New blog! The March of the Twelve Backs!

 

I decided to start a "Star Wars" blog, filled with memories of my childhood and what it was like to be a seven year old kid when "Star Wars" hit the big screen in 1977.  I decided to do this because if I didn't separate the "Star Wars" memories from the rest of the things I wanted to talk about then the "Star Wars" memories would rapidly drown this "Angst and Speed" blog.

The years from December 1976 to December 1979 will always be golden for me ... a special time of magic and wonder.  The new blog is called "The March of the Twelve Backs" and the title is taken from the name of the card stock that the original twelve Kenner Star Wars action figures (released after the movie) used back then.  There were a hell of a lot of Star Wars products back then, speculation, talk ... Star Wars affected people around the world like a cultural supernova.  I'm a huge fan of the original 1977 Star Wars movie ... the first release ... before George Lucas re-released it and stuck the tagline of "Episode IV: A New Hope" into the prelude scrawl across the stars.

For me, there was only one "Star Wars" and that was the original, 1977, unedited release.  Everything after that pretty much blew sweaty Bantha genitalia.

There was a very palpable magic in "Star Wars" ...  Lucas was hailed as a visionary but as the decades would prove he was much less a visionary as he was a revisonary ... often with terrible results.  Lucas said that when he made "Star Wars" he set about to "Give a fairytale to a generation that didn't have any fairytales."  Of course, my generation had fairytales.  What Lucas meant was that he was going to give a fairytale to a generation that had no fairytales because they didn't believe in classic, traditional fairytales.  Lucas set about to turn "Star Wars" into the biggest, whine-fest of a liberal fairytale that the world had seen.  What started out as a simple tale of good versus evil with good triumphing over evil must have really messed up Lucas' mind and laid his spirit low ... all the talk of how evil Darth Vader was threw Lucas into overdrive to correct that perception.

How is "Star Wars" a liberal fairytale?

Easy.

It's the story of Darth Vader, aka Anakin Skywalker, and how it just wasn't his fault that he turned out to be evil.  In a liberal mindset there really isn't any such thing as good and evil, there's just different shades of gray.  No one is evil, no one is responsible for what they do or did, they're all victims of bad childhoods, not getting a pony for their 8th birthday, growing up in a single parent family, playing violent video games ... to a liberal anyone who does something bad is never at fault ... instead, it's their circumstances which are to blame.  Liberals are the kind of people who, when one person shoots another person then the person who used the gun and pulled the trigger isn't to blame ... no, they are just the victim of all the bad things that happened to them in life.  Oh, and it's the gun's fault for shooting the other person.  Liberals love to blame inanimate objects and give them animate traits and since liberals really can't punish a handgun they instead try to punish the company that made the handgun ... rather than punish the person who actually pulled the trigger and shot the other individual.

I've come to realize that most liberals are simply suffering from advanced mental retardation.  You cannot be a liberal unless you are severely mentally retarded because what they use for logic makes no real sense at all and defies everything else that we know is sound and true.

Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker is a perfect example of liberal logic.  

Anakin was from a single parent home and over the six different movies we come to find out that Darth Vader, once considered cinema's reigning black armor clad prince of evil, was not so much a tremendous villain as he was just a tremendous fuck up.  After he is thrust into greatness at Naboo he consistently fails to live up to expectations after that.  In the second and third episodes he is refused what he wants, he breaks the rules of those who have taken him in and ultimately his greed and desires destroy everything around him.  He was supposed to bring balance to the Force, according to a prophecy, but instead he destroys the Jedi order ... almost.  In Episode IV he is tasked with retrieving the stolen plans to the Death Star and he fails in that ... it's only when the plans come blundering back his way does he get a chance to redeem himself.  Further charged with protecting the Death Star from starfighter assault, he fails in that task.  In Episode V, Vader is tasked with finding the rebels and when he eventually does they escape leaving him, literally, empty handed at the end of the movie.  Oh, he caused the rebels grief in Episode V but he really didn't do any permanent damage.  In Episode VI, he is charged with protecting the Emperor and the new Death Star.  In the end, he wusses out, attones for his sins, and, well, the rebels win (with the help of some teddy bears with sharp sticks).  "Star Wars" (1977) is an amazing film.  Taken as a whole, the story given to us in Episodes I to VI leaves a lot to be desired and ultimately disappoints in a huge way.

So why did Darth Vader go from being the epitome of evil to being the posterchild for liberal pantywads?  We can thank Lucas for that because unsatisfied with a simple tale of good versus evil, Lucas instead had to give us five more movies to explain why Vader really wasn't evil ... he was just misunderstood ... and each of those five movies took the "Star Wars" name and franchise and ruined it more and more with each new movie until by the end of the entire six part story the original magic that was "Star Wars" was pretty much dead and buried for all time.

