Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, part 22!

 It's the start of what I planned as an off-week, and I finally have a new installment of Sidekick Carl, padded out with some material I already had. As usual, here's links for the first and previous installments, also the chapter that introduced most of the characters, and one more that would have had a good part of this if I hadn't cut it down.

As the train came to a stop, John Carter put on his blue uniform. He then broke out a case that held his weapons and armor. “I’d say we gave Carl enough time to break into the site,” he said. “I’m going to go see if he’s found out anything. Want to come along?” He turned to his wife Lauren.

 Lauren just gazed back pensively. “I don’t think so, John,” she said.

John looked back intently. “What is it?” he said. “You know you can talk to me.”

She sighed. “All right,” she said. “Yeah… we need to talk.” As she spoke, she laid a small, slim pistol on the end table.

* * *

Two small vehicles approached the abandoned town. The moon shone as bright as the few long-dead street lamps ever could have, clearly revealing the form of the vehicles and their riders. One was Audrey’s three-wheeled scooter, just large enough for Carl and one of her neomorph followers to ride in the flatbed at the rear. Dana followed in a motorcycle modified for her eight-foot height, mainly with a raised seat and greatly lengthened handlebars. Another of the mutants rode with her, a shaggy, seemingly faceless creature only a little shorter than herself. Dana waved to Carl as they pulled to a stop.

The town was really just a small cluster of buildings, half of them warehouses and more specialized storage buildings. The largest was a spindly outlet mall at the south end, extending the size of the development by almost half again. They had halted in a parking lot at the far end of the building. “My people already knew someone was here,” Audrey said. “It didn’t stand out. The development was never really abandoned, and the people who built it were shady to begin with. My second had ordered that it be left alone.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Carl said. “There’s hundreds of places just like this. If you had told anyone, it would probably have bogged down in an argument over who even had jurisdiction, if they paid attention at all.”

“I know,” Audrey said. She bared her teeth. “Humans love law, as long as it means they do nothing.”

Carl unfolded a map that he could already tell had several inaccuracies. He pointed to the largest of the warehouses on the north side of the mall. “This is probably where the Toxo Warriors are, if they were ever here at all,” he said. “We could go through the mall to keep out of sight, but we can figure they will be prepared for that. It’s better to go through here.” He pointed to a small RV park on the east side of the warehouse, still not quite as large as the mall.

10 minutes later, a single Toxo Warrior looked at a monitor. He typed a command, then used a joystick to zoom in with a camera. The feed showed a woman more than eight feet tall and a man in something between motorcycle gear and a space suit approaching the east side of the warehouse. “Huh,” he said. “They’re early…”

* * *

John Carter examined the weapon before him. It amounted to a double-barreled derringer. He touched it without picking it up. At a light touch, the grip folded inward, changing the profile to a flattened rectangle the size and shape of a cell phone or a pager. “This is polymer and ceramic,” he said. “You could take it through a metal detector. It might get through a scanner, if there’s active sensor baffles.”

“There are,” Lauren said. “I had it with me, the day the Raven took over the office. Of course, I had it a long time before that.”

“I’ve never had anything like this,” John said. “I was two grades below where I am now before I saw specs for anything like this. The only people they would give it to are deep-cover intelligence or… field security auditors.”

“You’re quick, I give you that,” Lauren said. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a fake-and-bake; you know how well that goes. I didn’t even lie about my age. I just had extra training.”

“We knew,” John said. “At least, we knew there was going to be an audit. Colby thought there was already an auditor in the office. He must have figured out it was you, or guessed. I suppose it was easier, when he was the one you were looking for. It doesn’t matter, now. But if you had a gun… why didn’t you use it?”

“I had my own orders, as soon as I reported the breach,” she said. “I wasn’t to reveal my identity, until and unless I made contact with the Raven or his infiltrator. I just needed to be good bait. Young, pretty, spunky enough to talk back without looking like a threat.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” John said. “It’s not the right caliber. A full clip from my 10 mm barely put a dent in the Raven’s wingsuit.”

