Buck Rogers

I’m an oldschool sci-fi geek when my schedule affords it, which should hardly come as a surprise. The weirdly simple or alternately overcomplicated approaches to scientific exploration, the attention to the space-age aesthetics of high-tech devices, and the general awesome strangeness of it all. I dig it.

And of course, when anyone is asked to name a black and white sci-fi hero, Buck Rogers is one of the first that will come to mind. Even my college dorm has a barely-functioning ‘Buck Rogers And The Planet Of Zoom‘ arcade game in the basement. What I’m saying is that the dude’s been a fixture in the sci-fi lexicon and culture itself for countless years. So, why has it taken so long to get a real action figure of this famous hero? We really got a Mr. Bean figure before we got Buck Rogers?

It was worth the wait. GoHero’s been giving us glimpses into the production process of their impossibly cool 12” Buck Rogers for a very long time now, adding extra features, fixing minute aspects of the figure, and finally, releasing him into the world. It’s a labor of love by GoHero’s Steve Forde, because the process definitely hasn’t been that easy. That happens when parts of your action figure are made of glass and their guts are made of fancy computers.

This is definitely one of my most anticipated toys of the year, and like many people in the flagging economy, I’ve severely cut back on my collecting. Buck Rogers, however, still had to happen. I can give up a few tiny Iron Men for this. Food? Food is for the weak.

Buck arrives in a wooden box, much like the previously released Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol, making the two pieces complement each other even in their packaging. The retro-awesome is revealed as you slide the front panel upwards to reveal the figure inside. The front panel itself has been burnt with the Buck Rogers logo, as well as the specific edition number of your figure. Mine is #675 our of 1000. Classiest packaging of the year, by the way – but I’m a total sucker for wood anyhow.

Inside, the figure itself rests in plastic packaging. Because of shipping issues from the overseas factory, the glass dome that rests over Buck’s head was shipped separately, but can still be stored within the plastic frame that the figure sits in. The removal and replacement of the figure in the package is supremely easy. The package itself contains a set of gloved hands, a holster to loop onto Buck’s belt, his die-cast iconic Disintegrator Pistol, a helmet, a certificate of authenticity, and a USB cable with some instructions. But why would an action figure need a USB cable? Because it is amazing is why. We’ll get to that part in a moment.

The figure itself has a great 1/6th scale body, and there are a LOT of them out there. Sideshow, Enterbay, Hot Toys, Medicom, Triad Toys – everyone’s got a 1/6th scale body. This one, which is proprietary to GoHero, is highly flexible, and I found no joints that wouldn’t to exactly what I wanted them to. While a few are a little wiggly, it doesn’t affect poseability, ultimately. The portrait of Buster Crabbe is incredibly solid and leaves nothing to be desired. It’s really just a stupendous figure.

The clothing is also immaculately detailed and finely sewn together. The pilot pants and red shirt are very impressive and fit the figure very well. The boots and ‘leather’ vest are both made of a thin rubber, as are the extra gloved hands. I didn’t attempt to remove either, because I just didn’t want to test the elasticity of the rubber. I was gentle, and had no problems, nor do I anticipate any. None of this impedes figure motion either, which is a feat.

To put the gloves on the figure, you pop off the existing bare hands and slip the gloves onto the pegs which are left. It takes some considerable skill and force to thread the new hands onto the pegs, but it can be done with a minimum of profanity. The helmet is slipped on very easily, and the holster is also placed on the figure’s belt once it’s unlatched and threaded through a loop or two. The awesome glass dome, however, is another thing entirely.

It’s a beautiful addition to the figure, and probably the first time that real glass has been used as a major figure component. It’s a serious coup towards giving the figure some real veracity, it’s bold, and it didn’t come without its trials. My giant monkey hands just can’t get it onto the figure securely. The glass dome is surrounded by a rubber lining around the bottom, which is both decorative and functional, as it has two minuscule straps which can be buckled under the figure’s armpits to hold it in place. This rubber is held onto the glass with a wire wrapped and soldered around it, and set into a groove. Fair enough, however, is the fact that the dome can rest rather comfortably on the shoulders of Buck, without the stretching and prodding necessary to buckle the straps. I love the realness of actual tiny buckles, though I would not object to a snap or a magnet.

