Top Hat Sasquatch

I swear I didn’t plan this, but on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we’re kicking off our week of Marvel Phase 2 Character Guides with Falcon, mainstream comics’ first African-American superhero. For some reason I always thought that title belonged to Luke Cage, but I was wrong. I’ve had a passing understanding of Falcon as a member of the Avengers in various shows I watched as a kid, but I knew I wanted to brush up his history before he debuts on the big screen in Captain America 2: The Winter Solider.

As with the rest of the character guides this week, this should give you a brief overview of the character, show you how he’ll fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then point you in a few different directions so you can learn more, like I’ll be doing.
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Even though I’ve been hooked on comics lately, I still only consider myself a casual comic book fan. When I was fifteen or so, I read a lot of graphic novels and religiously bought new issues of Wizard Magazine, but I didn’t make it to comic book shops often enough (or have the money) to keep up with ongoing stories. When you take into account the decades and decades of history most of the major superheroes have now, not to mention all the reboots and parallel timelines it can be overwhelming to get into a new character.

Being way more of a movie buff than a comic one, I am a huge fan of what Marvel has done with their Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was a big surprise, and although The Incredible Hulk was just alright and Iron Man 2 was a disappointment, the shared universe really picked up steam when Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers all came out within a year of each other.

With Phase 2 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe kicking off in a few months with Iron Man 3, I’ve been wanting to prepare and learn about all the new characters that will be on screen. With Phase 1, I knew the backstories of all the characters but this time around things are getting a little more obscure.

Phase 2 Character Guides

So, I decided to do some research on the main new characters in Phase 2 and share it with you all, as well as open it up for discussion. I’m sure there are plenty of comic book nerds out there who can point us in the right direction as far as what we should read before seeing the new movies. These won’t be histories or biographies. Think of them more like bibliographies. A collection of stuff I’ve found that should help better understand the characters.

So, throughout the next few months we will be looking at different characters from the next batch of Marvel movies, which are:
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Well, this is awesome news. I was already looking forward to Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles returning on January 25th, but now I’m even more excited. TV Guide is reporting that everyone’s favorite TV mom, Roseanne Barr, is going to be a guest star in the season finale of TMNT. The coolest part is who she is playing. Get this: her character’s name is Kraang Prime.

This timing couldn’t be any better. My wife and I recently started watching Roseanne after randomly wondering if the show would still be funny having not seen it since we were younger. We got some discs from Netflix and realized that it is even funnier than it was when we were kids, and we’re hooked. Once you get past the hair and the clothes the show is pretty timeless, and is still really funny. We’re also super into the new TMNT cartoon, so you can see why I’m so excited about this.

I also had a feeling that the whole collective brain vibe the Kraang had going on would lead to some kind of Queen or big Kraang at some point, and this pretty much confirms it. A big, obnoxious Kraang voiced by Roseanne sounds awesome, and I can’t wait for the finale.

With new toys and merchandise hitting stores while the current stuff is still selling out like crazy and new episodes of the show airing soon, it’s a great time to be a TMNT fan.

If only that Leonardo chair was adult-sized.

Being a hardcore TMNT fan that’s all growed up now means that the new wave of Turtlemania that’s sweeping the nation is super exciting, and potentially super expensive. It’s hard to pass up TMNT products now that they’re popular again, but it’s already gotten too big for me to keep up with. I’ll stick with the toys and a few other bits of merchandise that catches my eye, but there’s no way I could get everything.

Regardless, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the newest TMNT merch that’s available at various stores just in case you want to waste spend some of your hard-earned cash.
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Well, I finally found my answer for when someone asks what I would do if I had a time machine. I would go back in time somewhere between 1980 and 1993 and go to 833 Lexington Avenue, New York City, New York. There was a freaking official Muppet store you guys! How did I never know about this? The store was called Muppet Stuff, and it sold Muppet, Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street merchandise.

I saw this little bit of Muppet nostalgia in the documentary Henson’s Place: The Man Behind the Muppets, which is pretty cool. It’s from the 80s, but it’s recently been released on DVD.

From the Muppet Wiki entry:

Decorated to be fun and welcoming with a giant character-laden clock, Muppet Stuff featured all types of Muppet toys, dolls, apparel, books, videos, and memorabilia. For the opening, set for late October 1980, the boutique was heralded as “Muppet Stuff – A shop with nothing but!” Visitors to the store were plunged into a world that included Muppets and Muppet Babies, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock.

As much of a huge Muppet geek as I am, I don’t have a lot of vintage Muppet merchandise. Since most of it came out before I was born or when I was little, I just haven’t seen it around much. I have the board game and that’s about the oldest bit of Muppet Stuff I have. Seeing this little store in the documentary (and all the awesome swag inside) made me want to go blow tons of cash on ebay, though.
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