I know, I know. I've been delinquent in attending to your blog-reading needs. I apologize, I've been busy. Band has been rehearsing and writing and gigging. Some freelance stuff. But the thing that kept me most occupied all last week was preparing for my first time hosting a Transfans get-together. I wanted everything to be perfect in its presentation. To this end I did a little redecorating.

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It's about Thoroughness. Completionism. Pride. It's about setting standards for the things you collect and adhering to them. It's why all my Black Sabbath vinyl albums are contemporary pressings and not reissues. It's why I collected Walter Simonson's Thor comic run in single issues, but Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX run in trade (rather than mixing and matching.) And it's why all my toys have, or should have, all their weapons, parts, accessories, or whatever. It makes them whole and fully realized. Even if some of those guns and stuff aren't in the best shape, they nonetheless add character simply by their presence.

That's why, after a two-year search, I'm so glad I finally procured an extra shackle for my Snake Mountain to replace the broken shackle-stub that arrived embedded in the playset. Doesn't Man-E-Faces look so much happier now that both wrists are bound instead of just one?

Actually he doesn't seem happier at all.

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Thanks to a bunch of scans generously contributed by Creasy Bear, I was able to add 15 new images to the Masters of the Universe "Each Sold Separately" gallery of character art from the back of the He-Man cards and minicomics.

Be warned: the images throughout the gallery in question are generally rather far from production-level quality. This is partly because the sources are small low-resolution pictures, about one square inch each, blown up to be much larger on your screen; but the main reason is that the source material is rarely in pristine condition. The cards and comics are worn, warped, faded and/or discolored. This is no one's fault: it's the best quality that those precious few who are courteous enough to scan their materials have at hand.

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While I always keep all my Transformers and Starriors in plain view in the War Room, I can't keep all of my He-Man collection out. Between all three collections — despair! — it's just too much. So I rotate the He-Man figures and create new scenes with each rotation.

Now that my computer is fixed and the War Room is looking more like its old self, I snapped some pictures of the three current MOTU "scenes" that I have set up around me. They tell a story. Sort of. The first one is here in the War Room gallery.

OK, even though no one seems to really care, you may have noticed that I have been in a bit of a Masters of the Universe phase lately. I have blogged about the instant collection I assembled from a handful of eBay auctions. Well, I've really been enjoying having them around the War Room. My mind plays out a sort of Marvel Ultimates-style epic on Eternia, wherein a nameless wandering barbarian (who no one knows is Adam, the lost prince of Eternia) finds himself in conflict with Skeletor (who was once known as Keldor, the half-brother of King Randor, banished after an assassination attempt). Atop their respective battle cats, each with one of the two legendary Swords of Grayskull, they are locked in a battle of steel, sorcery and technology.

Pretty cool, huh? Plus, they are aided by various fantastic allies and henchmen. For the most part, I'm inventing less cartoon-ish origins for most of the characters, but some other recent interpretations have been awesome in their own right. While the majority of the Masters comics that surfaced a couple years ago were a little disappointing — in large part because of their license-bound constrictions, I think — the Icons of Evil series penned by Robert Kirkman (of The Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies fame) tells the origins of how Beast Man, Mer-Man, Trapjaw and Tri-Klops came into the service of Keldor/Skeletor. The Trapjaw story is especially awesome.

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Because I don't need two of Man-At-Arms, two of Hordak, or even one Land Shark (HA!), I asked Skeletor to auction these and all the other doubles I acquired during my recent Masters of the Universe collection-size acquisition. He has graciously complied — he owed me a favor for some wickedness I perpetrated against Prince Adam some years ago.

Check out Skeletor's auction here! There are 12 figures, three vehicles and a big purple panther in there. (Man, Roboto's really buff... he must work out.)

It was synchronicity. I think it might have started with my recollection of Faker when mulling over my second Opposite Day post. Sometime around then, someone sent me a link to a video mashup of Prince Adam singing about his fabulous secret powers. Then there was Skeletor's appearance in Penny Arcade. Soon, I found myself spending too much time strolling through He-Man.org and eBay. My wife was no help: she was reminiscing about her Crystal Castle.

So, you see those nine boxes? They contained an instant Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power collection. Yes. Our belated Christmas present to ourselves. They've been gestating, unopened, and building anticipation for just the right day. The blizzard told us today was that day.

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Well, I already told you about my love of "opposite" villains like Bizarro and the Reverse-Flash. I'm not the only one, you know. The image on the left is the cover from Superman #221, which parodies the classic Superman/Flash races with a Bizarro/Reverse-Flash race. (Actually, it was pretty much a rip-off, because only the last panel of the issue set up the race, which actually happened in Action Comics #831, but I digress.) Of course, the distorted villains ran in a crooked path, and the Reverse-Flash only won by letting Bizarro lose or something like that (it was a rather crappy issue, horribly illustrated by John Byrne, but again I digress).

Well, wouldn't you know there's a couple more opposite villains I'd love to tell you about. You might even have heard of one or both of them.

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