The original 1977 "Star Wars" movie is the best.  

My new blog, "The March of the Twelve Backs" will be about the magic and awe that George Lucas brought into the world in May of 1977 ... the first and last time that he did so.  The blog will be about memories of a time when magic was real and that magic was everywhere.  If you were a kid way back then and you were lucky enough to see "Star Wars" in the theater back in 1977 then you know what I'm talking about and I think you'll enjoy this new blog.

Enjoy!

Kenner Star Wars Laser Pistol and Laser Rifle

There came a time in my childhood when two of the most awesome guns were made available by Kenner; the Star Wars (Han Solo) Laser Pistol and the Star Wars 3 Position Laser Rifle.  This gave the "good guys" a gun to use and the "bad guys" a gun to use as well.  For Christmas of 1978 I received the Star Wars 3 Position Laser Rifle while my friend three houses down got the Star Wars Laser Pistol.  After that, the hours were spent running around the neighborhood draining pairs of C and D sized batteries to our hearts' content.

The weapons were somewhat faithful reproductions of their on screen counterparts but the sounds that these toys produced were nowhere near what the sounds in the movie were.  In fact, both toy guns were activated by a two stage trigger system ... a small nipple type button in the hand grip activated something inside the gun so that when the trigger was pulled the toy gun made a noise reminiscent of either a buzzsaw at a lumber mill or a hamster being put in a blender.  We both found that even at the age of 8 years old we could make more accurate Star Wars blaster sounds using our mouths than Kenner could using electronics and back then electronics was the big thing in toys ... an electronic toy was cutting edge and these toy guns weren't the cheapest toys on the market.  They weren't the most expensive, but they weren't the cheapest either.

Han Solo's German Mauser based heavy blaster pistol. 
You unscrewed the two twist knobs on the side and inserted
two "C" sized batteries in the toy.  The batteries
had amazingly short lives, IIRC.

I think one of the things that endeared me most to the weapons of Star Wars was the fact that all of the weapons were built out of real world counterparts ... familiar counterparts ... mostly taken from World War II which fit right in with my pre-Star Wars love affair of all things World War I and World War II.  Years of being weaned on "Sgt. Rock" and "The Unknown Soldier" and "The Losers" and other combat comics and of playing with Marx "green army men" had made me more than aware of the many, many weapons used in the major wars.  As such, it was easy to see where Han Solo's blaster was made out of a early 20th century German Mauser (one of my favorite pistols of all time).  The standard Stormtrooper weapons included the standard issue blaster rifle (created from a Sterling 9mm submachinegun) and two heavy blasters created out of a German MG34 machinegun and a British Lewis machinegun.  Scopes and doo-dads were added liberally to these classic weapons but their cores, their guts, were unmistakeable which I guess made them all the more believable when they were being used because I had seen so many combat movies where the cores of those fantastic weapons had been used.

The 3 Position Laser Rifle was probably the neater (and more expensive) of the two blaster offerings but it was also the more prone to break.  Loading batteries into this toy weapon required that you twist / pop the rear loop off at the rear of the weapon, take a cover off and insert two "D" sized batteries (batteries not included).  When you pulled the secret nipple trigger below the trigger guard and then pulled the trigger the 3 Position Laser Rifle did something that the Laser Pistol did not ... it spun a yellow with black stripes "barber pole" inside the barrel ... and made a sound reminiscent of a failing starter on a AMC Pacer.

The rear loop, for whatever reason it was included, was both prone to breaking through hard play and even more prone to simply fall off and disappear.  It wasn't required for the laser rifle to work but it was something that when it went missing you felt like your toy was incomplete.

What really set the Laser Rifle apart from the Laser Pistol was the three position folding stock hence the name of the weapon being 3 Position Laser Rifle.  The stock was affixed to the weapon at two swivel points located at the back and to each side of the hand grip.  On the front, a simple clip "snapped" the folding stock in tight against the barrel.  This clip also did not survive strenuous childhood rough housing and when it broke it would leave you with a folding stock that simply had to either be deployed full or held tight against the barrel.

The three positions, seen above on the box, were folded (standard), shoulder pad down up front (guard) and fully extended (turning the rifle into a real rifle).  While we never saw any of the three positions of the stock being used in the movie that didn't stop us from taking it as canon and running with it.

 

Although my original 3 Position Laser Rifle never made it with me out of childhood I was lucky enough to find a replacement on Ebay a few years ago.  The toy did include the rare (and often lost) rear D-ring type clip but the front clip for the stock was broken.  The toy blaster did not work even with new batteries and a quick inspection of the screws used to secure the casing showed that the tiny screws were heavily rusted and corroded.  If I go into this toy to see if I can fix it, it's going to require new screws as I have doubts if the heads of the current screws may even make it through a very careful disassembly.  I also plan on using a simple pair of magnets under the barrel to "grab" the stock and secure it in the folded position.

