A is for Answer Robot

There was a game, very popular in the past, more of a 'parlour game' than a board game, but it was sold as or in-with the board-games, and would end-up in the family board-game cupboard.

There were many versions from the 1950's or earlier, through to the 1970's if not '80's, it appears on all the auction sites in a dozen languages and can come with a magician/mage/mystic, or a monkey/ape, but the best is The Answer Robot!

On Boardgamegeek

Mentioned a few years ago here in passing (possibly in a 'News, Views...'?); it was re-issued the other year as The Magical Amazing Robot, I didn't at the time of mention have the publisher - it's House of Marbles.

Spoiler alert - for the young at heart, please miss-out this and the next paragraph!

The mechanism is simple slight-of-physics in that you set the robot (or magician/monkey) correctly and then turn him to a question "Any question, pick a question sir, I'll wager the robot gets it right", he having been rotated has become off-line with his hidden magnet.

You then move the answerer to the mirror-pond in the centre of the answers and by placing him randomly opposite a wrong answer, he will revolve until his hidden magnet lines-up with another hidden magnet set at another angle, under the pond; both being polarised bars which can only line up one way, leaving the answerer pointing to the corresponding correct answer!

Here he is, the subject of today's biography! He oozes that 1950's throwback kitsch to the Sci-fi of the Edwardian era, of Wells and Verne, looking more like a kid's comic idea of a robot schoolteacher, still a popular trope when I was young, and you will recognise him as being . . .

. . . a reduced-size copy of the old Archer robot, a copy/re-issue of which by Glencoe is seen on the left, with an original (sans 'answer stick') sandwiched between, His pointer arm has been re-set to allow for the dramatic sweep of the denouement and his feet absorbed into the large base, but otherwise there's not much in it.

The new one is lacking in the finer surface detail (as if the other two have much to write home about!) and would seem to be a copy, but a good one, there's no reduction in size; or from a very old and tired mould.

It's not the first time the Archer has been served 'homage', as both Johillco and Cherilea issued copies of him first in hollow-cast lead and then in plastic (as seen here) possibly under the later Hilco branding, all examples are around the 50mm mark, and very brittle these days in the plastic form.

With the gubbins of the secret base removed he looks like a robot mine-detector, or a Vogon intergalactic space-highway surveyor!

Another difference between the older version and this latest incarnation, it that the old one was formed round the pointer (which would have been set in a jig in the tool before each shot), while the new one has the [heated] wire inserted into the hand after the figure has been manufactured, leading to minor melting/loss of detail to the fingers of the hand.

The dismantling of the set for onward transit to the recycling-bin raised an interesting query which will appear as a separate Question Time in an hour.

And many thanks go to Adrian Little for letting me photograph mine next to his pair.

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Paul Lamond - Subbuteo

I'm having a mojo-fail at the moment, March and October are never good months for me, the mind wanders, the extreme tides fulling me away from the flickering cod's eye of my laptop, to vastly better endeavours (I'll be working the rose thorn-tips out of my hands for a fortnight!), but there's plenty in the queue, so keep popping back . . . if you can be arsed - it'll all still be here in six months time!

One of the biggest new stories (for me, not the general public!) at the Toy Fair 'back in' January (where does the time go, it's our very-actual-bloody lives; tick-ticking away!) was the return of Subbuteo, which if I understood the sales-chap right is now in-house, or part of the intellectual-property portfolio of Paul Lamond, they having either bought the rights, or a long-term license?

Look for the sales display in your local stockist! It's green!

A nice display of what is already a growing range of teams, with seven strips already issued (last year?) including all the teams of the UK and Eire (actually - not sure about Wales while Curnow seems to have been left out!), backed up by accessories and larger 'starter' play-sets.

The main event is the International Playset which gives a pitch with hoardings, fences, two teams, goals, referee and officials, balls &etc - in a box. The only visible difference is that the goalies' beams are red now, rather than the green they used to be.

However, there are two other major changes over the older versions (which we have looked at once or twice here at Small Scale World), the first has to be a matter of opinion, in that they claim the pitch material is better . . . if it makes for faster ball play, those who liked a slow ball game won't find it better at all, and if it's slower . . . vise-versa!

