This weekend marked the last episode of David Tennant as Dr. Who.    I’m sad to see him go because I REALLY enjoyed his run as the Doctor… but I’m hopeful for the new seasons as I REALLY love everything that new show runner Stephen Moffett has ever written for the show.

As a farewell tribute here is a video that Abby cut together tonight as a send off to Mr. Tennant.

Long live the Doctor….

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Posted by Julius Marx

I was already working on this blog when Cantina Dan posted his on the same topic (with the same name even!)… to tell the truth I started this blog LAST Christmas and never got around finishing it.  

Like Dan my family was of a modest income being the son of two teachers, but they, with the help of Santa, always managed to blow my tiny mind every Christmas.  I didn’t write down the dates of any of these but I know my collecting went from MEGO World’s Greatest Super Heroes, to all things Batman, to Micronauts to Star Wars.  I’ll see if I can do my best to present them in order.

My mom has always been the biggest Christmas cheer-leader in our family.  She always put up our tree on the night of Thanksgiving so we could maximize our celebrating time.   I loved pouring over the department stores holiday catalogs every year and making my lists.   But mostly I LOVED getting toys for Christmas… and that has never changed. 

I think this is the earliest picture in the series since this is our old, old house. I’m not sure what it is that I’m holding, but that’s clearly a Batman next to my knee.  My older brother Russell has opened a Lone Ranger figure.

I loved all things Batman-  Here I am opening a Batman HALLOWEEN costume on Christmas.  As you can see I didn’t think that was strange at all and put it on immediately and played with the rest of my Christmas loot while still in costume.

This would be the next year, the first Christmas in our new house.   You can tell it’s a new house because there’s no other furniture in the living room yet.   The item of note is again by my knee… the first of MANY MEGO Batman figures… and it looks like that package that I’m working on is another MEGO figure. Could it be a Mego Joker?

Here’s Russell opening some microscope or something (NERD!) but right there next to him?  The Clown Prince of Crime- my MEGO Joker!

There’s me launching my life of ignoring sports equipment in favor of super hero (or villain) awesomeness- The Joker’s Van.   This was not actually made by MEGO, but the MEGO figures fit into it.  This was one of my all time favorite toys.  I SO wish I had that still.  There was also a black "Batman Mobile Crime Lab" version that I got earlier that year for my birthday.

In the next pictures you can see an appearance by Stretch Armstrong.

Here’s a couple of shots of Russell opening some Six Million Dollar Man stuff.  The other shot is of Russell opening some kind of robot that I don’t recognize and don’t remember him having.  It sort of looks like a RoboForce character, but this would have been before that.

This is the same year over at my grandparents house with all the cousins.  Forgiving Great Uncle Ray for being the skinniest Santa in history you will notice my new MEGO Bat-Copter on the floor in both pictures.  *sigh* Wish I still had that one.

There’s a lot more to show for other years… but it’s Christmas so I should get back to my family.   So I’ll make this Part 1.

Merry Christmas and thank you to everyone for reading and supporting AFi this year.   I hope you have a great one!

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Posted by Julius Marx

This past Saturday I woke up much earlier than I would have liked, and loaded into the "Van of Action" with a couple of AFi’s own Men of Action (SpyMagician,  Fresh Monkey and Scott Rogers) as well as a few other local collector friends (Flash Ah-ahhh!, BrianMan and Randy) and we headed out to that "wretched hive of scum and villainy" know as FRANK and SONS.   Now for those of you that are not familiar with Frank and Sons, in a nutshell it is a warehouse out in the City of Industry, CA that is full of roughly 100 scalper booths with about 10 reputable, legit dealers sprinkled in. Frank and Sons is the reason it’s SO hard to find anything new in the Los Angeles area.  It’s only open Wednesday and Saturday, so the scaplers spend the rest of the week hitting the stores for more fodder to mark up.   If you are a collector in So Cal you will recognize almost every face running each booth from from running into them in stores around time.

 Our main goal was to try to track down DC Universe Classics Wave 11 as we had heard a rumor that some dealers might be getting them in.  As we wandered up and down each aisle we started to loose hope as booth after booth told us the same story:  "Not yet", "Still on the docks waiting to be unloaded" or "Having Veteran’s Day in the middle of the week messed up shipping."

We had all but given up hope of finding them that day… then at the next to the last booth on the VERY LAST ROW….

He had five cases of wave 11 including the Deadman variant.  We saw the Super Powers style Steppenwolf, but did not see any of the green version.

And he only wanted $25 a figure!  We looked them over… and we left empty handed.

And the quest continues….

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Posted by Julius Marx

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Posted by Julius Marx

I guess not much has changed….

Except I have a LOT more toys now.

