Like most of you who are close to my age (I’ll be 32 next month), growing up in the ’80s meant action figure sensory overload. With thirty-minute commercials on the air for The Super Powers Collection, G.I. JOE, Transformers, ThunderCats, M.A.S.K., Silverhawks, and Masters Of The Universe, is it any surprise that some of us never really outgrew our love of action figures? The internet was in its fetal stage, home video games were less than impressive, and VCRs hadn’t even made it into many homes yet. Other than a couple hours on Saturday mornings and after school, we were left to entertain ourselves. With a little help from plastic representations of our favorite characters, we used our imaginations to do it. That some of us would have a proclivity to collect them as adults is only natural. Most of us had a choice, though. I never did.
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A vinyl toy maven I am not. But some things I find irresistible. It takes extreme will power not to drop a wad every time I get out to California and visit Kid Robot or when I stop in at Red Hot Robot here in Phoenix. Because I know that embracing the designer toy world whole-heartedly would be a slippery slope, I usually reserve my purchases of this type to gifts. Often the folks I give to don’t really understand what they’re getting, but who cares? I had fun buying. This month, however, I decided to pick something up for myself.
In what could only be called a massive disappointment, Hasbro launched a new line of action figures based on characters from the Indiana Jones movies last year. The manufacturer was disappointed in lackluster sales that quickly resulted in retailers pulling their support. Collectors who enjoyed the toys were disappointed in the line’s quick demise. Others were simply disappointed in the figures themselves, seeing them as substantially inferior to other lines in the 3¾" scale. Count me among that final group. While my local Wal-Mart can’t seem to give these away at $1.00 each, I found a way to actually make use of something from this now defunct line. 
When I worked at Hasbro, I worked with a variety of people across all departments. One of my colleagues that I spent a fair amount of time discussing Action figures with was Vinnie D’Alleva. Its now been about a dozen years since I left. I tracked down Vinnie and he was kind enough to agree to a short interview.
Not sure how I missed this. I’m a huge fan of this style, and feel that every tv series spun out of Batman TAS deserves to be available on DVD. I’ve been waiting for news of Static Shock for so long, apparently Zeta had completely slipped off and under my radar.
HeroClix Update 3-10-2009
Its about time that a figure from the line that drew me to the Action Figure Insider forums makes my "Best Figure of the Month" list. That’s not to say there hasn’t been some sweet JLU figures the last few months. There has. I still look at figures like Atomic Skull, Deadman, Vibe, Captain Atom and Wonder Pig and grin. But this month not only is the figure cool but so is the way we got it. In my humble opinion, this figure represents a milestone for the adult collector community.