The Collector Compulsion

Yesterday, I picked up a Funko Pop. A Black Canary, original costume, Funko Pop. This was a moment that gave me a real sense of achievement – one that over the years I have become very familiar with and one that I have to be very careful about.

A long time ago I realised I have two very conflicting parts of my personality, and just as well I have the second, or the first could spiral out of control. You see, I am a collector. I have a hardcore acquisitive tendency. I like to have complete sets of things – I usually don’t start reading a book series until I have all of the series in my possession, even when I am not sure I will like the first one. I used to have thousands of comic books, all nicely sorted and ordered and committed to memory. I could rapidly flick through long boxes and know – yes or no – whether I needed it or not. That skill has atrophied with age!

Understanding my need to collect is one of the things that keeps me away from CCGs nowadays. When I was involved in the CCG hobby, I was only able to because I almost always worked alongside the company doing promotions and receive the nice free cards which meant I always had all of the cards. It was a very lucky position to be in, and when I stopped working with them I ejected myself out of the hobby hard, for my own good.

So Neil, I hear you ask, what’s the other personality chunk that moderates this insane urge to collect things?

Luckily, my collector compulsion is managed by my innate desire to not spend money. Some call it thrifty, others call it being tight – I call it common sense – but I am not one to ‘spaff money up the wall’. I’m painfully aware that, for example, CCG cards only have the actual value of a piece of pretty cardboard unless someone is ready, willing and able to pay you for it. Until that point, it’s just cardboard. Similarly comics are just comics and having a black and white reprint omnibus copy of a story gives you the same entertainment value as the original, albeit for a fraction of the collector price. So I steadfastly refuse to pay over the odds for anything. In fact, I usually baulk at paying rack-rate for anything.

I love a good bargain.

So I temper my collecting compulsion with my deep-rooted thrift, and this means I have learned to set myself rules for collecting. When it comes to Funko Pops (and yes, I am one of the half-dozen people who still look at them) I set myself rules. Over the years, the kids have bought me enough Star Wars Funkos that I have arranged them in thematic triads – (Han, Chewie, Lando), (Jabba, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard) etc.

For my Marvel collection, I have settled on the original Avengers. So I look for the costumes from the original (and in my mind, proper) run of the Avengers and preferably as near to the classic Perez era as possible. All of which means no MCU costumes. It means old school Black Panther, blue furry Beast and original costume Ms Marvel.

And for my DC collection I choose my all-time favourite super team – The Justice Society. Again, I’m more focused on the original team, but some of the more modern versions, especially from Black Adam, have slipped in. And that’s where Black Canary comes in. In the old, pre-Crisis days, Black Canary was a member of the Justice Society from Earth-2 and the original costume, with fishnets and cropped jacket is an absolute pain to find in the wild. I could have always gone onto eBay and got it there but it’s always way too expensive on there for my budget, so I kept on looking and finally I found it.

That feeling – of tenaciously hunting down things I want, one thing at a time – is definitely one of my happy feelings. Its not about the thing, it’s about the hunt. About me keeping an eye out for things wherever I go, just in case I see a bargain. And yeah, that means I will always slide down the toy aisle in the bargain shop (Hawkeye and Mar-vell were grabbed this way), I will always pop into the charity shop and I will always just keep watching…always watching.

So what am I looking for still?

There are a load of Avengers which haven’t been released yet and I can understand why (in terms of the almost zero demand) – Swordsman, original costume Mantis, Hellcat, Moondragon, original costume Photon, Starfox, Mockingbird, Quasar, Stingray, original costume Sersei and Firebird.

There’s a list of figures that Funko seems strangely reluctant to produce – an original costume Wasp seems beyond their grasp. Umpteem MCU variants, but no original. The Black Knight is another strangely missing original Avenger and Wonder Man is missing but may be coming when the new series comes later in the year.

The one missing Avenger figure I am looking for is the Avengers-era Black Widow. I already have the first appearance costume, but the classic black jumpsuit with yellow widow’s bite is available, albeit in the weird comic-style Avengers 60th Anniversary version (1260) – but hey, that’s where I got my winghead Thor, so who’s complaining?!

For the Justice Society, the list is a lot shorter as there aren’t that many core members to be released – GA Atom, GA Dr Midnite, GA Hourman, GA Johnny Thunder, GA Mr Terrific, GA Starman and GA Wildcat. You know, looking at that list, it wasn’t a great idea of mine to start this collection!

The missing ones that are available range from the tenuous – Plastic Man and Uncle Sam (both not E2 characters, but they were members of the All Star Squadron so I’m counting them in), Stargirl (just hard to find) and then there’s Hawkman. Bloody Hawkman.

The classic costume Hawkman (17) is one of those insanely expensive, sometimes as high as £400 pops. Even the cheapest I have ever seen it – £40 – is too expensive for my tastes. The placeholder version from Black Adam that I got for £3 will have to do in the mean time.

So there you have it – a look into the little collector corner of my mind.

Of course, the real problem is that now I want to find a new set to collect, and that urge in and of itself is something I am trying to avoid although a Wolfman/Perez era set of Teen Titans or a Claremont/Byrne era set of X-Men would look mighty fine!