The other upgrade one of those no-brainer, rocket-science, euraka!, why-didn't-someone-think-of-it- in-1950-something applications - which I can attest-to personally as being a major contribution to player-safety (he misquotes the old Goodyear TV add's) because - the players are now made of a flexible rubber, silicon or substitute-PVC compound, making them extremely flexible and almost impossible to damage if you drop them, drop something on them or tread on them - genius! I bent one (after invitation to do so - I hasten to add) pretty-much flat and he just popped-up again!

A smaller pitch-set or goals are also available to build your league slowly on a budget, there seems to be a choice of white or coloured nets, probably indicated on the box-ends, I didn't notice. Other accessories are currently limited to the fence-hoardings, a set of officials and spare balls, but I'm sure the range will be expanded if sales are promising.

The teams, notice the set; hair colour varies, ethnicity is obvious and varied. Another seven team-strips have been added for 2018, and if that rate is continued for a few years they'll be back to the 1970's heyday when you could order from several hundred different strips, and while I don't suppose it will get to that point, there's no reason why it couldn't be done with computer-aided manufacture (CAM).

Indeed, with a dedicated support website and CAM-linked ordering system you could stipulate the strip, boot, ethnicity and hair colours individually for all 11 players, just like buying a new-car (or 11 new cars) these days! Hint-hint Paul Lamond - find a VC who loved Subbuteo as a kid, they'll lend you the money!

All new for 2018 is the beginnings of a Spanish league, flicking goalies and a leaping goalie for penalty shoot-outs, whether there are any plans for an English player who can't hit the goal for toffee, remains to be seen and for the English goalie . . . Vaseline his hands?!

R is for Return to Captain Video et al.

Not exactly a follow-up as the other days post was adequate enough for what it was, but I said at the time that I would re-visit these when I got the rest out of storage, as there are more of the smaller premium sized ones there and a few of the human/spaceman sculpts (I think . . . it's a while since I saw them!), but then I picked these up the other day . . .

 . . . so we might as well have another look at them now! The rest of the Reamsa tinny-ethylene re-issues at the bottom, a duplicate bird-man in rubber, also from Reamsa (top left) next to a totally new one on me, a Heudebert European food premium based-on but reversed from the Lido robot and five of the clunky-styrene or phenolic ones from the anonymous maker of 'Winco Condar's Interplanetary Spacemen!'

So ♪♫♩♬ Meet the gang, 'cos the boys are here, the boys to entertain you . . . with robots an' ail'iee'ens to help you on your way...♩♫♪♬ The 'gang' may be bigger than the storage sample now, but I don't think so and there's still a shortage of the smaller versions and the humans here.

The ray-gun guy in green I 'restored' with a coat of plumbers sealant a while ago can now be seen to be one of the smaller ones though, as he's considerably smaller then the Reamsa, who's brothers are all the same as the Lido/British versions.

The blue cat-man/gasmask guy has his weapons intact as does the new green trident guy (or should that be bident!) unlike their twins.

The above image was originally just the picture on the left, but I think I got one (or two) of my colour-matched cube's wrong last time, so I've added a legend to the right (don't temp me!) which is correct, bearing in mind that those marked Lido could be from any one of several sources (Dumont, Rex, Techniplast), the four Reamsa's may have been issued by one or two other brand-marks (Alca Capell, Puchol) in recent years, and - indeed - the silver robot is so clean he may be a more recent 'pressing'?

As I said last time, without the base marks of the Reamsa or Trovador examples "It's very hard to say with any degree of definitiveness which figure is by which company".

The spare rubber Reamsa is available for a straight-up swap for any of the other three poses if you have one of them duplicated and need this bird-man - eMail me on maverickatlarge [at] hotmail [dot] com. Compared to the re-issue there's nothing in it, they are from the same mould and all four are numbered under the base as per the catalogue listing.

The Heudebert as I say; was unknown to me, and there doesn't seem to be much on that there inter'mah'web-thinggy, he can be seen - or said - to have either had his arms reversed or had his face put on the back of his head, he's also a lot smaller, so rather a 'son of robot'. He's a sharp, 'kit' type, polystyrene like Heudebert flats, in a slightly washy, metallic-gold polymer.

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Airfix

If the 2018 Revell catalogue was thin on 'Ooomph', the Airfix catalogue this year was barely worth printing! Half the volume of its stalemate - the Hornby Trains catalogue - it had very little in the way of new tooling, and what there was; was all aircraft subjects which just don't get me excited.