“I’d seen the schematics analysis, there were ways to get through,” Lauren said. “The situation evolved before I had my chance. By the time you got to me, the best chance was to stay behind you while you did your cowboy run and see if that was enough to draw out the real threat.” She gazed back into his eyes. “Here’s the thing, John. I wasn’t looking for Colby. I was there to watch you.”

* * *

Dana stifled a giggle as she and Carl reached the warehouse. It was 50 by 100 feet and 25 tall, including a shallow peaked roof. At a stern glance from Carl, she put on a gas mask. She turned to their only companion, a gray-skinned mutant just under 5 feet tall with gangling ape-like arms. Its nostrils promptly contracted shut with an audible snick.

Carl looked up at a set of windows about 12 feet off the ground. “I need to see inside,” he said. Dana hoisted him onto her shoulders. He climbed high enough to stand, which by then required him to stoop slightly. The visibility was better than it would have been in broad daylight; he could have seen enough even in pitch darkness.

“It’s empty,” he said with finality. He felt Dana’s shoulders sag. “The floor is, anyway. In fact… it’s really emptier than I would have expected. Usually, there’s stuff left behind, trash, unsold goods, empty cartons. Then you get homeless people, kids, animals…”

“Like if somebody cleaned up first and took everything when they were done,” Dana said.

“Right,” Carl said. “Still, there could be something. Only one way to find out…” With that, he smashed the window with his helmet and vaulted through.

* * *

 

John only stared as Lauren continued. “We knew the Raven had someone inside, though we didn’t know what he was planning,” she said. “There were people who thought it was you, others who thought you knew something you weren’t reporting. I had instructions to get close to you. I had approval to seduce you, if it got you to talk.”

 

John finally spoke, his voice coldly neutral. “Had you ever done that before?”

“No,” she said. “That’s not even how it really works, anyway, most of the time. The things that get a guy to drop his pants aren’t the things that will get him to talk about what matters. It’s a lot harder with a bad man than a good one… Well. That’s what the trainers say.”

“What about the rest?” John said. “Going to bed, getting married, having kids… was that their idea of keeping tabs on me?”

Lauren shook her head. “It happens, to a lot of us,” she said. “We call it the retirement plan. We usually only get 18, maybe 24 months in the field before our training and mission intelligence are deemed obsolete. After that, we usually get left to fend for ourselves. Our training is to go to ground before it comes to that. Accept promotions, make friends, make love, get married. Go native, pretty much. When we met, I decided you were my parachute.”

“What if I had been the infiltrator?” John said.

“You weren’t, John,” she said. “I always knew that.”

“I need to leave,” John said. “I won’t say I won’t come back for you, but I need more time than we’ve had before. I suppose you were ready for that, too.”

Lauren gave him a more thoughtful look, her chin resting on her hand. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before,” she said.

John turned back to his gear. “You realize while we’ve been doing this, Carl and Dana have been getting into more trouble,” he said.

Lauren smiled. “I’ve been counting on it,” she said.

* * *

 

Dana impatiently shifted from foot to foot. She adjusted a radio receiver they carried. She heard only a growled command from Audrey, which confirmed that she was still circling around the other side of the warehouse. She almost called out, but saw the mutant shake its head. “If he found something, he would have called us, if he could,” she said. “I’m going in.” The mutant shrugged.

She looked up, then to either side. She could see no way up to the window, nor anything that would support her weight to climb up. She considered the options for entry. There was a loading door that was clearly locked and possibly rusted beyond use. She found a conventional door, also locked but made of wood rather than metal. “I can take care of that,” she said. She backed up and prepared for a kick.

That was when an explosion blew the roof off the warehouse.

Fiction: The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 15!

 It's the holiday, and I decided to go with Sidekick Carl. This is a scene I've had in mind literally for months, long enough anyone who has been with me so far might have forgotten several of the characters. For what it's worth, here's links for the first and previous chapters, and the one where I introduced most of the cast here. As a bonus, you have the pic above of the originals of most of them. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

The cartoon showed a man in a blue jumpsuit with a lightning bolt logo, with long hair apparently shellacked into an immobile helmet. Lightning shot from his fingers, joining a salvo fired by Hombre Acero. Their fire converged on a wheeled metal dragon. Constructor joined in with a slash of his shovel, tearing through the wires and hoses of its neck. “You are finished, Galaxarian,” the armored man said in subtitled Spanish. Another shot severed the head entirely.

