Fantastic Friday note: FF action figures

I’ve always appreciated a quality sculpt on an action figure. The mechanics and design that go into action figures these days is crazy. The quality has made a quantum leap, or two, or three, since the ’80’s and early ’90’s. Back then, you’d be lucky to get an arm to bend. Now, quite often, there are 22 points of articulation on a lot of these figures. In some cases, they look like statures that can also move. So, for Fantastic Friday, we’re taking a look at two recent sets of figures of the FF. First up is a series of figures that were Walgreens exclusive’s. 

Marketing-wise, this was unfortunate on many levels, as Walgreens doesn’t really give a crap about action figures—but you may ask then, why are they getting exclusives? Well, I’m guessing someone in corporate loves action figures and set it up. But if you take our neighborhood Walgreens for example, you’ll find that since the manager didn’t sell out of the Invisible Woman figures he had in stock, he wasn’t going to bother getting the next figure in line, Mr. Fantastic. Poor Sue has been sitting on that shelf for over two years, with no discount in sight. 

Meanwhile, in countless other Walgreens, plenty of douchebags would go into their neighborhood stores, steal, or buy up every last one of the figures, then go home and sell them on eBay for quadruple the price. Walgreens runs a business, they don’t care enough to limit each person to a couple figures only, etc., and really, I can’t blame them. They want to get rid of product, but bottom line, it was more difficult than usual get the figures. But get them I did. 

This set features the old school, original FF blue uniforms with black trim and they are my favorite. The sculpts are very nice and detailed, along with the multiple points of articulation I mentioned before. 

Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), comes with replaceable stretching arms, so you can opt for those or the regular versions. 

Sue Richards (the Invisible Woman), comes with replaceable hands but has both arms starting to go transparent. 

Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) is represented on fire and comes with extra fireballs, etc. 

Ben Grimm, (the Thing) is a solid piece of work with some good heft. He’s got well designed and sculpted features like the rest. It’s all the more impressive when you can manage articulation on a larger, bulkier figure but mostly keep the natural lines of the figure. They do a great job across the board. Sadly, this is still not the Thing as designed by Jack Kirby, but it’s a pretty great version on its own.

Then, we have the new era, modern day FF, headlining a Build-a-figure collection. With this set, each of the six figures comes with a piece of the Super-Skrull, which you can assemble once you complete the group. This build-a-figure deal has been going on for many years but until now, I’ve never wanted to bother with them. But these figures, at least initially, are very cheap, and the sculpts are partially based on the Walgreens exclusive set, with certain differences, depending on the character. 

First is the over all look, based on the current costumes and style in the comic today. This means the black costumes with blue trim. Of the different variations that have been tried with the FF’s costumes over the years—most not that great—this design is not bad at all.

They all have the same level of articulation as the Walgreens figures of course but as I mentioned, there are differences. Instead of the long arm, this Reed sports an alternative stretchy hand, plus he has the beard, which is also part of his look in the current comics.

Sue comes with an invisible force shield, and like the rest, she’s got not only the current costume but they’ve got nice rubber tread on their boots which makes them easier to stand and display. Good designing there.

Johnny is the most drastic change, as he comes without the flames but with the option for some flame attachments to his arms. 

The Thing sports a slightly different paint job and a new bottom jaw to give his mug a different look.  He also has the new era trunks and belt on, emblazoned with the “4”.

The two extra figures that come as part of the build a figure set includes Hulk (formerly known as She-Hulk), which is a very nice sculpt…

…and maybe the best action figure I’ve ever seen of Dr. Doom. The fabric, mask, detail, armor, all pretty much perfect. 

Finally, the object of the Build-a-figure, The Super Skrull, an alien warrior of the sinister Skrull race, who was given all the powers of the Fantastic four to go forth and wreak vengeance upon the team for imagined threats against his homeward. The SS comes with a stretching, invisible arm, a rocky, flaming fist and an ugly mug. In other words, the perfect Super Skrull. 

This was in the mid ’80’s, when life was carefree, meaningful job free and partially responsibility free. We can’t say for certain how it happened. We can’t say for sure where it happened, but we do have suspicions and circumstantial evidence. 

I got sick. Sicker than I’d ever been. I may have either already moved back in with my folks or was staying there for some kind of moderate care but I was in a bad way. For two weeks. 

I couldn’t eat, and keep things down. I couldn’t eat, period. About all I could consume was room temperature cherry Kool Aid. Probably why I won’t drink the stuff today. Day in and day out, I lay there, in and out of consciousness. One time, I went to the bathroom and simply passed out. I regained consciousness sometime later not knowing where I was. In bed, sometimes I was drenched in sweat. Sometimes I was freezing. My teeth were getting loose. I lost 25 pounds. I very seriously thought I was going to die. Until last year, this was about the worst I ever felt. 

There were times, drifting in and out of delirium, where I wondered– why hasn’t Linda called? It’s been a couple weeks, why hasn’t she checked in on me? I was irritated at this more than anything. 

Eventually, I got better and slowly rejoined the world, went back to work, etc. Sometime later, I got in touch with Linda only to find out she was exactly in the same boat as me, so deathly ill that she was staying at her parents for a couple of weeks. She was pissed that *I* hadn’t checked on *her*!  

So, for both of us to be hit like that with the exact same devastating illness, we concluded it had to be the result of us dining together at a certain place, and the best candidate was a recent visit to an old restaurant chain, now defunct, called Salvador’s. We had frequented the place together many a time, usually for the 44 oz fish bowl margarita. We had to conclude that what got us sick was likely the salsa they served on that certain night, them possibly not properly washing the vegetables. It’s our best guess. 

It continued to wreak physical havok on me for a while, as a few weeks later, I started losing my hair. I think I lost about 50% of it as it was thinning and falling out pretty badly. Thanks to some medication, it eventually stopped falling out and rebounded, mostly regrowing but it was never as full as it had been. 

The moral of the story? Don’t eat unwashed vegetables? Best to stay away from vegetables from strangers, surely…

Sometime in — I want say 1981, so I will– 1981, I was turned on to an amazing little restaurant. It’s very possible it may also *originally* have been a death trap that was probably breaking health code violations, situated in a sketchy neighborhood. None of that can be proven though, except maybe the status of the neighborhood at the time. The point is, once you maneuvered your way past the broken front door and sidled up to the counter, you had the opportunity to buy a steak burrito as big as your head. Side note: that term “burrito as big as your head” was bandied about years later referring to many other places that came *after* El Faro. As far as I can tell, El Faro was the first in the Chicagoland area. 

Located in Summit, Il., this mecca of Mexican cuisine was THE go-to place, 24 hours a day, but quite often, after you had a few drinks and needed to get your system right, an El Faro burrito would hit the spot. You could also get a chicken burrito, tacos, various other dishes but the steak burrito was the way to go. You would stand there and watch as they cooked up giant piles of steak, chicken, etc, and assembled the various orders. You could eat there or take them to go, having them load you up with extra containers of hot sauce and peppers. Beware traveling home with the burritos because the smell has been said to drive people mad with hunger before you actually got home. If you ate there, you had the nice, giant, hot burrito in a basket, along with a giant squirt bottle of hot sauce and an RC cola. Some say this is exactly what heaven’s like. They’re probably right. 

The burritos back in 1981 were $2, and that was an excellent deal for this pound (or two) of meaty delight. Today, it’s $5.50 and *still* an excellent deal for what you get. And rest assured, after the initial state of the place, within a year or so, El Faro remodeled and fixed up the place and eventually expanded. Oh sure, there were jokes about horse meat, cat meat, dog meat, etc. because of the original environment, but I laughed all the way. Because A) the burritos were delightful, B) they would have been shut down 40 years ago had any of those allegations been true and C) Neither I, or anyone I know have ever gotten sick after eating there. The same can’t be said for almost every other Mexican food establishment we’ve frequented over the years. My wife, kids, friends, have all had issues with other places at one time or another, including one of the El Faro copycat places, El Famous. This bland pretender to the throne is a chain that was allegedly started by former employees of El Faro. I went there once or twice. My wife and friend got sick, we never went back. 

I think I only ever got really sick from one meal in my life and that was from a Mexican restaurant I used to frequent a lot in the ’80’s for their margaritas. But that was serious. So much so, that’s a different blog post all together. 

As for El Faro, probably the wackiest story involving the place was the time I ditched a Halloween party to go for a burrito. It was the early to mid ’80’s, I was hungry, and dressed as Gumby, (Eddie Murphy, Gumby, SNL, look it up, kids), with the giant foam head and green face paint. Unfortunately, this just happened to be the night where the place that was open 24 hours a day WASN’T because that was when they remodeled. So there I stood, at 3am, in a sketchy neighborhood, banging on the door that wouldn’t open, dressed as Gumby, damnit. Thus, it was in a foul mood that I jumped back in my 1970 Mustang, with the .302 V8 engine and bucket seats and proceeded to open her up for the first time ever on highway 55. This is something I would usually never do but when it’s 3am, there’s absolutely nobody on the highway, you’ve got a car like that, it’s Halloween and you’re dressed like Gumby, you open that bitch up. Got her up to 110 mph before I saw signs of life a mile down the road and powered down. Felt good. The El Faro burrito would have been better. That fact still stands true today. 

In fact, it might be time for another run soon….. they also have chorizo……

Not even sure what I meant by the title—I’ve re-written portions of this about 7 times while it’s been in the queue, so here it finally is. Play Ball! That might have been a better title….

So I’m curious to see how grandpa Rossi manages the Cubbies. Pretty much the  same Cubbies from last year. Well not exactly the same. Hamel’s gone but then again, you were never quite sure what you were going to get. Strop’s gone to Cinci, but he’s been off ever since the first hamstring injury. Kinzler’s gone and he was the most consistent guy out of the pen last year. Still got Ryan, Wick and Wieck.

It’d be great if Hendricks had a banner year again, no reason why he shouldn’t. All Q needs to do is stay aggressive and consistent. Hopefully Lester can double down on workouts and really transform himself into the horse for one more year, go out on top. And Darvish… if he can hold onto that magic he grabbed the second half of last year, no one will be able to touch him.

I expect career years from both Contreras and Caratini this year. I expected Ross to do the smart thing and keep Anthony at lead off and let him have fun with it, but it looks like Bryant is going to be top of the order. Okay then. Javy– I never know what to expect from Javy. 

Russell’s gone, so if that dark cloud was causing discomfort, he’s no longer an excuse. Let’s hope Jay Hey gets another tiny bump in his average. Castellanos is gone. Also to the Reds. They were already beating the crap out of us, now they got arguably our best guy. When I say best guy, I’m talking bat and balls and energy. Poof, he’s gone. Time for Bote and Happ to step the hell up and have career years. Come ON already. 

Oh. And Schwarbs. You *kinda* promised us a legend back in ’16. You delivered the *start* of it in the World Series. We’ve now waited three additional years. I’m already fine if they trade you, because you haven’t been that impressive — which is why they’re also not getting as many bites. Come ON. 

Lot of people saying they’ve gotten fat and lazy over the past couple years– I just refer to it as complacent. Still same cause and effect. I think Ross can only be good for some of these guys. They’ve had all the tools they’ve needed for the past three years to get right back to the World Series, but they’ve just folded up faster each year.

Maybe less swagger and more professionalism and dedication. Maybe more smart baseball. 

The players are already saying Ross is great, everyone needs to be accountable, yada yada. Great. They’ve been saying all the right things since ’16 but not *doing* the right things. We’ll see. 

I look forward to seeing it. Whoops! No, it’ll be on Marquee network, which I won’t pay for. Like I say, I’ll look forward to hearing it on the radio, because the thing IS.

Spoilers ahead as always… but in a nutshell, the big reveal was that the Doctor is really an ancient being that predates the civilization of the Time Lords, is billions of years old, and is THE source of how Time Lords regenerate. She just doesn’t remember any of that. Anyway, on with the review….

I’m a man of my word. He answered some questions. Good for Chibs and good for us. I must say, even though Nutty McMaster is a fruit loop and a psychotic anarchist, he does think on his feet. Grabbing the Cyberium and building a Cyberman army that can regenerate using Gallifreyan corpses, basically immortal Cybermen…as far as power crazed, frothing mad dog plans go, it was fairly solid. And leaving the death particle for the Doctor to find was a win win for him. Either the Doctor would kill them all and in his mind, he wins, or she wimps out and he still wins. 

HOWEVER. While I applaud us getting answers, and the majority of the ep chugged along fairly well…… I mean, the ep had about as weak an ending as we’ve seen.

The Doctor getting saved by another age old cliche was ridiculous. “You go, Doctor, the cliched bomb simply can’t be armed by remote control! I will sacrifice my cliched self for YOU!” That was incredibly weak and we’ve seen it a million times. Surely there was a better, more original way for them to pull that off. Limitations of the Chib.

As far as the Doctor wimping out and not even pulling the trigger…..Here, it would have been a clean action. No one would have suffered except all the bad guys and her. The thing that stopped her was the Master saying she’d be like him? Come ON. Was she willing to sacrifice herself for the universe or not?  Sorry, that was very lame. Again, limitation of the Chib.

Regarding the reveal of the Timeless Child. At first, all these revelations basically amounted to a “so what?” So the Doctor’s got a secret past history. So what? I mean, why did this cause the Master to destroy Gallifrey? 

But then it comes out that Gallifrey, all Time Lords, owing their existence to the Doctor, he just couldn’t cope with that “indignity”, and we come back to Nutty McMaster. He’s an unstable goober in the cereal bowl. I guess that stays true to this version of the Master. He gets upset, he just kills everyone. Not many ways to go with this character. He’s limited by his mania. 

The Cybermen in general, I still didn’t care about, but they served their purpose.

The excess humans, same. I just was curious about the Gaillfrey revelation and the whole Timeless Child thing. 

My wife and I were actively either telling Ryan to shut up or stay out in the open where the Cybermen could kill him. Graham was wonderful as always and Yaz is from Yorkshire, so that must explain her many limitations?

Does this retcon “ruin” Doctor Who? No. It does stick a nasty Chibnall earworm in our head but it can’t logically interfere with the past 57 years. It actually puts a whole new spotlight on Brain of Morbius though!

So on balance, I think there were more positives than negatives here. They didn’t even really leave us hanging. Hopefully the “fam” is gone for good. That’d be a huge victory. And the Doctor being thrown in prison — that was rather slap dash and unlikely but whatever– I’m perfectly happy with her locked up. You know she’ll get out, you know Nutty’s still alive. All in all, a decent enough ending. Certainly not magnificent or amazing (I wasn’t wrung out by any means or even emotional) but I think it was at least an acceptable finale over all. *Definitely* better than last series’.

But what is the aftermath for the rest of fandom? Has the Doctor’s secret past history set the internet on fire? Or does it matter? Did this finale salvage the Chibs era, or at least validate this season? Or, has Chibs just finally blown it, you considered this as absolutely the last straw and you’re walking away? How find ye?

I approach each episode of new era Doctor Who (Series 12 final ep tonight), as an amateur sociologist, one of a million critics, a 40 year fan, and a would be writer. 

Showrunner Chris Chibnall wasted half of Series 11 which served no one. Not the fans, the BBC, no one but himself, leaving some guest writers to add a tiny bit of characterization to the regular cast. He also threw one tiny line about “The Timeless Child” way back in S11.2, “Ghost Monument”, a horrible, dreary, 50 minute mistake. No other mentions or allusions to Chibnall’s grand plan. Evidently he *has* a grand plan, though. Yes, definitely.

In fact, after the show’s ratings continued a slide throughout all of S11, he may have been prompted by the BBC to speed things up a bit. Because of the 9 episodes of this 10 ep season so far, he’s spent 5 of them setting up prologues and precursors, not telling us anything but getting ready for the big finale! He’s brought back the Master who has big secrets THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING…….AND EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS A LIE! Gallifrey’s been destroyed by the Master, but why? WAIT FOR THE FINALE! Evidently there’s a whole other Doctor we never knew about! Who is she? What is she? Why is she? WAIT FOR THE FINALE! Are Time Lords the descendants of humans? WAIT FOR THE FINALE! Etc., etc. 

For context, of the 9 eps so far:

Skyfall part 1 – Good *set up* for

Spyfall pt 2 – a bunch of rehashed ideas from RTD and the Moff & more *set up* for the finale!

Orphan 55 – just a crap ep with endless preachy speeches hammered in over and over

Nicola Tesla’s Night of Terror – average but good ep!

Fugitive of the Judoon – very exciting ep that dazzles as a big *set up*!

Praxeus – bland ep with more messages, felt like a filler. (a filler in only a 10 ep series? eh.)

Can you hear me? – message show, told poorly, with added insults to everyone watching. Horrible. 

Haunting of Villa Diodati – not a bad *set up* story for the two part finale.

Ascension of the Cybermen – part one of the two part finale, naturally, a *set up* for pt 2.

To be clear, I’m used to Series long arcs that usually, mostly pay off in the end. In past seasons, showrunners Russel T Davies and Steven Moffat have done that, to varying degrees of success but at the same time, told many successful stand alone stories in the series leading up to it, with well developed Doctors and companions.

Chibs is doing nothing more than playing for time. He’s tap dancing and hiding most of his stuff behind the curtain. He’s hoping the pleasing fireworks he’s setting off amaze and entertain enough that you don’t notice he’s saying nothing, showing nothing, stalling….stalling, until he gets to tonight’s finale. This means he’s going to have to deliver *something*. He’s already said we’ll get *some* answers– which is good, and hey, maybe that’ll be enough! But some things will be continued in S13, which is another measly ten eps that won’t be shown until autumn 2021 at the very earliest. 

What I would like, would be a bit of closure on something, but maybe *without* Chibs just stealing more ideas from Davies and Moffat and other past Who adventures again to tell his story, albeit it in a lesser fashion. He doesn’t even copy well, he just copies. 

There’s still a spark of hope that he might pull it off. According to Chibs, it will leave us emotional, wrung out, open mouthed and in need of a stiff drink. 

Well, going by his history, those are the effects of a typical Chibs written episode. But will it be any good?

Anything’s possible. Good, bad or ugly, I can’t look away yet. 

When my wife convinced me to do a blog, I thought that I should do an entry each day for one year. That’s 365 days to you and me.  I figured that during that time period, I should be able to get everything out. Every story, confession, theory, experience, you name it. Although that’s not entirely true. There are a few things I’ll keep to myself that are none of your beeswax. 

“Beeswax”. Ha! I’m old. 

But Leap Year Day adds a 366th day X factor to the proceedings. After all the past complaining about how my mother never tells me anything about her past life (you’ll see), I shouldn’t hold back, so fair enough kids, everything must go. Let’s make Leap Year Day memorable.

Okay, here are two bits for Leap Year Day. A rather mild remembrance and then a confession.

One:  In junior high (?) one time I was accosted by this one older kid who I think may have been nuts. While it was mostly my pride that was hurt, in future, it did give me a greater hatred for bullies and caused me to really go nuclear on a couple kids that bullied some other victims after that. When *I* was bullied, I was slow to react at all, or get mad, because usually I was just totally mystified as to why anyone would want to pick on me of all people. But I guess there’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to it. Really, this was small potatoes, as it only happened a couple times. 

