I'm your vehicle, baby...

My wife and I were watching "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." In one scene, we see the title character's place, and it is stocked to the gills with pop culture ephemera, most notably, action figures.

"Is that the Six Million Dollar Man?" Andy's friend asked, indicating a toy. I squinted and saw that no, it was his boss, Oscar Goldman. I told this to my wife just seconds before it was mentioned in the movie.

"Do you realize that if you hadn't met me, that would be you?" Jen asked. She was kidding.

I think.

But then I realized that she might not be that far off. I have toys that are sealed in their boxes. Not nearly as many as Andy Stitzer, the 40-year-old virgin, but a couple. And given that I had to buy them myself, they're not really worth all that much anyway.

So I decided to liberate these toys from their cardboard prisons and let them breathe the fine air of California's San Joaquin Valley.

The two test subjects were just a tad over 20 years old; one each from Kenner's Super Powers Collection and Mattel's Marvel Secret Wars Collection. A staunch DC reader in my youth, I didn't have that many toys from the latter line; I tended to get a Secret Wars figure only if there were no additions I could make to my own Super Powers Collection.

Here they are: the Doom Roller and the Darkseid Destroyer. I don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm trying really hard to contain myself.

Test Subject 1: Darkseid Destroyer

Part of the second series in the Super Powers Collection, this vehicle was designed for the villainous Darkseid, the evil rule of the planet Apokolips. This isn't the original I had from my youth. I picked this up a few years ago when my brother and I trekked down to San Diego for Comic-Con. I saw this and the Supermobile at one of the first places we went to in the dealers room. And like and idiot, I bought them, not realizing that I'd be schlepping them around the convention floor for the rest of the day. Not that it's heavy, mind you; it's just cumbersome to carry a giant box like that in a room filled with roughly 9 billion people.

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To ease myself into this, I started with the Darkseid Destroyer, as the box was already opened. I'd just never taken the stuff out. Upon opening the box, I noticed that there were a buttload of stickers for this thing. Check it out.


Just in case the stickers didn't work, I scanned them into my computer. Yeah, I'm a nerd. If you didn't know that already, I don't know what to tell you.


Hmm. Instructions. It's got to be easier than putting together furniture from IKEA.


Wow, check out the plastic. I guess the streaks are from being 20-year-old plastic stored in a loser's house.

Time to put on the stickers, I guess. Twenty years later and I still suck at this part. At least I did better than the guy who did the one for the picture on the box. According to the instructions, he screwed up.


Brody offered to keep an eye on the "spaceship" for me during the stickering process.


A-ha! Done. Finally. Check it out, yo. All the ladies in the audience, try not to swoon, okay?


Look, it even lights up.

Well, that wasn't so bad. Now for the next victim.

Test Subject 2: Doom Roller

A vehicle for the villainous Dr. Doom. The little pod fits on a loop of track and rolls around, hence the name. I picked this up on eBay years ago when I had disposable income. I didn't have this as a kid, but it looked kinda cool. I tried selling it a couple of times, but no one bid on it, so I gave up.

See, it's still sealed.

This should be a snap; there are hardly any stickers to put on, and there's very little assembly. A few guns here, a laser turret there...

Hmm. The pod doesn't want to jump on the track quite right. I managed to get it on there finally, and then I flicked the on switch, waiting for it to roll right off the table.

Nothing.

Well, crap.

I was mildly pleased to see that this vehicle came with one of the cool lenticular shield things that came with the figures. And then I noticed it was Kang, not Dr. Doom. You'd think with it being called the Doom Roller, you'd get Doc Doom. But no.

It's still kinda cool, though. Look:

Kang in the city.

Kang in space.

I thought of maybe cracking open the pod to see if I could fix it, but I think that might be trying too hard. Maybe I should just let it rest, you know.

That's it for this installment of Pimp My Super-Ride. If this isn't a one-way ticket to Thrillsville, I don't know what is.