“So are you, Iron Nuts,” the dragon said. “I have activated my self-destruct mechanism. The blast radius will be 5 kilometers. The EMP effect range will be 50. It will detonate in 30 seconds.”

Hombre Acero turned to the other heroes. “Save yourselves,” he said.

“No,” Constructor said. “We stay together. Podamos hacer!”

The Toxo Warriors looked from the screen to the head on their work table. “We’re almost done,” said the one who always made the plans. “We just need a little more time.”

“No matter,” the dragon said. “There will be time enough.”

“We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have without the new… partner,” the other Toxo Warrior added. “We might even get Sidekick Carl out of the way.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the dragon said. “We have come far enough to finish what we began, and when it is done, there will be none who can stop us.” Its unmoving mouth shimmered with laughter. It was still shimmering as the Toxo Warriors threw a tarp over it.

* * *

 

When the service was done, Carl, Dana and the rest of the wedding party moved to an adjoining atrium where tables and a small buffet had been laid out. As they exited, Handel’s Water Music played. A gathered group of well-wishers and curiosity seekers cheered from behind a cordon of agents. The gentleman in the hover chair who had once been Hombre Acero waved, and the cheers grew louder. Carl nodded and sighed.

The newly married couple were quickly seated in a table in one corner. Carl instinctively surveyed their surroundings. The chapel and atrium were part of the short leg of the convention center’s roughly L-shaped floor plan. Immediately outside was a parking area, normally used by delivery trucks, where more chairs and tables had been set up. Dana’s RV was parked on the other side of the lot, effectively shielding them from prying or hostile eyes. Anyone wanting to cause trouble would have also had to reckon with the battle mech known as Big Red, who knelt at one of the outdoor tables. One of Dana’s triplet bridesmaids cuddled under one arm. That made Carl shake his head. Dana saw his reaction, and laughed. “They’ve been together three years,” she said. “Everybody has their type.”

As she spoke, one of Audrey’s kits ran by on all fours. His former enemy sat with her mates in the opposite corner, one a piebald with patches of black on a white pelt and the other red-gold like a fox. She waved at him, and her teeth briefly glinted. At a twitch of her ear, her piebald mate rose to chase down the kit. When he turned back, he saw Captain Thunder approaching. He gave a nod to a server, who set out an extra chair for the hero. He folded his hands nervously as he settled in the seat.

“So, I just wanted to say, I’m happy to be here,” he said. “And I’m happy for you, of course. I know I’ve given you crap a lot of times, but we both know I’ve got my own troubles. You made better choices than I dd. I know you will be happy together.”

“Thanks,” Carl said. He was looking again at the other side of the room. About two-thirds was a glass entryway. The rese was a medium-sized conference room. Beyond that, he knew there was a maintenance stairwell that only opened onto the ground floor and the roof.

Captain Thunder followed his gaze. “Come on, man,” he said. “If you’re gonna live, you gotta live in the moment.” Carl nodded, and then genuinely relaxed, right until he saw someone lined up at the cordon.

“Damn,” he said instinctively. He quickly added, “It’s Andy.”

“Wait,” Dana said, “who is he? Wait… do you mean…?”

“Yeah,” Carl said. As he watched, the daughter of his former partner spoke to the cordon guards. Captain Thunder made his way over. By the time he reached the cordon, the guards had already grudgingly parted to admit a strangely stocky man who looked to be about middle age. “It’s the other Constructor. The first one’s real partner.”

And that was when the black-clad figure walked straight through the glass doors.

As Carl turned his head yet again, the first bolt came through the air, with a sound like an overloaded amplifier. It looked like a miniature comet; the tail was in fact the blur of its motion. It was Dana who pulled him to one side. The bolt struck the wall behind him, burning a fist-sized hole that did not quite break through to the chapel on the other side. Carl kicked over the table, spilling about two-thirds of their meal onto the floor. Two more plasma bolts blew the table in half.