I said that I never owned the Laser Pistol ... now I do, from the same Ebay seller and in similar condition (though this toy still had some obscure, cheap-ass "C" size batteries in it that were rusting to pieces).  Other than the non-functioning electronics and the broken stock retaining clip on the laser rifle, both toy weapons seem quite well preserved for 36 year old artifacts from my childhood.  Both are dusty as hell and will require hours of careful cleaning to be fully presentable but the plastic is still non-discolored and uncracked.  

I think I'll mount them on pegs on the wall of my study where, like my other iconic toys from the 1970's, I'm sure they'll incite conversation from those who remember these toys.  As I hold these toy weapons in my hands, I'm taken back to cold winter days where imagination ran free and so did we through the yards of our neighbors yelling and laughing and not having a care in the world other than how much fun we could have.

The Dark One speaks ... !

Sort of ... I'm going to be making a series of podcasts related to my website ... soon.  So, if you've ever wanted to hear The Dark One speak, get ready.  Most of the podcasts will be about things that make me happy, like toys and childhood memories and neat things and nerd things and fast cars and fast motorcycles and good times.  There's even going to be some full frontal nerdity regarding "Star Wars" ... ok, maybe more than probably a lot of that since I have a lot of opinions on Star Wars.  

In fact, there just may be a whole damn series of podcasts just on Star Wars and what a hack Lucas is.  It's a good thing that he sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney because he had already spent the last three and a half decades Mickey Mousing the shit up.

I hope to have the first podcast up and going in the next few weeks, look for it on my website and a link will be posted here as well as the Goingfaster.com Facebook page.  Podcasts will try to be issued weekly, more or less.  I don't recommend holding your breath waiting for one but if you do then I'm sure that Darwin will be pleased.

Rayline Zebra II Soft and Safe Pellet firing Pistol

Another cherished childhood memory ... and a regular sidearm in my untold number of games of "guns" when I was in my single digit years ... was the Rayline Zebra II soft pellet pistol.  This toy was based off of the (then) radical 1950's era .22 caliber Whitney Wolverine (but I never knew that at the time, I thought that the Zebra II was something that some secret agents somewhere carried).  

Interestingly enough, the Whitney Wolverine also was the inspiration for another toy gun I acquired on Ebay ... "The Wizard" from "The Untouchables" staring Robert Stack (of course "The Wizard" had nothing to do with the TV show other than borrowing the name to make money commercially.  ("The Wizard" was reviewed months ago in my blog and was an interesting dual purpose toy that fired both darts as well as acted like a water gun.)

But I digress ... 

The sleek lines of the Zebra II made it perfect as a laser pistol or raygun from that time in the late 1950's / early 1960's.  The Zebra II fired soft, yellow pea-sized vinyl balls at a muzzle velocity that might bruise a butterfly (if the vinyl ball had a good tailwind and if you got lucky) but to a 5 year old it was utterly bad ass.  Like the Rayline Tracer Guns, this toy used ammunition that was available both with the gun when it was first purchased and separately as well.  Unlike the Rayline Tracer Guns, firing the Zebra II outside invariably ran through ammunition quickly since the pea-sized vinyl balls were easily lost in the grass of someone's yard or the dirt of a vacant lot.

I don't know how many packs of SS (Soft - Safe) ammo that my parents bought for me but I seem to remember there being a box of the ammo in the shopping cart every time we went to Roses' or Kmart or Zaire's.  This box of 250 pellets came in five layers of 50 pellets each ... and you had to twist and / or pull each of the pellets off from their "sprue" before you could use them.  

Loading the Zebra II was through a sliding port in the top of the pistol and it fed through simple gravity.  A spring / rubber band type trigger assembly fired one pellet per pull of the trigger but IIRC, turning the Zebra II a certain way would allow a pellet to work its way from the hold to the launch ramp and fall out the barrel of the pistol.  This was detrimental to you being an effective fighting force in the game of "guns" when you went to shoot someone with your Zebra II, pulled the trigger and the gun simply made a clicking sound ... because the pellet had already fallen out somewhere behind you and had been lost in the dirt or grass.


Rayline also made a rather smurfy pump action shotgun that they called the "Jr. Sportsman "240" Automatic Rifle" (see image on the ammo box above) except that it wasn't an automatic rifle at all ... no, it was a pump shotgun much like the ones used by police officers on popular TV shows of the time (and if you didn't grow up in the 1970's, believe me, there were a lot of cop action / crime drama shows on TV back then).  The Rayline pump shotgun loaded from the top as well and could hold far more pellets than the much smaller Zebra II.  IIRC, it also had the problem of pellets falling out of the weapon at the wrong moment, especially if you ran with the weapon and jostled it around a lot like jumping over fences or hedges.  The best thing about the Rayline pump action shotgun wasn't that it carried more ammo than the Zebra II or that it had longer range but rather the sound that it made; a nice resounding "phunt" that shot a pea-sized yellow pellet towards your target, more or less (generally less of more and more of less).  

