The Marvel Univese Explodes With Wave 11!

George of G.I. Jigsaw delivered a powerhouse of Marvel characters for wave eleven. It definitely solidified my wants, desires, and need to have a Marvel Universe, and not just a Spider-Man series. Now, I just have to convince George.

While all of these characters were either mainstay's in other seires, or had their own ongoing title, what made them part of the Spider-Man collection was their frequency in which they crossed over to the various arachnid titles.

Kicking things off this round was Black Widow. Starting with issue 81 the pages of Daredevil, The Man Without Fear, became a team-up book featuring the two characters. With issue 92, the series even received a title change to Daredevil and the Black Widow. It would revert back to "The Man Without Fear" with issue 108, with the team up staying in place through 124.

A surefire way to turn the pages of Spider-Man into oddity was to include Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts into the mix. He frequented the pages of Marvel Team-Up, but admittedly, with it came very drab stories that didn't personally interest me. Still, I dig the character a lot, and George's rendition is spot on.

Alcoholic billionaire, turned super hero, Tony Stark filled the pages of both his own ongoing series, Iron Man, as well as graced the pages of The Avengers. He comes in many differnt armor variations, but I like mine pure vanilla, thank you. His red and yellow suit is classic, and iconic for a reason.

He's the original super hero of Marvel Comics, and the one on this list who's been around the longest of them all. Captain America not only headlined several golden, silver, bronze, and current age comics, but even found time to lead The Avengers in their ongoing series, beginning with his ressurection in issue 4.

The villanous Doctor Doom makes his long awaited Peg People debut. He was the ultimate thorn in the side of the Fantastic Four, and the self imposed leader pulling the strings of all the villainous characters stranded on Battle World during the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.

The symbiote stalked the streets of New York after escaping the capsule prison imposed upon him by Reed Richards. His goal was simple. Find, and rebond with Peter Parker. After his final defeat in the pages of Web of Spider-Man issue 1, the alien would eventually find the much more agreeable host, Eddie Brock, becoming the deadly Venom. I wondered how George was going to pull this one off, and let's just say, he didn't disappoint - not that he ever does with these "figures".

The Man Without Fear comes to Peg People, endowed in his classic red suit. Now the question remains, will George make a yellow and brown "mail away" variant?

Introduced in the 2007 Free Comic Book Day, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Mister Negative's origin came from the same series of expirements that created Cloak and Dagger. Harnessing both light and dark, he used his powers to take over the Chinese gangs to become a criminal mastermind.

Allstair Smythe is a unique character in the Marvel Universe. Unlike most, he was not created for American audiences. Instead, his first appearance was in the Yugoslavia released series, Eks almanah, published by Dečje Novine. He would become a mainstay in the American Spider-Man The Animated Series, as well as cross over to several Spider titles throughout the 90's and beyond. He met his fate in the pages of Superior Spider-Man issue 13 in 2013.

Allstair's father, Spencer, on the other hand, was a mainstay in the original pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, making his debut all the way back in 1965 with issue 25. He would die in issue 192, blaming J. Jonah Jameson for the cancer he contracted. Smythe was the mastermind behind all the Spider-Slayers, and stated that all the units Jameson hired him to building caused him to be continuously exposed to dangerous materials, which caused his disease.

We jump back over to The Avengers to welcome The Mighty Thor, another character who was featured in the team pages of the series, as well as headlined his own monthly title. Oh, boy. It just popped into my head how amazing it would be for George to make a tiny frog Thor Peg People. Thor was changed into the enchanted creature by his brother Loki in the pages of The Mighty Thor 363 - 366, a classic story arc by Walt Simonson.

Next up was the large size Peg People Hulk, or The Incredibl Hulk if we're speaking formalities. Much like Iron Man, there are a ton of itterations you can choose for him, but for me, it's all about the classic green (ok, occassionally grey, especially if in his Joe Fixit outfit).

Another larger figure in the bunch was the Infinity Gauntet weilding Thanos...sans his gauntlet, so...nevermind. Though he's mostly known for his quest to obtain all of the cosmic gems and form the afformentioned gauntley, Thanos actually began his Marvel history in the pages of Iron Man.

Then it was time for this batch's mystery "figure", which turned out to be a two for one. George has been knocking these out of the park, all of them, but especially the mystery charactes, which I so look forward to receiving. This time around, he produced the tiny, and I do mean tiny, Ant-Man and Wasp.

These two are litterally a fraction of the size of everyone else.

So cool!

Once everyone was accounted for, it was time to update ye ol' checklist. One of the things that had been bothering me for the longest time with theis...Well, since wave two, was the size difference of the "figures" from wave one. Trial and error was the name of the game back then. I took the time today to revist this, adding all the pictues of the original characters again, and resizing them to match. It was bothering my OCD, and looks so much better to me now.

Page two is fleshing out nicely! It almost looks as great as page one!

