I haven’t seen any of the following:
- Spiderman
- Spiderman 2
- Spiderman 3
- Iron Man
- Iron Man 2
- X-Men
- X-Men 2
- The Green Hornet
- Transformers
- Transformers 2
- The Hulk
Never a comic book kid, these films offered me nothing as an adult.
My superhero film exile, however, is about to end. Ladies & Gentlemen, The Green Lantern is exactly one month away!
The Green Lantern (along with Captain America and Ice Man) was my absolute favorite character as a youngster. I’m quite pleased the Hollywood regurgitation machine finally got down to him. Hopefully it doesn’t suck.
You know what doesn’t suck? Green Lantern toys! Mattel was kind enough to send me a gigantic box of not-yet-in-stores Green Lantern toys, rings, and hardback comic books to throw a party in Hal Jordan’s honor. And party we did! The Bear invited a gaggle of buddies from her 1st grade classroom – an almost even split of boys and girls – to feast on all things green (thank you, Mrs. Food Coloring) and play with cool new toys. Proving she has the coolest daddy in town, each kid got to take home an action figure, a ring and book. One lucky chap also walked away with a Colossal Cannon (we had just one extra, so we raffled it off to one extremely excited, squealing young lad). Did I mention these hot new toys aren’t in stores yet?
I’m glad I was picked by the powers that be to host this kind of party, after all I haven’t a son but two little ladies under my wing. It was important to me that the Bear invited an equal number of each gender to enjoy these toys. I pounce on any chance I get to prove that there doesn’t need to be such a hard line of gender demarcation down the toy store aisles. Boys can and, one could argue should, play with dolls (see the book William’s Doll) and girls can absolutely battle it out with superheroes. It’s all good.
I prepared green pepper, broccoli and cucumber (superheroes, especially the green ones, have to eat healthy!) with green-ified ranch dressing for dipping, and green apples, grapes, and honeydew with green vanilla yogurt. Because everyone needs something sweet from time to time, I baked fresh cookies with light & dark green M&Ms and whipped up some Melon Fusion flavored Jell-O. Yeah, I pulled out all the stops for this event.
While everyone eagerly grabbed their blinking Green Lantern ring of the table and slide it on a finger, only a few of our 7-year-old guests ripped open their packages and began playing with their Green Lantern figurines at the party, but the youngster who won the Cannon had the quarter-size discs flying all around our playroom! Naturally, I captured zero of this on film. I admit that I was more than a little overwhelmed by the rambunctious nature of the activity during the 3-hour event. The rain surprisingly held off so the group was in and out so often I was wishing I had a revolving door instead of the slamming-shut variety.
Regardless, I could tell that all of the children were psyched to have new toys to take home. Eight families left the OWTK compound as new fans of Green Lantern and I guarantee that all will be in some movie theater next month to witness the latest summer comic book blockbuster on the big screen, then raiding a neighborhood store for more toys to complete their newly started Green Lantern collection.
*OWTK received 11 action figures, books, rings, an animated movie and 2 cannons to host this party. I was not compensated in any other way. The opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased. Had this been offer been for Cars 2 or The Green Hornet, I’d have passed.