Accuracy wasn't a high point of the Rayline pump but man it sure was fun.  On rainy days, I'd line up green army men and have target practice.  On days with good weather, my friends and I would play "SWAT", reenacting our favorite scenes from the popular TV police action drama series of the time.  We all owned several plastic M16s (in sky blue and military green colors) and of course I had my Rayline pump action shotgun.  The neighborhood was never a dull place when imaginations were matched only by the amount of play guns that we could lay our 5 year old hands on.

Toys were definitely more cool when I grew up ... and Rayline provided so many good times that decades later the many good memories of my youth often revolve around some toy produced by this iconic purveyor of processed plastic.

The Zebra II came in two colors that I remember; a blue and a kind of tan / gold.  As for this particular toy pistol, I just picked this example up off of Ebay for the princely sum of about $15 including shipping and fondling.  It doesn't work, and while the trigger moves forward and back it fails to "click" so I know that this particular toy will never shoot again.

It is my goal to turn this into a ray gun for the Strategic Space Command / Leif Ericson universe that I've been penciling out.  A little bit of modeling and kitbashing and this will become one of the standard sidearms of the humans.  It's compact enough to fit nicely into a role somewhere between the classic Star Trek Phaser I and Phaser II type weapons.  The size makes it discrete, the shape makes it easier to aim and fire than the TV remote shaped Phaser I type weapons.

Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

If you want to avoid a whole hell of a lot of misery in your life then print these rules out, staple or tape them up where you can reference them and commit your social life to following them.  If you do, you'll be a lot happier.  Trust me.  Also be aware that while these rules are set in stone the use of excessive alcohol and / or illicit drugs may make these rules (in hindsight) seem flexible, especially while you are under the influence of said alcohol or illicit drugs.  Be warned!  These rules are not flexible.  If you bend them (or worse, break them) then prepare to pay the consequences that come with your decision to do so.

Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

 _________________________________________________

(learned the hard way from 1984 to 1992)

1.       The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Remember this!  There are very few exceptions to this rule and those exceptions are very far and very few between.  If you think you’ve found the exception to this rule … you haven’t.


2.       Never make someone a priority in your life when you are little more than an option in theirs.


3.       You can’t change a person so don’t try.  What you see is what you will get, now and forever.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.


4.       Never give anyone a second chance.  Ever.  It may hurt like hell when it happens but years from now you’ll thank yourself for having a spine, a set of balls and dodging a whole bunch of misery that was heading your way.


5.       Never date anyone who has more emotional baggage than they can carry.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional pack mule.


6.       You can’t save everyone so don’t try.  Chances are you'll be lucky to save yourself.


7.       Never take anyone for granted.  Never allow yourself to be taken for granted either.


8.       Avoid women who have more problems than you have.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Period.

9.       Don’t go slumming.  Ever.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Ever.  Period.  In other words, use yourself as a benchmark and never accept less than what you are capable of in anyone you intend to spend a good part of your life with let alone plan on spending the rest of your life with.


10.   Avoid women on the rebound.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional trampoline that they can jump up and down on until they feel better or until they get their life back in order and decide to move on.


11.   Avoid the immature, the emotionally stunted, the psychos, the medicated, the codependent, the needy and the clingy.  All the makeup in the world can't cover up crazy.  You have been warned.


12.   If she’s willing to leave him for you then she’ll be willing to leave you for him (or for someone else).  Don’t be surprised when this happens.  After all, if he couldn’t trust her to stay when something better came along how can you ever hope to?


13.   If she drinks or smokes more than you, move on.


14.   If she can’t let go of her ex … if she still has feelings for him, feels sorry for him, pines for him, wants to meet with him for lunch or repeatedly talks to him via phone / email / texting then move on and don’t look back.


15.   If she is divorced with kids, tread carefully.  Her kids will come before you.   If they don’t, you’re looking at the wrong kind of woman.  Multiple kids by different men (especially if they were married at the time that they had them) should be your immediate cue to avoid saying anything deeper than “Hi.”.


16.   If she’s materialistic or focuses only on one aspect of your life (your guitar playing, your car, your motorcycle, etc.) … move on.  Fast.


17.   No woman is worth your tears and the woman who is won't make you cry.


18.   If she says any of the following then leave skid marks from your shoes on the pavement when getting away: “I’m not like all the others.”, “I won’t hurt you.” or “I won’t lie to you / cheat on you / leave you.”


