Non-Goodwill Purchases

Not everything the Goodwill geek buys is actually from Goodwill. In fact... not all of it is even second-hand. I do occasionally buy things for full-price elsewhere. Let me show off some of my recent purchases. 

Jaime Hood over at Shezcrafti tipped me off to these Bicycle Zombie Playing cards back in April. I bought them just a few weeks later for myself and I was NOT disappointed. Go check out her review to find out more about them. 

I FINALLY got a copy of Kill Bill Vols. 1&2 on DVD... and then realized for about 5 bucks more I could have gotten them both on Blue-Ray. Sigh. But I'm a big fan of these movies, so I don't really mind what format I'm watching them in. 

Picked up the first trade of Ben Templesmith's Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse: Birds, Bees, Blood, & Beer second-hand at Bull Moose Music in Bangor, Maine. They sell both new and used-but-like-new books/DVDs/games/CDs/everything. I've been dying to check out this series for a long, long time now, about a maggot who controls a corpse like a marionette in a city of supernatural characters... I haven't read it yet but I look forward to it at the very least for the art. 

Finally got around to checking out Brian K. Vaughn's new space-opera-slash-new-parent-rom-com. I feel like this first volume stumbles a bit. It feels like Vaughn is setting absolutely zero limits for what he might include in the story, which just makes every new crazy thing feel a little mundane after a while... and the bits where he shoe-horns in parenting conversations from our own modern society (statistics about gun safety, hemorrhoid jokes, breast-feeding pros and cons) feel a little anachronistic. Overall though I do like the pacing of the story and the characters have been fun. I've heard some of the controversy over the sexual content of the series and I will say that it's weird how much sex is included in a story about new parents on the run through the galaxy. It feels like the creators are trying to work out some sort of issues. 

I picked these up for a dollar apiece from some machines at a bounce-house play-palace place they have near here that we sometimes take the kids to. LOVE THEM. Each of my boys got their own Venom and Thing to play with as well. 

As a big fan of mini-figures as well as Transformers I was pretty excited to find these Rescue-Bot mini-figures at Toys R Us for a stunning 1.99 apiece. I was a huge fan of the Hasbro Robot Heroes line when that was being put out, and now that Rescue-Bots have sort of taken their place it's nice to see some of the characters still getting the mini-fig love. 

While at Toys R Us I got one of these awesome Pac-Man arcade candy tins, which I've seen ALL over the internet, not to mention over at Reis O'Brien's Lair of the Dork Horde. Incredibly cool. 

This zombie clown was .50 cents out of  a gumball machine at a locla Chinese Restaurant. 

At Target I found this set of Marvel Avengers Chibis set. They're adorable and included are all of the Avengers, Loki, Fury, Coulson, and plain-clothes Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner. There were also a Hawkeye sticker and a couple of chromed out Iron Man and Hulk figures, which I didn't really care about... but pretty. 

A couple of brand new books I recently picked up (At Wal-Mart and TJ Maxx respectively) are Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave and Libba Bray's The Diviners. I love Rick Yancey's books. I have read the entire Monstrumologist series, and the first book in the Alfred Kropp series, and been blown away by everything so far. I hope the buzz surround the 5th Wave isn't just smoke being blown. The Diviners just looks and sounds interesting. So... yeah.

Last but not least are these Slush Puppie candies, which I found in a local chain store called Reny's. Each of these were .99 cents apiece. The fruity tubes are terrible. Just horrible. Rancid tasting actually. The stuff in the middle was sort of sticky and unpleasantly gritty to chew. But I'm saving the wrapper because I love Slush Puppies and I am a hoarder. The cups are inverted lollipops (the straw and the "pile" of slush at the top) and the cup itself is filled with sour powder to dip it in. These will never be opened as it would completely ruin the effect. I suspect they probably taste as terrible as the fruity tubes though. 

That's it for me tonight guys. I'm exhausted from talking about all this wasteful spending outside Goodwill. I'm feeling dirty and guilty and awww... who am I kidding. I love this stuff. 

I'll be back soon with straight-up legit Geeky Goodwill  Goodies though! So until then, Happy Hunting!

Netflix Viewing: The Horror!