There were shouts and shots as the guards regrouped, including several who had discretely mingled with the guests. Somehow, the sound of the kits could be heard over it all, seemingly a single shriek that continued to rise. Captain Thunder shouted, “Get behind me!” The crescendo broke into squeals and yelps as the kits piled into the corner behind him. Meanwhile, Hombre Acero’s partner struggled to steer him toward the cordon. Captain Thunder rose from a crouch, just high enough to aim over Audrey’s table. He extended both pointer fingers like a child imitating a gunslinger, complete with a sneer that curled his upper lip. He was clearly as surprised as anyone. He shook his right hand, and a single blue-white spark finally lobbed upward. It came down in the middle of the table, where a water glass detonated in a cloud of shards and steam.

Carl finally got a glimpse of the attacker. The figure was tall and slim, clad in a theatrical leathery suit that was practically run-of-the-mill for a convention. There were enough solid pieces to shield the chest, the legs, and the forearms, plus the nearly spherical helmet. The weapon was an angular object that looked almost like a flashlight, with grips in front and back. He ducked at a flicker of motion in his peripheral vision. Everyone else also dived for whatever cover they could find; it was the only natural or rational response when Big Red’s silhouette filled the opposite entryway.

The atrium had a ceiling high enough that Red could actually have walked upright, albeit possibly at the cost of any light fixtures in his path. The doors, however, were too low by almost a third. To engage the attacker, he simply punched through the left double door and then thrust his revolver/ grenade launcher through the hole. The load in the cylinder was five nominally non-lethal polymer slugs. He fired three of them; the intruder staggered, while a guard just recovering his nerves was literally knocked off his feet. A return shot from the intruder hit the other door. The glass was in fact an ablative material developed as heat shielding for space craft. It did its work well enough that the bolt left a glowing ring on Red’s breastplate rather than a crater, while the remains of the door slowly sagged to the floor. A second bolt hit the glass at the level of Red’s face, spraying a layer of molten silica over his black sensor array. Two more sent the revolver flying from his hand. All this happened within 30 seconds of the intruder’s entry.

“We have to move, now,” Carl said. He pulled Dana to her feet as the attacker swiveled to survey the damage. At that moment, Captain Thunder rose with a triumphant cry. His right hand cupped a crackling spere of energy, much like the bolts of the assailant’s weapon. The enemy snapped off a shot just as the ball launched from his hand. Both took the other’s shot in the chest. Captain Thunder sank down, shuddering as arcs of energy ran up and down his body. The assailant only turned back, just in time to see Carl and Dana reach the chapel door.

Carl looked over his shoulder for a moment. That moment seemed like hours. The silhouette of the figure was now light instead of shadow, the whole upper body glowing white with heat. He could hear pinging as the breastplate began to crack. The slightly ovoid ignition chamber was almost as bright, and it seemed that he looked straight down the muzzle. He heard a scream like that of the kits, louder and even higher-pitched. He guessed that it was Audrey, though he could not comprehend why she would make such a cry for him. Then her piebald mate leaped into view, just as the muzzle flashed. That was when Dana finally pulled him through the chapel door. The last thing he heard was a pitiful yelp, cut off as the doors slammed shut.

The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 9!

 For this week, I'm trying to work ahead, and decided on a little Sidekick Carl to fill the gap. Here's the links for the first and previous chapters, and for my Hot Wheels monster cars post.

The object was just over 3 feet long. Its shape was still recognizable as a reptilian head, but the only clear details were the glowing blue-green eye and the grimacing translucent teeth. In places, its color could be made out, a deep reddish-purple unpleasantly akin to uncooked meat. The greater part was hopelessly obscured by corrosion and encrusting clams and barnacles. A light flickered from inside the immobile mouth as it spoke. “This is my humiliation,” it said. “Not that I was defeated, not even that I am forgotten, but that I should depend on the likes of you…”

The Toxo Warriors discretely glanced at each other, and the one who usually took the initiative shrugged. “You agreed to an equal partnership,” he said. “We obtained the raw materials, you agreed to provide your technical expertise. We could try to move forward without you, but you’re going nowhere without us.”