19.   Don’t waste time playing silly or stupid games.  Life is too short to play silly or stupid games.  If she wants to play silly or stupid games then let her … with herself and by herself.


20.   If she suddenly walks out on you and what you both have for no really good reason then just remember; she’s someone else’s misery now.  Get on with your life and forget her.

Bonus Rules !!!

21 - Never date a woman who drives a car that you can't afford to replace.  If she drives a car that you can't afford to replace, you're the toy.

22 - Never put your dick into crazy !!!  (Actually this should be rule #1)  I shouldn't have to explain this one and if I do then you're too dumb to be having sex.  Just don't ever, ever do it.  Never, ever, ever.  Period.

“There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters and who never did, who won't anymore and who always will.  So, don't worry about people from your past because there's a really good reason why they didn't make it to your future.” - Unknown

Do want! - NECA ALIENS: Colonial Marines figures

Well, after finally adding NECA's BORDERLANDS "Claptrap" to my collection (it resides on my desk, next to my nameplate, holding up on of my business cards in its pincer hands) and after almost finishing my "Terminator" and "Terminator 2" action figure lineup (all Arnold figures in various states of damage and decay up to (or is that down to) and including the Endoskeleton) I've decided to clear some more space on my shelf for a new wave of somewhat pricey action figure goodness ... namely NECA's "ALIENS: Colonial Marines" series of toys.

Oh, yes.

I've waited for these figures for a very long time, I even wrote NECA an email years ago requesting that they do these figures.  I can't say that they listened to me, I'm not that naive as they probably got thousands of emails requesting ALIENS figures, but irregardless (which I'm told isn't even a real word) the figures are finally here ... or almost here.

The first wave is going to include Hicks, Hudson ("Game over, man!") and a reworked ALIEN.  Hopefully additional waves will include the other characters.  

I think that Armyghy from the Gearboxsoftware forums said it best "With the sheer number of Predators Neca does, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the entire squad done. Drake, Vasquez, Gorman, Farro and Spunkmeyer would need original treatment, but the majority of the marines would only need head swaps and color differences. And I would buy every last god damn one of them."

HUA!   You and me both.

If NECA ever produces a to-scale Power Loader and / or ALIEN Queen ... well, I've still got two kidneys, you can get by in life with only one and I hear there's a good market for things like that for people who need them.

Soon ... soon.

(UPDATE)!  They are MINE!  Muhahahahahahahahahaha!

The limits of technology

Snapped this the other day ... off the "Laugh USA" channel on XM.  Thanks to the limit of the character display, it made it even funnier.

Life imitates art ...

So I was back on my audio-video detail running siamese coax cable yesterday at one of my scales office (a very old building full of spiders and other not-fun-multi-armed-things) and amid old spiderwebs and dirt-dobber nests I see something … familiar.  

I lean closer and there, stuck in an old, torn open spider’s egg sack is something which I can’t identify but which looks totally like … the “Ffffffuuuuu” meme face!  I took the best picture I could because whatever it is that's making the "Fffffffuuuuu" face is pretty small and would fit on the nail of your little finger.  Still, while I was running cable through the ceiling I kept saying “Ffffffuuuu” in my head over and over again and I kept turning every now and then to see that weird little face hanging there in the old torn open egg sack stuck on the awning beside where I stood on the 8 foot tall ladder.

Pontiac Shrine

The wall in my office at work and the Pontiac shrine built there ... 

The big rectangular frame is a custom framed Pontiac ad from 1985 showing a black and gold TA in the same paint scheme and options as my '86 along with a copy of the RPO callout (75 RPO codes!), a dealer postcard from the same year showing a black / gold '85 TA at speed on the highway and a copy of the original window sticker. 

The small picture at the top is supposedly of the last US Pontiac built (a plain vanilla Grand Am destined for a rental fleet). 

The large framed picture is a two page spread from the 1985 Pontiac full-line catalog again showing the black and gold TA. 

Of course there's a 24" by 36" framed "Smokey and the Bandit" movie poster (saw that in the theater when I was 7, along with "Star Wars") and finally the small frame in the middle is my first speeding ticket from 1986 when I was 16 years old. Definitely a keepsake and maybe a rite of passage.

On the shelf behind my desk I have an old TA cap along with a pair of 1:32 scale models, unopened, still shrink-wrapped in the original boxes.  The one on the left is a black and gold 1985 Pontiac Trans Am by Monogram and the one on the right is a 1985 Pontiac Firebird (Trans Am) by MPC.  What's interesting to note about the two kits is that the Monogram kit features a TPI V8 with a manual transmission ... a power train that wasn't available until 1987 due to emissions standards.  The MPC version features a Crossfire Injection V8, a EFI motor that disappeared from the lineup over a year before the new bodystyle was presented.