Two:  Way back in the early ’90’s, I got a D.U.I. A stupid act that–had it been worse, or if anyone had gotten hurt or killed, it could have easily destroyed my life. *That* terrified me. Still does. Never been angrier with myself. Color me far luckier than I deserve to be. True, this was almost 30 years ago but it doesn’t make it any less egregious. In fact, several years ago, I was called up for jury duty and they were determining who was to serve on a case regarding a guy who got a DUI and whatever else was involved. 

The judge asked if there was anyone who felt they couldn’t be impartial about the case. I raised my hand told them that years earlier, I’d gotten a DUI. The prosecution and defense both started scribbling on their pads, while the judge commented “So you feel you’d be sympathetic toward the defendant?” 

“Sympathetic? No.” I said “It was stupid and unacceptable when *I* did it. I’m certainly not going to go any easier on some stranger, especially if someone was hurt.” More frantic scribbling on paper. They excused me from duty. 

Interesting that the judge naturally assumed I’d side with the other DUI guy. 

Okay, got that off my chest. Anyway, that’s my Leap Year day post, with another gander at how my mind works. You can consider this a bonus or #366, whatever works for you.

Leap Year.

 

One of the nice things about a million cable channels and various streaming services is that those entities, combined with a DVR which searches out programs, means you can usually find most anything, especially old tv shows. Case in point, Columbo. Peter Falk played the disheveled detective from 1968 to 2003. 35 years! 

The formula of the show was simple: we see someone orchestrate and commit the would be perfect murder. Unfortunately for them, Lieutenant Columbo has been assigned to the case. Columbo has two things going for him. His rumpled, disorganized appearance constantly makes the killers underestimate him and he’s a very thorough, methodical, inquisitive, persistent and intelligent detective. Columbo would examine each and every detail very closely, pulling on various threads, asking all sorts of questions, usually making a pain in the ass of himself until uncovering the murderer and the evidence he needed to put that person away. And when he knew someone did it but couldn’t *prove* it, he’d often set a trap the killer would fall into, incriminating themselves. I mean, a number of times, the killer really did think of everything, but was too clever or arrogant for their own good and got tripped up by the scruffy sleuth. 

By and large, the scripts were usually top notch and during the show’s heyday in the 1970’s, it boasted the likes of writers like Steven Bochco among others. They had many top stars of the day coming in to play the murderers, like Robert Conrad, William Shatner, Lee Grant, Robert Culp and many more. Mind you, not all of them were winners. “Last salute to the Commodore” was a bizarre, meandering tale of some old sea captain being killed. Directed by the very strange and unpredictable Patrick McGoohan, what made this episode really stand out was the obvious day drinking exhibited by some of the cast during shooting. It got to the point that when everyone was gathered to expose the murderer, several cast members playing extra detectives had to verbally drag the proceedings along while Falk was stumbling amongst the decorative driftwood. My take: Falk, McGoohan and the writer were shit-faced and only with the greatest assistance by added cast members, were they able to get this one in the can. But this was the anomaly. Usually, Columbo ranked among the best written tv around and it had the Emmys to prove it.

It was also part of the regular rotation of the Sunday Mystery movie, a brilliant collection of shows that took turns each week during the season. Columbo shared the time slot with McMillan and Wife, starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James and McCloud, starring Dennis Weaver. This would mean that in any season, they’d only have to produce 8 TV movies a year for each franchise and the format was initially very popular. 

After doing the pilot in 1968, the bulk of Columbo’s episodes came in the 1970’s through 45 TV movies in seven seasons, 1971 through 1978, but lived on with another four entries for an 8th season in 1989, another six for a 9th season in 1990, and then a string of 14 specials comprising a 10th season from 1990 to 2003. 

In these later seasons, yes there were a couple clunkers and in a *few* cases, it seemed like the best he could get the murderers on was circumstantial evidence that any decent lawyer could make go away. Still, by and large, always a treat, seeing Columbo running through his process, taking down these arrogant killers who often made that one, tiny mistake that eventually does them in. 

