The image above is the Boba Fett Disney Infinity figure Julie bought for me on Wal-Mart super clearance. $3 if you want to cop one and join the cool people.
I love Boba Fett.
Many men my age do. He grew into a cool character over time, but that’s not really where it all started. No– it all started before we saw Empire Strikes Back. Fett was awesome looking, and because of that, we all wanted the toys and wanted to create our own stories for him.
He became the empty vessel for all of us to learn to understand the joy of creating stories for our toys. I come from the generation that cut its teeth on Gygax and who were the first among the video game generation– we were the self-starters of entertainment. I was the only kid in most of the places where I found myself as a young person (other than school, and school was its own private Idaho if you smell what the Coco is cooking). I had to learn to entertain myself.
We were the Whedons, the Harmons, the Bendisisisisisis. The Bendisi?
He’s older than me, but JJ Abrams sort of embodies the ethic I’m speaking about here:
We love a good story, and unlike those who came after us– the collaborative generations who always had the tools that we used in our college years to finally find nerds like ourselves– we know how to weave a yarn just for ourselves.
Some of those stories start as humbly as the appearance of a character.
I’ve been thinking about this because of this guy:
who you might recognize as this guy:
I’ve been playing Injustice 2 a great deal this week as I try to take a little break from my work (break from my work playing a game that is likely to be a popular Esport– I sure know how to distance myself). And I got to thinking about how I got to know Deadshot. I actually did read that old Batman coming where he’s freaking ridiculous looking. And then I forgot him, for ages, until I saw him in Secret Six, in the appearance the movie version is based on.
He’s a character who could have easily been dropped by the wayside. Like this guy, who Rob Liefield created as a homage to Deathstroke the Terminator:
It was the writers who came later and loved the Spider-man-like look of Wade Wilson who turned him into more than a doppleganger for Slade Wilson. He became the 4th wall breaking lovable wacko that fueled a fantastic movie, a pretty quirky game, and no less than a skillion (estimated) Marvel comics.
And there was also this little guy who did a cameo in the Hulk:
The poster child for the X-Men and my generation’s primary anti-hero was a Canadian Hulk adversary before Clairmont got his hands on him. And Miller. And… like a million others. They loved him so much that when they killed him in the canon, they had to bring an old version of him from another timeline into the fold:
It’s what we do. We see something we think has potential, and we breathe a story into it that wasn’t there before.
Sometime I’ll tell you all of Boba Fett’s adventures. But not tonight. No, it’s far too late in the evening for that. Fett’s a morning person.
Tomorrow is my one year anniversary. Happy ever-so-slightly-early Anniversary to Julie, my only consistent reader. 😛 :* I love you.