There are toy stores in El Paso that sell..."counterfeit" is such an ugly term....let's say, "merchandise of questionable licensing status".   I would like to say these abominations are only found in flea markets and back-alley mercados. Sadly, these were all found in local malls. Malls, for the love of God!

Here is a guide to spotting these bootlegged monstrosities....

1.) If They Have Mixed Superhero Universes

Like if they have Spiderman, Hulk, Ironman...

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....and the goddammed Batman!  If you don't understand what is fundamentally wrong about that I'm not going to bother explaining it to you because there's no way you've read this far.

Also, since when is the Hulk shorter than Spiderman???

It could be worse, though.  They could've mixed Marvel, D.C....

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...and Pixar!!??  "Benjamin Grimm, I'm Batman. I've come from Gotham City to help you and Mr. Incredible stop Syndrome. As soon as Frozone gets here we can go and pick up Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc. and get cracking"

2.) They Get a Character's Race Wrong

There are two possible Nick Fury's (Furys? Furies? Furii?).  The white non-bald comic book Nick Fury and the black, bald, Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury.  That's it. In no permutation of the multi-verse is this possible...

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Yes, that is white, bald Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury.  I won't even get into why his eye-patch strap only goes halfway around his big white, bald head.  And how do I know this is supposed to even be black, bald Sam Jackson Fury? Because, this:

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They've got Samuel L. Fury on the box!  Oh, and if that's supposed to be Yellowjacket next to the Hulk he's A.) not in the movie B.) not in this toy and C.) not wearing yellow! Fuck!

3.) If the Superheroes Are Riding Dinosaurs

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Why would Spiderman/Venom be riding a dinosaur?? I can't recall a single story arc that involved Peter Parker going to Jurassic Park. Besides, he swings by webs everywhere he goes. There is not a single superhero that would need a ride from a dinosaur less than Spiderman.

 

 

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Oh, Jesus.

4.) If They Get the Name of the Hero Wrong.

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     I'm going to give this one the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't mean to call The Hulk "Hulk Man", but instead meant to say "This is Hulk, man!" but they live in some third world country where they can't afford commas.

Also, I think there must be some kind of weird, Chinese sweat-shop logic that says it's alright to sell a cheap knock-off of a famous character as long as you change one letter in his name. Otherwise, how do you explain this?

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"Spadernam, Spaderman. Friendly neighborhood Spaderman!"

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Unless they've cast James Spader to play a middle-age Peter Parker in the next movie, this makes no sense. Although, it might be kind of awesome if there was a Less Than Zero reunion with Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman and they could team up to defeat Andrew McCarthy.  Food for thought, Hollywood.

 

 

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