Toys for Christmas

Yesterday I made a stop off at Toys R Us to pick up a toy to donate this year. I didn't end up finding a readily accessible place to drop it off that evening, and didn't end up leaving the house today (someone was supposed to come over, but that didn't end up happening..).

I consoled myself with the thought that I'd be out and about Monday... but now I'm reading online that for most places the deadline is the 23rd, aka today. This is troubling.

Apparently fire stations (where they house people to put OUT fires, thankyouverymuch) will accept toy donations any day of the year, so I can drop this guy off, but I, and I really don't want to think this, may have missed out on this Christmas.

Among my options at Toys R Us, there were plenty of hardcore Spider-Man figures, thanks to this summers movie. No kid should be subjected to that. Iron Man is a complicated figure for a kid (though a hero nonetheless... I actually think I did a blog post here examining that difficulty.) Captain America is great, but a little country specific. Thor looks kind of scary.

Speaking of scary, the new figures for the latest Ninja Turtles cartoons are terrifying in how angry they make the turtles look. This from what is arguably the most cutesy incarnation of the group.

I ended up going with a decently priced box containing Batman and Joker figures.

It's more fun to have a villain to play off with.

Another option that I would have NEVER considered is the Green Arrow/Prometheus pairing.

You know what story has both Prometheus and Green Arrow together? The one where Prometheus kills Green Arrows adopted grand-daughter, whereupon Green Arrow hunts down and murders Prometheus.

To have these two in a fun little package together for kids is, yeah, obscene. What brain dead executive thought this was an appropriate pairing? What? Who?

At least Batman and Joker can laugh together. And more importantly, are in well written stories.