Monday, June 22, 2009

Misidentified robots, overambitious sharks, and the rest of last weekend.

Long time readers here will know I like hitting up yard sales for action figures and comic books, and am disappointed better than nine times out of ten. This weekend perseverance finally paid off, as I turned up multiple goodies, including a Wayne Manor/Batcave playset (from Batman: the Animated Series, not the Mego one that could be used to make a down payment on a real house...) a Jabba the Hutt; and this chap, whom I'm calling 'Fisty.'Fisty doubtless has a proper name. I don't care. He's some Gundam with four fists and four feet; although damned if I could tell you why. I don't think he's from that crazy one with the windmill and mermaid robots...EDIT: It just occurred to me, I could take those shoulder-pointy things out, get some nice pens, and make a kickass desk set out of Fisty.

Also, I did find just a few old comics: usually, I'd post a link to GCD, but this issue isn't GCD-pretty and needs to be seen. Plus, I suppose it's ironic that it's water-damaged:
Mike Grell? Really? This cover is barely a step removed from a Coppertone ad...
Look, I know full well Jaws was culturally huge in 1976--I was afraid of sharks, and I lived in Montana. (And was five, smartass.) But not only is that not a great cover, it only barely relates to the story within. I was kind of hoping a shark from Krypton made it's way to earth and super-powers. It's no worse an idea than Beppo...

Instead, it's Green Lantern bad guy the Shark, re-evolving himself back into his super-human form. Somehow. We've seen him before, facing off against most of the Justice League with a bunch of animal pals.

Uh, I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure the Shark can't suck evolution juice or whatever out of a kid in order to re-power up. I was also unaware that Popeye-analog Captain Strong appeared in more than one issue, either. (Cap'n Strong is also accidentally called Superman during the denouement, too.) In the end, the Shark ends up back as an ordinary shark (an ordinary shark that will keep trying to re-evolve himself, though) and even then he still tries to take a final swipe at Supes.

Not a great comic, but still glad to have it. We'll probably look at more garage sale stuff later.

2 comments:

CalvinPitt said...

Captain Strong? He's not the guy that everyone calls "Bibbo", that said he was Superman's #1 fan, is he? I'm guessing not, but that's who he reminds me of anyway.

googum said...

Good question, and he very well could be. I had a reprint digest with Cap'n Strong, strung out on some space-spinach crap, giving him superpowers and making him crazy. (That's like a good quarter of 70's Superman comics right there...schmoe gets powers, becomes a dickweed, Supes takes away said powers and all is forgiven.) I don't know enough about Bibbo to say, though: he falls squarely under "Comic Relief, Failed" for me.