So I've managed to knock some movies off my Netflix Instant Queue.

Remember all those trailers that I've posted in the past when I felt like being lazy and decided to share some movies I wanted to see?

No? Well go back and look here, here, here, here, here, and here!

And what did I watch? Surprisingly, not a ton of the movies featured in those posts, but some. Please. Let me tell you about the Horror movies I've been watching on Netflix.

1. Dead-Heads

Dead-Heads tells the story of Mike, a young man who wakes up one evening and discovers he is a zombie. He's a part of an entire en masse zombie infestation, in fact. What's really interesting is that unlike the other zombies, he is still able to think, feel, and communicate the way a normal human would. He soon meets up with Brent, a zombie in a similar condition, and they decide to team up and track down Mike's fiance.

It's dark comedy all the way, and it moves along at a brisk pace. The supporting cast really does a great job, including a human ally, a zombie "pet" they adopt along the way (of the less intelligent variety), and a handful of enemies hot on their trail. The events surrounding Mike's shady death, and the fact that he's not your typical zombie are important to the plot, but not important to your viewing pleasure... which is my way of saying it's the journey not the destination with this one.

I thought this movie was on the better end of good, but not amazing. It was a fun buddy-movie-road-trip-zom-rom-com... but the pacing was weird in places, and the dialogue felt like it was really forced in others. Mike as the suffering straight-man to Brent's free-wheelin' force of nature felt a little tired, even with the zombie angle mixed in. More than almost anyone, I loved "Cheese" the brainless zombie side-kick played by Markus Taylor. Cliff, the aging human ally they hitch a ride with, played by Harry Burkey was also a favorite, but in this case, the Cheese truly stands alone.

Heh.

It's the kind of story that you just know can't end on a happy note... but they did their best with it regardless. I do recommend this film to fans of movies like Shaun of the Dead or Dead Snow who enjoy a good zombie film with its tongue planted firmly in (and sometimes completely through) its cheek.

2. Absentia

Absentia is a movie that very clearly wears it's low budget on its sleeve. BUT Even though at times it feels like a navel-gazing, talking-head indie movie about relationships... there are these sharp left turns that the film takes into supernatural territory that work very well. The whole thing is so tragic and atmospheric that it does actually function less as a horror film and more as a drama with monster parts mixed in.

Without spoiling too much I will say that it delves into the idea of troll bridges, and the "reality" behind what makes stories of people-snatching-bogey-men-who-hide-in-dark-places so prevalent in all cultures. There is a heavy focus on dealing with and trading with supernatural beings, and all the dangers involved. There is also a heavy theme of people trying to find rational (or even irrational) explanations for people simply disappearing from their lives. The mourning process is examined in detail. Even stronger than the supernatural elements of the film are the all too human elements explored in the form of how we cope with abandonment. Absentia is a real character piece that makes you think, while also including some genuine skin-crawling chills here and there.

3. Exit Humanity

This is the first of two zombie movies on this list I couldn't finish. 

I was excited to see what these film-makers could do with a civil-war era zombie movie... and that turned out to be not very much. Exit Humanity is incredibly boring in parts, and all the money-shots, where we want to see zombie carnage as the protagonist takes to the road... are told in animated sequences. There... are cartoons in this zombie movie where there ought to be some of the fight scenes. I don't have any problem with animated horror. But when I'm watching a live action zombie movie, I want the zombie fight scenes to be... live action. 

Also I don't want the rest of the movie and characters to be mind-numbingly boring. There's a post-apocalyptic vampire movie later on in this list that is more of a zombie western than this turned out to be. And unlike the other zombie film on this list that I just couldn't finish, there is not a chance in hell that I will be going back to finish this one. 

4. Dolls

I've been meaning to watch this 80's flick forever. It's one of those movies where I remember seeing the box at the video store when I was a kid, and being terrified of just the concept that dolls might be dangerous.

What a load of fun this movie was! It's really a series of horrific gag/gimmick-style kills sewn together in sequence, masquerading as a movie, much as a film like Killer Klowns from Outer-Space was. We see all the potential threats that dolls might pose to human beings under the right circumstances.

There is an opening sequence involving a Teddy Bear that happens before the movie is even in full swing that will forever go down in my favorite movie moments of all time. That is not a joke. I do not mean it ironically. There is no other moment in this movie in fact that actually tops the Teddy Bear scene, but I kept hoping there would be.

The stop-motion animation used for the dolls is fake-looking but also off-putting in its own macabre way, and it makes you feel like they really took great advantage of the limitations of the medium... planned or not. Credit should also be given to the design and production teams due to their eye for truly creepy looking dolls from all time-periods included in the doll army.

Dolls is an 80's movie with stock characters who are so bitchy they have to die, or so earnest and innocent they just have to make it through. It's a tale of murderers with an interesting M.O. and a skewed sense of right and wrong, of justice, and extreme punishments for petty crimes. In other words... it's a campy 80's classic.

5. The Innkeepers

What an insane amount of pot-boiling! But so worth it! This film spends the first 2-thirds on subtle atmosphere and character study... with an insane dash in the final act that leads us down, down, down to crazy town. It leaves the movie feeling a little unbalanced, but I felt pretty satisfied with how the whole thing wraps up.

The story concerns the last season at an old tourist-trappy inn that has it's share of old ghost stories and macabre history. The cast is a lean one, comprised of the two clerks manning the desk for the final salvo, an old actress-turned-amateur-medium, an older gentleman come back to the hotel to relive old memories, and a few other brief appearances. This leaves the film feeling pretty desolate of life in most parts. This desolation is a big eerie part of the film, and used to great effect. The two desk-clerks begin poking their noses around the inn trying their hand at amateur ghost-hunting, and this... does not end well.

There is a palpable feeling of dread and claustrophobia that steadily builds throughout, with little sparks of humor and feel-good interactions that punctuate the moments of genuine horror to come later in the film. It's pretty clear that parts of the film pull from its predecessors like The Shining and The Blair Witch Project. That's by no means a bad thing though, because it's all in what Ti West does with the atmosphere that makes The Innkeepers stand out from what has come before.

Watch it, please. If for nothing else but the last half-hour or so. Sooo good.

6. Re-Animator

I almost hate to confess that I had never seen this film until just over a week ago. I have seen and loved Jeffrey Combs in various TV appearances, cartoon voice overs, and films such as The Frighteners, Dr. Mordrid (yes, I have seen AND enjoy that film), and The House on Haunted Hill (not to mention his voice work in the movie Motivational Growth, which I talk about elsewhere on this blog)... but as for what may arguably be his largest claim to fame? Nope. Hadn't seen it yet.

Combs plays Herbert West in a loosely adapted H.P. Lovecraft story about a young man who unlocks the secrets of life and death and... re-animation. Herbert is an excellent character, and not one I would immediately characterize as a villain by any means. He is an insensitive, ambitious asshole beyond compare, and his motives are almost completely selfish... but even if he doesn't necessarily see the potential evil of his own methods, he does see the potential for his work to be abused and misused by others and tries to prevent it. He is a perfect fit for the definition of anti-hero.

I saw that Re-Animator was on Netflix, added it to my queue, and one late night viewing I decided to finally dive in and watch. I was NOT disappointed. It was everything I had dreamed. The camp was campy, the schlock was schlocky, the gore was gory, and the black humor was black humor-y.  It is in essence a cheesy 80's horror film to the nth degree... but with the minor exception that it seems hilariously aware of its own short-comings and plays to the inherent humor of them, while still feeling strong and genuinely creepy in others. If it's possible for one movie to be self-aware of its own budget  constraints and even of how dated it would look decades later, and completely wink at the audience about it, Re-Animator is that movie. Over all it was a great late-night watch, and I will be tracking down this film on DVD sometime soon.

7. Vamp

So Vamp was way less cool, funny, or good in any real way than I had remembered. I was pretty much disappointed at every turn when the movie would attempt to be clever, funny, scary, or even just a coherent movie with things like plot, dialogue, or characters.

It's a blatantly 80's film starring a group of wannabe frat-boys that attempt to get a stripper for a party. They go to the wrong club in the wrong town... and things get vampy. Parts of the movie look like a bad episode of the anthology TV show Monsters. Grace Jones does the least erotic erotic dance I have EVER seen in my life. People act terribly. They say and do things that make no sense. Not even in a funny way. People try to be scary and come off as boring. People try to be funny and come off as boring. Grace Jones seemed to be trying to be weird for the sake of being weird but it also just came off as boring.

I watched the whole thing though, mostly for the nostalgia factor. I saw this movie as a younger lad and wanted to see what I remembered of it. It was probably better off left in the shadowy recesses of my memory, because this movie wasn't really even so-bad-it's-good. I don't have a lot more to say about it. .. because there's not a lot more to say.

8. A Little Bit Zombie

This one was even more disappointing. So much so that I didn't even finish it. I think I might go back and try to watch the rest later, but everything on this one seemed to just fall flat. It's a shame because it felt like some of the sequences should have been more fun than they actually were... like there were seeds of interesting ideas there under the surface that just weren't sprouting up into anything. My night-time viewing time is extremely limited and valuable to me, so anything not making me happy after the first half hour or so gets dropped. 

But... I find it very hard to leave movies, especially horror movies, unfinished in most cases. So unlike Exit Humanity, I'll probably finish this one at some point. 

9. [REC]3: Genesis

I don't mind foreign films with subtitles. I do get a little stressed out when I'm watching a horror film and I have to read stuff at the bottom of the screen.

But it didn't detract from [REC]3 one bit. I loved this film! I've never seen the first two movies in the series, but from what I understood before going into this one is that this is a stand-alone story simply set in the same universe, which is an idea I really love, and think more movie franchises in general could benefit from.

Koldo and Clara are getting married. They are the film's two main heroes. The entire events of the film take place pretty much during and after their wedding reception, and the action is all confined to the estate they have rented out for this purpose. There's a heavy romantic element that drives much of the plot, with the two main protagonists trying desperately to get to one another at all costs.

I found the wedding theme of the movie to be a lot of fun, with many wedding movie tropes being literally torn to shreds by slavering zombies. They started off the film in a found-footage format (hence the REC title) but actually dropped this pretense as soon as the real action kicked into gear, which was a relief. The main characters are likeable and root-for-able and are capable of just the right amount of kick-ass when the occasion calls for it.

Over all this movie was action-packed and fun, and had me genuinely biting my nails through parts of it. Can't recommend it enough.

10. Stake Land

This movie was completely unknown to me until I pressed play on Netflix. It had the interesting premise of being not a post-apocalyptic ZOMBIE film but a post-apocalyptic VAMPIRE film... in which the vampires pretty much behave like mindless, ferocious, fast-moving zombies with a few minor exceptions, like how they are killed.

Stake Land is at it's heart a zombie film that doesn't want to be just another zombie film, much like the 2009 films, "Mutants" and "Doghouse" (both awesome, and both seen on Netflix as well... but both in serious denial about what kind of movies they actually are). What's nice about it is that all the vampire elements do actually make the film feel fresh because the characters have to undergo a bit more training in order to fight their supernatural foes. Even though it's a zombie film deep down... it's not a typical zombie film (plus it's way more of a western than Exit to Humanity ever dreamed of being... and it's not even set in the west (I don't think)... or the past.)

As with all post-apocalyptic stories, the true enemies are other horrible human beings. This is another important element of the film as we watch the protagonist, Mister and the boy he has taken under his wing, Martin, make their way north to a possible vampire-free zone.

What really makes Stake Land shine is the cast. Mister and Martin build a group of allies and travelling companions around them that changes and fluctuates throughout the film. Each character brings with them a different lesson for young Martin. This is as much a coming-of age tale as it is anything else, and the road north is as much a metaphor for Martin's road into adulthood as it is a literal goal in the story.

It's a dark, serious film, and one that might be seen by some as kind of  a downer... but I got a ton of entertainment from almost everyone in this film. I highly recommend it.

So that's it for tonight's post! I just really wanted to talk about some of the films I've recently caught up on. But I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Why?

Hey! It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time once again! And that Brian... he's a rascal. Here's the topic for this week, which I think more than any other topic he's dished out in the past surpasses all levels of vagueness and interpretationalness (that is a made up word):

Why? No, really. WHY?

Yep. That's it. 

I choose to interpret this as:

Why the Goodwill obsession? Why comic books? Why horror movies? Why action figures from the 80's? Why Roger Zelazny? Why the unhealthy obsession with Sesame Street? Why Prince? Why the rainbow Lantern Corps? Why be a geek? Why Fisher Price Little People and Little Golden Books? Why Scooby Doo? Why Nine Inch Nails? Why California Raisins? Why Ready Player One? Why The Original Star Wars Trilogy? Why Batman? Why Halloween? Why mythology? Why Pixar? Why TMNT? Why Bordertown/Borderland books? Why Neil Gaiman? Why Super Hero Squad? Why AD&D? Why They Might Be Giants?

So I decided to answer that clarion call with: 

BECAUSE.

bitch

I really had no idea where to go with this topic... sorry. I feel like I failed some sort of really important creativity test... So I just went with the answer I give my kids all the time. Don't question me.

Let's see what some of the other League members said about "Why":

- Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool

- Infinite Hollywood

- Claymation Werewolf

That's it for me today! Hope you all have an awesome Memorial Day Weekend! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Quick Stop: Books!!!

On the way home from a trip I recently took, I took a few minutes out to do a Quick-Stop at the Bangor, ME Goodwill. I didn't find much of anything for toys (except one grab-bag, shown at the end of this entry) but I did find a pile of books. There's always books. But I was pretty excited about some of the finds in this particular crop. 

First up is the novelization of Back to the Future. Paxton Holley of Cavalcade of Awesome and Nerd Lunch fame is a huge BttF fan, and is always talking about novelizations and how they can expand on the scripts of movies. So, even though I'm not usually a huge novelization fan, whenever I see one for a cool 80's movie I pick them up now. If I don't end up reading some of them, I still find them to be cool pop-culture artifacts. This revered piece of pop-culture ephemera cost me .99 cents. 

I can NOT pass up vintage CYOA books when I find them. After all, I'm the star of the story! .99 cents for this one. This one is from 1985, and the sequel to the earlier The Cave of Time. 

A few quick notes here, The Saggy Baggy Elephant I picked up for the cover only. The interior is destroyed. It's missing pages, and is horribly defaced. No one's going to buy this thing as a collector's item. But the back cover and the spine are just beautiful (now kicking myself for not taking a shot to show this...). This is from back when you could buy a LGB for .25 cents new. The Crispy book is not a genuine foil-spine LGB (it's a paperback with a printed-on spine) but it's cool. It was a free give-away with Crispy Critters cereal back in the 80's. The Gingerbread Man was in good shape and looks pretty nice and old. I like the illustrations and the overall look and feel of the book. All three were .99 cents apiece. 

I paid 1.99 for this collection of Jack Kerouac's books. I've never read anything by Kerouac, but have been planning to read On the Road for years now. Finding a nice cheap collection in a nice, hefty book like this was a really cool surprise. 

They had what looked like an entire set of these Time/Life Mysteries of the Unknown books, but to be honest, these were the only three I wanted out of the lot. I already found the UFO book back in October last year, so this brings my collection to a close. I didn't really want the books on Alchemy and Astral Projection, although I think there was another book in the set about ESP (which I did not see there, come to think of it) that I may look for in the future. For now, Phantom Encounters, Mysterious Creatures, Hauntings, and the UFO Phenomena will be all I own. These books are not as... useful/informative (I guess?) as the Enchanted World series books, but they sure are fun.

I pretty much vowed to never spend 2 bucks on single issues at Goodwill back when I picked up the Nestle Quik Bunny comic book a while back... But then I saw a HUGE pile of old comic books and I just couldn't resist. I shouldn't have even flipped through the stack. I realize these are all probably quarter-bin finds somewhere else, but the idea that I'd never find some of these issues again was too much to bear, so I did it. I paid 1.99 for each of these 8 comic books. The first one is an issue of Marvel Comics Presents, which is an old Marvel Anthology comic that I genuinely loved back when it was being published. It contains 4 stories starring 4 different Marvel characters, and many of them are serials that run throughout 8 to 12 issues until the story wraps up. This one features continuing stories for Colossus and Man-Thing, and self-contained stories for Ant-Man and Slag, from the Wolf-Pack. The issue of Daredevil takes place near the beginning of the X-Men Inferno crossover that affected so many other titles. Daredevil really went whole-hog with the demonic-city stuff, and this awesome issue features Black Widow in a prominent role fighting possessed city fixtures, while DD spends most of the time out of commission. 