“Do not think I am without means, even now,” the head countered. “There was a time when I gave orders to hundreds of your kind, who knew nothing of me save to fear me. If you dissatisfy me, there are others who would do my bidding.”

“Yes,” the second Warrior chimed in, “but how many of them could handle Solvent G without ending up a puddle?”

“I do not deny, you are the best,” the head rumbled. “Do not believe that that makes you indispensable. Now, to be sure, we plan the next phase and move forward. And in the meantime, we shall see if that fool can accomplish his mission.”

“Yes, the mission,” the first Toxo Warrior said. “Kill Sidekick Carl, and all that.” Again, the partners glanced at each other. The head’s mouth just flickered silently, in unmistakable laughter.

 

***

Carl and Dana returned to the RV just after dark. She started laughing about something neither of them would remember, and he followed suit as they climbed the steps to the rear deck. They continued to laugh as Dana opened the rear door. Suddenly, she picked up Carl as if to carry him over the threshold. She set him down, laughing harder. That was when Carl put his arms around her waist. She gave a cry of surprise as he picked her up. With a little further effort, he raised her overhead, straining his balance more than his strength. She gave a gleeful whoop, then instinctively ducked her head as she came close to one of the struts for the awning-like shell overhead. Carl set her down, and she stepped inside, leaning forward as she went through the door. The corridor jogged sharply to the right as they passed the bathroom door. Carl glanced inside before following.

As he emerged from the corridor into the living area, he saw the now-familiar dinette and kitchen. What he didn’t see was Dana. He felt a momentary confusion that would not have greatly troubled him if he had not also felt a vague but unmistakable sense of impending danger. He peered ahead into the cab, and started to glance over his shoulder. Then he looked up into the van shell above, just as a looming figure came swinging down. He had just enough time and forethought to raise his arms before two powerful limbs wrapped around his torso. He was lifted, dropped and then pinned to the floor as a heavier body followed. There was a moment of darkness as a powerful hands twisted his helmet with just the right motion to undo the seal. He found himself looking up at Dana, who smiled down. “Will you marry me?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. As he spoke, it felt less like accepting a proposal than admitting the inevitable. Her deceptively large fingers had already found a tiny button at his throat. The suit split open all at once, from his collar down to his pelvis. She matter-of-factly began pushing back the suit,  shifting to peer at what was revealed.

Beneath the suit was a translucent skin that looked like wax paper, with opaque patches at the shoulders, elbows and, as she soon found, his knees. Between his legs was an off-white plastic component that could have been taken for a protective cup. She tapped it with one finger. Carl tensed as she stroked a protuberance in the center, vaguely like the phallus of a bull in profile. At the tip was a rubbery gasket. She touched the center almost tentatively. “What’s this?” she said.

“It’s… you could call it a release valve,” Carl said. “Most of the time, the nanites recycle my… wastes, fluids, what have you. With the changes they made to my digestive system, there isn’t much else. Once in a while… maybe a few times a year… there’s more than they can absorbed, so they… vent.”

Dana nodded, but promptly frowned. “So does it, um, come out?”

“No,” Carl said. “That’s not how it works. The doctors say it’s like a cloaca, what you’d see on a lizard or a bird. Or like an air lock on a spaceship, if it comes to that. The nanites figured out enough about human anatomy that it can change shape, enough to, ah, fit with a woman’s body. Or a man’s, probably.”

Dana just looked at him intently. “The thing is… the thing is,” Carl said, “when the pressure builds up, it, it…” He took a deep breath and finished. “It buzzes.” There was another moment of silence. The next, Dana was literally rolling on the floor laughing.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just… Oh my God, those little machines really don’t get us, do they?” She sank down, laughing louder than before. Finally, she rose to a crouch. “I told you, I’m an old-fashioned girl. Well, mostly. I definitely can’t give it all to you, while we’re still just engaged. Mmm, at least not more than once.” 

