My First Custom

So how did I get started in this crazy hobby? Back in the mid-80’s, Mattel released a toyline called Secret Wars that featured Marvel comic book characters. My favorite character at the time was Iron Man, who was released in his classic red and gold armor. While that figure was probably fine for most kids, I was really into the Iron Man comic at the time, and the original Iron Man had just come out of retirement in a really fantastic storyarc that involved return, redemption, retribution–all of those classic mythic elements that would’ve made Joseph Campbell proud.

However, the armor had changed from the red and gold into a clunky yet ultra-awesome red and silver suit that was just too cool for words. I mean, it was like Iron Man…but Iron Man with a backpack! Kick ass!

Perhaps you can see a disconnect here. While I could play-battle Iron Man rescuing Daredevil from the clutches of Doctor Doom’s Tower of Doom playset time and time again, I knew that it wasn’t Iron Man. I would’ve sooner accepted Coy and Vance as the rightful heirs of the General Lee than I would’ve been satisfied with having NutraIron Man as my hero substitute.

So I did the same thing that any kid would do if he had too much time and parents who didn’t really keep track of their office supplies. I painted the sumbitch his way into his comics-accurate color palette. And I got the thing you see in the image above.

So maybe I didn’t really have the ability to stay within the lines back then. And nevermind the fact that ol’ Tony’s has the smoothness of Edward James Olmos after using a sandpaper loofah.

Yep, standing between Iron Man and the Masters of Evil, Obadiah Stane, and Titanium Man is a thin layer of Bic Wite-Out.

I’m not really sure what I thought painting the guy would have given him–I’m sure it looked pristine in my head. Maybe instead of bad guys, his repulsor rays could obliterate typos. And if Iron Man ever faced a bad guy whose power was to cause spelling errors, I suppose he could do the trick.

So essentially, I made him about as powerful as a third grade teacher, and I didn’t even crack the Internet in half. Internet-cracking is Bendis’s niche anyways.

Okay, so it didn’t change the shape of his chest-beam to a triangle (like it should’ve been) or give his helmet a neck brace (like he had) or even give him that super-swell backpack (can’t believe I missed that one), but in my mind, this was the Iron Man to beat.

After this, Doctor Doom didn’t touch Daredevil. Matt Murdock couldn’t have gotten better protection from a box of Magnum XLs.

Even I–who never crossed toylines when it came to playtime (look, I was OCD about that…even then, I didn’t like the idea of a multi-verse)–would have Iron Man come in and save Scarlett, Lady Jaye, Princess Allura, Princess Leia, and Aquaman.

Let’s face it: Aquaman’s always been a pussy.

Was he perfect? Far from it. Iron Man was splotchy and sloppy and disgusting-looking–you know, like anything Britney did after she kissed Madonna–but he was like the last piece of the puzzle, the perfect cog that kept the clockwork of my imagination ticking.

I suppose my skills have gotten better in the meantime, but it didn’t matter to me. It was the hazy lens of childhood imagination that perfected him in my eyes.

To look at him, I understand that he looks like Iron Man: Fucked-Up Edition (variant). But he’s stuck around for a couple of reasons. One, I owe thanks to my Mom, who never throws away anything of mine at the house where I grew up. But I keep him to this day, in my adult home, because of what he reminds me.

When I was young, it didn’t matter to me if a figure’s knee-joints were too tight, if the shoulders were too loose, if a company didn’t make a broad enough variety of figures for my tastes, or if the only place I could find a hard-to-get figure was on eBay. Do you think I would’ve bitched about that in 1986? I would’ve traded Julius Marx’s left nut to get a Super Powers Cyborg on eBay back then.

However, in an MC Escher-like hands-drawing-hands leap of logic, I can now bitch on the Internet that I didn’t have the Internet to bitch about in 1986.

See, geeks are complex like this.

The question remains: why do I keep a chalky, completely imperfect widget of plastic lying around in a tiny Rubbermaid full of toys?

Because it reminds me of a time when it didn’t really matter: the playtime was the the thing, not the objects we now snag to put on a shelf–which is exactly what I do now. I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m making toys–I’m making immobile statues. And I enjoy looking at them lined up next to each other from the comfort of my office chair.

I keep my first custom because it reminds me when toys weren’t meant for shelves.

And when I wasn’t meant for an office.

Tagged as: Oddball, Words!