There Can Be Only One: pick only one sixth scale figure to keep.

[ZE_501]

Actually, let's take it a step further. Out of all your pop culture collectibles -- statues, action figures, vehicles, helmets comics, omnibuses etc. -- choose the one thing to represent all of it. Just one artifact to represent all the pop culture and genre entertainment you've consumed for your whole life.

Only one. Be brutal. Let go. You can only take one item through life, moving forward.

Although I don't own it yet, I'll go out on a limb and say the upcoming HT Classic Spider-Man. That one figure's costume overlaps so many eras of my life, and reaches right back to childhood where my earliest action figure memory is a Mego Spidey. (I think it was, anyway).

It also pops with classic comic graphics and it's just fun.

 

[FlyAndFight]

My 1:1 R2-D2 droid. Still in the building process but that one will be THE piece.

Star Wars has probably made the biggest impact in my pop culture life, and R2 is the perfect piece to symbolize that.

 

[loki2371]

That's a toughie. Do I choose based on quality, looks, or emotional attachment??

Although I still have yet to open and display it, I think it would maybe be my 1/4 HT ROTJ Darth Vader. Or perhaps one of my MR lightsabers. But, if I was to base it on emotion, then it would have to be my Vintage Kenner Darth Vader. But no matter what I chose, it definitely would be a Star Wars item.

 

[punisher1974]

Mine would be Punisher omnibus that reprints all of his appearances through his original mini series. Zeck is my favorite artist and Punisher my favorite character. I still have all the posters.

 

[a-dev]

Damn you ZE. I will not participate in this cruel game.

Hot Toys MMS136 Tech Noir T-800

 

[ZE_501]

Damn you ZE. I will not participate in this cruel game.

Hot Toys MMS136 Tech Noir T-800

There can be only one!

 

[a-dev]

There can be only one!

 

[demorathis]

Had I kept my Ralph mcquarrie Vader it would’ve been that:
But since I sold it, I am keeping the one most familiar to Star Wars fans…the EFX Legnedary Version of the ANH Vader helmet:

 

[ZE_501]

Had I kept my Ralph mcquarrie Vader it would’ve been that:[...]

Such an amazing design. Why did you let that one go?

 

[ZE_501]

... I think the only things I'd think twice about parting with would be my HT Batman Returns and custom Returns Catwoman pairing. But since there can be only one, I chose Spidey, and like I said ... his Venn diagram, as it were ... reaches all the way back to my earliest memories.

R2 is a great stand-alone choice for Star Wars, so I get the decision above.

What's it gonna be, a-dev?

 

[Mondragon]

I've got a couple of unique customs I wouldn't part with
Yet if you are asking official licensed product?

Only one. Be brutal. Let go. You can only take one item through life, moving forward.

Although I don't own it yet, I'll go out on a limb and say the upcoming HT Classic Spider-Man. That one figure's costume overlaps so many eras of my life, and reaches right back to childhood where my earliest action figure memory is a Mego Spidey. (I think it was, anyway).

Earliest action figure is a strong pull if you still have it.
Like you, original Mego is likely where my fascination with figures began.

the upcoming HT Classic Spider-Man. That one figure's costume overlaps so many eras of my life, and reaches right back to childhood where my earliest action figure memory is a Mego Spidey. (I think it was, anyway).

So I have to ask, do you still have your actual childhood Mego Spidey?
And if so, if somebody offered you that new HT Classic Spider-Man in exchange for it, would you take it?

Granted vintage Mego Spidey's are pretty easy to come by and can be "replaced", but I'm talking about the actual one you had as a kid.
You would trade up? Or you no longer have it?

I'm asking, cause I have my original Mego Zorro, it's got all the cheap stylized quirky flaws of it's time, and all the wear and tear of my actual play (wouldn't have $ value or be worth anything to anyone but me).

While there have been up scaled versions, (although none under the Disney banner or with the pretense of Guy (Armando Catalano) Williams likeness) And of course many modern Batman figures which have conceptually and in figure form, since filled and exceeded that niche...

I can sell those, and stick with the first.

Only one. Be brutal. Let go.

This is indeed cruel game.
Especially by extending it to beyond figures.
As many of the books and media I also collect, are what the figures are based on, and fueled the interest to begin with. So they are all connected.

Actually, let's take it a step further. Out of all your pop culture collectibles -- statues, action figures, vehicles, helmets comics, omnibuses etc. -- choose the one thing to represent all of it. Just one artifact to represent all the pop culture and genre entertainment you've consumed for your whole life.
.

So everything else has to go? "all your pop culture collectibles -- statues, action figures, vehicles, helmets comics, omnibuses etc."
That is brutal.

 

[ZE_501]

So I have to ask, do you still have your actual childhood Mego Spidey?
And if so, if somebody offered you that new HT Classic Spider-Man in exchange for it, would you take it[...]

Long gone...anything that didn't get trashed via attrition I would have let go of on my own accord as I got older. Even as a kid I was never sentimental about the thing-in-itself for the most part. As an adult I own three family heirlooms that are the closest I come to truly valuing "things" -- if they were lost I'd be very disappointed but even so, what they represent is in my mind, not in the carved wood or the old photographs.

