It literally may have never occurred to me to search for it by name before.

Also, I'm not sure I'd rest my burgers on anyone's ass, unconscious or otherwise...After a discussion on Twitter about Archie Comics digests and the difficulty in finding a specific one, I searched for about five minutes on eBay and found what I was looking for! I had this Captain Hero digest as a kid--it's from 1981--but have no recollection of buying it. (My dad was a principal and my mom a teacher, so it's entirely possible a kid left it behind--or had it taken away for reading in class!)

This digest was a collection of most of Jughead's short-lived superhero series, Jughead as Captain Hero from 1966-67. It's pretty obviously "inspired" by the Batman TV show, but it's fun. Archie also had a superheroic identity, Pureheart the Powerful, with an amusing explanation on why no one notices his super-powered antics: his power "fogs the mind of ordinary beings." Reggie gets into the act as Evilheart the Great, only doing good deeds incidentally to showing Pureheart up: his unrepentant dickishness seems more amusing to me as an old grouch. Betty appears as Superteen in one story to bail out PH; while Veronica was usually the hostage to get the plot going and sadly doesn't get her own heroic identity.

I'm not sure what happened to my copy; it could well be somewhere. But I'm not sure I ever looked for a replacement, since there are like fourteen million Archie digests, and I thought it would be under "Archie" or "Laugh" or something. There's another old digest story I remember, with Reggie claiming to have the power of mind over matter, as he's able to withstand winter chill in a light sweater; but of course there's a trick and comeuppance to it. Finding that one, though...that's going to be trickier.

Read more!

Retro Toy Week: Dog's Eye-View Spider-Man!

Long before he got a black-and-white uniform with the Fantastic Four, but well after the symbiote suit; Spider-Man had another monochromatic costume: from 1997 and Toy Biz, Web Catcher Spider-Man variant. Looking it up on Amazon, I had forgotten the 'web catcher' accessory entirely.
I have a vague idea that I've read the issues this figure is referring to--I thought it was on or about Spider-Man #90, but that was '98, and the figure is marked 1997! Maybe the sculpt was reused later, with the black-and-white color scheme? Maybe I've got the issue wrong? My research has hit a wall (meaning I got distracted by something else) so let me know if you know. Anyway, somewhere in there Spidey comes back from the Negative Zone with the color bleached out of his costume...somehow. I know the same sort of thing altered the colors of the Fantastic Four's uniforms, sometime during Byrne's run; but again, no idea how. It's not the Thing ever came back from the Zone in greyscale, or turned green or something. Still, it is a neat variant.


There was a time, though, when this was the best-looking Spider-Man sculpt ever. That time was 1997, yeah. He predates Spider-Man Classics...and articulation. Nine points: ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and neck. None of which is especially useful; but the paint is pretty nice. And the web lines on his costume are all sculpted.

I was thinking there was a 'web catcher' Red Skull figure as well, but on Amazon I was surprised to see a Madam Web action figure. Huh.
Read more!

Ooh, didn't do the research on this one:

Ah, I didn't realize Meggan was back already! I knew she had been lost in hell in or around House of M, and thought she still was. Oops.

Anyway, I got the Excalibur Minimates box set a couple weeks back: I don't get a lot of Minimates lately, but couldn't pass on this one. It would be nice if it was the full team, with Rachel and Kitty...instead of Juggernaut, who only appeared in the book in issue #3. Although, that was a fun appearance. I'm not a big fan of Juggernaut, but oddly, this is the second time I've got a figure of him packaged with Nightcrawler--no, the third! They were packed together twice for Superhero Squad.

This is Meggan's first action figure, period; making her the underrepresented member of Excalibur. While Rachel hasn't received a figure in her spiky red leather ensemble that she wore for a lot of that book, and Kitty is in a more X-Men-centric uniform; the core team is almost there in Marvel Legends.

Man, I've kind of been missing that book lately, even if a lot of it wasn't very good.
Read more!