Ubernerd, Beyond Loserdome

When I was a kid, I lost more than my fair share of G.I. Joes. Two however, have stuck in my memory because of how much I enjoyed playing with them.  The first wasn't even truly a G.I. Joe. He was from the U.S. Forces line by Remco: Tigerclaw. The second, wasn't a G.I. Joe either, he was a Cobra: Overlord. Obviously, I had a thing for masked characters with claws.  Anyway, I'd been wanting to add Overlord to my Kre-O collection. I tried making his original look but every combination of parts I tried just didn't appeal to me like the original figure. However, something happened today as I stared at my piles of spare parts. I still wasn't sure what I had in mind as my hands instinctively connected pieces but once they were finished I realized what I had done. I had combined Overlord and Tigerclaw together. Once that happened, my brain caught fire with ideas for who this version of Overlord was to be. Instead of being some random soldier making a play for the lead of C...

The arrival of Shadows of the Empire was huge and I was the perfect age for it. My friends and I started a Star Wars Club at school that year and we brought our newest figures to play with at recess. We all shared any new information we could with each other about the story whether from the comics, the book (which was a BIT outside of our reading level), or the video game. We loved it. I loved it. Especially the new characters. I really liked the idea of a Wookie Bounty Hunter and the specialized Coruscant troopers but what really resonated with me was seeing somebody who looked like me in Star Wars. Dash Rendar. Now, in my almost mid 30's, my hair has settled into more of a strawberry blonde but as a kid, I had dark red hair. And as you could guess, I was teased about it all the time. Seeing someone with hair like me be a hero in Star Wars and look so cool doing it was a huge lift to my self esteem as I began to approach double digits.  I was also a fan of Prince Xizor. The seedy ...

  I've always loved Star Wars. It was something that just always seemed to be a part of my life. I have mentioned before how I was able to benefit greatly from having older cousins who grew out of their need for toys and passed them down to my brother and I. With Star Wars, it was no different. We were given a good 30ish vintage figures as well as a well used Millenium Falcon that was missing quite a few pieces and we loved them.  Just like we did with Masters of the Universe and other toy lines, whenever my brother and I had a chance to visit a garage sale or an antique shop, we looked for more Star Wars stuff to add to our collections. It was the late 80's and early 90's so there weren't really any other options. Eventually, the Justoys Bend-Ems came out. We bought many of these but preferred the figures that were closer to the 3 3/4 scale. That Leia, 3PO, Yoda and R2-D2 filled some nice holes in my collection. The included Topps cards were very cool too. Not long aft...