She straddled him at the waist. “Still… it seems to me, there’s a lot we  can do. Enough to figure out what that buzzer can do.” She reached behind her back and undid the critical knot of her halter top. Then for a while, they did not talk, but continued to laugh.

It seemed to Carl that they were still in each other’s arms when he found himself in the midst of the white. He rose, leaving Dana and her bed behind in the midst of the brilliant field. “Are you God?” he called out.

 

“No,” a voice answered. “Just us.” As he peered into the distance, a silhouette emerged that became a shape, then a figure. Finally, a man stood before him, a little shorter but much more robust, sporting a battered helmet and a bushy mustache that was now entirely white.

“Constructor,” Carl said. Even as he spoke, he shook his head. “But it’s not really you.”

“Come here, and sit down,” Constructor said. The white field lifted, to become the rear deck of the RV. They both sat comfortably on a bench next to the protruding rear wall of the bathroom.

“This is me, as you remember me,” Constructor said, his gruff voice a little softer than usual. “That is more than you thought you knew. In your mind, in your dreams, I still live on, older, perhaps wiser. Wise enough, anyway, to tell what’s on your mind.”

Carl gazed through the door into the RV. “She says she wants to be my wife.  It’s so soon… but I don’t suppose that’s the problem. It’s just been so long, since I even thought this could happen. After Dr. Hydro rebuilt me, I never thought of myself as a man again, so I didn’t really try. I still keep thinking, if she really knew…”

Constructor chuckled, which left him unsettled and momentarily angry. “But there’s not much left she doesn’t know, is there?” he said. “It happens. It happened to me, once upon a time, though not quite as fast. What you forgot isn’t that you’re a man, it’s that you’re still like other men. No more, certainly not less.”

They continued to talk, about old adventures, old friends and old enemies. A couple times, a shadow began to form, but a chuckle from Constructor always dispelled it. “We should have done this more often,” Carl finally said. “Before… well. Before.”

“Yes,” Constructor said. “There’s never enough time, is there? More than you might think, though, if you make the time.”

“Listen,” Carl said, “there’s something else. Someone asked me, if the Toxo Warriors were still alive. I don’t see how it could be. I don’t see how it could matter if they were. But now that I think about it, I’m just not sure.”

“Now that was from a ways back, isn’t it?” Constructor said. “Even when you went off on your own, they were water under the bridge. I can tell it’s troubling you, for you to ask about it here and now. So why don’t you tell me, now, in your dreams… Do you believe it’s true?”

Carl pondered, only a moment. “It was just a dumb kid who asked,” he said. “But then there was a man from the Agency there. You’d remember him, the man who rescued that woman while we were fighting the Raven and Goliath, he’s married to her now. I watched him, just in case he thought there was something to it. He didn’t react, at all. Then after, I talked to Audrey, about this… and he was already gone. Maybe… probably… it’s not them. But it could be something.”

Constructor nodded, and smiled. “Remember that, when you wake up,” he said. “People will ask, later, if you can get through what’s next. Be brave. Trust her. Trust yourself. Trust me. Now wake up, while you can. You’re in danger. You must wake up. Now.”

 

As he spoke, the light flared bright, until all else had faded into white. He sat up beside Dana on the converted dinette, still without his helmet or outer suit, just as something smashed through the rear door.

Rogues' Roundup: The giant Tonka lady and the Toxo Warriors

 

It's the first post of the month, on the first day of the month, and to shake things up, I'm not doing a movie review (possibly because I didn't have time to make one). Instead, I'm bringing one more chapter in the saga of Sidekick Carl and the Tonka Play People. Last week, we looked at a camper playset made for Tonka's semi-obscure action figure line, and tested how well  Sidekick Carl worker with the manufacturer's much larger dump trucks. This time around, I'm back with another  new acquisition, one of the truly mysterious 5-inch Tonka figures that I thought I might have had growing up, and it happens to be one of the women in the line. Here's a few pics of the new arrival with Carl and Connie, the Gas Station Duchess.

