The Elusive Pluto

Since his birthday in June, Jack has really gotten into Planet Heroes. I mean, really into them. He saves his allowance up just for them. He has pictures of them all over his bedroom walls. He has magnets of them. He is a (little) man on a mission to have them all.

Early this fall he had almost all of them. Every time we went to the store we would look through them and he would think about which one he would save for next. And I started noticing that even though I had seen him earlier in the summer, we were never seeing Pluto (actually, his name is Shiver, but I'll stick with his planet name for any novices out there) anymore.

I thought maybe I'd better check online and order Pluto since he might be hard to find. That's when I found out he had been discontinued. And he was on Ebay for $60. Plus $16 shipping. Yeah.

Jay eventually found a new one on Amazon for $50 total and he has been stored away in the closet for Christmas. All the while we have been building it up, telling Jack about how they don't make Pluto at all anymore and he's really rare and if we ever see him we'll definitely buy him--he won't even have to pay for it himself.

So what do we find at WalMart Friday afternoon? The new Metallic Squad Pluto. Yeah. A whole new line of Planet Heroes, just in case nine (plus the other assorted heroes and villains) weren't enough for you. Now Jack is thrilled to have him and we are left with the original Pluto in the closet. I am going to confess that we have engaged in a bit of trash-talking about metallic Pluto, just to build up original Pluto. Yes, we'll do that around here. And I'm taking comfort in the fact that the new Pluto is already on Ebay for way more than the $8.97 we paid for him, so maybe we lucked out.

Jack's portrait of Pluto:

Doesn't that orange just look too OSU? I mean, really. Really. And he looks like an infant when you put him in the shuttle. Too bad metallic Pluto doesn't come with a ship just his size--like original Pluto does...