Friday, September 18, 2020

Barbecue's Bonfire 9/18/2020: Scareglow Birthday Cake Edition

 

Hey everyone! Barbecue's Bonfire for this week is popping up a bit later today than usual but that's because yesterday was my birthday and I had a lot going on! Last year my dad (who is now retired and a fantastic baker) made me a Moss Man birthday cake. This year? Scareglow! I don't own a vintage Scareglow (yet!) but I love the character and try to get every Scareglow I can get my hands on. Scareglow is a butterscotch cake with buttercream icing. It does not glow in the dark. How amazing is this, right? What else is going on this week? Glad you asked!


 I finished reading The Tommyknockers this week. Published in 1987, the Tommyknockers tells the story of the residents of Haven, Maine who are taken over by an alien presence dwelling in a spaceship buried in the woods outside of the town. I was excited to get to this book as part of my trek to finish all of King's novels (I'm trying to read through all of the ones I've never read before in order of publication) as it always stands out to me as one of the novels from the golden era of Stephen King. I also have vague memories of the TV movie from the early 1990s, though I haven't watched it yet. This is a longer King book and while it's entertaining, and at times very good, the pacing of the book is weird. It ignores main characters for hundreds of pages at a time and jumps around quite a bit. Still, it's filled with some rather interesting and disturbing imagery and feels like King's take on an H.P. Lovecraft styled tale. 


More after the break...


After reading The Tommyknockers I took a short break to read a few recent Star Wars comics Marvel. First up is Target Vader, which came out in single issues last year and was published as a trade in February 2020. I've had it sitting around for a few months but just hadn't got around to it yet. Written by Robbie Johnson who also wrote the pretty solid Han Solo: Imperial Cadet (this book has a reference to the battle on Mimban, too) this is a fairly standalone book about Beilert Valance (he was introduced in the vintage Marvel Star Wars books) and a bounty to take down Darth Vader. It's a solid Darth Vader versus Bounty Hunters tale (Dengar's involved, too) that's quite fun. There are some great scenes of Vader involved in physical combat, lots of familiar alien races, some very cool Gamorreans, and lots of subterfuge and secret shenanigans. Largely inconsequential but quite fun.


  The second Marvel Star Wars book I checked out this week is The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule. Soule is no stranger to Star Wars as he's written a bunch of Marvel Star Wars series and he'd done an admirable job here of taking elements from the Sequel Trilogy that didn't get explored much and adding some order to them. The book offers glimpses of both Luke Skywalker as a Jedi Master and Ben Solo as a student along with actually giving us a glimpse at Luke's Jedi academy and some of the other students. Most significantly, however, Soule explores Snoke and his plan to lure Ben to the dark side, eventually leading to Ben taking up the mantle of Kylo Ren. The Knights of Ren are explored here, too. It's way more satisfying than what we saw in the films though it's still a bit underdone. There's still little to no explanation of Snoke's actual role in the galaxy, how he got connected to Ben Solo, and why Ben Solo was so drawn to the dark side. We've seen quite a few writers try to make sense of the Sequel Trilogy thus far and I'm curious if we'll see much more or if the Sequel Trilogy will get the Prequel Trilogy treatment for a few years. This is worth a read, though not as satisfying as I hoped it would be.

 

* Remember me talking about my love of American Ninja, a film I just discovered a month or so ago? Well now get ready for American Ninja 2: The Confrontation! This 1987 features more ninjas (including genetically engineered ninjas), more U.S. soldiers hanging out in exotic locations, longer fight scenes, and lots more of Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) and Curtis Jackson (Steve James) fighting nearly everyone they come across. Do you want a movie that is fun, action packed, and feels like a 1980s Nintendo or arcade game come to life? Then check out American Ninja 2: The Confrontation. Why didn't I see these movies as a kid? I would have loved them! This one gets a huge recommendation. Do you want to see an American ninja catch a blow dart in his hand and then toss a shuriken into the eye of the would be assassin? Want to see an Indiana Jones styled chase where a ninja uses a grappling hook to snare a truck, allowing himself to be dragged behind? Want to see a boss ninja slay a bunch of worker ninjas for fun and practice? Check this one out.

 

 

* Speaking of ninjas, The Toy Box is hosting a contest to win a G.I. Joe Classified Series Snake Eyes and Arctic Mission Storm Shadow. Get over there, leave a comment about your favorite moment from the G.I. Joe cartoon series, and win some free toys. The Toy Box is a wealth of knowledge (I refer to it frequently) so check it out! 




