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The Boy Wonders . . .

How is Batman supposed to be a hero when there isn't anyone for him to save?

"I can have a Batman party," The Boy, who is in possession of approximately 42 Bat-variants, "but there isn't anything for them to do."

"They can fight with The Joker or The Riddler. Or Spawn, or The Violator."

The Boy also possesses the first three series of Spawn toys, a long story illustrating sharply why you should never ever tell a small boy that the thing he is looking for is in the back of a closet.

"Batman," he informs me, in the condescending tone reserved for use only by small children when speaking to their parents, "doesn't just fight. He rescues people, and does stuff. He and Spawn are both heroes, and Spawn might get mad if he tried to fight with Violator."

He has a point.

Shopping at Superultramega-Mart, we looked at the new Superman action figures.

Thirty variations of Superman, and a villain.

No family.

No friends.

No one to save.

"Why don't they have just a regular people section?"

Um, because the toy companies cater to the grown-up collectors market and what their marketing research predicts will be the most popular, and marketing people think that you should be pretty damned happy that they have allowed you to have any action figures at all.

"Because maybe the toy companies think that nobody would want just regular people."

"They don't have to make all different ones. Just a few that the heroes could share that are the right size."

"I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon."

"Star Wars does it. Some of them are people we know, and some of them are just there to look cool."

"Yeah, but an alien bystander is more interesting than a person bystander."

"That's pretty stupid. I'm getting Attacktix."

UPDATE: He would also like to know why you can buy at least 3 different sizes of Batman and Superman, yet none of them are compatible with Star Wars. Batman vs. General Grievous? Superman vs. Darth Maul? We'll never know . . .

2 comments:

bod said...

the boy has a point!

Anonymous said...

You are correct about toys...so many of them are made for adults...kids don't have a chance...
Having just normal people would make the games more fun. Maybe you've a future games manufacturor on your hands...