Whitman's Starstream Comics

As a child I not only haunted the toy section of whatever department store that my parents carried me to but I also haunted the book section as well.  Unless my parents were looking to buy me clothes or shoes, we pretty much had a pact that once we were inside the store I veered off from them heading for the toy department and if they didn't find me there they would find me in the magazine / paperback section where I would be reading the latest Cracked, Mad, Eerie, Creepy or whatever else in that format I could get my hands on.  I was an avid reader and by the age of six I was reading full length novels (by the age of 8, after I was introduced to pron by finding a Playboy in the woods, I really did start reading adult magazines for the articles ...). 

In Hattiesburg there was a chain owned department store called "Rose's" and it was the equivalent to a 1970's version of Walmart ... not the Super Walmart with the grocery section and automotive, just a plain Walmart minus the automotive and garden section.  Today it would probably be the equivalent of a Dollar General or Fred's Dollar Store but back then it was all we had (Walmart wouldn't arrive for another decade) but I digress ...

Rose's had a pretty good toy department, several isles worth ranging from boy toys to girl toys to games and even a decent selection of plastic models ... and surprisingly, there in the back, stuck in with the coloring books and children's story books was a series of books with really interesting covers ... Whitman's "Starstream" comics.  I guess you'd call them trade paperbacks today but back then they were unlike any comic book (or "funny book" like my dad referred to comics) that I had ever seen.

And so, like I usually did when my parents were shopping in a department store, I sat down on the lowest shelf of the book rack, picked up a Starstream and started to read each one from front to back.

Oh, man!

These were some good stories ... no, they were awesome stories and I drank these books in as liquid nourishment for my thirsty imagination.  At the time I didn't realize that the authors of these stories were none other than some of the greatest science fiction authors that ever lived but years later I did realize that.  There were greats like Asimov, Niven and even the first illustrated science fiction story from one of my favorite horror authors, Dean Koontz.


Starstream was an interesting gambit for Whitman comics ... take well known (and some not so well known) science fiction stories from well established giants in the genre and illustrate them in comic book form.  The art was okay and the stories were outstanding.  

Starstream has aged pretty well and while my original issues are long gone in the garage sales of my youth I was lucky enough to acquire all four copies on Ebay a few years ago.  Flipping through them again with a glass of syrupy-sweet iced tea took me on a trip down memory lane.  Once again I experienced some of the joy that I had as a child way back in 1977 when I first sat there on the lower shelf of that wood magazine rack and read to my imagination's content while my parents shopped elsewhere in the store.

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials

Handy in case of close encounters ...

A friend asked if I still had this ... not only do I have it, I have the 1979 first printing. I bought it a few years ago off of Ebay and I see that some of these are going for upwards of $900 now (I didn't pay anywhere near that ...) and I'm wondering ... if you think you're going to get $900 for this then whatever you're smoking ... if and when they make it available in pill form ... the line to get a 30 day supply starts behind me.

I particularly like getting used books that have notes in them to someone else. Apparently this book was a gift to "Jake" on June 2, 1982 and it was given to him by a woman named "Ruby" who says "It seems to me that I've spotted a number of these characters in your station on occasion. Happy Birthday, Ruby."

I guess "Jake" owned a gas station or worked at a gas station at one time and I know that June 2 is Jake's birthday. Happy belated birthday, Jake, if you're still alive somewhere ... out there. I've got your old book, buddy, and I'm taking real good care of it.

Up, up and away!

Hail Mighty Raydeen!

Here's another cherished childhood toy ... Raydeen.

Shogun Warrior.

And a damn big one at that.

I first met Raydeen sometime in the winter of 1978.  He was placed, just like the picture above, in the widow of a small import / emporium shop located in the strip mall at the corner of Lincoln Road and South 28th Avenue in Hattiesburg, MS.  This was back when that intersection used to be a four way stop instead of an intersection controlled by traffic lights.

The import shop is long gone though the strip mall is still there.  I think the import shop is now a pet supply shop but I can't be sure since it has been a while since I've gone that way let alone paid any attention to the shopping opportunities there.  It's an old part of Hattiesburg, a part that I grew up in but like me, everything there that was at one time familiar has now moved on.  Decades have rolled by and nothing remains the same.

Memories and dust.

I met Raydeen sometime in late October of 1978 and fell in love with him.  I used to ride with my father up to the Shell station on Saturday and Sunday morning to get a newspaper and (for him) a cup of coffee.  We'd sometimes walk up and down the strip mall sidewalk, especially so I could look in the window of Hobby Depot, a plastic model and paint type hobby supply shop that lasted maybe two, maybe three years in that location before folding.  Hobby Depot had some really well built models, real pro stuff, in the windows and I marveled at how models could be painted to be so lifelike.  Someone had even reproduced the crashed Monogram B-17 bomber diorama that Sheppard Paine had made.  

