kind of weird that they included MOTU in their Reaction figures since it's really a line about making toys for the popular brands that didn't get their own toy lines, and god knows MOTU had it's own toy line. So I passed on the earlier figures, not overly impressed with their basic design. However, I love the artwork for them and actually saved the pictures as my desktop background. I ended up caving and buying Battle Armor He-Man and Skeletor because I love those battle armors. I wanted the Sorceress but could only ever find the white version and I really want her in all her glorious blues and oranges. And from the moment I saw the Scareglow packaging, I knew I had to have him. I've checked the Newbury Comics in Portland Maine a couple times on our way back from NH but he was sold out, they of course still had every other figure in the set. So when I saw him here, I grabbed him right away. Scareglow was always one of my favorites, it's a shame we didn't get him in the 200x line or the Staction series that gave us some of the characters we were missing out on.
I also picked up the loose version of Black Cat from the 90's Spiderman line. I got her in-package version two years ago from the Toy Vault around Christmastime along with Peter Parker. I absolutely loved that show, it's really the only superhero show or movie that I legitimately liked, aside from Smallville. I was a little old for toys at the time so I didn't have any of the figures back then but would eagerly race home to watch it after school. And hands down, my favorite character, Felecia Hardy who later became the Black Cat. I love both versions of her and somehow, 20 years later, and who knows how many Marvel figures and variants and remakes, there is still no Felecia Hardy. And I'm still pissed about this. I can't even find a custom one online. I'll make my own someday but until then, my Black Cat figures will have to do.
From there we decided that instead of going our normal way to CT, we'd head over to North Attleboro MA to hit up the Emerald Square Mall's Toy Vault as well since we were pressed for time and wouldn't be able to make it on Sunday if we were going to tackle both flea markets, Grandma's house for a quick visit and the Crystal Mall.
I bought a few more items there but not as many as I'd hoped, usually the Emerald Square one has too much and I have to narrow down my choices. I ended up getting the 1997 re-release of the Cobra Rage GI Joe vehicle. I have the original on display and it's tied for my favorite GI Joe vehicle, neck and neck with the Python Patrol Cobra Stun. Not only is the vehicle one of my favorites, I love its updated black and blue color scheme and it comes with an Alley Viper, one of my favorite Cobra soldiers, repainted in purple urban camo, my favorite camo color. So when I found out this vehicle and figure were in existence, which I just found out about kind of recently, I knew I had to have them.
I also picked up Ratar-O from the vintage Thundercats line. Should have never sold them off in the first place but when you're desperate, you do things you're not proud of. We needed money, I had figures I didn't think I'd want in the future. There are very few of them I don't regret getting rid of. If that 2011 Thundercats cartoon never existed, I would have been fine but after seeing that first episode, I was like 'aww s**t, I definitely made a mistake getting rid of those'. I have a feeling I'm going to spend more re-purchasing these stupid things then I even got for selling them. Stupid stupid stupid. I'm not even going to get into what I sold off because then you'll beat me up more than I've been beating myself up. We'll dig further into that in a later post.
I bought my first Power Rangers figure today, Lord Zed. So I was never into the Power Rangers, I don't know, maybe I was a little too old. But one of my friends, the kid from across the street that my mom would babysit after school along with a few others in the early 90s, he was obsessed with the Power Rangers. Hell, his entire grade was, which is weird because he was only a grade below me and my grade really couldn't have cared less. Who knows, kids are weird. So I saw a lot of Power Rangers, and I'd help him collect them so every time I was at the store, I'd check for figures for him. Some of the villains in season 1 were kinda cool, it was like an even cornier version of the Ninja Turtles which got a little too cheesy for me. But in season 2, I believe, this bad ass dude who looked like an inside out human with metal armor and a ninja face mask took over the bad guys, that's who I was rooting for. I wanted a figure of him back then, he was just so freakin' cool. By the time his figure hit the shelves, my mom was no longer babysitting my neighbor so I never bothered to get the figure. 25 years later and I finally have Lord Zed, complete with his Z staff.
And while we're on the subject, I also picked up some Ninja Turtle villains. I grabbed Slash, the Rat King and General Traag. They weren't complete but I have some of their accessories in my weapons bin including Slash's belt and some of the Rat King's rats, possibly even a weapon or two of Traag. I'd love to see slightly darker versions of these awesome characters, a more grown up version that I wished we got back then, a major reason I grew out of TMNT so quickly. But the newer versions just seem to get simpler and cornier so I think a darker, more serious take on them is pretty much off the table for the time being.
And from the cheap rack I found a red and black Cobra Commander from the 2002 GI Joe vs Cobra line. I love Cobra Commander repaints, always have. This line of Joes looked a little different with the bulkier build and the different leg joints which sadly takes away some of the articulation I always loved about the Joes. You could move them any way you wanted which made them great to play with and pose as well. I always wished that all figures were made with that design, especially wrestling figures. I think they were trying to move away from the rubber bands since they wear out and break over time, if only we knew back then how easy of a fix it is. Despite his limited leg movements, I love this figure and his color scheme, I'm glad I finally have him out of package.
And that wraps up today's purchases. I thought about picking up the MOTU Dragon Walker with its box, its severely damaged box, but seeing as how I already have the vehicle itself, I couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money on a damaged package. I also considered getting Entrapta and Double Trouble from the MOTU She-Ra Princess Of Power line, neither of which I have. I collected the She-Ra figures as a kid but am missing about half the series, I must have stopped getting them part way through or something. I decided to pass since I have no real attachment to either character, I can't say I remember either one of them being in the cartoon which I actually enjoy even more than He-Man. I'm really looking forward to the new She-Ra Netflix original, let's just hope they don't screw it up.We finally made it to Willimantic around 8:00, starving, so I stopped to get some Papa Ginos and Jaime got her sub at Papa's. I won't say what time we fell asleep because it's embarrassing but it's been a long couple of days and I'm exhausted from hiking and driving. This is our first time really spending money and actually eating out since we both got fired back in the middle of August. Tomorrow, the celebration continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment