Return of the Jedi had so many great aliens and Kenner cranked out some good ones- for the time anyways. One of my faves was this Gamorrean guard. I think I had two. This one I got last fall at a toy convention, it was $5 being incomplete and loose and not really mint. The battleax he has is borrowed from Gimli the Dwarf, who has a plethora of axes and was happy to lend one. It would be nice to have a real gamorrean guarding my fridge and all my snacks, but then he would probably just eat them all himself.
Nowadays everyone calls them Gonk Droids which is a way funner name, but back in the day this was just plain old Power Droid. Though I had one as a kid this one is actually from an Ebay auction I won. It's in pretty good shape. Kind of a goofy looking guy, but cute too. I wonder if Hasbro ever updated it?
Man there's just something about the crazy vibrant colors of the vintage cantina creatures that just brings me back. So orange! So blue! So unaccurate! Is he a scuba diver? Who cares! I got this beautiful near mint Walrus Man off ebay, so far my only auction win. Got two other vintage figures in that deal as well. Nowadays Hasbro has put out a zillion new versions of the original cantina guys, and tons of ones that Kenner never put out. Haven't been tempted by any of them, so far. Just can't touch the vintage, at least for the cantina.
Another vintage purchase from yesterday. I had two of these guys when I was a kid, gifts from my Grandma. I found them early and made her mad. I can't recall if he came with a gun or not. He certainly didn't have one in the movie. Instead he had a whole fleet of ships. Too bad that wasn't included. It's a trap!
So today was the Edmonton Pop Culture Fair. Last week was Calgary Comic Expo and yesterday was Free Comic Book Day so it's been a good week for geeking it up. Also an expensive week, so I was determined to be restrained today. In Calgary I overheard this little kid and his dad, the kid wanted to go see some Star Trek stuff and the dad was all stern, and he said, "We have a system and we're going to stick to it!" Which is one way to instill a sense of wonder in a child, but anyways. I decided to borrow his discipline just for today (since I was sans child this time) and stick to a system- which was, find this guy Shane's table, buy his book and some vintage figures and go home with a more or less intact bank account. Done and done! Well, I did a little looking, no harm there, but no buying. I got 8 figures from a kind of a clearance bin, all figures were loose, incomplete and not quite mint, and $5 each, perfect for my budget. And I finally have a Greedo! For some reason Greedo is the guy I most wanted to reaquire after the misguided purge of '92. I think the bright green colors burned themselves on my subconscious.
Who would win in a fight between Bossk and Boba Fett? You'd think Fett, right? I agree. But Bossk is still a pretty cool bounty hunter. He even got a line in Empire Strikes back, if you count growling as a line. Did Zuckuss get a line? 4-LOM? Exactly. This is one of the three vintage figures I kept. There was some sort of mystic connection between him and my Snaggletooth, though I forget what, other than maybe a physical resemblance. I seem to remember that Bossk occasionally landed on his feet after getting shot and spun around by our laser elastics. Could Boba do that?
Back in 1993 I foolishly sold my entire collection of vintage figures and vehicles for sixty bucks. D'oh! But I kept three- the Hammerhead shown here as well as Bossk and Snaggletooth. For being over 30 years old he's in pretty good shape- a little loosey goosey maybe but his four-toed splayed feet let him stand up fine. His partner there is Roron Corobb, the Ithorian Jedi from the Clone Wars Microseries. He tried unsuccessfully to rescue Palpatine from General Grievous. Maybe that's why he looks so mad.
