My Year in Hobbies 2019: February!

February 2019:

As some of you will remember, I collect Mego action figures, and got a bunch of them in 2018, after the company relaunched. Finding Megos in the second half of 2019 would prove to be tough (I got beat out on a bunch of pre-orders because I didn’t have the money handy to grab certain things in time), but I had some nice successes in the first half of the year.

A Mego Joe Namath 8" action figure in its original package rests on top of a red and white bag. Football player Joe Namath, a smiling white man with brown hair, in a white uniform with green trim, with helmet and football. On the package's card, to the left of the figure, there is a picture of Joe Namath in a green uniform with white trim, holding a football.
A Mego Joe Namath 8″ action figure in its original package rests on top of a red and white bag. Football player Joe Namath, a smiling white man with brown hair, in a white uniform with green trim, with helmet and football. On the package’s card, to the left of the figure, there is a picture of Joe Namath in a green uniform with white trim, holding a football.
A packaged Mego 8" action figure of boxer Muhammad Ali, a man with brown skin and black hair, wearing a white and red robe, with red boxing gloves and red, white, blue and gold championship belt, rests in a red shopping cart. A picture of Muhammad Ali, right arm raised, is on the card of the package, to the left of the figure.
A packaged Mego 8″ action figure of boxer Muhammad Ali, a man with brown skin and black hair, wearing a white and red robe, with red boxing gloves and red, white, blue and gold championship belt, rests in a red shopping cart. A picture of Muhammad Ali, right arm raised, is on the card of the package, to the left of the figure.
Mego 8" action figures. Top row: Planet of the Apes character Dr. Zaius, humanoid orangutan with orange hair in beige and brown outfit in front, with a number of other figures behind and next to him.
Mego action figures stand on a worn white cardboard box against a beige background, with grey molding to the right of the figures in the shot. Top row: Planet of the Apes character Dr. Zaius, humanoid orangutan with orange hair and beige skin, in beige and brown outfit in front, with The Lizard, Spider-Man, Aquaman, The Falcon, Mr. Spock, Mr. Fantastic and Superman behind him. Bottom row: The Gorn.

…and, from the vintage side of things, Dr. Zaius! My first Ape!

A screenshot of multiplayer wins statistics from MobilityWare Solitaire for iOS, showing that the author is in 600th place overall.
A screenshot of multiplayer wins statistics from MobilityWare Solitaire for iOS, showing that the author is in 600th place overall.

I hit 600th place in February…

A screenshot of multiplayer wins statistics from MobilityWare Solitaire for iOS, showing that the author has 5,000 overall wins.
A screenshot of multiplayer wins statistics from MobilityWare Solitaire for iOS, showing that the author has 5,000 overall wins.

…and got my 5000th win not long after.

Comic books cancelled or ending in February 2019 (1): Mage: The Hero Denied (Image). 2019 saw the finish of several stories in fiction that I’ve been following for most of my life. I started reading Mage as a kid who didn’t get half of it in 1984, but wow, was it cool. It was supposed to be a trilogy of 15 issue story arcs that finished up probably around 1990. For one reason or another, it took Matt Wagner almost 3 extra decades to get to the finish line. From the perspective of a person who hasn’t read the first 2 arcs in 20 years, the ending was satisfying, but not extremely satisfying. The first arc was always going to be a lot to live up to, and that was kind of the case with the second arc as well, but it was really nice to spend time in the world of the characters again. I have a lot of things that I actually haven’t read yet ahead of doing this, but I want to sit down and read the entire story sometime soon, and see how I feel about it all after doing that.

Matt and his son Brennan are doing a nice job with Matt’s character Grendel at the moment (though I come at it from a different perspective than most other people reading it, because I’m actually not super-familiar with Grendel; one of the things ahead of a re-read of Mage in my reading queue is the pile of early Grendel stories I’m starting to find in my travels), and I recommend that book.

4 thoughts on “My Year in Hobbies 2019: February!”

  1. Your Dr. Zaius looks really good! Was that an eBay purchase? If not, it would be kind of hard to believe that such a nice example could’ve been found in the wild. As for the newer figures, my only two semi-recent purchases have been Count Orlok and Freddie. I’d like to get the Invisible Man too, but I haven’t seen him anywhere. The Headless Horsemen is pretty interesting, but it seems to be going for a lot more than I would like to spend on it, so he might have to wait awhile.

  2. “I’d like to get the Invisible Man too, but I haven’t seen him anywhere.”

    I see what you did thar.

    And yeah, wave 8 stuff’s been tough for some reason. I’m still looking for the Mummy, Phantom, Khan and Peter Criss.

  3. Wow, that Dr. Zaius, that photo suddenly made me remember that we had it in our house when I was a kid. Think it was my brother’s. Haven’t thought of it since.

  4. You’re lucky to have had Apes back then. I never got any Ape figures somehow, but I ended up with the huge fortress (which was unfortunately made of fragile cardboard and I was 3 or 4, so that didn’t end well). Must’ve been on clearance or something.

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