Black holes and moat monsters

I’ve decided that the Hampton Roads area is a reverse black hole for toys. See, I used to think that there were just piles and piles of scalpers, collectors, little kids who actually play with toys, and other such characters competing with me for toy stock around here. But, I’ve decided that this just simply isn’t true. You want a for instance? Okay, I’ll give you one. I finally found the 3.75” DC figures. Lots of people are griping about these, but honestly I love these things. Some of the best renditions of superheroes IMHO and on top of that it doesn’t have 500 versions of Superman and Batman…in fact, neither of them have shown up yet. The only figures I can find though are SHAZAM! (or, for the geekier of us, Captain Marvel), Professor Zoom, Adam Strange, and Guy Gardner. Oh, and every once in a while I find the GCPD pack and the Flash and his rogues pack). But I have never ever found any of the others. Never. Ever. But wait, it gets better. Remember how Hasbro took over Marvel Legends? Only seen a few figures here and there from any of the Hasbro sets. In fact, I’ve only seen a few figures here and there from any of the Legends lines since I’ve lived here, and I’ve been here 4 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a complete set of marvel Legends figures. And Star Wars…you might as well forget that. For a while there, if you wanted a pit droid, battle droid, Biggs, or clone trooper you were set. Anything else would cost you your soul. And don’t even get me started on anything past Series One of the DC Universe figures.
So you see, you might come to the same conclusion as I had originally: there are lots of people around here competing for toys. But then I start noticing that that toyline that everyone loves to gripe about not being able to find, GI Joe 25th Anniversary, has made its way to stores in force. For a while I was like everyone else and couldn’t find jack, though I did manage to eventually find one of every figure up until the BAT and Snow Serpent (which I still haven’t found; we’re good for the rest of that wave however). Every time I would go to any store the shelves would be bare. Now, I can’t even look through them without a rain of carded figures falling at my feet, begging me to buy them all (but for 7-8 bucks a pop, it ain’t happening). We’re talking a glut of nearly every figure released, excluding the BAT, Snow Serpent, and Flint v.1. Therefore, I have concluded that toys just don’t come to Hampton Roads. Maybe there’s some sort of government penalty for selling them, which wouldn’t really surprise me given some of the goofiness Virginia is known for, but I can’t find hardly any toys around here. I guess I should be happy though, as it keeps me from spending lots of money and cluttering up my already too cluttered room. Don’t get me wrong, there are toys here. But unless you want Transformers, Joes, or wrasslin’ figures you’re SOL. For goodness’ sake, it took two weeks of searching just to find my wife an Ewok. A friggin’ Ewok! Okay, rant over.
I love Thundercats, even though I only own Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living! My version is the hunched over old man Mumm-Ra who has less articulation than the old He-Man talking toothbrush I used to have as a kid. But man, what a cool figure! If this thing was made today I think parents would sue because LJN made their kids piss themselves! Not only that, but Mumm-Ra is scary without being pretentious like the Living Dead Dolls. It’s like Mumm-Ra knows he’s bad, and therefore doesn’t need to show everyone how bad he is, which is of course the definition of being bad. I’m not really sure how much sense that last statement made, but if you understood it, we’ll categorize it under the “great minds think alike” adage and leave it at that. Nevertheless, hunchback Mumm-Ra is, in my opinion, way cooler than WWE reject Mumm-Ra, even if the latter has glowing red eyes and arms that flop up and down as if in a tantrum.
Along with this Mumm-Ra was a catalog from LJN which featured many of the Thundercats goodies one could whine to their parents about in the hopes of getting some extra junk for their room. Whining didn’t really work with my parents; in fact, whining was often counterproductive to getting what I wanted. But if I could whine and get what I wanted I would definitely be whining for more Thundercats toys, especially this one (borrowed from x-entertainment.com):


I mean, who wouldn’t want an Astral Moat Monster? For that matter, who wouldn’t want an Astral Moat?
Well, I’ve rambled enough. Somebody buy me an Astral Moat Monster!
Sam