80's Children's Books - Thundercats, Star Wars, He-Man

Below you will find some of the coolest Children's Books I owned in the 80's. Thundercats, Star Wars and He-Man are all represented below.

First up is a Find Your Fate (Choose Your Own Adventure) called Thundercats and the Snowmen of Hook Mountain. The cover features a really nice illustration of the Snowman battling Lion-O. I had the Snowman as a kid and always wanted to get an extra Battle Cat from He-Man to paint white for his cat.

For as often at the Thundercats ended up at Hook Mountain you'd think they'd come up with some winter coats or something. Most of the Thundercats barely wear cloths.

Next up we have the Star Wars Return of the Jedi book The Ewoks Join the Fight. This book basically tells a section of the story of RotJ. The Ewoks team up with the Rebles to attack the Shield Generator Bunker. I think it's funny in the inside illustration below that Leia is dressed in her Ewok Village Dress and Hair Style not her Rebel Commando outfit. Didn't they learn anything from Blue Snaggletooth?

Next up we have Master of the Universe: He-Man Smells Troule. I really like the art on the cover. Th art inside is a little more goofy and not as nice.

The final book for this post is Masters of the Universe: New Champions of Eternia. This book has some really awesome art inside. I also like that the front cover features Battle Armor He-Man, who was the first version of the character I owned as a kid.

Apocalypses - Marvel Universe

Apocalypse was a villian I was introduced to early on in my X-Men fandom due to the ToyBiz line. Unfortunately I never owned an issue of the comic he was in so I had a hard time figure the character and sort of just used him as a henchman for Magneto. Eventually I would go on the learn just how powerful he was.

I've been collecting a lot of the X-Men characters from the Marvel Universe line. When Apocalypse came out I snapped him up. Dressed in blue and gray armor this guy has a bulky sculpt. He's pretty intimidating and I like this body type better than the thin as a rail ToyBiz figure from my youth.

Arrow - MOTUC Horse

In the She-Ra Universe, Bow was the main man of the Rebel forces. He's faithful steed was fittingly named Arrow. In the vintage toy line Arrow was a blue horse with wings while in the cartoon he was a tan horse with an orange mohawk. For the classics line Mattel decided to go with the cartoon look, but packed in a set of wings just in case.

Just like in the Filmation cartoon, Arrow is decked out in a pink saddle and reigns. This figure shares many parts with the previously released Swiftwind. One cool addition is the pink saddle bags at the front of the saddle that hides the holes were the wings plug in.

Sorry I didn'y feel like digging Bow out of my display case, so you'll have to settle for Man-At-Arms. Unfortunately you can't really get the rider's feet to fit in the stirrups.

Arrow shares wings with Swiftwind and the Griffin.

Superboy - DC Signature Collection

Superboy, like Supergirl has had a long and muddy history throughout the comics. Some versions of Superboy are the childhood adventures of Clark Kent before being called Superman. This particular figure is based on the Superboy who is a genetically engineered clone made from DNA of Superman and Lex Luthor. He has similar powers to the big blue boy scout, but not exactly the same.

This figure is one of the last DC Universe Classics or Signature Collection figures from Mattel. Superboy is wearing his black "S-shield" t-shirt and blue jeans. He's got nice details in the wrinkles of his pants and laces on his boots.  I think I would have preferred a slightly more youthful face sculpt. Maybe that's just because I really enjoyed Connor Kent in the cartoon Young Justice.

Down below you can see him still in his Signature Collection packaging.

AFA goes to MAGFest

I've been to a lot of Conventions over the years, but never any of the insanely huge cons on the level of San Diego Comic Con. This weekend Baby Skeletor and I journeyed down close to Washington DC to check out MAGFest. This convention focuses on Video Games and Video Game Music.

It's about a four hour trek from our where we are in Pennsylvania. The slowest part of the trip takes place right after we left. Rush Hour traffic on 95 past Philadelphia is always tricky.

We battled the rain the entire way down and unfortunately I kept missing signs or being in the wrong lane but I had a real hard time finding how to get to National Harbor Maryland. I saw the resort from the highway a couple of times. You can't miss the giant lighted Ferris Wheel. We eventually made it and met up with our friends.

