[ukmu]

I had bought my son, 4 at the time, a Doctor Doom MU figure at Tesco. Keep remember seeing Luke Cage and several others. I had a Secrect Wars Doom as a kid and LOVED it. The chest paint wore off almost immediately but he was my buddy. If I was allowed a single pocket toy, it was gonna be him. I made a Doom mask for Halloween that year even! Didn't get any other Marvel toys ever and never read a comic book. Always had found memories of my Doom though. I bought only that MU for nostalgia for him and for me. I was a GI Joe nutter and Star Wars figures as a kid. I loved the mother scale.

Fast forward a couple of years and Avengers Assemble came out. Didn't see it at cinema but bought it on DVD when released and we loved it!!!! Thought I would get him some toys for Christmas to play Avengers. I then scored the £80 Helicarrier for £40 worth of "club card points" on a pre Christmas sale so basically zero money out of pocket. Thought...great, I can get him 3.75" really cheap and dip in and buy a few and be done. Always want a few BIG boxes to open at Christmas for the WOW factor when you first see them.

Then we started watching EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES and I wanted to get him all the AVENGERS after watching that. Little DoD I know, ALL the Avengers is about 75 figures! I wanted a Maria Hill so bad for him. After seeing she was about $200 at the time, I found Vort via custom head casts of Maria. Talked to him about it and he suggested I check out a site called MUCollectorClub and I liked it there. Then JimmyO suggested ToyArk to me as they had a UK Marvel Universe thread with a guy called Jackie Boy that I would like. I immediately did. I started coming here more than there. Just felt one of the gang and grew to the UKMU you all are forced to contend with today. Writing long stories about nothing.

So the "cheap" big Christmas present almost 5 years ago has cost me about £1000 a year buying figures and playsets and vehicles and customs and random shit to go with it with no end in sight!