The Phantom

The Phantom, is perhaps a fairly underrated total badass, for a few reasons. First, look at his ring. Badass. He leaves you with his mark after he punches you. Second, the Phantom is set in "the jungle". The jungle rules. Third, his reputation. Check it out:

The Phantom is the lone survivor of an invaded ship, which wrecked on a "Bengallan" beach. After the slaughter of his father and entire crew by Pirates, he swore to perpetually fight against piracy, greed, injustice.... and took on the Phantom persona.

His son, and then grandson in turn adopted the Phantom identity, earning the nicknames "The Man Who Cannot Die" (Boom), "Guardian of the Eastern Dark" (Boom) and "The Ghost Who Walks" (Boom), with many Bengallans believing him to be immortal.

The guy just strikes fear into anyone plotting to do any shady "Jungle Business". He doesn't even have any real superpowers... Just pistols and rings.

Genius. I never know what's going on when I see the daily strip, but now I'm going to try and "follow it" for a while.

Crown Jewels

The concept of having "Crown Jewels" is just fucking incredible. Its such an antiquated status symbol, and having a massive set of priceless treasures just seems so awesome, regardless of whether any real power comes from owning them.

Crowns rule. Jewels rule. Fucking SCEPTERS rule. Being in the royal family and having access to these awesome jewels would be the bomb. Going to marry into that shit one day.

Treasure rules. Wanna either a) inherit some, or b) go hunting & dig some up somewhere!

Himmler's Ring

Totenkopfring. English: "Deaths Head Ring". We're off to a good start now...

Put this song by Lowell George on, while you read the rest.


[mp3]

So yeah anyways - here's Heinrich Himmler's Ring - it was awarded to the best, most skilled and most loyal of the SS, during World War 2.


Chilling. Fuck.

The greatest thing about these rings, is that they weren't necessarily sanctioned by the state, like a military medal - these were instead more like "gifts" from Himmler himself. Apparently alot of the remaining rings (the ones still in public circulation serve as incredibly expensive collectors items) have been "blast sealed" inside a mountain. Imagine "finding one"... would that be cool? I think so.

Chaos Emeralds are cool

So yeah, i've already described a couple of times how the Sonic universe has a few "extras" that made me love it as a kid. ^^ This is definitely one of them.

The goal of each stage was to get through to the end of the series of platforms, defeat Robotnik, free the woodland creatures, save the day... right? wrong. Well, not completely wrong - since you could finish the game without acquiring a single Emerald... but anyways, dick with this:

According to official sources, the emeralds can turn thoughts into power (fucking bam!), give energy to all living things, and be used to create nuclear or laser based weaponry. That's pretty cool, right?

In every level there are secret zones, little "minigames" where you can win Chaos Emeralds. In Sonic The Hedgehog 1, the secret zones were anti-gravity themed, and very surreal. In Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (my personal favourite) if you pass through a checkpoint pole while holding 100 rings you would open up a secret level, where you'd run along some awesome 3D tunnels and pickup rings (again) - if you were able to get them all you'd be rewarded by being given a Chaos Emerald. Yeah.

Anyways - Chaos Emeralds are awesome. I want one. (Actually, a friend once bought me a Knuckles action figure AND a little Chaos Emerald once... the emerald doesn't do anything, but i guess i already have one!)