One other tremendous aspect is the jetpack, which slips into the rubber vest. It’s sleek and beautiful, and with the press of a button, it lights up bright red. What more do you need to know? Glowing jetpack. Boom.

But what’s this about a USB cord? See, the ATOMedia 12” body actually contains a 1GB MP3 player, and in this case, it is preprogrammed with a whole mess of Buck Rogers radio programs. By sneaking a finger under the tight vest, you can switch the internal player on and control it with an external remote. The included USB cable can be used to load up the MP3 player with any music or programs of your choice, and you can even directly record your own voice into the figure. It’s a little bit of innovative madness, and when you need to charge him up, the USB cord is used once again, transmitting power right into the internal battery. The speaker quality is solid for an action figure – but I guess there’s no real standard for that established just yet. Everything is perfectly clear, and it’s really a whole surreal experience to have these sounds emerging from this guy. Yet another first from GoHero, who are really revolutionizing the genre.

Buck Rogers is a nearly perfect action figure experience. Check out the gallery right here on CQ to see many, many more photos of this guy – aided by a stand from Enterbay to get some of the fancier poses goin’. When you have a dome of glass delicately balanced on your head, it sometimes helps to have a stand to support your figure, lest disaster strike and you run crying into your room and kick at the sheets until it all goes away in a sobbing miasma of defeat. But enough about my nightly routine. It’s worth the investment – be careful, and you’ll have a stellar space hero to display for as long as you can imagine.

It’s recently come to my attention that I dig fantasy guns.

Now, I’m a sensitive guy, and have absolutely no desire to own a real gun. They’re loud, scary, and the part of my brain that endlessly calculates everything that could possibly go wrong in any given situation simply won’t allow it. Regardless of this, the relative harmlessness of fantasy guns, and their link to imaginative fiction, is appealing to me – from Sideshow Toys’ giant Samaritan (from the Hellboy movies), to Dr. Grordbort’s steampunk rayguns, and even the long-awaited Golden Gun from Corgi, pulled directly from the James Bond film of the same name. So, when Go Hero started flashing pictures of their replica 1937 Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol, I knew that I had to finally start my collection – and it really couldn’t have been a more auspicious start.

Since I’m also a fan of retro pulp heroes, the Buck Rogers stuff is a natural fit. The idea of playing around with a perfect replica of a sparking raygun that kids fired off 70 years ago held more than a little pseudo-nostalgia. Sure, I was born 50 years too late, but those bygone eras have always had a way of captivating me.

Go Hero has created a piece-by-piece, functional replica of the original Buck Rogers Pistol, manufactured by Daisy. The Disintegrator Pistol comes wrapped in a yellow, cardboard slipcase that features retro artwork, and details the various parts of the gun on the back panel. Inside the slipcase is a maple box (which smells AMAZING, by the way), which is finished in a satin stain, with a few charmingly rough edges. Any collectible that involves wooden pieces is okay by me – it lends to this organic form of uniqueness that can’t be captured in any other material. And it’s like opening a treasure chest. Arrrrrr, matey.

The maple box has a lid that is held down by four small magnets, and the center of the lid holds a die-cast, inlaid plate with the Buck Rogers insignia, as well as the edition number of the Pistol. I happened to score a delightfully low number – #81 out of 1000. The inside of the lid and the bottom of the box are also laser-etched with details about the gun, and a Buck Rogers logo again. For the record, laser etching looks like a slight woodburn.

Inside of this box is a small die-cast figure of Buck, as well as the Pistol itself, which both rest in a thick, plastic tray. While the metal Buck piece is taped down and stored safely in a plastic bag, mine had come loose during shipping and was rattling around inside of the box. Fortunately, there was no damage to the Pistol or box at all.

The gold Pistol is also numbered above the trigger, next to a whole bunch of copyright information. This is the main difference between the original gun and this reproduction – all of these words. Things were simple and less litigious back in 1937. The Pistol has a real heft, and it feels cold, hollow and metal – just like it should. The other main difference between this piece and the original is the orange, plastic gun safety plug that’s been wedged into the barrel, which is mandated by US gun law. Anything that even slightly resembles a gun needs a bright orange tip, so as to avoid confusion with a real gun. While I don’t love what the orange tip does to the aesthetic of fantasy guns in general, it doesn’t really detract too much from the Pistol. Of course, the plug is removable after some effort, but the box explicitly advises against it. It also looks like the tip of the barrel is roughly cut, so I’d rather have some smooth plastic matching the contours of the Pistol than a jagged circle of metal.

