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Disclaimer: I totally had this written and ready to go yesterday as a Tuesday post. However, without internet I couldn’t risk tethering my phone for all the photo uploads due to data consumption (especially since I’ll be doing just that tonight for tomorrow’s podcast). Sorry friends.

Hey! I’m back! I mean, I never really left, I was still blabbering away on Go Plug Yourself and 9ES but my writing ground down to an absolute halt over the course of the last month or so as I sorted out moving from my apartment into the condo that Sarah and I just bought. I’ll spare you the details of everything involved and everything that went wrong, but now the “shit to do” list has dwindled down to a manageable 4 or 5 things.

In all the hubbub I managed to not only stop blogging, I entirely forgot to to talk about December’s “REVOLUTION” crate (it was pretty great in my opinion). I also basically forgot that I was even subscribed to Loot Crate (and the box got sent to my old address). But hey, I finally got my hands on January’s “ORIGINS” crate so now I’m going to review it! I had no idea what franchises were going to get repped this month so it was kind of cool to have a total surprise with each item I pulled.

Unfortunately, due to a few unpacking issues I’m taking this month’s round of photos with my cameraphone. Apologies in advance.

January continues the trend of “quality over quantity” and for the most part, I’m pretty cool with it Let’s take a look at what we’ve got.

Ninja Turtles Tiki Shot Glass

I got Donnie! If I were hard pressed to name a favorite Turtle, I would probably go with Raphael. However, if I took a “Which Ninja Turtle Are You?” quiz online, I would almost certainly get Donatello. And he’s my second favorite. Since there’s only two left I’ll tell you that the list ends with Leo and let you figure it out.

This shot glass is super cool, and the “tiki” design kind of makes it an acceptable accessory to any kind of geeky home bar you may have set up without being too overtly nerdy. If I didn’t know someone who is literally obsessed with tiki bars I would definitely be adding this guy to said home bar. I kind of flip flopped back and forth on whether this was a 4 or a 5 but landed on a 4 for the following reasons: it’s not Raph and a bigger non-shot glass would have bumped it to a 5. Still extremely cool.
Happiness: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Captain America 1940’s Shield

Did Cap throw this shield? Did it still come back to him like a boomerang? It certainly doesn’t seem like it would have the aerodynamics to be a good throwing item, but maybe we didn’t know as much about physics in the 1940s when Steve Rogers was fighting Nazis. All told though, this is a good, quality little trinket. It’s made of sturdy metal and comes with a nice little stand to hold this guy up on your shelf. A nice little alternative to a figurine while still having the ability to be on display. Would be extra cool if I was a bigger Captain America fan.
Happiness: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

TMNT Pin

I was happy last year when they switched over to much classier metal pins over tiny buttons. I was initially thrown off when the pins stopped being related directly to Loot Crate, but I’ve come around to basically appreciate the pins as an extra little piece of Loot. Last year’s Skyrim, Halloween and AVP pins come to mind as nice little pins that I wouldn’t mind having on my bag. A little TMNT pin? Same story. Nice. Extra heart since the pin unlocks some free TMNT comics on Comixology!
Happiness: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Full Reprint of Action Comics #1

This is extremely cool. Most of us have probably read Action Comics #1 by now online or in a myriad of collections over the years. I mean, we’ve had nearly 80 years to find it in some form or another. Most of also don’t have the $3 million needed to pick up a copy of it for ourselves though. I’m sure that most die-hard Superman fans have already found one of the several reprints they’ve made but personally, I have not. Even as a casual fan of Supes I think there is something to be said for having the grandaddy of the modern superhero comic sitting up on your shelf or on your wall. I haven’t had the heart to open it up to see if the original ads are inside or not, which would be a cool little bonus if they are.
Happiness: ♥ ♥ ♥

Mario/Jumpman Sprite T-Shirt

Speaking of grandaddies, you can make the argument pretty easily that Mario is the Superman of video games. Responsible for pushing video games into the mainstream and getting swarms of people hooked on the past time. So not only is it cool to see Mario in his original form from his early days as “Jumpman” back when he was trying to rescue a Princess from Donkey Kong, it’s also cool that he is a part of the overall “Origins” of gaming as a whole.

Plus the design is dope.
Happiness: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Overall?

I liked this crate a lot, I like that between Mario, Superman and Captain America we kind of had a dual purpose origin story. This crate celebrating not just the origins of those characters, but also the origins of popular geek mediums like comic books and video games. TMNT kind of gets an honourable mention, being one of the first popular indie comics to hit the mainstream and also in the batch of early adventure cartoons that we all grew up (obviously pre-dated by a few years by He-Man, G.I. Joe and Transformers). Props to Loot Crate for digging up the franchises that were likely tied directly to our own personal origin stories as geeks.

Neato!

Next month’s theme is “BUILD” and all I’m saying is there better be some Lego.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.