Here's a shot of Baby Skeletor hanging out with Donkey Kong at the Too Many Games table. TMG is our local (smaller) version of MAGFest. We knew a couple vendors and groups set up in this area of the Vendor Room, so it served as a base of operations and a observation deck for people watching.

MAGFest runs 24 hours a day. They have a huge arcade set up. The noise in that room is indescribably. It's total sensory over load. There are probably over 100 computers and arcade machines all constantly running.

There are panels going on in four different rooms. There are gaming areas for LAN play, board games, card games, plus random dance parties break out in the halls. On top of that a schedule of concerts from various chip tune artists.


 Lots of Cosplay at MAGFest as well. Video Game characters are the most predominate costumes, but there were also cartoon, anime, movie, and celebrity costumes to be seen as well.

Ms. Pac-Man

Baby Skeletor and Wario

Daft Punk and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy Costumes

Retroware TV had a panel where they did a live version of their show, Thee Video Game Years.

 Here's a shot of Baby Skeletor getting some loving from Pixel Dan.

 I had a great time talking toys with Dan.

Here's Baby Skeletor with the Dungeon Master from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon as well as Mega-Man.

One last shot of baby Skeletor playing in the arcade.

In the vendor area there was tons of vintage video games, hand made pop-culture art, anime and manga stuff. The resort were MAGFest was held is incredibly huge... and kind of confusing to navigate.

We had a great time hanging out with a bunch of friends, checking out the sights and sounds of MAGFest. I recommend attending one of these super conventions if you ever get a chance. It's a crazy good time.

80's Ads (Toys and More)

Going through the files on an old hard drive I found some old ads I scanned to post on an old website I used to write for. I love these things. I hope you guys enjoy them. All of these were in some very old newspapers stored in the finishing room of the woodshop of the high school where work. I founds them during my first year as a teacher and brought them home to scan. I posted a few other ads a while back.

Hasbro Cops ('n' Crooks) Figures - Sundown, Barricade, Dr. Badvibes, and Big Boss.

Kenner Bone Age - I never had any of these dino skeletons as a kid.

 Children's Gift Slippers featuring Tonka, GI Joe, and Alf!

Power Wheels Battery-Operated Ride-Ons - Check out the GI Joe Tracker. It's a trike.

Moon Boots! Napoleon Dynamite eat your heart out.

Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set and Games

Mattel Hot Wheels Color Racers - I had this set of three color change cars.

Hasbro GI Joe Battle Force 2000 - I actually posted these two ads before, but since these scans were nicer I'm re-posting them.

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves figures and more from NJCC

It's been a while since the last New Jersey Collector's Convention, but I never finished posting my purchases. All these items entered the collection a while back, but haven't been spotlighted yet.

First up I have two carded Kenner action figures from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. I really like the Friar Tuck figure because Kenner retooled the Gamorrean Guard from Return of the Jedi for this figure. You can't really tell unless you take off his robe, but he shares everything but his head with a green-skinned pig guard. In addition I picked up Azeem because... he's freaking Morgan Freeman.

Next I bought a GI Joe puzzle from back in the late hay-day of the line. I have a pretty big collection of GI Joe puzzles. I haven't built it yet to make sure all the pieces are there.

One of my favorite things to look for at a toy show is part that I need to complete or rehad toys I own. I got a door to the Defiant Space Shuttle. It's got a lot of erroneous stickers on it but both of the hinges are intact. I actually bought a second shuttle with good door to swap out the door on my shuttle and ended up breaking one of the hinges removing the door from the original shuttle. I also picked up the radar dish from the top of the driver's cab on the Mobile Command Center.

Finally, I picked up a few Masters of the Universe items. I got both pieces of Skeletor's armor and Zodac's blaster.

Marauder Inc - Custom Cast Toy Weapons

Several years ago, when Marauder Inc. "Gun Runners" just started out I bought a set of their very first wave of weapons.The weapons were very impressive custom sculpt armaments and I was really happy with what I had purchased. I decided to create a little web comic to show off these plastic guns. I spent a lot of time taking photos with my one mega pixel digital camera and then photoshoping them with a free program that wasn't nearly as good as anything we have today. I submitted the images and a brief write up to my buddy Brian who was taking care of updating our site back them (ObseneNewg.com) and the web comic never saw the world wide web for what ever reason. Since I just re-discovered the files on an old hard drive I decided it would be a fun thing to share with everyone who reads Action Figure Adventures.