We don't even get to keep our bodies or what we come to know as our minds in the end, so letting go of things is okay in an impermanent existence.

As for the trade-up ... I would not. I think the *idea* is more resonant than the thing, and by the time I was about ... 10 or 11 years old, I would dream of better toys -- better sculpts, better proportions, articulated endoskeletons under synthetic skins with superior paint apps ... at the time I wanted to be a toy designer.

That didn't happen although I did wind up in design; as such a Hot Toys Spidey is actually fulfilling my childhood daydreams while touching multiple reference points in my memories -- the Mego Spidey, the 60's cartoon on rerun...Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on Saturday mornings...comics until I was about 15 (both the books and the newspaper serials)...the first Raimi film with my girlfriend and crowd of lunatic friends when I was in my 20s...

...and being a "geek" character and comic property, it by extension touches -- however tangentially -- all the other genre stuff I enjoyed over the years. The strong graphic design appeals to my modernist aesthetic sensibilities as an adult.

A perfect artifact.

The next closest things to that would be:

• My Batman Returns set which more than anything else, evokes the '90s for me, a time to which I don't want to return because I was immature and like myself better now, but still a thrilling, intense, ridiculously fun and hedonistic period in my life during a very weird and optimistic (in hindsight) historical period.
  
• Star Wars, but for me that property is similar to Batman Returns in that it touches many things but is most firmly associated with one specific era, and that would be childhood and elementary school. As such, I'd also choose R2 because it evokes the design ethos and childlike wonder of the original trilogy.

 

[ZE_501]

This is indeed cruel game.

Clarity is a beautiful thing.

*sharpens blade*

 

[P.]

so people who can leave only one figure to represent their interests mostly are star wars fans.
i knew it before and it's been proved again.

 

[ZE_501]

so people who can leave only one figure to represent their interests mostly are star wars fans.
i knew it before and it's been proved again.

Which is odd, given that Star Wars is a horribly deep rabbit hole that eats wallets.

Sorry, Sarlacc pit.

 

[Mondragon]

.

Clarity is a beautiful thing.

*sharpens blade*

Agree, hence my answer.

Long gone...

I guess that's a significant difference, since despite several purges and changes in my life, Zorro has somehow managed to survive.

We don't even get to keep our bodies or what we come to know as our minds in the end, so letting go of things is okay in an impermanent existence.

Yeah I don't have a problem with that. I've let go of plenty, in reality, and in this hypothetical exercise.

Mego/Palitoy Zorro would pretty much be the last figure standing on my shelf...

He's gaining several official "unofficial" accessories,
Pistola

Bow & Arrow

Bull whip

Throwing Dagger

Does Tornado count as an accessory?

What's great about Zorro (since you ask for;

...one artifact to represent all the pop culture and genre entertainment you've consumed for your whole life.

.... throughout my evolving geekdome, through the pulps Zorro, Solomon Kane, the Shadow, The Phantom, to more contemporary favorite masked or themed avengers Batman, Diabolik, Daredevil, Ghostrider, Black Panther, Punisher, Blade, Snake-Eyes, to Sci-Fi, Captain Harlock , fallen Anakin, Luke, to the new "masked" dark saber wielding Mandalorian, everything from fantasy to wandering adventure heroes Ronin (men with no name), Strider, Kane to Caine, Mad Max, The Crow, to "V' even whip wielding Indiana Jones, etc. they all in some way, go back to or in invoke Zorro.

At it's most base level I was somewhat always revisiting familiar adventure heroes and recurring masked or cloaked "Dark Knight" type tropes(characters balancing their dark half to survive), or dark clad swashbuckling adventure heroes, for different genres and settings, just redressed (often just swapping for updated "sabers", weapons, gear and tech.

Yet no mater the updates, most seemed to re-embody and re-affirm what I already had in the original Zorro, who still easily references almost all aspects of my geekdome.

Granted (this choice isn't about monetary value for me) much better figures could, and have been made,and are worth and will sell much more.
Yet he's managed to survive with me this far, so I'll stick with him.

 

[Matner77]

Premium format Raiders Indy with custom paint job

 

[**16k**]

This guy:

 

[demorathis]

Such an amazing design. Why did you let that one go?

It had increased in value so much, that it would?ve been almost morally irresponsible of me to not sell at the time that I did considering I am married and we are not millionaires yet.
Ultimately the classic Darth Vader helmet is my favorite and the more iconic of the two anyway, so it can also serve as my legacy collector piece after I?m gone.

 

[ZE_501]

It had increased in value so much, that it would?ve been almost morally irresponsible of me to not sell at the time that I did considering I am married and we are not millionaires yet.
Ultimately the classic Darth Vader helmet is my favorite and the more iconic of the two anyway, so it can also serve as my legacy collector piece after I?m gone.

That?s fair; some collectibles do reach a tipping point in terms of value. I?ve sold a few items I didn?t think I would when the right price came along, and making good financial moves is an important part of marriage.


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