And right next to Hobby Depot was an import shop, the name of which will probably always be lost to me now, and in that import shop's window was Raydeen.

I think that Star Wars had just entered my life but Star Wars toys were still non-existent in my area nor did they have the proliferation that the Kenner line would later enjoy.  As such, in late 1978 I was still playing with G.I. Joes, Legos, building models and playing with my Marx army men and military playsets.

Enter Raydeen.

Shogun Warrior.

Super bad ass robot that was tall like Godzilla and three times as bad (at least back then he was to me).  Shogun Warriors were a new thing for me, something interesting from the land of Japan.  My experience with Japanese toys was limited, same for their comics and cartoons.  I just didn't know very much about toys from the Far East and that intrigued me all the more.  Having just started to watch live action Japanese shows like "Ultra-Man", "Spectraman" and "Space Giants", I had a prepubescent hard-on for giant robots.  

Mattel to the rescue with their Shogun Warriors line of toys.

Mattel marketed and produced the Shogun Warriors but I'm sure, now, that they were just packaged or marketed by Mattel.  Those familiar with the "red Mattel sawblade" logo can see it clearly in the bottom lower left of the package pictured above.

Raydeen was awesome and my imagination worked overtime to add him to my toy collection.  Oh, the things that I would do with Raydeen ... assault the guns of Navarrone.  Use him as an Allied / American super weapon against the Nazis ... my fervent imagination had already taken possession of Raydeen.  I told my dad that I wanted Raydeen and he made the usual parental dodging that all parents do when their kid asks for a fairly expensive toy, especially when they ask for a fairly expensive toy when Jimmy Carter is in office and the economy is tanking all around you.

But then those are the concerns of adults and not of children faced with the dilemma of how to own one of the coolest damn toys they've ever seen.

Raydeen was huge ... easily the biggest toy that would ever be in my collection and he did so much ... I mean, just look at his play features; hawk-missile that shoots from his chest, a shield with a nasty spike on it, and a flying fist with dual ax blades on it that you can launch across the room.  That was a lot more than most of my toys did back then and I was impressed ... I was also 7 years old at the time so ... being impressed with a toy back then probably wasn't as hard to be as I thought it was at the time.

The weeks in November and December stretched by slowly, filled with thoughts of Raydeen.  I took my Legos and built a hangar for Raydeen, and since Raydeen was giant, I used some 1:72 scale ground crew that had come with one of my plastic plane models to prepare things for Raydeen's arrival.  Everything was prepared for Raydeen ... now all I had to do was wait.

Patiently.

And in case you didn't know or can't remember, when you're seven years old, patience, especially when it involves waiting for a toy you really want, is next to impossible.

Christmas day arrived, December 25, 1978, and with it came ... Raydeen.  Jimmy Carter and his bungling of the economy had not prevented Santa from bringing Raydeen to my house.  Raydeen was everything that I had imagined that he would be and I walked around the rest of the day with that giant colorful plastic robot tucked under my arm like a teddy bear.  Oh, the battles we fought that early morning ... the Marx Nazis never knew what hit them and the Americans easily conquered Navarrone Mountain.

Sometime in the spring of 1978 Marvel Comics introduced a "Shogun Warriors" based comic book that I immediately started collecting.  And who was proudly displayed front and center on that comic?

My Raydeen.

The comic ran for 20 issues but to my 7 and 8 year old mind the stories were epic.  I still have a copy of the entire comic series today in my collection but it has aged badly and rereading it did not bring the joy and wonder that it once had.  In fact, it kind of brought about the feeling that I was reading utter crap.

The Shogun Warriors comic starred Raydeen, Combattra and Dangard Ace, all piloted by kidnapped and impressed into service individuals from around the world.  Raydeen was piloted by a stuntman named Richard Carson who had a girlfriend named Deena.  I particularly liked the story arc where Richard Carson has to let Deena in on his secret ... he's Raydeen's pilot / operator.

Raydeen was my favorite but Combattra was a close second mainly because Combattra could break up into several different types of robot vehicles including a fighter made out of the head.  Dangard Ace was boring ... all he could do was launch his rocket fists, fire some missiles from his fingers (IIRC) and his chest panels opened to reveal two big cannons / launchers that shot out some kind of energy bolt / torpedo.  It reminded me a lot of those battery operated robots from years earlier, the ones with the swing open chest doors and the sparkling chest cannons ... Dangard Ace sucked.

Raydeen also changed in the comic ... my Raydeen had a fist with a pair of ax blades on them.  In the comic, Raydeen didn't have a fist like that ... he had the shield with the spike and ... he had a bow!  A giant bow that fired explosive tipped arrows that were loaded from a hatch in his arm / fist.  Of course, that kind of Bo & Luke Duke technology applied to a giant robot seems kind of silly in hindsight but back then it was nothing short of awesome.
 
