Booting up, or, A Giant embarrassment.

Although it may seem like it to some readers, from my Year in Toys posts, I'm here today to assure you that I don't buy up every action figure I see, quick as I can. Even when I probably should.


We have to go all the way back to May 6, 2006 for the start of this one, when I bought the Toy Biz Marvel Legends Thor, from the first Wal-Mart exclusive wave. He was the first of eight I picked up from that series, at $7.44 a piece. ($7.44 a piece! And good grief, I think a Toy Biz clamshell package has more plastic in it than a figure for that price these days.) I got Kitty Pryde, Warbird, and Captain Britain in one day. Havok and Sentry the next. A week later, Ant-Man. Almost a month later, the variant Age of Apocalypse Weapon X with the burned face. Eight out of the ten in the series, each with a piece to build Giant-Man. I put together the BAF, except for the feet. And then I stopped. Partly because the claws on the variant Weapon X weren't great: they're flimsy and bent; and I'm not a big fan of the character. But I loathe Sabretooth, normal version or Age of Apocalypse. Even without feet, Giant-Man was tall enough: I put him at the back of a shelf and called it good.

In 2010, I bought the Marvel Universe two-packs for Goliath and Iron-Man and the Skrull Giant-Man and Captain (Bucky) America. While the Iron Man and Bucky-Cap were the three-and-three-quarter inch scale, Goliath and the Skrull Giant-Man were twelve inches tall. I had the notion of boiling and popping the feet off of one of them--probably the Skrull--and putting them on Giant-Man, but either I wasn't sure it was going to work or never got around to it.

Then, about a month ago, I found the left foot on eBay, for under five bucks with shipping. But as is usually the case, the last piece was the killer: I needed the non-variant Weapon X. Or at least the right foot, but I lost an auction for the figure and then one for the foot. To Amazon, then. About thirty bucks later, I had the right foot. And a Weapon X, I guess.

It would've been cheaper, and doubtless easier, to just buy AofA Wolvie and Sabretooth straightaway back in 2006. Looking back at the totals, in 2006 I completed the Build-a-Figure MODOK in just over two months. Giant-Man took me over seven years and six months. That's just a ludicrous amount of time, but I rarely if ever buy all of a Build-a-Figure in one shot!

Two weird observances: even though he's huge, I kinda want to put him on a lower shelf, since I'm afraid if he took a shelf dive, he could break his antennae. I think he might have a mild ding or rub on his nose already, but not to the point that I'm willing to shell out for another head.

Second, all told Giant-Man cost me about ninety-five bucks, but you probably could've shaved twenty bucks off that if you'd bought him all at once...in 2006. Currently, Giant-Man prices on eBay start around $99 and run up to $170 or more. Now, just recently Hasbro released their Rocket Raccoon mini-BAF series, for which you would need to buy a Black Panther, a Wrecker, and a Jean Grey. If you were to find those three in a Toys R Us or something, they'd probably set you back about twenty a figure. Amazon has the three together for $92 right now, but Big Bad Toy Store had the set of five for $99 but has sold out. (That set included Scarlet Spider and Hawkeye, who don't have pieces for Rocket Raccoon.) Further complicating the issue is that Wrecker and Jean both have variants that may or may not ever appear on shelves. Still, that Giant-Man is a helluva lot more plastic than Rocket Raccoon! We may not see his like again...