New Statement of Purpose

It's the last day--indeed, almost the last hour--of May, and I want to start the new month with my new Statement of Purpose. Not that I'll be abandoning action figures. But as a topic of discussion it cannot always occupy my attention.

Not that it's too limited a topic. In fact, it's almost too vast. I've had so many more action figures to discuss other than the three that I actually posted this month--and three volumes of Tomart's Encyclopedia & Price Guide to Action Figure Collectibles--and coming action figures--that I've sat down many times to write a post and gave up at the immensity of the task. So, paradoxically, by broadening my field of posts I hope to be able to deal with the job, in effect resting with other things till I get back to the toys.

What other things? My fads, freaks, and fallacies, my memories, dreams, anectodage, books, movies, TV shows, favorite poems, pictures, fugitive writings--in effect, my blathering opinions on life, the universe, and everything. This will probably interest only my four readers (and not always all of them), but there it is.

And so, as the saying goes--"On with the goddamn circus!"

Zira

When I went to Florida some months ago, I got three of the Medicom Planet of the Apes figures: Cornelius, Dr. Zaius, and General Aldo. Medicom has, in my opinion, come out with the perfect sculpt and format for Ape figures (and by this I mean action figures, not dolls, which, let us face it, are basically what the old, much-beloved Mego Apes were). But I wanted--nay, needed, nay CRAVED--a Zira figure to complete the basic quartet. After all, what would Cornelius be without Zira? So my good friend at Z's Toys kept his eyes open and ordered me one when it became available on eBay. Today it came in, and I bought it for $22.

I tried and tried to get a scan off the card, but I'm having trouble with my new program Adobe Photoshop. I suppose it's probably because I'm not used to it, but it seems less straight forward and less intuitive than my old Adobe program. I think that's one reason for my scandalously scant output: this is only my third post of the month! Anyway I ended up using a picture grabbed off of Google.

Cloud Strife

Cloud Strife. Enemy of Sephiroth. Love interest of Aerith. Side story in Kingdom Hearts and major player in Final Fantasy. Bit of a moody stiff, to tell the truth. And never, never in all the time I've known him has he ever picked up a check. Not even a lousy cup of coffee. He hasn't called his mother in three years. Always too busy fighting and brooding about his destiny. And let me tell you, after a bout with Sephiroth that leather smells none too fresh. He doesn't deserve Aerith, that's for sure, but she is so sweet and so patient...she's just wasting herself on him, if you ask me. Wasting herself. >sighs<

Well, yada yada yada, 22 points of articulation, Square Enix, and so forth.

Axel

I got Axel some weeks ago, for $23, from Z's Toys and More. He's the last guy in Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts series; at least, he's the last I've gotten.

In the Kingdom Hearts mythos, Axel is a member of the sinister Organiztion 13, a group of "Nobodies" who want to gain ultimate power and real personhood. He became a friend of Roxas, Sora's alternative persona, and his purpose in the game is to re-awaken and separate Roxas from Sora. In the process he works against his fellow members of Organization 13, befriends Sora, and dies defending him.

Other good characters also wear the Organization 13 robes to infiltrate the order (including Riku and King Mickey, a.k.a. Mickey Mouse), and this is what has undoubtedly inspired this item in the Museum Replicas Limited catalog:

Copy reads: "Gatekeeper Coat: From a video game kingdom comes this awesome long coat made of a shimmering nylon with an extra full hood and bell sleeves. The double-action front zipper allows for a variety of different looks. Complete with a chain of accent crosses and keys. $130."

Asterius

From the upcoming Prince Caspian comes Asterius, a minotaur, a member of the Old Narnians who fight against the tyranny of King Miraz. I got this at Toys'R'Us for $9.99. It has twenty points of articulation, the most unusual of them being a jointed jaw.

Asterius is part of the larger format Narnia toys; the only ones so far are Peter, Edmund, Caspian, Miraz, Asterius, and Aslan. The smaller format has far more characters and I'm afraid I may have to start buying them as well. There is a castle made for this smaller format, very nicely modelled, for $70.

I love this figure, not only because it is a mythological creature, but because Asterius, as a good character, plays against what expectations we might have had about minotaurs from the first movie, when they all seemed to be working for the witch. I'm glad that there is no racial stereotyping in Narnia.

ExtraOrdinary

The demise of Adventure Boy got me to thinking about an old idea of mine. The action figure world is crowded with heros and villains. In fact, in a line like Batman a run usually consists of a bunch of Batman variations and three or four villains. But heros and villains don't exist in a vacuum; there should be the ordinary people whose lives are all too often the counters in the struggle between them, whether as victims or objects of rescue and preservation. I always thought there should be a class of action figures of just ordinary people to fill this role. So I propose the creation of ExtraOrdinary Action Figures.

It should consist of six basic figures: an Old Man, an Old Woman, a Boy, a Girl, a Man, and a Woman. Their clothing should be designed to be typical, but detailed; the sculpt of their features not too bland or over-defined, but enough to show some character. They shouldn't have too many articulation points, but the joints they do have should be sturdy. They might even be manufactured in several different scales to fit your favorite formats. Because they don't belong to any particular franchise I think they could be sold two or three to a package for the price that one figure usually goes for.

If the line would prove successful, I would suggest further additions: a typical set of Medieval people to be used in historical or fantasy settings, a set of Futuristic people, and perhaps a set of WWII era people. A further line could be ExtraOrdinary Accessories, featuring common props appropriate for each set of figures.

I understand this verges dangerously on the model train or dollhouse mentality, but what of it? As a kid, some of our playings consisted of vignettes or "set-ups", as we called them, cool backgrounds or theaters of action where the adventures took place. Many action figures these days verge on the "action model", and seem never intended for play, remaining in the boxes or at most on display on top of some computer. Many collectors are interested in "army building", collecting numbers of the soldier-drone figures to make massed ranks in battle. What of civilian casualties?

I understand this line of toys might not appeal to the ordinary ten year old kid who just wants to dream about being Spiderman. But I think there is a niche that could be filled, and profitably. Heck, I'd buy them.

Sephiroth

Man, I have really fallen behind. I had been hoping to post at least once a day, but one thing and another kept getting in my way, not least of all a general lassitude that made it hard for me to deal creatively with "non-essentials". Anyway, without any further ado-do, i present Sephiroth, from the Final Fantasy VII game and Kingdom Hearts. As anyone who has read this blog knows, I can resist little that has to do with Kingdom Hearts.

Sephiroth is a whopping 8 and 1/2 inches tall and his katana is 9 and 1/2 inches long. There are two pairs of spare hands in different poses and a base, which is missing the articulation frame that holds the figure up. The box, which was ordered all the way from Japan, shows signs that it might have been opened before shipped, but whether this explains the missing piece is unknown. I don't mind the boxes being open as I do it myself, but some collectors might. The figure has 15 articulation points.

Sephiroth, in the games, is the arch-nemisis of Cloud Strife, and is in some ways his evil counterpart. His name comes from a term in Cabala (I'll use the old spelling, not the trendy, thank you) for the branches on the Tree of Life describing the powers of God. He is the only character in Kingdom Hearts that I have never defeated, and is tougher than the primary antagonist, Ansem.