I also wanted to get away from the original "mail away" format for the mystery figures, and better track them long term. While I came up with the below as an initial format, I'll probably work on this a bit more to make it pop in the future. For now, it serves its intended purpose.

George is absolutely cranking these out, and I love every minute of it!

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An Immediate Arrival Of Series Nine and Ten!

When George of G.I. Jigsaw stopped by yesterday with the awesome series eight of Peg People, he handed me an extra large brown bag and said, "And here's series 9 and 10." Wait a second, mind blown. Wave 9 and 10!!?!? Heck yeah! George has been mad busy cranking these "figues" out, and I'm loving every minute of it.

When George handed this to me, he said, "Your
neighbors are going to think we're dealing drugs."

This one turned in to quite the game of guess the character, as George went rogue, and bounced all over the checklist. He stumped me completely with one, and I asked for confirmation on another, but had the right name associated with it.

First out of the bag was the unwrapped Angel. Quite an impressive wingspan meant this one couldn't be wrapped up in the traditional paper towel. No worries. It arived in one piece, with wings still attached.

This was followed by a newer character to the Spider-Man universe, Jackpot. There was a lot of specualtion surrounding Sony making a movie based on her a few years back. This caused her first appearance to jump in price, only to quickly tank back down to the dollar bins it originally came from.

Then there was the classic Marvel Team-Up chracter, Ka-Zar! I never quite understood Marvel's hangup to keep including him in Spider-Man stories, but I went with it as I read along.

When I first pulled this one out, I thought, okay, is this Basalisk, or Iguana? Could be either. After deciphering the method to George's checklist jumping, it was solidified as the latter.

He's one of those blink and you'll miss him chracters. Finisher, AKA Karl Fiers, first showed up in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 5, a story where we finally get the story on Peter Parker's parents.

Speaking of which, George also included Richard Parker...

...and his wife, Mary.

Returning to the pages of Marvel Team-Up, we next have Mockingbird...

...As well as Doc Samson.

Then I unwrapped the amazing Captain Universe Spidey variant. Man, George put a lot of work into this one. It's tied for first place with what was my favorite from these two waves.

That tie just so happened to be the next figure, Battle Damaged Spider-Man. When I envisioned this one in my head, this is exactly what I saw. It has a McFarlane vibe, Spider-Man issue 5 to be exact, and I absolutely love it.

We then jump back into the obscure characters with a former Daily Bugle co-worker of Peter Parkers, Ben Urich.

But then charge headlong into this awesome version of Julia Carpenter's Spider Woman, who first made her appearance in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars issue 6. Much like Spider-Man in this era, she too sported a black suit.

In a nod to the classic creatures of the silver screen, Marvel too had their own Werewolf, among others. Believe it or not, Spider-Man either fought or teamed up with most of them.

Mirage didn't make many appearances in the Marvel Universe. His first was actually in the pages of the issue featuring the marriage of Ned Leeds and Betty Brant, The Amazing Spider-Man 156. He was kind of a villain of the week.

Though he would go on to be a larger thorn in the side of The Punisher, Jigsaw, much like the anti-hero, made his first appearance in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. However, his story and background would be more violently fleshed out in the full Punisher series.

Another late entry to the Spider-Man universe was Kindred, who first appeared in 2018's first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, volume 4. By this point, I was sparsly reading new titles, pretty much just sticking to key books.

We pop back over to Marvel Team-Up for our last character, Valkyrie.

Well, I suppose I can't say last character. Once again, George dropped a mystery figure into the lot. One that wasn't included on the original checklist, but which fits in just nicely with the bunch.

Say what you will about comic book movies, but I dare say Kick-Ass wouldn't be the "household name" he is today without the film. Until it hit the big screen, this relatively unknown character who got his humble beginings in 2008 in Marvel's Kick-Ass, wasn't on most comicbook fan's radars. In fact, until the film came out, the books were pretty much relegated to dollar bins. Forgotten in time.

Kudos to George for yet another well thought out suprise "figure". I want so badly to start blurting out potential candidates (THE CROW), but I'm trying really hard to leave him to his own creative devices without input.

Then there was this one...

This is the one that stumped me. I didn't recognize it at all, and had to finally ask George. Fortunately, I wasn't lacking my spider knowledge, so that, at least, made me feel better.

When creating this most recent batch, George pulled images for Smasher, but you know, being Marvel Comics, there's of course more than one iteration. This particular version wasn't on the checklist because it's the X-Men version, a completely different character from the villainous The Smasher . I guess having "The" in front of his name makes all the differnece in the world?

No worries, as this X-Men variant will get added to the bunch, and hang around. It's still a cool "figure".

With everyone accounted for, and few extras, the checklist was updated.

Additionally, a new mail away promotion featured the all-new, Kick-Ass.

Collect them all!

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Retro Spins: Extreme - Extreme

 

Though it was unknown at the time, Extreme hit my radar in 1989 during the film, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Specifically with the song, Play With Me, which can be heard during the chaos that ensues at the mall just before all our historic figures are arrested. However, I didn't know the name of the song, the band, and had no interest (at the time) in the soundtrack.