There was little old stuff brought back, little military overall, and the entire 1:48th scale range (which Airfix seem to have invested a fair bit of effort in over the last few years) has been retired - so if you want any it's evilBay or old stock; before it all dissapears into other modellers 'piles'!

And this . . . is the entire as-advertised HO/OO range, now described as 1:72, but we all know they're closer to 1:76th! It is pitiful; no World War I tie-in stuff, well; that's a boat they will have totally missed after September, no 100-years of the RAF tie-in stuff (unlike another stalemate - Corgi) and the catalogue is puffed out with a larger section on Humbrol (with as little as six items per page) and some 'comparison tables' which are fanfared as really useful, while not being very useful at all!

The only other thing which may interest some readers of Small Scale World is a new colour-variant of the Lego-likey construction brick Challenger Tank model, the green (temperate theatre) one becoming available from next Sunday . . . like they are going to rush round the worlds toy outlets on a Sunday!

As it's a show report of a catalogue image - which is itself clearly nothing more than a couple of re-coloured CAD-image of the previous sand version - I can't even guarantee it's the actual, or close to the final colour to be issued! Further - Cobi; one of the winners in the wars with Lego have a much larger range of equally nice AFV's in three price-brackets to compete with this pair.

All-in-all a piss-poor performance from Airfix who seem to think contracting into yourself is the way out of poor trading and supply-chain problems? Still, they are really only a trademark these days and it's Hornby's grave that actually being dug.

Q is for Question Time - Chess Pawn?

Another quickie, I know (or I'm pretty sure - don't want TJF and the correction-police on my back again!) it's a chess pawn . . .

. . . but while he turns up in both black and white plastic from time to time, I'm not sure I've ever seen other pieces to match, which would mean he could be from a draughts/checkers type game with identical pieces.

He's a dense polystyrene, but a softer rather than brittle type, and seems to be an Elizabethan or Conquistador sort of chap. He has green felt baize on the underside and isn't particularly rare. Kneeling makes him hard to size, but he's between 60 and 70mm maybe.

As most chess (or draughts) sets in plastic seem to have been issued by known brands, I 'm hoping someone can put a makers/issuers name to him?

C is for Coincidences, coincidences!

It's funny how things sometimes come together; if with divine purpose it's synergy, if without: coincidence, I think this is the later, as it falls at the last, but it's worth recounting anyway . . . the blurb has to come from somewhere.

Back in December the 169th issue of Plastic Warrior's magazine dropped through the door with - among many other things - a British issued (Selcol) version of a Lido medieval set; King's Knights. So far so good, last weekend I went to Sandown and saw these, they were quite reasonable and the seller told me these was another mounted hidden in the pile - twice before I took it!

I thought; "ohh, they must be those ones in the last PW, I'll have them to go with my Lido (and Selcol!) unpainted sample". Meaning to Blog them after I'd looked-up December's PW; I shoved them in a folder and left them on the desktop last-night (Wednesday).

Of course; this morning PW 170 fell onto the mat (review; next week - hopefully), with a letter from someone referring back to them and I read it with interest to see if they mentioned what I thought I'd 'discovered', but they hadn't (phew!), only for me to look up the older issue this evening (Thursday) and find that the Selcol's are either unpainted as per the Lido, or all-over painted and I hadn't discovered more than that there are HK copies, which I already knew!

What I thought I'd discovered was that the British ones were from Hong Kong, but I hadn't bought the British ones (I thought I was buying), I'd bought some more HK piracies! So I turned to Kent Sprecher's ToySoldier HQ where there is a little more clarity with the painted ones shown as copies (he's added a lot more to the page in the last couple of years), however, while my horses are clearly marked 'Made in Hong Kong' . . .

. . . the foot figures seem to be in every other way, the same as Lido's, just with paint. The foot figures are soft polyethylene, the horses - hard polystyrene.

Kent's site gives a nice time-line of the company's many incarnations and the moulds seem to have gone every-which-way and I wonder if the knight's mould might have ended-up in HK? It would be easy to add the 'made in...' stamping to the mould-tool, while other Hong Kong clones exist (see pink chap below), but smaller and/or marked - as tended to be the case, or 'as you'd expect'!

