Cinema Won Goes to the Dollar Store

It smelled funny

      Yes, I actually went out in public yesterday for something other than a movie and along the way, I stopped into a Dollar Tree and spent about five bucks. All because I've been watching too much Ashens recently. Ah well. And it was for such worthless crap that I thought it'd be fun to take a look at it here. Also, slightly random though. Peter Capaldi is the new Doctor. Cool. First up:

      Yes. You know. Issue 12 of The First. You know. By Crossgen Comics. The most famous comic book company in the world. Yeah, it's obvious why this was packaged with another comic in a "Superhero Comic Book Spectacular", which includes two comic books and a collectable super hero trading card. The card is, of course, for the spaceship from Moonraker. Yes, seriously. It also says that it contains "Comic Books, 1 "free" trading card, no duplications, super fun". It contains super fun. Right. It will also "Bring the excitement back into reading". Spoiler: No it won't.

      So, The First, is naturally quite awful. It's Issue 12, and other than a completely convoluted single page of backstory, the book doesn't make a lick of sense. I guess The First is a team of superpowered gods that fight bad guys together. Here, they get into a generic fight with some giant bugs and one person can't seem to find her daughter, so an army is raised or something. It made no sense whatsoever. At least we get an ad for MegaCon 2002, where the special guest was Kevin Smith. It's a good thing that was 2002, or else I'd have another reason not to go near MegaCon.

      The other comic was Big Bang Comics Number 2, a collection of comics from the Big Bang company. The cover has a superhero bending the barrel of a tank at it's nazi occupant, which is the best thing about the comics. Inside you get some decent comics from the 40s. And by decent, I mean not The First. However, all the here actually seem like mockbuster versions of DC heroes. There's Ultman (Superman), The Blitz (The Flash), The Human Sub (Cyborg), Thunder Girl (Wonder Woman), Deductive Comics (Batman) and a Justice League style rip-off it looks like. Yeah. At least here we get a story about The Blitz fighting a giant Academy Awards statue come to life. It's actually pretty awesome.

      After that we have the Ninja Action Figure. Yes, I got the black one pictured about. It was complete shit. There was no articulation so it moved less like a ninja and more like someone who didn't get to the bathroom on time. The plastic is ludicrously cheap and literally seconds after taking it out of the packaging it's right leg fell off. I was actually able to break the toy to pieces with very little effort, a feature I'm sure little kids will love. It's weapons are oddly futuristic, like they were taken from another toy, which they probably were. At least the paint is nice, at least on the black one. The red one looks like it'd only be stealthy in a volcano and the white one in a mine shaft in Antarctica. This is the kind of quality insured at dollar stores.

      Next up, it's the Operation Battle Fire Action Soldier. As the packaging tells us, it "Really Crawls". is "Highly Detailed", with "Realistic Weapons" by the people who brought use our ninja friend. How much you want to bet none of that is true? Well, you'd actually be wrong. It actually does... kinda crawl. The rest is all a load of lies. By crawl, it's more hump the ground in a forward fashion, but hey, it's legs didn't break off right away so it's all good. The soldier has seemed to have had some terrible accident where his top and bottom halves are now only connected by his spinal cord and yes, it is still terribly cheap plastic. The side you see on the packaging is painted, but this other side isn't and it's gun and grenade are almost 2-D. At least it crawls.

      Now we get licensed crap. Now, some of these Marvel Miniature Alliance figures are actually nice as I had some as a kid. Granted, they don't do anything other than stand in one pose, but they were well-made and nicely detailed. Not so today. I got the Thor and Iron Man figures you see up there, though the was a Captain America I did not get. The plastic is fairly rubbery, the paint looks cheap and the detailing isn't that good. Thor looks like his lower jaw has been ripped off and his costume is very dirty. Iron Man is bent is a pose I think would be hard to make in a suit of iron.Plus, it kinda looks like he's trying to "heroically" step on a bug. Also in the set are the above Hulk, Spider-Man and Venom, as well as the not picture Wolverine and, I kid you not, the Red Hulk, which is just the normal Hulk figure, literally painted red. Mmm, quality.

      And finally, seeing as how it wouldn't be an Ashens rip-off without a blind bags, we've got Star Wars Fighter Pods, which contains two figures and one pod. I don't get this. I guess it's a Beyblade style game for kids, but with Star Wars characters. Anyway, I didn't actually get this at Dollar Tree, but at a supermarket, but I felt like including it anyway. I got a Series 2 bad, which contained a cheap plastic "pod" for the characters, a tiny, rubbery plastic Luke Skywalker which would make a good Monopoly piece actually and a grossly-pathetic bright red, see-through Darth Vader. If I had a blow torch I'd burn him. Anyway, don't expect me to do this again because I don't ever want to go back into a Dollar Tree ever again. I guess I might if I find something completely outrageous, but I think I'll leave this to the master. Check out Ashens channel on Youtube, his website, and his movie Ashens and the Quest for the Game Child, this... Tuesday I think. God, I should research these better.