I've never seen the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, but this 2-part adaptation was too cool to pass up. Ugh, I'm weak. And the Inhumanoids comic was a no-brainer for any child of the 80's. So cool.

The truly awesome comic find for me was this threesome of Ralph Snart comic books. If you've never read Ralph Snart before... don't bother trying it now. It's the worst kind of low-brow crass humor, and without the wry intelligence of an episode of Beavis and Butthead. But I read the HELL out of this comic when I was a kid, and to find some old issues of the series was an awesome surprise for me. I honestly can't believe my mother let me read it, seeing all of the HEAVY beer drinking references, sex references, and to be honest, HORRIBLE spelling and grammar typos. 

This giant book of pulp crime stories was impossible to pass up for 1.99. I am salivating while I think of reading it. LOOK at that cover art. 

And finally, there was this .99 cent grab-bag full of Peter Pan toys. I really just spent the .99 cents on the Tick-Tock Crocodile head emerging from the water... but thrown in were the Captain Hook and Peter Pan Figures, and the other Crocodile, which is technically a Peter-Pan toy, just not a Disney one. It's from the 2003 Peter Pan film out of Columbia pictures. 

Well kiddos, that's it for me tonight! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Mommy... Why am I different? Why don't I like Star Trek?

It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time again! This week we've escaped from out deserted island and and we're going boldly where no man has gone before:

Star Trek.

Now... I seriously risk putting any geek cred I may actually have on the line with this particular post.

Confession time: I'm just not that big a fan of Star Trek. Sorry guys. I don't HATE it but I've never been a fan. Like... at all.

Yep. That's the reaction I usually get.

So what the hell am I going to write about? 

I think I'm going to write about 5 things I like better than Star Trek, and why. Yeah... that's it. Let's try that. So I'm going to list some stuff on here in no particular order, and compare them to Star Trek and explain why I like them better than Trek. It's not that I'm particular into hating on Trek, it's just... not my bag, you know? 

5. Star Wars 

So this seems like low-hanging fruit. For decades the battle lines have been drawn between War and Trek. But the simple matter is that Star Wars is more about action and adventure, good vs. evil, and the creative elements that make up a space-opera epic. These are the things that draw me in more than the relatively less action-oriented Trek stories. Of course, for a very long time the Star Wars universe was also significantly  smaller and easier to digest than that of Star Trek because of the smaller volume of movies vs. TV episodes. For me, less intimidation = more enjoyment.

4. Firefly

Yes, like many drooling fanboys all over the world, I am a rabid Firefly fan. And yes, there's room for both Star Trek and Firefly in many a geek's heart... but for me, Firefly tells a very similar style of genre-bending high-concept, deep-thought space exploring story (sans aliens) except that instead of starring a bunch of stuffy Federation officers, the show stars smugglers and whores, which I find infinitely more interesting. 

3. Starship Troopers

If I really WANT to watch an excellent story about space involving a militarized group interacting with alien life-forms... I'll go for this movie. Again, it's all about the action, the adventure, and the craziness. But at its core it has a great story to tell as well, and there's a hidden deeper meaning, as all sci-fi should have. Plus giant killer bugs of several different shapes and sizes. And yes, I realize that Star Trek is on a mission of peace and exploration and yadda-yadda-yadda. KILL ALL BUGS!!!

2. Galaxy Quest

 

How is it that a meta-style PARODY of Star Trek is infinitely more interesting and attention grabbing than Star Trek!?!? Galaxy Quest manages to do what very few parody movies can: It genuinely entertains the viewer as a relevant entry in the genre it is actively spoofing. Filled with in-jokes and asides to people who are aware of Star Trek (fans and detractors alike...) Galaxy Quest still functions and succeeds as a genuinely exciting science fiction action flick. "And what you fail to realize is my ship... is dragging mines!" Awesome.