Anyway, I then went into the attic just now, to get the Lido knights tub, only to find it's not in either of the medieval boxes because - as I remembered after the fact - I'd give them their own tub (Really Useful 3-litre CD box, brilliant for 4x5½ bags) with each pose (US (or UK) and HK) in a separate bag together, as they are a favourite of mine, the toy-like quality appeals to me and I buy them whenever I see them - I'd just forgotten the painted ones!

So, here's a few, all Hong Kong, although all bar the pink one seem to be as Lido/Selcol, I thought I'd posted them here before but I don't seem to have, so we will return to them when I get the tub out of storage. In the meantime there's PW 169 and 170 (and earlier issues for sure) and Kent's page to help!

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Wildlife

Other than animals and civilian ('Farm & Zoo') there was nothing on the Schleich stand to interest the hobby really, there is a Fantasy range we'll look at in another post (along with some more licensed stuff), but there are no knights (Eldrador now cleared through [and from] TKMaxx), pirates, Samurai or Ninjas, no Gladiators, Egyptians, no historicals, the siege-engines and medieval camp gone . . . nothing, nada, zilch!

Anyway, today we shall look at the Schleich stalwart - animals, and starting at the beginning; Dinosaurs! Funnily enough I picked-up a K&M stegosaurus the other day and was quite surprised by its quality, but these Schleich are pretty much at the top of the game, and like the Papo range, don't have the weird join-lines found on the larger 'CHINA' models - including the K&M example.

I particularly like the treatment of the Dimetrodon 'sails' they have the radiating spars of the extended vertebra nicely sculpted, but the blood-vessels have been given a more amorphic paint-treatment, over and between the spars, ignoring their symmetry, which gives sense to several of the theories concerning the functionality of the sails; either to cool in the heat of the day, or to warm the blood in the rays of the morning sun, or indeed - both!

The wild animal range is also pretty much as it's been for a while now, a few new tools of old but popular sellers (when everyone's bought your whatever, give them a new whatever to buy!), some totally new animals, and the core range carried-over from the previous year.

Obviously with things like the cetaceans 'constant' scale has gone out of the window, but they would otherwise be several feet long, I think for such beasts it's understandable.

Most of the arctic and marine animals (back left and bottom row) are new for 2018, along with a lovely koala, whole lion family, a delightful chimpanzee, a pair of zebras a hippo and a rhinoceros. There's also a new pig family in the more toy-like Farm World range.

But with the domestic range there is both a scale creep (upwards) and that move to a more toy like or juvenile look if you know what I mean. This girl - for instance - is a part action-figure with four-to-six points of articulation; I didn't study them closely? And - like the Revell stuff the other day - seems to be aiming to take market-share from people who were not previously seen as obvious rivals, such as poor old Playmobile . . . again!

For the animal fans though the core range remains much as it's been for years and I was quite taken by the long-horn cattle in dark brown to the far right and - as you saw earlier today - I keep an eye out for new cat models!

A flavour of the catalogue gives more of these play set type things, and while the longhorns are in the display rack the rest don't seem to be and also seem to have a more playful, less realistic countenance - but that may just be me seeing things which aren't there!

Q is for Question Time - Bagheera?

Just a quick one as we looked at small cats this morning, here's a big one . . .

. . . which I'm sure is meant to be Bagheera. However it could just be a slightly comical black panther, especially as it's unmarked and Disney-licensed stuff is nearly always marked, unless unofficial/knock-off type stuff.

The lack of any marking would seem to rule out Kinder and I think it's  too big for the old Schleich 'mini's and it has painted eyes in two colours, they tended to dot eyes in black, if at all, but/so he could just as easily be a Halloween thing - as in a witches cat not a big cat? Does anyone know who made him?

T is for Two - Schleich Cats

As we are in the middle of the Schleich show reports we might as well get these two out of the Laptop's doldrums and off to their permanent home in the 'S' dongle!

This chap (or chapess) has been waiting for a while now, bought on a whim and I thought I'd already blogged him (or her), but I don't seem to have, apologies if IT looks familiar, while the photo's are here, the cat has long-since been buried in the box with the other felines!

Bog-standard grey tabby, and while the stripes are not terribly realistic for a tabby, you get those mackerel-striped grey ones from time to time and it passes muster as one of those, if anything the tail markings should be darker, while the face is very well-done and quite expressive.

This one on the other hand is a recent purchase for my mother, who has a thing for ginger tabbies. Last time I looked it was standing guard in the kitchen on top of a wooden coffee barrel.

