UofMUSCLE.com – M.U.S.C.L.E. Figures from Mattel

M.U.S.C.L.E. Figure #38
by Guest Professor Kevin

This guest-MMMM is devoted to the #38 figure, one of my favorite sculpts. I would like to note in passing that it is a nice coincidence to have this essay follow Monday Morning M.U.S.C.L.E. Musings #59 about the #190 figure, my other favorite sculpt. I respectfully disagree with Professor Terry’s assessment of Bane Satan: the mystery of his strange helmet is appealing. I like to think of it as similar to the dwarf-mask that Túrin finds in the armories of Nargothrond in the First Age. I suppose it follows that #190’s sword is Anglachel, also called Gurthang. (This is for those M.U.S.C.L.E. collectors who also obsess over Tolkien.)

My interest in #38 is mainly a phenomenon of my adult M.U.S.C.L.E.-collecting phase. I had this figure in flesh in my childhood collection, but did not remember this fact until my memory was jogged by finding one, with ink in the grout, in the drawer of my old desk at my parents’ house a few years ago. This particular figure can usually be found in my pocket both because I enjoy having with me a piece of my childhood collection (most of which my best friend and I systematically chopped into tiny bits while we were in junior high) and because I see it as a durability test of the M.U.S.C.L.E. rubber.

My main collecting interest is acquiring vast numbers of Flesh figures to make up for all those I destroyed as a pre-teenager. I want there to be a sufficient number to absorb those my son will lose or those that I sometimes give away both to children and adults. When I was a child, the Colored figures did not capture my imagination; there was something about that vast display of pink figures in 4-packs at the local Roses that was never topped by any other toy-experience. So my most valued (though least valuable) copies of #38 are in Flesh.

That being said, I do try to acquire the other manufactured colors of the sculpts that I particularly like. This is why I have #38, not only in Purple, Light Blue, Orange, and Green (I still need Dark Blue and Red), but also as colored kinkeshi. I am particularly fond of my Flesh Deka keshi #38, for which I probably overpaid.

#38 appeals to me because he seems inert, impermeable, unchangeable. I have never researched his back-story at the kinkeshi end, so I do not know whether or not there is a person under the tile. I have always seen him as tile all the way through.

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Kevin (Dernhelm from LittleRubberGuys.com) for guest writing a MMMM. It was such a pleasure to have a guest contributor for such a fun part of UofM.

This will always be Professor Terry’s article, but if anyone would like to guest write a MMMM, then please email UofMUSCLE@gmail.com and we can work out the details.