A gift 20 years in the making

Trust me, Boydee is PUMPED in this photo.

Allow me to explain.

When I was a kid, I collected comic books, beginning at age... 9, maybe. I still have my first comic book ever, and I'm pretty sure it was a Marvel Tales from 1984... I would have been age 7 at the time. I hung on to it, then one day I discovered West Coast Avengers and then, even more important, the G.I Joe comic, and I was hooked.

I started collecting toys at a much older age... probably 14, maybe 15. Weird, I know. I had money (I started working as a host at Tippin's in Wichita pretty young, then quickly started waiting tables) and I'd go to Walmart (back then it was spelled Wal-Mart) and I'd put a box of super hero toys on layaway. This is just what I did.

(Who knows how much money I spent on comics and toys while in high school. It's a mystery. But there's an easy answer as to how much I spent on dates: $0.)

So recently I went back to Mulvane and now I'm getting my toy collection re-assembled. A lot (but not all) is stashed away safely in Eudora. It includes some cool stuff, too, like the complete set of the original "Batman" toys from the Michael Keaton movie. (Here's an example from eBay -- not my auction.) 

It also includes some stuff that I think is cool, but it's not very valuable in the collector's market.

But guess what? I've got a little boy who thinks Spider-Man is pretty cool. And Venom? He's the best.

So why not wrap the two of them up and give them to my son? I'll finally get to play with them now, ha! That $4 spent at Wal-Mart in 1990 finally gets its pay-off. 

Somehow Boyd missed this box at first on Christmas day... then found it a little later. I was downstairs when he started opening it. Adrianne tells me he freaked out, he was so excited, but I have to admit I missed it. I managed to barely snap this pic before he opened Spidey. (Venom has already been ripped open and is lying next to Boyd there by his knee.)

I've been a collector for a long time. I've always thought there are three things that make collecting sane: 1. personal satisfaction of the hobby; 2. the potential investment; 3. the potential gift for the next generation.

The gift of Spidey and Venom to my 4-year-old? I might not have known it in 1996, but it was a pretty cool Christmas gift in 2015.