With Halloween less than one week away, it’s about time to start thinking about candy. Or, given the obesity epidemic in America, thinking about it a little more than usual. I’m partial to Whoppers and Peanut Butter Cups, though I usually abstain for the simple reason of not wanting to die. Like any sensible human under the age of 75, I was never quite so fond of the notorious Halloween ‘small plastic baggie full of pennies’, nor the leftover candy canes from the previous Christmas. One year, I was unfortunate enough to find a foreign candy called ‘Krot’ in my bag of treats, which I carried around as a hilarious curiosity until I showed it to my friend George, who promptly devoured it while my back was turned. To this, I loudly proclaimed, ‘Oh George, you ate my krot!’, which had everyone questioning our relationship for the remainder of the school year.

When you’re giving out candy to the invasive little door-knocking monsters, or ‘children’ as some people might address them, here’s two super-heroic options for you to consider.

First, for about 1.50 each, these Marvel Heroes minifigure packages come with 5 gumballs each, or ‘Infinity Gems‘, as I like to call them because I spend a lot of time alone. Blind-packaged, there’s a wide array of heroes to collect, all done in the horribly-obnoxious-but-eventually-endearing Big Head style. I started buying these because I wanted to find a Big Headed Galactus, since nothing seemed more amusing than a teensy, disproportionate galaxy-devouring ultra villain. Because of case ratios, I ended up getting about 5 Galacti and giving them to friends, in addition to 5 other highly undesirable characters. I mean, does Mystique really qualify for anyone’s top 25 favorite bad guys? I’d honestly prefer Arnim Zola to her, and that guy’s a total dweeb. He’s got a bellyface. I haven’t found these anywhere but the candy aisle of Wal-Mart, buried deep within the action figures and bicycles. With minifigures like The Thing and The Hulk still out there, I’m probably going to be blindly buying these things into oblivion. They’re not the pinnacle of sculpting and good craftsmanship, but they’re cute.

If you think that I sampled the gumball confections, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m in it for the hot hero action, folks. Candy is for kids. Lining up tiny superheroes around your computer and pretending you’re a giant is adult business.

Also buried within the Wal-Mart candy aisle are the Edibles, self-described ‘candy action heroes’ that you assemble, play with, and eat, assuming that you had the foresight to not play with them on a hairy rug or in a sandbox. These are basically small block figures molded out of candy, and there are four different characters to discover. There’s Spider-Man, in delightful “slingin’ strawberry” flavor, followed by The Thing in “rock’n orange”, “banana-x” Wolverine and “smashing sour apple” Hulk. All of this makes perfect sense, because when I look at a banana, I IMMEDIATELY think ‘I bet that’s what Wolverine tastes like. Bananas, cigars and chest hair.’

As you can guess, the properties of candy do not hold up as well to the elements as plastics might, and the figures are subject to decay and deformation both before and after opening. They’re not really for display, clearly, so we’re back into the more ephemeral aspects of collecting. If you’re very serious about holding onto these beyond their shelf life, I’d advise that you eat them. In that way, they’ll always be a part of you. Like it or not. The designs are runny and the molds are horribly inconsistent, so that arms and legs won’t even attach to Spider-Man’s lumpy, malformed pegs. In short, it’s a wonderful disaster, which is much more than those little door-beggars are worth in their store-bought Power Rangers costumes. The Power Rangers were never cool, even when they were so uncool that they were almost cool, and no matter how hard you squinted, Amy Jo Johnson wasn’t really hot enough to justify not changing the channel.

In the interest of accurate reportage, I actually ventured to open up the Spider-Man package, which instantly emitted a terrifying odor and partially blinded me. Not only was the hard candy cemented into the triple-sealed package with sugary, sticky tendrils, but I was fairly certain that if I touched it directly, it would bond with me like an alien symbiote and wreak all kinds of havoc. I also made every effort to avert my gaze from its eyes. So, basically, completely kid-friendly. I think I’m going to go pray now.

So, as Halloween approaches, think of the superheroes…. slowly, sweetly shortening the life expectancy of small, costumed children. Think of it as a treat that’s horribly tricky.

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Article Tags: candy, Edibles, gumball, Halloween, Krot, Marvel Heroes

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 1:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.