1. Nu-Trek

Oh c'mon. You don't REALLY count the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies as classic or even N.G. Trek do you? I certainly don't. You know why? Because they draw influence from all of the other 4 items on this list. Yes. Even Galaxy Quest! J.J. Abrams got rid of a lot of the ponderous elements that I didn't enjoy about any of the Treks that have come before, television, movie, or otherwise. I know there are tons of Star Trek Fans that will argue that Star Trek is more cerebral, more high-concept, more... high brow in general. But I find that attitude kind of snooty. I love that Abrams has incorporated more action and adventure in an otherwise stale franchise. He's also made the cast more human, more funny, more conversational, and by changing up the history of the characters and the worlds in the canon, he's let it be known that all bets are off and ANYTHING can happen. It's fresh, it's wild, it's new, and it makes me actually like the idea of exploring the worlds where no man has gone before. I have seen and own the first film, but I haven't yet seen Into Darkness... and I can't wait!!! 

Let's see what the other League Members are saying about the good ol' Trek this week (Surprisingly, NOT all of these Geek blogs are singing the hossanas of the almighty Trek... much as I did not...) 

- Fortune and Glory (Days) goes all Kre-O on us. 

- AEIOU and Sometimes Why talks about a read-along comic from his youth. 

- Thirtyish Year Old Boy seems confused if he's writing about Star Trek or Star Wars.

At this point I want to pause and note that all three of the previous blogs are self-professed "NOT Trek guys". Please continue: 

- Infinite Hollywood Goes boldly where NO man should have gone before. It's painful to watch.  

- Nerd Rage Against the Machine is NOT about the fan-service. 

- Geek Life Balance is Spoiling it Up on the new movie... so click carefully. 

- The Lair of the Dork Horde displays some TRULY AWESOME Snoopy/Trek crossover toys. 

- doubledumbassonyou talks about his model Trek behavior. (And There's a whole Trek week going on over there, so check it out). 

- Diary of a Dorkette geeks out about her Deanna Troi action figure. 

- And Team Hellions fully expects shit for his post (even more than I'm going to get, I'd bet!)

So that's it for tonight folks!!! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies!!! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Action Figure Weekend!!!

I have mentioned Mardens on here before. It's a salvage and surplus chain store here in Maine that sells overstocked items and fire-damaged, flood-damaged, and even sasquatch-molestation-damaged goods. My wife wanted to go wander around there for a while on Mother's day after we took her out for breakfast.

While I was entertaining the boys over in the toy department, my wife found herself an iPod 4 case for 1 dollar. I found... these:

I loved these at first sight. I have no idea when or where they were originally released, but the concept behind these is some sort of alternate Earth version of the JLA called the Justice Guild. They feature some awesome, pulp-style versions of Black Canary (Black Siren), Green Lantern (Green Guardsman), Superman? (Tom Turbine), and The Flash (The Streak...?) I'm not a huge fan of the Streak figure, but I LOVE the concepts behind the other three, and I couldn't buy just three out of the four. Checking their wikipedia page, these guys are from the cartoon show, and were not what they initially appeared to be. 

Next up a set of four members of the Marvel family... all carefully packaged to omit the "Marvel" title. Black Adam, Mary Batson, Shazam, and the Wizard. I love the wacky wild concepts behind the Marvel family stories. The magic and mayhem of the characters and their villains are excellent. Plus, having gone on a recent Batman: Brave and the Bold marathon on Netflix, I've gotten a huge does of Shazam!!! My favorites are Black Adam and Mary Marvel, though Captain Marvel's no slouch, and I love that they made a Wizard figure at all, even though he's not that exciting. 

I've got close-up images of all the single figures below. I'm hanging these up on my wall in the package because they just look incredible together. If anyone really wants a set of these, let me know and maybe we can work out a sale or trade if you can't find them around your area. They also have a set of four members of the Legion of Superheroes (Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Braniac 5) but I'm just not interested in those characters, so I didn't buy any for myself. 

That's it for tonight folks! These figures weren't from Goodwill, but they were a steal. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!