I don’t have much. What I do have, all the other kids have too, and then some. They are awash in Transformers and Gobots and Thundercats and whatever line of cartoon-powered action figures came out last week, along with all the attendant play sets. They bring them to the playground, showing off the spoils of weekend trips to Paramus and Danbury and other mall-filled towns. I can not compete in these contests.
I do have a few things I know, for a fact, that my friends covet. One is an Anakin Skywalker figure, procured for a few cereal UPCs and six to eight weeks of anxious waiting. None of the other kids in the neighborhood were sufficiently quick or sharp-eyed to notice this offer as part of their nutritious breakfast. I was, somehow. The Anakin Skywalker figure does very little. It doesn’t come with a light saber, and the figure’s legs barely move. Still, it is rare and it is mine.
The only other things I have that other kids lack are three issues of the G.I. Joe comic book that serve as Snake Eyes’ origin story. Snakes Eyes is a ninja and doesn’t talk and therefore everyone wants to know what his deal is. Of all the kids I know, only I am privy to that knowledge.
The Snake Eyes story is full of ninjas and flashbacks and urban blight—Snake Eyes and Stormshadow do battle on a graffiti-covered el train. The comics even have a B-story give a tantalizing view of Cobra Commander and Destro out of their usual disguises (kind of; they just put on other disguises to go incognito, for reasons too dumb to relate here). I purchased these issues from a corner store on Lefferts Boulevard during trips to my grandparents’ place in The City, which makes them seem even cooler. To me, anyway. I look at them and hear an A train rumbling outside.
These G.I. Joe issues form admission to a Saturday afternoon of comic book swapping at my friend John’s house. John and other kids in the neighborhood want to read my Snake Eyes comics, I want to read their everything else, and watch some cable while I’m at it. I want to partake in all the luxuries denied to me at home. Maybe if I’m lucky, HBO will be showing Beastmaster, or that creepy as hell Nostradamus documentary with Orson Welles. I pile my G.I. Joe‘s in a plastic ShopRite bag, along with some old Hulk’s and Mad Magazine Super Specials and a Power Pack. I’m fully aware that no one else likes The Hulk or Power Pack, and that I’m the only kid who finds the Spiro Agnew jokes in the old Mad Magazines marginally amusing. But I need something to round out my haul, make it seem like they’re not the only things of value I own.