(and I WISH I still had all that Mego stuff! *sigh*)

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Posted by Julius Marx

It’s happening again!    Remember a few weeks back when I showed you the picture of the purple carded JLU 3-pack that I found at the Target closest to my house?  Well, it’s not just confined to that Target by my house, not it’s happening at the one closest to work!

Yesterday I went to Target to get some stuff for work. TheTarget I went to is the ONLY one in my area that has confirmed sightings/purchase of the 3 new 3-packs. A friend got me a full set of the 3 newest JLU 3-packs at that store over the weekend. Someone else got the other set of 3 that would be in that case of 6 pieces.

Whoever got the other 3 3-packs must have been sitting on some old stock, because they returned the following 3-packs to that store: Purple carded Ultra Humanite 3-pack, old yellow carded Zatanna, Batman, Shining Knight 3-pack and the Vixen, Dr. Fate, Hawkgirl 3-pack.

So not only does that Target now still have 5 Captain Atom and 2 Question 3-packs on the pegs… now they have even OLDER stock!

It’s amazing we can still find anything new in these parts.

Sorry for the blurry picture.  It was taken with a camera phone while in a hurry.

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Posted by Julius Marx

 As I continute to visit my local Target store waiting on the arrival of the new JLU 3-packs, this morning I walk in to find the new price increase (which I knew about), AND NOW someone has returned their old stock of figures on the Purple Cards.   *sigh*

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Posted by Julius Marx

I walk into my local Target store and what do I see?    Secret Wars and "Super Powers" figures right next to each other on the shelf!  What an awesome time to be a collector!

(Yes, I know Secret Wars only ran from 1984-1985, but Super Powers ran from 1984-86 and "Shazam" was a 3rd series figure for SP so I figured there’d still be plenty of SW figures on store shelves in 1986.   I just thought it was funny to walk in and see two "Super Powers" characters right next to the new Secret Wars figures.)

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Posted by Julius Marx

(oh… and you’ll also need a cable or satellite provider that gives you the BBC America channel.   

 If you like good TV….

If you like thought provoking drama and suspense….

If you consider yourself in the slightest atom of your being a fan of Science Fiction….

You MUST record "Torchwood: Children of Earth"

It’s starts TOMORROW, on Monday for 5 nights straight.  Even if you’ve never seen an episode of Torchwood or Doctor Who, you can watch, understand and enjoy what is going on.

This is mindbendingly good TV and would NEVER have been made for American TV.
For as TERRIBLE as the first season of Torchwood was this… this was maybe the best thing I’ve seen this year.

It was Jekyll-good!

I know everyone is going to be buzzing about Comic Con this coming week, but it would be a real crime if this gets passed over by Sci Fi Fans.

DISCLAIMER-  This is NOT a show for kids!   Don’t watching with the young’uns.   Also there is homosexuality depicted between two of characters.     Just giving you a warning if you are sensitive to that sort of thing, but I would really hope that’s not a deterrent for people in 2009, and that you can overcome that bias in the spirit of watching a great story unfold.

Here are a couple of trailers for it to whet your appetite.

Just in case here’s a little be of Spoiler Free background on Torchwood from Wikipedia:

Torchwood (pronounced /ˈtɔːtʃ.wʊd/) is a British science fiction television programme, created by Russell T Davies. It deals with the machinations and activities of the Cardiff branch of the fictional Torchwood Institute, who deal mainly with incidents involving extraterrestrials. An initial 13-part series was commissioned by the BBC as a spin-off from the 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who with which it is closely interlinked. The main cast consists of John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd.

The series is set in Cardiff and follows the Welsh branch of a covert agency called the Torchwood Institute which investigates extraterrestrial incidents on Earth and scavenges alien technology for its own use (its origins are outlined in the Doctor Who episode "Tooth and Claw"). To paraphrase Torchwood Three’s commander-in-chief, Captain Jack Harkness, the organisation is separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations. Their public perception is as merely a ‘special ops’ group. The events of the first series take place some time after the Doctor Who series two finale, in which Torchwood’s London headquarters were destroyed.

If I were you I wouldn’t read too much more of the Wiki entry as it does have spoilers for these episode.

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND WATCH!

I don’t know where they will go with the show after these 5 hours, but I’m with them all the way.

And now back to my regularly scheduled Comic Con preparations….

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Posted by Julius Marx

These aren’t mine, but someone brought them by the office for me to look at so I couldn’t resist putting them in with the rest of my JLU and taking a few shots.

 I can’t WAIT for this set!

As you can see I threw in a Bandai Teen Titans Beast Boy, just for scale.

Mento was still carded so he didn’t get to join in the shot.  but I did get to see him and he looks great!  Robotman/Cliff Steel is 75% a new sculpt with new head torso and arms.  Only the legs have been redone.

You’ll be seeing more about these guys on the site soon!

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Posted by Julius Marx