Each month I would go with my parents to Cloverleaf Mall and I would visit the big metal turn-rack at K&B Drugstore to see if the latest issue of Marvel Comics' "Shogun Warriors" had come in or not.  Each month that issue would get dog eared from heavy reading as I savored the next chapter in the adventures of Raydeen, Combattra and ... that other stupid big robot.


One of the neatest things about Raydeen, that I learned about him in the comic, was the fact that Raydeen could not only fly with rockets in his feet but for real speed he could transform into a hybrid mode, a streamlined robot bird form that was capable of supersonic flight and this form was called the "Firehawk" making Raydeen easily the fastest of the Shogun Warriors able to respond to a crisis.  In fact, in several instances in the comic, Raydeen takes off, converts to the supersonic Firehawk and is the first to show up at a problem with the other two Shogun Warriors eventually showing up long after Raydeen had landed and started handing the bad guys their ass.


How the conversion from Shogun Warrior to supersonic Firehawk took place can only be referred to as "magic" ... or maybe it uses the same technology that the Michael Keaton Batmobile uses for its armor plating when he says "Shields" and all of that plating comes out of nowhere and just covers the Batmobile in armor.

The full size Raydeen was a stiff toy, limited in movement ... in fact, it had no real movement short of its arms swinging up and down or rotating back and forth in a complete circle.  No manipulation, no ability to be posed.  Wheels on the bottom of the feet allowed Raydeen to roll along on smooth surfaces but pretty much this was a toy of pure imagination.  

That summer, for my birthday, I got another Raydeen ... this one was smaller, much smaller and it was made out of metal but it was poseable.  Not only did the face shields open and close but the legs bent and it could transform into the supersonic Firehawk mode.  

This version of Raydeen came with the bow and the spiked shield but it didn't come with any chest missiles.  Both fists, however, were spring loaded and launched.  The only problem was ... that version of Raydeen really had no good play value since I owned no other Shogun Warrior toys.  How I used that smaller Raydeen was much like Jet Jaguar from Godzilla, he was the real size able to interact with my green army men but when the need arose, he could change into the giant sized Raydeen to kick giant sized ass.

Worked for me.

The Shogun Warrior craze never really caught fire with me or my friends.  Together we had a handful of the toys ... I remember a giant Dragun, another had a giant Godzilla and Gaiking and another had a Mazinga (the early version with the removable spaceship in the head).  Together we had three or five of the small Shogun Warriors, there was my mid-size Raydeen and I had the Sky Arrow jet.

One interesting thing to note is that in the diecast toy offering there was the Liabe ... a spaceship which was featured in the Toho sci-fi epic "Message from Space" and a spaceship which has come to be known as the "Millennium Falcon of the Far East".  How it became part of the Shogun Warrior collection is probably an interesting story.

The Shogun Warriors were hot stuff for a while before finally fading away to nothing in 1980.  The toy line didn't have the staying power required to survive in the post-Star Wars era that 1977 to 1980 quickly became.  Toys were quickly changing in the late years of the 1970's.   Electronics were coming and computers were here.  Interactive toys like Milton Bradley's Starbird and Big Trak did amazing things, had flashing lights and sounds that simple toys like the Shogun Warriors simply didn't.   Also, like many other toys of the time, the Shogun Warriors line of toys were plagued with outrageous concerns for child safety based on children acting like total effing retards and shooting the shooty parts into their eyes, into the eyes of other children or shooting the shooty parts down their own throats and subsequently choking to death on the shooty parts (probably while the parents were in the other room playing Bridge or some other socially popular game at the time).  Normally, we would just chalk that up to a good case of Darwin and a bad case of parenting but the outcry was enough from lazy parents that manufacturers had to remove the fun parts of the toys because a few total retards had ruined it for the rest of us kids.  It was just more of the whole retarded liberal mindset that would continue to plague America in the years and decades to come ... the mindset where the needs of the few always outweigh the needs of the many.

If you want to know more about these toys, follow this link.

I no longer have Raydeen but I have some really good memories of that toy.  Even though I don't remember it, I'm sure that Raydeen was eventually decommissioned and sold to a private firm after which I have no idea what happened to him.  And by being decommissioned I mean that he had a dollar fifty price tag stuck to him one Saturday morning at my parents' annual garage sale and Raydeen went home with another child ... hopefully he had a few more adventures in him.  I hope to God he still had some adventures left in him and that he didn't wind up as a frequent, dress wearing guest at some little girl's tea party before he ultimately met the sad fate that most toys of childhood eventually face but for a while Raydeen was mine and while he was mine he was nothing short of awesome!