It’s a beautiful, exciting piece, showing manufacturing marks and techniques that have been forgotten for more modern, cheaper methods. Whether these marks are genuine or faked is a mystery to me, but I can’t tell the difference.

The functionality of the Pistol comes in with the pull of the trigger. With a loud pop (which is amplified by the hollow of the Pistol), and a spark inside the red ‘electronic compression viewplate’ above the trigger, the gun comes to life. Something inside strikes a flint, and the gun lights up – for just a second, which is just enough. If you get trigger-happy, the package includes extra flints that you can replace. The only minor problem with this action that that is seems to have flaked off a 1/2 centimeter of black metallic coating on the back side of the trigger, so I’m using it sparingly.

The box also includes patent designs, and a numbered certificate of authenticity, as well as a thin layer of packing foam that you can take or leave. As long as you store the box with the right side facing up, it’s not necessary to keep. I’ve stored the certificates and flint safely beneath the plastic display mold.

The Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol is stunning and iconic, and I’m kinda in love with it, as you can see form this gallery in the community. You can order it directly through Go Hero’s website for the price of $175. Everything about this reproduction is done with the utmost class and respect, and I have to say that it’s the beginning of a beautiful collection.

I’ll oft come here and wax wistfully about the various things I trip over in my room daily – the boxes of toys, the LPs, animal skulls, comic books and DVDs – but most of the time, my brain is thinking eight months into the future about the things that I lust for and just what body part I’d need to sell to get them. Whether that body part remains attached to me or needs to be removed can be determined later.

Today’s objet du désir is actually a trinity of things. I know that the word ‘trinity’ is usually reserved for things sacred, but I’m hard pressed to think of anything more sacred than the mighty raygun. Destroyer of worlds, liquefier of membranes, obliterator of enemies – the raygun delivers science fiction violence on an unimaginable scale, sometimes instantaneous and sometimes freezing the victim in an eternity of searing agony. Rayguns were a staple boys’ toy from the 1930s until 1960s, when science fiction played an important part on the radio, comic books and television, and guns were more acceptable as playthings. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Captain Kirk were regular raygun wielders, and their toy raygun counterparts ranged from firing caps, blowing bubbles, squirting water or just looking pretty, dangerous, or pretty dangerous.

WETA Workshop, however, has now brought the realm of rayguns to a whole new strata of awesome.

Starting now, WETA is offering the trinity of Dr. Grordbort’s Infallible Aether Oscillators… which is fancy talk for ‘awesome freakin’ raygun’. Each of the three rayguns, the Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector, the F.M.O.M. Industries Wave Disrupter Gun and the ManMelter 3600zx Sub-Atomic Disintegrator Pistol are different in appearance and ostensibly serve different purposes. They’re all constructed to be retro-styled and realistic, and each comes with its own velvet-lined display case, which is really the only way to transport a raygun of this caliber. Velvet is known to withstand the harsh effects of zero gravity and cosmic rays, and also serves as a repellant to marauding lizardmen… and you KNOW how they can get into everything.

Of course, you can expect a ten-pound raygun to set you back a few bucks – about 700 of ‘em. Currently, only the Goliathon is up for pre-order, and ready to be officially released next month, while the other two rayguns will be released to pre-orders in the two months following. Additionally, WETA is running a promotion wherein if you purchase a raygun from their online shop, you’re automatically entered into a drawing to win the other two rayguns in the set. If a man can’t spend his paycheck on a raygun, what CAN he spend it on? Booze and hookers have lost their charm, guys.

It was only a couple of months ago that I saw small children loading up clips of candy at the Pez Gathering and sliding them into the collectible Pez Space Gun, darting around the halls and firing them at each other. In the amazing film ‘The American Astronaut‘, the bizarre antagonist dances and sings through a room full of human ashes, every victim disintegrated by a powerful raygun. The charm of the raygun remains though, transcending thoughts of violence, instead being dominated by fun and wackiness. Many futuristic rayguns are actually theoretically designed to not kill their victim – just incapacitate them painlessly.

The jury is still out about me adding this to my collection, but I can tell you that dropping $700 on one will be a lot more painful than anything an actual raygun could do to me.