That's it - couple of cats - both current - from Schleich

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Bayala &etc.

I think I mentioned the pinky-purple section yesterday, so let's get that swiftly out of the way and save the relative safety of the animals 'till tomorrow. Bayala is the name of this game and it's very pinky-purple . . . and mauve . . . and sky-blue . . . and mint-green . . . and rainbowy!

Mermaids; in scallop-shells - except they don't look like scallops, they look like cheap rack-toy purses from the 1970's, or Polly-pocket compacts from the '80's? But Mermaids are mermaids and out of the shell they are nice sculpts if that's you thing.

Unicorns; I've said it before and I'll say it again: They're everywhere! Quite apart from the bandwagon of the unicorn-fest, it's a clear attack on whoever's got My Little Pony franchises, and there are quite a few of them.

Unicorns with fairies! Again; nothing wrong with them as sculpts, they are a bit big for figure collectors or modellers to do much with, but it's where the money is . . .

. . . the biggest section of the Schleich catalogue (after the Wild Animal section) is the Horse Club section, clearly going after girls' pocket-money or girls' parents money, and attacking Breyer - all these big companies are ruthless businesses, and if Breyer are doing well, they will be attacked.

As well as the DC & Marvel comic stuff (increasingly: 'movie' stuff!) I posted yesterday, Schleich have two other licensed product-lines in the early-year catalogue (everything we're looking at in these posts is good 'till June 2018), one being Peanuts, no surprises here, various companies have done PVC Peanuts over the years; with or without permission! We looked at the latest (Phidal) the other day.

Of slightly more interest (from a purely intellectual point of view - I'm not rushing out to buy them or anything like that!) is the Maya stuff. Without Google to hand I think it's an old European TV thing (Heimo or Bully did some figures ages [decades?]  ago - I'm sure), clearly with a Movie out (or forthcoming), which is nice.

Not because I like franchises, I don't; I despair at the state of the whole licensed-character 'thing', even though it goes back the best part of a century, with Betty Boop, Robinson's Gollies, Jonny Walker, various cats (Felix, Figaro, Fritz . . . ) and Disney - of course, but it's got to the point were there's not much else? At least the Bayala above seems to be a totally 'in-house' construct.

But in a world where Disney, Lucas, DC, Marvel and Nintendo seem to own half of everything cultural or toy-like, it's nice to see European (or Bwreaksit British!) things like Dr. Who or Pepper Pig getting picked-up and passed across the pond, or further afield like Japan. The irony in this case being that the Maya figurines aren't even available in the UK . . . Doh!

Still - I get to put Maya in the tag-list! More Schleich tomorrow.

R is for Real Armeria or 'Royal Armories'

Having looked at museum exhibits from Brain the last two days (as well as the knights we looked at in a past Papo post; also from Mr. B), it was rather fortuitous I picked this up at Sandown last Saturday, well, actually Mr. Little as good as gave it to me at the end of the show - so big shout out to Mercator Trading.

Before cleaning

I give you Philip III of Spain (and the various other places he claimed!) C1570-1621 wearing his Milanese-made Parade armour which I'm assuming is on show at the Madrid Royal Armories.

I think I first saw these in Plastic Warrior magazine about 20 years ago (?), and I seem to recall there are others (I remember two?) to find (my back-issues are in storage so I can't check), also; I think there are larger versions, more like the Marx and Aurora kits, but I might be making that last bit up as I go along?

Or maybe the Marx or Aurora kits - someone else made some large knights, one of the Japanese kit makers; Crown? Aoshima? - were the larger ones, also made-up for sale in the museum's gift-shop?

After cleaning

Whatever the facts, the smaller ones as seen here are exquisite little polystyrene kits, a tad smaller than 54mm (closer to 50-mil or 1:35th scale) made-up and painted as a commercial exercise, the smaller and larger plinths also being in styrene, as is the base-plate.

He needed a dusting and re-gluing but I tend to shoot the show-stuff as I'm doing the initial sort and before I get round to cleaning, so the four-way image above has him teetering . . . the camera may never lie, but it can hide a multitude of sins and this two way highlights the poor finish, but he is now glued firmly back on his plinth.