The detective himself was a pile of quirks and idiosyncrasies which formed the character. He’d show up to murder scenes in the wee hours of the morning, obviously having been pulled straight out of bed and only half awake, asking for coffee, sometimes with a hard boiled egg or two in his pocket so he could grab a quick bite while he ambled around. He’d sometimes bring his basset hound with him, leaving the mutt in his car while he visited the scene. He usually had a cigar going at all times, had various notes and other paperwork stuffed into his trench coat or other pockets. He was unkempt at the best of times and drove around a dilapidated 1960 Peugeot. He was literally a mess at all times and the murderers always took him for granted, until he nabbed them.

Thanks to the Hallmark Mystery channel, I’m currently in the home stretch of watching the last 6 eps from the show’s run. I’m curious to see how the quality holds up as far as the writing goes. The last six stretch out over a final decade, ’94 to ’03 and Falk was in his early 70’s by the end. Evidently, he was so good, the force never let the man retire! Sadly, the great man passed in 2011.

Falk had great range and a great career in movies (It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Great Race, Anzio, The In-Laws, The Princess Bride) and tv but he was best known as the lovable, rumpled detective. 

Two extra bits:

1. Although we never saw his wife in the show, she was always mentioned. But somebody did eventually do a show called “Mrs. Columbo” starring Kate Mulgrew, who was completely wrong for the part, being absolutely nothing like Columbo had described her over the years, along with her being half his age. Thankfully, the show didn’t last long and was pretty much forgotten. 
2. We never officially knew his first name, as he never gave it. However, waaaaaay back in the first season, (episode three, “Dead Weight”), in one scene, he flashes his badge and if you look closely at the ID, you can see his signature, and that his first name was

Buckle up–I’m going with the flow on this one.

Pretty much anytime I see a heartfelt father and son moment on tv or in the movies, odds are, there’ll be waterworks at some level. It could even be an old man and a boy as in grandfather/grandson. Same cause and effect. Emotion. It doesn’t take a brainiac to figure out that I react that way because of the bizarre/nonexistent relationship I had with my father. What could have been and should have been but wasn’t. 

I’d once heard that your relationship with God mirrors your relationship with your father. But I’m an agnostic, so I kind of keep an open mind. Perhaps you might think I’d be an atheist since dad left or was booted out when I was two and never met him, but no, it gets weird. 

He was around. 

He sometimes visited his brother, my uncle, and his family in Worth. And *I* quite often visited that family after mom and I moved close by. See, my mom and I *had* lived with my grandparents in Oak Lawn after my folks split up, so I in effect had three parents from age two through ten. BUT, we had to move to Worth after my grandpa retired and my grandparents moved away to Florida. 10 year old me was very angry that two of my three parents were leaving me and I even defaced an expensive table in protest. Point was, I was always over there at my cousins house, but he would visit the family as well, so there had to be a concerted effort to keep he and I apart. (?) But it gets weirder. 

A few years later, there was a big party (graduation?) for my older cousin, I guess. I don’t remember the purpose of the get together, only that both my father and I were there. Quite often probably only feet apart. He was right there. I could go up and hug him if I wanted to but I didn’t. He was a stranger. He was there with his then girlfriend or wife. She sat near my mother and they probably chatted over lunch. Damn near everyone at the party had to be aware that Dick Lundeen’s kid was Right. Over. There. No one said anything about it (that I heard, anyway). I steadfastly avoided him for couple of hours. It wasn’t a big house or a big yard and if I brushed past him at any point or came into direct physical contact when moving about, I have no memory of it. 

The last time I saw him, he was leaving the party with his wife, ambling down the sidewalk. His one leg was badly bowed outward as he walked. I later found out he once had a broken leg and didn’t let it heal properly. If you’re wondering why he never approached me at the party, I later found out that –allegedly– his brain was so addled with booze, instead of realizing I was a teenager, he somehow still thought I was an infant, the same age as when he left. I don’t even know if that was true or just some bullshit to maybe try and make me feel “better” about him ignoring me. No idea. 