Last, but not least, let's check out the current list of my most popular articles. I'm always fascinated to see what articles get the most hits and end up on the list of "Our Most Popular Dishes." at Action Figure Barbecue. This week we've got:


 Casey Jones and Raphael (In Disguise) from NECA's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been making its way up and finally jumped to the top of the list. NECA's toyline based on the 1990 film has been popular over the past couple of years and now that NECA can more widely release these toys Turtlemania is back in full effect. Have you found a Super Shredder yet? Me neither. I have been seeing this set more often, so it's out there. If you're a regular reader and want some help finding some stuff always feel free to hit me up. I'm happy to help my friends and fellow collectors out.

Cobra Trooper from G.I. Joe Classified Series is on here for his second week.  This is another one of the Target exclusive Special Missions: Cobra Island figures and, wow, are these things a pain. Matt from the Toy Box found me a Beachhead but I'm still missing the Baroness set.

Han Solo (Carbonite) from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Collection- Han Solo frozen in carbonite is one of the most striking and iconic images in the Star Wars saga and folks still keep checking this one out. It seems like Amazon restocked this guy, too, so go get him at a non-scalper price!

The Child from Star Wars: The Black Series by Hasbro has entered the list and now the power and adorableness of Baby Yoda is in full effect. With the trailer for The Mandalorian Season 2 hitting this past week I think we're in for a lot of Baby Yoda in the months to come.

 Doggo from Fortnite Legendary Series by Jazwares is another new recruit to the list. Doggo isn't one of my favorite figures in the line although I do love his facial expressions. I'm not a Fortnite player but Jazwares' Legendary Series is a fantastic toyline and I'm always glad to see it get some attention. Jazwares really seems like they have the potential to be a major player in the action figure aisle, so good for them. 

Battle Cat vs. Roton from Masters of the Universe by Mega Construx is the third new item on the list this week. This is a great building series and a cool MOTU line with a pretty nice array of characters so far. I'm really excited to see how this line grows as it's clear from the PowerCon 2020 panel that the team working on it has a lot of love for the MOTU brand. 


That's all for this week. We're having some awesome fall-like weather in North Carolina this week (well, yesterday was rainy due to the hurricane) so enjoy the season. I hope you're all safe and comfortable wherever you're at!




11 comments:

  1. Happy birthday!

    I know I read Tommyknockers when it first came out: my grandma used to get me the new King every Christmas, which I would start reading immediately. Wouldn't mind reading it again, though!

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    1. I had so many Stephen King books back in the day as part of the Stephen King book club. Could never get into them.

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    2. Prior to this year I had read about 25 of King's/ Bachman's books, starting with Pet Sematary which I started my first day of 8th grade. I'm currently working my way through the rest. I finished all of his 1970s books earlier this year and now I'm on the last of his 1980s novels.

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  2. Holy crap! What happened to Scareglow on the secondary market? I bought mine for sixty to eighty dollars in 2016. Now it's like a three hundred dollar figure!

    Awesome cake, man!

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    1. Thanks. And yeah, thanks have gotten crazy with Scareglow. I wish I had bought one a few years back, too.

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    2. Looks like things have gotten that way with quite a few vintage MOTU figures.

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  3. Happy Birthday! Tommyknockers was one of the few books of King that I read. I recall the two brothers playing with their GI Joes. Do I remember that correctly? Read it when it first came out.

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    1. That is correct. One of the brothers makes his younger brother disappear and he prays to God, making a promise that if his younger brother reappears he will give him all of his G.I. Joes, except for Snake Eye and Crystal Ball. King apparently wrote the bio and/ or designed the character of Crystal Ball, interestingly enough. And Sneakpeak? His file name is Owen King (one of Stephen's sons) and his hometown is listed as Bangor Maine.

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  4. King's The Tommyknockers is a good book but suffers from, what I refer to as his long-windedness. You're right, he'll go on for chapters ignoring certain characters and go on tangents about little details that can get kind of dull. That made It such a chore to get through. It would get really good, then he'd take a detour and you'd get bored out of your mind. Pet Sematary is my favorite novel. Neither of the film versions have come close to doing that novel justice.

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    1. I am usually OK with King's long-windedness as his characterization and telling of small, often random events, is usually just flat out entertaining and gives his works their unique voice. The Tommyknockers just feels like it's all over the place, though, and in need of a good edit. I recently read an interview where King actually suggested the same thing. I started reading Pet Sematary on my first day of 8th grade in 1997 and I really enjoyed it. It'd be interesting to go back and read it, as my feelings about it would surely be quite different from when I was an 8th grader to now where I'm a 37 year old father of a 7 year old. That book sticks with you, though.

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