"Well, nobody would judge a woman for being with a 7-and-1/2-foot-tall man..."

In the course of further investigations, I've bee focused on trying to learn more about the history of the Play People, which others have estimated to begin in 1978 and end in 1982. Along the way, I hoped to clarify why they were made in 2 different scales. My search finally brought me to the Tonka catalogs, notably at Parry Game Preserve and Neat Old Toys. The main thing I learned is that Sidekick Carl was almost certainly the most common Play People figure, something I already suspected. What I discovered was that the catalog at the first link showed by my count seven vehicles and playsets that included the figure, including at least two color variants. I also found at least one 5-inch figure, a blond guy usually in a blue jumpsuit that was frequently included with a "cherrypicker" utility truck I may have encountered in the wild, often with the soon-to-be-extinct Bell logo. Here's a closeup from an online listing of the guy in an intact box

The lady proved trickier. I suspected that she was used with a Winnebago vehicle, which had previously come with earlier, doll-like figures. However, I never found a packaged specimen that might confirm this. I found a better lead with a set called the Backcountry Explorer, a large-size vehicle sometimes shown with only the guy and in others with both him and the lady. I took the most interest in this page from a 1983 UK catalog, which I have zoomed in on about as much as possible. Here, the Play People are shown still available in 1983, though the 1982 retirement date is not ruled out for the U.S. More surprisingly, the 5-inch figures are still in the mix, possibly available for individual sale, with two color versions of both the guy and the lady.

Meanwhile, I decided it was time to tell a little more about Carl's story. While he looks like an ordinary motorcyclist/ race car driver, he came into my playtime as cyborg slave that the hero Husky freed from the undersea lair of a mad scientist (a backstory I developed after I technically killed him). I think he was supposed to have been human originally, but it never played a role in any of my storylines. At any rate, his cyborg parts included a sort of regenerating nanotech that could repair him whenever he got shot, slashed or chewed on by generic Godzilla. (For the life of me, I can't remember how he actually died, though taking his head off might do the trick.) Needless to say, the company he usually ran into was not friendly or pleasant. With a little digging, I fished out a pair of old acquaintances, which I tricked out enough to qualify as original characters. Here are the Toxo Warriors, quite possibly the most deadly and flat-out evil villains I've ever created.

These particular rogues were never really on track to be "major" villains, but I know they appeared in at least two of my "plays" which routinely went on for days and often weeks. Obviously, they started out as Playmobil figures, the only two all-yellow figures that were fully usable, and I built them up with extra parts from one or more firefighter playsets. (The only piece of their old gear I couldn't find was the right-sized hose.) What stands out as I try to piece this together is that they were never in it for world domination or any other objective I can recall. They just carried out various experiments in their lab, stole assorted materials they didn't have already, and gassed anyone who got in the way or just crossed their path when they were bored. Again, these guys were absolutely evil, because they wanted to be. What's all the more striking is that the defeats that I can recall happened not because Husky and Carl bested them but because a trap backfired or one of their experiments simply blew up at random. One more thing, a big part of what brought them to mind, is that they uses one (maybe both!) of the Tonka dump trucks on at least one escapade.  Here they are actually in the medium-sized truck.

With adventures like that under his belt, Carl is definitely overdue for a romantic interest. The lady might not be ideal, but I don't plan on getting more Play People in the foreseeable future. On top of that, I actually got the lady for quite a bit less than many "standard" figures. In the course of my inquiries, I finally confirmed that Carl is indeed exactly 3.75 inches tall, which further suggests that Tonka was more exact about consistent size than the Star Wars figures they were imitating to some extent. Taking his height at either 5 foot 6" or 6 feet, that would puts Lady Tonka somewhere between 7 and 8 feet, obviously very tall, especially for a woman, but marginally believable anatomically. Needless to say, I tried out how they might look as a pair, so here's a few story pics to round things out.

"Actually, getting picked up and mauled by a giant is kind of my kink."

If you do this once, it will take twice as long to do it twice. Then you will never, ever do it again.

With that, I'm wrapping this up for now, though I still have a bit more material to work with. As always, more to come!