Years later, my uncle died and my father was probably at the wake the same time as I was. I have this recollection (or was it a dream) of my cousin pointing out my father to me, as if to say, here’s your chance. Go to him. But I didn’t. Did he know I was there? Did he still think I was an infant? Did he care? I don’t know. I’ll never know because I never made the attempt. Neither did he. Maybe that’s on me because at that point, I believe I was an adult by then, at least 21.

A couple years later, the phone rings. It’s my mom telling me that she thought I should know that my father was on his death bed. The guy who left when I was two, the guy I never heard much of anything about– nothing good anyway– the guy who never wanted to connect with me, the guy I didn’t know, was on his death bed. I responded to my mom that I never really met the guy so what am I supposed to think or care? “Well,” she said, “I thought you should know he’s not expected to make it through the night.” And that’s how we left it. 

Couple years later, Vic gives me condolences that my father died. I said he died years ago. Turns out that he got better, mom forgot to tell me. So he died again. No idea how or why or where. 30 years go by. When I was diagnosed with cancer and the docs wanted to know family history, I never knew of any history, although it eventually came out that my uncle had lymphoma. As for my father, total mystery as usual. All we found out was that he had moved to Washington state but no idea about the cause of death, as his wife didn’t give any details when she called my aunt. 

Oh, and we have no idea if my father had any other kids, so no clue on any other sisters or brothers. 

So, yeah. The only other tidbits I knew about him:

He was a drunk

He used to work over at that US 30 drag-strip place

He once punched a cop

And I believe I have covered the entirety of my relationship with my father. 

Probably a rather informative piece of the puzzle that is me. 

In the meantime, I’d like to *think* I’m a decent dad. Acceptable at the very least. 

I would say better than my dad was anyway, though admittedly, that bar was set incredibly low. 

Sorry — felt like putting a photo up.

Sooooo many times, me and my brethren at the ***** ****** (sorry, top secret) have ranked the Marvel movies and with each film that’s come out, the list gets crazier and bulkier. Since I love lists — although I’m finding maybe not quite as much as I used to– I figured I’d put up my MCU list, but pepper in a ton of other superhero films to see where they compare when inserted into the competition. Many will disagree but no one agrees totally with anyone else’s list anyway. I’ll just say many factors came into play but this is my list. the non- MCU films are signified by an asterisk because. Oh, and if I missed one or two, I really don’t care because it either doesn’t belong on the list or would rank low on the list anyway, or maybe it’s a different genre other than superhero yada yada yada. The list is big enough and I had to go back in like a dozen times. Here goes:

Winter Soldier

Infinity War

Endgame 

Civil War

Avengers

Captain America: The First Avenger

*Incredibles

*Superman 1 and 2

*Spider-man 2

Dark Knight

Ironman 

*Spider-man 1

Deadpool

GOTG 1

GOTG 2

Deadpool 2

Batman ’89

Spider-man: Homecoming 

*X-men 2

*X-men DOFP

Iron man 3

Ant-man

Incredible Hulk

*X-men First Class

Iron man 2

*Watchmen

*Batman ’66

Ragnarok 

*Logan

Dr. Strange

*Wonder Woman

*Fantastic Four 2005

Wolverine: Origins

Far From Home

Ant-man and the Wasp

Age of Ultron

*FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer

*The Wolverine

*Incredibles 2

Dark World

*X-men the Last Stand

*Man of Steel

*Dark Knight Rises

*Batman Returns

Thor 

*X-men

*BVS

*Justice League

*Green Lantern

*X-men Apocalypse

Captain Marvel

Black Panther

*Spider-man 3

*Fantastic Four -Corman

*Aquaman

*Superman 3

*Batman Forever

*Amazing Spider-man

*Amazing Spider-man 2

*Fantastic Four 2015

*Batman and Robin

*Superman IV: the Quest for Peace

*The Spirit