Fast forward to the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert where Extreme takes the stage to perform a fantastic medley of Queen hits...And I still had no clue who they were.

Advance further to 2009 where the song Play With Me comes back around to my radar, but this time for a goofy animation project I decided to slap together one day using Microsoft Paint and a simplistic video editor program. If you look hard enough, you can find it on Youtube. Still, beyond my little project, there was no lasting impression.

Fast track to 2018 where I finally get around to grabbing the soundtrack for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, as well as Extreme's self titled debut album. The song finally becomes a part of my library.

I remember playing it shortly after obtaining it, but it made no lasting impression at all. Which brings me to today's Retro Spins, where I'm giving it another shot.

The stand out to the album is definitely the lead guitarist work of Nuno Bettencourt. His thrashing licks, fast fingers and polished solos will definitely please any 80's hair band rocker. His work is slick, and reminded me somewhat of Steve Vai. Specifically, Vai's work from his 1990 album, Passion And Warfare. Check it out if you haven't heard that one.

As I listened to the tunes and read up on Steve Vai's 80's career with David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, this only served to push the subpar Extreme album to background noise which relatively got ignored. Which to be honest was no surprise. With exception of the guitar work here and there, nothing really stood out. It was pretty average at best.

By the time the album reached the halfway point, I pretty much didn't care, and had fully checked out. I ended up skipping through the remaining tracks, giving them less than five minutes to impress, which they didn't, and then shut it off.

Play With Me is a solid track, and I know the band went on to release the highly popular More Than Words in 1990, but for me, Extreme is just not that good.

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Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.

Page One Done With Series Eight!

George of G.I. Jigsaw dove straight into wave eight after delivering the epic wave seven. He said his goal was to finish the first page of the checklist, and he did just that.

First out of the package, AKA rolled up in paper towel, was the head receptionist of The Daily Bugle, Betty Brant! She was Peter's first love, before they went their separate ways. Betty would go on to marry Ned Leeds, another employee of the paper.

Next up was one of the few villains who would dare to challenge Kingpin for the title of crime boss of New York. The Rose, AKA, Richard Fisk, AKA, the son of Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, gave his father a run for his money before finally revealing his identity.

Then there was the man himself coming into the fold, Mr. Ned Leeds. While he would go on to marry Betty, his biggest story arc would come in the form of him being revealed as one of the (many) men behind the Hobgoblin mask.

We dive back into the villains with the voodoo priestest, Calypso. Though she was used sparsely in the pages of Spider-Man, her biggest story arc was ushered in by Todd McFarlane for his first five issues of the 90's Spider-Man series, AKA the Torment story arc.

Speaking of sparesely used villains revived by Todd McFarlane, next up was The Fox, the male cat burglar counterpart to Black Cat, but completely unreleated in every way. He's being poised in the new (2024) Ultimate Spider-Man series as a major villain, and hopefully he gets done a better justice than he has in the past as villain of the week fodder.

The right hand to J. Jonah Jameson, Robbie Robertson makes his long awaited appearance in the Peg People series. Robbie was one of the few supporting cast to know Peter Parker's identity, having been smart enough to put the puzzle pieces together himself.

Depending on the story being told, Puma is either a straight up villain, or a mercenary for hire. It took a while for his characters to get his own legs, and evolve into someone memorable in the spider-verse.

And on that note of spider-verses, next up is Spider-Man 2099. I still to this day can't believe that creator, Rick Leonardi, only charged a dollar for his signature, and as a result, I was able to get the entire run of the original series signed by him. This one was my favorite Peg People in this bunch, which was no easy task to select.

One of the founders of the Sinister Syndicate, we have Boomerang. Though he'd been around since the late sixties, I didn't learn about him until my teenage years when he was revitalized by Erik Larsen during his 90's run of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Though he died fairly early on in the original AMS run, father of Gwen Stacy, Captain George Stacy was a must have Peg People in my collection. Much like Robbie, he's one of the few folks who knew Spider-Man's real identity, also deducing it himself.

If you want to read a powerful story arc, look no further than the pages of The Spectacular Spider-Man 107 - 110 for The Death of Jean DeWolff. It shows up often on people's top ten "must read" lists for our hero.

Keeping with his new trend of creating a "special" figure not on the checklist, George delivered a classic character!

Come on! Who doesn't love Dom DeLuise, and his classic Cannonball Run alter ego, Captain Chaos? Well done, George!

With that all said, I updated the checklist, page one looks so amazing fully completed, and now you're up to speed with me...Well, sort of. Check back tomorrow.

Keeping with my own motif, I created a mail away offer for Captain Chaos. Much like the last one, The Greatest American Hero, this keeps these "figures" extra special, while avoiding adding to the checklist.

But, again, check back tomrrow. Noon, specifically.

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