Decoration is minimal with a gunmetal wash, silver over that and an over-paint or wash of a nice pale-gold which shines well in the light, minimal colour has been applied to the saddle-cloth and the horse gets a few splodges of thinned-black, however, all this appears to have happened after assembly so the sides of Phillip and the armpit area are bereft of decoration,

You can also see a richer, yellower gold used for highlights on the horse furniture and saddle and the only damage I can find is the very tip of the sword has been lost, but a dab of paint at some point will all but hide the fact it's not there.

News Views etc . . . SAS - Tri-Ang Signature Collection

Just a quick one to spread the word about a forthcoming auction at SAS (Special Auction Services), off down in Newbury, Berkshire.

A two day sale on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st of March is mostly dedicated to the sale of what can only be called a 'signature' or 'reference' collection. I've seen the catalogue and it's quite amazing, although not much for toy figure collectors per se; there are some items of interest.

The collection is of 'vintage' Tri-Ang, so not much of your 1970's plastic trains and things, this is stuff going way back and includes many examples of early 'playroom' and garden toys, ride-on, pull or push toys and the like.

There is also the most extensive range of dolls houses I've ever seen in one auction and they are all Tri-Ang.

The most interesting thing about them is that - dinky-little thatched-cottages apart - the tin-plate and wood suburban town-houses they were well known for seem to reflect the changes in architectural fashion from the first inter-war Deco styling, through the faux Arts-&-Craft, to the post war expansions and the simpler designs of the 1960's, houses which some of my mates' sisters had.

Also notable is the numbers of colours they used over the years, I was left (by the houses of my youth and most of those I've seen since) thinking they were usually cream with green woodwork, but blue, dark brown and black abound for detailing, while brickworks are also white, grey or yellow - among the soberer shades. If you know someone who collects dolls' houses, this is one of those 'once a decade' sales they really should try and attend.

Where some followers of this Blog may be more interested is in the tin-plate and vehicle section of the sale, some having animals as cargo, several toys have the wheeled animals we looked at here a while ago and indeed; there is at least one of the Noah's Arks in the same with a full complement of animals.

There are also wide ranges of the later, smaller Minic's, and even some lovely sets of the late plastic military ones, a few of which I covered here back at the beginning of the Blog eight or nine years ago, in fact - we looked at the log-wagon and crawler-tractor not that long ago.

It's not a sale for figure collectors, but it's a sale any other old toy collectors should be more than interested in, and everyone should be trying to get hold of a  catalogue.

Some of the other dates for forthcoming sales at SAS in the first half of 2018 include a figure-heavy sale the following week, two train auctions and a single-owner die-cast collection along with another vintage sale in June.

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Superheroes

As with Papo I've broken the Schleich (or Schleich-S as I think they are aiming to be called?) down, but not into the same number of posts as Papo, simply because there wasn't much to see! The display seemed smaller than Papo's despite the stands being of equivalent size (they were only a few yards from each-other as well!), the move seems to be toward scene-in-a-box play-sets, fantasy (of a pinky-purple type) and the dreaded licensed stuff (the target of this post), but don't be put-off be my wittering, the animals are still about the best out-there.

And they are big, some of these a four-and-a-half-inches (120mm) or taller.

Marvel superheroes, being - if anything - a DC guy, I tend to just shake my head and move on, they have Spidey and the Hulk I s'pose, but it's not enough when the enemy have . . .

. . . Superman, Batman and the babe in a basque! Now she's in an armoured-basque I may have to be more respectful! But DC has its duffers too; who the hell's Shazami? Don't all write-in at once - I don't care; he looks like a hippy dance-guru, or a cheaper Flash! Cheap flasher? Peter Stringfellow's going to a Toga Party?

It's nice that there are different generations of the Batman, although the TV one isn't shown and he's the one I like. There may be other versions at the website (link www.schleich-s.com) where we are invited to "Discover other superheroes at:...", you will find that following the link will take you to a local (US, UK etc...) hub.

It's funny; the Man Bat gets all these upgrades with each movie (as does Marvel's Iron Man really), Wonder Woman has gone all Spartan-Amazon on us, but all Superman's got out of all the Hollywood attention is slightly fancier boots!

Thought for the day - why do the comics (or the movies) never show us Superman, at the end of his adventure, sewing-up his wreaked civi's at the speed of light, presumably in the same telephone box where he left them, all torn and ripped, so that he looks like he's just been to the water-cooler when he steps back into the office?